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Navigating Mental Health Challenges with Graeme Cowan · Hardiness with Dr Paul Taylor

0:10
Speaker 1: Graham Cahr and welcome to the podcast.
0:12
Speaker 2: Pleasure to join you, Paul.
0:14
Speaker 3: So we're we're going to talk all things mental health.
0:19
Speaker 3: I received your your book, the one that we're going
0:22
Speaker 3: to talk about, which is Great Leader's Curse, So it's
0:24
Speaker 3: really about mental health in the workplace.
0:26
Speaker 1: But you go way back before that.
0:29
Speaker 3: You were involved with the the r UK then the
0:32
Speaker 3: start of that, but previous to that you kind of
0:36
Speaker 3: had your own experience. Can can you just tell us
0:40
Speaker 3: a little bit about your background, the work that you
0:44
Speaker 3: did and then and then your experience that kind of
0:46
Speaker 3: laid you down this path.
0:48
Speaker 2: Yeah, sure, Like how led the Khannie executive search practice
0:55
Speaker 2: and it was booming back in the early early two
0:59
Speaker 2: thousand and then the tech crash happened and in a
1:04
Speaker 2: very very short period of time, our business just dried up.
1:09
Speaker 2: And you know, I felt a real responsibility for that
1:13
Speaker 2: and tried to put on a mask and pretend that
1:16
Speaker 2: everything was fine. But you know, it really wore me
1:20
Speaker 2: down having that mask, and eventually I had to leave work.
1:25
Speaker 2: I wasn't capable of working. I'd had episodes of depression before,
1:30
Speaker 2: but nothing like this. This was lasted for five years.
1:34
Speaker 2: I've out of work for five years. I had to
1:38
Speaker 2: go live with my parents because I couldn't look after myself.
1:42
Speaker 2: And I remember one day just being in a kitchen
1:47
Speaker 2: with my mom up at Foster and she I was
1:51
Speaker 2: just saying, why me, why me? And she said, just
1:56
Speaker 2: experience to help other people, and I thought I was
2:00
Speaker 2: just not possible whatsoever, But it did so as seed
2:05
Speaker 2: and I eventually recovered and wrote my first book, Back
2:09
Speaker 2: from the Brink, where interviewed twelve well known and everyday
2:14
Speaker 2: Australians who've been through some really tough times came back
2:17
Speaker 2: from it and it was launched at the Blacktop Institute
2:21
Speaker 2: by Professor Gordon Park at the time, and it became
2:26
Speaker 2: a best seller. And what I really realized, because we've
2:30
Speaker 2: got a lot of publicity in a two weeks following
2:32
Speaker 2: the launch and I had lots of talkback radio, lots
2:36
Speaker 2: of book signings, was that most of the people that
2:39
Speaker 2: came for help were actually the loved ones of those
2:43
Speaker 2: that were struggling. And that was a real epiphany for
2:47
Speaker 2: me because I didn't realize how much my illness was
2:50
Speaker 2: affecting my family around us. Book did well. Through that
2:56
Speaker 2: I was introduced to Gavin Larkin, who was the founder
3:00
Speaker 2: of value OK in March two thousand and nine, and
3:04
Speaker 2: when I heard the essence of it, I just knew
3:06
Speaker 2: insuitably that it was right and I just said, you,
3:10
Speaker 2: I'm very happy to be an ambassador, but I'm all in.
3:13
Speaker 2: And so we had an incredibly small team, only really
3:16
Speaker 2: four people in that very first year, and you know,
3:21
Speaker 2: through having a really strong sense of purpose and very
3:25
Speaker 2: good connections, all of us were quite pret well connected
3:29
Speaker 2: in the corporate world. And we had that very first
3:33
Speaker 2: launch in Parliament House in Canberra where Gavin I and
3:39
Speaker 2: Nicola Roxon, the then Health Minister, launched the very first.
3:44
Speaker 3: Day and for Greek Korean, for our international listeners who
3:49
Speaker 3: may not have heard of are UK Day, like, it
3:52
Speaker 3: is huge in Australia, right.
3:56
Speaker 1: When was when was it POSH.
3:57
Speaker 2: Launch two thousand and nine?
4:00
Speaker 3: In a nine years so it's been going for about
4:02
Speaker 3: sixteen years and it's really going from strength to strength
4:05
Speaker 3: and I every year there's a big focus on In fact,
4:09
Speaker 3: there's a whole week that kind of ends up around it.
4:14
Speaker 3: It must be very very satisfying to have played a
4:18
Speaker 3: significant role in getting that up and bringing that awareness
4:22
Speaker 3: into the workplace.
4:24
Speaker 2: It really is, Paul. You know it the first year
4:28
Speaker 2: when surprisingly well, we had like three hundred companies participated
4:31
Speaker 2: in the Workplace program, but now it's you know, in
4:35
Speaker 2: one hundreds of thousands of organizations that now participate. And
4:39
Speaker 2: the beauty about workplaces is that if someone adopts it,
4:43
Speaker 2: you could get ten thousand people. You could get you know,
4:47
Speaker 2: one hundred, you could just get five, but it's a
4:49
Speaker 2: great leverage point. We had no real money at the start,
4:54
Speaker 2: and so everything we did was digital, you know, digital resources,
4:59
Speaker 2: post is. We really embraced social media like no other
5:05
Speaker 2: mental health charity had at that time, and it has
5:08
Speaker 2: just really really grown. And in that very first year,
5:12
Speaker 2: Gavin was able to get people like Hugh Jackman to
5:16
Speaker 2: support it and Simon Baker and you know, some local,
5:23
Speaker 2: well known people as well, and that just gave a
5:25
Speaker 2: bit of momentum. But ultimately what made it successful was
5:30
Speaker 2: the power of stories. Gavin had his own story of
5:34
Speaker 2: losing his dad to suicide, and I had my own
5:38
Speaker 2: story of surviving a suicide attempt and you know, being
5:43
Speaker 2: profoundly grateful that I didn't go in that same direction.
5:48
Speaker 2: So we had an immediate bond and you know, we
5:52
Speaker 2: just believed in it so much. I think we're unstoppable.
5:57
Speaker 3: I it's interested you talk about your gratitude in surviving
6:00
Speaker 3: your own suicide attempt.
6:02
Speaker 1: I was talking with Nick Brax the.
