101: Walmart’s RTO Drama, Leadership Courses, PLUS Stress Languages & Weekly Workplace Surgery – This Week in Work 28th May 2024

Welcome to another episode of Truth, Lies and Work, the award-winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network. Join Leanne Elliott, a business psychologist, and Al Elliott, a business owner, as they chat about the latest workplace news and trends, plus the world famous weekly workplace surgery.

News Roundup:

– Walmart’s RTO Mandate: Leanne discusses Walmart’s new return-to-office (RTO) mandate and the backlash it faces, including the latest research suggesting RTO mandates have zero impact on financial performance.

– Mark Marr’s Study: Insights from a study by Mark Marr, Associate Professor at the University of Pittsburgh, highlighting the negative effects of RTO mandates on employee satisfaction and financial performance.

– Leadership Course Challenges: Al shares advice from a Harvard Business Review article by Michael D Watkins on how to implement changes after returning from leadership courses effectively.

– Understanding Stress Responses: Leanne explains the concept of stress languages and how individuals react uniquely to stress, introducing categories like imploders, exploders, fixers, numberers, and deniers.

Workplace Surgery:

– Diversity in Rural Areas: Leanne and Al discuss strategies for improving team diversity in predominantly white rural areas.

– Inconsistent Workplace Initiatives: Tips on how to help a manager implement more consistent and effective workplace culture initiatives.

– Difficult Business Partner: Advice for dealing with a controlling and manipulative business partner and considering whether to leave and start a new venture

Resources

All the links mentioned in the show.

– Mark Marr’s Study on RTO Mandates

– Harvard Business Review Article by Michael D Watkins

– Sonia Thompson’s Podcast: Inclusion and Marketing

– Catherine Garrod’s Book: Conscious Inclusion

– Geoff Roberts’ Twitter

– Joe Fear’s Episode on Truth, Lies and Work

Connect with your hosts

• Connect with Al on LinkedIn 
• Connect with Leanne on LinkedIn
• Join the discussion about this episode on LinkedIn
• Email: podcast@TruthLiesandWork.com
• Follow us on Instagram @truthlieswork
• Chat with us on Twitter @truthlieswork
• YouTube channel for the podcast @TruthLiesWork
• Check us out on TikTok (LOL!!!) @truthlieswork

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The Transcript

⚠️ NOTE: This is an automated transcript, so it might not always be 100% accurate!

Leanne Elliott: Hello and welcome to Truth, Lies and Work, the award winning psychology podcast brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Leanne. I’m a business psychologist.

Al Elliott: My name is Al. I’m a business owner.

Leanne Elliott: We are here to help you simplify the science of work.

Al Elliott: Yes, we are. If you just, I know I keep saying this Tuesdays, Leanne and I work roundup or workplace roundup. And then the weekly workplace surgery, Thursday’s interviews. Just want to say it until everyone just understands. And also let’s, let’s not forget those people who’ve just come. Who are brand new to us.

Welcome. Welcome. I think you’ll like it here. Lee, talking of liking things, is it not your favorite time of the week? Do

Leanne Elliott: you know what, Al? I believe it is my favorite time of the week. It is time for the news roundup. Cue that jingle.

Al Elliott: Okay, Lee, what have you got?

Leanne Elliott: Well, last week, Al, you might remember that we chatted about a survey that found that flexible and hybrid working is now the number one work perk that employees are looking for.

I

Al Elliott: do.

Leanne Elliott: Well, bearing in mind, we’re also seeing a lot of return to work mandates or RTO mandates. Walmart has become the latest organization to issue a return to office and it is demanding. As these organizations seem to that hundreds of previously remote employees need to move within commuting distance of the company’s main office in Arkansas or hubs near New York and San Francisco.

And this is also amidst some pretty hefty layoffs, several hundred in fact, so not a great time for Walmart. So why the RTO mandate? CEO Doug McMillan told investors on the 16th of May that the company’s culture, that the company’s culture is strong when workers are together. He said, we make decisions faster, we’re more creative and we help develop the next generation of talent.

Well, I mean, I hope that is the case and that this collaboration and development is done with intention because if not, Doug is in for a nasty shock if he is just looking for a financial fix. I don’t believe it’s going to work out and I will tell you for why.

Al Elliott: Please do.

Leanne Elliott: Well, a study by Mark Marr, who is the Associate Professor of Business Administration at the University of Pittsburgh, has found that RTO mandates have zero impact on the financial performance of a business.

Yes, the researchers, this is proper academic research. The researchers identified S& P 500 firms with RTO mandates, and they examine the impact on employees, including job satisfaction, work life balance, and how they rate the of their managers after a firm has announced an RTO mandate they then also importantly looked at how these outcomes impacted financial performance in the business.

Their findings suggested that managers are using RTO for power grabbing and blaming employees for poor performance. They also provided evidence that RTO mandates hurt employee satisfaction, but do not improve financial performance. They concluded their report with some recommendations. They said, instead of focusing everyone back to in office work, high performing employees who perform well at home should be allowed to continue at home.

