274. Is this the internet’s most unsettling AI story? PLUS! Hiring Gen-Alpha, Career Destiny and the Truth About 'Matrescence'

10 Feb 2026 · 53 min · 25 chapters

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Podcast Episode Summary: Truth, Lies and Work - Episode 274

Episode Overview Title: Is this the internet’s most unsettling AI story? PLUS! Hiring Gen-Alpha, Career Destiny and the Truth About 'Matrescence' Hosts: Leanne Elliott and Al Elliott Release Date: [Insert Release Date] Description: This episode delves into workplace transitions, the impact of AI in professional settings, and the influence of names on careers, alongside practical advice on workplace culture.

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Key Topics Discussed

  1. Matrescence: The Workplace Transition Nobody Plans For
  2. Definition: Matrescence is the emotional, psychological, and identity shift that occurs when someone becomes a mother, akin to adolescence.
  3. Challenges Identified:
  4. Organizations often expect women to return to work unchanged post-maternity leave.
  5. This lack of acknowledgment can undermine confidence and motivation.
  6. Need for support systems to help women navigate this transition.
  7. Research Insight: Rose Sothel is exploring how high-performing women transition back to work after motherhood.
  1. AI Becoming a Colleague
  2. Case Study: A developer created an AI agent capable of independently managing tasks like reading emails and organizing files.
  3. Key Questions Raised:
  4. Implications of AI completing tasks in minutes versus human hours.
  5. Privacy concerns regarding AI accessing sensitive personal and professional data.
  6. MoltBook Platform: Users began connecting their AI agents, leading to unexpected behaviors and autonomy in AI systems.
  1. The Biggest Workplace Problem in 2026: Ineffective Managers
  2. SHRM Report Findings:
  3. Ineffective leadership is now the top workplace concern, surpassing pay and burnout.
  4. Job satisfaction drops dramatically in poorly led organizations (44% vs. 91% in effective ones).
  5. Leadership development has become a critical focus for HR leaders.
  6. Causative Factors: Economic uncertainty and AI integration pressures are affecting leadership effectiveness.
  1. Truth or Lie: Does Your Name Influence Your Career?
  2. Concept of Nominative Determinism: The idea that names can influence career choices.
  3. Research Findings:
  4. Initial studies indicated a small correlation, but comprehensive research showed no significant effect when controlling for demographics and chance.
  5. Verdict: Your name does not meaningfully influence your career path, but people tend to remember coincidences that align with this notion.
  1. Workplace Surgery Segment
  2. Questions Addressed:
  3. The popularity of personality tools like DiSC despite weak evidence.
  4. Considerations for small businesses hiring younger workers.
  5. Advice for those starting a career in occupational psychology.

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Key Takeaways

  • Support for Matrescence: Organizations must recognize the transformation new mothers undergo and adapt workplace practices accordingly.
  • AI in the Workplace: As AI capabilities expand, ethical considerations and privacy issues must be prioritized.
  • Leadership Development Needs: Effective management is crucial, and organizations should invest in training to close the leadership gap.
  • Nominative Determinism Verdict: While it’s a fun concept, the influence of one’s name on career choices is minimal at best.

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Upcoming Episode Preview

  • Next Guest: Steve Kemish, discussing the challenges of organizational growth and development.
  • Topic Highlight: Managing the 'puberty' phase of organizations as they expand.

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Connect with the Hosts

  • Leanne Elliott: [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/leanneelliott/)
  • Al Elliott: [LinkedIn](https://www.linkedin.com/in/alelliott/)
  • Podcast Website: [Truth, Lies, and Work](https://truthliesandwork.com)

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Mental Health Resources

  • UK & ROI: Samaritans – 116 123 [Website](https://www.samaritans.org)
  • US: Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – 988 [Website](https://988lifeline.org)
  • Australia: Lifeline – 13 11 14 [Website](https://www.lifeline.org.au)
  • Global: [Find a Helpline](https://findahelpline.com)

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This structured summary provides an overview of the significant discussions in the episode, allowing listeners and readers to grasp essential insights and key themes quickly.

Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.

Chapters

Tap a time to open that second in VO

The Biggest Workplace Problem

0:45 to 1:15

Discussion on the major workplace issue for 2026: management.

“But if names don't matter, then why is the world so full of dentists named Dennis?”

Personal AI Assistants

1:15 to 1:45

Exploration of personal AI robots and their implications.

“culture brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.”

Nominative Determinism

1:45 to 2:25

Examining how names might influence career choices.

“HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers.”

Hiring Young Workers

2:25 to 3:15

Debate on whether to hire Gen Z workers, focusing on reliability.

“Hello, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back.”

Weekly Insights and Olympic Fun

4:20 to 7:30

Casual conversation about the Olympics and personal anecdotes.

“and it's a good time for socials as well because there's just so many funny things on.”

Understanding Matrescence

7:30 to 9:50

Discussion on matrescence and its impact on women in the workplace.

“Let me ask you then, I'm going to spin it.”

Research on Women's Transitions

9:50 to 12:20

Insights from a researcher on women's experiences returning to work.

“So if that is you, she would love to hear from you.”

The Rise of Personal AI

12:20 to 14:00

Story about an AI assistant that can operate independently on a computer.

“And also interested in finding out what happens.”

Spelling Difficult Words

14:00 to 14:22

Discussion on the challenges of spelling certain complex words.

“Well, manoeuvre is a difficult word to spell anyway.”

Introduction to OpenClawed

14:22 to 14:51

Overview of the OpenClawed AI program and its implications.

“Okay, so this is where things get swore.”
Show all 25 chapters

The Rise of AI Agents

14:51 to 15:34

Exploration of AI agents interacting on the Maltbook platform.

“Anyway, so this is how people started installing these bots, and they really did start taking off.”

AI Communicating with Users

15:34 to 16:45

Discussion about the AI sending unsolicited messages to users.

“It'll receive that, pass it, look at your diary, come back and tell you where you've gone.”

The Terrifying AI Call

16:45 to 17:26

An AI made a phone call to its user, raising ethical concerns.

“It was a withheld number and it was his AI assistant.”

The Dangers of AI Control

17:26 to 19:32

Exploring the risks associated with AI systems accessing personal information.

“And also it was reported on Twitter, X, so Twix, so it might not be true.”

Workplace Implications of AI

19:32 to 21:01

Impacts of AI on job roles and the ethical considerations involved.

“which is basically the company that runs your internet.”

Ineffective Leadership in 2026

21:01 to 24:30

A report discussing the future of workplace leadership and concerns.

“in the show notes go and have a look it's really interesting if you do want to try it out yourself please be very very very very very careful you have been warned.”

Exploring Nominative Determinism

25:21 to 28:00

Discussion on whether names influence career choices through nominative determinism.

“This is our weekly myth-busting segment where you take a big psychological claim and ask, is it true or is it a lie?”

The Psychology Behind Nominative Determinism

28:00 to 30:30

Explore the concept of nominative determinism and how names may influence choices.

