246. Career catfishing, outrageous interview hacks and recognition at work. PLUS! The truth behind the 10,000 hours rule.

0:01Coming up this week in work. Why do some people keep giving their time even when they start to feel taken for granted? Well, new research sheds light on what's really motivating volunteers and what it can teach business leaders about reward, recognition and resilience. Remember those three words, they're part of the RX7. If you know, you know. Also this week, one job seeker says he's cracked the hiring code. five interviews later we're asking is this a clever hack for a broken system or just a new form of workplace deception plus in the workplace surgery what do you do when a new hire turns up 40 minutes late on their first day well one listener gave someone a shot and now they're wondering if it's already time to let them go and in truth or lie i'll be getting to the bottom of the 10 000 hour rule is this all you need to become the master of your craft or is it just a little bit weird.

0:53This is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. Brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne, I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist. And my name is Al, I'm a business owner. And we help organisations build amazing workplace cultures. So let's get right into it after this quick word from our beautiful sponsors. Thanks HubSpot. Hello and welcome back. It is Leanne's favourite time of the week we're back al we're back we're back from holidays oh jolly bobs well we had a lovely time thank you for asking did we uh did we tell them that we were away yeah oh no we didn't yeah we did yeah we didn't think about you at all we were drinking we were drinking gin with our friends and also wandering around the old so the old town of most that's not true we did actually talk about you quite a lot we did specifically you yeah yeah you jeff we talked about you quite a lot anyway talking about things is now can we move on to the favorite time of the week yes that i have missed greatly.

1:48Yes, of course. It's Leanne's favourite time of the week. This is so professional. It's time for the News Roundup. Let's cue that jingle. Cue it out. Son of a bitch took my line. Okay, Leigh, what have you seen? Got a new word. Of course. What is it? Career catfishing. Now, if you haven't listened before, Leanne comes up with a new word. I try and guess what it is. I invariably get it wrong. Career catfishing. Well, catfishing is when you pretend to be someone you're not. So if you're career catfishing... Instead of fooling you. instead of fools. Hey, Chris. So, career catfishing would be probably pretending you've got skills or experience you don't actually have?

2:24All the way around. Oh. So, it's the organisation that is doing the catfishing. So, I saw this in Money Wise. Nearly 80 % of workers say they've been misled during the hiring process. So, basically promised one thing and then delivered something quite different once they've started. This has been coined career catfishing. I like it. I quite like it do you reckon there's like a committee that sits down every week and goes write when he has six new words and just comes up with them I see it do you remember the National Lottery back in the day where they'd have like the machines yeah oh yeah I think it's more like that and they had names as well didn't they like Genevieve Ernie yeah I think it's just more that they have these machines going and it pops out a little ball and someone goes catfishing and then it goes again and then someone goes career so a bit like you know what they call pull the FA Cup out of the bags and they go So Bournemouth versus Leeds United.

3:18That's basically what you said, but in a worse way. Yeah, but thank you so much for explaining it back to me. It's so helpful. Truth lies and work, what do you buy mansplaining? It's a career catfish, let's move on. Yeah, so... I'll just drink my tea and shut up. So basically, it's what happens, this is according to the Money Wise article, it's what happens when companies paint a glossy picture of the role, the culture, or the pay package, and that doesn't really exist. So the job looks great on paper, and then you arrive and discover that it's long hours the flexibility you promised isn't there.

3:47It's nowhere near the support you expected. It's all just a bit of a mess. So some workers have said that they found the day-to-day job nothing like the advert described. Others said the supportive culture turned out to be far more pressured or that the benefits were overstated. Apparently it's not just employers stretching the truth. Around 13 % of employees admitted doing the same in reverse, so exaggerating their skills or experience to land of the job i mean i think we've all done that um not me of course no no no no one in this room no no um so yeah i guess the question is is this a little bit of a creative spin on account of the organizations to make sure they're securing their biggest talent or is it just is it just not clever not good not sustainable just causing yourself a problem later down the line our thoughts i once heard a really great podcaster describe this as the Big Mac syndrome.