This would benefit the employee as well as the family. in the long term through retention of high performing employees who can more easily find other jobs. Monthly team building activities in person can help to maintain company culture, which is essential for problem solving and brainstorming new ideas.

The lead researcher, Mark Ma, went on to say in an interview with Business Insider. I think firms need to treat the employee more humanely and also give them more flexibility. I see no reason for these big firms to treat their employees more harshly because they’re working from home. Hear, hear. It seems we have scientific proof that RTO mandates.

Do not work.

Al Elliott: Yeah. And I mean, if we’re talking about financial, then, um, the old Sam Walton, I think was the founder of Walmart was based on basically everything was finances. But I think, I think Walmart, I think they make sort of like about a 4 percent gross margin on their, on their business. So obviously you have to keep costs down.

This just seems like a totally counterintuitive thing. And you know, the whole idea of saving costs. All right. That’s what Walmart’s based on. That’s what a lot of businesses are based on, but. I don’t understand why bringing them back to the office is going to reduce the costs because surely more people in an office is going to mean more energy, more money spent on energy, um, more costs.

I just don’t get it. But maybe we’re in the wrong, Leanne. Maybe everyone else has got it right.

Leanne Elliott: Well, according to Mark Marr, we’re not, Al. According to research out of University of Pittsburgh, we are not. I think it’s interesting. And of course, you know, this is, this is all a big experiment post COVID, isn’t it?

Hybrid working. And of course there is other evidence which suggests. That hybrid working can be challenging when it comes to employees setting their own healthy boundaries for work. And actually they work longer and that can impact on their wellbeing and work life balance. But I think what frustrates me is if you want your people back in the office, just say you want people back in the office, just say that’s how you prefer to work and that’s how you want your organization to work.

Don’t hide behind, Oh, it’s better for culture. It’s better for collaboration. It’s better for brainstorming. It’s not. And there’s lots and lots of research, research that shows that That being in the office five days a week does not create a great workplace culture where people are collaborating and brainstorming.

Let’s just stop hiding behind workplace culture as the reason to get people back into the office. And yeah, hopefully there’ll be more research that just underlines this point. If that’s what you want to do, that’s fine, but let’s just be honest and transparent about it, shall we?

Al Elliott: Excellent point. Like that.

Stop hiding behind workplace culture. Just because you’re selfishly, you have to go to the office and you want everyone else to be there. No, I like that. That’s, that’s a really good point. What have

Leanne Elliott: you seen this week, Al?

Al Elliott: Uh, well, in the HBR, which is the Harvard Business Review.

Leanne Elliott: I’ve heard of that publication.

Al Elliott: Uh, we’re very highbrow here. We read that most, well, we don’t read it most mornings. It just comes up from time to time, but it is actually really, really good. And I think it is a subscription only. But this, if I believe I’ve got this right, this article, which is linked in the show notes, you can actually access for free.

I think it’s weird. It says up to four times. I never know how they know. Like if you jumped on your phone, how would they know?

Leanne Elliott: Probably

Al Elliott: clever people and also worked it out. Anyway. So this person, Michael D Watkins, he was a professor of leadership and organization organizational change. Um, he’s a co founder of Genesis advisors and the author of the six disciplines of six disciplines of strategic thinking.

My teeth in, um, he came up with this idea or in fact, the entire article is about this idea. If you go on one of these leadership courses, it’s cool. You come back. And it doesn’t always go according to plan. So the idea is that if you do come back from one of these courses, then there are five, I think he’s got five things in the article that you should be doing.

And definitely go check out the articles. We’re just going to cover a couple of them today. So you’re going to come back. You’re buzzing with enthusiasms. Uh, you want to tell everyone about what you’ve learned. You want to implement it straight away. He says, don’t just, when someone says, how was it? Don’t just open up and just start flooding them with all of the stuff that you’ve just learned, because.

That is going to put people off. Don’t forget that if you’ve been away for say two days, and you’re trying to tell someone in 10 minutes, everything that’s gone on, you’re just going to blow their mind. So what it suggests is before you go back to work, prepare a couple of like 60 seconds summaries with the main bits from the actual course, because once you give someone that summary of going, Oh yeah, these things.

Three. And by the way, power of three, if you’re in marketing sales, anything, always trying to put things in three. If my mother’s listening, who’s an interior designer, she always says, put vases in three or flowers in three, because three is the magic number. Come up with three things that you’re going to be able to talk about that you think are interesting.

And I’ll come onto this in a second, doesn’t have to be the same three for each individual person you speak to, and then just reiterate. Okay. So yeah, there was loads of great ideas. The top three for me were one, two, and three, which was. Sorry, I just have to stop my computer from going to sleep. One, two, three.

These are the cool things. How rude. This is a

Leanne Elliott: good story, Al. Carry on, honestly. Fun fact, I’ve

Al Elliott: got this Mac which has inherited all the settings from my MacBook Pro and I don’t understand why it wants to go to sleep at six and I can’t stop it going to sleep at six. Anyway, so it says that you should come up with these three things and then just let the person ask questions about it.

