(upbeat music) - Welcome to the Growth Hacking Culture Podcast. I'm your host, Ivan Palomino. This podcast is about thought provoking ideas to scale up and growth hack performing and human centric work cultures. My guests are experts on mindset, skills and science behind work cultures. I hope you enjoy this episode. In this episode, we are going to be exploring the barriers that often stand in the way of joy at work. And more importantly, how we can overcome them. From these toxic work cultures to unrealistic expectations and burnout, we are going to uncover the hidden obstacles and share practical strategies to cultivate a workplace where joy and time. So let's grab a cup of coffee, settle in and get ready, stretch, as Sami suggested just before, to discover how you can remove the barriers to joy in your own work life. My guest today, Sami Burt, she's the founder of Backpack, a consultancy focused on cultural and strategic development. She is a system coach. It's one of the kind of complete coaching structures. And she's at consulting, so she works with organization teams, people, leadership, and the most important systematic problem that we have today, culture. Sami, it's so nice to have you today. Are you ready to talk about removing barriers to joy in the workplace? - It's really lovely to be here. And I think we'll see is the answer to that second question. Let's see how we go. I feel excited to talk through it. - Nice, Sami, before we start, I just wanted to know a little bit more about your background. So how did you end up being hooked with this story, with working with culture, people in order to create driving workplaces? - It's been a really meandering one. I certainly wasn't someone who thought they knew what they wanted to do when they grew up. I dropped out of college. I worked in hospitality. I moved across the country. I worked in finance for a bit and then into marketing. And what I started to notice was that I was really following my nose on all of these sort of hop skits and jumps around jobs. I always followed the bit of the job that I liked most and that would lead me into the next one. So with finance, I liked the problem-solving side of it. So that got me into project management in marketing. And then I realized I really liked the client side of that. And so I followed that. And often, the following that I was doing was getting closer and closer to people and increasing the proximity in my role to people in all sorts of ways. And I moved into an agency in Bath. I mean, I live in Bath in the UK. And I moved into a fantastic agency called the House of Brand Agency. And they really blended supporting organizations with their external brand with, and what does that mean for you internally? And that got me kind of hooked on this idea of culture. And from there, I kind of deepened that. I went in-house into a global manufacturer for a while to sort of see what I understood, test what I thought I knew and really stretch there. And then I came back out into consultancy. I missed the variety of people and organizations. And over the last sort of four or five years, I've really deepened my understanding of people in an organizational psychology and what it all feels like and means, I guess. But yeah, followed my nose, I think is the shorter answer. (laughing) - You know what, something that I have always been critical with is about human resources. So let's say that approximately 60% of human resources people have been, have done a degree in psychology. They're right after the workplace and they behave like robots. So they forget anything they know about human beings. And they are very process oriented, very task oriented instead of having this interaction and empathy that many employees want today. I admire more people like you or like me that we built this interest and we were looking for the information, chasing for knowledge and strategies. In fact, to help people instead of the people who just did the full curricula and don't use it afterwards. Right? - Yeah, I think I admire both. And I'm not just trying to just sit on the fence on this one. I think my colleague Juliet is a great example of that first person that you described. She went to university and studied organizational psychology. And she came out of university. She will describe coming out of university with like arms full of books and understanding about the world and a real excitement to go and help people have happier working lives through this work of HR or whatever the lens of that was. And I think the system is self perpetuating. She went into a system and suddenly, everything she'd learned was kind of disregarded or it wasn't given the space that it deserved. And she went into a system run by systems and process. As HR was traditionally. And she will often describe how hard that was to come in with all this excitement that you've just described and all of that knowledge and then have someone say, oh, well, that's all well and good but actually we've got a process for that. And so I have a lot of empathy, I think, with those excitable graduates who perhaps then enter more personnel-style departments and don't get as close to the people as they thought they were going to be. But I think that's shifting. I think that's definitely- - You are totally right. That is shifting and we have seen it. You cannot believe that I'm happy I was, when I was looking in LinkedIn during the COVID times, many manifestations of these human resources people really speaking up on behalf of the organization. And that was really happiness because then I saw the real voice. - Yeah. - Is not the majority yet, but there was a big chunk that was really talking about wellbeing during COVID times. - Yeah, yeah, absolutely, absolutely. - Coming back to our topic of joy at work. So let's frame it a little bit and start with discussing about what are the common misconceptions that people, including leaders, can have about this workplace joy? What happens in the workplace? - I think the first one is that most people wouldn't talk about joy in the workplace. I think we might talk about happiness or satisfaction. Joy feels a little too personal, perhaps. So I think that you probably wouldn't get that many people