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Paula Davis: From Burnout to Bold Breakthrough- What Every Leader Needs to Know · The Bold Lounge

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: My name is Leigh Burgess and I will be your host.
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: If you're anything like me, you love hearing inspiring stories of people who have gone on bold journeys and made a positive impact in the world.
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: This podcast is all about those kinds of stories.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: Every week, we'll hear from someone who has taken a leap or embarked on an extraordinary journey.
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: In addition to hearing their stories, we'll also learn about their bold growth mindset that they use to make things happen.
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: Whether they face challenges or doubts along the way, they persisted and ultimately achieved their goals.
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: These impactful stories will leave you feeling motivated and inspired to pursue your own bold journey.
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: I believe everyone has a bold story waiting to be freed.
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: Tune in and get ready to be inspired.
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: Today I have Paula Davis, and she is the founder and CEO of the Stress and Resilience Institute.
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: For 15 years, she's been a trusted advisor to leaders and organizations of all sizes, helping them to make work better.
• 1:12
  Speaker 1: Paula is a globally recognized expert on the effects of workplace stress, burnout prevention, workplace well-being and building resilience for individuals and teams.
• 1:21
  Speaker 1: Paula left her law practice after seven years and earned a master's degree in applied positive psychology from the University of Pennsylvania.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: As part of her postgraduate training, paula was selected to be part of the University of Pennsylvania faculty teaching and training resilience skills to soldiers as part of the Army's comprehensive soldier and family fitness program.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: Paula is the author also of Beating Burnout at Work why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being and Resilience.
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: Paula is the author also of Beating Burnout at Work why Teams Hold the Secret to Well-Being and Resilience, which is about burnout prevention using a team-based approach.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Beating Burnout at Work was nominated for the Best New Book by the New Big Idea Club, which is curated by Adam Grant, susan Cain, malcolm Godwell and Daniel Pink.
• 2:01
  Speaker 1: Paula has shared her expertise at educational institutions such as Harvard Law School, wharton School, executive Education and Princeton.
• 2:08
  Speaker 1: She's a two-time recipient of the Distinguished Teaching Award from the Medical College of Wisconsin.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Excited to have you today on the Bold Lounge and to jump into everything being bold, really about beating burnout and resilience, as well as your new book, lead Well, which is about mindsets to engage, retain and inspire your team.
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: Welcome to the Bold Lounge.
• 2:29
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, Leigh.
• 2:30
  Speaker 2: I'm excited to be here.
• 2:32
  Speaker 1: So we'll jump right in.
• 2:33
  Speaker 1: We did some things in the green room just to get acquainted and talk about primarily skiing honestly and how we want to have fun when we're outside.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: But we'll jump into being bold and obviously some of the things that we do in our lives to have fun and to really go forward in our lives professionally and personally are bold moves.
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: So how do you define being bold?
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: What does it look like in your world?
• 2:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I gave this a lot of thought and I really think about it as the ability to take risks and just be confident and courageous, especially as you're thinking about whether or not to take those risks.
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: So just being able to actually take the risk, make the commitment to take the steps which feel risky or feel uncertain, and do it anyway.
• 3:18
  Speaker 1: Yes, exactly.
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: So what is an example in your life where you live that definition?
• 3:26
  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because, as I reflected on this, I have thought I'm I've been very much a rule follower most of my life, and so I feel like so.
• 3:36
  Speaker 2: So courage is actually now one of my three core values, and I feel like it's the one that I probably stumbled upon later in life than the other two, and I think I still find the hardest to to sort of exert or to show.
• 3:52
  Speaker 2: But I think about, you know, certainly leaving my law practice after seven years you know I burned out during what became the last year of my law practice and leaving that to pursue a.
• 4:03
  Speaker 2: To pursue, you know, something entrepreneurial, to talk about a topic that was not being widely talked about at the time Workplace well-being was not on a lot of people's radar back in 2009 and 2010, you know and to really want to try and establish myself as a thought leader in something that was new.
• 4:22
  Speaker 2: Certainly, I think looking back on it now is probably somewhat of a bold choice.
• 4:26
  Speaker 2: And then I would also say personally, you know, my daughter is eight and a half, she's almost nine, and she came into our world through adoption, and so, you know, we had tried to have kids and I went through two rounds of IVF and I actually got to a point where I said to myself I think I want to, or I know I want to be a mom, but I don't actually want to be pregnant and carry a child.
• 4:49
  Speaker 2: So if that's the case, how do we accomplish that?
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: And it was, it was really.
• 4:53
  Speaker 2: It was kind of a scary thing to admit to myself that that's how I wanted to approach or go into motherhood, but it you know, obviously you know everything happens for a reason and it was completely meant to be and couldn't imagine having become a mother any other way.
• 5:09
  Speaker 2: So those are two.
• 5:11
  Speaker 2: Those are two bigger examples.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: So what do you think they have in common?
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: So, making the choice to quit your job and, you know, getting to the point of burnout where you have to make a choice.
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: My choice was like between my health and my family, my relationships and my job, and I really there was no question what I needed to do, but it was so scary to do what I did.