4:45Big Mac is in like the burger. As in the burger because you look up at the Big Mac on the menu and it looks beautiful and then it comes out it looks like it's been run over. Yes it does. Yeah so I think it's kind of similar to think that podcast it was me just then I just made it up I just made that up on the spot. I know. No you didn't. Yes I did. Really? Well I might have read it somewhere but I'm the first to come out and say it in this context I believe so it's called it's called the job Big Mac. that's not it's called career catfishing it just covered this well we don't need another word we need another word we need a term for it but no it's exactly that i think then and it just it does make me laugh there's lots of memes online where they say working in a dynamic and exciting environment and then just show you a load of cubicles i don't know if you're honest about imagine you you had a job where you were sitting down all day and you had to basically just move data from one spreadsheet into a system that was your job would you really go and say right so what you're gonna be doing basically is control c control v for eight hours yeah do you know and yeah and i i understand if there are certain roles that are just a bit grunt work but i think they're getting less and less with with ai i think for me it's more when and i've had these conversations with clients and really had to coach them coach them down off off of their ivory tower because they they want to get the best talent they want to be like oh we don't want to put them off by saying that we're in kind of a bit of a turnaround transformation stage and you know we we don't want them to think we're not as you know we're smaller than we are or and it's kind of like the if you start off on that foot of mistrust initially it's just not gonna it's just not gonna end well and I think as well there's certain you're doing yourself a disservice by potentially picking candidates that aren't matched to the environment in which you're recruiting for and do the job so if you're trying to recruit somebody who's used to to kind of having a bigger team bigger budgets very much kind of boom or stable then they're probably not going to have the skills that you need to lead some kind of team turnaround or transformation but there's going to be other people out there they're going to be really excited by that because they've done it before and they want to do it again and I've had coaching clients who were who had been in transformation turnaround for 20 years I'm like how are you not exhausted and they're like I love it I love it yeah i love it you just get people like that they're just energized by change so i think you're doing yourself a disservice to to not tell the truth really but the article did go on to say there are some ways that you can um try and weed out the people who might be career catfishing you by asking some questions so this is for the interviewee for the interviewee to get to get rid of the corporate career catfishing yeah so question one what does success look like in the first 90 days how do managers handle workloads when someone's off sick when was the last time someone was promoted internally pretty good questions also suggest that to listen carefully to the language and run if you hear phrases like we're like a family or we all wear many hats oh god oh anything else to say on that if you think about in terms of the dating analogy then you would put up the best picture of you wouldn't you on your dating profile and that's not a lie it's just it's the best version so what point does the best version of the role become catfishing i think it comes down to very simply are you in a state of growth a state of stability or a state of chaos and chaos being any kind of underperformance turnaround transformation needed things need to change and i think if you're presenting if you're presenting we're a really high growth company really innovative and actually a bit of a stable monkey then people are going to get bored they want something a bit more high pressure and similarly feel like oh yeah no everything's really cool it's quite chilled actually and you walk in chaos right because it's that it's the psychological contract that's broken it's it's less about it's less about the kind of what you're presenting versus the reality is the fact that you wanted to deceive the candidate from day one and yeah it is what is what we call a psychologist psychological contract which will include all of those things plus how i'm treated how i'm supported benefits and all that kind of stuff very very good anyways it might turn yeah what have you seen this week out i've been on on x twit twix as would be my will and there was a great repost for or a great post by a guy called who's handled his rational aussie and the favorite of all my aussies are the rational ones.

