306. Firing your HR department, restroom lurking and the accidental manager. PLUS! Does Gen Z value purpose over pay? With Dr Jake Tuber

21:46Dr. Jake Tuber:Sure. But they are often, at least in the U.S., the bulwark against executive overreach and policy violations. And who do you go to now if, you know, your senior leader, your CEO does something inappropriate, unethical, questionable? That's supposed to be a channel for you to utilize. And so if I'm an employee there, I'm not just worried about the state of the company and my future economically. I'm worried about what my leaders want to do that would lead them to think this is a good decision. You know, listen, not to make a silly political analogy, but like, you know, when you fire all of the inspectors general here in the U.S., the message you're sending is, yeah, I want to get into some corruption.

22:24Dr. Jake Tuber:And it's sort of the same thing. Like you fire all the HR people and you're sort of signaling, I want to do things that HR wouldn't have let me do. And that's not great. To be fair, they have told, they have said, they've replaced it with a smaller department called People Operations, which are focused, oh, this is for the purpose of balance, focused on employee support and training. It just, no, it just doesn't sound like, it sounds like they've got a few people who are just sitting there and will do what they're being told. Guys, anyway, the link will be in the show notes. Jake, we should probably go to break because we've got your truth or lie coming up next.

22:58We've been looking forward to all week. So, Lee, anything else to add before we nip to a quick break? No, let's nip to a quick break. Nip to the equivalent of the podcast bathroom. Let's go nip. We'll see you in a second.

23:11Dr. Jake Tuber:Now, let's meet in the bathroom for 20 minutes. See you in a second. Welcome back to Truth or Lie, that time of the week where we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it up. This week, Dr. Jake is leading Truth or Lie, and we're asking, does Gen Z value purpose more than pay? The media seems to think so, but what does the research say? Dr. Jake, over to you. I just wanted to hear you say Gen Z. I just love it when English folks say Z instead of Z. That's why I chose this topic. The answer that you're waiting for is somewhat yes, actually. It does seem that Gen Z does value purpose quite a bit, maybe not more than pay, and perhaps not necessarily for the reasons that the popular media might think.

23:58Dr. Jake Tuber:So there's been a lot of talk about this, and especially some global research firms, Deloitte and others, have looked at this. There was a global survey that Deloitte did conduct that found 89 % of Gen Z respondents to the survey said that purpose is most important for job satisfaction and well-being. And around 44 % reported leaving jobs that they felt lacked purpose. Krishna et al. in 2024, a little study found that Gen Z employees were often motivated by things like personal growth and meaningful contribution and ethical alignment rather than purely financial rewards. And in general, studies of workplace expectations also show that Gen Z places unusually high importance on topics like mental health, diversity and equity and inclusion, flexibility, authenticity, social impact.

24:46Dr. Jake Tuber:Nicholson Smith found that, et cetera. So there is some good research out there. Now, I will say this, however, I don't think a lot of this survey-based research is extremely useful. I think a lot of folks cherry-pick some of the data. So looking back at the Global Deloitte survey, 89 % of Gen Z respondents said purpose is important for job satisfaction and well-being. well, is that a forced ranking question? I don't know. Is that saying that purpose is inherently more important? Or if you can just click, yeah, purpose is important. Sure, I agree. There's no downside to saying yes to that. I'm not necessarily impressed by that stat.

25:24Dr. Jake Tuber:Similarly, 44 % reported leaving jobs they felt lacked purpose. Well, is that the reason they left the job? Or is that, yes, I left this job and it also happened to lack purpose? Not to say that correlation wouldn't mean much, But I do think it's very easy to look at those stats and draw conclusions that Gen Z is just about purpose. In fact, there's some interesting data to suggest it's a bit more nuanced and maybe a bit more traditional. So a Business Insider study about two years ago in 2024 said that Gen Z places high importance on competitive salary alongside things like flexibility and values alignment.

26:00Dr. Jake Tuber:So it's not just purpose. It's not like saying, sure, underpay me. I don't care as long as the work is meaningful. there is some baseline expectation that they get paid decently. But here's what I think is perhaps most interesting. I don't think this has much to do with Gen Z itself. I think this has to do with the fact that Gen Z is just currently the youngest, generally speaking, generation that's entirely in the workforce. This is more a life stage phenomenon than it is unique to Gen Z. And I'll tell you why I think that. I looked at some research dating back to the late 60s and early 70s. 1969, Rozak and others talked about the baby boom era youth being widely associated with values around anti-materialism and identity-driven values.