Which of those three things interest them most? Now, the other top tip was to tailor this summary for different people. So, for example, if you’re coming back and you’re telling your team, you might tell him a different three things to perhaps your manager or the senior leadership that you might bump into in the hall.

He said, the idea is that if you have this well thought out sort of, he calls it a reentry pitch, which is quite cool, then it can engage both. And this is coming from the article, engage both the hearts and the heads of Of the listeners and set the stage for the changes you want to make another thing, which was kind of key was saying, don’t expect to come back, implement the changes and everyone to go great.

Okay. This is what we’re going to do, because don’t forget, you’ve been in an environment where you’ve been thinking very careful about your organization. You’ve been thinking about all the challenges. You’ve learned loads of things. So you’ve got all that context in the back of your head. You come back and go, right, we’re all going to wear suits and ties.

Everyone’s like, well, God, Derek’s come up with a new idea. This is going to be, this is going to be fun, isn’t it? So obviously make sure that you, poor Derek, if you listen to this, if you’re a long term listener, you’ll know that Derek is always our fictional pejorative manager. Who’s just, it was just a pain in the backside.

Um, so anyway, there are. Three other great strategies in that article. Definitely go and have a little look at it. If you’ve been on a leadership course recently.

Leanne Elliott: Yeah. I think a lot of the time people forget to reflect and reflective practice is really, really important, especially when you’re working with people, as I said, what were your main takeaways and then put yourself in, in the shoes of somebody else and think, well, what might.

Number two, think with the main three priorities. What my employee think with the, the three main priorities. Reflective practice is really useful because it also, then it’s going to stop you from kind of going and going, you’ll never guess what is going to change the world because you’ve already reflected on it and thought, well, actually maybe it’s not, or maybe these three things are.

Um, reflection out loud is fairly annoying. And also remember that people don’t like change, even if it’s changed for the better, even if it’s changed, it’s going to make the world a place. We don’t like change. We’re not mentally, psychologically, biologically wired to enjoy change. Our brains are lazy. Um, so bear that in mind, bear that in mind as well.

Al Elliott: Excellent tips. Perhaps you should have written the article, Lee.

Leanne Elliott: Maybe.

Al Elliott: What else have you seen, Lee?

Leanne Elliott: Have you heard about love languages at all? I think

Al Elliott: so. I’m not quite sure what con, how, how we’re going to fit them into the context of work, but

Leanne Elliott: let’s It’s a fairly, you see it all over socials as well, don’t you?

It’s basically kind of how, how do I work to be loved? How do I know that somebody loves me? What do I need to see from them to feel loved? So it’s things like words of affirmation, saying nice stuff, quality time together, physical touch, acts of service. Um, so when perhaps I make the tea for Al at night, I don’t know, is that, does that serve your love language?

It does.

Al Elliott: It does. And perhaps when you come home from like 10 days we’re in the UK and someone goes to the garden, picks a load of flowers and makes a card, say welcome back, perhaps that’s an act of service. That would

Leanne Elliott: be receiving gifts, I think, which is definitely my love language.

Al Elliott: You do like a gift.

Leanne Elliott: Yes. Well, apparently we can, um, we have love language. Apparently we also have a stress language. So an article in HuffPost reported this week that the concept of stress languages explores how individuals react uniquely to stress, how it affects their communication, how it affects their interaction, and especially during sex.

The conflict itself. So Chantelle Donnelly, who is a physical therapist and stress researcher introduced this idea to explain why people often feel misunderstood during stressful situations. She suggested that there are five categories of stress language. It’s much like there are five love languages.

Would you like me to take, take you through them?

Al Elliott: I would.

Leanne Elliott: So number one is the imploder. So this is a freeze response to a stressful situation and the imploder may feel hopeless, helpless, helpless. And paralyzed. The second is the exploder. So this is a fight or flight response to a stressful situation.

And this person will likely have an inflated reaction to a stressful situation. They might get irritable, frustrated, or even angry, or even leave a situation that they can’t handle all together.

Al Elliott: Yeah. Okay. I think I might fall into the second of those two. If I stub my toe, then the, the words that fall out of my mouth, it’s just,

Leanne Elliott: Horrendous.

Al Elliott: Sorry, carry on. So that’s the first two.

Leanne Elliott: That’s the first two. The third is the fixer. This is um, kind of a tend and befriend reaction. Typically we see it in women. Um, and it’s, it’s really that um, people pleasing, overstepping boundaries, mothering people, um, who aren’t, aren’t your kids or indeed even children.

The fourth is the numberer, as in a person who numbs themselves to the outside world when things aren’t going well. I can’t imagine who this is. This person usually likes escapism, perhaps a gin and tonic after work, or indeed, just hides under a blanket for a couple of hours. That’s their coping mechanism for stress.