• 5:29
  Speaker 1: So that's one thing.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: And then so you quit your job, and the other thing is really admitting to like how I want to be a mom, but I don't want to do it the way most people do, potentially, and so I may be seen as different or not as good or not willing.
• 5:45
  Speaker 1: You know there's a lot of negative connotation.
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: As a woman, I think that comes along.
• 5:49
  Speaker 1: So what do you think those two bold moves have in common?
• 5:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean I think that you know both of them.
• 5:55
  Speaker 2: I think I started on the path of doing what I thought should have been done.
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 6:00
  Speaker 2: What is the conventional way of you know, going about things?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: Right?
• 6:03
  Speaker 2: I was a high achiever.
• 6:04
  Speaker 2: I always got good grades.
• 6:05
  Speaker 2: You know, I need to do something.
• 6:07
  Speaker 2: Quote lofty people are expecting me to be successful, and so I never had any sort of pull to the legal profession.
• 6:15
  Speaker 2: But that's the path that I ended up choosing, because I thought it sounded very lofty and fancy and that's, you know, something that people will, you know, see me as doing Kind of what we were also taught to do right Go to school, get a degree, have a profession.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Like being an entrepreneur never was an option and, like my family, never talked about that honestly.
• 6:33
  Speaker 2: Yeah and well, and for me I actually I really honestly knew I did want to be an entrepreneur at some point, because my parents had been in business.
• 6:41
  Speaker 2: So that's the intro.
• 6:42
  Speaker 2: Yeah, the beginning part of the of the book is me recounting.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: How you know, my dad took this leap as well.
• 6:48
  Speaker 2: That was his bold move back when I was young and my brother was really young to start a business, and that was really the world that I grew up in, and so I quite know how to make that entrepreneurial step happen.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Or I really honestly didn't think about it Right, because I was in the middle of this is what you know, the steps that you're supposed to take and it wasn't until my health really started to suffer because of the burnout that you know.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: It was sort of like a pushing point or a point where I was just like I'm not willing to sacrifice my health anymore for a job, so let's figure this out.
• 7:20
  Speaker 2: And then it was sort of make the active decision and it was.
• 7:23
  Speaker 2: I think the same thing with motherhood is sort of like I kept going down the road of what I thought I should do or what is sort of the conventional path, until you know you finally hit a brick wall.
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: You know I'd gone through two rounds of IVF and both were unsuccessful.
• 7:36
  Speaker 2: So you start to think to yourself okay, I could keep doing this, and it's super expensive, and I could keep going along this way, and then you sort of have to be really honest with yourself and say this isn't what I want.
• 7:46
  Speaker 2: This is really what I want, and so I think that's the common thread, right?
• 7:49
  Speaker 2: Both were here's what I'm supposed to do in theory.
• 7:52
  Speaker 2: So I'm going to start doing that and then realizing, you know, after the journey has been had and being honest with myself, that you know, no, this is really what I want to do.
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: Yeah, so there's a definite commonality of getting clear with yourself, right?
• 8:06
  Speaker 1: And that's why I think belief is so important, so kind of what we do, and it really is a lever off of all of our actions, our self belief and what we believe about ourselves and what we believe about possibilities that can occur.
• 8:18
  Speaker 1: So I feel like you definitely have some you know, octane of self belief and in your actions and also intentionality with like, just being real with yourself, like I don't want this, I want this, I don't care if someone says x, I'm going to do y, you know, even though they're expecting me to do z, you know.
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: So you're not conforming in a way that is compromising your values.
• 8:41
  Speaker 1: Where that was the for me, the misalignment in my burnout was I was not aligned with my values anymore, I was totally out of alignment.
• 8:49
  Speaker 1: I had reset the warning light a thousand times, right, and so I think you know that was definitely something that I heard in your story about you know the tenacity, the resilience also, but just the getting clear with who you are and doing it anyway, which goes back to your definition of you know connected to you, know there's risk, but you have the courage and the bravery to do it anyway.
• 9:10
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think I don't.
• 9:11
  Speaker 2: You know, launching into some.
• 9:13
  Speaker 2: You know the commonality that we have with the burnout.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: I don't think a lot of people realize that.
• 9:17
  Speaker 2: You know one of the root causes of burnout can be values misalignment right, that's.
• 9:22
  Speaker 2: You know.
• 9:23
  Speaker 2: I realized that I want certain things from my world of work, or I need certain things from my world of work, and these are the important pieces of you.
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: Know who I am.
• 9:31
  Speaker 2: Can I show that in my world of work?
• 9:34
  Speaker 2: And if I can, and my organization or my team is very aligned with you know sort of what I'm bringing to the table in terms of values, that's fantastic.
• 9:42
  Speaker 2: But when there's a mismatch and the misalignment happens, especially if it's a stark misalignment, that can really lead to a lot of stress for folks.
• 9:50
  Speaker 2: And I feel like maybe sometimes early on in our career, a lot of us are so busy about like we're just putting our head down, we're trying to learn, we're trying to achieve, we're trying to accomplish, but at some point, as we start to advance in our career, that that meaning piece, that values piece, that am I aligned with, is this what I want?