using that word to describe what they're trying to achieve. And that in itself then gets them out of thinking about it more deeply. So if I think that my people need to be happy, then I might solve that with pizza Friday or a new communication system where we can all upvote each other. And I think I'm not disregarding some of those tactics, but that's what they are. They are tactics that need to be present within a myriad of different approaches to how we help people be happier in the workplace. And unfortunately, sometimes, as we do, as we see in marketing sometimes, people go just into the tactics and they do a few things. And then they wonder why that hasn't solved the problems or shifted the culture or whatever it might be. So I think often the first misconception is that short-term happiness is enough. And then really when we talk about joy, which the reason I love the word joy is it's a short word, like it's not complicated, it's not difficult to spell. And yet it has quite a deep and heavy, in a positive way meaning. It's a profound sense of happiness. It's an enduring sense of happiness. It lasts longer. You can still be full of joy in very challenging times because it's much deeper, it's in you. And it can be triggered in different ways. So I could be happy after I'd eaten a jacket potato and tuna right at lunch. And I would be probably, I like quite like that. But would I be full of joy? Would I be joyful? Would I find that environment joyous? Well, joy is triggered by love, by relationship. Whether that's with myself or with you, by personal achievement, it can be triggered by nature. Just having a, you know, you talked a moment ago about living in this small town and being surrounded by nature. And that in itself can just create a deeper, more intense level of joy. And so I think if a workplace, if an organization were looking to be more joyous, and they need to go beyond happy, and they need to go beyond satisfied, and they need to go beyond engaged, and they need to think about their organization not as a thing in itself, but as a group of people organizing. And those are people and they are human, and they have real feelings and real emotions, and you know, and we bruise and we smile and we're real. Sorry, I probably answered two questions there, Ivan, but I get excited about joy because I get excited about the possibilities of it. Exactly, so let me summarize what I understood. So there are, there is the context of interactions with other human beings enjoying this one-to-one interaction, one-to-many interactions, but there is also the dimension of the work that we are doing, that the personal achievement, you use the work, the personal achievements. So you make me think about this, the concept of flow in reality. This is, we can be immersed in something, enjoying because it's a little bit challenging, because we are mastering without so much, so much direction, it's not boring, it is fulfilling. We can find joy, any, as you said it, it goes beyond the transactional pleasure. Yes, we have the pizza Friday, we like pizza. So we, we... We're going to enjoy that. Sure. Yeah. One of any, that's the last. Yeah. But does that create a, you know, I think some of the things that need to be present in order for us to be full of joy, let's say, you know, joyful, is a greater sense of belonging. You know, I have to feel welcome and welcomed and psychologically safe in an environment to have this deeper sense of inner peace that we're describing when we talk about joy. So it's a much more complex, inconveniently. It's a much more complex thing to aim for than a happy workplace, in my view. Exactly, exactly. And in fact, if you just added a third dimension, the story about being present, we cannot know if we are happy or not. If we are over a stress, don't have the time to do a small break in order to digest what is happening around us. Yeah. Unfortunately, practices like mindfulness haven't been yet well promoted in the workplace or not enough. Some workplaces with it. I'm aware about some tech companies who have where is mandatory to go through this process of self-awareness and mindfulness in order to feel fulfilled, to know if I'm happy, even though like just before I was sharing with you the fact that I spend eight hours in a presentation, but I was enjoying it. I wasn't unhappy about the eight hours. I was maybe unhappy that I couldn't be present mentally at the right moment. Yeah. Yeah, well, funnily enough. So I'll tell you the meeting I just had before this one was one that was potentially challenging. And I went into it with a little apprehension as with a client and we're preparing for another meeting that could be tricky. But the client and I have a level of trust and mutual appreciation where it wasn't me coming in thinking, how's she gonna be? Or her coming in thinking, how's she gonna be? It was us coming together and going, oh, how shall we be? We are together in this apprehension. We are together in this nervousness and let's share that and then let's work through that together. So there's a real relational part of this that can bring a sense of joy. It is incredible that it is quite well-relatable to something that you mentioned before, that this sense of belonging, that means also that you are in a together, not just collaborating, doing some work together, but you count on each other to face a challenge that is external. And this feeling is sometimes quite difficult, especially in a workplace where there is a lot of competition where it is continuously reinforced. But if you know that you're working towards an external enemy, whatever it is, the competition or making of better at work, then you feel like, wow, I'm part of a team. - Yeah, we're together in this. And that's where purpose can become incredibly powerful. So I know we're gonna come into that, perhaps later on in this conversation, but I think that shared cause or sense of direction can be really important to make this possible. - This description that we have gone through about a joy, it is something that with a little bit of reflection, most of the people can go through about transactional interactions, pleasure, spending more time enjoying interactions and enjoying the thing