302: How to Reduce Overwhelm and Build Thriving Teams with Leanne Elliott

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:01]:

If there’s one thing I’m seeing out there at the moment, it’s this great sense of overwhelm. People are feeling overwhelmed. They notice that their friends, their colleagues are feeling really overwhelmed. Well, in today’s episode with my guest Leanne Elliott from Truth, Lies and Work podcast, we’ll be unpicking all that sense of overwhelm and what we can do to create thriving environments, create the conditions where we can have a positive working environment and really beat the overwhelm. I know that you’re going to take some nuggets from today’s podcast episode and I would love to know what’s one thing you do differently after listening to the episode today. Also, feel free to reach out to me directly on podcastappieratwork, ie, or get involved in the conversation over on LinkedIn, where I am most often. Leanne, you’re so welcome to the Happier at Work podcast. I’m delighted to have you as my guest today.

Aoife O’Brien [00:00:57]:

I’m really excited for this conversation and where it leads. Do you want to let listeners know a little bit about you, your background and what’s kind of keeping you awake at night, or what’s interesting about your work these days?

Leanne Elliott [00:01:09]:

Sure. Thank you so much for having me and to have a conversation again. You came on our podcast, which is Truth, Lies and work and that’s what we talk about. It’s work. I’m an occupational psychologist. It’s what I do. I’d put it simply as I use science to help business owners build great teams. I don’t think we talk about the science of work enough and that’s what I’m really quite passionate about with the podcast and with our own consultancy, Oblong, which again helps owner led businesses.

Leanne Elliott [00:01:37]:

What I’m excited about is just trying to quiet the noise a little bit. There’s so much happening at the minute in businesses outside of businesses, geopolitics, environmental crises. We would talk about the weather before we hit record and how crazy, you know, unpredictable that’s been. There is so much happening and I right now I’m looking for any ways to help people take a beat, take a breath and try to maybe reduce the overwhelm in areas if we can.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:07]:

Yeah, it’s so funny because I’m seeing that a lot as well. Whether it’s clients that are sharing that with me, whether I can see it in the response times that I that I either myself or other people. Like, I know I’ve got terrible on WhatsApp in particular, if someone, even if I’m the one to initiate the message, if, you know, someone might even reply straight away. And I’m like, I’m too overwhelmed to think of a response now. So, yeah, it is a thing. But where do you think we need to start with actually addressing this? Like our companies, do you think they’re getting it right? Do you think that they’re in a position to be able to. And I love the word overwhelm because I think it just. It describes so many different things, but I think it’s.

Aoife O’Brien [00:02:50]:

It’s kind of nail on the head with what a lot of people are experiencing.

Leanne Elliott [00:02:53]:

Yeah. And it’s always this push and pull, isn’t it? Is it the individual responsibility? Is it an organizational responsibility? And of course, as a psychologist, I’m going to go it depends on both. So there’s so much that we can do as individuals and organizations can do to try and reduce this overwhelm. And it’s even funny things like you mentioned about the WhatsApp thing. I love a voice note. I love a voice note because I find it quick, Unsurprisingly, audio is how I like to communicate. I like that because I feel I can give more detail and, and more tone and intonation than I can have to carefully think out a WhatsApp message when I don’t have the time nor energy. But I am always very clear.

Leanne Elliott [00:03:33]:

There is no expectation to send me a voice note back because I know in this moment I’m being really selfish by sending you a voice note because you’re gonna have to sit there for the next two minutes and listen to that voice note. So there is no expectation from me, which I’ll say to people, there is no expectation from me that you reply to this quickly, that you apply as a voice note or any of that. It’s just, this is where, you know, I’m coming from today, because this is what is gonna give me a coping mechanism, basically, to still communicate and build relationships with people in a way that doesn’t feel draining, which is so important. You said, you know, that you find you haven’t got the energy to kind of reconnect with that, send that message. And we know how important relationships are. So if there’s ways that we can nurture our relationships without overextending ourselves, that’s a really good place to start.

Aoife O’Brien [00:04:17]:

Just that voice note thing, I think, is interesting in itself. LinkedIn has that facility, and I very, very rarely have received a voice note, and I probably even more rarely have sent a voice note on LinkedIn. But I think it’s A really nice way to connect with people. And it’s not WhatsApp. There’s no expectation of a return voice note or anything like that. I think on WhatsApp specifically, not everyone likes to receive them. Like, I got into a phase where I loved sending and receiving and I have this one friend who only voice notes now. Recently I discovered you can do, what is it? Voice to text, so you can say and speak out loud, which I guess misses the intonation and things like that that you were talking about.

Aoife O’Brien [00:05:03]:

That is important. But as the receiver of the message and knowing how, how people are at the moment and the demands on people’s time, I was like, this is maybe a better way to send that message. So I’m speaking, which is much easier for me than typing, but they’re actually receiving a text message instead. There’s so many different intricacies with this. I think of, like, how do people like to receive the message?