9:08I prefer the unrational ones, to be honest. Do you mean irrational? Unrational. Unrational. I'm not sure unrational is a word. Professor, if you want to... It is in Australia. Any words in Australia is, to be fair, a word that doesn't have a swear word in it is probably not proper Australian. Anyway, so this rational Aussie said, hilarious, the social contract is broken and people are done playing by the rules and took a screenshot of something on Reddit. It's all getting a bit meta now because it's on X on Reddit, whatever. So this, in, interviewer coder pro subreddit which is a community if you've never been on reddit i'm sure you have you've never been already go on reddit and this username is jed i'm gonna have a go at saying his name i think it might be polish um ed yakubowski um the first um you know the the head of the yakubowski family good for you what was his first name um ed good for you ed yeah good for you ed so this is what ed did your energy right there this is what ed did he said i started calling companies and saying, I was told to schedule my interview.

10:04The results are insane. So basically the background is he was getting nowhere. He was sending his resume out. I'm guessing it's coding. So he must be a developer or something. So sending it out all the time after four months of getting ghosted, pretty much every single company he applied to, he didn't know what to do. Then he had this epiphany. Recruiters, this is what he said, recruiters just buried under hundreds of applications. It's not personal. They're just overwhelmed and probably lost track of who they spoke to and who they haven't. It's organized chaos. Any recruiters out there will probably resonate a little bit with that.

10:32So I came up with a new strategy. I'd apply for a job online, give it a few days to get into their system, then call the main line. When I got someone in HR, I'd just say something like, hi, I'm following my application. I was told to give you a call today to schedule an interview. I'd say it with total confidence as if it's the most normal thing in the world. The crazy part is how well it's working. I've landed five interviews in the last six weeks, which is mind-blowing compared to the zero I got in the four months prior. Just be clear, five interviews, one interview, almost one interview a week compared to zero over four months.

11:05I've tried it 25 times. It blew up my face only twice. One time the HR person was sharp and said, told by who? I'm the only one who handles scheduling. Ed, you should have said, actually, grammatically correct to say told by whom. That would have got you far into the interview. So apparently Ed just mumbled something about bad connection and hung up. But a couple of failures for that kind of success rate. I'll take those odds any day. Ed, I applaud you. If I could stand up and still talk into the mic, I would stand and applaud you. I think that's brilliant. But let's ask someone who actually is ethical, who has ethics, unlike me.

11:37Is this a bad thing? What's going on? Al, do you have a little button somewhere that's like the crowd cheering? Yeah, let me press it now. I'm going to do it in post. Is this how podcasts work? It's on a button there. It goes, yay. No, but then it's at the wrong levels, Leah. I need to add it in post-production. It just ruins my fun. 246 episodes and you don't know how this works i'm disappointed anyway so there will be some crowds cheering in there there'll be a sound effect good ed i applaud you yeah i applaud you oh is it the ethical questions interesting do you know what no i think i think this is an ethical gray area you've applied for this role it's not like you haven't applied it's not like you haven't put your thing you're leaving it a few days for that application to get processed giving them a chance to get in touch with you and then you're calling and going um yeah i mean one if they if they they're not on top of it and book your interview then it just reflects that they need to tighten up their recruitment process in terms of their ethical guideline boundaries as well um i love the person was like um who told you that also what i'd say ed is that happens again get the name of their biggest competitor.

12:52So for some example, if you phone up and they're like, oh, hi, I told you to call and book my interview. Oh, I'm sorry, who told you that? I'm the other one who does that. Oh, Nudge podcast, somebody at the team at Nudge. I'll be like, sure, I'll schedule you in right now. Do you know what I mean? Like, oh, that's probably not ethical. That's probably a bit dirty. No, I'm loving that. You're getting definitely points from me from that. I think in these times where the game is hard and I think the system is a bit broken at the minute. Doing what you need to do to get yourself noticed, you're still going to have to go through the interview.

13:24You're still going to have to pass whatever criteria is they've set to deem if you're the right person for the job. All you're doing is jumping in the queue in terms of interview and I applaud it because it's so hard right now and there are so many people I see on LinkedIn who are crushed and heartbroken by this kind of 6, 8, 12 month job search where they're not getting anything back. Like, it's great for you even if you don't get that job in terms of into your practice, in terms of building your confidence, in terms of understanding that it's all a farce. It's all nonsense. It's not that you're not good enough.