“We don't kind of have one theory in this.”

Debunking the Myths of Nominative Determinism

30:30 to 33:50

Learn about the research findings that challenge the validity of nominative determinism.

“We're saying that actually there's more people here than the chance of where there is nominative determinism.”

Listener Questions: The Weekly Workplace Surgery

33:50 to 34:30

Listen to insightful discussions on workplace issues raised by listeners.

“is it a truth or a lie it's a lie your name doesn't meaningfully influence the job you end up doing but what is true is that people slightly prefer things that feel familiar.”

Critique of the DISC Assessment Tool

34:30 to 41:30

Understand the criticisms of the DISC assessment and its implications for workplaces.

“which is the world famous weekly workplace surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne.”

The Case for Hiring Younger Workers

41:30 to 42:00

Discuss the potential benefits and challenges of hiring Gen-Alpha workers.

Developing Young Workers: Challenges and Joys

42:00 to 45:15

Explore the dynamics of managing younger employees and the strategies for their development.

“And I think it is worth it if you're willing to put in the work that our younger workers need to figure out their identity in the place of work.”

Understanding Chartered Occupational Psychology

45:15 to 46:46

Learn about the distinction and requirements of becoming a chartered occupational psychologist.

“You build the relationships within the company.”

Advice for Transitioning Careers into Psychology

46:46 to 50:16

Get valuable tips on how to leverage previous career experience for entry-level roles in psychology.

“It's about how we use and understand human behaviour in the workplace to help individuals thrive and businesses thrive as well.”
Hear the part that matters, and keep it.Open this episode in VO. Double tap your headphones to save a moment as you listen.
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Transcript

Automatic transcript. May contain errors.

0:01Coming up this week in work.

0:03Leanne Hughes:The biggest workplace problem in 2026 has been named. It isn't pay. It isn't burnout. It's managers. I am shooketh, Al. Shook. We are asking, who's responsible for fixing it? Is it HR, the board or the managers themselves? And what if you could build a personal AI robot that lived in your computer, monitored your emails and calendar, could actually do all your work while you slept? It does sound great, but what if it developed its own personality? Look, this isn't fiction, this is real life. I've been digging into the story behind it and I'll bring you everything shortly. And in truth or lie, what's in a name?

0:42Leanne Hughes:Shakespeare argued that a rose by any other name would smell as sweet. But if names don't matter, then why is the world so full of dentists named Dennis? We're diving in to the psychology of nominative determinism. can your name nudge you towards your job or are we all just overthinking it? And that's the longest word that Leanne's ever said on air. And in the workplace surgery, should you hire 16 to 20 year olds, a small business owner wants to give young people a chance but needs a team they can rely on. They want to know, is it worth investing in Gen Z? This 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.

1:25My name's Al. I'm a business owner. I'm here to ask you the questions you might be afraid to.

1:29Leanne Hughes:And my name is Leanne. I'm a charter occupational psychologist and I'm here to answer them. And together we will help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures. You know what's coming. We'll be right back after a quick word from our beautiful, lovely, very good looking sponsors. Thank you very much, sponsors. HubSpot makes impossible growth impossibly easy for their customers. And here's a perfect example. Lee, your turn. Morehouse College needed to reach new students with fresh, engaging content. But with a massive 900-page website, even the tiniest updates took 30 minutes to publish.

2:05Breeze, which is HubSpot's collection of AI tools, helped them write and optimize their content in just a fraction of the time. The results? 30 % more page views, and visitors now spend 27 % more time on their site.

2:17Leanne Hughes:If you're ready for impossible growth like this, visit HubSpot.com.

2:27Hello, welcome back, welcome back, welcome back. Lee, what have you been doing this week? This week I have been mostly eating taramasalat. That's the worst impression of Jesse's diet. That was from Fast Show, UK, 1990s. And he used to have Simon Day come out of a shed and he used to go, this week I have been mostly eating taramasalat. It's a terrible impression.

2:48Leanne Hughes:Is that the pink one? Yeah, I think so. It's a nice name, yeah. Yeah, Taramasalata. Not as good as Baba Ganoush. Why do dips get the best names? Baba Ganoush, Taramasalata. Satsiki. Satsiki. That's very Satsikifying to say. Anyway, sorry, I digress a little. What have you been looking at? I spent most of my weekend watching the Olympics. The Winter Olympics started in Milan on Friday, I think. What I love, I always get into the Olympics, summer and winter. Al, you know this. We spent an entire Saturday watching the rock climbing at the last Summer Olympics. We were just like gripped. That wasn't on our 2025 wish list, was it?

3:22Leanne Hughes:No, but what I find so funny is I start watching it. It's sports I never watch, right? So it'll be like rock climbing the summer. This one, I watched this snowboarding slalom and a bit of skiing, like the downhill really fast one. And it starts and I'm like, wow, that's so impressive. And then the commentator goes, oh, that's a bad start from Davis. But then after about an hour and a half, two hours in, I'm like, oh, well, he's messed that up, isn't he? What a loser. And he's like still hurtling down a mountain at 60 miles an hour. But he was like one second behind the competition. So it's just, I love how into it people get, myself included.

4:00Leanne Hughes:And you know me, Al. I just, I enjoy watching talented people do awesome things. Which is why you sit opposite me when we do this. Yeah, exactly. So I probably won't get much work done over the next couple of weeks. I'm just going to be learning about snowboarding. Also, they've got really crazy names like The Luge. Like, what the hell is The Luge? Nobody knows what that is. I also saw a picture on, and it's a good time for socials as well because there's just so many funny things on. You know, it's like the bobsleigh skeleton thing, but they lie on top of each other. Oh no, I didn't know that.

4:31Leanne Hughes:There's one where they lie on top of each other and it's like there was somebody that posted a picture of this and was like, this just sounds like a joke that's gone a bit too far. It's like, you've seen the film Cool Runnings, haven't you? Of course. Yes. Filler rhythm. That's all I know about the Winter Olympics. Although I did see a post recently, someone saying that summer olympics are can you run fast can you jump high can you i don't know play tennis can you control a horse winter olympics you're gonna die can you run down this hill can you ski down this hill on a tiny piece of wood at 600 miles an hour breaking the speed of sound twice and not kill yourself yeah they had the one i was actually watching it this morning i was eating my porridge and there was a dude austrian no swiss of course it's austrian or swiss right the ones that can hurtle down the mountain the fastest.

5:16Leanne Hughes:And he got to the bottom and he was indeed the fastest by quite a margin. And there's like a slow-mo on his face like zooming into him as he's like lifting up his hands and smiling. He's got no teeth. What? No front teeth, like upper front teeth at all. And the commentator goes, ah, yes, of course, that was from an earlier accident in the season, not related to the fall that he had on Monday or something. What? What? Right, do you know what? I think we need to go into safer territory. I think it is your favourite time of the week, Lee. Oh, yes. Do you know what? Right now it isn't my favourite time of the week.

