Episode 336 · 15 September 2026 · 54:53

Does the office actually improve collaboration? PLUS! Technostress, Instagram cringe and nightmare bosses., with Danny Wareham

#wellbeing #social media #employees #office #collaboration #management #boss #workplace advice

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News story 1: Technostress and the Digital Mindfulness Scale
news roundup#technostress #digital-mindfulness #wellbeing
News story 2: Should your employees follow you on Instagram?
news roundup#instagram #social-media #employees
Truth or Lie: Does the office actually improve collaboration?
truth or lie#office #collaboration #truth-or-lie
Workplace Surgery Q1: My former nightmare boss now reports to me
workplace surgery#management #boss #workplace-advice
Workplace Surgery Q2: I've become a bottleneck in my own team
workplace surgery#bottleneck #teamwork #delegation
Workplace Surgery Q3: Does culture really matter if people are doing a good job?
workplace surgery#culture #performance #workplace-culture
Wrap-up and how to find Danny Wareham
news roundup#wrap-up #danny-wareham #etymology

Show notes

Does the Office Actually Improve Collaboration? — with Danny Wareham

Guest: Danny Wareham — organisational psychologist, author of Constellation Leadership: Reimagined for a Connected Age, and guest host alongside Al and Leanne this week.

"Return to office" is one of the biggest arguments in modern work. But does forcing people back to the desk actually drive collaboration — or is it just management control wearing a teamwork costume?

Danny joins Al and Leanne to dig into the research behind RTO pushes from companies like Amazon, Disney, and John Lewis. They weigh the real benefits of in-person work (spontaneous ideas, richer sensory information, social glue) against the evidence that remote and hybrid teams can collaborate just as well — and sometimes better. Plus: the devil's advocacy research that might surprise you.

Also this week: Leanne introduces the concept of "technostress" and the new Digital Mindfulness Scale from the University of Nottingham, and Al explores how much leaders should actually share on Instagram — and where "discerned disclosure" ends and oversharing begins.

🔥 Stories Covered

1. Technostress and the Digital Mindfulness Scale Leanne shares new research from the University of Nottingham revealing the concept of "technostress" — the stress overload and exhaustion that comes from our use of digital technology. The researchers have developed and validated the Digital Mindfulness Scale, measuring three things: intention (having a clear purpose for using technology), attention, and attitude — designed to protect employees from exhaustion and burnout. Source →

2. Executive Instagram: How much should leaders share? Al explores the line between being human and being the boss on social media. Using Kelvin Kao's article on the dangers of oversharing and the concept of "discerned disclosure," the team looks at how to build real trust with your team without dumping unprocessed stress on them. Source →

🧠 Truth or Lie: Does Returning to Office Actually Improve Collaboration?

Danny dives into the research behind Return-To-Office pushes from companies like Amazon, Disney, and John Lewis. Does forcing people back to the desk genuinely drive teamwork, or is collaboration just an excuse for management control?

Research mentioned:

Brucks, M. S., & Levav, J. (2022). Virtual communication curbs creative idea generation. Nature, 605, 108–112.
Bloom, N., Han, R., & Liang, J. (2024). Hybrid working from home improves retention without damaging performance. Nature, 630, 920–925.
Yang, L., Holtz, D., Jaffe, S., et al. (2022). The effects of remote work on collaboration among information workers. Nature Human Behaviour, 6, 43–54.
Schwenk, C. R. (1990). Effects of devil's advocacy and dialectical inquiry on decision making: A meta-analysis. Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes, 47, 161–176.

💬 Workplace Surgery

Three listener questions, tackled live:

The nightmare boss: "My former nightmare boss now reports to me. What do I do?"
The bottleneck: "I think I've become the bottleneck in my own team."
Culture vs. output: "Does culture really matter if people are doing a good job?"

(Got a question? Submit it via the connect link below.)

Connect With Us

Get in touch, book a call, or find Al and Leanne on LinkedIn — all in one place: truthliesandwork.com/connect

Mental health support: findahelpline.com — UK: Samaritans 116 123 · Mind 0300 123 3393 — US: 988 — Australia: Lifeline 13 11 14

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Full transcript

Expand full transcript

A — REVIEWComing up in This Week in Work with the awesome Danny Wareham.

Leanne ElliottI've got a new word. This comes off the back of some new research from the University of Nottingham, and it might be the key to improving wellbeing in a digital world. I'll reveal all very, very soon.

A — REVIEWYeah. Also this week, a question for anyone who manages people. Do your team follow you on Instagram? Because there's a strange little tension here, being a normal human online and being the boss. So how much of yourself should you actually share? I think we have an answer.

C — REVIEWAnd in Truth or Lie, is working in the office actually better for collaboration? It's one of the biggest arguments organisations have to justify stricter return-to-office mandates. So are the likes of Amazon, Disney, and John Lewis right, or is collaboration sometimes just a convenient excuse for managers to get their people back in a building? I've read the research and I've got a verdict.

A — REVIEWAnd in the world-famous Weekly Workplace Surgery, one listener tells about a former manager who made their life hell.

Leanne ElliottI got so excited when I read this one.

A — REVIEWI know, this is gonna be a good one. Now, in a remarkable twist of fate, that manager has joined their new team as a direct report. So should they rise above it and stay professional, or is it finally time for that sweet, sweet, sweet revenge?

Leanne ElliottThis is Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you, of course, by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

A — REVIEWMy name's Al, I'm a business owner, and I'm here to ask the questions you might be afraid to.

Leanne ElliottMy name is Leanne. I'm a Chartered Occupational Psychologist, and I'm here to answer them. And together, with the help of our brilliant guest host, Danny Wareham, we'll help you simplify the science of work and build amazing workplace cultures.

A — REVIEWWe'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Does your experience with AI sound a little like this? You prompt for 20 minutes, the output is polished, is confident, and is completely flipping useless. Well, that's what happens when AI doesn't know anything about your business.

Leanne ElliottMm-hmm. But you know what does know something about your business?

A — REVIEWHubSpot.

Leanne ElliottHubSpot's AI, it works with your actual customer data, every interaction, every signal your team has generated over time. So instead of prompting and hoping, you ask once and ship it.

A — REVIEWCheck out hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back. Welcome back. This is only the second week of proper scheduling we've had. As you probably know, we had August off podcasting, which was lovely. Uh, but it's nice to be back.

Leanne ElliottYeah, we missed you.

A — REVIEWWe missed you. We missed you. It's even nice to be back with guest hosts. We love our guest hosts. DW, Big Dan is in the house.

Leanne ElliottDanny!

A — REVIEWHow are you, mate?

C — REVIEWA-L-L-E. Great to see you guys again. Did you have a lovely break?

