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

0:00Coming up in this week in work with the awesome Danny Wehrm. I've got new words. This comes off the back of some new research from the University of Nottingham and it might be the key to improving wellbeing in a digital world. I'll reveal all very soon. Yeah, also this week a question for anyone who manages people. Do your team follow you on Instagram because there's a strange little tension there. Doing a normal human online and being the boss. So how much of yourself should you actually share? I think we have an answer. An in-truth or lie is working in the office actually better for collaboration. It's one of the biggest arguments organisations have to justify stricter return to office mandates. So are the likes of Amazon, Disney and John Lewis Wright or is collaboration sometimes just a convenient excuse for managers to get their people back in a building? I've read the research and I've got a verdict. And in the world firm is weekly workplace surgery. One listener tells about a former manager who made their life hell. I got so excited when I read this one.

1:01I know. This is going to be a good one. Now in a remarkable twist of fate, that manager has joined their new team as a direct report. So should they rise above it and stay professional? Or is it finally time for that sweet, sweet, sweet revenge? This is Truth Lies and Wargly. A award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace called Gerburt Chia of course by the Hubspot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals. My name is Al and I'm a business owner and I'm here to ask the question you might be afraid to. My name is Leanne, I'm a charge of patients, psychologists and I'm here to answer them and together with the help of our brilliant guest host, Annie Werrow. Yay! We'll help you simplify the science and work and build amazing workplace cultures. We'll be right back after a quick word from our sponsors. Does your experience with AI sound a little like this? You prompt for 20 minutes, the output is polished, is confident and is completely flippin' useless. Well that's what happens when AI doesn't know anything about your business. Mm-hmm, but you know what does know something about your business? Hubspot. Hubspots AI. It works with your actual customer data, every interaction, every signal your team has generated

2:03over time. So instead of prompting and hoping, you ask once and ship it. Check out Hubspot.com, the agentic customer platform for growing businesses. Welcome back, welcome back, this is only the second week of proper scheduling we've had to do. As you probably know, we had August off podcasting, which was lovely, but it's nice to be back. Yeah, we missed you. We missed you. We missed you. We missed you. It's even nice to be back with guest host. We love our guest hosts. DW Big Dan is in the house. Da-da-da. How are you, mate? Hey, L, L-E. Great to see you guys again. Do you have a little bit? It doesn't really work. It's not the same as Brangelina or what the other one's. It really worked, does it? Alia. Alia. Doesn't really work Alia. It wasn't Alia. It's not right to know. It's not right. It's not right. I was confused. Who was the one who died in the car in a plane crash? Who was the one who was on fresh prints? And who was the one who was, no, at least at least I left my Lopez. That's nothing to do with these two. But she is also DNRC.

3:04Yes, because she died in the car. Danny, did you know everything talked to us about these R and B stars? So Alia, she died in a, she was in a plane, but there's a theory because the plane was flying for a long time and was unresponsive. So there's a theory that they were actually all of the passengers passed away before the plane ran out of fuel, but yes, she was, and I think she was romantically linked with ArcHelly. So maybe that's one to skip past. Oh. Yeah. Maybe that's why she was in the plane dead because ArcHelly was like, oh, she knows too much. Maybe. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Who's the one that's married to Nelly then? Mrs. Nelly. Sure they had like, you're like, no matter what, I'll do that one. Nelly, rapper, wife, real-time research people. They're in, oh, Destiny's Child. What was the name? Shanti. Shanti. Shanti. As in like a shanti, as in like murdering records.

4:06Sure. Yeah. I love the shanti back in the, back in the early 2000s. Mr. Shanti and Shahruh and NL Cool J and all that. I was, and I was the geekiest. Still, I'm the geekiest whiteest man in the world. So I used to play it really quietly in my car just when I drove through that. Just to get sent to anyone thought I was trying to be like cool. Do you know what I mean? Any of you. Also bourbon. So bourbon. Well, see, Hammersmith, if you want to check him out, he's a, oh, he's just a fabulous, I really like it when like you, you have these biases and opinions of someone based on how you think they look and then they blow you out the water with how they actually sound or behave or et cetera. And MC Hammersmith is, he's like Louis Theroux meets sort of Harry Mack, meets the LL Cool J. Very, yeah, I just like that sort of dissonance that you have where you, you're challenging your own beliefs. Harry Mack is so awesome. I can sit and watch hours of Harry Mack. Essentially, Andrew's like, what are you doing?

5:08Shut up. Anyway, this has taken a different direction to what I thought. Danny, what's going on with your life? Yeah, I was doing your work. I'm sure you've been putting stuff on LinkedIn recently about it. And I'm not taking it. And you won the LinkedIn. Have you ever heard of this platform called LinkedIn? You should get into it. The main things that have been going on, obviously, it's the, it, every year during sort of September, October, November, there's a lot of kind of conferences and an expos and award season. For us independence, it means there's an awful lot of time actually out and about and away, which is great. It's really great to see people because obviously individual working, small business working can feel quite lonely at times. But the trade office, you've got to compound all of that admin, the back office, the article writing, all that kind of stuff into a smaller times game, time frame, which I'm just not good at. I'm not, I'm not great at planning. I like to do things under pressure. I can be my own worst enemy over the last sort of four or five weeks. Do your homework on the boss, that kind of guy? I mean, all right, come up with an excuse as to why I haven't done it, but yes, exactly

6:10what I did. Genuinely, when I was a kid, we got a new dog from the RSPCA, which is if you've not from the UK, it's like the dog shelter. We've got a new dog and it genuinely ate my homework book. And I just had to say I didn't have done it to the teacher because I can't say the dog ate my homework. Anyway, we can't, we've got nothing to say. I've actually a little life update, a little life day. As we speak, well, in the last three hours, we should have broken ground on our new house and we should be having the beginnings of a hocking great whole, hopefully within the next, within the next 48 hours, we hope we're not been down there to check. So maybe they haven't. Yeah, that's actually the whole, like a hobbit. It's like the year 3000. We live underwater. That's where I learned the other day completely changed subject. You know that year 3000, off of busted in the UK. Do you know what's called by the Jonas Brothers? And remember, it's like one of their biggest hits. And like what rock have I been living under?