And the final one is the denier. This is the one who possesses toxic positivity in response to stress and can be overly optimistic to avoid reality. So apparently the first three, so the exploder, the imploder and the fixer are biologically based. And the last two, which is the denier and the number are those, um, that people use, um, strategies on a regular basis to overcome or manage stress.

Stress. Well, how do you know which one you are? It might be as easy as just, just one sounds more familiar than the other. Um, Chantel suggests that you should look for stress response patterns in yourself and in others when you’re having a rough day. Um, She also mentioned, well, that you can actually fall into multiple categories of stress, depending on the situation, um, or indeed the person who is making you feel stressed.

Um, yeah. Thoughts, Al?

Al Elliott: I like that she said that you can fall into multiple situations because I think that depending on the level of the stress, the type of stress, then I can definitely see me falling into at least two of those, depending on what kind of stress is going on. Um, it’s interesting, the number, because that just describes you perfectly.

Um, and, and it’s, I think what’s, what’s kind of cute. I kind of like is that if you go very quiet and just walk out the room, I know that something is like really, really stressful. Well, I tried to log in before my, my, my keyboard stopped working, so I was like, Oh my God, my keyboard stopped working. I have to buy a new keyboard.

I have to, I have to go to the shop and buy an actual wired keyboard just to log in. And Roseanne just kind of went, oh, press a d different button. And it worked. So I definitely see that I fell into one of those, but potentially in a different situation. You know, like, I don’t know, the dog runs off or something and I’m like, oh my God, he is gonna run on the road.

That’s where I might fall into a different one. So this is kind of interesting. And do you think that potentially. If you’re at work, it might, you might react in different ways, whether you are a manager dealing with a team and there’s a lot of stress or whether you’re a manager talking to perhaps a senior leadership and there’s a, there’s a stressful conversation going on.

Leanne Elliott: Yeah, I think so. I think lots of managers out there will be, will be very much the, resonated with them. Want to just make it all, all okay. Um, and I’m sure there’s some entrepreneurial business leaders out there who are probably thinking, yeah, that, that positivity sounds about right. It’ll be fine. You know, we’ve.

Fine, I’ll just loan another 25 grand. What’s the worst that can happen? I’ll be

Al Elliott: fine. Been there, borrowed 103, 000, went bankrupt. So, uh, yeah, maybe don’t borrow quite as much you think you need.

Leanne Elliott: Yeah. I mean, it’s interesting, isn’t it? I mean, there’s a big caveat here. I haven’t read the original research. I don’t know if it’s been, you know, how robust it is.

If it’s been peer reviewed, this is probably more for entertainment and information purposes than taking this very serious tactic forward. Um, but do you know what? As I always say, if it provides you with the vocabulary you need to better understand yourself, to better understand other people, so be it.

So sad times. Our favourite time of the week is over for another week. If you do have a story that you think we should know about, that we should chat about, send it in. We’d love to see it. Or tag us on socials. That’s another really easy way, easy way to do it. Another news roundup. We’ll be with you again next Tuesday because I just love it so much.

Speaking about loving things, Alistair, I believe Last night, I was, I may, maybe I was numbing, I might have been numbing with a gin and tonic, um, but you were trying to tell me something that you’d seen on Twitter and I was like, this is potentially a segment for the podcast. You went, Do you know what? I think it is one.

Surprise me then. Surprise me with it tomorrow. So here we go, Al. Surprise me.

Al Elliott: What I love is that the ad is basically going, I don’t want to hear about it now. Shut up, Al. We’re talking about this, this Jeff guy. So on Twitter stroke X, I don’t know how it is, how to call it. I don’t know. I suppose I should be calling it X.

I saw a tweet, which basically it’s by a guy called Jeff Roberts, uh, who is the co founder of Outsetter. Also really interesting background. He was really heavily involved in. I think it’s called Buildera, which is another, um, uh, another startup. They’ve got acquired, um, interesting guy and he pays everyone at 210, 000 a year.

Not like it’s just pays everyone, everyone. It doesn’t matter what you do. That’s how much you get paid.

Leanne Elliott: What do people typically do in his business?

Al Elliott: So Outsetter is, they describe themselves as an all in one payments, authentication, CRM, email and help desk platform for SAS and membership businesses. Don’t say that.

I took it directly from his, from his, uh, profile. So, uh, you you’re criticizing his copywriting there, but what I, what I understand is that if you have some kind of SAS or membership business, then our set is going to be essentially your HubSpot. for you. It’s going to deal with everything for you. Um, quite an interesting business.

Um, co started it with someone he met at build error. I’m going to say build error. Maybe it’s build S. Apologies if I’ve got that wrong, but just really interesting guy. And so the whole idea I’d outset it is that they offer this sort of. Choose your own adventure. Remember those DM when your kids would choose your own adventure?

If you want to meet the robot, go to page 43. It was exactly that. And so they choose, they have this choose their own adventure compensation model, which basically helps the, or allows the employee to set their own salary, their own work days and also earn equity. So for example, everyone who works five days a week earns 210, 000 a year.