A — REVIEWIt doesn't really work. It's not the same as Brangelina or, or the other ones. It doesn't really work, does it? Aaliyah.

Leanne ElliottAaliyah.

A — REVIEWIt doesn't really work. Aaliyah. It wasn't Aaliyah in them.

Leanne ElliottMarried to Nelly. Is that right?

A — REVIEWRight. Now, I always get confused. Who was the one who died in a car, in a plane crash? And who was the one who was on Fresh Prince? And who was the one who was— no, Lisa Left Eye Lopes. That's nothing to do with these two.

Leanne ElliottBut she, she is also DNRC.

A — REVIEWYes, because she died in a car— Danny, you know everything. Talk to us about these R&B stars.

C — REVIEWSo Aaliyah, uh, she died in a— she was in a plane, but there's a theory because the plane was flying for a long time and was unresponsive. So there's a, a theory that they're actually all the passengers had passed away before the plane ran out of fuel. But yeah, she was, um, and I think she was, um, romantically linked with R. Kelly. So maybe that's one to skip past.

A — REVIEWOh yeah, maybe that's why she was in the plane dead, because R. Kelly was like, oh, she knows too much. Maybe.

C — REVIEWYeah, yeah, bad times all around.

Leanne ElliottWho's the one that's married to Nelly then?

C — REVIEWMrs. Nelly.

Leanne ElliottSure, they had like a You're like, no matter what I do. That one. Nelly, rapper, wife. Real-time research, people.

C — REVIEWThey're in, uh, oh, Destiny's Child.

Leanne ElliottWhat was the name of the show?

A — REVIEWAshanti. Ashanti. As in like Ashanti as in like, um, Murder Inc Records.

Leanne ElliottSure.

A — REVIEWYeah. I loved Ashanti back in the, back in the early 2000s. I used to listen to Ashanti and, uh, Ja Rule and, uh, LL Cool J and all that. I was, and I was the geekiest, still am the geekiest whitest man in the world. So I used to play it really quietly in my car. No, I just want to drive through the gap just in case anyone thought I was trying to be cool. You know what I mean?

C — REVIEWSo urban. MC Hammersmith, if you want to check him out. Oh, I know him. No, he's just a fabulous— I really like it when you have these biases and opinions of someone based on how you think they look, and then they blow you out the water with how they actually sound or behave, et cetera. And MC Hammersmith is like Louis Theroux, Uh, meets sort of Harry Mack meets LL Cool J. Very, yeah, I just like that sort of dissonance that you have where you're, you're challenging your own beliefs.

A — REVIEWHarry Mack is so awesome. I, I can sit and watch hours of Harry Mack. Same to Leanne. She's like, what are you doing? Shut up. Anyway, this has taken a different direction to what I thought. Uh, Danny, what's going on with your life?

Leanne ElliottYeah, what's new in your world?

A — REVIEWI'm sure you've been putting stuff on, on LinkedIn recently about it. No, I'm not taking the mickey.

Leanne ElliottAre you on the LinkedIn?

A — REVIEWHave you ever heard of this platform called LinkedIn? You should get into it.

C — REVIEWThe main things that have been going on, uh, Obviously, every year during sort of September, October, November, there's a lot of kind of conference season and expos and award season. So for us independents, it means there's an awful lot of time actually out and about and away, which is great. It's really great to see people because obviously individual working, small business working can feel quite lonely at times. But the trade-off is you've got to compound all of that admin, the back office, the article writing, all that kind of stuff into a smaller timescale. timeframe, which I'm just not good at. I'm not, I'm not great at planning. I like to do things under pressure so I can be my own worst enemy over the last sort of 4 or 5 weeks.

A — REVIEWYou do your homework on the bus, that kind of guy?

C — REVIEWOr I come up with an excuse as to why I haven't done it. But yes, that's exactly what I do.

A — REVIEWGenuinely, when I was a kid, we got a new dog from the RSPCA, which is, if you're not from the UK, it's like the dog shelter. We got a new dog and it genuinely ate my homework book. And I just had to say I hadn't done it to the teacher because I can't say that the dog ate my homework. But anyway, well, we can't, we've got nothing to say, have we?

C — REVIEWNo.

A — REVIEWActually, little life update, little life update. As we speak, well, in the last 3 hours, we should have broken ground on our new house.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

A — REVIEWAnd we should be having the beginnings of a honking great hole, hopefully within the next, within the next 48 hours. We hope. We've not been down there to check, so maybe they haven't.

C — REVIEWYeah, that's possible. You're gonna live in a hole? Like a hobbit?

A — REVIEWIt's like the year 3000, we live underwater. That's, that's where—

Leanne ElliottI learned the other day, completely changed the subject. You know that, um, year 3000 off of Busted in the UK? Did you know it's covered by the Jonas Brothers in America? It's like one of their biggest hits. And like, what, what rock have I been living under, or was I in like the noughties to not know that was a thing?

A — REVIEWWaffle House Jonas Brothers?

Leanne ElliottIs that— Yeah.

A — REVIEWHuh.

Leanne ElliottDid you know this, Danny? Did you know this?

C — REVIEWNo, no, but I've got this weird sort of déjà vu when it comes to boy bands that they all kind of merge into one because I too was very urban in my musical choices. So when you start hearing about 9-1-1 and Blue, who were back in the charts, by the way.

Leanne ElliottYou got my body shaking, got the shiver too. I used to freaking love 9-1-1. That's one of my first, first concerts, 9-1-1.

C — REVIEWA bit of EYC. They all kind of blur into one. Although, interesting story, I met my partner, we met through online dating, and the way that she chose me and she reached out was because in my bio, I wrote about the Backstreet Boys and how Howie D is the most underrated member. So why not get in touch and I'll have a chat about it. And nearly 15 years later, she's still hanging around waiting to find the answer.

Leanne ElliottOh, that's cute.

A — REVIEWThat is really cute.

Leanne ElliottThat is cute. I have seen some clips at the minute of their kind of reunion tour they're doing in Vegas, and it does look very cool.

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottYeah.

A — REVIEWAnyway.

Leanne ElliottAh, good times, the noughties, eh? When we still all had hope and dreams for life. Yeah.

C — REVIEWAll right.

A — REVIEWAnyway, I feel like we should probably get onto the, onto the business of the news roundup, Leanne.

Leanne ElliottSure.

A — REVIEWSo we, in our usual style, Leanne goes first. Leanne, what have you seen?

Leanne ElliottOh, let's get, let's get 'Cause Danny, you've listened to the show for a little while. Where do you stand on the jingle?

A — REVIEWHmm. Beneath the news roundup.

C — REVIEWI quite like background music to where that you're voicing over, as long as it's not distracting. And personally, for me, lyrics are distracting. So, as long as the music doesn't have any lyrics, and just as a side note, I can't listen to music whilst I'm working if it has lyrics, because I end up typing what's being, what So a little bit of background news, background music. That's good.