7:13Or was I in like the naughty? It's not. No, that was the same. What for house Jonas Brothers? Yeah. Huh. Do you know this, Danny? Did you know this? No, no, but I've got this weird sort of deja vu when it comes to the UK. It comes to boy bands that they all kind of merge into one because I too was very urban in my musical choices. So when you start hearing about 911 and blue, who are back in the charts, by the way. You got my body shaking. Good. I used to freaking love that. I know that's one of my first, first concerts. I know. A bit of EYC. They all kind of blow into one. Although an interesting story, I met my partner and we met through online dating and the way that she chose me and she reached out was because in my bio, I wrote about the Backstreet Boys and how ED is the most underrated member. So I'm not getting touched and I'll have a chat about it. And nearly 15 years later, she's still hanging around waiting to find the answer. Oh, that's cute. That is really cute. That is cute.

8:14I have seen some clips of the minute, the kind of reunion tour they're doing in the face. It's just a little very cool. Yeah. Yeah. Oh, good times, the naughty day. And we still all had hope and dreams for life. Yeah. All right. Anyway, I feel like we should probably get onto the, onto the business of the news roundup lady. Sure. So we, in our usual style, the Angos first, Lee, what have you seen? Oh, let's get, let's get, because Danny, you've listened to the shirt for a little while. Where do you stand on the jingle? Hmm. Beneath the news roundup. I quite like background music to where, that you're voicing over as long as it's not distracting. And personally, for me, lyrics are distracting. So as long as the music doesn't have any lyrics. And, and just as a side note, I can't listen to music whilst I'm working if it has lyrics because I end up typing what's being, what is being sung. So a little bit of background news, background music.

9:14That's good. You may bring it back. You need to tell us in the comments. Yeah. No one, no one's Spotify for listening. Jingle or no jingle. By the way, Danny. Because we've lost an entire store. Just because one of our love for listeners wasn't the founder of Jingle and the news roundup. Yes. Of course we reacted immediately. But by the way, Danny, I'm the same. I, I have to have a, I've like, sort of like house music with no lyrics or something. I get lyrics, I'm exactly the same. I created on Spotify maybe about 10 years ago. A reading playlist. And it was just classical music and like, a little bit of like, sort of low fire, whatever, no lyrics whatsoever. Someone picked up my phone and went, God, did you go to Reading? Have you got that playlist? I'm like, no, that's actually just reading because I'm such a loser. Anyway, Lee, what have we talked about? You've reading things. What have you been reading this week? I've got any words. Go on. I actually don't know if it is new word, but I'd not heard of it. So you tell me techno stress. Danny, what do you think it is? I would guess it's something like when you're bot sitting, sitting around and waiting for technology to do its, its shizzle and you're stressing out over its accuracy, how long

10:17it's taking. Is that feeling you get when you watch in the microwave count down? I'm calm, calm, calm, calm, calm, I'm hungry here. But I also need to stop it before it beeps and wakes anybody in the house up because it's midnight snacking. I think it might be when you have to, when you've got a new piece of technology on your desk and you've got to learn how to do it and learn how to use it really, really quickly. When you piece a software or something and you're like, this can just get in the bin. Why can't I go back to, why can't I just be the same as it was? Which is weird because I actually quite like this. It's not the same as it was to quote our hurry. I mean, whipping out the frickin. I know, you know. Fire. Kind of, yeah, all of that. But more generic. Okay. I guess a techno stress is the stress overload and exhaustion that can come from our use of digital technology at work. It seems a bit of a cup out there. It's quite broad, isn't it? Yeah. Psychologists as well. That's quiet. Yeah. Unusual. Unusual. But yes, I saw this in a piece from the University of Nottingham and it's some new research

11:20that was published in computers and human behavior, if you're interested in the journal. Oh, my favorite. The journal. The research has have developed and validated something called the digital mindfulness scale, which they say is the first measure designed to capture how mindfully people engage in technology at work and whether that protects their well-being. So they define digital mindfulness as engaging with our devices and applications in a deliberate, attentive and non-reactive way. So you remember that time where you kick the printer across your business like office and car park. Yeah. I did do that. That would be an example of being reactive. It was deliberate. You were experiencing techno stress. I was. I mean, it was deliberate and I was very attentive about where it was going and how much how many pieces of paper it would piss out all over the road. Yes. Anyway, the scale measures three things, intention. So having a clear purpose for using technology, attention, staying focused and resisting digital distractions and attitude, which is responding to yourself with kindness and patience when