• 10:08
  Speaker 2: You know, sort of conversation starts to happen more if that need isn't being met.
• 10:15
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I had like a moment in my early forties which I think that's probably where at least initial signs of it showed up.
• 10:21
  Speaker 1: 48 was when I made the choice to leave because I needed to.
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: I think for me it started showing up.
• 10:28
  Speaker 1: I'm like is this it?
• 10:29
  Speaker 1: Like, is this?
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I worked really hard to get where I am.
• 10:32
  Speaker 1: I'm a chief at 40.
• 10:34
  Speaker 1: I love the work that I do, the meaning in the work that I do, but I'm not sure this is what I want to do for 25 more years, you know, because waiting to live my life till 65, like wasn't anything I ever lived by, and so I think it was just an interesting time for me, like, if I look back, like I think that was one of the moments along the way that I was seeing that, you know, feeling that happened for me.
• 10:57
  Speaker 1: And I love that you point that out, because I think that to me was probably the biggest indicator initially was the values misalignment, for sure.
• 11:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and I think that I love your phrase waiting to live my life Right, I think, yet to a point where that's just not acceptable anymore and, whether it's by virtue of having a big birthday or a big life event has happened.
• 11:18
  Speaker 2: That's one of the things that I write about in Lead.
• 11:21
  Speaker 2: Well, that I think leaders still really miss is the evolution that a lot of people had in this exact type of thinking process that the pandemic caused for a lot of people to really stop and say am I on the right path?
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: Is this really what I want to do?
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: This doesn't feel right.
• 11:44
  Speaker 2: I want to do something different and really forced people to wrestle with asking themselves those questions, because otherwise I don't think we do that a lot right.
• 11:49
  Speaker 2: And you know, it's not like I'm 22 and I'm thinking to myself what do I want out of life and what is you know, what do I value?
• 11:55
  Speaker 2: You know, again, you're sort of just head down, trying to kind of learn and become good at whatever it is that you're pursuing, and so I think it's important for leaders to understand that.
• 12:05
  Speaker 2: You know, even though we're kind of beyond the pandemic and everyone's to kind of forget about it, the psychological effects from it are long lasting and that has led to a lot of people seeking deeper meaning and you know I want meaning and growth and some of the you know I want to know that I matter and that I'm making an impact in my work.
• 12:26
  Speaker 2: That thought process has been amplified.
• 12:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah, like I love the word evolution and becoming and I think we should always be kind of evolving and learning and growing, and so it just doesn't stop at a certain point or a certain title or a certain level of salary.
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: So I think a lot of the times we think that's what brings us happiness or what brings us joy in our life.
• 12:48
  Speaker 1: And I was on a call yesterday with a team and it was such a mature response.
• 12:53
  Speaker 1: Someone said I asked what do you want more or less of in this year?
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: And it was more dependence on happiness and higher dependence on contentment and meaning that I'm okay, I can find joy and worth and value in this moment, even though this moment is messy, right.
• 13:11
  Speaker 1: And so she wanted to get to a point where she could be able to say that versus it had to be perfect or it had to be at the highest level.
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: So I just thought you know that reminded me of that statement that was made yesterday by someone who's kind of going through the bold moves right now as she's figuring out what's next.
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I love the word, I love the word contentment.
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: I think it's just a very lovely, just sort of like.
• 13:33
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm just, I'm good.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: Yeah, you know, or satisfied, or you know I'm trying to think of some synonyms for it, but it feels like a more permanent emotion or permanent state to me than happiness.
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's like I like alignment better than balance.
• 13:49
  Speaker 1: You can get out of both of them.
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: I just feel like alignment can last a little longer than balance, which is feels like a moment in time, like that's what it's all about.
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: Yeah so yeah.
• 13:59
  Speaker 1: So alignment and contentment, I think, are key things to hone in on.
• 14:03
  Speaker 1: So what made you want to go from meeting burnout at work to creating a book around mindsets which is lead well?
• 14:11
  Speaker 1: What was the transition for you moving from one to the other?
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so I had the opportunity to really dig into, you know, of course.
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: So my work has really fallen under the probably, I would say, the big umbrella of well being or positive psychology, since that's what my master's degree is in positive organizational psychology.
• 14:27
  Speaker 2: But I've tended to largely focus in that space around resilience and then obviously around burnout prevention.
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: A team or to a group of leaders to talk about burnout or to talk about you know, more team stuff, or resilience and team stuff.
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: I really found myself having a front row seat to a lot of angst and a lot of challenges that they were talking about in real time.
• 14:53
  Speaker 2: You know, just just different struggles around.
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: You know, like unmanageable workloads and we have a really hard time and don't prioritize like recognizing and understanding people, helping them see where they have an impact.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: We're trying to figure out this whole community thing.
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: How do we stay connected when we're trying to figure out remote work versus hybrid work, versus you know in person and what have you?
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: And so I realized that you know, group after group, I was hearing very similar challenges and a lot of leaders and a lot of people generally just feeling really frustrated Like I don't know what to do, I don't know where to start.