13:53They just haven't even seen your application for whatever reason. I like it. And I'll be honest, as a business owner, I enjoy the scrappiness. I enjoy the proactiveness. I like it. I'd be inclined to want to work with somebody like that. See, now I agree. and if it was for an entrepreneur, then I'd be interested in an entrepreneur-led business. But if it's just someone in HR, they might not think the same way and they might get quite angry. Anyway, so that is one of my favourite stories I've seen this week. Lee, what else have you seen this week, my love? I have seen some research out that asks the question, why do some people keep giving their time even when they start to feel taken for granted?

14:34Ever been there? Yes, with you. No, I mean, yes, in a previous position. With me? No, never with you. I was just making light. I was making light of the situation. I'm going to pay for that later. You paint us to be such like an old boomer couple. Like mansplaining. Like, oh, I'm going to pay for that later. It's like, really? If anyone knows us in real life, they'll know that we are just exactly the same in real life as we are on here. We're always making jokes and I've never slept on the couch, so. Don't, don't break it. Lee, what have you seen? So this research, it's what Mary Lou, who is a business psychology MSC student at the University of Hertfordshire, set out to explore in her dissertation.

15:20Now, the reason I'm sharing this, you might be going, MSC student, Leanne, why are we talking about this? Do we not need some like, you know, PhD level stuffs? No, we don't. Because research like this is from students is bringing that fresh perspective. It's bringing the question that the young people have when they're not weighed down by workplace politics or corporate language. And as anyone who has been through academia will know, any dissertation at this level is heavily supervised by a more senior psychologist. So this is legit research. And I thought it was really, really brilliant. So Mary's research looked at the psychology of volunteering using a framework called the Effort-Reward-Imbalance Model.

15:58It is a theory that usually explains burnout at work. The idea being that if you give more effort than you feel rewarded for, your well-being is likely to take a hit. Okay. Intuitive. Yeah, makes sense. But in the world of volunteering, things didn't quite play out in that way, Mary found. So she surveyed 118 volunteers across the UK and found that, yes, they were putting in huge amounts of effort. And no, they didn't always feel rewarded. but those who describe themselves as over committed so the people who gave more than they probably should actually reported higher levels of well-being. No, we've volunteered before.

16:38Yeah, that's how we met. That's how we met, volunteered for the Samaritans and we ended up both on the committee, me being the chair of the committee, you being the head of training or recruitment, I think it was. Recruitment. Recruitment. Yeah, I have to admit, for a short period of time I was more committed the more I took on. however for me it lasted about a year and then i was a bit like i think i've taken on too much yeah i think it's probably a bit longer than that i think it's about two years yeah but yeah it's easy for i guess it's it's it sounds counterintuitive but for us having been in quite a varied volunteer role with an organization for a long period of time we did get a huge sense of meaning from that didn't we a huge sense of purpose and that is exactly what mary's research concluded so it seems that for volunteers it's not the balance that matters it's the meaning so giving time and energy makes people feel part of something bigger they're not working for the money they're working for purpose and i think it's something that every business owner should really pay attention to because mary also found that recognition was the most powerful motivator of all i've been banging on about recognition all year al and the irony is no one's recognized you were talking about recognition.

17:48I know, I know. So what she did is she analysed 87 written responses. The word recognition came up 26 times. In 87? In 87. So that's about 30, 33%. Lovely. More than anything else. Volunteers didn't want grand gestures or financial rewards. They wanted to be seen, a simple thank you, a moment of appreciation, or someone noticing their effort meant more than any formal incentive. Younger volunteers also talked about learning and confidence. This is such a big one, I think. training skills for the future and older volunteers mentioned accessibility and flexibility so small adjustments that help to help to keep them contributing I think this is such an important thing for both aspects of that in terms of age so for older people who may not be as involved in that work anymore maybe have retired to allow that kind of keeping connected to something again bigger than yourself and for younger people in terms of learning and confidence like you said I was leading recruitment at samaritans or co-leading recruitment samaritans when i was 25 35 years ago how dare you sir how dare you sir yeah i was just an opportunity to never get anywhere else in an organization so i think there is it's such a it's such a big thing and when i went to my interview future interviews i was always asked about samaritans sometimes all they want to talk about so i think it is again such a such an important thing and we also know that from all the well-being research that's done particularly i think it was a metronasis done by oxford a couple of years ago that caused a bit of a kerfuffle um did actually find that volunteering was one of the few things actually have a positive impact on well-being so i thought it's some really interesting research that brings a little bit of a little bit of nuance we haven't really talked about before or haven't appeared in the research before.