A — REVIEWWe may bring it back. You need to tell us in the comments.

Leanne ElliottYeah. Let us know on Spotify if you're listening, jingle or no jingle.

A — REVIEWBy the way, Danny—

Leanne ElliottWe've lost an entire star just because one of our lovely listeners wasn't a fan of the jingle in the news roundup.

A — REVIEWYes, of course we reacted immediately. But by the way, Danny, I'm the same. I have to have, if I've labeled sort of like house music with no lyrics or something, if I get lyrics, I'm exactly the same. I created on Spotify maybe about 10 years ago a reading playlist. Um, playlist, and it was just classical music and like a little bit of like sort of lo-fi or whatever, no lyrics whatsoever. Someone picked up my phone and went, God, did you go to Reading? Have you got their playlist? I'm like, no, that's actually just reading because I'm such a loser. Anyway, Lee, what are we talking of reading things? What have you been reading this week?

Leanne ElliottI've got a new word.

A — REVIEWGo on.

Leanne ElliottI actually don't know if it is a new word, but I'd not heard of it. So you tell me, technostress.

A — REVIEWDanny, what do you think it is?

C — REVIEWI would guess it's something like when you're bot sitting, sitting around and waiting for technology to do its shizzle and you stressing out over its accuracy, how long it's taking. It's that feeling you get when you're watching the microwave countdown saying, come on, come on, come on, I'm hungry here. But I also need to stop it before it beeps and wakes anybody in the house up because it's midnight snacking.

A — REVIEWI think it might be when you have to, when you've got a new piece of technology on your desk and you've gotta learn how to do it and learn how to use it really, really quickly, or a new piece of software or something. And you're like, this can just get in the bin. Why can't I go back to, why can't it just be the same as it was? Which is weird cuz I actually quite like digital.

Leanne ElliottIt's not the same as it was, to quote our Harry. Um, look at me whipping out the fricking—

A — REVIEWI know you're on fire.

Leanne ElliottYou know, fire, kind of.

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottAll of that. And, but more generic.

A — REVIEWOkay.

Leanne ElliottI guess so. Techno, technostress is the stress overload and exhaustion that can come from our use of digital technology at work.

A — REVIEWSeems a bit of a cop-out, that.

Leanne ElliottIt's quite broad, isn't it?

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottSo yeah, for psychologists as well, that's quite unusual. Unusual. But yes, I saw this in a piece from the University of Nottingham, and it's some new research that was published in Computers and Human Behaviour, if you're interested in the—

A — REVIEWOh, my favourite publication.

Leanne ElliottYeah, okay, sure. The researchers have developed and validated something called the Digital Mindfulness Scale. Which they say is the first measure designed to capture how mindfully people engage with technology at work and whether that protects their wellbeing. So, they define digital mindfulness as engaging with our devices and applications in a deliberate, attentive, and non-reactive way. So, you remember that time where you kicked the printer across your business, like, office?

A — REVIEWAcross the car park. I did do that.

Leanne ElliottThat would be an example of being reactive.

A — REVIEWIt was deliberate.

Leanne ElliottYou were experiencing technostress.

A — REVIEWI was, but it was deliberate and I was very attentive about where it was going and how much, how many pieces of paper it would piss out all over the road. Yes.

Leanne ElliottYeah. So, anyway, the scale measures 3 things: intention, so having a clear purpose for using technology; attention, staying focused and resisting digital distractions; and attitude, which is responding to yourself with kindness and patience when things go wrong, something you need to work on. Al, my love. So, to create it, they first refined the scale with a panel of mindfulness and digital technology experts, and then tested it in a 2-part survey of around 400 UK employees, and 1 month apart. What they found was that people who scored higher in digital mindfulness went on to report lower technostress and exhaustion, and better mental wellbeing a month later.

A — REVIEWHuh.

Leanne ElliottYeah. Interesting. Interesting.

C — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottSo, the researchers also kind of made the point that digital mindfulness is something that can be developed. So, one of the PhD researchers, Elizabeth Marsh, um, said setting an intention before picking up a device, protecting your attention from notifications, and meeting digital frustrations with self-compassion rather than self-criticism can all be helpful. They did say that digital mindfulness is best developed through a combination of individual skills like intention setting, attention management, self-care, alongside organisational changes.

C — REVIEWMm-hmm.

Leanne Elliottaround norms around availability and notifications and the right to disconnect. Thoughts, Danny?

C — REVIEWIt feels like a piece of research written by a frustrated parent that their kids are always on their phone. Yes, that's my first. And I know that's not to take away from the research at all, because I'm sure that's not what it is. But a lot of research feels to be born out of frustration. You know, people are playing on their phones, people doom scrolling. And anything that gives a bit of intentionality around why are you on your phone? Why are you distracted? Are you context switching? Because these notifications going off can distract you and that can be very cognitively laborious. Yeah, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I just struggle with a lot of academic stuff that feels a little bit wishy-washy and reactive in itself. digital mindfulness. And yeah, I imagine joysticks, and a lot of joysticks were used in this research, is my gut feeling.

A — REVIEWOther incest sticks are available just for the purpose of balances.

C — REVIEWSorry, Elizabeth March, I don't mean to poo-poo the huge amount of work that's gone into this at all. And I'm sure it will be, as a seminal piece, it's going to be really fantastic. Yeah, just put your phones down. Just put your phones down.

A — REVIEWI think there is something about— there's something about, I think, some academics who have got the time and the space to sit around and go, do you know what, I wonder if there is such a thing. Whereas the rest of us are going, we just have to get about our day, we've got to get this done. Like Danny, you've got to get these things, these posts out, these things done, and then he's off on a plane somewhere exotic. And whereas the, uh, you know, but a ruminate— rumination, as my brother would call it, navel-gazing. Um, but, uh, but that, that feels really bad because I'm now just basically shitting on all of academics. I'm not at all. You've done some really cool things, but this one feels A little bit like, uh, yeah, yeah, pretty obvious. Sorry, Elizabeth.

Leanne ElliottYeah, I mean, it's, it's not, it doesn't feel groundbreaking, like we learned something incredibly new. I do remember reading though something around, um, Gen Z and how one thing that's having a big impact on their engagement and performance at work was outdated tech, to the point where they had much higher intentions to quit. Because they just couldn't deal. So, so I guess it could tie into that a little bit. But I don't know. I don't know. I just kind of feel like it's, it's the same thing that's already been done, right? We've already kind of— there's already been research into kind of things like you were saying, Danny, like doom scrolling and attention splitting and, and just mindfulness in general and, you know, not losing your shit when things go wrong. So I don't know how much this is.