6:06
Speaker 3: Other day, who you know, he does a lot of
6:08
Speaker 3: stuff in this mental health space, and he was talking
6:11
Speaker 3: about people who try to commit suicide by jumping off
6:14
Speaker 3: the Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco.
6:17
Speaker 1: And there's been.
6:18
Speaker 3: Thirty five people who have survived it, and I think
6:22
Speaker 3: one of the survivors interviewed every other one, and all
6:27
Speaker 3: of them said the second they jumped off, they regretted
6:31
Speaker 3: their decision and were so grateful that it didn't actually
6:35
Speaker 3: come about.
6:37
Speaker 1: When did you know.
6:39
Speaker 3: That something was seriously wrong with you? That wasn't just
6:44
Speaker 3: a transitory low mood state.
6:49
Speaker 2: It actually happened quite young. You know, we're not thinking
6:53
Speaker 2: second year of university, but that time, and that's going
6:57
Speaker 2: back a while now, in the you know, the late seventies,
7:01
Speaker 2: there was very little awareness around what depression was. And
7:06
Speaker 2: I just had this real insomnia and sense of anxiety
7:14
Speaker 2: and just viewing that it was never going to go away.
7:17
Speaker 2: You feel that way out for a while, and then
7:20
Speaker 2: since that early time, I've probably had about four or
7:24
Speaker 2: five other episodes, but the last one, which led to
7:30
Speaker 2: me losing my job, was by far the worst. You know,
7:34
Speaker 2: as I said, I tried about twenty five dent types
7:37
Speaker 2: of medication, I had ect, I had you know, psychologists, kinesiologists,
7:48
Speaker 2: and it just I couldn't shake it. But Mum's I
7:53
Speaker 2: guess message or encouragement did sell a seed. And for
7:57
Speaker 2: me it was sort of like a few things that
8:00
Speaker 2: really work. Starting to walk really regularly each day and
8:04
Speaker 2: getting out up to about forty five minutes or so,
8:07
Speaker 2: reconnecting with old friends and family who you know, I
8:12
Speaker 2: guess i'd withdrawn from because I felt ashamed of not
8:17
Speaker 2: being able to get out of it. But when I
8:19
Speaker 2: caught up with these people.
8:20
Speaker 1: It was good.
8:21
Speaker 2: It was really good. And then the real transformation was
8:28
Speaker 2: when you go from me me struggling to thinking about we.
8:32
Speaker 2: And I had this idea of writing the book which
8:36
Speaker 2: had real stories of a couple of gold medal swimming
8:41
Speaker 2: olymp Olympians and you know, Margaret Ollie, the icon of
8:46
Speaker 2: the art world, and Les Murray, Australia's most famous poet,
8:51
Speaker 2: and their stories, but also other stories gave people hope,
8:57
Speaker 2: And I've got lots of emails that letters, and they'd
9:01
Speaker 2: always would mention a person that really inspired them, and usually,
9:06
Speaker 2: not surprisingly, it was someone like them and so, and
9:12
Speaker 2: then those books then led to meeting Gavin Larkin.
9:16
Speaker 3: Yeah, And isn't it interesting that that there are so
9:19
Speaker 3: many people that well, clinical psychologists who recommend it, but
9:23
Speaker 3: people that I've talked to had mature depression. Was that
9:26
Speaker 3: when they shifted their focus from themselves and their internal
9:31
Speaker 3: world to the external world and trying to help others,
9:35
Speaker 3: that that stuff starts to sobtly shift right, and then
9:39
Speaker 3: they get a bit more motivation to do things, because
9:42
Speaker 3: I guess that's the worst thing, isn't it. It's the
9:45
Speaker 3: it's the a motivation that just that just lack of
9:49
Speaker 3: desire to do anything in that deep clinical depression I'm
9:54
Speaker 3: talking about not moderate depression here, that can be all consuming.
9:59
Speaker 2: And the thing that's so devastating about it, Paul, is
10:02
Speaker 2: that you you feel one hundred and ten percent convinced
10:06
Speaker 2: that you'll never recover right, your actuallessness, hopelessness, real hopelessness,
10:12
Speaker 2: and you know, it's that lack of hope, and it's
10:16
Speaker 2: also massive uncertainty, you know, you're not working and what's
10:20
Speaker 2: going to happen to you? But I really found, as
10:24
Speaker 2: I said, you know, the book really helped because I
10:26
Speaker 2: was working on a project that I hope would help
10:29
Speaker 2: other people.
10:30
Speaker 3: You're busy, You've got a sense of purpose. You know,
10:33
Speaker 3: there's there's there's there's something to do in the day.
10:36
Speaker 3: I mean, this is what I've heard some great advice
10:39
Speaker 3: about it for depressed people.
10:40
Speaker 1: Do stuffs with your hands, be creative.
10:43
Speaker 3: You know, do some wood work or paint or whatever,
10:46
Speaker 3: because then you've got to be completely focused when when
10:49
Speaker 3: you use your hands, so much of your brain is
10:53
Speaker 3: actually dedicated to that that you that that the thoughts
10:56
Speaker 3: can stop.
10:58
Speaker 1: Now let's let's let's pay and.
11:00
Speaker 3: Talk about the workplace, because because you're a bogs all
11:02
Speaker 3: about the workplast and you're a bit of an expert
11:04
Speaker 3: in this area. The I mean, I'm familiar with some
11:08
Speaker 3: of the stats, but just for our listeners, like how
11:11
Speaker 3: big a problem is stress but bon out in the workplace,
11:18
Speaker 3: and then maybe we can then talk about the.
11:21
Speaker 1: Difference on the overlap between bonote and depression.
11:25
Speaker 2: Sure well, one of the I guess key stats is
11:29
Speaker 2: work by Mercer, which showed that eighty one percent of
11:33
Speaker 2: people are worried that they could burn out in the
11:36
Speaker 2: next year. Some recent research from Wiley sure that thirty
11:41
Speaker 2: six percent of employees are severely stressed each week. And
11:48
Speaker 2: what's even more worrying is that forty seven percent of
11:52
Speaker 2: managers one and two managers experience severe stress. So that's
11:58
Speaker 2: sort of an over you which knows how pervasive it is.