26:46Dr. Jake Tuber:Englehart and others, 1971, younger cohorts in affluent societies in particular, increasingly emphasizing things like self-expression and quality of life measures over material concerns. So those happened to be the early workplace generations at the time. And what do you know? They're finding the same things. Gen X, frequently characterized by things like institutional skepticism and a preference for work-life balance, along with emphasizing things like autonomy and personal fulfillment. Those are research articles from Small and Sutton, 2002, Sonamo and Gardner, 2008. And then millennials, gosh, millennials were described exactly the same way, according to Twenge et al.

27:26Dr. Jake Tuber:in 2010, as Gen Z are described today. So in general, I think that most of this, in fact, most generational research has much more to do with the life stage of that generation and what they do care about and can afford to care about than it is something particularly different about them. Here's the flip side, though. There are some reasons to think that Gen Z as a generation might be slightly different or at least intensified because this generation has a pretty unique cocktail of economic precarity. There's a digital identity culture that's embedded in them. There's a lot more institutional distrust, certainly here in the US and I believe globally as well.

28:06Dr. Jake Tuber:And then many of which entered the workforce right around the pandemic or just after where global workplace attitudes shifted. So it is possible that this generation is experiencing something slightly different, but I don't know if that's because they were nurture different or nature different. They're just finding themselves in a unique place to be in their 20s. So I think the most defensible research conclusion to the question of whether or not Gen Z really values purpose more than money is probably not that they're uniquely unconcerned with money. Rather, they appear to want meaning without sacrificing that financial security.

28:44Dr. Jake Tuber:And they may be less willing than previous generations to tolerate meaningless work purely for economic stability, especially when it's hard to believe that economic stability is worth the time investment up front. Interesting. I think this throws up a really, really important question, which is what the hell does economic precarity mean? I've never heard that word in my life. I don't know either. I just saw it online. You're lying. You lie. It's precariousness. It means trepidation. It means, you know, you're not in a great financially stable spot. Economic precarity. Right, cool. Got it. Lee, thoughts?

29:20I was chatting to somebody the other day. I was on somebody else's podcast actually, and they asked me about generations. like generations are such an interesting conversation such a such an uninteresting area of research because when we dig into it there's not really that much difference like you say that you know we look at kind of research among youth populations it's been the same you know since the boomers and and beyond you know before that as well um we're not that different and i think as well i agree with you i think there is something slightly different about the context of of gen z but equally i wonder how that will will play out if we do happen to maybe I don't know, one day see a bit more stability or indeed they age in a way that their careers require more stability, whether they have families, want to buy a house, etc.

30:03So I'll be interested to see how that plays out. But I also think on the flip side, it's like saying that millennials and Gen X and boomers don't care about meaningful work. It's like, of course, of course we do. Like in an ideal world, yeah, of course we would have work that is meaningful because that is a really important aspect of organizational life it's an important aspect of maintaining our well-being and avoiding burnout you know meaningful work is the biggest predictor of work engagement which is essentially the opposite psychological state of burnout so it's very very important for all of us to find some meaning and purpose in our life and I would also argue that since the pandemic I've seen a lot more of that shift in older generations how many people even just anecdotally out do we know who are like 40 plus who are having some significant career changes are starting a business or they're changing industries because they've reached a point where they've gone is this it so they're now pursuing meaningful work so it's like maybe gens that are just seeing it sooner because they've seen the disruption at the beginning of their career i don't know my thought is is we're not that different as the media wants us to believe.

31:15Dr. Jake Tuber:And I would add to that conversation that I do think we're seeing the rise of a few factors that might make not necessarily this group of people different from an evolutionary perspective, but create a combination of both instability and opportunity that obviously makes doing things a bit differently in terms of how much you prioritize purpose a bit more rational. So there's a couple of different features here, right? To your point about boomers, that was a generation that not only had generally more stability, but the way, at least in the US and certainly in Western Europe and other places, there was a certain employee-employer contract.

31:46Dr. Jake Tuber:You stayed in the job long enough. You did your time. Unless you did something egregious, you generally didn't get fired. You might not have a ton of economic upside, but you'd stay in your field, you'd move along, you'd get your pension, and then you'd leave. And then in the 1970s, that productivity sort of decoupled itself from labor intensity to some extent. So you had companies that could begin to grow and scale independent of just hiring more hands to do the labor. And once that happened, the risk balance started to shift as well. Companies sort of went away from, I'm going to provide you with your retirement if you stay here long enough to in the US anyway, here's your 401k, you own the risk of that, you invest it, you handle that.