that we do. And my question is simply how does it come that some leaders don't understand it? What do you consider being the biggest barriers to join the workplace? And I already hinted leaders because I have the impression that it has to do, that there is something there that is preventing joy to be spread around the workplace. - Yeah, I think it would be inauthentic, not to consider leaders in the mix of this. And I might come back to them in a minute, but I suppose I also feel that's what is often missed is the shared responsibility for all of our joy or happiness or well-being. So I do feel that in lots of organizations now, there is a bit of a passivity about my enjoyment of my work. You know, Ivan actually as my leader, it is your job to make me happy, to make sure that my well-being is good and safe and to create an environment in which, you know, I can be happy and be at my best. And that is true, but it is a shared responsibility. You know, I am not a passenger in my own life. And so I feel like there is a need for, a need is very strong. I have a hope that more people notice what they are in control of in their own working lives so that they can start to take and share some of that responsibility of their own happiness, their own well-being. And say, you know, actually, yes, Mr. Leaver, can't speak, Mr. P, you're not creating an environment where I can be at my best. Let me tell you what kind of environment would help me be at my best. Rather than just waiting for you to guess, you know, I think we laid a lot at the feet of leaders. And we don't always remember that they too are human and that we can come alongside them and support them in their endeavor to lead us. So I'm not trying to let leaders off the hook, right? Well, let's talk about that. - No, I get you, Sami, in a lot of what you say, because yes, I have a tendency to be a little bit too harsh on the older people. - I didn't hear it that way. - But, but in this case, you are totally right. It's a shared accountability where accountable for communicating our expectations, but as well as leaders to create that environment that will make it easier because we cannot be joyful, even if I work with all the tools possible, I cannot be in joy if I'm in a stressful, everybody jumps in the neck of each other. I cannot simply cannot be, right? - Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think that's the, your point there, I could have all the tools. When we talk about barriers, I think often to create happier workplaces, let's say, what happens is things get added. Let's add pizza Friday. Let's add an app for wellbeing. Let's add a so-and-so, let's add a think. Rather than stepping back and wondering what the barriers here might be, what is standing in our way. Because if we keep piling stuff on, we're papering over the cracks, right? We're putting a plaster on it. And often there are elephants in all sorts of rooms that are wandering around and not getting talked about. And I think that is often one of the greater barriers to people being happy and joyful in their work is lack of clarity or misaligned expectations or a mindset that comes in. And if I'd have arrived on this podcast, for instance, and my mindset is that you want me to fail, right? You wanna have a guest who actually, you could tear to pieces 'cause they're not very reliable and you could look like a really great interview, right? What is that gonna do to the way that I come in? I'm gonna feel the need to come in and defend myself and be robust and you and I are against each other. And back to your point, we're not together in this. And so I think when we think about the barriers to happiness or joy in the workplace, we need to zoom out and really think about the barriers, not think about what are the things we're missing that we can add in, what are the things that are currently here that are getting in our way and start to work on removing them. And purpose interestingly can be, and I touched on it a moment ago, but organizational purpose, people have been talking about this for a long time now. And I think some people still think it's amazing and it's wonderful and they set their heart by it. And other people are starting to get a little skeptical because some organizations are playing with purpose, let's say. My experience of it is that purpose can be an incredible catalyst for joy. I am aligned and I believe in the cause, the thing that we are trying to shift in the world or the thing that we are trying to achieve. And to have a personal purpose and the organizational purpose connection can of course be something amazing for joy. And I look at organizations sometimes where the purpose is very clear, but what isn't present is a check and balance of how much of me I'm giving to this. So I'll give an example 'cause this is getting a bit woo-woo or the risk is it gets a bit woo-woo. So I remember working many years ago with a hospice. So, an organization where they would offer policy of care with people with terminal illness. Incredibly purposeful, almost everyone that works there works there because they care about the patients and they care about those people having a good end of life experience. The challenge when you have something that is that personal, when it's that important, let's say, is that actually I'm gonna work 14, 15, 16 hours a day because my focus is so on the individual having a good end of life experience. And I put what I need to one side and I do not look after myself, I don't look after my relationships. I give all of my love and care to the purpose, to the cause. And so while I may feel fulfilled, in some sense, and I may feel purposeful, I may feel I have great value in the world. Does that bring enough joy to me? And I think this is where purpose alone can be, not dangerous, it's too strong a word, but everything has its, it can be overplayed like any strength. And so if we overplay purpose, we can start to remove joy because we're so focused on that thing. We forget about us and our relationship and actually just having fun. You know, I've worked with some charities where the topic they deal with is so serious, they feel guilty laughing in the office. And you can see where that comes from, right? I'm