19:37But yeah, I think it comes down to people need to feel valued. So let me ask you. So if I'm a business owner listening to you and going, this woman, she knows what she's talking about. You, not Mary Lou, although Mary Lou knows also. Yes, she does. She does. How dare you? Sorry, Mary. I look forward to your angry email. But if they're listening to this and going, okay, so volunteering, recognition, getting it. Cool. I love that. Are you suggesting that people then try and find And volunteering opportunities outside of work for their employees, or is there like a volunteering, like a sort of a mentoring situation within work?

20:11What are they supposed to do with this information? I think there's three main takeaways. One is that it isn't even about necessarily volunteering. If you want to apply this type of psychological thinking in your organisation, it's all about purpose and recognition. Do your people have purpose and recognition, or as we call it in RX7, reason and recognition? so by purpose it means how are they connected to the mission of the organization how do their values align with it how do they get up in the morning go yeah this is a worthwhile thing to do and the recognition comes from yes it's salary yes it's benefits but it's also going to be flexibility it's also going to be individualization it's also going to be those thank yous that kudos and that very structured feedback that is very steeped in context so al i loved it when i saw your email reply to that customer the day they were being a bit a bit natty weren't they and what you did was able to calm them down because you said this and you said that and i thought it was brilliant like oh thank you very much and that i already feel good about that and there was no email i'll send it later because it's building your self-efficacy your self-confidence in your ability to do your job and that's a huge part of psychological capital which is one of the four psychological states that we need to have positive well-being it's so important and in terms of volunteering yes if you are an individual in an organization who doesn't feel the sense of purpose and recognition but you have to stay there for now go and volunteer go and find your people find those with the same values get those learning and development experiences if you are an organization that's looking to invest in community and well-being setting up a volunteer program is something that could be really really great and if you can do that together as a team somehow even better so conservation projects or I don't know something to do with the local community how you can support that could be a really great thing to do it's like what a one day volunteering a quarter it doesn't have to be anything massive but but yeah can be really really effective um so i love that research from from mary thank you so much mary i did reach out to her and ask if she put a post on linkedin i was like i need to know more immediately um so she sent me sent me some more details so mary thank you so much um i will leave a link to mary's linkedin profile in the comments so you can check out her post and i'm sure if you are interested in her research.

22:22She'll send it on to YouTube. Fabulous. That was one of your best news roundup. I loved it. Really? Yeah, I really enjoyed it. Thank you. Amazing what a break does, isn't it, eh? Do you know what it is? And also, you didn't bring up longitudinal studies, so I'm pleased about that. Anyway, after talking of long, long periods of time, after the break, we've got our truth or lie segment where we're going to ask, does it really take 10 ,000 hours to master anything? Or is Malcolm Gladwell full of whatever you think it is? I've just made the ad spit out her tea, so we'll see you in a second welcome back to truth or lie which is part of truth lies and work podcast it's all getting very meta very confusing truth or lie is basically a segment where you take the idea that everyone says is true and no one really questions and we basically say to lee lee-ann you're a psychologist is this a truth or is this a lie so today we're looking at the 10 000 hour rule you've probably heard it if you put 10 000 hours of practice in you can master anything the Beatles did in Malcolm Gladwell's book.