That’s where they work. And then there’s a sliding scale. If you want to work four days a week, then it’s prorated to four days. If you want to work just one day a week, top of my head, I think it was 42, 000. It works out at, but basically it is a fraction of, of the 210, 000. I thought this was really interesting.

Now, one thing that we didn’t really go properly into on the article, um, was how they earn equity, because according to Jeff, he’s saying you earn equity at the same rate as the founders. Um, but everything else just seemed really smart. And I think that, and even showed this kind of like graphic of a dial.

I don’t know whether it was just made for the actual post, but the dial, where you just basically, you turn the dial to go to, I’ve been doing four days a week and then this is how much you earn. So it was a really smart way of doing things.

Leanne Elliott: Yes. Very creative. Very creative. I, I, yeah. I mean, what I want, if anyone’s listening and going, that’s a, that’s a Brilliant idea.

I should implement it in my business immediately. Hold on a second. I think it’s worth remembering the what and the why. So this is what Jeff is doing. The why, as we’ve talked about, it’s about providing flexibility. It allows people to, to choose a working pattern or ways of working or indeed salary that they need to facilitate the life that they want, whether they have a significant high salary or not.

side hustle, where they have children, where they have caring responsibilities. So I think it’s actually the flexibility and autonomy that’s really exciting about this and the agency you’re giving to an employee in terms of choosing their own working, working patterns and working life, not necessarily the exact structure that, that Jeff has, has used.

Um, my only, you know what, my only concern. And I think it is a really good idea because of this, as I said, this flexibility, this autonomy, this agency. My only concern would be the people that go, Oh yeah, four day work week. That sounds nice. And then actually end up squeezing five days into four days work and then aren’t getting compensated for it.

I’m sure there are mechanisms in place to prevent this from happening. And I, you mentioned there that people, you know, pick. Kind of their tasks and stuff as well. Um, so I’m sure there’s, um, there’s a mechanism in place to prevent this from happening and people overworking and not getting compensated for it.

Um, so that’d be only, again, if you’re, if you’re listening to this going, Oh, this is a cool idea, something worth bearing in mind. And I think it’ll be that four to five day that’s going to get the meat, the real. tricky thing, um, in terms of, of managing people’s time, but all in all cool idea. Like it.

Al Elliott: Well, we spoke to, I spoke to Jeff on Twitter and said, would you like to come on the pod?

And he was like, yes, I would. Yeah. So by the time you hear this, we’ll have interviewed Jeff. We’ll have asked him all the questions that hopefully you’ve got in your head and we’ll find exactly how it works because it, it could be a really interesting way. And also just from financially modeling, you can just go, right.

Well, you know, it’s just, it’s a spreadsheet. This is how much money we’ve got. All right. We can’t take anyone else on. And that might also be another question to ask. What happens if you spend all your wage bill and there’s still, there’s gaps in the business and you can’t bring someone else on you at that level.

So I will ask all the difficult questions that are in your head when I speak to Jeff.

Leanne Elliott: Cool. And sorry about the copy thing, Jeff. It really is very catchy.

Al Elliott: He’s definitely going to change it now. Okay. So we are going to have a short break and we’ll be back in about 60 seconds with the world place weekly surgery, where I put your questions to Leanne.

See you in a second. Welcome back. And it is the weekly workplace surgery. Leanne this week. And, um, she’s going to basically answer them for you now, just, just as in case you’ve joined us at this point, Leanne is a business psychologist. She is incredibly knowledgeable about all kinds of workplace, but she hasn’t seen these questions.

So I’m just going to spring them on her.

Leanne Elliott: I have hijacked the third question there. Have you? Yeah. I’ve got one for you.

Al Elliott: Okay. All right. Well, here we go. And this, we’ve been talking about Sonia Johnson from inclusion and marketing. This is probably more of a question for her, but I’d be interested in your thoughts of it.

Here’s, here’s, here’s the question. I live in a rural, predominantly white area, and I’m facing a challenge with improving diversity in my team. I really want to hire people of color to be more inclusive, but we simply don’t get enough applicants. And those who do apply often don’t meet our needs. I’m guessing like the minimum standards that they’re looking for.

I genuinely want to be inclusive, but I feel stuck and unsure of how to move on. Lee, any thoughts or advice?

Leanne Elliott: Tricky, tricky, tricky, tricky. And I understand cause I, I too grew up in a rural community where there weren’t many people of color. Um, so I, I understand. Um, I guess, I guess it’s usual tactics, try and diversify your candidate pool as a first, first step.

So looking at organizations, either job boards that, um, specifically support people of color, um, perhaps different areas, uh, where there are colleges or universities that might have a more, um, diverse. Population, yeah, things like that where you can try and diversify. The funnel, the candidates coming in and actually applying for jobs.

I’m sure there will be specialized recruiters out there as well. Um, of course it depends on your area. I mean, if you offer remote work, this is an ideal thing, or it could be that you consider offering, offering remote work. So you can look further afield outside of your rural town to more cosmopolitan places where there are more people of color, more diversity.