working with a modern slavery charity and it could feel very insincere or wrong to be having a laugh at your desk when you are dealing with such a serious and life-impacting subject. But if you are going to keep those people and have them perform at their best, we need to be able to bring some fun and play and joy and permission into the organization. I've waffled on a little bit. Ivan, I'm worried I've gone off topic, but... No, no, no. I really like that and it's quite important to mention this story that purpose is almost like something necessary for happiness, but it does not absolutely, is not the only element that can make us happy. And I think we have a tendency to forget it. I remember maybe a couple of years ago, I read about it. And now you brought it back to my memory, this topic. It was something to understand, in fact, that the brain science behind happiness and I remember seeing something similar, this connection between just purpose doesn't bring this happiness. Another thing that I really liked is that you were highlighting and a recurrent problem in the organization is that we take the departure of the organization and we see a couple of pains, mostly pains that are related to culture. And you have mentioned a couple of them. And we have a tendency to jump into solutions, to throw ideas instead of digging more into the pain, what are the real challenges or problems in order to understand and tailor me something that is going to work, so that you don't come with pizza Friday when people are over the strength. Yes, yeah, well, that's a perfect example. I mean, I love this example. I saw an organization who wanted to give their employees more, right? And the intention is beautiful. I'm not knocking that. The intention is beautiful. So what they did was they gave everybody unlimited holiday. And so they said, you can take as much holiday as you like as long as your work gets done. So the outcome was that people took less holiday because they worked, this was an agency, so people are, you know, the work is never done. There's never a line at which you go, "Good, well, we've finished." So needing to feel even personally, like they could justify the work is done enough for me to take holiday meant that they weren't taking enough. So a really good intention of this was ill thought through in terms of how we really think about ourselves, the mindsets we need to make that possible. So what they've done now is they've put in unlimited holiday with a minimum amount that you have to take. Now, and while that might feel a bit parental, it meets people where they are. It meets people more on, okay, great, okay, so I can have as much as I want, and you're telling me that to be at my best, I still have to take this amount, you know, whether the work's done or not. Yeah. So, yeah, I think that's just a small example, I think, where really great intentions can be a little misfired. I want to go a little bit into the different levels of what can be done in order to bring joy, but we understand that it's not only either the individual or the leader or the organization. Let's go one by one like. Okay. What could be, how can, how could organizations create a more joyful and supportive work environment? You have mentioned many examples that have to do with culture, and the culture has a big impact on how I feel. If I'm a shitty culture, of course, I'm not going to be joyful or all. I'm going to hate every single day, and I will work just for, because today, my financial equilibrium is important, and I will go to work, and that happens to many of us. Yes, I think, and I think culture is intrinsic in this. I'm not sure how to separate it from this. I think really what I'm talking about is, I guess, a workplace that of joy and high performance. You know, that's the gold standard, right, in my view, is a hyper-forming, joyous workplace, or place where people feel joy. And I don't think you can separate those. I think you won't get sustainable, authentic, high performance, unless people are happy and enjoying the work that they do. You won't get real joy unless people are performing it their best. So I think the two are, they have to be in relationship, or they have to be both be present, it's probably a better way of saying it. And when we think about organizational culture, there is a map that might be useful here, and I recommend people go and look at it. So this is a theory by a guy called Ken Wilber, who created something called Integral Theory. And what Integral Theory really talks about is that culture in itself is complex. It is a kind of mashup of some things that you can name, some things that you can't name, influence it. You know, it's very difficult. You couldn't just take culture apart and go, great, well, that's what makes that up then. But what he attempted to do was to create four buckets of the main components to a culture. And at an individual level, the two buckets were my mindset and beliefs, and my behaviours. So there's the stuff you can see, my behaviours, and there's the stuff you can't see, my mind sets and beliefs. And then to mirror that at a communal level or a whole organisation level, the stuff you can see, our process, our systems, how we go about things here, and the stuff you can't see, our kind of shared values and direction. And so then when you start to look at those things and think, okay, if we were aiming that all of that stuff that we put into a cauldron somewhere bubbles up into this joyous and high-performing culture, then what might be some of the things that we're putting in there? So there absolutely might be processing systems. There might be a pizza Friday. There might be an unlimited holiday. There might be some of the ways that we go about things, how we hold meetings, et cetera, absolutely. But that alone isn't going to make this lovely cauldron of culture. And similarly, we might have behaviours that we ask of of each other, or values that we state and we request upon another. And you could have all of that going on. But if we have people coming in with a mindset of I'm dispensable or I don't belong here, then all of that will be undermined and will be short-term if at all. So it's about giving attention at an organisational