12:03
Speaker 2: And you know, when I was in really bad shape,
12:07
Speaker 2: and this goes back, you know, almost twenty years ago,
12:10
Speaker 2: it just wasn't talked about at all. And thanks to
12:14
Speaker 2: the work Are You Okay and the Black Dog and
12:17
Speaker 2: Beyond Blue and Sane in Lifeline, there's been great progress
12:22
Speaker 2: made there. But it counts for So I just mentioned
12:26
Speaker 2: forty seven percent of managers feel severely stressed, and yet
12:30
Speaker 2: managers determine seventy percent of the engagement and the well
12:35
Speaker 2: being of their team. This is Galler research, very extensive,
12:41
Speaker 2: so you can see if you've got a manager or
12:44
Speaker 2: one or two managers that are really struggling. If they
12:47
Speaker 2: can't look after themselves, they can't help other people to
12:50
Speaker 2: the same extent, So you know, managers are really carrying
12:54
Speaker 2: a load they're often you know, in the middle between
12:58
Speaker 2: the senior leadership and the front facing staff. But they're
13:03
Speaker 2: finding it very difficult.
13:05
Speaker 3: And it's interesting that you mentioned that because I often
13:10
Speaker 3: talk about most people here will recognize that emotions are contagious, right,
13:14
Speaker 3: And there is well well researched body of work around
13:20
Speaker 3: emotional contigation, and particularly around leadership and managers in the
13:25
Speaker 3: workplace that they set the emotional tone. And you know,
13:30
Speaker 3: people can get this just from an individual, Like everybody
13:32
Speaker 3: knows an individual who can light up a room like
13:34
Speaker 3: a Christmas tree, and everybody knows an individual who's a
13:38
Speaker 3: complete energy vampire who can suck the very life force
13:41
Speaker 3: out of them, right, and an entire room in two
13:43
Speaker 3: minutes flat.
13:44
Speaker 4: But with.
13:47
Speaker 1: With leaders and they have.
13:49
Speaker 3: A disproportionate impact on the emotional tone of the group, right.
13:55
Speaker 3: So that stat that you said is particularly worrying. If
13:58
Speaker 3: half of our.
13:58
Speaker 1: Managers are really struggling, that is just going to flow
14:04
Speaker 1: through the teams, isn't it.
14:07
Speaker 2: And ironically, and maybe because of it, there is massive
14:11
Speaker 2: change going on at the moment. You know, the whole
14:13
Speaker 2: AI in the workplace is just having profound impact and
14:18
Speaker 2: that's why it's so important for managers to really I
14:22
Speaker 2: talk about a moodometer, you know green zone and zone
14:25
Speaker 2: red zone. We are the green zone, you're thirty one
14:28
Speaker 2: percent more productive, thirty seven percent better at sales, and
14:33
Speaker 2: two hundred percent better at creativity. So the green zone.
14:38
Speaker 2: There are so many good reasons for businesses to embrace this,
14:43
Speaker 2: but they don't really have a finger on the pulse.
14:46
Speaker 2: Some do have, you know, these snap poles which provide
14:50
Speaker 2: good feedback and quick feedback, which is great, but most
14:53
Speaker 2: don't have it as an organizational measure. For example, you know,
14:58
Speaker 2: if you had to rate out out of of ten
15:01
Speaker 2: everyone in the workplace, where ten is where you're energetic, resourceful, persistent,
15:12
Speaker 2: and read is where you know you're ashamed and anxious. Now,
15:19
Speaker 2: measuring that, I believe is an incredibly important metric to
15:26
Speaker 2: have in place. So look at look at everyone, look
15:28
Speaker 2: at then look at managers, and look at leaders and
15:31
Speaker 2: be able to monitor that risk because people are throwing
15:35
Speaker 2: things at it like EAP or apps and that sort
15:38
Speaker 2: of thing, But in my experience, there's not many that
15:42
Speaker 2: are actually regularly monitoring it, taking considered action and experimenting
15:49
Speaker 2: with what could work and then revisiting it. And looking
15:53
Speaker 2: at where we are now and what we need to
15:55
Speaker 2: do for the next ninety days to sort of move forward.
15:58
Speaker 1: Yeah.
15:59
Speaker 3: I like that because I remember when I was researching
16:03
Speaker 3: my PhD. There's a similar mood aumentary they didn't call up,
16:08
Speaker 3: but thats been used in the military.
16:11
Speaker 1: I think it was the British military.
16:13
Speaker 3: And they find that and they had definitions of green,
16:18
Speaker 3: amber red, and they find that that it was much
16:23
Speaker 3: easier to open a conversation by saying, hey, hey, Graham,
16:28
Speaker 3: you know you're looking at an amber today. Is everything okay?
16:31
Speaker 3: And they found, particularly in that cohort, that that that
16:36
Speaker 3: did opened the doors for people to have conversations because
16:39
Speaker 3: it reduced the stigma as well. But I think to
16:43
Speaker 3: your point with AI coming in, you know, we're living
16:47
Speaker 3: in an increasingly vocal world. That's a term that came
16:51
Speaker 3: out of the military to describe this the changing nature
16:54
Speaker 3: of warfare volatility, uncertainty, complexity, and ambiguity. And we know
17:00
Speaker 3: that that volatility and uncertainty amplifies any stressor that there
17:04
Speaker 3: actually is. That's that's the key thing, right, is that
17:08
Speaker 3: when you throw one certainty into already stressful environment, it's
17:14
Speaker 3: just it's just a time bomb. So let's I mean,
17:18
Speaker 3: let's talk about the thing that we can do about it.
17:21
Speaker 1: I mean, ultimately, I think if me and you were.
17:24
Speaker 3: In charge of workplaces, we would probably say, hey, you've
17:27
Speaker 3: got to you've got to use the menometer in the workplace,
17:31
Speaker 3: and the CEOs and all the executives teams bonuses would
17:34
Speaker 3: be tied to that. Right if your team is orange
17:38
Speaker 3: and red, you don't get your bonus right now that
17:40
Speaker 3: that clearly ain't going to happen. But what what are
17:45
Speaker 3: the sort of things that we could do about You
17:47
Speaker 3: talk about occurring CEO, and you know, what does that
17:51
Speaker 3: actually look like from that leadership team down?