Leanne Elliott [00:05:29]:

And with that, you know, and it’s the same with organizations. It’s. It’s having that conversation, which might sound really formal with a friend to go, how would you prefer me to communicate with you today? You know, it’s going to be more conversation like that or it’s going to be, you know, I really enjoyed our voice notes, but was that really difficult for you when you’ve got the kids and trying to make tea? Yeah, it was, actually, which is why I replied, you know, you have those things to figure out that the things that are going to help with my overwhelm, but not put my overwhelm onto you. And it’s similar things in organizations, right? Because there are so many things that will do in organizational life with good intentions, but they’re accidentally or unintentionally putting the added pressure or workload onto that person. Whether it be a badly structured meeting, whether it be the days we were allowed to work from home, whether it be policies around flexible work, around how your manager chooses to communicate. Is it through Slack Channel? Is it through the hundreds of thousands of emails we get every day? It’s a similar thing that actually a lot of problems can be solved by a conversation and a bit of honesty going, when you do this, it’s making my job harder in this way. So can we do that? And talking it through. Imagine a world where your manager was trying to make your job easier every day.

Aoife O’Brien [00:06:48]:

I can’t imagine that world, Leanne. I cannot imagine that world.

Leanne Elliott [00:06:52]:

Oh, but there are managers out there who will think in this way, even if it’s just, you know, on Certain things. But I think that’s the thing, isn’t it?

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:01]:

If.

Leanne Elliott [00:07:02]:

Yeah. If there’s something you can do today to make the day job of your people easier back a bit of time, that’s going to help with some overwhelm.

Aoife O’Brien [00:07:10]:

Yeah, I think. Can we. I’d love to pause on this idea of the individual and the individual asking for what they want, because what I’m thinking in this scenario is most of the time the. The individual, I, as an individual, rather than saying no to my manager, rather than understanding what it is I want or need and communicating that with my manager, I would much prefer to hide away and have a gossip session with other people who are managed by that same person and complain about that. Like this is. I’m kind of picturing myself back in corporate life where this is kind of what it is. It’s not easy to speak up and advocate for yourself, especially if you’re feeling really overwhelmed. And it also is easy to slip into victim mode and put the blame on the system or your manager.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:01]:

So can we start maybe with the individual and then we can look at leaders? Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:08:05]:

And you know what, it reminds what you were saying there about kind of going off to gossip with your colleagues. And we’ve all done it. And we’ve all done it. We were speaking to a really awesome HR practitioner on the show called Rebecca Taylor, and she has this whole theory around work is built on gossip and workplace change is built on gossip. And it’s whether you look at that. That gossip in a way that can make change positive or can cause a negativity in the workplace.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:32]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:08:32]:

And make the point that her example is, you know, you look at pay transparency. There’s now lots of laws in the US Coming in around pay transparency on job ads and. And everything else. And that came from gossip. That came from somebody going, how much you paid? I’m not paid that much.

Aoife O’Brien [00:08:46]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:08:46]:

You know, and it’s these conversations that can, even if they are gossiping in the coffee room, can actually still generate really important conversations that can change facts of how we work. So I don’t think it is necessarily the wrong thing to go and have those conversations with your colleagues, because it’s also, then there’s going to be this shared belief that there’s a better way to do it. I always think in these situations, if you can find the positive spin, find the. The thing that will be less confrontational, the difference between you’re confronting somebody and being confrontational.

Aoife O’Brien [00:09:21]:

Okay.

Leanne Elliott [00:09:22]:

So if you’re kind of thinking this is a better way to do it. It would reduce our time spent on this, it would redirect our time to go to that and it would improve the experience for the customer. And we’ve been gossiping about it in the coffee room and everybody agrees there’s a safety in going into your manager and saying so we’ve been having this conversation about X, Y and Z and I know you’ve been frustrated about the kind of how long this is taking us to do as a team. We think if we change xyz, blah blah, blah, going with that in a positive way, in a constructive way, in a solution driven way, is much more likely to get a positive response than being confrontational and taking that, you know, that negative gossip to your manager.

Aoife O’Brien [00:10:05]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:10:06]:

It’s not starts as negative, you know that it can’t start that way. But it’s having that, I think that solution orientated way. Because again, in a play, in a moment where everyone is time poor, if you can save your manager time, unless they’re just fundamentally a bad manager and toxic manager, I’m gonna jump at the opportunity. They’re gonna, they’re gonna into that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:10:28]:

Yeah, I think so. And then also coming with a solution because I think oftentimes what lands on the boss’s desk is a problem that needs to be solved and they don’t have, you know, they’re spinning 100 other problems and now you’ve just added one more problem to their plate that they’re spinning. Can we focus ourselves now back on managers? And for me, I think what, you know, what we touched on before we started recording is this idea of creating the conditions. So it’s about creating the conditions, you know, the positive working conditions where people can thrive. That’s what my book is all about. And the book starts the main kind of content of the book rather than the, the kind of lead up to it. It starts with this idea of psychological safety. And I have recently had Amy Edmondson on the podcast as well to talk about just that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:11:18]:

Like, I think she’s, she’s brilliant. She’s a phenomenal speaker. She’s so articulate. Any thoughts on, on psychological safety, how to do it, or building on that once we have established psychological safety.

Leanne Elliott [00:11:31]:

Oh, psychological safety is, is the goal, isn’t it? And Amy does talk so brilliantly about this and you know, one of the leading thought leader in the world on the subject. And it is that, that space of. Can I say what I want to say without fear of negative consequence or, you know, some kind of, of negative impact on Me, my career, my reputation. And if I can, then I have psychological safety. The reality is that the psychological, psychological safety is the outcome, isn’t it? That’s what we’ve got. It’s like saying, we’ve got a happy workplace, we’ve got a high performing workplace, we’ve got the outcome. So it’s like, how do we get there? And I think for me, and there’s so many different ways to do it. You know, we can talk about relationships, we can talk about clarity around roles, we can talk about how we run meetings, how we approach change.