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottBringing us, it feels like something else we're being told to learn about and worry about potentially as business leaders and owners. Um, but what I would very much enjoy is if we could get our friend Emma Jamil to do some kind of techno song on technostress.

C — REVIEWOkay.

Leanne ElliottTechno, techno, techno, techno.

A — REVIEWThat would be amazing.

C — REVIEWI couldn't work to that though. I'd end up typing out her lyrics. Yeah.

Leanne ElliottSo there you go. I mean, I'm not, I'll leave a link if you care. Ow, what have you seen?

A — REVIEWSo I was reading an article, uh, written by Kelvin Kao. K-O?

Leanne ElliottKao?

A — REVIEWK-A-O. I'm not sure. Kao?

Leanne ElliottKao?

A — REVIEWI'm not quite sure how to say that, but Kelvin. Kelvin K. Kelvin K, who was in 9-1-1, one of the original members actually. Um, and he was asking, what do you do? Do you allow your, your employees to follow you on Instagram? Because he does have an Instagram account and he, and he uses it personally. So he'll put like pictures of his kids or his holidays or what he's eating or You know, like football or whatever. And so he will actually, he says, I've been doing that, but then I've been slightly worried that my employees follow me because he's got this creative agency. So it's kind of like everyone's online anyway. So he says, I don't really want them to follow me, but I feel a bit of a weirdo saying you can't follow me. So it's like his, he was, the entire article was like, how much should I share or should I make it totally private? And then if I make it private, does that make it look even worse?

C — REVIEWMm-hmm.

A — REVIEWSo there's a couple of things in this article I'm gonna pull out. First of all, the main kind of crux of it was how much of yourself, he asks, do you actually let people see when you're also the boss? Some people might say the obvious answer, lock it all down, don't let anyone see anything. But then that creates like a bit of a mystique about yourself. Mm-hmm. And especially if someone already follows you and you suddenly go private, that's like, oh, why have they done that? They're a bit worried about that. But then also if you're just yourself online and going, you know, look at these idiots, they're playing football or whatever, and you use language or whatever, then that's a little bit dodgy as well. So going to Totally closed doesn't magically solve the problem. It just swaps it for another one. He comes across this idea of discerned disclosure, which sounds a little bit wanky management, but the idea's actually quite practical. So if you are gonna share something quite personal, he says, share the version of the struggle you've already processed, not the one you are still in the middle of. For example, he said he, he, he went through some hard times, a few hard months, and he, so after it, he went, That was a hard few months, and here's what I learned from it. He says, if in the middle, right in that challenging time in the business where he was dealing with shit that no one else needed to find out about, if he'd gone, God, it's been a tough week, people might have gone, why? What happened? And it made you think, oh my God, am I gonna lose my job? Uh, so instead he says, if I'm gonna say anything like that, I tend to talk about once it's finished. But I don't know. I mean, I, we don't have any employees. I didn't, when I had employees, Instagram wasn't invented. So, um, what do you guys think?

C — REVIEWFor me, there's 2 parts to showing who you are. The first is, is it public or is it private? That's a choice that you make. The second is what people take from it. So how do people interpret that information? And you can call it, was it discerned disclosure? I think you called it. So I'm going to wait until something's passed before I tell you what I learned about it. And that'd be really useful. That just sounds like the LinkedIn, you know, I had to, my cat passed away 5 weeks ago and this is what it taught me about B2B sales. It just feels wanky.

Leanne ElliottI think I've actually read that post. Yeah.

C — REVIEWSo if you are putting something on the internet, regardless of where it is, the first thing is it is forever. Like if you delete it, it'll still be cached somewhere on Wayback Machine and so on. So you have to be comfortable with anything that you are broadcasting. fasting publicly, regardless of whether you log it down as private or not. So, if you don't want it to impact on your personal brand, then don't stick it online. And if you are thinking twice about putting something online, I had an old manager that used to say to me, if you're having to ask, you already know the answer.

A — REVIEWOh.

C — REVIEWSo, if you are thinking this is a little bit, I'm not sure about this, do I really need to share every sandwich I've ever eaten? Then don't. Maybe close the laptop and go and speak to somebody. Go and say hello. Go for a walk in the park. Yeah. So have I got old as well? Is it that talking about '90s R&B has suddenly made me realize that you only need a TV with 3 channels and put that phone down? That's kind of how it feels. But yeah, why are you worrying about what strangers on the internet are thinking about you? And then how can you turn any piece of news or life impact into some sort of social clout? Your ducks are in the wrong row.

A — REVIEWYes, agreed. Lee, what do you think?

Leanne ElliottI've been desperately trying to find Kelvin Coe on Instagram and I can't. So clearly he's done something with his privacy. Do you know what? My immediate reaction was Kelvin, nobody cares. Nobody cares what you post on Instagram. No, really. You know, I'm not sure that your employees are going to be as invested as you believe unless you're putting out content, to Danny's point, that has, has some kind of impact and intention and is, is either telling a story of the company or where it's going, or, or I don't know, something more interesting than just kind of where you took your kids over the weekend. In terms of sandwiches, I'd be much more interested in that actually, if they were like sandwich of the day. Um, I'd follow that on Instagram. I probably do. But I think Danny said it all, you know, if you're putting something online, you need to be, you need to be mindful what it is. If you're a founder or a business owner or a leader, you might be a little bit more found, um, a little bit more mindful. If you're that concerned, just don't have an Instagram, make it private.

A — REVIEWI mean, there is another side. There's a guy called Alex, I want to say Alex Six, maybe I've just made that up, but I can't remember his second name. And he started a, uh, Um, he started a help desk, like Help Scout sort of thing about 10 years ago. And he blogged every single day on his journey to, um, um, $100,000, um, MRR, like monthly recurring revenue.

Leanne ElliottMm-hmm.

A — REVIEWAnd he was the good and the bad. And he made this decision and he said it straight away. I made the decision that I'm gonna share everything so that my customers, my potential customers, my competitors, my employees can see all the good and bad stuff. Um, and we just shared it publicly and I'm like, well, that's intentional. And I, I know intentional sounds a bit Like, management wanky, but that's intentional. It's fair enough. Um, if it— if you're gonna share your views on immigrants on, on, you know, on, on Instagram, I think that's probably— I obviously wouldn't like you to share those views, but if you do have to do it, maybe that's more a private WhatsApp group or something with some of your equally racist friends with, with resting Brexit face.

C — REVIEWI don't know.

Leanne ElliottThat took a turn from sandwiches, didn't it?

A — REVIEWBut, uh, yeah, so I, I'm with you guys. I'm like, just if you're gonna post it and you worry what someone's gonna think about it, Like Danny says, if you have to ask the question, you probably already know the answer.