• 15:29
  Speaker 2: They don't teach this stuff in leadership development training and I don't have any sort of skills or frameworks or strategies to help me sort of advance this conversation.
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: You know, if I sense there's stress on the team, I might just quickly like push the person to HR and then hopefully HR can help fix the problem or we can have a stress management training or what have you.
• 15:50
  Speaker 2: And then I realized that no one was really digging into sort of the root causes or issues of why these conversations, why these things, why these problems were happening.
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: And then there were a lot of factors associated with that.
• 16:02
  Speaker 2: And so I started to think about that and sort through all of that and realize, kind of like peeling back layers of an onion, like what are all of the issues that I'm hearing?
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: How can I put them in one package?
• 16:12
  Speaker 2: And if I had to sort of turn that into help for leaders and for teams and people in organizations, what would that look like?
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: And for me I kept coming back to the notion that I want leaders to start thinking differently about a lot of this.
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: Right, and if they are going to think differently, what do those mindsets need to look like?
• 16:32
  Speaker 2: And maybe those could be the pathways that could help lead them to some potential skills or frameworks or answers to help their team just feel more engaged or motivated or thrive or, you know, more resilient whatever positive word you want to put in there.
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: So that's really how that came about, and I realized too that you know a lot of the conversation that I was having around burnout was very leader focused, right, a lot of the root causes or sources of burnout are certainly under the influence of leaders to help manage and usher through and, if not, completely fix or mitigate, but to certainly, you know, help.
• 17:06
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, so that's.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: I just put all of those pieces together and packaged it in a way that you know my message is we're going to think differently about how to get to well-being or advance the conversation or actually do something to prevent burnout.
• 17:18
  Speaker 2: Here's what we have to be thinking about.
• 17:20
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: So expanding the mindset really honestly about where does you know?
• 17:24
  Speaker 1: We're not just talking about burnout.
• 17:26
  Speaker 1: We want to prevent it.
• 17:27
  Speaker 1: We want you to actually be able to lead and support your team with strategies and tactical things that we can be doing every day.
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I do think you know just from my firsthand experience with burnout I don't blame it on anybody but me, honestly, I think.
• 17:42
  Speaker 1: I think for me I allowed boundaries to slip.
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: I used something that had worked all along, which was take on more responsibility, do more work, be more responsible.
• 17:51
  Speaker 1: You know, just keep taking in the work and everything will be fine, which works every now and then, but not as a long-term strategy.
• 17:58
  Speaker 1: And you know I was making choices that were not good around what I could do.
• 18:04
  Speaker 1: I had a limited belief that I could do anything other than what I was doing Right and I think, taking accountability for that now were there times where I think we definitely this is 2020, we're talking about we weren't even talking about burnout then.
• 18:18
  Speaker 1: So, like you're, you're a pioneer or even earlier talking about it Right.
• 18:22
  Speaker 1: So, in that sense, I mean cause it's been happening all along, it wasn't like it just happened in 2020.
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: No.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: So I think, knowing that there's strategies and things that we can do as teams, as leaders of organizations and for ourself, it's so, so important.
• 18:38
  Speaker 1: So let's jump into the five mindsets.
• 18:41
  Speaker 1: Can you give us an overview of the five mindsets that you talk about in the book and why you chose them?
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: Sure.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: So I started with.
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: One of my missions of the book is to start to address root causes of what's causing all of this.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: Right, because I think we've been too surfacy, too one-off programmy, too many tactics with no sort of strategy to think about.
• 19:06
  Speaker 2: How are we actually going to get better and how are we going to play this out over the course of a year or two years or longer?
• 19:13
  Speaker 2: Right, organizations have strategy around finances, operations, technology, but they don't oftentimes have a long-term people strategy, or certainly not a long-term strategy when it comes to well-being or whatever word you want to put to that.
• 19:26
  Speaker 2: So that was really my entry point, and so the first mindset is oftentimes where I will say or advocate for leaders and teams to start, and that's to prioritize sticky recognition and mattering.
• 19:37
  Speaker 2: Because it really stunned me to hear from how frequently leaders would say like, even a basic thank you, like it's just not something that we do, we're too busy and we forget about it, or I don't feel like it's a priority, or it's not my job, I mean a whole host of reasons why.
• 19:54
  Speaker 2: And that was such a missing component.
• 19:56
  Speaker 2: And so I started there, trying to understand, like, what makes recognition, like really stick where you say to yourself this is a company or a team that I want to stay at or on over a period of time, like I'm not going to leave because of the way that I'm being treated and how they make me feel.
• 20:12
  Speaker 2: And I realized that when recognition sticks in this way, it opens up the door to something very deep, a deep, fundamental human need to all feel like we matter, which is this combination of I'm achieving stuff, I'm achieving things that are again aligned with my values, but I also feel recognized for that.
• 20:31
  Speaker 2: Somebody is acknowledging it, somebody is noticing, affirming and what have you?
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And so it gets back to just some very basic human behaviors.
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: But it's low-hanging fruit, right.
• 20:41
  Speaker 2: So, starting there, the second mindset is something that I call amplifying ABC needs.