32:25Dr. Jake Tuber:And so you started to really see the beginning of the shifts that are really at hyperspeed now, really about 40 to 50 years ago. And in today's world, you have two things. You have the lack of predictability. It isn't like I just entered the workforce, I do my time and it'll be okay. But you have two other factors as I see it, at least two major ones. First is for Gen X and millennials, they entered and have been consumed in a workforce that was different from prior generations in that work was something that could eat up your entire day and identity. And there was something nice prior to the existence of email that even if you had a knowledge work job, you went home at the end of the day, you could not keep doing your job.

33:14Dr. Jake Tuber:Whereas in today's world, work can be all consuming. And so if you can't find time to find purpose outside of work, because work never really shuts off. Yeah, it makes sense. You'd want more purpose out of your job. Not only was it just a deal that you made socially where I'm going to stay at this job. I'm going to go there from nine to five. I'll do that for 40 plus years. I'll get my pension. I retire. But you could find purpose outside of the hours of nine to five. For Gen X and millennials, you kind of grew up in a work environment where work was just always potentially on, depending on the nature of your job, of course.

33:50Dr. Jake Tuber:And so if that is something that can be all encompassing, it makes sense that progressively more and more generations are going to say, hang on a second. If work is something that never goes away, it better be purposeful. I can't have that second hobby, that second part of my identity, it's going to be more all-encompassing. So you have that factor. And then the second one is, in my mind, you also have more economic opportunity to go and do something differently now. It was hard to go start your own business a long time ago. The technology didn't exist. The geography was a constraint. Now you can go and say, hang on, I can go build this idea.

34:22Dr. Jake Tuber:I can vibe code it now myself. I mean, that's relatively new, but it's not that hard to think about pivoting. And so I think you see older generations who are over 40, Gen X, even boomers saying, hang on, is this really it? I want to do something differently. In the past, they would have been like, well, of course this is it. What am I going to go and do something? How do I get something started? Now you can start something at home at night until it blossoms into a full-time job that may just pay the bills, especially if you have a little savings built up. So I think you have a combination of general macroeconomic forces over the last 50 years, leading people to feel that economic precarity.

34:57Dr. Jake Tuber:Then you have the fact that if work is going to take up all your day or can be the only thing that continuously permeates every moment of your life, it better have more purpose. And now I have the opportunity to go and create something with more purpose. Yeah, let's fuck around and find out. Why not? I was telling a story to somebody the other day that when I was in my first job out of my master's, this would have been 2008 I it was when we lived in north Manchester and it was snowing really hard in north Manchester and I worked in south Manchester to the point where I couldn't see my car it was just one big snowball couldn't get out of the road I think I even tried didn't I and skidded at traffic lights and there'd been a crash further down so gave up turn around phone my boss like I'm really sorry I can't come in literally sent him pictures because I was afraid he wouldn't believe me because it never snows in south Manchester and it was the days where I didn't have a mobile phone for work i didn't have a laptop for work so i had the day off and now that would just never even happen and that's not that long ago i know i know anybody under 25 listening is like 2008 oh my god but it's not that long ago in terms of how quickly work has changed yeah absolutely absolutely interesting jake thank you yeah i'm a little what's the final verdict oh sorry no no no you're right what's the what's the final verdict the final verdict is it depends no So the final point is I do think Gen Z probably cares more about purpose and will hold on to that feeling more than any generation previously.

36:25Dr. Jake Tuber:But that's not because Gen Z is somehow neurologically wired differently or have all been babied. It's just a function of where they happen to find themselves as they're entering the workforce at this point in time. And they obviously need to hit a baseline of satisfying those economic concerns because at a certain point, it just doesn't matter how much you care about the job if you can't pay the bills. And I do think overall, it's fair to say Gen Z is the most purpose driven generation that we've had, even for generations early on in their working life. But I don't think that means they're willing to just eschew basic financial needs to pursue purpose.