Leanne ElliottAnd just because it's not on Instagram doesn't mean it didn't happen. Like, it's okay to just live your life offline. That's fine.

C — REVIEWYeah, I made the mistake last year, Valentine's Day, of telling my partner I love her rather than putting it on Facebook. What a rookie error. What a rookie error.

Leanne ElliottDanny, Danny, Danny. Honestly.

A — REVIEWYou choked my water. Right, that's probably a good point to go to a quick break. After the break, we've got our Truth or Lie segment, which is Increasingly with new people, which I'm really, really enjoying. I love your Truth or Lies, Leanne, but it's cool to shake it up a little bit.

Leanne ElliottYeah, a bit boring listening to my voice, can't it?

A — REVIEWYeah. So we will see you in a second with the lovely Danny Wareham.

Leanne ElliottWelcome to the break.

A — REVIEWYes, my favourite part of the show. These, these 2 idiots have stopped talking.

Leanne ElliottYes, I want to tell you about my new favourite podcast. No, that's a lie. It's my old favourite podcast.

A — REVIEWI've been on this one for a while. Didn't know where that was going. Didn't know where that was going.

Leanne ElliottIt is called iDigrity. It is hosted by Troy Sandage, and it is brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

A — REVIEWYes, it's got shows that are under 30 minutes, and I Digress helps eliminate complexity, complications, and confusion in your business with frameworks and strategies that achieve scalable and sustainable success. At least that's what it says here.

Leanne ElliottAnd if you do want to hear a really personal story, go to episode 136. This is Troy's honest account of fatherhood, Killing hustle culture, and what really matters when you stop performing and start living with intention.

A — REVIEWListen to I Digress wherever you get your podcasts.

Leanne ElliottThat concludes the break.

A — REVIEWLet's return to the scheduled programming.

Leanne ElliottBack to the studio.

A — REVIEWWelcome back to Truth or Lie. It's that time of the week we take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it up. Now, this week we're diving into the RTO world. That's return to office mandates. You know that. They know that. That's on the moon. They know that. Stanford from about 15 years ago. Love. Anyway, this is specifically the claim that return to office is better for collaboration. Now, retailer John Lewis in the UK made this claim in April this year, saying that head office staff have to spend more time working in person than not. And this is on similar to Disney, Apple, Barclays, Amazon, a lot of people. But is it true? Does returning to office actually improve collaboration? Danny Wareham, it is over to you.

C — REVIEWI think because Leanne will pull me up if I don't, we have to start with what's collaboration? How do we define collaboration? Because are we talking about communication, coordination? So are people working more efficiently? Idea generation, decision quality? Because there is research into all of those areas and all of them form part of collaboration. What we're talking about here is the quality of the ideas that are generated and whether they're adopted. This is specifically what we're going to focus on today. So when you're in person, do you make better decisions and do you get a better variety and quality of ideas to pick about to make those decisions? So the case for, should we start with first?

A — REVIEWMm-hmm.

C — REVIEWSo there is a legitimate case. It's not simply return to office bad. There is some benefit in the research to being close to each other. So first of all, physical proximity can improve collaboration. There's a large-scale study that I found, 61,182 people in a Microsoft study found that moving to firm-wide remote working made collaboration networks more siloed, and more static, and they had fewer connections between otherwise disparate groups. So in other words, working remotely actually encouraged siloed tribal behaviors. So remote working appears to reduce the likelihood of people connecting across any organizational boundaries. And one of the ways that can be mitigated is by looking at your organizational structure. But when you've got 61,000 employees, that's really difficult to do. And part of the reason that physical proximity helps is because A lot of ideation comes from completely informal conversations. We don't schedule things in our calendars like 2:17 PM, spontaneous conversation with someone from another team makes me think about or rethink about a particular problem. That just doesn't happen. Whereas bumping into somebody in a corridor, being in a meeting, or being at the coffee machine can often get those sort of cognitive juices flowing. So physical proximity is one. A second is that there's strong evidence around creative idea generation. So, Buchs and Levav conducted a laboratory experiment and a field experiment across 5 countries, and we compared collaborating face-to-face versus video conference. And video conferencing groups generated fewer creative ideas than the face-to-face groups. Now, the important point here is that they generated fewer ideas. However, they didn't choose worst ideas. So if they had a selection of ideas to choose from, actually it made no difference whether they were in person or whether they were video conferencing. It was purely the generating of ideas that was different. So in other words, being together helps you generate possibilities, but it doesn't necessarily help you choose between.

A — REVIEWThose possibilities.

C — REVIEWAnd the third argument for is that there is more sensory and environmental information, which can actually make creation more easy as well, he says in his best English. So again, in the same study, if you think about when you're on a video call, you're on Zoom or Teams and various other video conferencing that's available, then you are concentrated on one set of stimuli basically right in front of you. Or if you are a good interviewer, you're You're staring at the camera so you don't look like a psycho. Whereas when you're in person, there is more stimuli, more data, there is different environments that you're reacting to people's body language and so on. So because there is more stimuli, that can increase the amount of creativity that's in the room. And you can think of it as physical environment leads to broader attention, which leads to potentially broader associative thinking, which can lead to more ideas. However, that is just an inference. So, we see more ideas being generated, but we're not entirely sure why it is. And this is just something that is inferred from that 4 argument. So, proximity changes how we act. Idea generation might be improved in person, and a varied environment rather than just a screen might improve the variety of ideas, but it is a very weak link and it's kind of inferred. So, we all cool on the 4?

Leanne ElliottYeah, it certainly sounds like there's some, there's some merits. Absolutely. But it also enables some—