• 20:47
  Speaker 2: So there is a large research basis underpinning its self-determination theory, which basically is a theory of intrinsic motivation.
• 20:56
  Speaker 2: So if I want to sort of promote that sense of intrinsic motivation for myself or for my team, there are three fundamental needs that we all need to have.
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: We need to have a sense of autonomy and flexibility.
• 21:08
  Speaker 2: I think of it as choosing our own adventure.
• 21:10
  Speaker 2: I want to have some say in how my day unfolds or the decisions that I get to make or what have you.
• 21:17
  Speaker 2: I want to have a sense of community and connection and belonging.
• 21:21
  Speaker 2: That's the B.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: I want to know that I'm showing up to a place or a team where I feel cared about and cared for and we have a sense of, you know, potentially friendship, even happening in our world of work.
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: And then the C is challenge.
• 21:33
  Speaker 2: I want to be at a place where I have a sense of growth.
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: Can I grow here?
• 21:37
  Speaker 2: Can I take on and learn new skills here?
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: Is there a place for me to rise through the ranks or get better and, you know, be promoted here?
• 21:45
  Speaker 2: And so it's a very, very powerful trio of psychological needs that unlocks so much positive.
• 21:53
  Speaker 2: I call it psychological fuel, psychological and motivational fuel.
• 21:57
  Speaker 2: In detail in the book that it's now, those three needs are part of a number of different larger scale well-being.
• 22:02
  Speaker 2: You know models and different types of theories that have been proposed.
• 22:07
  Speaker 2: You know in a number of different ways.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: So that piece that's a very deep sort of how do we get into that like big sort of intrinsic motivation piece, is that one?
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: The third chapter was or the third mindset, I'm sorry is creating workload, sustainability, and this was probably the hardest chapter for me to write and I almost didn't write it.
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: But by far and away, when you kind of go back to those root causes of the problem, the distress, the burnout and the stress overwhelmingly across the board, across industry, it was unmanageable workload that rose to the top in terms of what's really really kind of disengaging and stressing people out.
• 22:51
  Speaker 2: So I figured like if this, if the premise of the book is to solve for a bigger problem and to start to dig into root causes, I can't ignore the biggest probably root cause that potentially might exist.
• 23:04
  Speaker 2: And so, talking about you know, how do we come about workload sustainability, the fourth mindset is creating systemic stress, resilience.
• 23:16
  Speaker 2: So as we're going through so much change and so much uncertainty in our world of work, the concept of resilience becomes a really important skill set for people to have.
• 23:28
  Speaker 2: And so in the book I talk about it more so resilience as a team and then resilience as an organization, but there's of course certainly resilience at the individual level as well.
• 23:39
  Speaker 2: And then the last one is to prioritize values, alignment and meaning.
• 23:46
  Speaker 2: And so, really wanting to talk about you know, what can we do as a team, what can we do as leaders, potentially even individually to sort of open up that sense of values alignment, make it more likely that that's going to happen.
• 24:00
  Speaker 2: And then what can leaders do to bring about a sense of meaning for people at work?
• 24:04
  Speaker 2: Because, again, I think that those you know the values, alignment being values, misalignment being a core area of distress, you know how can we facilitate.
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: You know sort of the opposite of that.
• 24:18
  Speaker 1: So these are the mindsets.
• 24:19
  Speaker 1: Is there any one of those that's harder than the other four leaders in your experience, or do you have to start in an order?
• 24:28
  Speaker 2: You don't have to start in any order, and I think you know one of the things that I mentioned toward the end of the book in terms of like, how do you use this now?
• 24:34
  Speaker 2: Right, because there's there's all these mindsets and I've got all these different strategies and skills and tiny noticeable things, as I call them.
• 24:40
  Speaker 2: You know where do you start and I think you know I kind of put it back on leaders to take a look in their environment.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: What is the thing that's causing you the biggest issue right now?
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: Causing you the biggest issue right now?
• 24:53
  Speaker 2: If it's the unmanageable workload piece, start with creating workload sustainability.
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: Start digging into some of the strategies and tactics and big picture ways of thinking that you need to start to examine in order to make that better.
• 25:01
  Speaker 2: If you're looking for some quick, easy fixes immediately, potentially starting with that prioritizing sticky recognition and mattering piece, if your company or team or division is going through a lot of change and perhaps you know there's a merger on the horizon or there's some other big thing that's happening, maybe the resilience piece becomes a little bit more front and center, and so that's usually my guidance is, you know, start where the biggest issue is.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 25:26
  Speaker 1: So when it comes to different industries, do you feel like they start in different spaces or places?
• 25:30
  Speaker 1: Or have you seen, you know things that are people facing, or you know particularly healthcare.
• 25:36
  Speaker 1: I mean, what a year 2020 to be in healthcare and that's kind of where, like, if it was good, it got better, or you were able to kind of sustain it.
• 25:44
  Speaker 1: If things weren't good, it just got worse.
• 25:46
  Speaker 1: You know, like, whether it's a working environment or process, or you know like if you didn't have things tight, it was a challenge Right.
• 25:53
  Speaker 1: So like, do you find one industry over another may lean towards a particular mindset versus another?