Finally, I would say if you’re really struggling with that, then are there other ways you can diversify your team or your company? For example, do you have contractors or vendors that you work with? Um, are they diversified in terms of your customer base, you appealing to To people of color through your marketing, is that a way to diversify?

And I think finally, it’s looking at if this one demographic, it’s just really, really tough where you are, you only offer onsite working for a particular reason. You simply don’t have, um, you know, the demographics or the volume of diversity that, that you’re required to find the specific people you need to meet your, your job criteria.

Then maybe look up, there are other ways to diversify your workforce beyond, um, Um, skin color, beyond ethnicity. You can look at neurodiversity. You could look at your male and female split, your non binary population, your LGBTQ plus community in your organization. There are many different ways, um, to bring in diversity to a team.

Um, so if you’re really constrained with the geographical location of your business. That might be something to look at as well, but I would definitely go and check out Sonia Thompson’s, um, podcast inclusion and marketing. She’ll have some much better advice, um, but they are some, some starting points for tactics, but if you’re after a strategy, go and ask Sonia.

Al Elliott: Yeah. And I think maybe, you know, there’s going to be other businesses in your organizations in your area who have got the same problem, perhaps see if you can just, you know, Noise up one of them. Go and find someone who has got perhaps a bit more diverse team, um, and might not be your competitor and just say to them, can you, you know, have you got 20 minutes for coffee?

I just want to ask you this. I think the majority of decent human beings, if, if they have a diverse team, then, um, you go to them and say, look, I’d really like one, but I’m just struggling because. You know, the talent pool just doesn’t seem to be there. I’m sure they’ve got some really, really good advice.

There’s other options as well. Like satellite offices could be a potential one. So I know when Leanne grew up, she was North Wales, but Chester and Manchester are quite close. So it’s possible you can, you can go and find yourself a small office over there, set up a little satellite office where your talent pool is perhaps a little bit more diverse than, and I don’t want to sound, I’m being anything bad against North Wales, but as Leanne said, it kind of,

Leanne Elliott: it’s very white.

It just is. I mean, the other thing as well is it’s looking at your actual recruitment practices. I kind of mentioned in terms of the candidate funnel, but also the practices themselves. Um, it’s as simple as putting on your job description that candidates that meet 60 percent of the criteria are welcome to apply.

Um, because Typically women and people of color, um, won’t apply for a job unless they hit a hundred percent of the criteria. Whereas typically white men will apply if they only hit 60 percent of the criteria. And that’s not a case of saying, Oh, well, I’ll, I’ll take somebody onto my business that is only 60 percent capable because they represent a demographic I’m trying to bring into my business.

It’s actually just that, that sometimes women, people in color aren’t, aren’t as good in application process, it kind of put themselves out there and it turns out they do have the skills and competencies. They just might need to, to demonstrate those in different ways throughout the recruitment process.

There’s a brilliant book called Conscious Inclusion by Katherine Garrard. She has been on the show. I can’t remember the episode number, but we’ll leave a link in the description. Shona, she’s written a brilliant book, which basically, I think it’s like 50 or 52 decisions you can make to, um, to build inclusion and diversity within your business.

It’s all these little things like that, these little tweaks that, that you can do that will, you know, add up to a massive, a massive impact in terms of, of engaging different demographics. So I’d recommend checking that out as well.

Al Elliott: Impressive. You said you weren’t sure that you have much to add to this and you did, it was all incredible.

Leanne Elliott: Tactics, tactics. I think in terms of strategy, I think you need an expert in. EDI now.

Al Elliott: Yeah, exactly. So Sonia Thompson, uh, Thompson, uh, Catherine Garrett, uh, that book, I’ve had a little scan through the book. It’s sitting behind me actually. And it is, uh, and it’s really, really good. The interview with her was amazing.

I say, we’ll put it in the show notes. I can’t remember either what, what episode number it was. Come on now we’re on 101 now. How are we supposed to remember every single one or the pattern? Pat Flynn does. Anyway. Okay. You’re ready to onto question number two.

Leanne Elliott: Yes.

Al Elliott: So this person writes, my manager keeps implementing new initiatives to improve workplace culture, but none of them ever stick.

She seems to jump from one shiny new idea to the next without giving any of them a real chance to take root. It is starting to create confusion and frustration among the team. Is there anything I can do. To help her make these initiatives more consistent and effective. I’m sensing a slight amount of politeness in that last thing.

Anything I can do to help her make these initiatives more consistent and effective. Basically, how can I stop her from coming up with a brand new, reading a book on Sunday and implementing it on Monday? What are your thoughts, Leigh?

Leanne Elliott: I would sit down with your manager and say that exactly what, you know, your, your question was say that, you know, I say, I know your heart’s in the right place.

You’re doing this to create a better environment. The truth is because there isn’t much consistency to it or because there’s not, um, you know, much. I guess enough time given to these interventions. They’re not sticking and it’s becoming disruptive. I think it sounds like your manager is very entrepreneurial and they do like new shiny things.