12:25things go wrong, something you need to work on out my love. So to create it, they first refine the scale with a panel of mindfulness and digital technology experts and then tested it in a two-part survey of around 400 UK employees and one month apart. What they found was that people who scored higher in digital mindfulness went on to report lower techno stress and exhaustion and better mental well-being a month later. Yeah. Interesting. Interesting. Yeah. So the research has also kind of made the point that digital mindfulness is something that can be developed. So one of the PhD researchers Elizabeth Marsh said, setting an intention before picking up a device, protecting your attention from notifications and meeting digital frustrations with self-compassion rather than self-criticism can all be helpful. They did say that digital mindfulness is best developed through a combination of individual skills, like intention setting, attention management, self-care alongside organizational changes

13:25to things around, norms around availability and notifications and the right to disconnect. Thoughts, Danny. It feels like a piece of research written by a frustrated parent that the kids are always on their phone. Yes. That's my first and I know that's not to take away from the research you're talking about. I'm sure that's not what it is. But a lot of research feels to be born out of frustration. People are playing on their phones, people are doomed scrolling. And anything that gives a bit of intentionality around, why are you on your phone, why are you distracted, are you context switching because of these notifications going off and distraction that can be very cognitively laborious. Yeah, it's not necessarily a bad thing. I just struggle with a lot of academic stuff that feels a little bit wishy, washy and reactive in itself. Digital mindfulness and I imagine just sticks and a lot of just sticks were used in this

14:27research. Other insights sticks are available just for the purposes of balances. Sorry Elizabeth March, I don't mean to poo poo, the huge amount work that's gone into this at all. I'm sure it will be as a seminal piece, it's going to be really fantastic. Just put your phones down. Just put your phones down. I think there is something about, there's something about I think some academics who have got the time in the space to sit around and go, do you know what, I wonder if there is such a thing, whereas the rest of us are going, we just have to get out a day, we've got to get this done like Danny, you've got to get these things, these posts out, these things done and then he's off on a plane somewhere exotic and whereas the, you know, but a rumour , rumouration as my brother would call it naval gazing. But that feels really bad because I'm now just basically shitting on all of academics. I'm not at all, you've done some really cool things, but this one feels a little bit like, yeah, yeah, pretty obvious. Sorry Elizabeth. Yeah, I mean, it's not, it doesn't feel groundbreaking, like we learned something incredibly new.

15:27I do remember reading there, something around Gen Z and how once it was having a big impact on that engagement performance at work, without a tech to the point where they had much higher intentions to quit because they just couldn't deal. So I guess it could tie into that a little bit, but I don't know, I don't know, I just kind of feel like it's the same thing that's already been done, right? We've already kind of, there's already been research into kind of things like you were saying down like doom scrolling and attention splitting and just mindfulness and general and you know, not losing a shit when things go wrong. So I don't know how much this is bringing you as it feels like something else we're being told to learn about and worry about potentially as business leaders and owners. But what I would very much enjoy is if we could get our friend Emma Jamil to do some kind of techno song on techno stress. Okay. No, that would be amazing.

16:28I couldn't work to that though. I did not type in out Hilaryx. Emma. Yeah. So there you go. I mean, I'm not, I'll leave a link if you care. I'll be saying. So I was reading article written by Kelvin Cow. K. Cow. K. K. I'm not sure. I'm not sure how to say that. Kelvin. Kelvin K. Kelvin K. He was in 911 original members actually and he was asking, what do you do? Do you allow your employees to follow your Instagram? Because he does have an Instagram account and he used it personally. So he put like pictures of kids or his holidays or what he's eating or you know, like football or whatever. Well, actually, he says, I've been doing that. But then I've been slightly worried that my employees follow me because he's got this creative agency. So it's kind of like everyone's online anyway. So he says, I don't really want them to follow me, but I feel a bit of a weirdo saying you can't follow me. So it's like his, the entire article was like, how much should I share or should I make

17:30it totally private? And then if I make it private, that make it look even worse. So there's a couple of things in this article. I'm going to pull out. The main kind of crux of it was how much of yourself he asks, do you actually let people see when you're also the boss? Something might say the obvious answer, lock it all down, don't let anyone see anything. But then that creates like a bit of a mistake about yourself. And especially if someone already follows you and you suddenly go private, that's like, oh, why have they done that? I'm a bit worried about that. But then also if you just yourself online and go, you look at these idiots, the playing football or whatever and use language or whatever, then that's a little bit dodgy as well. So going totally close doesn't magically solve the problem. It just swaps it for another one. He comes across this idea of discern disclosure, which sounds a little bit wanky management. But the idea is actually quite practical. So if you are going to share something quite personal, he says, share the version of the struggle you've already processed, not the one you're still in the middle of. For example, he said, he went through some hard times a few hard months and he's so

18:31after it, he went, that was a hard few months and here's what I learned from it. He says, if in the middle, right in that challenging time in the business where he was dealing with shit that no one else needed to find out about, if he'd gone, God has been a tough week, people might go, why what happened? And it made you think, oh my God, am I going to lose my job? So instead, he says, if I'm going to say anything like that, I tend to talk about once it's finished. But I don't know. I mean, we don't have any employees. I didn't, when I had employees and so I wasn't invented. So what do you guys think? For me, there's two parts to showing who you are. The first is, is it public or is it private? That's a choice that you make. The second is what people take from it. So how do people interpret that information? And you can call it, was it discern, disclosure, I think you called it? So I'm going to wait until something's passed before I tell you what I learned about it and that'd be really useful. That just sounds like the LinkedIn. You know, I had to, my cat passed away five weeks ago and this is what it taught me about

19:33B2B sales. It just feels wanky. I think I actually read that post. Yeah. Yeah. So if you are putting something on the internet, regardless of where it is, the first thing is, it is forever. Like if you delete it, it'll still be cash somewhere on way back machine and so on. So you have to be comfortable with anything that you are broadcasting publicly, regardless of whether you log it down as private or not. So if you don't want it to impact on your personal brand, then don't stick it online. And if you're thinking twice about putting something online, I had an old manager that used to say to me, if you're having to ask, you already know the answer. Oh. So if you're thinking, this is a little bit, I'm not sure about this. Do I really need to show, you know, every sandwich I've ever eaten? And don't, you know, maybe close the laptop and go and speak to somebody, go and say, hello, go for a walk in the park. And yeah. So am I, have I got old as well?