Leanne Elliott [00:12:24]:

The thing that I think is so simple as a really foundational point of building psychological safety is around task cohesion, which sounds really boring, which is why nobody talks about it, because we all want to talk about team cohesion, social cohesion, because that means really great relationships. That means we love the people we work with, we’re inspired by them, we respect them, we want to do our best for them. That’s nice, but that’s, that’s a difficult point to get to, particularly if you don’t have task cohesion. And what I mean by that is, do I understand what I have to do, in what order it needs to be done to feed into the other people’s jobs in my team to reach the outcome we want in an effective way by the time we need to achieve it?

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:07]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:13:08]:

And that could be process, it could be policy, it could be physically where we are, we in the office, at home. It’s how you look at that workflow in a way that is then going to build respect. Because I love John because he did that in the time I needed to pick it up. Therefore I have professional respect for John. That’s kind of the first step of this social cohesion is team cohesion.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:33]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:13:33]:

I think before, if we think about, you know, psychological safety being the thing we’re striving to, and it’s not, I don’t think it’s an absolute, you know, not like you have psychological safety or you don’t. There’s gonna be elements of it. You do. And things that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:13:47]:

Like a scale or something.

Leanne Elliott [00:13:49]:

Exactly, exactly. There’s fundamental steps we can take in our workplace structures and policies that can feel much more tangible to business owners, much more tangible to managers, perhaps don’t have a background in, in people and culture, in psychology or in hr. It’s these little things actually make a huge amount of difference.

Aoife O’Brien [00:14:09]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:14:09]:

Because if we can remove that friction just as a starting point, then it’s going to reduce stress. It’s Going to support our relationships, it’s going to support our performance. So I think often it’s, it’s looking at the tangible, systemic things that can actually make a difference to the psychological experience.

Aoife O’Brien [00:14:28]:

I love that. And so from what you’re saying, and it ties in with this idea that I talk about quite a lot, which is understanding as an individual because your manager has shared with you, but understanding the impact that you have on the customer, on other people around you. So that’s kind of a bit more high level. What you’re saying is taking it down a level. What does that actually mean? It’s the task cohesion. So who does what first? How does the work actually flow? Who needs to get this done on time so that I can do my job and I will therefore have more respect for that person and create better team cohesion if they do what they say they’ll do on time. And likewise, I should show that same level of professional courtesy to the next person down the chain who I’m producing work for and who I’m going to have a direct impact on. Would that be fair to say?

Leanne Elliott [00:15:22]:

Exactly, exactly. And that’s what in the psychology research would call that an example of civility, workplace civility. We don’t have to be birthmates, we certainly don’t have to be a family. We do the civility and respect to produce outcomes that are required by the organization. And I think to take it an extra, as you say, a higher level, that is, which is the, which is a really nice to have is if we think about, we just talked about role in a way of what I do as an individual, how that contributes to the work of my colleagues, the bigger mission of the organization. If we then look at that in terms of what is the reason that this organization exists, what’s its purpose, what’s its mission, what does it want to change in the world, what’s going to shift? And that doesn’t have to be purpose led. But you know, it can be something in terms of aligned with the values I have. Maybe it’s supporting things around environmental concerns, maybe it’s supporting content creation.

Leanne Elliott [00:16:20]:

I find really inspiring and exciting. Having that reason for the organization is really important because we need to be aligned in that way. And if we’re not, if our volumes are fundamentally misaligned with the organization we work for, then that is going to lead to burnout. It’s really important I know the values, the mission of the organization, what they want to achieve and how they want to achieve it. If I then know how my individual role within my team contributes to that mission delivery, then my work has meaning, my work has purpose. And that’s going to give me the energy I need to turn up every day when everything is overwhelming.

Aoife O’Brien [00:16:55]:

Yeah, this is it. I would love to come back to this idea of civility and incivility and. And especially now in times of overwhelm, where people might get a bit snippy with each other because they’re in this state of overwhelm, they’re so busy and not intentionally, but just they’re short on time, so they’re maybe short with other people. Any ideas of how to address those kinds of issues or build a greater level of civility with colleagues?

Leanne Elliott [00:17:22]:

Incivility can look like lots of different things. As you said, it can be being a bit snappy with each other. And I think that if that is just what is happening in a moment of pressure because a project is coming to an end or a climax or. And then it’s a short thing, you have that conversation with somebody, go, I’m really sorry I was a bit snappy with you, blah, blah. And as you get to know people within your team, you’ll just know, you know, Leanne’s just needed to be direct today because she needs to get something done.

Aoife O’Brien [00:17:48]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:17:49]:

If incivility is looking like withholding information so you can’t do your job, if it’s looking like bullying or harassment, if it’s going into that side of incivility, that’s a problem, that’s a sign of toxicity within culture, and that is something that is. Will be prolonged and, and will need to be addressed. And it is something we’re seeing an increase in. We’ve seen an increase in workplace instability over the past 12 to 18 months. And I think a lot of it is because of the overwhelm. But that’s when we’re talking about culture, we’re talking about how fundamentally we operate in this environment and how we show up for each other. And if that is coming up as a consistent issue, then, yeah, it’s one that really needs to be very seriously looked at urgently because it’s detrimental to the organization, it’s detrimental to the individual.