C — REVIEWWell, let me shoot some holes. Yeah. Let me shoot some holes in those merits. So the case against, groups are really bad, surprisingly bad, in fact, at generating ideas. There's loads, loads, and loads of research going back half a century about brainstorming and collaborative meetings that do not generate ideas at all. There's a famous study by Janis in 1972, which came up with the idea of groupthink. And this was kind of a seminal piece around, in essence, people working together. When you pool those ideas, the loudest voice in the room kind of dominates and molds those ideas. And that's been repeated plenty of times over the last 50 years as well. Mulliner-Johnson, Sala's meta-analysis, Brainstorming groups generally are less productive than nominal groups in both the quantity and the quality of ideas. There's also the idea of production blocking. So production blocking is where if I give you a scenario, so somebody comes up with an idea, there's only one person that can speak because otherwise you just get a melee of noise. So somebody waits to speak and they might have a different idea, but in the meantime, they've forgotten that idea or they've lost their train of thought or they've shifted their attention. Or they've decided it wasn't worth or wasn't safe to say it. And as a result, you end up with the same dominant ideas as well. The second is that being physically together doesn't mean we all collaborate and contribute equally. A physical meeting creates social hierarchy. You always have one person who stops the talking and says, right, we're finished talking about Love Island or whatever it is, or the football at the weekend and starts the agenda. Somebody always speaks first, somebody speaks most, somebody is perceived by the group as being more authoritative. And all of these things mean that if you have a different idea, there's lots of social pressure to not share that idea. You might end up with lots of volume, but you're more likely to end up with lots of validation of that voice in the room. So people going, yes, boss, that's a good idea. I can see how we can build on that, even though the idea might be a bit pants. And that status plays through in our third argument against, which is physical meetings amplify status because everybody tends to know everybody in that room. So if there's a senior executive, for example, or somebody further up the tree in the hierarchy of the business, then if they propose something, the likelihood is that they will get lukewarm support from the people that are actually staunchly against it. Or you'll get silence. It's very rare that you get somebody called out on what a wanky idea that might be. So people don't put forward, they just go with the flow. And then after the meeting, they have a bit of a nag, a bit of a bitch about it in the corridor about that was a stupid idea, but it's too late because it's already been solidified. Somebody's taken away the actions. You might think it's collaboration, but it's not. It's just capitulation. It's not that People aren't collaborating. It's just they collaborate badly in those situations. So is it a truth or a lie? I'm gonna say it's a misleading truth. There is genuine evidence that physical interaction can improve some forms of collaboration, particularly creative idea generation. However, there is also really strong evidence that groups themselves introduce cognitive and social costs. But importantly, the evidence doesn't establish that returning to the office is the causal intervention to solve the problems. It just feels like it is because that's the way we've always worked in the past. So we have this kind of bias for familiarity. The bottom line is the office can create better conditions for some form of collaboration and worse conditions for others. So what matters most is not simply where people collaborate, but how the collaboration is designed. So, we've spent 5 years now since COVID trying to work out, trying to argue whether people should work from home, work from the beach, work from the office. It's about time we started asking, what is it you're trying to achieve in the first place? And then what is the right tool, approach, and environment for that?

Leanne ElliottYes.

A — REVIEWLove that. Leanne, I know you'll be all over that.

Leanne ElliottIt's context. And I've said that before even COVID, I used to manage remote teams and manage teams as a remote manager. And, and my, my role and what I had to do as a manager didn't really change, but the intentionality changed. Maybe the frequency changed. It's just context, whether you're remote or whether you're in person. It just seems like a, an excuse. Whereas if they were saying, you know, we, we think it's better for collaboration because we intend on doing X, Y, and Z scenarios when everyone's back in the office, and we know the pitfalls of of groupthink and social hierarchies, and that's what we're going to try and mitigate, then yeah, that would be a convincing argument to why they might be experiencing better collaboration in person. But otherwise, it's just an excuse, I think.

C — REVIEWLet me give you a little story. This is a true story about my mum's husband, right? His name's Merv. He won't be listening, but it doesn't matter.

Leanne ElliottHave proof, Merv.

C — REVIEWHe is a huge, huge Liverpool Football Club fan.

Leanne ElliottGood luck.

C — REVIEWHuge. This is a man who has, or tried to have, Liverpool duvet covers on his marital bed with my mother. He has more pictures of Kevin Keegan on the wall than he does of us as his stepchildren. Merv has never been to Anfield, the home of Liverpool. Okay? He has never been in the office. So, does that mean that Merv is less passionate about what Liverpool are trying to do just because he's effectively a remote fan? Well, no, because he understands what the club is about. He's passionate about what they're doing. He understands all of the artifacts, the symbols, the language. He sings the songs. He gets dressed up in his kit as a 65-year-old man and watches it on the telly every week. So, and that's because Liverpool are very clear on what are we here for?

A — REVIEWYeah.

C — REVIEWWhat are we trying to achieve? What's our goal, if you pardon the pun? And the thing for me is organizations tend to be pretty poor at doing that. So we cling to old tropes. So if you see job descriptions that say, we're hybrid, it's 2 days a week in the office, it's instinctual to go, why? Why 2 days? Why not 3? Why not 5? Why not any? And start to challenge around those things. So if organizations, rather than focusing on what's the lever, what's the measure, what's the variable we should be investigating, and instead— focused on should we be designing work around the advantages that the environment gives us, or should we be trying to design the environment around some sort of ideology of work? What are you trying to achieve? What's the right approach?

Leanne ElliottWhy they paid Danny the big bucks.

A — REVIEWYes. Danny for PM. Yes. Yeah. In case you don't know, Danny's got a book, Constellation. It talks a lot about this kind of thing. You definitely go and buy it. It is a fantastic read. That was really cool.

Leanne ElliottI really—

A — REVIEWyeah. And also, I'm always a bit worried when someone who's very clever comes on. I'm a lot cleverer than you.

C — REVIEWWell, let's save that for next week, shall we, when you get a clever person on.

A — REVIEWWell, but I was worried that I'm like, I'm not gonna understand it, or I'm not gonna, um, I'm not gonna see like the practical application. But yeah, totally get that. Totally get that. So yeah, we'll send this to, um, to Walt or whoever's in charge of Disney these days and, um, see, see what he's gotta say about it.

C — REVIEWWe're all guilty of it. In 2019, I was running a media team in a, in a telecoms place, and one of my, um, One of my staff asked me if she could work from her camper van in Newquay. She was a videographer. She did editing of videos. And I instinctually said no. But looking back on it, if we are measuring, do you perform your role based on the outcomes rather than based on the geography, then actually there's no reason that I should have said no. So we're all guilty of this kind of bias of stay where we are, do what we've always done.

A — REVIEWJust really quickly, Danny, can you think back? And I know whether you're able to or want to say this, Do you know what your motivation was saying no? Do you know what it was? Why it made you say no?

C — REVIEWAt the time, no. But looking back on it, it's because it's the environment that I was in wasn't safe enough for me to make a decision that was more aligned with my values. So actually conformity and keeping the status quo is kind of what we're all wired for until we know that it's safe. I didn't feel safe. You don't get to work for Mnuki.

Leanne ElliottBut it is what you're, what you're used to, isn't it? And what you're kind of, kind of brought up in. Because like my, my Romerich team was, it started, I worked in a delivery role that was community-based. So there'd be a team of us, then we'd be kind of bouncing between community centers. Sometimes we'd be together, sometimes we'd be apart. It's a really dispersed team. So I was always in the, in kind of the habit of seeing teams as like work is, is about work getting done. Rather than where people are. But I think if you're particularly in the constraints of like a call centre where everyone is physically, you know, infamously on kind of the same floor, then it's different, isn't it? But yeah, I did, I guess that's maybe that's my disappointment is I hoped that the big shift of COVID would maybe open our minds and maybe start to question some of those biases and assumptions that we had. And it just seems like it's not really.

C — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottIt's just kind of, we've defaulted back to what's comfortable.

C — REVIEWYeah. People are people are people.

A — REVIEWYes, absolutely. Well, talking of people, this is— that's not a good link, Al.

Leanne ElliottTalking of people being people, people have questions, Al.

A — REVIEWTalking of people being people, people have questions. I might cut that bit out. I might leave it in just to show that I can be a bit of an idiot. Okay, so we're on to the world-famous weekly workplace surgery. First of all, thank you so much, Danny. That was brilliant. Uh, we— Danny's gonna be like, he'll be here, probably not as much as Dr. Jake because we can't stop Dr. Jake from turning up.

C — REVIEWBut, um, yeah, but we will Yeah.

A — REVIEWWe'll definitely have, uh, we'll definitely have Danny back on very, very soon. If you have your own, um, uh, your own truth or lie that either maybe you'd like to deliver yourself or you want us to cover, then let us know. Links are in the show notes. Okay, so world-famous weekly workplace surgery, I'm picking up the phone to Leanne.

Leanne ElliottQuestion of the week.

A — REVIEWAnd Danny. And Danny this week. Yes. So listen up, Danny. Uh, this is— this one's about my former nightmare boss now reports to me. This is gonna be good. 5 years ago, I worked for a manager who made my life hell. He ruled through Fear created constant urgency, expected ridiculous hours to credit my work, and made anyone who pushed back feel like they were the problem. I asked to go and work in a Caravan UK and he said no. No, that's not, that's not this. So eventually I left completely burnt out and moved on. Well, karma has a sense of humor because after a recent restructure, he's just joined my team and he reports to me. Part of me wants to be completely professional and treat him exactly as I would anyone else. Another part of me would be lying if I said there wasn't a tiny bit of satisfaction in the situation. Danny, Leanne, what would you do in my shoes?

Leanne ElliottGo on, Danny.

C — REVIEWI would be you. If somebody treats you badly, like say, say you were going to give some money to somebody who's homeless, and that homeless person bit your hand off and said, you know, I, I don't want the sandwich that you've given me, I wanted the cash, and they, and they have a bit of a rant at you. You don't stop being altruistic and giving to the homeless because that's That's their reaction, not yours. And for me, if this guy really is a bit of an asshole, that will come out in the wash eventually anyway. So you do you, you be as good a manager as you can. If I can be a bit vulgar about it, one of the great pieces of advice that my mum gave to me was, don't play with the pigs in the shit because you just get dirty and the pigs enjoy it.

Leanne ElliottSo don't lower yourself.

C — REVIEWDon't lower yourself. Just, just you do you and be as good a manager as you can. There's learnings in there for you, and the bill will come due. He will, he will either move on or he'll develop, which ultimately is your role as a manager anyway.

A — REVIEWLove that. Leanne?

Leanne ElliottDon't underestimate the amount of pain this person is already feeling by the fact that they're now reporting to you. You may never know, but I find it highly unlikely this person isn't mortified. that they are now reporting to somebody that they used to, to manage and not treat particularly well. They might not have that awareness that they didn't treat you well, but they'll— and that even more of an ego is going to mean they're even more mortified by the fact they're now reporting into, into you. So, I think you can take sweet satisfaction knowing they're probably squirming, um, at this situation. I'm with Danny, you know, when they go low, you go high, to quote Michelle Obama. It's— Don't let it jeopardize your reputation within the company or reflect badly on you. Treat them the same as you would Anybody else, I think Danny's right. I have a feeling this is going to come out in the wash anyway. I think this person will expose themselves in ways that you don't need to.

C — REVIEWIf you're an idealist like me, there is an opportunity here for the manager, the new manager, to realize that part of the reason they are the way they are is because this person was an asshole to them. They probably thought, I'm not going to be a manager like that. So actually, there's an opportunity here to actually address it. To thank the person and say, you know, I learned so much from you, not all of it good, and it's helped me to be better at what I do. You don't necessarily have to call a spade a spade, but your job as a manager is to help get the most out of your people. And some of those people might have rubbed you the wrong way in the past. So when they go low, you go high.

A — REVIEWLove that. Love that. And let's be honest, if you hang around, if you live long enough, you're always going to meet someone who's a bit of an asshole. Okay, so question number 2 is all about becoming a bottleneck in their own team. It says, hi, Al and Leanne, and I'm gonna pencil in here, and Danny.

Leanne ElliottThey didn't know. They didn't know.

A — REVIEWThey didn't know, Danny. They didn't know. I run a marketing team and everyone is genuinely good at their dog— dog? Good at their job. But somehow it's been a long day, but somehow I've become the person everything has to go through. I thought hiring strong specialists would mean I could step back, but half my week now seems to be spent translating between people and joining the dots. Nothing is obviously broken, but the team doesn't seem to work properly without me holding it together. So have I structured the team badly? Is this just the part of being the person in charge? We went to Danny last time.

Leanne ElliottOh no, I think this is right up Danny's street.

A — REVIEWGo on then, DW.

C — REVIEWIs it end up being the Danny show today? Um, my immediate, my immediate thought is that there are 2 parts to this. One is kudos for recognizing, for having the self-awareness that you might be part of the challenge. I love it when leaders have self-awareness. The second is there's a phenomenon called awestruck syndrome, which is where there is a single person, usually at the top of a team or top of an organization, that tends to know a lot of things about the organization, about the processes and how we do things around here. And they unintentionally become this kind of oracle that people go to for all their issues. And the more democratic that they try to be, so when they try to delegate down to their team, their impatience can get in the way of, well, they're not quite getting it fast enough, so I'll take it and do it. And it becomes a vicious cycle of reinforcing that actually you can have a learned behavior in the people that we don't need to do it because Danny will do it eventually, for example. And you get internalized resentment in in the Danny in this scenario because my people just aren't taking the bull by the horns or taking the initiative. And so for me, I would approach this through communication. These help reinforce that you are not the oracle, that you're not to be awestruck, that I really need your help. I really need your help because none of us are as smart as all of us. And this is why you're part of the team because I value your Your input. And if it keeps having to be me that does everything, then we're missing out on why we're all here in the first place and the strengths that we bring to it. So, it starts with self-awareness, which they've got, and a bit of communication as to why we're here, what we're here to achieve.

A — REVIEWVery nice. Lee, anything to add?

Leanne ElliottI agree. I think communication is going to be key here, isn't it? And I think what the thing that sticks out to me in your email was, I thought hiring strong specialists That seems to mean, you haven't said more about it, but you've got people that may be quite technical or quite very focused individual contributors, perhaps.

A — REVIEWMm-hmm.