20:33Is it the talking about 90s R&B? It's suddenly made me realize that, you know, you only need a TV with three channels and put that phone down. That's kind of how it feels. But yeah, why are you worrying about what strangers on the internet are thinking about and then how can you turn any, any piece of news or life impact into some sort of social clout? You, you, your ducks are in the wrong row. Yes, agreed. Lee, what do you think? I've been desperately trying to find Kelvin, Carol on Instagram and I can't. So clearly he's done something to me. He's not proud of it. He's not. He's not proud of it. He's not. I know what this, this, if I, my immediate reaction was Kelvin, nobody cares. Nobody cares what you post on Instagram. No, really. You know, I'm not sure that your employees are going to be as investors you believe, unless you're putting out content to Danny's point that has, has some kind of impact and intention in his, is either telling a story or the company or where it's going or I don't know,

21:36something more interesting than just kind of where you took your kids over the weekend. In terms of sandwiches, I'd be much more interested in that actually if they were like sandwich of the day. I'd probably do. But I think Danny said it all. You know, if you put something online, you need to be, you need to be mindful of what it is. If you're a founder or a business owner or a leader, you might have to be a little bit more found, a little bit more mindful. If you're that concerned, just don't have an Instagram, make it private. I mean, there is another side. This is a guy called Alex. I want to say Alex six, maybe I just made that up, but I can't remember his second name. And he started, he started to help desk, like help scout sort of thing about 10 years ago. And he blogged every single day on his journey to 100,000 MRA, like monthly recurring revenue. And he was the good and the bad. And he made this decision and he said it straight away on it. I made the decision that I'm going to share everything so that my customers, my potential customers, my competitors, my employees can see all the good and bad stuff.

22:36And we just shared it publicly. And I'm like, well, that's intentional. I know intentional sounds a bit like Manifold Wanky, but that's intentional. It's fair enough. If you're going to share your views on immigrants on Instagram, and that's probably, I obviously wouldn't like it to share those views, but if you do have to do it, maybe that's more a private WhatsApp group or something, some of your equally racist friends with resting Brexit. Yeah. But yeah. So I'm with you guys. I'm like, just if you're going to post it and you worry, what's the only thing about it? Like Danny says, if you have to ask the question, you're probably writing down the answer. And just because it's not on Instagram doesn't mean it didn't happen. Like it's okay to just live your life offline. That's fine. Yeah. I made the mistake last year, Valentine's Day, of telling my partner, I love her rather than putting on Facebook. What a rocket. Danny. Danny. Danny. Danny. Honestly. You choked my water. Right. That's probably a good point to go to a quick break after we go out to the live segment,

23:39which is increasingly with new people, which I'm really, really enjoying. I love your truth, Eliza. I'm going to shake it all the way. Yeah, they're boring. Listen to my voice. Yeah. So we will see you in a second with the lovely Danny Wareham. Welcome to the break. Yes. My favourite part of the show. These two idiots have stopped talking. Yes, I want to tell you about my new favourite podcast. No, that's a lie. It's my old favourite podcast. I've been on this for a while. Didn't know where that was going. Didn't know where that was going. It is called EyeDigress. It is hosted by Troy Sandage and it is brought to you by the HubSpot podcast network, the AudioDecination for Business Professionals. Yes, it's got shows that are under 30 minutes and EyeDigress helps eliminate complexity, complications and confusion in your business with framework strategies that achieve scalable and sustainable success. At least that's what it says here. You do want to hear a really personal story. Go to episode 136. This is Troy's honest account of fatherhood, killing, hustle, culture and what really matters when you stop performing and start living with intention. Listen to EyeDigress wherever you get your podcasts.

24:40That concludes the break. Let's return to the scheduled programming. Back to the studio. Welcome back to Truth or Lie. Here's that time of the week. We'll take a popular workplace idea and ask if the research actually backs it. Up. Now this week we're diving into the RTO world. That's return to office mandates. You know that. They know that. That's on the moon. They know that. It's an advert for about 15 years ago. Anyway, this is specifically the claim that return to office is better for collaboration. Now, retailer John Lewis in the UK made this claim in April this year saying that head office staff have to spend more time working in person than not. This is on similar to Disney, Apple, Barclays, Amazon, a lot of people. But is it true? Does returning to office actually improve collaboration? Danny, where it is over to you? I think because Leanne will pull me up if I don't, we have to start with what's collaboration. How do we define collaboration? Because are we talking about communication, coordination, so are people working more efficiently?