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: to start with, I would say consistently over the.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: You know, just just during the pandemic, I did hundreds, hundreds of these, you know, kind of sit downs and programs and workshops and what have you, and I would say across industry by far and away away.
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: That unmanageable workload piece, again, regardless of industry, was really the thing that rose to the top, not always, but I would say at least 90% of the time.
• 26:21
  Speaker 2: I mean just really really a big issue.
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: So that was common.
• 26:24
  Speaker 2: But I think, though, like if I had to sort of distill down you know, kind of like an overarching theme of the book, I would say it's a combination of really good teaming practices and really good human I just call them human practices that together really really make a difference, and so that's another way for leaders to look at this.
• 26:42
  Speaker 2: Do I need to, or do we need to, up our game on sort of the human side of things?
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: Maybe we're so tech driven and everyone's thinking about AI and you know we're so focused on that.
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: Do I need to up my game in terms of how I'm just connecting human to human with my team, or am I looking and it could be, and am I looking around at what we're doing and we're sort of a hot mess from a teaming standpoint right, we don't have a lot of good processes and procedures in place.
• 27:10
  Speaker 2: You know we're not thinking about the right things as challenges are occurring.
• 27:16
  Speaker 2: We don't debrief in a way where we're learning lessons from.
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: You know, things that happened, whether they happened well or they happened not so well, and so that's another way to look at it too is just kind of what piece of that puzzle might you need to start with as well?
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think what's interesting or coming up for me as you're talking, you know rubbing the edges of just kind of what my experienced in my burnout there was no way humanly possible to do all the facets of my job that I was doing without burning out.
• 27:45
  Speaker 1: It was just impossible.
• 27:46
  Speaker 1: And there's probably no way that others could not see that too right.
• 27:52
  Speaker 1: But they could see me as a high performer, really trying hard, really getting it done, but at the cost of and I always say you can achieve anything, but sometimes the cost of achieving it is much higher than ever the achievement itself, right, and that kind of what is what happened to me in that situation.
• 28:10
  Speaker 1: So how can we, as leaders with high performers on our teams, see the popping of some of those?
• 28:19
  Speaker 1: Maybe burnouts on the way, or burnout might happen moments, because you know I'm a high performer.
• 28:25
  Speaker 1: I have tremendous high performers on my team who just get it done and they don't complain and they keep their head down and they're really good at their job.
• 28:32
  Speaker 1: But obviously they could easily be misaligned with what their values are.
• 28:36
  Speaker 1: But we're not having that level of conversation, right?
• 28:39
  Speaker 1: Is there something that can help us, as leaders of high performers, to help see the humanness.
• 28:45
  Speaker 1: Or, you know, I was someone that dropped thank you notes under the door to my staff when they would leave the next morning they would come in.
• 28:52
  Speaker 1: So, like I was truly, really, hopefully honed in more so on that than a lot of other leaders.
• 28:58
  Speaker 1: You know, I wasn't someone that didn't think thank you was important.
• 29:01
  Speaker 1: It was so, yeah, for me, like I also felt this high level of responsibility of a leader of teams to to not have flaws.
• 29:10
  Speaker 1: I guess you know, although you could see it, I bet you could see them, I just didn't think you could.
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: No, none of us think that others can quote.
• 29:19
  Speaker 2: See our burnout right.
• 29:20
  Speaker 1: Right yeah.
• 29:21
  Speaker 2: Everyone could.
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: I think, well, yeah, and oftentimes then people, if they see it, they don't know what to say.
• 29:27
  Speaker 2: As a leader too, we know, through social and emotional contagion, people can catch your burnout essentially right the moods and the sourness that might be associated with some of the frustration and cynicism components of burnout.
• 29:42
  Speaker 2: And so I think what is a really important first step and I talk about this a little bit in the book is that I think a lot of leaders, I think a lot of organizations, need to start to really think strongly about the legacy mindsets that are in place.
• 29:57
  Speaker 2: So this is again, either organizationally or individually right.
• 30:00
  Speaker 2: So I think that when a leader might say, well, this is just how I came through the ranks, this is just, you know what I did?
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: I just put my head down and I, you know my soldiers would say suck it up and drive on.
• 30:11
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 30:12
  Speaker 2: You know, I wasn't thinking about like taking the weekend off or I didn't do this.
• 30:16
  Speaker 2: I hear that so many times, some version of that, and I think it's really to people's detriment.
• 30:22
  Speaker 2: So, yeah, you know, when you have a high achiever and you're, you just sort of let them go.
• 30:28
  Speaker 2: They're going to express all of those traits and organizations reward that right.
• 30:35
  Speaker 2: I get a bigger bonus, or I get promoted quicker, or I get a higher salary, and people see that and it's rewarded, and so whatever gets rewarded psychologically, of course we're thinking, okay, I got to do more of that, or it feels really good, right, I'm like the employee of the month, or you know, I just got this big bonus, that feels good and then.
• 30:54
  Speaker 2: So we continue down that path and sometimes even double down, and so and I'm not saying, definitely not saying let's get rid of bonuses and rewards, and you know the monetary side of things but I think we have to examine how that is really playing out and if that's helping or hurting, where we ultimately want to go.