37:01We had Oliver Yonchev on. He was a co-founder of a business with Stephen Bartlett. Flight Story. Flight Story. He's good mates with Stephen Bartlett, yeah. so we had him on and what do you say is like yeah we we do need gen gen z optimism but let's be honest they've just not been hit hard enough with the life stick yet wow i always get fired up when i when i listen to you dr jake i'm like yeah yeah yeah i want to i need a banner or something

37:25Dr. Jake Tuber:you know go that's exciting to hear because we started off this episode being like jake is here there's going to be profanity. And then Jake is here. So let's talk about restrooms. And I just feel like there's a lot of very subtle American bashing going on on this podcast. And so I'm glad to see that in the spirit of true America, I can at least bring some fire and passion to an otherwise, you know, relatively placid, organized conversation. I know. And I just want to apologize for the subtle American bashing and I will make it less subtle next time. Anyway, right. Come on. We need to get to the surgery time for my work.

38:03By the way, Jake, I'm guessing because you're a proper scientist and everything, you're going to give us the links to put in the show notes and all that to all those things.

38:08Dr. Jake Tuber:No, fuck you guys. Google yourself. Yeah,

38:14Dr. Jake Tuber:I'll send those over. No problem. Amazing. Okay, so we've got three questions here. I'm wondering, Lee, do you want me just to put the first bit to Jake, seeing as our guest? Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, and then you can jump in. All right. So, I've got to say, well, famous. I was just saying, well, famous. weekly web procedure, a public question to Leanne and Dr. Jake. Question number one, it's all about, they write, I promoted my best salesperson and it's disaster. So this person said, my salesperson was brilliant at selling, very tenacious, persuasive, brilliant with clients, but as a manager, she's an absolute disaster.

38:45She micromanages, can't delegate, and a team's turnover is through the roof. Oh, team's turnover, oh, of staff. I see, I thought you meant turnover of revenue. I create this problem by promoting her, and now I have to either move her back, which will humiliate her, or keep watching the team fall apart. Dr. Jake, I think the core question is, can you undo a promotion without destroying someone's confidence or credibility?

39:08Dr. Jake Tuber:Probably not in the short term, but I kind of object to the premise of this question, right? I think, yes, the question is a good one. How do you undo a promotion without destroying someone's confidence or credibility? You probably don't. I think the disaster here, though, to be blunt, lies with the person who promoted them, not the ineffectiveness of the manager. First of all, stop me if you've heard this before. Salesperson gets promoted to management and suddenly isn't as good at the job. I mean, that is the most classic example of you went from being a doer to being a person who manages others and doesn't do a great job.

39:43Dr. Jake Tuber:It's a very different role to go out and sell versus manage people who go out and sell. Maybe more so than any other transition to management, that is the most cliche example of where managers struggle. So you've got to know to some extent that this person has to be potentially up against it. But I think the issue here, the disaster, frankly, is putting someone in a position where they're going to fail and then looking at it as like, well, I've either got to let them fail or I've got to demote them. No, you've got to coach them. You've got to invest. This is not a sunk cost fallacy to invest time in them.

40:14Dr. Jake Tuber:You put them in this position because you think they have the potential hopefully to manage, not just because they're the best seller and they could be the person who manages the other sellers. Go and coach them. Give them the opportunities. I would say there's two things you need to do. One, they need to make sure they're getting the feedback to know where they're struggling and why, have concrete understanding of what success looks like. But ideally, then the conversation has much more of a coaching cadence than a supervisory, you must do this cadence. And it's asking them about where they're seeing their gaps, what kind of support they want, how to put a plan together.

40:45Dr. Jake Tuber:You're using much more of a curiosity perspective in trying to help them be successful. And ideally, the person who sent this in makes their most important job facilitating this person's success as a manager, not figuring out how to get a better manager in their spot because they're going to either demote them or let them fail. So I absolutely understand the challenges this person is in. I don't want to sound too harsh. It's tough to see somebody that you've promoted to manager really struggle. That's on you. That's your responsibility. If you put them in that position, you've got to give them at least sufficient time and tools to succeed.

41:18Dr. Jake Tuber:If after some coaching, if after a real try, they don't make it, try to move them to a role where they're going to be successful. It's not necessarily a demotion. It's just a recognition of their skillset and where it's best utilized. They may opt out, but this is on this person to coach them up, not just demote them with grace. I certainly know that is a really tough transition for a lot of really talented individual contributor sales folks to move into management. It's something that's been written about a great deal. And that is a very common challenge. But it is certainly one that you can work on if you aspire to be a senior leader and oversee others and you have a sales background.

41:52Dr. Jake Tuber:Even if it's not what you deem your natural skill set, they are very much learnable skills if you're willing to put in the time and energy. Excellent. Lee, any thoughts on that? I agree. The skills are different, aren't they? Is it the Peter principle? You're promoted to your level of incompetence. And I think we see that in sales more than any other kind of vertical. I always think you're better going for the person who's kind of mid salesperson but showing really positive like pro-social skills in terms of collaboration and communication and teamwork and all that kind of stuff. Handle this very very carefully.