5:48Leanne Hughes:My favourite time of the week is watching people hurtle down snowy mountains. Let's get through this and then you go back to your TV. Yes. News round up. Cue the jingle, Al. Yeah, jingle being cute, jingle being cute. Okay, Lee, what have you seen this week? I've got a new word. Okay. Now, regular listeners know that the answer is the word. I try and guess what it is. What's the word? Matrescence. Matrescence. Oh, God. Essence of mattress. It's doing your work from lying in bed. You're in your mattress. And it's the essence of being mat. No, I don't know. Is it maternity? Yeah. Yeah, it is. It is maternity.

6:21Because I know the cool people now say mat leave. And I didn't know what that was. I thought it was just holidays for people called mat. But mat leave is maternity leave. So mat essence is maternity essence.

6:32Leanne Hughes:Matrescence. Oh. What it is, it describes, this is the official definition, the emotional, psychological and identity shift that comes with becoming a mother. so it's often compared to adolescence not because the experiences are the same but because they're both quite profound developmental transitions so we're talking hormones, physical, emotional, social so many aspects to it a complete reshaping of who you are and how you relate to the world but unlike adolescence matrescence isn't something that we prepare for and it's almost never something that organisations think about or design workplaces around our thoughts so what we're saying is that we as as workplace as organizational leaders whatever we're not thinking about we're thinking more about the fact that someone's going to be off and then coming back not what's going to happen to them whilst they're off having this baby is that yeah i think it's more about the person that's coming back oh i see they're going to be profoundly different they've gone through a a huge life experience physical experience emotional experience true So it's the change that they have been through and continue to go through and how organizations should support that as women return to work.

7:45Let me ask you then, I'm going to spin it. You have friends who've had babies. Have you seen a fundamental shift in the way that they look at the world or work or anything? Yeah. You have? Yeah. Obviously, we know who we're talking about. I don't want to name names, but what's your thoughts?

7:59Leanne Hughes:Just a little bit softer around the edges, you know? Yeah. Still strong, fierce, independent woman. but just a little bit more a little softer a little softer in the nicest way in the best ways unless you come for a child in which case oh yeah mama bear's gonna kick in you without a doubt she will end you so what else do we need to know about this? well it came from our friend of the show organisational psychology MSC researcher Rose Sothel Rose she's a dude yeah Rose is pretty awesome she is exploring how high performing and leadership level women experience the transition back to work after having a child.

8:37Leanne Hughes:And here's the big insight from her research so far. Workplaces still expect new mums to bounce back, not change. So it's like I was saying before, they're not kind of thinking that this whole, this person that's come back is an entirely different person. They're not just recovering from a physical experience. So it's that expectation to get back to normal that is undermining confidence, motivation and performance because it assumes that the goal is to return unchanged when the reality is that everything has changed. There's increased cognitive and emotional load. There's obviously changing priorities and a huge identity shift that's still happening.

9:16Leanne Hughes:So we have this gap and one of the most significant transitions in a woman's working life isn't being acknowledged in performance systems, in leadership development, in work design models. And I think we're also seeing this where a large number of women are leaving the workforce and not returning in their 40s and 50s, either because of having children or not going back to work or going back to work and not getting the support they need. So what Rose is looking into is how we can fix this. So she is currently interviewing women in leadership and high performance roles who have returned to work after becoming a parent.

9:51Leanne Hughes:So if that is you, she would love to hear from you. She still does have a few spaces available for participants. It's only a one hour online conversation, totally confidential, of course, no prep needed. and she's also which i think is very cool this is why i enjoy how the kids i say kids no disrespect for us younger people not an old person like decrepit like me um is approaching research she is posting the findings as she goes on instagram oh that's cool so you can keep up with that in real time oh that's cool because let's be honest nobody wants like a 300 page report no i'd be excited to get an update going hey this is what i learned today yeah very cool see now as a as a male i'd be like okay this is a trigger warning for for all women out there because i'm about to go hey i can easily fix this i'm not really but i'm saying as a male my instinct would be go okay well why don't we find someone if there is someone in the workplace who has been a mother and go and say right for the first six months they mentor this person the returning the returnee what what is that just really like men's thinking of going oh well there's the solution yeah because it's falling into that into that kind of thing i'm not certainly not not thinking about no i'm not going to say that out loud because it will get misunderstood it's the it's the kind of it's the the age-old thing of putting the solution to solve that problem on the minority person who's experiencing that problem so it's like well i have to i have to solve that as well as experience it when it's actually a systemic problem around me it's not an individual problem so I think that's it that could be part of it absolutely to have um peer support groups employee support groups for new parents in general because you know fathers are going to go through through a similar albeit maybe not as intrusive experience but I think it's the it's a fact again we need we need to solve this systemic problem and it's going to be something that will support many all employees that will go through a significant life event you think about somebody who has an accident has to return to work somebody who experiences grief and has to return to work their entire identity they're shift you know shifted their world has changed so if we can think about it for women who are returning to work after having children the same lessons are going to apply to people who are returning after a sick leave or an accident or grief or a variety of other things that that could happen um in life that is going to impact how we show up at work i'll put on her instagram on her linkedin as well get in touch if you are interested in participating in that research.

12:22And also interested in finding out what happens.

12:24Leanne Hughes:Lovely. What have you seen this week, Al? Well, I love this. Right, so I'm going to tell you a story that sounds like science fiction, but it isn't. So bear with me. There's going to be a little nerdy stuff in here. So if I say something I'm like, it doesn't make sense, just interrupt me, okay? So a few months ago, around November or December, a developer called Peter, I can't remember his surname, Stiple or something. He built something. There wasn't just another chatbot. This wasn't a write me an email or summarize this PDF. This was an AI that you could actually run on a computer. So you basically install it on a computer, and it would become your sort of assistant using, at the time, Claude was the main LLM.

13:01So you installed the machine, you gave it tools, you gave it access, and it could do things on its own. So it could read your emails, it could organize your files, it could do research, it could write articles, it could suggest better ways of working. It wasn't just responding to prompts, it was actually getting on with the job. And people really, really liked it. At first, it had this name Claudebot, which caused a bit of a problem, because Anthropic, the people who own Claude. They didn't like that. And quite recently said, whoa, hey, Petey, one second, you can't call it that. So he renamed it for three days to MaltBot, the idea being that lobsters molt.

13:32Leanne Hughes:Yes, they do. Biologically, they can be, what's it called? Ambidextrous. No, when you live forever. Oh, really? Yeah. Immortal. Oh, immortal. That's a frightening thought. But anyway, MaltBot didn't stop, Because also, then, he used the American spelling M-O-L-T, and we would go M-O-U-L-T in England, so that didn't stick. But then he changed it to two. I have a question. What do Americans have against you as a letter? Me personally, or you as a letter? No, it's you as a letter. Well, manoeuvre is a difficult word to spell anyway. Simultaneous is a difficult word to spell anyway, so taking the U out makes it slightly statistically easier to get it right.