• 31:18
  Speaker 2: Because the other part of the other piece of the puzzle that a lot of leaders would talk to me about is the frustration over attrition.
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: Attrition costs organizations in every industry millions and millions of dollars and you kind of can't have it both ways.
• 31:36
  Speaker 2: You can't keep, you know piling on the work and asking, you know two people to do the work of five people, and then you know rewarding that and then wondering why people are burning out and feeling disengaged and detached and then potentially leaving and so.
• 31:51
  Speaker 2: So I think examining those legacy mindsets becomes really important.
• 31:54
  Speaker 2: But I also think a lot of leaders really do truly care about their teams, and so then it becomes wow, I got to get better at recognizing when are people kind of at their breaking point or potentially going past it.
• 32:07
  Speaker 2: Or how about let's even like back that up a little.
• 32:10
  Speaker 2: What do we need to be looking for?
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: And so that's, you know, educating leaders about what some of the early warning signs and symptoms of burnout look like, making sure that you have created a lot of trust on your team and so that people can feel okay to talk about the fact that they're under a lot of stress, and you normalize that conversation.
• 32:29
  Speaker 2: You normalize that conversation and that oftentimes has to be a conversation that leaders need to lead and model and open the door about, and so I think there's some deep work that needs to be done before you get to like the tactical pieces of the care piece.
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I always start with, like, what am I doing?
• 32:49
  Speaker 1: That's modeling, potentially what I would not want others to do, right.
• 32:55
  Speaker 1: And so I think you know for me, I go back to like things that could happen at any organization.
• 33:00
  Speaker 1: Like you know, we have a Monday through Friday expectation, but a lot of my bosses, across different jobs, different roles, throughout the last you know 20 plus years, they would get on on Sunday, right, and catch up on emails or get ahead, and they're doing that because that works for them.
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: But I would always feel like I needed to be responsive, right, I couldn't wait till Monday to answer that.
• 33:22
  Speaker 1: But that's a little bit of managing me, right, I can't manage them and that maybe that's how they work.
• 33:27
  Speaker 1: But I wasn't in the mindset of approaching it with that much cognition.
• 33:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, oh, I need to make sure I respond, also thinking for ourselves, like, is there something I'm doing right now that I think is ridiculous, that I'm even doing it and it might be a model or modeling for my team to think that that's the way I do it.
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: So I'm glad you pointed that out.
• 33:47
  Speaker 1: And there's also an intentional ownership in managing yourself.
• 33:49
  Speaker 1: Right, if you get on your email on Sundays and it makes you upset or kind of says it ruined your day.
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: Well, what happens if you don't?
• 33:57
  Speaker 1: You know, like, does anyone notice?
• 34:00
  Speaker 1: Does anyone care?
• 34:01
  Speaker 1: Is anyone actually going to say to you why didn't you answer my email on Sunday?
• 34:09
  Speaker 1: If they do, that leads to another conversation, right?
• 34:10
  Speaker 1: So, like, managing yourself sometimes is the hardest thing to do and I don't know, is there any way or tip or anything you can?
• 34:17
  Speaker 1: You can help with someone who's listening to this right now.
• 34:19
  Speaker 1: Be like, yeah, like maybe I start there Because I'm not sure my boss will notice or see, or, you know, become self aware, which is a gift if you have a self aware supervisor.
• 34:29
  Speaker 2: But what can I do?
• 34:31
  Speaker 2: Think, first of all, if you're on the leader side of the equation, you have to be.
• 34:34
  Speaker 2: I think a lot of leaders think they're clear about expectations and how we run things around here, our team culture and what have you, but I think a lot of them really, really miss the mark.
• 34:43
  Speaker 2: And so I think it starts with really straightforward conversations with everyone around expectations.
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: So I'm very clear with people on my team, like, if you know, I happen to wake up in the middle of the night and I start scrolling on social media and get an idea about something and I and I send an email at three in the morning.
• 35:00
  Speaker 2: That's just me being up and not being able to sleep.
• 35:03
  Speaker 2: You are not expected to answer emails at, you know, three in the morning or four in the morning or five in the morning or whenever it is that you wake up, wait until business hours, or if I send you a text on Friday night, you know it's just because I had a good thought and I'm very explicit with them.
• 35:16
  Speaker 2: I don't ever expect you to respond in those circumstances, and so you have to really really be clear and level set.
• 35:24
  Speaker 2: And there's now I mean there's ways like on, you know, your computer like an Outlook, you can time it and stuff like that.
• 35:29
  Speaker 2: And I think that on the receiving end I'm always a big fan of like making sure people ask questions, right.
• 35:37
  Speaker 2: So if you are on the receiving end of the email and you're not sure sort of what the policy is, and so you're up at four in the morning and you're answering the email and you come in like just double checking or checking in with your leader or boss or the partner or whoever it is, and just say, hey, I responded to the email at 4 am.
• 35:54
  Speaker 2: Is that your policy?
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: Is that consistent with how you want communication to happen?
• 35:59
  Speaker 2: And a lot of times that might snap a leader awake and say, oh, whoa, I'm so sorry.