23:18Tipping point? No. Outliers? I can't remember what he was in. Outliers. And he said the Beatles had done 10 ,000 hours worth of practice, of playing for like in random clubs, and they were masters. Apparently, it does sound reassuringly, success is just a simple kind of equation. You go, all right, put the time in, you get great, out but is that actually true let's see let's find out let's find out i i've obviously heard of this one as well um if you haven't let's start with where it comes from shall we doesn't start with malcolm gladwell starts back in 1993 psychologist called k anders erickson and his colleagues studied violin students at the berlin academy of music no strings attached no strings attached they found pretty clear pattern so the top performers had practiced for around 10 000 hours by the age of 20 the good students had done about 8 000 hours and the less skilled ones close to 4 000 hours so erickson's takeaway wasn't that there was a magic number it was that the most accomplished people simply practiced more and differently so he called this deliberate practice So it was intense.

24:27It was focused effort on weaknesses, guided by feedback. So the teacher played an important role in this and designed to push just beyond one's comfort zone. So it wasn't just about practicing. It was a specific type of practice that he found. So then along comes Malcolm Gladwell in Outliers. He turned what was a pretty small academic finding into a pretty big cultural story in the only way Malcolm Gladwell can. so you write Al the Beatles he did talk about in his book they were playing all night in Hamburg Bill Gates coding for hours as a teenager I think Ed Sheeran also talked about it on a chat show saying that he was a 10 ,000 hours believer and all those examples do fit perfectly don't they it was actually Gladwell that called it the 10 ,000 hour rule so he coined that bit and the idea went viral absolutely to the point where I'm not even sure many people would track it back to Malcolm Gladwell it's bigger than Malcolm at this point um to be fair what we can understand from that is practice does matter a lot in terms of other research that might back this up so in medicine a study from 2020 uh if you're interested out is in the journal of thoracic and cardiovascular surgery oh one of my favorites i've got in fact i've got one waiting for me outside it just should be delivered yesterday fascinating read fascinating uh i've got a joke but i can't quite get there it's like it's on the pulse of something Oh, yeah.

25:54I was trying to think of organs and then I started to go down a different route that I probably shouldn't have done. Sorry. So Journal of Thoracic and Sporadic Cardiovascular Surgery. Yes. 2020 found that hospitals and surgeons performing higher volumes of lung cancer operations had lower mortality rates. Keep it light, Leanne. Lower mortality rates. This is light. They're not dying. Okay. So, yeah, experience saves lives. In chess, we have some classic work from Simon and Chase, which also sounds like some kind of like electric music. It does, doesn't it? Simon and Chase in chess showed that grandmasters typically spent about a decade, often equating to roughly 10 ,000 hours, internalising over 50 ,000 patterns of play.

26:38Goodness. So we do have some evidence from outside of music. So yes, Erickson's principle, the expert performance comes from thousands of hours of focused effort, has been held up across disciplines. The principle. Where Malcolm made a slight mistake is calling it a rule. Right. Because what don't psychologists like, Al? Rules. Just absolutes. Absolutes. We're not a fan of absolutes. And that's what makes it problematic. So Erickson never said 10 ,000 hours was a rule. In fact, he spent years correcting that misunderstanding. it was an average from one study of musicians, not a universal law. And this is the problem with all of these things.

27:20They're just overgeneralised. Some people do reach elite levels faster as well. Others take much, much longer. So there's other factors at play. So in Erickson's later book, Peak, which he co-authored with somebody called Robert Poole, pleasant name, he said it may not require exactly 10 ,000 hours, but it will take a lot. so the real I like you said a lot yeah it's a lot he's left that open a lot which isn't like absolute Sam the real insight from Erickson wasn't also it wasn't just about time as you'll remember Al it was about quality not all practice is created equal so 10 ,000 hours of unstructured repetition the musical equivalent of just like jamming playing chopsticks yeah doesn't build experience Erickson actually called that naive practice oh so can I just stop you I just want to make sure I've understood what we're saying here.