Aoife O’Brien [00:18:40]:

Yeah. And I’ve seen that. I’ve been there in those toxic environments and I think it’s. If you’re on the receiving end of something like that, it’s quite telling about the culture, like you say, but it’s also quite painful when you’re experiencing it, especially if no one steps in and does anything about it. So it’s the kind of behavior that’s tolerated which basically says this is how we do things around here. And if someone is being mistreated, then that’s actually okay because we’re all here to get the job done and that’s it.

Leanne Elliott [00:19:12]:

Yeah. Which isn’t very inspiring. And that’s why we’re seeing unsurprisingly, especially since COVID this big swing of people going, I’m not just going to sell my soul to the corporate devil and work myself to the point of burnout because I don’t have job security that I might 10 years ago. I don’t really see in the world I can’t really afford on based on what is should be a decent salary to buy a house, to get married, to have children. You know, there are so many other other aspects of life that are no longer a guaranteed even with the best corporate job. So there has to be a little bit of trade off for that. And I think that’s where we’re seeing massive swings in conversations towards purpose and meaningful work. Just people setting boundaries.

Leanne Elliott [00:20:02]:

I have no issue with quiet quitting is if we think about the definition that it is. It’s people setting healthy boundaries and I’m okay with that. So there’s lots of reasons where we’re seeing this tension in, in the workplaces. And I think my concern is it’s being put down to generations or it’s being put the Gen Z or the millennial snowflake, whatever else. And it’s not, it’s kind of saying that, look, the world of work that I’m inheriting as a 30 odd, 20 odd year old professional is not the world that you inherited as, you know, a 41 year old, a 55 year old. So if I can’t have the same security, the same perks, the same, you know, experience of work, then I’m going to ask for something else. And that’s where we’re seeing these trends come from, I think.

Aoife O’Brien [00:20:49]:

Yeah, that they’re kind of demanding different things. They don’t want their like work can actually be done differently, whereas. So I’m a Gen Xer. When I started you just, that was where you, you might have made friends at work, you put your head down, you didn’t question the boss. Whereas now I think it’s, it is a little bit different and it has

Leanne Elliott [00:21:09]:

to be, you know, I’m, I’m, I’m an old millennial. I think the official term is geriatric millennial, which I.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:15]:

Okay, yeah, you’re not a Zennial or Anything then?

Leanne Elliott [00:21:18]:

No, no, no, I know I was born. I was born in like the mid-80s, so I’m. Yeah, I’m an old millennial and I remember when I had my first job, I had a desktop computer aether.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:29]:

I couldn’t. Oh, yeah, I had one of those. Yeah, yeah, yeah. You’re taking me back now, Leanne.

Leanne Elliott [00:21:34]:

I didn’t have a mobile phone for work, you know, and this was in like. This is in like the late noughties. It’s not that long ago. Yeah, 15 years ago.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:42]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:21:42]:

I had a very clear distinction between the end of my work day, my boss couldn’t call me.

Aoife O’Brien [00:21:49]:

Yeah. You didn’t have a laptop that you had that you could open up at home? No way to get in touch except for your house phone, maybe, if you even have one.

Leanne Elliott [00:21:58]:

Maybe. Or he’s got my personal mobile. So it’s.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:02]:

Yeah, there’s boundaries there where it’s like, oh, unless it’s a real emergency, you can’t get me on my personal mobile.

Leanne Elliott [00:22:08]:

Yeah, exactly. I remember we had really. I used to live in north Manchester and we had really bad snow to the point where I couldn’t even see my car. It was just like a snowball and there was no chance anybody was getting out. So I sent him like a picture just to like prove it, because the company I worked for was in a different part of Manchester, didn’t always get snow. And he was like, yeah, no, I understand what you’re going to do. And I was like, I’ve got the day off work because I can’t log on from home. I can’t, you know, and it’s not that long ago.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:36]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:22:37]:

I can’t imagine now coming into the workforce a 16 year old, 18 year old, 21 year old and having this always on mentality as a given that

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:48]:

you expected to respond whenever.

Leanne Elliott [00:22:50]:

Yeah, I mean, we ended up in. I’m sure, I know I did. I’m pretty sure you did well. And you’ve been roles where you do throw yourself into it and you do work hours and you do make yourself available.

Aoife O’Brien [00:22:59]:

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:23:01]:

That expectation from day one in the workforce, that’s a big ask. If I’m not doing work, I’m not doing work that stretches me. I’m not doing it in an organization that I find inspiring. I’m not doing for a Sally that actually enables me to achieve the life goals I have, you know?

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:16]:

Yeah, yeah, No, I definitely. I have memories of staying up till two in the morning to finish a presentation, but that wasn’t because someone asked me to do that. That was because I put pressure on myself to deliver the very best that I wanted to. I wanted to do a brilliant job for the client. I had. You know, it wasn’t my boss saying, you need to do this, this and this. That was me putting pressure on myself. Which I think is a little bit different than someone else asking you if we come back to this idea of the conditions.

Aoife O’Brien [00:23:44]:

So we talked about workplace culture. One of the other things I cover in the book is all about drivers or need satisfaction at work as one of the conditions that we need to create for people. Any, any thoughts like? Any. Have you done any research around this area? Are you talking about this stuff? Are you seeing this out with the clients that you work with?