• 36:03
  Speaker 2: Like no, that was not urgent.
• 36:05
  Speaker 2: You're in the middle of a huge closing or a deal or a project or a matter that has, like you know, a really short turnaround.
• 36:12
  Speaker 2: There may be times when there is that expectation that you know if it's 11 at night and I send you an email, I really need a response.
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: But it's only because you know my boss or the client or business partner or whatever it is, needs to have some information or something not so great is going to happen, you know, tomorrow morning at like eight o'clock or what have you.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: So I think it really really comes down to setting clear expectations and then just having crystal clear lines of communication open back and forth between everybody.
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah, which I think in there are some quiet, bold moments, right.
• 36:43
  Speaker 1: What I mean by that is having a difficult conversation, maybe proposing a different way to approach something if it's not aligned with how you and your family operate.
• 36:52
  Speaker 1: You know someone says, yeah, I want you to respond to 4 am.
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: It's like I'm not going to be able to meet that.
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: Is there something in between compromise wise that you know you ping me or you know, like thinking about having that bold conversation, though is it's one of the quieter moments of bold, but is one that will help you stay more aligned, I think, with your values and not start to stretch out of that space that you don't.
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: You know you don't want to go to answering emails at four or having a.
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: I think the latest conference call I had was 11 o'clock once, so Eastern oh wow.
• 37:21
  Speaker 1: This is say we're.
• 37:23
  Speaker 1: You know that's not the best mental fortitude time for me 11 o'clock at night.
• 37:27
  Speaker 2: No, it's not.
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: It's not for anybody, not for anybody, right, you know, but we did it a couple times and then I was like the next one, like I just declined, you know, it's like we're not doing this.
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: So I think you know, from that perspective, I think again it's.
• 37:39
  Speaker 1: It's a combination of things, but I'm I'm big on ownership and, I think, being accountable to ourselves as much as we can first, and sometimes that takes some boldness within us to have some of those conversations or to set or reset a boundary we may have let slip.
• 37:54
  Speaker 1: Exactly so, if someone's starting out and you know they're leading a team, they want to use all of this incredible science-backed information and research that you've done, where should they start?
• 38:05
  Speaker 1: Should they start with just setting a stage, for this is how I operate, this is how I work, or where should they begin?
• 38:15
  Speaker 2: I typically tend to tell folks to start with the prioritizing, sticky, recognition and mattering piece.
• 38:22
  Speaker 2: It's so important that people in your realm feel like they are noticed, to feel like they are affirmed, to know that you rely on them.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: For you to actually say that, for you to express not if you don't ever say thank you, start there.
• 38:40
  Speaker 2: But, like I talk about a skill in the book called the thank you plus, which is to add another sentence or two after your thank you, to be very specific about the behavior or the strength that you saw displayed that led to the good outcome.
• 38:53
  Speaker 2: You know, talking to people about what their goals are, you know in the organization and what they want, and having them know that you're there to help them kind of advance in the way that they want to, to help them really know that you know they're able to achieve things but they're also recognized for those achievements is just really that you know they're able to achieve things but they're also recognized for those achievements is just really really, really critical, because it sets the stage.
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: It opens up the door to so much great stuff.
• 39:20
  Speaker 2: It opens up the door to belonging.
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: So then you're hitting the B of the ABC needs.
• 39:24
  Speaker 2: It opens up the door to resilience.
• 39:27
  Speaker 2: So you're starting to touch on some of that mindset as well, because when I know I'm valued and I'm an important member of the team and I'm relied on by you know, people on my team and certainly my leader, I'm going to put in extra effort and go the extra mile when challenges come up.
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: You know I've had people say you know, give me their little snippets and I have a couple in the book of their examples of sticky recognition.
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: And every single time, you know, the person says like I will say yes to anything this person asks me to do.
• 39:54
  Speaker 2: They want me to come in on Saturday afternoon?
• 39:56
  Speaker 2: I'm coming in on Saturday afternoon.
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: If they want me to run through a brick wall for them, I'm running through a brick wall for them.
• 40:00
  Speaker 2: And so you really create a lot of engagement and buy-in and really, really good stuff just by doing some of those simple basic sticky recognition and mattering pieces.
• 40:13
  Speaker 2: So I think that is what I would tell people to start with.
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: Okay, excellent.
• 40:17
  Speaker 1: Well, thank you so much for being on the Bull Down sharing not only your first book but your second book, Lead Well, and what we can do as leaders to really implement, understand and, hopefully, stand strong in our values, using your five mindsets that you talk about.
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: Thank you so much, leigh, I appreciate it.
• 40:38
  Speaker 1: Thank you for listening to the Bold Lounge podcast.
• 40:41
  Speaker 1: Through the continuum of bold stories vulnerability to taking a leap you will meet more extraordinary people making a positive impact for others through their unique and important story.
• 40:51
  Speaker 1: By highlighting these stories, we hope to inspire others and share the journey of those with a bold mindset.
• 40:56
  Speaker 1: We hope you've enjoyed this podcast and look forward to sharing the next bold journey with you.