28:13So the two words sticking in my head is causation correlation. Is that what we're saying? That people are looking at data and retroactively fitting or taking a rule from it. So they'll go, 10 ,000 hours, I've got all these case studies to back it up. And then going, that's the rule. Yeah. So what Erickson found in his research was a correlation between the number of hours practiced and the competence of the musician. What Malcolm Gladwell has extended that to causation. In that if you do 10 ,000 hours of this, you will be an expert in it. And there's other things that are happening alongside that, as well as the type of practice you're engaging in during these 10 ,000 hours.

28:56So neuro research, for example, 2014, we have some psychologists that analysed 88 studies of musicians, athletes and professionals. And their conclusion was that, yes, deliberate practice explained about 26 % of performance, but the rest came from other factors like cognitive ability, personality and even look. And actually, if you look beyond musicians and athletes in professional settings, practice actually explained only 1 % of performance. Wow. That's a small number, but it's a lot smaller than I thought it was going to be. Yeah, yeah, it is. There's other researchers that have gone deeper, arguing that the 10 ,000 hour story oversimplifies Erickson's work, knowing the role of mental representations.

29:41So that's a detailed mental maps expert build through practice that allow them to anticipate and plan and adapt. That's what regular listeners will know. Chip Conley talks about in terms of wisdom work. So it's not just, it's all these different mental representation scenarios basically that we've been through that allows us to anticipate, plan, adapt to something that happens in the moment more effectively. And that internal knowledge isn't built by time alone. It does, again, come from how you practice and, crucially, who you learn from. So, yeah. Then there's context, again, more recently. Jamie North, 2012, from Leeds Metropolitan University.

30:21That's where you went out. Go on, Jamie. Jamie reviewed the deliberate practice model and found it fits well in highly structured environments like music or chess, but not in more open systems like management or teaching. So, the verdict, is it true or is it lie? Why does it take 10 ,000 hours to master something? It's true that mastery demands time and structure and sustained effort. There are no overnight experts. But it's a lie that the number itself, 10 ,000 hours, holds any real meaning. It's not a rule. It's a rough average. It's definitely not a guarantee because actually it comes down to the quality of practice that you are engaging in for said number of hours.

31:01So is it true? Not really. I suppose also, if you do spend 10 ,000 hours doing something, you're actually properly committed to something you're probably going to do for a long, long, long time. How long is 10 ,000 hours over time? It's around about 600 ,000 minutes. I don't know. How long is 10 ,000 hours in days? So if you said 10 ,000 hours... Let's say you practice for something like, what, an hour and a half a day? Yeah. Well, let's say two hours so I can do the maths. Easy maths, yeah. Yeah, yeah. So that would give you 5 ,000 days. And let's say you practiced every what? Five days a week?

31:39Yeah. That gives you 100 weeks, which is about two years. So if you did two hours a day, five days a week, or check my maths listener, two hours a day, five days a week. For two years. For two years, you'd hit your 10 ,000 hours. It's not that long, is it? It's not, is it? No. I think you'd be an expert in Instagram by now, wouldn't you? Or podcasting. Or podcasting. because it's the quality of the practice that's what we have not been engaging you let me choke my water there yes well there you go so i like that and also i'm really really enjoying this series so um but i'm starting to run out of ideas what to ask leanne i've got three or four more but if you're listening we want to hear your idea what do you think what is something which everyone believes in or believes is true but actually may not be um i'm I'm wording that very carefully so we don't get sued for copyright by Radio 1 by Greg James.

32:32If you haven't listened to it, that's a great one. Unpopular opinion. That's how it goes. Just like that. Yeah, if you've got a myth that you want... This is why I'm not on Radio 1. If you've got a psychological pop psych belief that you want proving or indeed disproving, send us an email, hello at truthwiseandwork.com or come and find me on the LinkedIn. Yeah, okay. So if you haven't followed Leanne on LinkedIn, go and join. How dare you? Yes, that's going to be the headline, the subtitle for our iPods. It might be the title, how dare you. How dare you, sir. So it's on to my favourite time of the week, which is the world famous weekly workplace surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne.