25:45We're talking about the idea generation, decision quality, because there is research into all of those areas and all of them form part of collaboration. What we're talking about here is the quality of the ideas that are generated and whether they're adopted. This is specifically what we're going to focus on today. So when you're in person, do you make better decisions and do you get a better variety and quality of ideas to pick about to make those decisions? So the case four, should we start with first? So there is a legitimate case. It's not simply return to office bad. There is some benefit in the research to being close to each other. So first of all, physical proximity can improve collaboration. There's a large scale study that I've found, 61,182 people in a Microsoft study found that moving to firm, wide remote working made collaboration networks more siloed and

26:48more static and they had fewer connections between otherwise disparate groups. So in other words, working remotely actually encouraged siloed tribal behaviors. So remote working appears to reduce the likelihood of people connecting across any organizational boundaries. One of the ways that can be mitigated is by looking at your organizational structure, but when you've got 61,000 employees, that's really difficult to do. And part of the reason that physical proximity helps is because a lot of ideation comes from completely informal conversations. You know, we don't schedule things in our calendars like 2.17 pm. Spontaneous conversation with someone from another team makes me think about or rethink about a particular problem. That just doesn't happen. Whereas bumping into somebody in a corridor, being in a meeting or being at a coffee machine can often get those sort of cognitive juices flowing. So physical proximity is 1, 4. A second is that there's strong evidence around creative idea generation.

27:50So books and leavens conducted a laboratory experiment and a field experiment across five countries and we compared collaborating face to face versus video conference. And video conferencing groups generated fewer creative ideas than the face to face groups. Now the important point here is that they generated fewer ideas. However, they didn't choose worst ideas. So if they had a selection of ideas to choose from, actually it made no difference whether they're in person or whether they're a video conferencing, it was purely the generating of ideas that was different. So in other words, being together helps you generate possibilities. But it doesn't necessarily help you choose between those possibilities. And the third argument for is that there is more sensory and environmental information which can actually make creation more, more easy as well, he says in his best English. So again, in the same study, if you think about when you're on a video call, you're on

28:53Zoom or teams and various other video conferencing that's available, then you're concentrated on one set of stimuli, basically right in front of you, or if you're good interview, you're staring at the camera so you don't look like a psycho. Whereas when you're in person, there is more stimuli, more data, there is different environments that you're reacting to people's body language and so on. So because there is more stimuli, that can increase the amount of creativity that's in the room. And you can think of it as physical environment leads to broader attention, which leads to potentially broader associative thinking, which can lead to more ideas. However, that is just an inference. So we see more ideas being generated, but we're not entirely sure why it is. And this is just something that is inferred from that full argument. So proximity changes and we act. Thea generation might be improved in person and a varied environment rather than just

29:54a screen might improve the variety of ideas, but it is a very weak link in this kind of inferred. So we all call on the four. Yeah, certainly sounds like there's some merits. Absolutely. Well, let me shoot some holes. Yeah. Let me shoot some holes in those merits. So the case against groups are really bad, surprisingly bad, in fact, at generating ideas. There's loads, loads and loads of research going back a half a century about brainstorming and collaborative meetings that do not generate ideas at all. There's a famous study by a genius in 1972, which came up with the idea of groupthink. And this was kind of a seminal piece around in essence, people working together. When you pull those ideas, the loudest voice in the room kind of dominates and molds those ideas. And that's been repeated plenty of times over the last 50 years as well.

30:55Mullen and Johnson, Salas Meta Analysis, brainstorming groups generally are less productive, the nominal groups in both the quantity and the quality of ideas. There's also the idea of production blocking. So production blocking is where, if I give you a scenario. So somebody comes up with an idea. There's only one person that can speak, otherwise you just get a melee of noise. So somebody waits to speak and they might have a different idea. But in the meantime, they've forgotten that idea or they've lost their train of thought or they've shifted their attention or they've decided it wasn't worth or wasn't safe to say it. And as a result, you end up with the same dominant ideas as well. The second is that being physically together doesn't mean we all collaborate and contribute equally. You know, a physical meeting creates social hierarchy. You always have one person who stops the talking says, right, we're finished talking about love Island or whatever it is or the football at the weekend and starts the agenda.

31:56Somebody always speaks first. Somebody speaks most. Somebody is perceived by the group is being more authoritative. And all of these things mean that if you have a different idea, there's lots of social pressure to not share that idea. You might end up with lots of volume, but you're more likely to end up with lots of validation. Of that voice in the room. So people going, yes boss, that's a good idea. I can see how we can build on that even though the idea might be a bit pants. And that status plays through in our third argument against which is physical meetings amplify status because everybody tends to know everybody in that room. So if there's a senior executive, for example, somebody further up the tree in the hierarchy of the business, then if they propose something, the likelihood is that they will get lukewarm support from the people that are actually staunchly against it, or you'll get silence. It's very rare that you get somebody called out on what a wanky idea that might be.

32:57So people don't put forward. They just go with the flow. And then after the meeting, they have a bit of a nag, a bit of a bitch about it in the corridor about that was a stupid idea, but it's too late because it's already been solidified. Somebody's taken away the actions. You might think it's collaboration, but it's not. It's just capitulation. It's not that people aren't collaborating. It's just they collaborate badly in those situations. So is it a truth or a lie? I'm going to say it's a misleading truth. There is genuine evidence that physical interaction can improve some forms of collaboration, particularly creative idea generation. However, there is also really strong evidence that groups themselves introduce cognitive and social costs. But importantly, the evidence doesn't establish that returning to the office is the causal intervention to solve the problems. It just feels like it is because that's the way we've always worked in the past. So we have this kind of bias for familiarity. The bottom line is the office can create better conditions for some form of collaboration