42:26I agree with everything Jake said this is all about coaching and supporting that person before anything else. I was demurited from my first management role and it is it is humiliating it is so hard I wasn't struggling with the team aspect of things in terms of recruiting them and training them and managing them I was absolutely fine on that mine was well kind of the upside and the finance side that was just out my depth I was 27 completely out my depth um but my in my demotion to a smaller area still as a manager my manager stepped up and became much more of a coach to me much more of a mentor to me taught me all the things I needed to know, supported me, really hands on at first, stepped back over time, gave me more autonomy when I felt confident and he felt confident in that as well.

43:11Lots of coaching conversations. And I ended up getting promoted above the role that I got demoted from. So you can absolutely turn this around with the right support. So your energy right now needs to go on protecting this person. And because it could have a huge ripple impact on the rest of their career. So you need to put in some effort to see if you can turn this around.

43:30Dr. Jake Tuber:I'm not surprised that you were able to turn around that way with the help of some great coaching. It does make me curious about this notion of getting demoted. This is purely anecdotal. I'm going to go and look this up. I would encourage our listeners to let us know what they think about it, what they've experienced. I feel like demotions happen less now than they used to. I think in today's world, if you get in a role that you're not good at, they may just move you elsewhere or quote unquote, manage you out of the organization. I don't hear many stories of somebody being in a role and them saying, we like you, you're not good at this job.

44:06Dr. Jake Tuber:So we're literally going to drop you back down a level that just doesn't seem to happen. And I wonder, is that just my very limited set of observational data here? Is that actually true? But I do not feel like I've heard in years, an actual story of somebody truly being demoted, or at least it being called the demotion, even if in practice, that's effectively what happened when you go from managing a large team to being put, you know, off in a corner somewhere. The notion of demotion, the demotion notion, as they say. I wonder if that has actually diminished over time. I would love to hear whether others would agree with that.

44:45Dr. Jake Tuber:Maybe it differs from geography from one place to place. Yeah. There we go. There we go. That's your new TED talk. The notion of demotion. I like it i like it okay on to question number two this person says they're a hypocrite but they don't know quite how to stop so they write i tell my team to take breaks protect their evenings and ask for help when they're struggling however i never do any of these things myself i'm always the last one to leave the first one in and the only person who can't switch off at weekends because the business is always on my mind i know i'm a hypocrite and i know it's unsustainable but I don't know how to lead a well-being culture when I can't model it myself.

45:22Wow, interesting. So they already know, they know a lot about this because people don't usually use the words model it myself. They're watching this and do you, Liam, and you, Dr. Jake. The last question is, is this just what it costs to own a business? Dr. Jake.

45:36Dr. Jake Tuber:I certainly think that part of owning a business and running it is that it's always on your mind and it never goes away. That's just been my personal experience. I work with a lot of founders, CEOs, and that is how they're wired. It's, it ultimately falls back on you. You don't usually just put it away. So I do think to some extent that is part of the cost of, of owning a business, if you will. I absolutely love the desire to create a culture of wellbeing if they think that it benefits the business. And generally speaking, cultures of wellbeing do benefit businesses in most cases. So I absolutely love and commend this effort to do it.

46:13Dr. Jake Tuber:I would say, to be blunt, you've probably got two options. You've either got to force yourself to live it or you've got to force yourself to interact with the rest of your business in a way that doesn't pull any one of those directions. That means if you're thinking about the business and need to get something sent after hours, you delay send it so it doesn't hit their inbox until 9.15 the next morning. That means that if there's conversations that you might want to have that might make your day a little bit easier the next day, but might make someone's evening a little bit more intense for them, you simply sacrifice it and don't do it.

46:46Dr. Jake Tuber:So you don't have to stop thinking about it, but you have to stop putting others in a position where they need to be thinking about it. And so it doesn't necessarily mean you need to model it so much as you need to engender it. You need to create the interactivity and the communication circumstances. And I would say also you can do this from policy. So you can put into place policies around not using certain devices at certain hours or guaranteeing that people are inaccessible at certain times. And then you have to hold yourself accountable to those policies, not just your intuitions. So I would say put into place well-being based policies and then accountability mechanisms that force you to be beholden to them, whether that's shutting off your email servers for certain hours or doing certain things that, you know, a little bit more of a technological intervention.