Leanne Elliott [00:24:06]:

Absolutely. And one of the big things that we are talking about at the moment is a psychology community and I’m. I’m pushing with clients to make. I want to make it like the phrase of the year. The term of the year.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:15]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:24:16]:

And it’s really not sexy because psychologists struggle with this of thing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:20]:

But it’s called, they need a bit of help from the marketers to make it a bit more sexy.

Leanne Elliott [00:24:24]:

Is that how many really do, really do. It’s called psychosocial risk factors and listeners may have heard of them because they’re not new, actually.

Aoife O’Brien [00:24:32]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:24:33]:

The HSC in the UK has them set out in their management standards, which is basically a annual stress audit that all organizations in the UK should be running every 12 months. If they employ two or more people, if they have five or more people, they should be reporting on those results internally. Very few people are doing it because it’s not getting enforced legally. They have that obligation. Australia has just brought in new laws around psychosocial risk factors that are going to be enforced and people are in a panic because it’s like, oh my gosh, we’re going to need to do all these incredibly difficult, complicated things. And it’s not. It sounds complicated and it’s that not catchy.

Aoife O’Brien [00:25:12]:

Because they need a marketing name for psychosocial risk factors.

Leanne Elliott [00:25:16]:

They really do. We should come up with one. Would make fortune. But you know, it’s things like what do relationships look in the workplace place and how they nurtured, what does, what control do you have over your own job and how you do it? How is control managed within the organization? And it’s these very operational aspects of our working life that if we look at from a psychosocial perspective, which basically means a way that doesn’t harm people, then that’s going to be really great for our people. And we also know from decades of research that people who are healthy and more engaged are more productive and perform better. So it’s also really, really good for business. You know, even if you’re not kind of behind the philosophy of it, it’s great for business. So I think what, what I want to see happen this year and beyond is really looking at how do we create an environment that is supporting the human experience, but how is that environment actually connecting to our operations, our systems, how we communicate with our customers, what our expectations are? And it’s going to be so interconnected, but in a way it’s going to feel very commercial for business owners.

Leanne Elliott [00:26:31]:

It’s not going to feel particularly psychological or well, culture. And it can be even simple things like so part of our responsibilities, business owners, is helping our employees to set boundaries to switch off from work, which is we’ve just been saying is really important. And it’s such a connected world. And that can sound like, oh my gosh, that’s really hard. How do I do that? And when my clients say this to me, the first question I ask is what percentage of your team took 100% of their annual leave allowance in the last 12 months? And they’ll go, I know, 60%, maybe 70%. Like, well that’s a pretty good place to start because you’ve got a policy in place that is allowing people to set a boundary between work life for their, for performance reasons, for psychological reasons, for relationship building reasons with their family, their community. And you’re not giving them access to it, but you’re not encouraging them to access.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:25]:

Yeah, you’re not, they’re not fully utilizing us.

Leanne Elliott [00:27:28]:

Yeah, yeah. And often things like that that will make a massive difference to an individual’s well being and risk factors in, in the workplace. And it’s already things we’ve got in place. We honestly don’t need to do more, we just need to do a bit better with what we’ve already got.

Aoife O’Brien [00:27:43]:

Yeah, yeah. Again, put that marketing spin. What I really liked about what you said there, Leanne, is the commercial aspect of it. And I think, you know, one of my next questions that I was thinking is, well, who is responsible for this? Because I think oftentimes we default to that’s the hors role or that’s the leader’s role or that’s not my responsibility. But if we make it everyone’s responsibility and give it maybe a sexier name than psychosocial risk factors, then it, it just enables us to Better have those conversations or have a better understanding of accountability and responsibility within teams, but then also being able to link it back to commercial success as well. Like, we were able to achieve commercial success because of this, rather than. I think, and I get stuck in this thought pattern sometimes as well, that if I work harder, if I just keep on pushing through. Because when you’re doing it, you’re just like, I’ll just keep going.

Aoife O’Brien [00:28:41]:

When actually what you need is either a break in the middle of the day because you’re like, I need to have a proper break, get away from the laptop, whatever it might be, especially if you’re working at home, working remotely, but then also a proper break in the middle of the year. And last year, I definitely noticed, obviously, I run my own business, so I don’t have a holiday allowance as I used to, and I need to remember that and actually factor that into my year and say, I need to take some time off. And in 2024, I had some proper, proper, like take the socials off the phone, laptop goes away, like proper holiday breaks. But I didn’t do the same in 2025. And at the end of the year, I could feel it. I really could tell the difference. I was not doing my best work.

Leanne Elliott [00:29:27]:

It’s a hard thing to. To kind of reconcile, isn’t it, when and particularly when you do come from, you know, Gen X, older, millennial. That work ethic was very much what was modeled to us by our parents. You know, that you work hard and it will all work out in the end. Rest and recovery feels like a taboo. It feels like a luxury. It feels like, well, that’s what snowflakes do it. Now.

Leanne Elliott [00:29:50]:

Burnout is a badge of honor. If you’re not burnout at least once, you’ve not made it. Rest and recovery is something that is so important. And what really confuses me, what I’ll always talk to my clients about, because they’re entrepreneurs, so they’re very, you know, like I say, they’ve got their own business, they’re high performing, they’ve got a vision, they’re trying to change the world here. I can’t a week off, Leanne. I’m like, I get it. But, you know, even if we look at the analogy of the sports worlds, right, you want to be an elite athlete, you want to be the best of the best of the best. What do they all have rest days? They can’t hit the gym or training 100% every day.