17:56
Speaker 2: Yeah, I've interview now ninety what I cocurring and they're
18:02
Speaker 2: leaders are champion a culture of care and a culture
18:05
Speaker 2: of high performance, both those things and some people think
18:09
Speaker 2: they're different things, but they're incredibly correlated and one contributes
18:14
Speaker 2: to the other. And so it's been wonderful to be
18:17
Speaker 2: able to share the stories of leaders like Mike Schneider
18:21
Speaker 2: at Bunning's pac Rea, former CEO of Ramsey Healthcare and
18:28
Speaker 2: not others basically to see what they do, which is
18:32
Speaker 2: a little bit different, and the way they lead teams
18:37
Speaker 2: is that it's really they understand that employees are always
18:43
Speaker 2: asking three questions, do I belong here? Is it safe
18:50
Speaker 2: to be myself? And are we growing together? And the belonging,
18:56
Speaker 2: as you would know in the military, that the sense
18:58
Speaker 2: of belonging in small focused teams is what separates the
19:04
Speaker 2: good and the great teams. The next thing is about safe.
19:09
Speaker 2: It's about psychological safety, and that's when people can be
19:13
Speaker 2: their authentic selves. It's safe to make suggestions and not
19:17
Speaker 2: have it dismissed out of hand. It's safe to challenge
19:20
Speaker 2: ideas you don't agree with. And then the third element
19:24
Speaker 2: is really growing together, and that's in encouraging people to
19:29
Speaker 2: take intelligent risks. We can't wait anymore to have one
19:33
Speaker 2: hundred percent of the right knowledge before we act because
19:35
Speaker 2: of the burger environment you talked about, and so taking
19:38
Speaker 2: intelligent risks is something that Amy Edmundson, who's been researching
19:43
Speaker 2: teams psychological safety forever, you know, just shows with overwhelming
19:48
Speaker 2: proof is the best bridic of innovative and successful teams.
19:52
Speaker 2: So this, you know, what people used to call soft leadership,
19:58
Speaker 2: it is now strongly to It's more important, ever than
20:02
Speaker 2: being able to understand people where they are, but also
20:08
Speaker 2: to be able to inspire them by you know, lighting
20:11
Speaker 2: up the purpose in them and seeing how they play
20:14
Speaker 2: the role in contributing to that purpose of the team
20:17
Speaker 2: and the organization.
20:19
Speaker 4: That has also been proven, I think in the toughest crucible,
20:25
Speaker 4: I often thought my listeners will have heard me talk
20:28
Speaker 4: about the Hanoi Hilton prison camp in Vietnam.
20:31
Speaker 3: I'm not sure if you're familiar with a greed, but
20:35
Speaker 3: I interviewed Lee Ellis on the podcast, who spent five
20:38
Speaker 3: and a half years in the Hanoi Hilton, and he
20:41
Speaker 3: said to me that Jim stock Deal, who was their leader,
20:45
Speaker 3: and he said that there hit Jim and the other
20:48
Speaker 3: leaders had an unrelenting twin focus mission and people, mission
20:54
Speaker 3: and people. And he said it was all about those
20:59
Speaker 3: two things, and it was about They used this thing
21:02
Speaker 3: called the tap code when they were in confinement where
21:06
Speaker 3: they could tap on the.
21:07
Speaker 1: Walls and and and and it.
21:10
Speaker 3: They told me that it was the tap code was
21:12
Speaker 3: the glue that held these guys together. That you've been
21:16
Speaker 3: tortured and you come back in your cell just to
21:19
Speaker 3: have the gag. The next sel tap to you and
21:20
Speaker 3: tell tell them that they tell them that you loved.
21:23
Speaker 1: You and that your hair form and you know you
21:24
Speaker 1: can get through this.
21:26
Speaker 3: I mean it's being tested in the most extreme environment, right,
21:33
Speaker 3: So I think that's hugely important that it just shows
21:38
Speaker 3: how cur and high performance can go together, very very
21:43
Speaker 3: very strongly. And one thing I wanted to double click
21:47
Speaker 3: on is psychological safety. So you did a pretty good definition.
21:52
Speaker 3: I made a pretty good definition of it, and I
21:54
Speaker 3: think it's it's worthwhile going back to talk about what
21:57
Speaker 3: psychological safety is and what's psychological safety isn't, because I
22:02
Speaker 3: think that's us the important because some people this word
22:06
Speaker 3: of safety I think is starting to be overused in
22:09
Speaker 3: the psychological realm and people are like, it is not
22:14
Speaker 3: impinging upon your psychological safety. If someone's having a tough
22:17
Speaker 3: conversation with you about your proformance, that's not what it is, right,
22:21
Speaker 3: It's not being psychologically See, it does not mean that
22:24
Speaker 3: you can't be held to account.
22:26
Speaker 1: So told us about what the original research and your
22:30
Speaker 1: understanding of it, what it is and what it isn't.
22:33
Speaker 2: Yeah, as I mentioned before, Amy Edmondson first really identified
22:37
Speaker 2: or named it, and it actually happened in her thesis,
22:42
Speaker 2: her PhD thesis, and she was very well known in
22:47
Speaker 2: hospital and medical sectors. And she had these objective measures
22:54
Speaker 2: of team effectiveness and cohesion, and she also had objective
22:59
Speaker 2: measures of reported mistakes and problems. And she went in
23:05
Speaker 2: expecting that the best teams had the least mistakes, but
23:11
Speaker 2: they actually had more. And at first she said, this
23:15
Speaker 2: just doesn't make sense, but when she dug a little deeper,
23:19
Speaker 2: she just realized that the bad teams wouldn't known up
23:22
Speaker 2: to mistakes. They'd hide them. And if you hide mistakes,
23:26
Speaker 2: you can't address them sort of things. So that was
23:29
Speaker 2: the original start, and then there was a real breakth
23:35
Speaker 2: through article New York Times called what What Google Learnt
23:41
Speaker 2: in its quest to build the Perfect Team? And I
23:43
Speaker 2: remember reading it and it was Google looked at. It
23:48
Speaker 2: was called Project Aristotle, and they had two hundred and
23:55
Speaker 2: fifty factors to look at about all these teams around
23:59
Speaker 2: the world. And at first they thought it was individual qualities,
24:03
Speaker 2: you know, like more high potential, more diversity in the team.