level to all four of those cauldrons and going, okay, so both what is standing in our way in those, and what else do we want to be present in them? Does that mean? I sort of meandered around Wilbur there a little bit. There is, sorry, something that's got stuck in my mind. So when you're, and somehow organisations dismiss it, so they think about this behaviour, the mindset, and sometimes they have a tool, a strategist in order to help the organisation, but this is story about creating rituals. I mean, the fact that when we come home and we see our wives, children and all the stuff, is sometimes because we have a set of rituals that make us feel like I'm at home. Yeah. For instance, my wife, yeah, you know, whatever. I hope she doesn't listen to the podcast. So there is a set of rituals that make us feel like a family, even though we are not family, but the same thing. So in some cases, we, organisations have been putting that aside because that's something not important. Even as you say, even if it is pizza Friday, if it is our thing, let's do it. It is like the body we do between your husband and wife of watching Netflix is, if it is our thing, it is our thing, right? I think it's back to what you were talking about earlier. From a pain perspective, it's the symptom and the underlying issue. Yeah. And what you were describing in a positive sense is the thing we do, and then the real underlying reason we do it. Yeah. So yes, we binge watch Netflix, but we do that because we are sat next to each other on the sofa and we have a physical connection. We might be literally holding hands. Yeah. Or we do pizza Friday, but it's not about eating pizza. It's about creating the space in which we connect at a more human level and sharing food is a great example of that. So I think that can be a really great lens for organisations to wonder about the cultures that they have. Rituals is a great word. I love it. Rituals. What are the behaviours? What are the patterns, process systems, whatever that go on here? How do they serve us as people and as teams and as a business? And so what is it really about them that's going on here? You know, if we suddenly say, actually, everyone can buy their own lunch on a Friday, we may see an unimaginable impact on levels of collaboration because we're not bringing people together to wonder about what each other is working on. So we've saved 50 quid on pizza a week, but we've massively reduced the potential or the opportunity around collaboration. In my team, Pat Farley, we didn't mention Farley in the intro, but I also work very closely with an organisation that we started about the same time as Backpack. And there's six of us and we meet every Monday morning. This is our ritual. We meet every Monday morning and sometimes, more often than not actually, that is two hours of check-in. We are literally just checking in with how we are feeling. And sometimes that might include, you know, what my week looks like. Other times it might include, you know, this week is very prominent for two people who are taking their kids off to uni. You know, this is what's going on for me right now. And so if you looked at that very cold business level, you would go, that is a waste of time. That is six people spending two hours together on a Monday morning is not productive. We don't make business decisions. That is a waste of time. That time is invaluable to the trust that we hold together. And it has been invaluable to us building a level of trust by which we can challenge each other. We can hold each other accountable. We can step in and support each other in different ways. We can learn from each other. We can ask for help. Like all of that stuff has come from us, just eyeballing each other and telling each other how we feel. And so that's that underlying point, I guess. And the one that, as you say, many organizations don't give attention to. They look on, if anyone looks up a column, maybe we can put a link in the notes to this model that I'm talking about. And talking about the integral theory, the right hand side is the stuff you see. And that's where we give our attention often, the process and systems and the behaviors. And the unseen stuff, the mindsets and the shared values is tricky. So at an organizational level, it's much easier if we just don't talk about that. And we really miss a trick. And we did. Now, we have talked about the organizations, what they can do in order to have a more joyful place, workplace. No, let's go to the individual. We, we, you have highlighted the fact that it says share accountability, organization, leaders, and individual. What can an individual do in order to generate joy for himself? Yeah, well, let's, why don't we roll leaders and individuals in together, right? And, and talk about those, those people. I think, I think if we were literally looking to give people strategies or, you know, someone listening to this, like, how might I start the ball rolling? And I think, firstly, thinking about what you enjoy sounds very simple, but really digging into when am I in my flow as you described Ivan earlier, when, when do I feel most comfortable? When do I notice myself speak without thinking? You know, when, when don't I have an agenda? When do I notice my ego melt away? You know, asking ourselves these questions so that we might build a picture of the environment in which we have a sense of belonging. We have a sense of calm and comfort and inner peace or safety. And, and don't just look at that through the lens of work, right? It might be that actually all of that stuff is present with a certain group of friends. And it's not present with a different group of friends or it's when I poach football on a Saturday morning or whatever it might be, your version of that. And then start digging into it. And what is it about that? That means that I feel I can do that. What is it about that environment where I can be open and honest? Or I can challenge myself further, you know, I can stretch. Or I can be in discomfort and excited by it rather than scared by it. So I think, I think looking inward first to start to understand yourself more and what really gets you going can be really important and what doesn't. So as I'm getting