47:31Dr. Jake Tuber:I absolutely think there's ways, but the best way to do it is to create a set of norms and explicit rules that are, generally speaking, more explicit rule than just norm. Write those down, codify them, and then think of yourself just as an employee as anyone else, and you are beholden to that. Because you may not be able to model not thinking about the business off hours, but you can certainly create circumstances and situations where you have no choice but not to be interacting with the business and your employees during those hours. Nicely. Yeah, I love that. What's interesting about this question is you haven't really given us any clues as to whether the team is struggling with their well-being or whether it's just or they're doing great, but you're struggling.

48:13But I agree. Yeah, those kind of having those policies and those firm procedures in place will absolutely help you to model it. The other thing I'd say as well is that sometimes it's just about optics. so if you're always the first one in and always the last one to leave it's going to be really hard for your team to believe that behavioral they're okay to not be the first one in and and and leave on time you're going to kind of unconsciously set this expectation of what success is needed or needs to happen to achieve success in this organization so maybe just maybe go to a coffee shop around the corner for the first hour or leave on time and do some work at home maybe a couple of days a week just to give that visual that you are leaving at a time that that everybody else is leaving as well the other thing i'd say that again kind of looking at the question probably over analyzing but you say i know it's unsustainable i want to pick up on that yeah that seems to me that you're already knowing it's unsustainable because you're starting to experience a level of stress that is starting to impact other areas of your your work and or life so i'm with jake there might be an element of forcing yourself to to actually try and switch off or at least engage in other non-work activities at weekends even if your mind is still on work um it's all those things in the exercise mindfulness can be really great spending time with friends and family I actually spoke to an entrepreneur once who actually scheduled this in their diary in the same way they scheduled everything else so they scheduled their weekends like 10 to 12 I go to the gym and then meet John for a coffee afterwards one to two I go and play football with the kids three to five I spend some time with the wife literally would scheduled it out to to help him stay on track with these activities and he he explained to me that he felt the easier to to keep track of because it almost in his mind he framed it as work it's part of my work responsibilities and entrepreneur business owners do this sustainably to engage in non-work-related activities so maybe something like that might help if you are a little more um if you're keen to to plan.

50:16Dr. Jake Tuber:I think it can often trip people up if they feel like they need to make a mindset shift and convince themselves they need to switch off. I don't think that works. I think the same thing that makes you an entrepreneur, that makes you a business owner might really prevent that. I agree that things like mindfulness, I love the idea of scheduling off moments, absolutely hacks to help, but you may not be able to switch up that belief that you need to be thinking about the business. So what I would encourage someone like this or business owners out there to similarly think about is not forcing yourself to switch off, but rather forcing yourself to think about being productive in a longer time horizon.

50:53Dr. Jake Tuber:In other words, if you're like, I need to be on all the time right now thinking about the business, that is going to burn you out. It's going to be unsustainable. And you know that. That means you're thinking about the short term. That means you're addicted to feeling like I need to be in motion all the time or I'm not making progress. I want you to not think about switching off, but rather thinking about running a marathon, not a sprint every day. And so you need to be thinking about operating at a pace that will allow you to grow your business over time the way you're telling yourself, your spouse, your investors, whomever.

51:27Dr. Jake Tuber:Not operating at a pace that only allows you to get through each day feeling like you've accomplished a lot. We get addicted to that feeling of day-to-day business motion when we know rationally we need to be operating in a way that scales long term. So rather than trying to convince yourself to think about this as a matter of, I've just got to find a way to switch off, the shift in thinking is, I've got to think like a business owner who's planning long term. Because that is still a business choice you're making, not a personal one. And it is about being the kind of CEO and business owner that you'd want to work for who's thinking about the long term success of the business and the behaviors today that will get you there, not someone who's just operating every day because it satisfies that underlying need of if I don't feel like I'm doing something right now I'm failing when Leanne and I first met I was building my third business and in fact probably the one that given us about 80 % of our wealth isn't it and I did it for 18 months and I built a business I worked till you know midnight every day I even said to Leanne I was all I was that person I said Leanne I can see you for three hours on a Thursday this is better genuinely it's like a third date I can see you for three hours on a Thursday if that's no good then I totally understand but I'm building this thing and one evening at the weekend and one evening the weekend no you did you gave me a scheduled but I think this is where you you recognize that you you wanted and needed that kind of social interaction another aspect of life you were building alongside your business so you found time and it was up to me to go is that enough at the time I was 22 23 so I was like yeah cool I'm still living with my mates great see on Saturday you know it kind of works but I think what's what's great is that you you were aware that you needed to prioritize time even if it was only a little bit for another aspect of your life and i think this this is a great tip for for this person writing in absolutely i was just like leanne i could see you this saturday i only need six minutes so how about 9 p.m and then i'll get back to work exactly we could do it twice Nice.