24:08
Speaker 2: But what they actually found was it was how the
24:11
Speaker 2: teams work together. And as you said, it doesn't mean
24:15
Speaker 2: you can't have tough conversations, but you have them with
24:19
Speaker 2: respect and care, and people can tell the difference. And
24:27
Speaker 2: then how that then translates is that in a team environment,
24:34
Speaker 2: you have to get the best knowledge in the team
24:38
Speaker 2: to help make those decisions. So if anyone just is
24:42
Speaker 2: really dominant and say this is the way we're going
24:44
Speaker 2: to go, this is it, it just destroys psychological safety.
24:48
Speaker 2: And so in psychologically safe teams, people speak approximately equally,
24:54
Speaker 2: so everyone's invited to contribute. Now it doesn't mean it's
24:58
Speaker 2: a democracy, but people feel heard of part of that.
25:02
Speaker 2: So that's it leads to risk taking, intelligent risk taking,
25:09
Speaker 2: faster learning, and improved performance and success. And if you
25:15
Speaker 2: get that right, you can have robust discussions around dependability
25:20
Speaker 2: and timelines. If you don't have psychological safety, you don't
25:23
Speaker 2: get the real truth of what's going on, and projects
25:26
Speaker 2: can go completely off track. You also, you know, have
25:31
Speaker 2: a greater sense of working together as a team and
25:34
Speaker 2: an ownership of ideas and commitment to implementing the ideas
25:41
Speaker 2: the team comes up with.
25:42
Speaker 1: I think that that is hugely important.
25:44
Speaker 3: And let's bring it back to performance because I often
25:48
Speaker 3: run workshops based on Partland Chilney's model of high performing teams.
25:52
Speaker 1: I'm not sure if you're familiar with it.
25:53
Speaker 3: Both right down at the bottom is trust and and
25:57
Speaker 3: it's a deeper level of trust that's tie into psychological
26:01
Speaker 3: safety right where, and that then enables productive conflict.
26:07
Speaker 1: So this this idea of productive conflict.
26:09
Speaker 3: I always say the teams, like, if everybody's agreeing that
26:13
Speaker 3: that is not the most productive team you should be having,
26:17
Speaker 3: you know, passionate debates about the organization, you should be
26:22
Speaker 3: having sometimes productive conflict.
26:23
Speaker 1: But you're paying it playing the ball, not the individual.
26:27
Speaker 3: That's where the psychological safety comes in, right, because if
26:31
Speaker 3: you don't have that, then in Lenchoni's model, you can't
26:35
Speaker 3: really commit. And how many times everybody listening to this
26:39
Speaker 3: will have been in a meeting at some stage where
26:41
Speaker 3: they'll have somebody the leader, like you said, who's gone right,
26:45
Speaker 3: this is the way, this is the way we're going
26:47
Speaker 3: to everybody agree, and everybody's nodding, and.
26:48
Speaker 1: In their head they're going, what a lot of bullshit.
26:51
Speaker 3: And what they often do because they haven't been heard,
26:55
Speaker 3: is that they they're there not committed, and in the
26:58
Speaker 3: worst they can go in sabotage and got a lot
27:00
Speaker 3: of bullshit that is right, and that just ends up
27:04
Speaker 3: in lack of productivity. So this's all plays in from that,
27:08
Speaker 3: and I really like the way that you've created that
27:12
Speaker 3: link between KERR and high performance, right.
27:16
Speaker 1: I think it's hugely important.
27:18
Speaker 3: And let's talk about In one of your chapters, you
27:23
Speaker 3: talk about mental patterns, and let's just explore that a
27:28
Speaker 3: little bit.
27:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's one of the things for self care I
27:33
Speaker 2: think is mindset and how you think. And there's probably
27:39
Speaker 2: three people that really helped me in terms of their
27:42
Speaker 2: body of work, and one of those was doctor Christine
27:46
Speaker 2: Nefs and she's a real pioneer in self compassion and
27:52
Speaker 2: what she has shown overwhelmingly that self compassion is when
27:58
Speaker 2: you treat yourself the same way you would treat a
28:01
Speaker 2: close friend or a close family member. We speak much
28:08
Speaker 2: worse for ourselves often than we would ever speak to
28:12
Speaker 2: someone outside. And her work shows overwhelmingly that it has
28:21
Speaker 2: all the upsides of self esteem but none of the downsides.
28:27
Speaker 2: So self esteem, you know, has people striving to be great,
28:30
Speaker 2: but it's at the expense, often of other people. Comparing
28:33
Speaker 2: yourself to other people being narcissistic.
28:36
Speaker 3: I was going to saying, particularly if you're narcissistic, it's
28:38
Speaker 3: not it's not that good.
28:40
Speaker 2: That good, So that that was the first pit that
28:43
Speaker 2: I think is great for all of us to remember
28:46
Speaker 2: to cut ourselves from slack and from a performance perspective,
28:50
Speaker 2: you are more resilient, more of a risk taker if
28:54
Speaker 2: you are self compassionate.
28:56
Speaker 1: And again, Graham, let's say what it's not.
28:59
Speaker 3: Because self current and self compassion isn't going home and
29:02
Speaker 3: going you've had a hard day you need That's okay, right,
29:06
Speaker 3: that's different.
29:08
Speaker 2: It's cutting yourself some slack because as you know, Paul,
29:13
Speaker 2: we have a negativity buyas, so we can have four
29:16
Speaker 2: things during the day. I go, well, one goes bad.
29:19
Speaker 2: What do you think of one thing that's bad? And
29:24
Speaker 2: the silk compassion is a reminder that it didn't work out.
29:29
Speaker 2: I tried, it didn't work out. But what can I
29:32
Speaker 2: learn from this?
29:33
Speaker 1: Can I?
29:34
Speaker 2: How can I go forward? Sort of thing.
29:35
Speaker 3: You've got some data, You've just run an experiment. You've
29:38
Speaker 3: got some data that you can use moving forward. Night.
29:41
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, very much. And the second one is the
29:45
Speaker 2: growth mindset by Carol Dweck. You know, that's just the
29:49
Speaker 2: deep bodied research that she has now which shows that
29:53
Speaker 2: people tend to fall into two categories, fixed mindset and
29:56
Speaker 2: growth mindset. Fixed mindset believes well, that's very good at
30:00
Speaker 2: public speaking, so I'll never be good at it. That's
30:02
Speaker 2: the fixed mindset. The growth mindset is I'm not good yet.
30:08
Speaker 2: That's the big word yet that.
30:11
Speaker 1: Heartful world language.