34:00and worse conditions for others. So what matters most is not simply where people collaborate, but how the collaboration is designed. So we've spent five years now since COVID trying to work out, trying to argue whether people should work from home, work from the beach, work from the office. It's about time we started asking what is it you're trying to achieve in the first place and then what is the right tool approach and environment for that? Yes. Love that. Lee, I know you'll be all over that. It's context. And I've said that before even COVID, I used to manage your remote teams and manage teams as a remote manager. And in my role in what I had to do as a manager didn't really change, but the intentionality change, maybe the frequency change, it's just context whether you're a person, whether you're in person. It just seems like an excuse, whereas if they were saying, you know, we think it's better for collaboration because we intend on doing X, Y and Z, scenario when everyone's back

35:01in the office and we know the pitfalls of groups thinking and social hierarchies and that's what we're going to try and mitigate, then yeah, that would be a convincing argument to why they might be experiencing better collaboration in person. Otherwise, it's just next skew, so I think. Let me give you a little story. This is a true story about my mom's husband, right? His name's Moove. He won't be listening, but he doesn't matter. He is a huge, huge Liverpool football club fan. Good luck. This is a man who has or tried to have Liverpool duvet covers on his marital bed with my mother. He has more pitches of Kevin Keegan on the wall than he does of us as his extension. Moove has never been to Anfield, the home of Liverpool. He has never been in the office. So does that mean that Moove is less passionate about what Liverpool are trying to do? Just because he's effectively a remote fan.

36:03Well, no, because he understands what the club is about. He's passionate about what they're doing. He understands all of the artifacts, the symbols, the language, he sings the songs, he get dressed up in his kit as a 65-year-old man and watches it on the telly every week. That's because Liverpool are very clear on what are we here for? What are we trying to achieve? What's our goal, if you're pulling the pun? And the thing for me is, organisations tend to be pretty poor at doing that, so we cling to old tropes. So if you see job descriptions, say, we're hybrid, it's two days a week in the office, it's instinctual to go, why? Why two days? Why not three? Why not five? Why not any? And start to challenge around those things. So if organisations rather than focusing on what's the leave or what's the measure, what's the variable we should be investigating? And instead, focused on, should we be designing work around the advantages that the environment gives us, or should we be trying to design the environment around some sort of ideology of work?

37:03What are you trying to achieve? What's the right approach? Why they pay down the big books. Yes, Danny for PM. Yes. In case you don't know, Danny's going to book. Constellation, it talks a lot about this kind of thing. You go, definitely go and buy it. It is a fantastic read. That was really cool. I really, yeah. And also, I mean, always be worried when someone who's very clever comes on and does, it's not like you, I'm not. Not like I'm not clever. But what are you saying about the next week, are we going to get a clever person on? Well, I'm not worried that I'm not going to understand it or I'm not going to see the practical application, but yeah, totally get that. Totally get that. So, yeah, we'll send this to Walter, whoever's in charge of Disney these days and see what he's going to say about it. We're all guilty of it. In 2019, I was running a media team in a telecoms place and one of my staff asked me if she could work from her campervan in New Key. She was a videographer, did a editing of videos and I instinctually said no. But looking back on it, if we're measuring, you know, do you perform your role based on

38:05the outcomes rather than based on the geography, then actually there's no reason that I should have said no. So we're all guilty of this kind of bias of stay where we are. Do what we've just done. Hopefully, Danny, can you think back on it? I know whether you were able to or want to say this, but do you know what your motivation was saying no? Do you know what it was? Why it made you say no? At the time, no. But looking back on it, it's because it's the environment that I was in wasn't safe enough for me to make a decision that was more aligned to my values. So actually conformity and keeping the status quo is kind of what we're all wired for until we were know that it's safe. I didn't feel safe. You don't get to work from Newkie. But it is what you're used to, isn't it? And what you're kind of brought up in, because like my my romantic team was it started I worked in a delivery role that was community based. So there'd be a team of us as then we'd be kind of bouncing between community centers sometimes we'd be together, sometimes we'd be apart. So we're dispersed team.

39:06So I was always in the in kind of the habit of seeing teams as like work is about work getting done rather than where people are. But I think if you're particularly in the constraints of like a call center where everyone is physically, you know, infamously on kind of the same floor, then it's different, isn't it? But yeah, I guess that's maybe that's my disappointment. I hope that the big shift of COVID would maybe open our minds and maybe start to question some of those biases and assumptions that we had. And it just seems like it's not really. It's just kind of we've defaulted back to what's comfortable. Yeah, people are people are people. Yes, absolutely. Well, talking of people, this is that's not a good link. I'll. Talking of people being people, people have questions now. Talking of people being people, people have questions. I might cut that bit out. Am I leaving it in just to show that I'm coming in a bit of an idiot. Okay, so we're on to the world famous weekly work, post surgery. First of all, thank you so much, Danny. That was brilliant. I will. Danny's going to be like, you'll be here probably not as much Dr Jake because we can't stop

40:07Dr. Jake if you're turning off. So it's probably. Yeah, but we will definitely will definitely have will definitely have daddy back on very, very soon. If you have your own, your own true to lie, either either maybe you'd like to deliver yourself or you want us to cover, then let us know links are in the show notes. Okay, so world famous weekly work, post surgery, I'm going to be gradually. I'm question. And Danny. And Danny this week. Yes. So listen up, Danny. This is this one's about my former nightmare boss. Now reports to me. This could be good. Five years ago, I worked for a manager who made my life hell. He ruled through fear created constant urgency, expected ridiculous hours to credit my work. I made anyone who pushed back feel like they were the problem. I asked to go and work in a caravan, you key. And he said no. No, that's not that's not this. So eventually I left completely burnt out and moved on. Well, calm resuscension, because after a recent restructuring, just joined my team and he reports to me, part of me wants to be complete professional and treated exactly as I would anyone else. But we would be lying if I said there wasn't a tiny bit of satisfaction in the situation.