53:23So I love that. I love that. Okay, now on to question number three. I'm hoping that it's not too serious because of my laughter. Okay, so how do you balance loyalty with honesty? One of my first employees has been with me for seven years. She's loyal. She cares. She knows everything about how we work, but she's also stopped growing. The business has moved on and she hasn't moved with it. Having the conversation feels like a betrayal of everything she's given me. How do you balance loyalty with honesty? And at what point does avoiding the conversation become its own form of disrespect?

53:55Dr. Jake Tuber:It sounds like she needs to have a talk with this person about the fact that she isn't keeping up with the business. And that's hard because this has been an early employee, cares deeply, knows everything about the business. I think there's an obvious podcast host answer here, which is being honest is being loyal, right? There's a bit of like, if you really are loyal to what they should care about, you have to be honest with that. And I think that's true. I don't want to just be facetious about that. I do think that in general, if you do really care about them, if you're loyal to them as a long term person, etc., you should be able to have hard conversations with them.

54:29Dr. Jake Tuber:You should be able to talk about them and frankly, to ignore something that is going to be potentially perilous for them is I don't know if I'd say disrespectful, but yeah, sure, it's not good. I think the harder question here is how do you actually go about broaching this topic of conversation? How do you suddenly say to somebody, hey, I know we haven't talked about this in a while, but you're not quite cutting it anymore. That is a tough topic. And Leanne, I certainly have thoughts, but I would love to kick it to you and say, like, how would you think about actually voicing these concerns? Not whether or not you should, because I think we can all agree you're not doing anybody a favor, both this person and the organization.

55:08Dr. Jake Tuber:To have somebody who's just not doing well in their job lagging there for a long time simply because they were, you know, an early employee. So how do you go about starting that conversation? My thought is always to gather the data, right? And I'd want to start with that person and check in with them. If you're growing at a point where you maybe don't have one-to-ones as regularly as you did or don't check in in the same way that you might have done when they were one of your first employees. And sitting down and having that conversation, just checking in like, are they all right? What's going on?

55:36How's life? what else is happening in your world maybe there's something completely outside of work that's having an impact on this individual and their growth within the organization or their approach to work it could be absolutely nothing to do with work and entirely about something else so that would be my place to start is to just check in with this person and see how things are going in general and then second I'd look at well what's what data do I have that this person has stopped growing what data do I have that this person isn't cutting it or isn't keeping up the rest of the team if it's just a feeling or a gut or you just got some fresh faces in who are really enthusiastic that's not good enough to go and have that conversation a way that's going to be constructive and helpful you're going to have to look at performance data you're going to have to look at sign up to to training or or how often this person puts their hand up to to help with different projects you're going to need those those data points to go to this person say look I actually didn't sign up for any training programs in the last six months I noticed that performance wise you know you kind of drop down 20 % or so and then you can talk about as a performance conversation yes there is a personal aspect of this and it's really freaking hard I've been in this situation so it's also important to remember that in terms of of growing a business and the team that will help you do that the people that got you from you know from startup to where you are now might not be the people who are going to get you from where you are now to where you want to be in the future that might take different skill sets it might take different competencies and attitudes it might just take a different you know somebody who wants to work in an organization that's scaling rather than one that's in startup so this has to be back of your your mind as well but i'd always start start with the data do you know it's funny i was um there's a there's a podcast well i'm sure everyone knows a podcast called my first million uh which is uh brought to you by the hubspot podcast network the uh i say that because it's not contractually mentioned to say but i was listening to it and gary v you know gary vaynerchuk he was on it and he said he found in one of his first when he first had a vayner media i think is his company there was a facebook group of eight people who who just shit posted just shit talked him hated him absolutely hated him and he found out about this and he said can you do some research the person who was like looking into him and or each one of those eight people were the people who he'd he probably put off firing for 18 months because they were there from the beginning he put off firing for 18 months and he's now reached out to all of them he's now friends with most of them everything's okay but his point was shit man i thought i was being a great manager by saying yeah all right see you after the weekend while i'm planning their exit over the weekend and actually i should have just gone dude we need to talk this isn't the bad news you're gonna be let go today sort of thing anyway but don't do by the way don't take that as advice on how to get like how to fire people that's not that is not advice it's a common problem is what you're saying Yeah, yeah.