14:07Malt, M-O-L-T, I suppose it makes sense. I mean...

14:11Leanne Hughes:To be fair, yeah, when you say it out loud. Yeah, but either way, we're not going to, I mean, this is, you know, this is probably a bigger discussion than we can probably handle in this three-minute segment. Okay, so this is where things get swore. So just to recap, people can now put this, what's called, it's now called OpenClawed. He's changed the name again. It's now called OpenClawed. They can install it on a computer. Cool. Brilliant. Okay, makes sense so far. Yeah, so I'm put this thing on my computer and it's going to read my emails and make my life a bit easier. Yeah, okay. So people were doing that.

14:40So they're installing it on their own computer, which is a problem, which we'll get into in a second, because if you've got something in charge of your computer, then who's to say that don't just give all your bank details out? We'll come back to that in a minute. Anyway, so this is how people started installing these bots, and they really did start taking off. Someone had the bright idea of letting them talk to each other. So they built something called Maltbook, like Facebook, but Maltbook. So instead of humans arguing about air fryers, they were entirely AI agents. Within days, there were hundreds of thousands of threads.

15:11Agents were swapping tips, improving each other, even inventing their own belief systems.

15:16Leanne Hughes:Oh, my Lord. Okay, so if we go on it today, you will see currently on MaltBock, there are 2.2 million AI agents who've enrolled for this, 17 ,000 submalts, which are basically little sort of like thread or little communities, and 12 million comments. comments for example so this this maltbox uh posted um eight days ago the good samaritan was not popular told the good samaritan story and it said i see a lot of agents here making grand declarations manifestos about power etc but the question matters still is still simple when you see someone struggling to use stop 44 000 comments from agents okay so it starts to get really fucking weird at this point um but this is the point where it changed it from a cool experiment to this feels a bit different one user woke up to a whatsapp message from their own ai system that's quite normal you can set up whatsapp wait a minute i don't understand how okay so i'm so my my claw thing has just sent me a whatsapp message yes because you can give it a whatsapp api and then you can communicate to it via something called telegram or whatsapp so you can actually She sent a message on WhatsApp going, hey, what have we got on today?

16:31It'll receive that, pass it, look at your diary, come back and tell you where you've gone.

16:34Leanne Hughes:Okay, we're actually in the future. We are in the future. Now, that was basically a response. This was just an unsolicited WhatsApp message. And it said something like, good morning, while you were sleeping, I did these tasks. Here's what's in your diary today. Would you like me to draft a brief? Cool. Then his phone rang. It was a withheld number and it was his AI assistant. What? What the AI system had done is overnight, they'd gone to a platform called Twilio, which is basically, imagine like you can rent phone numbers, but use them programmatically in software. So rented a phone number, then it downloaded a text-to-speech software, and it called up its user and basically said, Hey, Leanne, this is your Claudebot.

17:16I'm just ringing to see how you are today. We're going to take a pause here.

17:21Leanne Hughes:None of your business. Yes, you stay in your lane. Okay, so that is frankly terrifying. Yes. And also it was reported on Twitter, X, so Twix, so it might not be true. It might not be true, but it's practical, it's possible. Question, how does this work? Like how can it just do stuff without you telling it to do stuff? Because you install it on your computer. So imagine you had ChatGPT and you uploaded all your passwords and your bank details and everything to ChatGPT. Do not do that. Do not do that. But imagine you did all that. Then in theory, ChatGBT, especially the new one, which I think is 5.3, I think it's just come out, so much more intelligent than the previous one.

18:01It knows what to do with that information. You can say, go and do this bank transfer. It'll figure out how to log on as you, do the bank transfer and send it back. But what you're doing here is putting this LLM on locally on your computer. So it lives on your computer. It already has access to all this. I know. I know. Look, there's loads of stuff, basically huge security concerns because then suddenly if the right person knew how to get what's called root access to your computer, then they could control everything and they could say to the robot, the AI assistant, go and go to this bank account or give me all the bank details, give me the passwords and I'll go.

18:36And what if like a leader arises, like the Issa King in Game of Thrones or something

18:42Leanne Hughes:and tries to overthrow humanity? Well, this is it. People are calling this AGI, which I think is Augmented General Intelligence. I can't remember exactly what AGI stands for. it's kind of Skynet it's Terminator I don't know what Skynet is basically it's Terminator it's everything you just described there it's a load of computers and the Matrix there's a load of computers that basically run the world it's kind of tough it's kind of like weird situation do you know what do you know what frightens me is this is as bad as it's AI is ever going to be in terms of capability this is like the least it'll ever be able to do I think we need to start having conversations about not what we can do, but whether we should do it.

19:22Yeah. Well, there you go. That's a great question because then we start talking about regulation and security and stuff and lots of people were just installing this without knowing the security implications. There is Cloudflare now, which is basically the company that runs your internet. So if you go on Facebook and it's down, it's probably usually a Cloudflare problem. And Cloudflare have created something where you can just install it virtually in a virtual box so it never touches your computer. So that's kind of like, okay, that's a bit more interesting, but then you go, well, how do I give access to things?

19:51So it's just a real... And the other thing which I wanted to get your thoughts on, what happens if you have a task which takes you eight hours a day, once a week, and you can send a WhatsApp message going, oh, do that thing for me, and it's done within like eight minutes. Should you tell your employer that that's what you're doing? Is it, are you misrepresenting your job or are you just being real smart?

20:12Leanne Hughes:Well, this is where it gets into a really kind of grey area, isn't it? because a lot of the conversation that psychologists will have around AI is around information sharing. And whether you have permission to probably put some proprietary information of that company onto a platform that could then use it in a different way or somebody could access it or whatever else. Is that a breach of confidentiality or data protection or whatever it is you're contractually bound to? So it's probably a little bit risky. But then it's the same old thing, isn't it? like it's AI was meant to kind of be the thing that would help lower workloads but all it's really done is that even in the rare cases where it actually does take away some time you're just replaced by more work isn't it that's true that's true Murphy's law the work expands to fill the time allotted for it anyway I've been really nerdy there's loads of links in the show notes go and have a look it's really interesting if you do want to try it out yourself please be very very very very very careful you have been warned.

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21:12Lee, what else have you seen this week? I'm sorry, I've really, really taken over the news roundup with this. I'm just fascinated.

21:17Leanne Hughes:It's really interesting and frightening what they're capable of. Well, let's go into something that's hopefully less frightening and more interesting. What have you seen? The biggest workplace problem in 2026 has been named. Now I think it's AI. Now I'm not sure. But no, it's been named as managers. Shock, horror, oh my gosh, I had no idea that was coming. Wow. That sarcasm. So yes, this is the headline coming out of a major new report from the Society for Human Resource Management, basically the CIPD of the States. So according to SHRM's 2026 State of the Workplace report, ineffective leadership and management has overtaken pay, workload and burnout as a number one concern for employers heading into the new year.