41:10Danny Leanne, what would you do in my shoes? Go on, Danny. I would be you. If somebody treats you badly, like say you were going to give some money to somebody who's homeless and that homeless person bit your hand off and said, you know, I don't want the sandwich that you give me. I wanted the cash and they have a bit of a roundout here. You don't stop being altruistic and giving to the homeless because that's their reaction, not yours. And for me, if this guy really is a bit of an asshole, that will come out in the wash eventually anyway. So you do you, you be there as good a manager as you can. If I can be a bit vulgar about it, one of a great piece of advice is that my mum gave to me was don't play with the pigs in the shed because you just get dirty and the pigs enjoy it. So don't let yourself just, you do you and be as good a manager as you can. There's learnings in there for you and the bill will come to you. He will, he will either move on or he'll develop which ultimately is your role as a manager

42:12anyway. Love that, Lee. Don't underestimate the amount of pain this person is already feeling by the fact that they're now reporting to you. You may never know, but I find it highly unlikely this person isn't mortified that they are now reporting somebody that they used to manage and not treat particularly well. They might not have that awareness that they didn't treat well, but they'll, and that even more of an ego is going to mean that even more more to fiber fact than they're now reporting into, into you. So I think you can take a sweet satisfaction knowing they're probably squirming at this situation. I'm with Danny, you know, when they go low, you go high to quote Michelle Obama, it's, don't let it jeopardize your reputation within the company or reflect badly on you, treat them the same as you would anybody else. I think Danny's right. I have a feeling this is going to come out in the wash anyway in his personal will expose themselves in ways that you don't, you don't need to. If you're an idealist like me, there is an opportunity here for the manager, the new

43:12manager to realize that part of the reason they are the way they are is because this person was, was an asshole to them. They probably thought I'm not going to be a man like that. So actually there's an opportunity here to actually address it to, to thank the person as I say, you know, I learned so much from you, not all of it good. And it's helped me to, to be better or what I do. You don't necessarily have to call a spade a spade, but the, your, your job as a manager is to help get the most out of your people and some of those people might have rubbed you the wrong way in the past. So when they go low, you go high. Well, love that. Exactly. Love that. And let's be honest. If you hang around, if you live long enough, you're always going to meet someone who's a bit of an asshole. Okay. Question number two is all about becoming a bottleneck in their own team. It says, hi, Alan Leanne. And I'm going to pencil in here and Danny. They didn't know. They didn't know Danny. They didn't know. I run a marketing team and everyone is genuinely good at their dog, a dog, good at their job. But somehow it's been a long day, but somehow I've become the person everything has to

44:12go through. I thought hiring strong specialists would mean I could step back. But half my week now seems to be spent translating between people and joining the dots. The thing is obviously broken, but the team doesn't seem to work properly without me holding it together. So have I struck to the team badly? Is this just the part of being the person in charge we went to Danny last first time? No, I think this is right. You'll Danny Street. Go on then, DW. It's end up being the Danny show today. My immediate thought is that the two parts of this one is kudos for recognizing, having the self awareness that you might be part of the challenge. I love it when leaders have self awareness. The second is there's a phenomenon called a stroke syndrome, which is where there is a single person, usually the top of a team or top of an organization that tends to know a lot of things about the organization, about the processes and how we do things around here. And they unintentionally become this kind of oracle that people go to for all their

45:15issues. And a more democratic that they try to be. So when they try to delegate down to their team, their impatience can get in the way of, well, they're not quite getting it fast enough, so I'll take it and do it. It becomes a vicious cycle of reinforcing that actually you can have a learned behavior in the people that we don't need to do it because Danny will do it eventually, for example. And you get internalized resentment in the Danny in the scenario because my people just don't take in the bull by the horns or taking the initiative. And so for me, I would approach this through communication. These help reinforce that you're not the oracle that you're not to be orstruck, that I really need your help. I really need to, I need your help because none of us are as smart as all of us. And this is why you're part of the team because I value your your input. And if it keeps having to me, be me that does everything, then we're missing out on why

46:16we're all here in the first place and the strengths that we bring to it. So it starts with self awareness, which I've got, and bit of communications to why we hear what we hear to achieve. Very nicely. Anything to add? Yeah, I agree. I think communications can be key here, isn't it? And I think what the thing that sticks out to me in your email was I thought hiring strong specialists. That seems to mean you haven't said more about it, but you've got people that may be quite technical or quite very focused individual contributors, perhaps. And your job as a manager will be an element of bringing these people together, but also coaching them on how they work as a team to get this task delivered, there's some kind of tasker, he and missing here, perhaps. So it might also be looking at the workflows and where, where the common, commonalities are in terms of when people are coming to you, is it for decisions about a certain point of the process? Is it about the next bit of flow, like what happens after kind of step two of the process?