older, and I, I'm resisting getting older, but as I'm getting older, I'm noticing that I need more time alone. And I'm, we talked a little bit before this about you being an introvert. I'm an extrovert, right? I am fueled by being around other people. Like this is my happy place. But I am noticing as I get older that actually I do need to go away and have a little time alone sometimes. And so I think it's, it's look, an individual level is looking inward and going, what is it that I need to be at my best? What is it that I need to feel joyous or happy? And then looking around you and wondering, and what's within my control in all of that? You know, there's the, um, Covie circles of, circles of control influence and, um, acceptance or sometimes it's called awareness. I think can be a really useful model for people to think this through. So what I'm in control of is, um, my voice, what I say, my actions, you know, this is this, I am in control of those things. I'm not in control, but I can influence where my desk is in the office, perhaps. Now, not being in control of where my desk is doesn't mean I can't go to my team and say, I find the position of my desk quite oppressive, the lights, I need to be near a window. None of that is, you know, I can say all of that. I don't know what's going to happen after I've said it, but I can say it. And so I think understanding what you need and then voicing it and noticing what you're in control of are the are two really important components. My fear as I describe this is it starts to become quite individualistic. What do I need? What do I need? Um, so if I were doing a, a Venn diagram of this or something, I'm very model heavy today. And I don't know why, but if there were a Venn diagram here, the third one would probably be ending connection and consideration of others. So it's not going in tomorrow and saying, I need to move my desk. It's going in tomorrow and saying, how does the layout of this office work for everyone? Is it working for everyone? Being curious and, you know, looking to understand how others are feeling in an environment. And then shifting it with a shared sense of where you're heading to. Well, let's, let's try and create an office in which we all have, you know, access to the window or whatever. Okay. Great. Well, how might that work? Um, so, so we're sharing in the thing that we're trying to achieve however day to day or existential that might be. Um, and so one of the key tools, if you like, um, around this is conversation. That's just being conversation. I think it's not one of the tools. I is. Yeah. Yeah. And it happens to all of us that we believe that we are enjoying because we are just spending time doing a task or interacting with people that we haven't chosen. But without this self awareness, it is incredible how much we don't feel what, what is happening. And so it accumulates only emotions and it's easier to be impregnated by negative emotions than with us because we don't have perspective. We don't, and we haven't taken the time to think about it. And what? Oh, sorry. Yes. Please. I was going to say, I think, I think what you're describing there really beautifully is the difference between feel and think. We think we think much more often than we really feel because it's much more logical to think. It's much more productive to think. It's more convenient to think. But sometimes if you're just feeling something, it can be very valuable just to feel it for a little while. And not to try and justify, well, what is it that's just happened that's made me feel that way or whatever that might be. It's funny, I'm saying this because they say you give the advice that you need to hear. I need to hear that piece of advice very often. I overthink my feelings and I make them theoretical. But actually just to feel can be really valuable to then giving yourself some space to absorb that and then going, okay, so what does that actually mean? But not rushing, not rushing to the thing. Exactly. Isn't it a pity that there is nothing that I mean, I have been working in the corporate world for 20 years and I have never got like a training about self awareness. And that could have been valuable. I know that for instance, I have even read the book out of a trainer in Google search inside of yourself. Beautiful. Beautiful. And it's about creating self awareness, creating mindfulness for the whole organization. And it's kind of everybody has to go through that. And it's quite valuable. But in another organization, there is still not enough investment in the tools that could make us want to learn, be more productive and be a little bit more happy at work. Yeah. Well, it's still comes under this painful title of soft skills, I think, and it infuriates me because, excuse my language, Ivan, but it's not soft skills. This is the really fucking hard stuff. Right. And that's why it's avoided. It's not avoided because people don't believe in it. I don't think. And of course, you know, there will be barriers to that. But I think the majority of the time. This is avoided because it's less tangible. And it's really hard. Having a conversation with your leader about how their leadership. Makes you feel is really hard. And a leader having a conversation with someone they work with about how their, their experiencing them is really hard asking for feedback on our relationship, asking feedback on a task, not so hard. I'm asking for feedback on, you know, even if we were to pause now, right, we pause this conversation now and just went, hey, how's this going? That would be a heart that would potentially be a hard conversation to have. So, so instead of leaning into that tough stuff, we put it to one side and we say, no, the task is more important here. The productivity is more important here. Let's talk about stuff. Don't talk about relationships, talk about stuff. And the irony being that, you know, great relationships will result in all the stuff that getting done. It is funny because despite the fact that it doesn't look tangible in the dimension of, of the workplace in the eight hours or nine or six hours that we spend in the place. What there is, and it's quite tangible is that there is enough research to that correlates self