30:14
Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely, and it is about again cutting in celsim slack,
30:19
Speaker 2: but keep on learning, keep on trying. And the third element,
30:24
Speaker 2: which I think is important, is around the concept of
30:30
Speaker 2: how we think about stress, and it's Kelly McGonagall has
30:34
Speaker 2: a book called The Upside of Stress where she goes
30:37
Speaker 2: into that and she has found that how you think
30:41
Speaker 2: about stress determines whether it's good or bad. So if
30:46
Speaker 2: you think it's bad, you will actually suffer implications, you
30:51
Speaker 2: will actually have harm from that, whereas if you think
30:55
Speaker 2: it's if you reframe it or rethink of it, this
30:58
Speaker 2: adrenaline is helping me to prepare for high impact stuff.
31:04
Speaker 2: You know, if you think about it that way, it's
31:06
Speaker 2: been shown to have much much less harm. And you know,
31:10
Speaker 2: she's shown that people have high stress but have this
31:16
Speaker 2: mindset of just reframing it live much longer than people
31:22
Speaker 2: that have low stress that don't have that mindset. So
31:26
Speaker 2: there are three elements of mind.
31:29
Speaker 1: I would add to that.
31:30
Speaker 3: A Greham along those lines and the research because I
31:34
Speaker 3: dog up into this a bit of my PhD. So
31:36
Speaker 3: the research of Mark Siri at the University of Busslo
31:41
Speaker 3: and also Adrian hass Or Husse and around challenge and threat.
31:46
Speaker 3: So it's very aligned to it that when you view
31:48
Speaker 3: something as a challenge, it actually opens up your cardiovascular system.
31:54
Speaker 3: Your blood vessels daily at blood flow and oxygen increases
31:57
Speaker 3: to your brain, dopamine is released.
31:59
Speaker 1: Your everything is.
32:01
Speaker 3: About engagement, whereas threat actively its cordisol and shuts your
32:05
Speaker 3: cardiovascular system dying and that cortisol lingers in your blood
32:10
Speaker 3: for ours right, So it actually has an impact on
32:14
Speaker 3: both your psychology and your physiology and has lingering effects
32:19
Speaker 3: in your body. I think that stuff is so so powerful. Yeah,
32:25
Speaker 3: you know we view stress as a bad thing. See,
32:28
Speaker 3: if we didn't have stress, we would not be the
32:30
Speaker 3: dominant species on earth.
32:33
Speaker 2: Thank you for sharing that physiological side, because I really
32:36
Speaker 2: hadn't heard that. And you know, as I know you really,
32:40
Speaker 2: stress mind body connection is so related. You know, it
32:45
Speaker 2: shouldn't be surprising that it goes to a physiological level.
32:48
Speaker 2: What it's just lovely to hear that extra dimension.
32:51
Speaker 3: So let's talk about then the intersection between mental health
32:55
Speaker 3: and physical health. I think we're going to be on
32:58
Speaker 3: violent agreement on this, but you talk about it in
33:01
Speaker 3: your books. So what are the kind of big rocks
33:04
Speaker 3: if you like that the people can do to actually
33:08
Speaker 3: nourish and good mental health.
33:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, the great leader's care mindset is self care, crew care,
33:17
Speaker 2: rezone care. So we've talked about the crew care. First
33:20
Speaker 2: one is self care and one of the I in
33:26
Speaker 2: my third book, I said that over four thousand people
33:30
Speaker 2: to work at what worked best in their recovery, and
33:34
Speaker 2: it basically came down to three things what I call vitality, intimacy,
33:41
Speaker 2: and prosperity. So vitality is around a physical activity, you know,
33:47
Speaker 2: it's around moving well, eating well, resting world. The intimacy
33:54
Speaker 2: is about having caring and supportive relationships around us at
33:59
Speaker 2: work but also at home. And you may have heard
34:02
Speaker 2: of the Harvard Adult Development Study, the longest rule being
34:05
Speaker 2: study ever done. The best outcomes come from people having
34:10
Speaker 2: caring and supportive relationships around them. So that's the eye
34:14
Speaker 2: and then the pers for prosperity. And this is our
34:19
Speaker 2: career well being, but it doesn't necessarily just mean our
34:24
Speaker 2: work well being. You know, if you work for a
34:27
Speaker 2: sports team or volunteer for charity or your religion, it
34:34
Speaker 2: can be just as helpful as actual paid work. So
34:38
Speaker 2: they're the three categories vitality, intimacy, prosperity. And so I
34:44
Speaker 2: say to people, you have to act like a VIP
34:46
Speaker 2: each day, and that's not being a wanker. It means
34:50
Speaker 2: that you top up each of those three categories well
34:53
Speaker 2: being each day. And I know I saw looking through
34:58
Speaker 2: your podcast, guess it'd had professor Sonia Libermirski there. Yes, yeah, yeah,
35:05
Speaker 2: huge fan of hers. And you know, my message, which
35:09
Speaker 2: is really based on her findings, is that if you're
35:12
Speaker 2: master your mood, you're mastyr life, and which is quite
35:15
Speaker 2: funny coming from someone who is depressed for five years.
35:19
Speaker 2: But as you know, she identified that our mood or
35:23
Speaker 2: what psychologists call positive effect, is determined by three things.
35:27
Speaker 2: Our genetics, which we really can't control, our situation or
35:34
Speaker 2: our circumstances, and there's often not much that you can
35:38
Speaker 2: contribute to, but our intentional actions, and the genetics contributes
35:44
Speaker 2: fifty percent, our situation ten percent, but our intentional actions
35:48
Speaker 2: is forty percent. And so deciding if you have if
35:53
Speaker 2: you're not doing the right thing, deciding when aware you
35:56
Speaker 2: can just do one thing that will make a difference.
36:00
Speaker 2: That's a really really good start. And part of the
36:04
Speaker 2: self care is a scorecard where there's five different questions
36:10
Speaker 2: in those sort of three categories to try and help
36:12
Speaker 2: people to understand what might be their mood vampire, what's
36:16
Speaker 2: the thing that could be pulling them down the mood ometer.
36:20
Speaker 2: So that's the self care that I talk about.