Leanne ElliottAnd your job as a manager will be an element of bringing these people together, but also coaching them on how they work as a team to get this task delivered. There's some kind of task cohesion missing here, perhaps. So, it might also be looking at the workflows and where where the commonalities are in terms of when people are coming to you. Is it for decisions about a certain point of the process? Is it about, um, the, the next bit of flow, like what happens after kind of step 2 of the process? I wonder if there's any themes that are going to come through if you start to think about why people are coming to you. It might be as simple as you're not giving them the autonomy or the permission to, to kind of be able to make these decisions independently, and that just comes from you going, yep, that's That sounds great. In that scenario, again, don't feel you need to come to me. That's fine. You've got it. Um, so there's going to be an element of kind of coaching these people to be a bit more independent and autonomous, whilst also just looking if there are any themes in what's— why people are coming to you. And is that maybe something in the process, process that's broken? Because that's a really easy fix if it is.

A — REVIEWNice. You've just solved that problem there. Very, very nice. Okay, so onto our final question. And this person is a manager and they say, does culture really matter if people are doing a good job? I manage a team where most people hit their targets and a few regularly exceed them, but some of those same people are completely uninterested in the company culture. They do the work, they're professional, but they don't really engage in the wider business or company values or any of the stuff we're told is important for building a strong culture. Part of me thinks, does it actually matter if someone's good at their job? They deliver results. Why should I care whether they feel emotionally invested in the company? But I also wonder whether allowing people to completely opt out of the culture eventually starts to affect the rest of the team. Guys, I think the question here is, should someone care about cultural buy-in if they're already doing really well?

C — REVIEWDanny, there's so much to unpack in here. You can't opt out of culture for starters. It's like saying, I don't care about the air. Culture is an emergent factor built on the day-to-day experiences, the behaviors that are happening in all of your people all the time. It just happens. It's just there. You get a culture by design or default, and design is better. But if your people are good at what they do, if they're delivering the performance that you want and they're professional and you say they're They do everything that you need in an employee, then what's the issue? Ultimately, culture is what are the behaviors that are going to help deliver our organizational strategy? If those behaviors are already manifesting, if your performance is already there, then it doesn't matter that it doesn't match the words on the wall with your values, or that they don't know what's going on elsewhere in the business. That's not a requirement. The requirement is why are you fixating so much on what's laminated rather than what's lived in your organization? So I'll get a bit soapboxy about this, but you already have a culture and it seems to be working well. Just because you can't codify it, it's not the end of the world.

A — REVIEWSo Lee, have these people created their own microculture that's kind of not connected to the main culture, the macroculture, because this works for them or what's going on?

Leanne ElliottPossibly. Possibly. I mean, we'd need a lot more information to know that for sure, but yeah, it's It's possible that that's happened, and that's why kind of as a, as a unit, they're functioning to a point where performance is, is good. I'm wondering if this person is maybe overinvested, and we don't know, but I'm also wondering if this person is a founder and is questioning why their people aren't as emotionally invested in the company as they are. I don't know. Or this person very much is and is, is wondering kind of why there's, there's that difference.

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottAnd I guess if it— if you are a founder, or maybe a senior leader who is very connected, I guess my question would be, what's— what are they not understanding about what the organisation is trying to do in terms of how it operates in the world, or the values that it has, or the mission it's trying to deliver? Because people are clearly very engaged in their role and what they're having to deliver as independent people in the organisation.

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottIt sounds like the disconnect is how that's contributing to the greater meaning of the organisation. And I mean, I'm kind of with Danny. I'm not sure it really matters that much unless you're starting to see people become quite, quite detached or siloed or kind of head down, do my work, go home. There's not kind of any, any sense of, of kind of relationships being fostered within Because then that could be early signs potentially of some sort of slow detachment, which then can turn into disengagement, then can turn into people leaving. Or if they are fundamentally just opposites of what the values of the organisation are, which some people do find themselves in, in roles like that for necessity at times, and ultimately they will be short-lived. They can lead to, to kind of a version of burnout, which I've heard called moral burnout, where you have this distance between personal and organisational values. So, that is not to say there aren't risk factors there.

A — REVIEWYeah.

Leanne ElliottBut my vibe is really that you've more got beef that you care about this company more than your team do. And I think Danny's right. The question is why? Why is that the case?

C — REVIEWI think there's a danger that you're not focusing on culture, you're focusing on cult. You're creating an environment where everybody is focused towards one person. There's less opportunity to dissent. This is Pretty much the definition of a cult. Culture is not about creating a great place to work. It's about creating a place where great work is done. And if the behaviors that you have are creating a place where great work is done, then your culture is probably heading in the right direction. The only thing that the interest in this, which is a good thing that this person has, is how do you know which bits are helping so you can replicate and do more of it? Ultimately, it doesn't matter what you call it or what label it comes across. Are people reliable, delivering results, good at their job, and doing what you need, which is what you say they are doing? And if that's not enough, then maybe you're looking for a cult rather than a culture.

A — REVIEWLike that. Like that. Right. Well, that's the end of the episode today. I'm off to Google the etymology of cult and culture and see if they come from the same root. I'd be very— no, they don't. Danny's just said no, they don't.

C — REVIEWCult comes from colere, which is the Latin to tend to cultivate. Cult comes from cultus, which is for worship.

A — REVIEWAh.

Leanne ElliottYou're so smart, Danny.

A — REVIEWOr it could be all bullshit. Like, he says it very confidently.

C — REVIEWJust make it up confidently.

Leanne ElliottWell, I'm convinced either way. I'm convinced.

A — REVIEWOkay, Danny Wareham, thank you so, so much for your time. joining us. People will want to find out more. They can go find you on LinkedIn. Anywhere else they can go and find you? Do you have a book?

C — REVIEWYeah, I don't know if it's been mentioned, and they can find out about the book on LinkedIn as well. So no, Danny Wareham on LinkedIn. I'm one of the few. I'm not the software designer from Connecticut. I am the organizational psychologist from Stoke-on-Trent. And you can also find me at dannywareham.com or at fergan.co.uk, which is my consultancy site.

A — REVIEWLovely. Right, until next week, if you've got any comments, please leave them in the— if you're on Spotify, please leave them in comments. Otherwise, you can find Leanne on LinkedIn and you can talk to her there. You can get in touch with us in the show. There's loads of show notes. So check out the new website. It has got— it's genuinely got about 2,500 new pages on the website. So go and have a look at it and it's got— it'll have everything on there. Lee, anything to add before we go?

Leanne ElliottNope. I think that concludes today's business. Thank you, Danny. Awesome as always.

A — REVIEWYes, loved you. Thank you. And we'll see you on Thursday.

Leanne ElliottBye.

A — REVIEWBye-bye.

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EP 3412 Apr 2023