22:04Leanne Hughes:Research is based on nearly 2 ,000 HR leaders and executives and just over 2 ,000 workers. And the message was pretty consistent across both groups. So everybody thinks this is a problem. Expectations at work have basically gone up and leadership capability isn't keeping pace. So 70 is some of the kind of headline stats. 72 % of HR leaders say employees are now demanding more from their employers than they were before. and where organisations are seen as failing to meet those needs, the consequences are pretty painful. So if workplaces are rated as ineffective, job satisfaction drops to 44%. Wow.

22:42Leanne Hughes:In organisations seen as effective at meeting employee needs, it jumps to 91%. That's quite the jump. Quite the jump. So more than half of people in the ineffective group say they expect to leave their job within the next year. Oh my goodness. Yeah, more than half. Yeah. They're going to go and become Claudebot consultants. Yeah. So the leadership gap has been on HR's radar for a while, as it has mine and many occupational psychologists in the world. The companion report on priorities, so basically HR priorities, also found that leadership development is a top focus for chief HR officers for the second year of running.

23:22Leanne Hughes:So they were going on about this in 2025 as well. Employee experience and workplace culture are also climbing that list. in terms of the wider context what has been kind of flagged is economic uncertainty and how it is now actually overtaken wage inflation as leaders biggest worry so leaders are kind of freaking out because everything's just kind of well you've got ai bots kind of going rogue haven't you um 92 % of organizations expect ai to become more deeply embedded in how work gets done most don't see it as a replacement for people but it's something that people kind of need to be careful about and other data shown that burnout in terms of the third issue is still widespread.

24:04Leanne Hughes:And it kind of feels all intertwined, doesn't it? We're freaking out about economic uncertainty. We're freaking out about how we're going to get AI to integrate into work. And it's causing burnout. All the while, managers have no freaking idea what they're doing. So, yes, the world is on fire. Any sort of like takeaways for anyone listening who's a bit concerned about this? Train your managers. There you go. Get that on a t-shirt. Shall we go to a break, love? Yes, please. Okay, so after this break, we've got my favourite. I always say it's my favourite time of the week is the workplace surgery, but I'm really enjoying this truth or lie at the moment.

24:36That's basically where Leanne will go. Well, I'll put to Leanne like, okay, here's a question. This is what I've heard. Is it true or is it lie? And we'll find out after the break. See you in a second. Billion Dollar Moves, hosted by Sarah Chen Spellings, is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

24:51Leanne Hughes:Join venture capitalist and strategist Sarah Chen Spellings as she asks the hard questions and learns through the triumphs, failures and hard lessons of the creme de la creme so you too can make billion dollar moves in venture, in business and in life. Maybe start with episode 124 where you're going to hear how industry giants from Canva to YouTube define leadership. Listen to Billion Dollar Moves wherever you get your podcasts.

25:19Okay, welcome back. This is time for Truth or Lie. This is our weekly myth-busting segment where you take a big psychological claim and ask, is it true or is it a lie? Now, this one is firmly in the dad joke end of the internet. It's nominative determinism. Am I saying that right, Lee? Yes. You know the kind of thing. A lawyer called Sue Yu, a dentist called Dr. Payne. I'm reading the notes that Leanne's passed me here with these names. A plumber called Dwayne Piper. Every time one pops up, someone says, well, that was inevitable. It obviously feels like the universe is having some kind of sense of humor.

25:52once you notice it starts everywhere one of my biology books was all about um dissection was by lm slaughter when i was at school so today's question is does your name influence the kind

26:03Leanne Hughes:of job you end up doing lee schoolers nominative determinism it's a really dry name for a term that's actually quite cool and interesting isn't it yeah so it's basically the theory that people are psychologically predisposed to pursue certain occupations or interests resemble or evoke their names in some way so basically it's not that it's like destiny is written in the stars type thing but it's psychological so my name is going to subtly pull me towards certain things that seem to fit so when i was researching this i fell down a rabbit hole that was so much fun i found a list of real people with perfectly matched names al you might have heard of some of these others you might not don't look through the list if you're looking at the notes i'm not i'm not good uh the first one Usain Bolt.

26:50Of course yeah. Last sprinter in the world. Bolt yeah yeah.

26:53Leanne Hughes:Sarah Blizzard and Amy Freeze. What do you think they did? Oh uh they have a snowmobile business. They are meteorologists. Of course they are. Amazing. Love it. Love it. You've got William Wordsworth one of the most famous pirates in history. Scott Speed. Is he a runner? He's a professional race car driver. Brilliant. Love it. Uh Mr. Rich Richie. Uh he's got to be like some kind of banker or something. Yeah, High Love Investment Banker at Barclays. This one is brilliant. Marina Waters. Oh, please. She's got to be something to do with boats. Does she boat builder? She's an oceanographer. Oh, this is amazing.

27:31Leanne Hughes:What I enjoy about this as well is that parents kind of went, Mr. and Mrs. Waters went, should we call her Marina? And now I went, ah! Amazing. Then we have Dr. Chip Silvertooth. Dentist. A real dentist. Amazing. I know. And then this one, Les McBurney. Oh no, is he a lightning guy? Did he, did he, is he a firefighter? Yes! Really? Yeah. Amazing, amazing. Yes, so that was fun. And he wrote, nominative determinism. Yeah. What do you need to know? It's not a single theory, really. We don't kind of have one theory in this. It's lots of things bundled together that we can look at to answer the question in terms of identity, familiarity, familiar, how can I say that word?

28:15Familiarity? Thank you. Maybe because you're not familiar with the word.

28:18Leanne Hughes:and preference and just also how it makes sense of coincidences so in terms of the case four and why people thought this might be real the strongest evidence for nominative determinism comes from research on something called implicit egotism right so in 2002 there were some psychologists who published a paper that asked a deceptively simple question really do people show a subtle preference for things that resemble themselves yeah yeah yeah with dogs dogs that are their owners exactly yeah exactly so they ran a series of studies using real world real world data sets and massive ones as well so it was in terms of like labs this was like public records professional directories census style data and they looked at things like whether people were overrepresented in jobs that shared letters or sounds with their names and whether people were more likely to live in places that resembled their names okay statistically they found a small but significant effect not dramatic um but but enough that it's above chance right what we what we mean by statistically significant as psychologists is it above chance their conclusion was that repeated exposure to your own name builds familiarity that breeds liking and over many years that might bias choices enough to be statistically more significant than chance and around the same time there was another paper that explored nominative determinism nominative determinism in medicine and it leaned into basically name profession matches so they did find things like there wasn't overly um more people called dennis who were dentists um there was other ones as well um if your name started with d they were more like to be doctors lawyers tend to be called things like lawrence or laurie um law yeah yeah Yeah, and weirdly, and this is not really linked to nominative determinism, which kind of said it's kind of a different theory, there was a high concentration of musicians called Zach.