47:17I wonder if there's any themes that are going to come through if you start to think about why people are coming to you. It might be as simple as you're not giving them the autonomy or the permission to kind of be able to make these decisions independently. And that just comes from you going, yeah, that's, that sounds great. And that's when I go, again, don't feel you need to come to me. That's fine. You've got it. So there's going to be an element of kind of coaching these people to be a bit more independent and autonomous, whilst also just looking at there are any themes in what, why people are coming to you. And is that maybe something in the process, process that's broken because that's a really easy fix of it. Nice. You just solve that problem there, very, very nice. Okay. So I wonder if I find all question. And this person is a manager and they say does culture really matter if people are doing a good job. I manage a team where most people hit their targets and a few regularly exceed them. But some of those same people are completely uninterested in the company culture. They do the work, they're professional, but they don't really engage in the wider business

48:20or company values. Already the stuff we're told is important for building a strong culture. Part of me thinks does it actually matter if someone's good at their job, they deliver results, why should I care whether they feel emotionally invested in the company? But I also wonder whether allowing people to completely opt out of the culture eventually starts to affect the rest of the team. Guys, I think the question here is, should someone care about culture buy in if they're already doing really well, Danny? There's so much torn pack in here. You can't opt out of culture for starters. It's like saying, I don't care about the air. Culture is an emergent factor built on the day-to-day experiences, the behaviours that are happening in all of your people all the time. It just happens. It's just there. You get a culture by design or default and design is better. But if your people are good at what they do, if they're delivering the performance that you want and they're professional and you say they do everything that you need in employee,

49:22then what's the issue? Ultimately culture is what are the behaviours that are going to help deliver our organizational strategy? If those behaviours are already manifesting, if your performance is already there, then it doesn't match the words on the wall with your values or that they don't know what's going on elsewhere in the business. That's not a requirement. Requirement is why you fixating so much on what's laminated rather than what's lived in your organization. I'll get a bit soapbox about this, but you already have a culture. It seems to be working well just because you can't codify it. It's not the end of the world. So, Lee, have these people created their own micro-culture that's not connected to the main culture, the macro-culture, because this works for them or what's going on? Possibly. Possibly. I mean, we need a lot of my information to know that for sure, but yeah, it's possible that that's happened and that's why as a unit, their function to point my performance is good.

50:23If this person is maybe over-invested and we don't know, but I'm also wondering if this person is a founder and is questioning why their people are as emotionally invested in the companies they are, I don't know. All this person very much is and is wondering why there's that difference. And I guess if you are a founder or maybe a senior leader who is very connected, I guess my question would be what are they not understanding about what the organization is trying to do in terms of how it operates in the world or the values that it has or the mission it's trying to deliver, because people are clearly very engaged in their role and what they're having to deliver is independent people in the organization. It sounds like the disconnect is how that's contributing to the greater meaning of the organization. And I mean, I'm kind of with Danny, I'm not sure it really matters that much and less. So starting to see people become quite detached or siloed or kind of head down, do my work

51:31or home, there's not kind of any sense of kind of relationships being fostered within, because then that could be early science potentially of some sort of slow detachment, which then can turn into disengagement, then can turn into people leaving or if they are fundamentally just opposites of what the values of the organization are, which some people do find themselves in roles like that for necessity at times. And ultimately they will be short lived, they can lead to kind of a version of burnout, which I've heard called moral burnout, where you have this distance between personal and organizational values, that is not to say that aren't risk factors there. But my vibe is really that you've more got beef that you care about this company more than your team do. And I think Danny's right is the question is why, why is that the case? I think there's a danger that you're not focusing on culture, you're focusing on cult. You're creating an environment where everybody is focused towards one person.

52:31There's less opportunity to descend. This is pretty much the definition of a cult. Culture is not, it's not about creating a great place to work. It's about creating a place where great work is done. And if the behaviors that you have are creating a place where great work is done, then your culture is probably heading in the right direction. The only thing that the interest in this, which is a good thing, that this person has is how do you know which bits of helping them so you can replicate and do more of it? But ultimately it doesn't matter what you call it or what label it comes across. Are people reliable, delivering results good at their job and doing what you need, which is what you say they are doing? If that's not enough, then maybe you're looking for a cult rather than a culture. Like that. Like that, right? Well, that's the end of the episode today. I'm off to Google the entomology of cult and culture and see if they come from the same root. I would very, no, they don't. Daddy just said no. They don't know. Oh, man, he just ruined my own food. My culture comes from Calere, which is the Latin to tend to cultivate.

53:36This comes from Coltus, which is for worship. Ah. You're so smart, Danny. Or it could be your bullshit. Like he says it very confidently. Just make it up confidently. Well, I convinced. I convinced. Okay, Danny, Danny, thank you so, so much for joining us. People will want to find out more. They can go find you on LinkedIn. Anyone else they can go and find you? Do you have a book? Yeah, I don't know if it's been mentioned. And they can find out about the book on LinkedIn as well. So Danny, where I'm on LinkedIn, I'm one of the few, I'm not the software designer from Connecticut. I am the organizational psychologist from Stoke on Trent. And you can also find me at DannyWarm.com or at Fergan.co.uk, which is my consultancy site. Lovely, right until next week. If you've got any comments, please leave them in the if you're on Spotify. Please leave them on comments. Otherwise, you can just find Leanne on LinkedIn and you can talk to her there. You can get in touch with us in the show. There's loads of show notes. The check out the new website, it has got, it's genuinely got about two and a half thousand

54:37new pages on the website. So go and have a look at it and it's got everything on there. Let you add anything to add before we go. Nope, I think that concludes today's business. Thank you, Danny. Awesome as always. Yes, love you. Thank you. And we'll see you on Thursday. Bye. Bye-bye.