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:23]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:30:24]:

Because the body needs time to rest and recover, and it Needs the same psychologically. It needs time to rest and recover. You’ll have much better ideas if you’re, you know, maybe I always find it if I’m out on a dog walk,

Aoife O’Brien [00:30:38]:

that’s the best idea. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:30:41]:

And it’s because, I mean, and there is so much research around this actually it’s called forest bathing. The gen that have called it touching grass, which I’m not a fan of. But basically being in nature, it does change the, the physiology of our body. It changes the chemicals in our brains. It, it brings all those happy hormones to us in ways that will help us be innovative and creative and think differently. So it’s almost like as a responsibility to ourselves, particularly as business owners, it taking that rest in recovery time. Another thing that I always say to entrepreneurs who struggle with the rest bit because I think rest people think, oh, that means I need to be like lay down or on a sofa or watching telly or reading a book maybe, but not a work related book. Recovery activities are not talked about enough.

Leanne Elliott [00:31:27]:

And Adam Grant talks about recovery activities. He’s a massive, massive fan because he struggles to switch off. From what I read in I don’t know Adam, I wish I did, but

Aoife O’Brien [00:31:35]:

from everything I read about him, seasoned Leanne. Soon we’ll get to meet Adam.

Leanne Elliott [00:31:40]:

Oh, do you know, it is on my, it is on my like vision board for 2026, I’m not gonna lie. So yeah, Adam, if you’re listening, get in touch. But yes, so what he talked about is recovery activities that he leans into. So my recovery activities, for example, is cooking. I love to cook. I love nothing more of an evening to make the dinner because I’ve got, I don’t need to make any decisions because I’ve already planned it over the weekend. I’ve got my recipe, I’ve got my ingredients. I just need to follow instructions and at the end of it I’m going to produce something which is a result which, you know, when you’re on your own business, when you, you don’t always have a result at the end of the day.

Leanne Elliott [00:32:15]:

That is my result the end of the day. And I get great joy in that.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:17]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:32:18]:

My partner thinks I’m nuts. He can think of nothing more stressful than cooking. So for him, like, honestly, we’ll just like, we’ll have toast. Like, you don’t have to do that. You’ve had a busy day. I’m like, no, this is my. His activity is coding.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:34]:

Okay.

Leanne Elliott [00:32:35]:

PHP kind of creating stuff. And I think again, it’s A creating something from nothing to then seeing it.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:40]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:32:41]:

But I’m like, I don’t want to look at a computer screen. Like I’ve been doing that half my day. But it’s that individualized approach to what these recovery activities are. Is the point I’m laboring.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:50]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:32:51]:

What is good for me and will help me recover might look to my partner like I’m stretching myself and doing more than I should.

Aoife O’Brien [00:32:57]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:32:58]:

If you be honest with yourself and kind of thinking, does this simply. Does this activity give me energy or take it away? And if it’s giving you energy, that’s a recovery activity, invest in those. If the rest side feels uncomfortable.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:11]:

Yeah. And it’s okay if it’s different from someone else. I think I’m with you. I’m not a big cooker, but I do love baking. Like follow a recipe, put everything together and produce a pretty tasty result. If I don’t. If you don’t mind me saying so, you know, they usually turn out quite well. Cooking, not so much, but like baking.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:32]:

Yeah. If you want to. If you want a cake, especially one that I’ve never made before, that’s. Yeah, that’s what I love to do.

Leanne Elliott [00:33:40]:

Like you say you got something tasty, a tasty treat afterwards as well.

Aoife O’Brien [00:33:43]:

Exactly, exactly. And so the kind of third. Sorry, the third pillar in the book is I talk about capabilities. And by that I mean getting the opportunity to use our strengths at work or for leaders to create the conditions where we get to use our strengths, where we get to work with other people who have complementary strengths to us, and we remove some of the blockers that get in the way. So the things like too many meetings that could have been an email or too many emails that could have been not sent at all. So things like this, Any thoughts on how leaders can create those conditions? So thinking about what we do best at work and how we work most effectively together and then take away all that stuff that we don’t need. And I think before we started recording, we talked about this idea of the impact, you know, what is the impact that we’re trying to have at work? And how do we link that back?

Leanne Elliott [00:34:41]:

It’s such a good question. And again, an area of, I think HR OxyC, which isn’t talked about very much because again, it’s a bit boring. You know, we want to talk about culture and wellbeing.

Aoife O’Brien [00:34:53]:

Part I enjoy most. I nerd out on all that stuff. Like it was the most interesting section to write, if I’m honest.

Leanne Elliott [00:35:01]:

I agree with You. I love it. I love it so much. But it’s, yeah, it’s not very Instagrammable. So there we are.

Aoife O’Brien [00:35:09]:

But I think let’s sexy it up. Let’s make it Instagrammable.