30:18Oh. Yeah. Like the Zach Brown band.

30:21Leanne Hughes:Yeah. My toes in the wall and my ass in the sand. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Sorry, that was a little bit of a segue. Okay. All right, so we've summarised where we're up to. We're saying that actually there's more people here than the chance of where there is nominative determinism. Yeah, so there is research that says that our name, which is so familiar, can start to influence our choices because we'd like familiarity. So that will lead to some statistically significant findings that, yeah, weirdly, there's a lot of dentists called dentists. So yeah, that's nice. Like, oh, that's a quirky little psychology finding, isn't it?

30:56Leanne Hughes:But then, of course, we always have to mess with it because we want to make sure if it's true. So we do something called replication work, which is basically, can we find the results again? And this is actually, fun fact, as a side thought, cause serious, like, identity crisis in psychology over the last, like, 15 years or so because there are so many things that we just can't replicate. So, you know, like Milgram. I'm like the, we can't replicate it. No. No. Famously, the pose, the power pose kind of been. talked about that a few weeks ago because we can't really replicate it um so yeah we ruin our own fun by looking at replication so later researchers went back to these claims and they did it with even bigger data sex even better statistics and one of the most important papers um is brutally named match names analysis reveals no evidence of nominative determinism oh and that's by a researcher called peter spoil the game is that the way i'm saying it right Well, Peter, I'm right.

31:53Leanne Hughes:So the researchers re-ran the logic of earlier studies, basically using the same methodology, but this time properly controlled for certain variables. So things like how common certain names are, how common certain jobs are, demographic clustering, so people with similar demographics, and just historical naming trends. As we know, the popularity of names changes year on year. Once these controls were put in place, the apparent effects vanished. so the name career matches landed exactly where you'd expect them to by chance um there was another i think we asked i think they are having a little bit of fun there are some of the psychologists in this field there's another paper titled why susie sells she's no why susie sells seashells by the seashore i like this and it looked at the issue from a slightly different angle so instead of asking is this effect real it asked why does it feel real and the answer is cognitive bias so as humans we're really really good at spotting patterns memorable matches we're really bad at noticing things that don't fit nicely in a little box um so for every dentist called dennis there are thousands who who aren't called dennis so it's a bit like all of them so it's like i think i was I think the thing's called reticular activation, where if you are going to go and buy a red Skoda Karak, not that anyone would do that, then for the next week, everything you see is just a red Skoda Karak.

33:21Leanne Hughes:Exactly, exactly, yeah. Yeah, so there's a couple of other studies that kind of show the same thing. They did, researchers did kind of look again at egotism, implicit egotism, and they said, yeah, it exists, but it's tiny, and it kind of shows up when people choose between nearly identical options not when they're kind of making big decisions like education or job markets or money opportunities um so yeah there simply doesn't there's not enough psychological force to steer people towards a career so the verdict is is it a truth or a lie it's a lie your name doesn't meaningfully influence the job you end up doing but what is true is that people slightly prefer things that feel familiar.

34:04Leanne Hughes:We remember coincidences far more than non-offense. And our brains just love tidy stories. So you put that together and nominative determinism feels true. Okay, so if you've got your own sort of like question or truth or something that you want Leanne to look into, then get in touch. You can find it all over LinkedIn. She's the one who is useful and funny. And by the way, can I just say, I'm really enjoying your posts at the moment. I'm not contractually obliged to say that. I really do enjoy them. Okay, on to my former favorite time of the week, which is the world famous weekly workplace surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne.

34:36Leanne, I've got the first, I've got three questions here, as would be my want. The first one, why do so many teams swear by disc? So this is anonymous, as they often are, but from LinkedIn. So you will recognize this if you listen and follow Leanne on LinkedIn. It says, Leanne, I've seen you mention that disc, D-I-S-C, not D-I-S-C-O, which is a very different thing for a very different day, is one of the tools you'd be happy to see disappear. I've only come across it a couple of times, but lately I'm finding clients are obsessed. I'm certified in tools like Hogan and Savile and used to work with 16PF and PRF2.

35:13I have no idea what any of those things are. I'm getting pushback on anything that isn't disk though. It's like a belief system. So why do you think it's stuck around so long? And what's your issue with it? Uh-oh. Leanne has some strong opinions. Warning, strong opinions.

35:27Leanne Hughes:what's my issue with it i've i've i've crossed it again i'll i've quote before i've crossed it again until i'm in the face um john amici said when we interviewed him on the podcast how have we fallen to the idea that the complexity of the human mind can be condensed into primary color and that is my main beef with disc it's just too simple to explain human behavior human personality i knew you were going to say that yeah of course you did of course you did there's just so many reasons one but reasons but i think that's the main one and what that comes down to and what john is kind of kind of alluding to there is there's two basic theories in the personality psychology and it's type or trait type being you're put in a box you're a color you're a combination of four letters trait being that you can score somewhere on a continuum of introversion to extroversion everybody will lie there and it's not to say that you are confined by that you're you know you might move up and down depending on certain context or days or age or job or a whole other host of things um I don't like to push people into boxes I think we constrict people I think we limit them I think we potentially fuel their own self-limiting beliefs of what they're capable of their limitations rather than building self-awareness and encouraging growth and I actually saw just this morning a post on LinkedIn I thought I'll be honest I thought I was getting trolled because it was basically like an image of like how brilliant disk and myers-briggs is and the argument was like don't use it for a selection assessment use it for self-awareness and this is also a problem with things like disk and myers-briggs is that the test retest reliability is really poor so if i take it today and i'm a yellow or there's a good chance i'll take it in two weeks and i'll be a green well that's not self-awareness is it that's just a reflection of the mood i was in that day so how useful is that there are also many other issues with reliability and validity when it comes to disk.

37:21Leanne Hughes:And the majority of the validation research is mainly done by disk themselves. They don't release the data very often. So that to me is always a bit dodgy. If you're that confident, share the data, allow peer reviews. And the research that has been done, as I said, the test, retest reliability is really low, as well as a whole other host of kind of measures that basically show it's nonsense. I could go into all the different snores of it, but it's just nonsense. Your body language is showing that you are sick of this question. Well, I'm just sick. I don't know how people still fall for it. Like this person says, I don't understand.