awareness with productivity, mindfulness, with joy, when happier. With customers, there is tangible stuff except we don't give ourselves the time to investigate more than having the conversation with the HR director. The director is busy with processes and firing, having in the organization. Yes. Yeah. And what you're describing is back to the beginning of this, my colleague, Juliet, coming out of university with arms full of research. And ambition and being told, just, just set that down at the door. Thank you. I think we'll, we'll carry on with what we're doing. And it's a real shame because it is. There is lots of research. There is lots of thinking around this. It's not just, it's not we, it's not the nice luxurious stuff that organizations in profit should be doing. It's, it's where we should be starting. So let's bring a little bit more of tangible sourcing into this conversation. Can do you have any examples of companies that are, have been successful into prioritize workplace joy. Is there some? I did. I did think about this. And, and, and I don't know if they would have ever framed what they were doing as, as, as aiming for workplace joy. But there's a, there's a small organization near me who are a digital digital organization digital agency. And I think the approach that the two founders have always taken is to always remember that their people are human. So I remember one conversation I had with them a few years ago where they said, you know, it costs, say, 30 grand to live in Bath comfortably. You need a salary of sort of 30 grand. Some of the roles we have in the business, if you benchmark them are 22, 23. And they felt really uncomfortable about that. How can we expect someone to come and work for us in a city they can't afford to live in? So they made a very human decision that their entry salary, whatever role is 30 grand. And as you increase, you know, it might be that you get theoretical pay increases over the years that get you up to 30 grand, but you don't really get one or whatever it might be. But I think taking a very human approach and saying, what is it that people actually need to be at their best here? And one of the most basic ones was, you know, if you look at Maslow, I need to afford to live in the place that I work. So we're going to make that possible. And we're not going to even give it a second thought. Like, they weren't in any two minds about that. And they've made countless decisions over the years in the same way. So, you know, around their maternity, so they've got someone on maternity at the moment. And rather than getting maternity cover in for the period, they're away. They've created a buffer both before and after so that they can have a really, really healthy period of going off on maternity. And coming back from it with reduced pressure, reduced expectation, you know, all that sort of stuff. So I think there are some organizations taking a very human approach to the way that they are. And this is an agency that is doing better than most in their field, I would say, in a very traumatic time for digital agencies. There's a lot going under, there's a lot going into administration, and they're doing well. And I think a lot of that is down to the decisions they have made over the years about the type of business they want to be. Sorry. Especially in corporations where there is a lot of white colors, consultants, creative people. This is super important. How can you be more creative if you don't have the right environment is just a stress and throwing stuff to the customer that doesn't cost a dime. But I'm happy that we, that we have got this specific conversation about the privatization of joy in the workplace, because there has been some good improvements in many industries. I would say, I follow up, for instance, what some, you deliver for instance has been doing in terms of progress, in terms of aggressiveness, in terms of some of the programs that they do. And from the other side, I have also noticed that there is some white washing somewhere. Yeah, corporations, some consulting companies, strategic consulting, some bank. The ones who are buying, doing mergers and acquisitions, horrible the environment. So they haven't improved enough, because they believe that, yes, for the good salary that they receive, people are going to survive. But no, we have changed. We don't accept that thing. Yeah, absolutely. So there's another organization that I know well who have, they have people trained as coaches all over the organization. And so everyone has a, has constant access to coaching, and that could be outside of your department, it can be anywhere, but you can essentially go in and ask for some coaching. And coaching in its truest sense is creating an environment in which the individual can solve their own problems. So what they've done is create a culture of a supportive culture of autonomy and accountability. Have a coach wherever you like, and they will support you to solve your own problems and hold you account to the actions that you choose to take. But they're doing it with the intention of you being at your best and growing and developing you as a person. And we're not going to parent you, you know, you go out and you go and ask this and you request it. And of course you can train to be a coach too. So while you may need coaching in one aspect, actually you could be coaching someone else and there's all the relational stuff in that. And that's quite a big organization that are doing that and that, that different approach again that doesn't, that just says, we're not going to give you all of the answers. And parent you, I think the parent child will let you know it's the whole other podcast if I'm, but the parent child relationship in organizations is so prevalent often and since COVID I think has exacerbated. And so actually creating environments where they very consciously say, you are an adult and I want the absolute best for you and I will give you what you need, but you're in this too. That balance of accountability and autonomy is really important. And off the back of that, you know, in the UK we have John Lewis, you know, John Lewis. So big supermarket and department stores, they own Waitrose, which is a big