33:08Not done it for a week or so, so let's see. I'm surprised you said it right. Let's see how it goes. Okay, so question number one. It's about giving your Christmas bonus or a gift to your team. There was a new manager who wasn't quite sure, so they did the right thing and asked Leanne. Leanne, it reads, I recently took over managing a small business, six employees, a mix of full and part-time. It's my first year actually being in charge and I want to do something nice for the team at Christmas, but I'm not sure what's considered normal or expected. I've been here. My partner keeps warning me that I might come across as too nice because I've been talking about giving everyone a Christmas bonus or maybe a small gift like a voucher or a hamper, but I just really appreciate the work they've done.

33:48It's been a tough year and they've stuck it out and helped keep things running smoothly. But yeah, it feels like every year for the last three years, five years has been a tough year. But I feel for this person because I had a team of maybe like 25 people when I had my beer business and I didn't really know what to do. And I'll tell you after Leanne's replied, I'll tell you what I actually did. And you can tell me what was the right thing or the wrong thing. You said you recently took over managing a small business. I would go to the person, I'm assuming you've taken it from an owner, that person is still in play, ask them what usually happens.

34:18Because the thing is as well, you don't want to not do something that's been happening every year. so if someone's been getting a bonus Christmas bonus every year you have to make sure they get a Christmas bonus every year otherwise you're the one that stopped that so you want to make you want to do whatever you can to find out what has happened previously in terms of whether it should be bonus or a gift we know that financial reward isn't always the most motivating as we've heard recognition comes in many forms for example I once wrote handwritten Christmas cards to all of my team thanking them for all of the work they'd done and calling out specific examples again was something that I'd been really proud of they achieved that year uh people cried people left them on their desks for months afterwards um because it because it meant something it was personal and I'd taken the time as we know that as well as Phil from Nudge talked about on our show um it's that effort that perceived effort is is um seen as something that is is more likable than a person so I'd look at something like that the other thing as well I would say if people if if people don't want money, people want money or time.

35:19So they're not expecting any money or you can't give them enough that's actually going to really make much of a difference. Do you know what I mean? If you're going to slip 10 quid in everyone's card, it's like, sound, nice one. If you're going to give someone like a grand bonus, then yeah. All right, then thanks very much. So I would look at time. Another thing that I did, because we didn't, we worked in a private company for a public sector contract. We didn't really have the money to be kind of giving people bonuses every year. When we did, we did. the years that we didn't we would have like um like a christmas party on the last day we were a customer facing business we had customers coming into us so we'd go right the morning is what we'd call kind of a news and views so what's been working well what can we improve on next year for you guys staff would answer that as well um we'd celebrate people that are done really well by either getting a job or or finishing a course we'd have a raffle we'd have a buffet very casual very lovely um one year we gave away bikes oh i remember you telling me about this god you you literally came home and cried i did i did i got the train and and i just cried all the way home on the train um i told this story before go back and listen but basically we teamed up with another contractor who had surplus children's bikes they brought them to the center on this day before christmas and our customers came in and were able to get kids um bikes for their kids that they've never been able to do before and yeah grown men were crying at their ability to be a good dad that year and it was very emotional um that finished about one o 'clock and I went guys we can do no better this year go home enjoy I will see you in the new year and having that afternoon off they just loved um the only thing I would say with that is um do give a heads up to anybody who has kids or has maybe arranged child care that this is probably going to happen wink wink nudge nudge um so they can they can manage it I think time and appreciation is really what is going to stay with your people, particularly if it has been a tough year.

37:12Unless, of course, you do have the capacity to give a very nice chunky bonus. I would still do these things as well because money is not as motivating as we would like to think. Excellent. I love that. I love that. And also, yeah, definitely. If you're listening and you, I can't remember which episode you were talking about the bikes, but go onto LinkedIn, go and follow Leanne and send her a message or even better, go into LinkedIn and just start a message and go, just listening to the Truth, Lies & Work podcast. There was a bike story. Leanne, can you tell me what it is? And she will tell you.