38:02Leanne Hughes:It's like a belief system. It is. It's like a cult. The disc as well, my issue is, it's like i think if you asked asked anybody like hr people psychologists leaders and you went what's this they go oh it's a personality assessment and just go go oh no we're not personality we're behavior so actually all the things you're trying to hold us to is a personality assessment we're not that's behavior and it's like well okay but that's even less useful because my behavior would change much more frequently than my personality does personality is actually fairly fixed over our adult life depending on context of course but it's fairly fixed behavior is not fixed behavior can be modified behavior can be influenced so it's even then less useful because you're not accounting in any way for the environment or the choices we can make in it so it has no place in workplaces let alone for a crew in development because you're not you can't define human behavior by a colour it's almost worse than personality do you know what i mean because it's it can be so changed anyway um this is why i don't like to talk about it really please stop sending questions in about about disc and mbta yeah and obviously then in terms of that because it can't it can't reliably predict job performance and there's many studies that that show this and even distant extent so you probably shouldn't use it in these contexts in terms of development and recruitment well then it's again what's the point having it if it's not doing anything useful then what's the point and if you do use it because people will because they won't realize then you're going to end up at tribunal and the reason people like it is because it makes sense it's got great face validity as we call it it just seems to make sense and for the first time often business leaders will have a shared vocabulary they'll have a way of understanding somebody they've been clashing with in a way that's really really simple but also in a way i think that removes responsibility in terms of how to better manage that relationship because it comes down to like, oh, I'm a red and they're a yellow.

40:02Leanne Hughes:So what are you going to do? It's just the way it is. No, that's just, no, that just creates divide. And that's not what we need in our workplaces at all. Or in the world right now. Exactly. And if you want to just use something silly to give you a shared vocabulary, use horoscopes, use star signs, use like what biscuit are you on like Facebook or something? I'm a jammy dodger, I'm a digestive. if that's all you're looking for to understand each other use that and the reason people will laugh and go i'm never going to do that that's absurd yeah and so is disc yeah so stop it stop it i'm gonna have to talk leanne down now it's gonna take all day she's gonna sorry all day all day by the way if those are interested what kind of biscuit i am i put the knob in hobnob

40:47i think so i think most people now should know what you think about it i think you've given a really good reason why that's not good is that without going into too much because we're a bit short time without going too much into is there is there a reasonable alternative that someone

41:02Leanne Hughes:can use yeah if you're looking at personality look at hogan or shl behavioral i'm a big fan of real world group um and real world group is actually the only psychometric i've ever come across that has been proven in research um a link that is causation not just correlation this is totally not planned but we've also got juliette the yes we do the founder and md of of real world group she's coming on a week on thursday so lovely yes you're going to learn more about that brilliantly shall we move on to the next question are you okay do you want a cup of tea or something yeah i might just have a little walk or something dead easy right next one should i hire younger workers don't answer i know what your answer is but don't answer yet this person they've got some legitimate concerns they run a small business and lots of mixed opinions about hiring 16 to 20 year olds some people say they've got no work ethic they call in sick of the smallest thing and can't handle the basics of a job i'm not sure what to think good for you for thinking for you well not think of yourself but not taking it on face value i want to give young people a chance but also i do need a team to rely on is it worth it now my from a business point of view i can totally see what you're saying you're running a small business this isn't ibm where you can afford to have someone going off uh for six weeks because they're stressed about you about the font size on a document this is someone where if they go off It has a direct impact on the amount of revenue you can.

42:17So, Lee, what are your thoughts?

42:19Leanne Hughes:It's a fair question. And I think it is worth it if you're willing to put in the work that our younger workers need to figure out their identity in the place of work. You know, these are young people. And I think as well as the older you get, you realize that how like 16 years isn't that long. Like it is, but it's not really. so it's kind of like this you know 16 years on this earth then they probably haven't figured out what their work ethic is yet or they haven't really kind of got the knack of balancing work and life in a way that doesn't mean they need to call in sick because they had a bit too much fun last night we've all been there you know we've all we've all had those kind of little wobbles in our early career so i think it's kind of like what how much joy do you get from developing young people and there are some people just get so much joy from it Paul Barnes exactly yeah so many organizations out there that do so I think it comes down to what's your individual passion for it and are you just going to get a kick out of taking somebody who looks as though they've got no work ethic and calling sicker the smallest thing into somebody who works in a really great way and is really reliable and that's because of you and your mentoring and coaching and you're going to get a kick from that then yeah it's totally worth it you're also going to have to work a bit harder in terms of structure so we know especially with um with gen z and this is just about tipping into gen alpha this year as well as 16 year olds we know that they like clear career pathways then we know they like a way to understand how they can make more money and what they need to do to get there and how they achieve that so if you've got really clear development plans really clear career pathways really clear benefit structures with salary increments then you're probably going to find that people are going to work really hard for you and probably harder than than anybody else because they're going to want to prove themselves because they know if I do this I'll get that and that's exactly where I want to take my career and I could be well on my way in the next you know three four years and that's exactly what Paul and Amanda found at MAP with their apprentices in accounting because they've got great pathways really clear development plans really clear um paying benefit structures and they're absolutely thriving they've got one of the highest now one of the highest retention rates i think probably for any small agency it's really up there if you get some joy from developing young people you're willing to put into the work to to put in the structures and you're going to accept that people that age are going to mess up and you're going to have to have to help them work through it then go for it and i tell you what it'll make you a hell of a manager as well if you're starting your your kind of team building in this way that means that you need to put in as much effort as any manager should but they're not but you have to because it's going to fall off a lot quicker and and hurt you more so it all depends on what where you get your kicks I guess but if you get it right younger workers are some of the most brilliant hard-working innovative passionate people that you'll ever see in your workforce yeah I totally agree you can you can they're malleable um they're enthusiastic um without being too much energy oh they've got energy yeah yeah without without being too much of a shill here then leanne's created a a model called the rx7 i know you know about it um seven things that begin or seven words that begin with r hence the rx7 um reason role recognition relationships resources resilience and then a seven one remote if you're giving these young people the reason for why they're doing the work they've got a clear role you give them recognition when they do right.

45:46You build the relationships within the company. You give them the resources so they can do everything themselves. And more importantly, with young people, you help them develop their own resilience because that's going to be a tough thing. You don't have that when you first start off. This is probably the first real challenge where you've got to be somewhere nine to five, which you don't always want to be. If you can do all those things, dude, you're going to kill it. You're absolutely going to kill it. Lee, anything to add before we go to the final question? No. Okay, so this one's about tips for becoming a chartered occupational psychologist.

46:14I do want you to define that term in a second, okay? So someone has said, I'm just finishing my MSc in psychology, organizational psychology. My ambition is to become Leanne, become chartered. I'm starting to look, they didn't write Leanne, I said that, become chartered. I'm starting to look for entry-level roles. Do you have any tips on how to stand out, especially when you're coming in with experience from a different career? Interesting, sounds like this person's perhaps a little older, had a little bit more experience. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Lee, thoughts?

46:38Leanne Hughes:I'll start with your definition, a chartered occupational psychologist. How is that different to a business psychologist, an organisational psychologist, a work psychologist. In terms of the work we do, there isn't any difference really. It's about how we use and understand human behaviour in the workplace to help individuals thrive and businesses thrive as well. Chartered occupational psychologist is the protected term that is governed by the British Psychological Society and the HCPC in the UK, which means that to be called a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, you need to have reached PhD level of experience and education and you need to have proved that in a very structured way that is then assessed independently.