It might be that you’re in a great position to offer yourself as a trusted number two, who is more operational, who will approach these interventions with a bit more of a change management process and a bit more patience. I, it sounds like you’re, you’ve got a lot of respect and care for your manager. It sounds like this might not be their execution isn’t their skillset, but it could well be yours or somebody else in the business, I would sit down, have a cup of coffee, say, this is some constructive feedback that comes from a place of respect and love for what you’re doing, but it’s not working.

Can we talk together about ways that this could be more effective and go with some ideas. So if you’ve got. There’s a specific intervention that you’re thinking of that you’re like, actually, that would have really worked well. It just needed this tweak, this tweak, and maybe another month. So things like, do you remember we did that no meetings Friday, um, but then this meeting creeped in, actually had to do this, and then you ended up doing a big, you know, news and views on a Friday afternoon.

What if I managed that? And what if we put some process in place that people’s diaries are blocked out, be technology that will mean you just can’t physically put, put a meeting in, I’d say go with, go with an example of. How you would have run the intervention differently and how you see that playing out, and particularly if you can speak to some of your colleagues as well, and maybe think, you know, of the five interventions that have been tried, these are the two that we really would have liked to have seen stick and go back to your manager with that, then I think it sounds like they’ll be quite open to discussing that and then potentially delegate that to somebody else.

Maybe even yourself, but if they do make sure you get paid for that friend. If that’s not part of your job description, then make sure it’s reflected in, in your, um, in your salary or indeed bonuses. That’s what I say. It sounds like this person’s coming from the right. They’re coming for the right place with the right intention, but maybe just execution isn’t their strong point.

What do you think?

Al Elliott: Yeah, I think you summed it up perfectly there. I mean, there’s one other consideration is that, uh, this manager is wants to implement all these things, but then senior leadership, uh, stop them. So they say, right, no meetings on a Friday. And then suddenly, you know, the CEO’s like, right, everyone’s going to come in on a Friday.

So I think when that the situation, you can either look at it two ways. You can go right. Well, I have no control whatsoever because they’re just gonna steamroller over my ideas. Or you can go back to the team and say, look, this is what I want to do. Just bear in mind that if another team has to meet, let’s take the no meetings Fridays example.

If another team can only meet on a Friday, we might have to make that like concession for that particular Friday. But this is more like it’s the it’s this is what we’re aiming for is that 90 percent of Fridays have no meetings. And if it’s absolutely unavoidable, then we will have it. And I think that that’s I think that’s one of the issues.

I think a lot of people who try and create initiatives in businesses, they sort of come and go, right, so we’re going to change everything. And it’s like, well, You can’t because if you’re doing with customers, you’re doing with your team, whatever, there’s always going to be stuff which is going to need some kind of, uh, concession.

Is that the right word? Where you, yeah, some kind of like

Leanne Elliott: flexibility with every policy, isn’t there?

Al Elliott: Yeah. Yeah. So I think there’s that as well. I think it was great idea to go back, go back to them and just talk to them about it because it might be, you’ll, you’ll find out that point whether they’re actually just work, just, you know, a book junkie who loves reading this stuff on a Friday, loves the idea of implementing it, and then just loses interest the second they’ve sent the email saying this is what’s going to happen.

And you’ll find that out by talking to them. I

Leanne Elliott: have a question for you.

Al Elliott: Okay.

Leanne Elliott: So this person says, Hey, I need some advice around a difficult business position.

Al Elliott: Sounds rude.

Leanne Elliott: They say I run a company doing between 10, a month. Congratulations, my friend. They say I caught my business partner talking negatively about me behind my back with his best friend, which led to prolonged stress from my end.

I asked for advice from another source and they advised me to sit down and tell him how I felt. And how I felt, and how I felt with him going behind my back. I did this, he took it well, he apologized, took accountability and said it wouldn’t happen again. A week later, I found it did happen again. And now I’m seriously considering leaving this company and focusing on my own venture.

It’s not only because of this, but my business partner is controlling, hard to work with, arrogant and low key manipulative. So I have been building up resentment ever since I started to notice these things and have been told by close friends and family how much better off I would be in business without him.

So I have a decision to make, stay in this partnership or leave and start my own venture.

Al Elliott: Hmm. That’s kind of a tough one because up until halfway through all three quarters way through that, I thought maybe it’s just your business partner is venting. Maybe this is how they work through problems. Um, and so it might be that they sit down with someone and go, my business partner is he or she is all they are the right pain in the backside because they keep saying this and keep saying this.

And and that’s to them. They’ve got it out the system and they go back to work and everything’s fine.

Leanne Elliott: But let’s take it like you say, let’s take it at face value. Let’s assume that this is true.

Al Elliott: This is a real tough one. And it’s also testament to the, uh, or it also underlines the fact that if you are going to go into business with someone, you need to be a hundred percent sure.

It’s like a marriage. You’re going to spend probably as much, if not potentially more time with your business partner and with more risk than you would be with a spouse. Um, so be really careful of that. Like Leanne always says, it needs a bit more context, but if this was me and I was Experiencing this, I think I would be looking at alternative routes out.