supermarket store. So massive organization. And that's partnership. When you are employed by them, you become an owner. And they have taken really interesting recruitment decisions around employing older people in some of their stores because they recognize the value of having someone. Who's really invested and wants to get to know, you know, the clientele that's coming in, they've taken some really interesting decisions there. Now to your point about whitewashing or greenwashing or purpose washing or all the different washing like that's gone on. It's a very real worry and I think it makes this anyone who is a slightly cynical will turn off to some of these stories. And I suppose I am someone, I haven't inbuilt sort of benefit of the doubt. So I choose to believe that you did something with good intention, even if it didn't turn out too well. That doesn't mean we then let you off the hook. You might need re-educating about why that wasn't great. And we've certainly had situations where workplaces have made decisions that are not inclusive. They thought they were doing something very inclusive and they've just gone too far and actually it was a really silly thing to do. Forgive you because your intention was beautiful and you need to broaden your horizons and be re-educated around that. So I think big and small organisations can all aim for a workplace of joy but they have to, as I'm talking, I'm thinking about this, I think they have to work out what their boundaries around that are. How much control are we going to give away? How much do we really trust our people and ask themselves some of those tough questions before they start embarking on it? I just wanted to open a small parenthesis. You mentioned this beautiful example with having a culture of coaching where employees can be empowered to share it, which, of course, it's quite positive in order to connect with others and to feel that you are not alone in the challenges that are happening in the workplace. But that only works if the culture is already good enough where I can trust my neighbour. If I know that somebody is going to listen what I think and then it's going to stop me in the back because I have seen that also. Of course, it doesn't work. So you have wasted hours and money training people to become a coach if your culture doesn't allow that to cross each other. If my coach is somebody from Human Resources, he's going to know my personal stuff. If they haven't created the boundaries around what can be judged on my performance and what can be trusted as a person that always needs development. Yeah. Well, I think you bring us back to the integral model of having these things all happening. So you can't solve that by bringing in loads of coaches. If you have an organisation where the presiding mindset is one of "I'm going to get stabbed in the back. I'm going to get blamed. People are going to be against me. I have to be out there for myself." Absolutely. Bringing in a load of coaches is probably not going to have a great impact overnight. So it may be that that's a journey you take. So it may be, "Okay, so how are we going to get people to trust? What are the reasons they don't trust? Let's start there." Well, it's because three times last year we said something was going to happen and it never did. So we've let them down. How else is it? Well, actually, we are employing lots of high performing people who are our souls. And we let them get away with shitty behaviours because they're high performing. So this is what I mean about asking yourself the tough questions. Actually, you might need to get rid of someone who is incredibly high performing, top sales person, but makes everyone around them feel terrible or makes it look like you condone certain behaviours for the greater good. And if you as a leadership exec organization, whatever you want to frame it, aren't prepared to take a hit for the greater good for the culture of everybody having a higher performance, everybody having greater joy, well, then don't bring in a load of coaches. Don't give people unlimited holiday. You know, don't half-ass it. You've got to do some of the real stuff first and recognise the journey that you're going on and recognise the little wins in it. Sorry, I'm going to keep and and and and and and, but and recognise that some people will shift faster than others. So you may get some people who who give trust easily and you know, you're doing two things will allow them to go, "Okay, well, okay, are there regaining some on my trust?" Other people, you know, you're going to need to repeat things 10, 15 times before they really believe you and they're going to need to see you do it 10 or 15 times before they really believe you. And even then you slip up once and you've reaffirmed everything I believed before. So I think this is any any cultural shift takes utter commitment at all levels and anything less, you're just going to trip yourself up. Sammy, this is a beautiful conversation and I really love that you have brought the perspective from the theoretical frameworks combined with your experience and you have taught the hard naked truth. Love it, Sammy. Well, thank you. I really enjoyed it. I hope I haven't waffled too much. Sammy, how can people reach you out to ask you for advice or to just to ask you questions about your experience? How can they reach you? Yeah, so I'm a LinkedIn addict, so find me on LinkedIn. So Sammy Burton, you'll find under Backpack or Farley Performance and then the two organizations that are most prevalent for me are FarleyPerformance.com and then yourbackpack.co.uk And if I may, if I'm under a little plug, so on the Backpack website, there is a page called the grownup book and I'm in the process of publishing a book under the title, what's a grownup for anyway. So that's been a research project to try and define what it is to be a grownup, which fits with lots of the conversations we've been having today. Excellent. So I will put all these links and even the link directly to the page of the book. This is lovely, Sammy. Thank you very much for spending time with us. Thank you. While attacking concert podcasts, Sammy, lovely. Thank you for having me. I've really enjoyed it. [laughs] [ Silence ]