36:23
Speaker 3: And if you just having been somebody who has been
36:28
Speaker 3: through pretty severe depression, when we talk about those actions,
36:34
Speaker 3: like what are some concrete actions that you find Boo
36:39
Speaker 3: from your own personal experience and from your research, that
36:43
Speaker 3: people can actually do tangible things they could do on
36:46
Speaker 3: a daily basis if they if they find themselves struggling.
36:50
Speaker 2: It's a really good point, Paul, because I think the
36:54
Speaker 2: biggest thing for people that are slipping down the mood
36:57
Speaker 2: ometer is to really take a step back and not
37:01
Speaker 2: look too far ahead. Just look at one week ahead,
37:04
Speaker 2: but decide what you're going to do to have a
37:07
Speaker 2: planner on your actions each week. So when are you
37:12
Speaker 2: getting your exercise, how are you getting good sleep, good
37:16
Speaker 2: rest during the day, how do you eat well? And
37:20
Speaker 2: it's something that I do each week on a Sunday,
37:23
Speaker 2: I plan in that area about my physical health. I
37:27
Speaker 2: then plan about my intimacy or emotional health, and I
37:33
Speaker 2: work out who who I'm having contact this week, who's
37:37
Speaker 2: good for me? You know, people that you feel better
37:40
Speaker 2: being around, not someone that rips your energy from you.
37:44
Speaker 2: And then the same with prosperity. You know, if I
37:46
Speaker 2: only do three things this week, what will have the
37:49
Speaker 2: greatest impact. And so it's just choosing a few things,
37:55
Speaker 2: but also scheduling and if we decide when and where
38:00
Speaker 2: we're going to do it. Peter gold Which's research shows
38:04
Speaker 2: us that we're three hundred percent more likely to do it.
38:08
Speaker 2: And so when I was, you know, very much not
38:13
Speaker 2: quite at the bottom of my journey, but you know,
38:16
Speaker 2: probably about a third of the way through, I just
38:18
Speaker 2: really found that only look from one week ahead and
38:22
Speaker 2: focusing on a few things that would top up each
38:25
Speaker 2: of those sort of three categories.
38:28
Speaker 1: I love this idea of sketching. Here was that again,
38:31
Speaker 1: Peter who.
38:32
Speaker 2: Goalwit is it? In Why You? It's a fascinating finding,
38:40
Speaker 2: it really is. And it happened he discovered it by
38:43
Speaker 2: giving his undergraduates a project complete and they basically had
38:48
Speaker 2: to write about what happened in the holiday period, the
38:50
Speaker 2: Christmas period. They give me assignment I think on about
38:56
Speaker 2: two days before the break for Christmas and they had
38:59
Speaker 2: to admit it on December twenty six, so very busy time.
39:05
Speaker 2: But he gave one group one additional struct instruction and
39:10
Speaker 2: that was when and where you going to do it?
39:12
Speaker 2: So you're going to do it on your dining room table,
39:14
Speaker 2: We're on the randa. Were you going to do it?
39:17
Speaker 2: And you know, he found that there was a three
39:20
Speaker 2: hundred percent greater implementation by actually committing that way.
39:24
Speaker 3: That that is awesome and it plays in with the
39:27
Speaker 3: whole idea. I think it was Professor Colin call A
39:30
Speaker 3: Newport around time boxing and yeah, because that had a
39:35
Speaker 3: big impact on me because I used to keep less
39:36
Speaker 3: all the time. But he's like, get that list and
39:39
Speaker 3: poot the stuff into your calendar. Actually schedule it in
39:43
Speaker 3: your calendar, and then you're way more likely to do it.
39:47
Speaker 3: I also to add on to that, what I found
39:50
Speaker 3: has been very very useful for me and for others
39:52
Speaker 3: that I've worked with is this idea of a ritual
39:55
Speaker 3: board that I call it, where it's a little board
39:58
Speaker 3: with you write down the things.
39:59
Speaker 1: That you're going to for yourself. You know we've talked
40:01
Speaker 1: about to sleep, the exercise, and you.
40:04
Speaker 3: Put your targets in there for the week, and every
40:07
Speaker 3: time you see it you try and do something. And
40:09
Speaker 3: that that ticking off, I think that is it does
40:13
Speaker 3: two things. Number one, it's the trigger the reminder to
40:17
Speaker 3: do the behavior. This is bj Fogg stuff from Stanford University.
40:21
Speaker 3: And having that visual reminder even better if you put
40:25
Speaker 3: it in your calendar.
40:26
Speaker 1: Right.
40:26
Speaker 3: But then the ticking it off, that is what releases
40:31
Speaker 3: dopamine in the brain.
40:33
Speaker 1: Right, then do it further.
40:35
Speaker 3: Right, It's like motivation follows action, not the other way around.
40:39
Speaker 2: Definitely, definitely. And that's how Juri Seinfield attributes his prowess
40:46
Speaker 2: in jokes because he committed to write a joke every
40:50
Speaker 2: single day and he ticks it off the calendar and
40:53
Speaker 2: he still doesn't. He writes a joke every single day.
40:57
Speaker 2: So yeah, the physical and the mind come together when
41:00
Speaker 2: it happens.
41:01
Speaker 3: Yeah, and I still use my bathroom mirror for stuff, right,
41:05
Speaker 3: I write stuff in my bathroom mirror.
41:07
Speaker 1: That just reminds me around, Right, let's do this.
41:10
Speaker 3: And I like to do things for forty days, so
41:12
Speaker 3: I'll just ride it my mirror and kind of take
41:14
Speaker 3: it off because it is so easy for us to
41:19
Speaker 3: slip into like the the size of the hurdle to
41:26
Speaker 3: not do a behavior is just ridiculous, isn't it. You
41:30
Speaker 3: know we can, we can be very good for short
41:32
Speaker 3: periods of time, but but how do you systematize this?
41:36
Speaker 3: And this is kind of what you're talking about, is
41:38
Speaker 3: systematizing this stuff, isn't it.
41:41
Speaker 2: I think I read pull that your an elite karate practition.
41:46
Speaker 1: Right now retired.
41:48
Speaker 3: I had a brief interaction with with with karate and
41:54
Speaker 3: ended up winning the Australian Masters Committee title.
41:58
Speaker 1: But I said, that's to me really but it was masters.
42:03
Speaker 3: But but what I did on that, because you know
42:07
Speaker 3: I wasn't I obviously didn't have any background in it.