58:27Dr. J.

58:28Dr. Jake Tuber:I would also add, too, that I agree with you, Leanne, and that conversation is probably more than one conversation. That first conversation is probably fact-finding. It's not about you – yes, you may want to come with the data to back up your evidence that the business has moved on and they have not. But it's not about dumping the data at them right away. It's about sitting down with them and saying, how are you going? How do you feel about where your career is going, where the business is going? not because you're trying for an angle to jump in there when they say the right thing and say, well, I'm glad you said that because I've been waiting to talk to you.

59:00Dr. Jake Tuber:It's not that. It's actually just learning a little bit and framing this about understanding them first. What are their goals? What are their priorities? How does that align with the business? Do a little fact finding about where they are in their own journey upfront, then have a conversation later. Because if you do that upfront, it allows you to come back to them and say, hey, you know, in our last conversation, you said XYZ about your goals, your priorities, etc. I was looking at that in combination with where we've been going and where we're going to keep going. And I'm noticing some divergence here.

59:28Dr. Jake Tuber:How can we reconcile that together? It just gives you a much greater opportunity to have them be a partner to you in moving forward, as opposed to you feeling like you need to level the hammer in a single conversation and tell them they've screwed up. So start with understanding what they want to achieve, where their goals are, etc. And you'll be able to have a much more productive conversation that allows you to frame both the business interests and their interests in a mutually inclusive way. Agreed. I also think as well, this is a really good opportunity for you as a leader and manager to get in the habit of having these conversations more regularly, because the best managers do, don't they, Jake?

1:00:03The best managers will have these conversations, know exactly what the goals are of their employees and where they want to take their career. We've spoken to managers, haven't we, through our work, who know that their employee is going to leave in three years because they want to retrain to go and do something entirely different, but they're supporting them through that because they know they've got three great years and three years of excellent work. So I think if you're open to having these conversations constantly, then you won't get blindsided or surprised. And certainly these conversations won't feel as awkward.

1:00:32Dr. Jake Tuber:Certainly a hallmark of effective management is one where no one is ever really blindsided to learn almost anything. I mean, that's not always possible. Your company is going to make new announcements that have to be kept under wraps for a while. It's only the first time you hear about some underperformance has to be new to you. There has to be a first time for everything. But certainly there should never be these big moments where it's an annual review conversation or it's just a conversation that's long overdue and you've had to have, and you're giving someone a very meaty piece of information for the first time.

1:01:04Dr. Jake Tuber:Ideally, good performance management means they're getting enough consistent data and feedback that by the time you're having the conversation, it's obvious to them what's been going on. And this is a necessary conversation to have to figure out what's next, not one where you finally give them the information that they have been searching for or needed and didn't know. Absolutely. Brilliant. Thank you so much, Dr. Jake Chuba, Leanne Elliott. Next Thursday, we are joined by Vince Sanderson, expert in leadership and management development. Huge on the TikTok. Huge on the TikTok. Got 26 and a half million views, I think, on TikTok.

1:01:40You know, big, big, big cheese but also just a genuinely lovely guy and he's from the north well almost the north of england um and uh yeah we prefer people from the north of england than north america i think to be fair but at least you're from the north jake that's the main thing exactly uh if you want to join us and people have given us loads of feedback by the way on this kind of format we do bring on a guest so if there's someone you can think of who you might want to bring back i know dr jake's coming back really looking forward to that dr jake thank you so so much um what are you up to now Are you going to go off and make up more words like economic precarity?

1:02:13Dr. Jake Tuber:The rest of my day consists of a few calls and crying in the corner about being insulted as the American on the show. Love it. Love it. Okay, make sure you go and check out Dr. Chegg. Make sure you go and check out his LinkedIn. No, I don't think he is doing a book, is he? No, we won't mention that. Lee, anything to add before we let people go? Just the usual subscribe, leave a review. we've had some lovely reviews recently actually from from american listeners um so so clearly they like us jake it's not it's not us it's you um so yeah leave us a review it really does help people to find this show get over to linkedin during the conversation uh that's where i post and where i'll start posting recently as well if you haven't seen the beautiful painting that he did over the weekend go and check it out do not yeah i'll leave all the links in the show notes see you soon