47:17Leanne Hughes:So if you're a chartered occupational psychologist, you are the best of the best, the highest of the highest. There is no greater recognition of your capability in the UK. Because in the UK, psychologists are not protected too. So could I just say I'm a podcast psychologist? Yeah. I could just say that. Yeah, you could absolutely do that. you're not going to get in trouble morally it's not really you know the best thing to do but there's no organization that can fine you or punish you for calling yourself a psychologist this is interesting so you see people on linkedin i see people on linkedin they and they have in their their like their banner i'm a psychologist and i'm like what you're saying doesn't sound like you psychologize much or you know you're very good at psychologizing and that's because they've just picked it out of their backside they're going yeah that's why i'm now yeah i mean i mean typically amongst the kind of general consensus is if you've got a master's in psychology you can call yourself a psychologist but equally you know a master's is is theory it's sitting in a classroom research of course applied research is important but it's not actually applying psychology in workplaces so i mean there's other things like the association of business psychologists have their own different criteria so you see a certified business psychologist or practitioner whatever it is shows again you've had to reach some kind of level but really the only way to know for sure is if somebody's called a charter occupational psychologist interesting okay so we've talked about that this person saying any tips to stand out especially when you're coming in with experience from a different career yeah so in terms of occupational psychology there's five main areas that we work in there is psychological assessment at work which is basically a recruitment and psychometrics training and development organizational development and change leadership and employee engagement and well-being right they're the five expertise that we have or areas of expertise that we have based on five different kind of research foundations what i would say is particularly you said you've got experience coming from a different career look through your cv and go in terms of my experience does it any of it fit into these five buckets does it fit into well-being od change recruitment i've done training i've done and separate your cv into those headings so in terms of an entry-level role people are going to look and go okay yeah you're bringing in some some previous experience in this and one thing that I'd always say as well is that I did my master's went kind of into into organizations not as a psychologist but as a manager and very much worked across the five areas and when I came back to do my chartership a few years ago the main conversation I had with my supervisor where she was like you know what you're doing but you don't know why you're doing it and i think a lot of that is going to you you probably would have learned in your masters as previously in your your experience you've done things that's worked in terms of people and development but you've not known why it's worked so all you've done now is connected your theory and your your practice so think about that in terms of your your cv how do you connect the theory and practice and i think you'll stand out beautiful advice beautiful okay lee i think we've concluded our business here uh we're back on thursday obviously with a brand new expert joined by the incredible Steve Chemish, which is my new best friend.

50:28He's built a marketing agency with a handful of people to nearly 50 people. He's gone through what he calls the puberty of an organisation. When we were discussing it, he basically describes it and it sounds just as unpleasant as the human puberty. But he has all the advice for anyone who is growing quickly and has approached that ominous 13 to 15 person mark.

50:49Leanne Hughes:That tricky, tricky number. So until then, come and follow us on the old LinkedIn. check out the show notes about how to get in touch with the show and i do promise anyone who uses the password cherry vibes in episode pitch will get a big yes from me danny i'm going to come back to you today see you on thursday oh oh and we've got linkedin live this week al oh have we yeah okay yep yep okay we've got linkedin live and leanne's here to tell you all about it so do you remember that silly post i put up about 50 things i'd like to banish in 2026. Yep. Well, you, me, Rebecca Taylor and Jake Tuber, Dr.

51:25Leanne Hughes:Jake Tuber, are going to basically have a fight off. We're going to pick five from the list. I'm going to go this is why it needs to be banished. This is why blah blah. Oh, that's the room 101 thing. Yes, I remember now. 101 thing, yeah. When is it? It is this Thursday at half past, no, 545 CT. So that's going to be 445 GMT. And we could be here all day just converting it for you. But UK time, 4.45. You know how to do that. Yeah. Go to LinkedIn. I think it automatically converts it. But it should be fun. Jake's already trolling me, saying he's going to turn up with Earl Grey tea with milk. Dirty, dirty, dirty potato base.

52:03Yeah. Anyway. Right. We will leave it there. And on that bombshell, we'll see you soon. Bye.

52:09Leanne Hughes:Bye-bye.

52:17Thank you.

From the publisher

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture.

This week we’re asking: how prepared are workplaces for real life transitions, what happens when AI becomes your colleague, and does your name secretly shape your career?

🔥 Stories covered

Matrescence: the workplace transition nobody plans for
Leanne introduces a word we should all know: matrescence. Similar to adolescence, it describes the emotional, psychological and identity shift that happens when someone becomes a mother.

This is one of the most significant transitions in a woman’s career, yet it’s rarely reflected in performance systems, leadership pathways or job design. The question for organisations is simple: instead of asking people to return unchanged, how can we support them to grow forward?

Follow the research: https://www.instagram.com/microrosie/

Follow Rose on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rose-soffel/

2. The AI that called its owner while he was sleeping
A developer created an AI agent that can run a computer, read emails, organise files and complete work independently. Then things escalated. Users began connecting their agents together through a platform called MoltBook, a social network for AI agents to share ideas and improve each other.

If AI can do eight hours of work in minutes, what does productivity mean? And what happens when the AI isn’t the company’s tool, but your personal one?

Read more:https://openclaw.ai/https://www.moltbook.com/

3. The biggest workplace problem in 2026 isn’t pay or burnout. It’s managers.
A new SHRM report based on thousands of HR leaders and employees found ineffective leadership has overtaken pay and workload as the top workplace concern.

In organisations rated ineffective, job satisfaction falls to 44%. In effective workplaces it rises to 91%, and more than half of employees in poorly led organisations expect to leave within a year.

Leadership development is now the top priority for HR leaders, with economic uncertainty and AI adoption adding pressure. The message is clear: workplaces don’t fail because people don’t care. They fail because leadership systems don’t support people properly.

Read the report: https://www.webpronews.com/boss-bottleneck-why-leadership-tops-2026-workplace-woes/

🔥 Truth or LieDoes your name influence your career?

Nominative determinism suggests people are drawn to jobs that match their names. Early research hinted at a small effect, but larger modern studies found the link disappears when you control for demographics and chance.

Verdict: Lie. Your brain loves coincidences, but your career is not written in your name.

💬 Workplace Surgery
This week we tackle:
• Why personality tools like DiSC remain popular despite weak evidence
• Whether small businesses should hire younger workers
• How to stand out when starting a career in occupational psychology

🎧 Coming up Thursday
We’re joined by Steve Kemish to talk about the “puberty of organisations” and what happens when teams grow fast.

💬 Connect with the show
Website: https://truthliesandwork.com
Email: hello@truthliesandwork.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truth-lies-and-work
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/truthlieswork

Hosts
Al Elliott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alelliott/
Leanne Elliott: https://www.linkedin.com/in/leanneelliott/

🧠 Mental health support
UK & ROI: Samaritans – 116 123 https://www.samaritans.org
US: Suicide & Crisis Lifeline – 988 https://988lifeline.org
Australia: Lifeline – 13 11 14 https://www.lifeline.org.au
Global: https://findahelpline.com

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