42:09
Speaker 1: All these guys are black belts. I was a white belt,
42:11
Speaker 1: but I got.
42:13
Speaker 3: My sense a to show me I only I couldn't
42:16
Speaker 3: even kick because of my hips, so all I could
42:19
Speaker 3: do was punch. Now, I had done a bit of boxing,
42:21
Speaker 3: so I knew about distance and timing.
42:24
Speaker 1: But I just.
42:25
Speaker 3: Videoed him doing the move and got him the video
42:29
Speaker 3: me and then I would watch both in slow motion
42:32
Speaker 3: and see where it was, and then I would just
42:34
Speaker 3: do it.
42:34
Speaker 1: Over and over and over and over again.
42:37
Speaker 3: So I had like two moves that I just had
42:42
Speaker 3: drilled into.
42:43
Speaker 1: My nervous system right, all just through repetition, repetition, repetition, repetition.
42:49
Speaker 1: That's how the brim works, right and the motor system.
42:52
Speaker 2: What a great case study.
42:54
Speaker 3: Yeah, yeah, well it was, I thought, and I got
42:57
Speaker 3: that from Anders Anders Erickson, I think psychologist who's written
43:02
Speaker 3: a great book. I can't remember what it's called, but
43:04
Speaker 3: his whole thing was practice doesn't make perfect perfect, practice
43:08
Speaker 3: makes perfect right.
43:09
Speaker 1: So that's what you've got to do. So game, what
43:14
Speaker 1: we do need to close up here?
43:16
Speaker 3: But what would your message be both for leaders who
43:22
Speaker 3: might be listening to this and also what would your
43:26
Speaker 3: message be for individuals for them to be a contributing
43:32
Speaker 3: member of a high perform and high kurting.
43:38
Speaker 2: Well for individuals, it is really just about you making
43:42
Speaker 2: your well being a priority. There's lots and lots of distractions,
43:46
Speaker 2: but blocking out time for those really important things it's
43:50
Speaker 2: just as important as work. You know when exactly you're
43:52
Speaker 2: going to do exercise? How are you going to get
43:55
Speaker 2: into a routoo in a good sleep, so that that
43:58
Speaker 2: really is looking at quite you know, quite analytically. The
44:05
Speaker 2: second thing is making time for better relationships, and that
44:12
Speaker 2: can often happen through rituals. You know, every Sunday I
44:16
Speaker 2: meet two mates at kurl Cole Beach in Sydney. We
44:20
Speaker 2: walk up to Manly, come back and have have breakfast
44:26
Speaker 2: and it's over a long period of time and of
44:29
Speaker 2: course there's lots of carrying on and putting crap on
44:32
Speaker 2: each other, but you know, we've been done so long
44:34
Speaker 2: that you know, we've had really really serious discussions as
44:37
Speaker 2: well about financial problems or relationship problems or kids problems,
44:42
Speaker 2: and you know those when you can be vulnerable with people,
44:47
Speaker 2: others respond, others respond and then you have a really
44:52
Speaker 2: really tight knit there and the saying goes with our
44:56
Speaker 2: workmates as well, so that's really important element. And then
45:01
Speaker 2: the third component is more the work of a career
45:06
Speaker 2: related just thinking about you know, what can I do
45:11
Speaker 2: that would really make a difference. And you mentioned how Newport.
45:15
Speaker 2: He's got a book called Deep Work. He absolutely shows
45:21
Speaker 2: how to do that. That if we put it in
45:23
Speaker 2: our diary and we give enough time as well, like
45:26
Speaker 2: twenty minutes won't do it even forty five minutes. He
45:29
Speaker 2: basically talks about two or three hours to do something
45:32
Speaker 2: really substantial over that period of time. They're the missing
45:35
Speaker 2: from individuals. From a team perspective, it's just really asking,
45:42
Speaker 2: you know, do we feel connected? Are we interacting well?
45:46
Speaker 2: Do we feel that we belong? The second element is,
45:49
Speaker 2: you know, everyone learning about psychological safety and leading with it.
45:55
Speaker 2: It's not just the team leader anymore. Every person can
45:59
Speaker 2: create or destroy psychological safety where people can be their
46:04
Speaker 2: most innovative and successful. And the third element is basically
46:11
Speaker 2: encouraging each other to take intelligent risks. You know, how
46:15
Speaker 2: can we better serve our customers, How can we better
46:18
Speaker 2: serve our internal colleagues? What can we do that would
46:21
Speaker 2: make a difference. So they're the individual and team things
46:25
Speaker 2: that I'm talking about, and free listeners. On my website,
46:29
Speaker 2: Graham coun dot com, I have there what's called a
46:34
Speaker 2: weak Care Credo and it includes the things that determine
46:40
Speaker 2: you know, the champion, the self care, the crew care,
46:43
Speaker 2: and the red zone care and you can download that
46:46
Speaker 2: on there. And there's also another program which is for
46:49
Speaker 2: people in the red zone, which is called how to
46:52
Speaker 2: support a teammate in distress. And it follows an I
46:57
Speaker 2: care acrement eye as how you identify them, see how
47:00
Speaker 2: you show compassion and listen with empathy. I access experts.
47:05
Speaker 2: You know, doctor gp eap ours for revitalizing work. You know,
47:10
Speaker 2: work is good for recovery, work is good for our
47:13
Speaker 2: world being. And there is exercise. You know, there's a
47:17
Speaker 2: poster that people can download to be reminded of that.
47:20
Speaker 1: That's very cool, excellent.
47:22
Speaker 3: So Graham, look, look, thank you, thank you for your work,
47:25
Speaker 3: and thank you to your mother for that that little
47:28
Speaker 3: bit of advice that actually spurred you into action and
47:32
Speaker 3: has helped you to help so many people. So listeners.
47:36
Speaker 3: And the book is called Grant Leaders Care. But even
47:39
Speaker 3: if you're not a leader, it would be worthwhile you
47:42
Speaker 3: getting a copy of that book because there's lots about
47:44
Speaker 3: individuals as well. Then and just jump onto Greencinon dot
47:47
Speaker 3: com and look at some of those resources.
47:49
Speaker 1: Graham, thank you very much for your time.
47:51
Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. I really enjoyed our chat, and
47:54
Speaker 2: as you said, I feel there's lots of overlap in
47:57
Speaker 2: our work.
47:58
Speaker 1: Absolutely, ik spat