Perhaps there could be some deals we made. Perhaps this is just the business partner trying to force you out. If you go back to our episode with Joe Fear, he talks about how business, what him and his business partner, how they kind of split up for a bit and then went back together for it and split up for a bit.

Such an interesting Episode. And Joe is so, so honest about everything. Definitely go back and listen to that and see if there’s any kind of, um, any kind of similarities, because there could be like, it could be a, you just need to split up. You need, you need to, you need to get out of the company and move on.

Could it be, you just need to knuckle down and get on with it, or it could be see that actually you split up. Um, even temporarily, right? Okay. One of you take a sabbatical or something and then you’ll find that after a period of time, the person left will realize, oh, well, that’s why we had this person in because my business partner, because they took care of all the stuff that I don’t care about.

So I think it’s gonna be a tough one. I’m sorry. It’s not. It’s not a you should do this. In my opinion, I will be looking at other alternative routes, but of course, it’s a financial aspect to that, because if you’re walking away from a business and you’re a business partner, it’s always difficult to negotiate if you’re, if, if you have decided you’re going to leave and the other person knows you want to leave, which could also as well, just be of them looking to drive you out potentially, because if they’ve exhibited the same behavior and they’ve apologized for it and said, it wouldn’t happen again, I’ve done it again, it’s got back to you again.

Maybe it’s deliberately getting back to you with an idea of getting you out. I don’t know. Okay.

Leanne Elliott: It is tricky and I wonder, I’m with you Elle, like I thought this was maybe just a case of all, you know, maybe just venting. You don’t have to get on all the time. It’s just about civility. It’s not about being best mates, but if they are displaying these more, these darker behaviors and characteristics, then that is, that is more concerning.

Um, because typically these behaviors are just going to get more pronounced and more regular. Over time, particularly with stress and particularly with the stresses that come with building a business. My thought would be to try and untangle this a little bit as well with some reflection, writing some stuff down in terms of what is specifically bothering you about it.

His behavior, a particular behavior that you are finding particularly toxic, that is making you more stressed. And then I think thinking honestly about, you know, if you didn’t, if you did decide to leave the business, what would you do and what would that look like? Now, how much runway do you have and what ideas do you have and how easy would that be to replace that level of income?

Um, because there is a big practical element to this as well as I’ll, as I said, it does on the surface of it sound like this isn’t a topic. You know, a long term relationship in your life. It sounds to me a bit more, a bit more like it’s not about if you’re gonna, um, leave the business and start something else.

It’s more about when and how you’re going to go about that.

Al Elliott: And if you do go ahead and leave the business, then try to leave on as good terms, you can don’t be tempted to take any kind of IP or anything with you. Because if this person is already bullying you a little bit. then they’re just going to legally bully, bully you.

And it’ll make your life not worthwhile. Um, and maybe take a little bit of time off if you’re able to financially, when you do, if you do exit, go and take a bit of time away, try and get away for a bit. Um, you’re reflecting it and, but you’ve got to look at your longterm. And if you’re young enough, you might be able to build something else up.

You probably will be able to build something else up. If you’re not, don’t feel like you can, or you haven’t got the energy, then just try and get a buyout that will.

Leanne Elliott: Yeah, it’s about separating the emotion and the practicality here. I think, isn’t it, you know, life is full of transitions, different jobs, different businesses, different countries, different partners.

Um, that’s just a part of life. It’s how we navigate and how we manage those transitions in a way that, that sets us up well for the next, the next phase, the next chapter of our, of our lives, of our career. So I’d say don’t, don’t make any impulsive decisions. Don’t try to resist the temptation of kind of, as I said, getting angry about it in a heated confrontation.

Um, this needs to be a planned measure. Draw on your skills. You’re a business owner. You know, you do this, you do, we do a crisis all the time in terms of, I’m sure customers or services or technology, drawing their same skills to, to work out, um, how to manage this transition to.

Al Elliott: Absolutely. In short, I think you’ve got this.

I think you’ve got it. Just be level headed. Lee, I think that’s the end of our episode. Is there anything we’ve missed?

Leanne Elliott: I don’t think so. Join us again on Thursday. We’ll have another expert guest interview for you. Um, like, subscribe, leave a review. It really is the best way to support the podcast. If you enjoy this content, that’s the type of stuff you can do to make sure we can keep bringing you more episodes.

Al Elliott: Absolutely. If you are interested in getting in touch with either one of us, you can see our details in the show notes, but also on LinkedIn search for truth, lies and work. And there is a page there that Leanne admin administers, um, and, uh, she will definitely be very happy to talk to you. As I mentioned last week as well, people didn’t know this, that, um, Leanne gives half an hour free away to someone who not just anyone, but if you, if you have a specific issue or you’re a business owner, then, um, yeah, you can book, you can book some time with Leanne.

So just check out the show notes.

Leanne Elliott: See you next week.

Al Elliott: Bye bye.

Bye bye.