Leanne Elliott [00:35:12]:

I think, yeah, let’s make capability building sexy. I think it starts with one thing that an organization should always do. Ideally, before you even hire somebody into, into your organization, but we can do it retrospectively. It’s called a job analysis. And I love a job analysis. It just, it’s brilliant because it’s basically saying to somebody is, what role is going to exist in this business? What’s going to be its responsibilities? What’s going to be its scope of control and influence? What’s it going to do that’s really going to make this business like, level up? What does that have to look like? And then what are the knowledge, skills and capabilities that this person needs be able to do it to help us do that? Let’s think about the best people manager you ever had and what was, what were they doing? It was like chef’s kiss. Good. Then let’s think of like the worst manager you’ve ever come across and the things that we want to avoid.

Leanne Elliott [00:36:07]:

We can then pull out competencies and traits that we’re looking for. Then you can look at how do we recruit this person into the organization who will do all of these things and be all of these things in a way that is predictive their future job performance. It’s no mistake that we have interviews in, in psychological assessment at work. That’s what the term is. Because we’ve proved through lots and lots of research that they’re really good predictors of future job performance. If we’re asking somebody standardized questions and we’re looking for the behavioral indicators, those little clues that show us this person is going to be great at communicating, they are going to be great at influencing team members. Then we know that we can give it a score, we can give it a 9 out of 10 and 8 out of 10. And that’s going to predict how awesome somebody’s going to be in the job that we bring them into.

Leanne Elliott [00:36:55]:

That’s science. That’s like proper science of work that we’ve got more than 100 years of research on whether you want to use psychometrics, whether you want to use work sample tests. There’s a whole host of things that we can do to find the right people in the right role. So when you’re looking around your team and thinking, right, how do we then. Now we’ve got These people in. Hopefully you did that job analysis, but if you didn’t, it’s okay and let’s go. Nice. Things change, things evolve.

Leanne Elliott [00:37:21]:

Work is fast. When you look around your team and thinking, right, how do I then reassess how well people are in their roles, how stretched they are in the right way? If they’re applying their strengths, the only slight twist in that is you’ll bring that person, because they’re already in your organization, into that conversation. And we call that job crafting. Job crafting as a research area has boomed over the last 12 months because we’re really interested in how we can leverage the human in our organization when we’ve got so much artificial intelligence coming our way as well. So a job crafting in its simplest form is kind of thinking as a manager, what do I think they’re brilliant at? What do they do that makes my job easier? My customers happy, My bottom line healthier? What do I really like about how they do these things? Is it how they talk to customers? Is it how they integrate within the team? Is it the ideas that they come up with? You know, all the things that I really enjoy about this person as an employee, then ask the, the employee to reflect the same. What areas of job do you love? What areas of job do you wish you could do more of? What areas do you wish you could just spin off? Which areas do you find really uncomfortable, but always, you know, secretly satisfied Once you’ve managed to overcome what takes your energy, what gives your energy? This conversation is job crafting. And it’s done in a way that will, there’ll be remain stretch activities. We don’t want to be too comfortable.

Leanne Elliott [00:38:53]:

That is true.

Aoife O’Brien [00:38:54]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:38:54]:

But it’s going to leverage the, the knowledge and skills and capabilities and experience and ambitions of the person in our organization. And to do that. Wow, what a world. Could you imagine if your manager said, I can’t imagine personally sitting down with me in my, in my early career and taking that care and consideration of how I can best be my best self and do my best work? Yeah, that’s also going to be great for the company. Wow. And then we’re talking about struggling to engage young people. We’re struggling to get people excited about the businesses we’re building.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:31]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:39:31]:

I wonder if we’re doing enough to engage them.

Aoife O’Brien [00:39:35]:

Yeah. I think we tend to focus on what people are not doing well. I know I certainly do. I’m like, this is what’s not happening, this is what’s not going well. Sometimes I actually genuinely find it Hard to identify what someone’s really, really good at. I think there are some brilliant tools that you can use and I think if you can see another thing to do is what does that person get asked about? Are they getting asked about systems and processes or are they getting asked about how they build relationships? You know, what are people coming to them for? You brought up another interesting point about AI, and that’s something. I didn’t want to kind of dwell too much on it in the book because I realize that it changes at such a pace that anything I say, like, well, that could be obsolete with. By the time the book goes to print.

Aoife O’Brien [00:40:22]:

But I think it’s really important to talk about that because from what I’m seeing, and I would love to know your perspective on this as well, AI is potentially a driver of a lot of that overwhelm. We have all of this information at our fingertips now. You can go to AI for just about anything, but then you’re wading through a whole load of information and sometimes the human judgment gets a little bit lost within there as well. Any thoughts on like, how this is driving the overwhelm or what we can do to use AI best in these situ, you know, in these circumstances, rather than being overly reliant or rather than getting completely overwhelmed by just gazillions of data points or lots of information coming at us.

Leanne Elliott [00:41:09]:

And it is overwhelming and scary, isn’t it, when you’re seeing headline after headline about how, you know, AI is going to take 20,000 jobs.

Aoife O’Brien [00:41:16]:

Yeah, I mean, aside from. Aside from the. Yeah, the pressures and the AI is coming for your job and like there’s examples where they’ve tried that and it hasn’t really lived up to expectations.

Leanne Elliott [00:41:30]:

And that is what is. Is an interesting consideration, isn’t it, that it’s. I was reading something just the other day, there was talking about how the financial industry in the UK are planning on making record numbers of hires this year in 2026. And they mainly sit within, unsurprisingly, technology and AI. But there is an area where they were planning to invest a lot of money into which hadn’t I’d never seen before, and that was senior jobs for behavioral scientists, psychologists, lawyers. To actually look at the ethical application and integration of AI within organizational life. I think this is going to become much more talked about because I think we’re going to see a lot more legislation come in around AI. We’re going to have a lot more talk around the ethical use of AI and also the accuracy of AI and the Articles cited something about a football match between Tel Aviv and West Ham being quoted about police security, that they’d asked chat GPT or something.

Leanne Elliott [00:42:32]:

And it never happened, that football match. And nobody spotted it because it sounded so plausible. And this is recently.

Aoife O’Brien [00:42:38]:

Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:42:38]:

So kind of having people in there. Well, to kind of sense check it. So I think there’s going to be an increasing amount of conversation around how we integrate AI into organizational life for. For the good of our people, the good of our organization, the good of our customers. And I think there’s going to become very shortly a much more philosophical question of it’s not that the question isn’t that we can use AI, it’s should we use AI because how much we

Aoife O’Brien [00:43:07]:

strip it and use it, but actually should we be using it in this situation? Yeah.

Leanne Elliott [00:43:11]:

And it’s stripping so much in and there’s so many rabbit holes to fall down in this world that, you know, to the point where AI is going to do everything and we’re just going to get a standardized living wage to actually, we’re all going to revolt and AI will burst in a bubble and the answer will probably be somewhere in between. I think right now it’s my advice to anyone, and I too would find it overwhelming at times, is to stay curious, do keep those skills up to date. Don’t run away from AI because it is going to be part of our life in one way or another. And for anybody who is in hr, in leadership. Yeah. Start getting curious about the ethical use of AI, the human impact of all the impact on the human experience, the employee experience of AI, because if we can, it’s going to be the organizations that get that right, that are really going to go to the moon during what is basically, you know, the next industrial revolution, isn’t the AI revolution of our time. So I think, I hope the irony is that understanding humans is going to be even more important in a world of AI.

Aoife O’Brien [00:44:14]:

Yeah, totally. I agree with that, Leanne. I feel like we’ve taken a whistle stop tour around creating the conditions for people to, you know, to have a more positive working environment, to be able to do their best work, to feel good, to reduce the overwhelm that everyone is experiencing as well. I’d love to ask you the question that I ask everyone who comes on the podcast. What does being happier at work mean to you?

Leanne Elliott [00:44:36]:

Being happier at work to me means understanding myself. I heard once a psychologist that I really admire, Dr. Georgie Tang, say you can sometimes be the right parcel, but at the wrong address. And I think There is a responsibility we have to take as individuals to understand what makes us tick, what our values are, what gets us excited. A brilliant model in positive psychology from a psychologist called Meg Sellig, called Vitals. It’s basically a self coaching exercise to ask what are my values, what are my interests, what’s my temperament around the clock, what time of day am I at my best? Life goals and strengths and understanding these aspects of myself. I’ll start to understand where I’m going to feel fulfilled. And that for me is happiness at work.

Leanne Elliott [00:45:25]:

Happiness is, is wonderful, but it’s a state and I have to, sorry I have to be the psychologist. It’s an emotion, it’s a state, it can ebb and flow, but fulfillment for me is, is the, the constant that underpins those wonderful moments of highs and happiness. If I can understand my vitals and understand where they’re being met, where they’re being met from work, where they’re being met from my community, where they’re being met from other aspects of my life, my family, my friends, then I’m going to have a sense check of balance. And if my vitals start to get compromised in too many areas, I know that that’s going to impact my well being, my mental health, my sense of meaning, my sense of purpose, my happiness. And for me that the control that I can maintain in a world that feels so out of control and unstable and overwhelming, that for me is how I keep hold of myself and what’s important.

Aoife O’Brien [00:46:16]:

I love that model. I’ve never heard of it before and it ties in with all the kind of things that I talk about. But it’s easy to remember Vitals, so I’m definitely going to check that out. If people want to reach out, if they want to find out more about what you do, what’s the best way they can do that?

Leanne Elliott [00:46:31]:

First stop is probably the podcast Truth, Lies and Work, available wherever you get good podcasts. If listening on Apple or Spotify, go and go and have a look website truthliesandwork.com if you’re interested more in my work, probably LinkedIn is the best place to go. I meet Leanne. You’ll see the banner for Truth, Lies and Work podcast. So you know it’s me. I talk on there a lot about organizational life and what it means, things I have beef with, things I enjoy. And if you’re interested, if you’re a business owner out there, that’s the people that I work with is everything. People and culture.

Leanne Elliott [00:47:07]:

Oblonghq.com is where you can see what we do with our clients.

Aoife O’Brien [00:47:11]:

Thank you so much for your time today, Leanne. I really, really enjoyed this conversation. Like I say, it was probably more of a whistle stop tour. We covered a lot of ground, but I think we, we got to all of the really, really important points.

Leanne Elliott [00:47:22]:

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. That was fun.

Aoife O’Brien [00:47:24]:

That was Leanne from Truth, Lies and Work. And we talked about overwhelm, how to beat the overwhelm, and how to create the conditions for thriving at work. If you want to get involved in the conversation, feel free to reach out to me directly on podcastappieratwork ie and get involved in the conversation over on LinkedIn. That’s the place I am mostly active. Don’t forget, if you think that someone could benefit from this, feel free to share that with them. And don’t forget to leave a rating or a review on your favorite podcast platform.