0:02

Hello, everybody. Welcome to the Radical

0:05

Canter podcast. I'm Kim Scott. I'm

0:07

Jason Rozoff. I'm Amy Sandler.

0:10

We talk a lot on this podcast

0:12

about how managers can ensure that their

0:15

employees are staying engaged at work. But

0:17

what about keeping those managers themselves

0:20

engaged? Being a boss

0:22

is a challenging job in the best of

0:24

times. The best of times, these

0:26

are not. According

0:28

to Gallup, only 31% of managers are

0:30

actively engaged and more than 50% are

0:34

actively seeking new jobs

0:36

amid declines in employee engagement

0:38

and well-being, record

0:40

turnover and hiring

0:42

rates, and an unprecedented increase

0:44

in hybrid work. Kim, in

0:47

Radical Canter, you say that a

0:49

boss's job is to guide

0:52

a team to achieve results. However,

0:55

in the current landscape of constant

0:57

disruptions, this job is feeling close

1:00

to impossible for some managers. And

1:03

what's more, those very same disengaged

1:05

managers are leading to disengaged teams.

1:08

And what we're really talking about in

1:10

many ways and for a lot of

1:12

folks is burnout. And according to the

1:14

National Institutes of Health, burnout

1:17

is a psychological syndrome emerging

1:19

as a prolonged response to

1:22

chronic interpersonal stressors on the

1:24

job. The three key

1:26

dimensions of this response are

1:28

an overwhelming exhaustion, check,

1:31

feelings of cynicism and detachment from

1:33

the job, and

1:35

a sense of ineffectiveness and lack

1:37

of accomplishment. I

1:40

just had one of those. I just had the exhaustion.

1:45

I've been feeling cynical. I've

1:47

been struggling with my feelings

1:49

of cynicism. I don't know

1:51

about detachment, but sometimes

1:54

it's hard not to feel cynical in this world. Yeah,

1:58

and it's interesting also in that sense of... Ineffectiveness

2:00

and lack of accomplishment because I know for you one of

2:02

the things we talk a lot about is like you want

2:04

to feel like what you're doing has an impact yes,

2:07

and and some days I

2:09

feel like Well,

2:12

I don't know anybody who feels like they're having

2:14

all the impact that they want to happen. Honestly,

2:16

if they are They're probably

2:18

having too much impact Like

2:23

I think I think we all like

2:25

there's one of my favorite books of

2:28

all times is this book

2:30

by Ian McEwen and Enduring

2:33

love it's called and it begins

2:35

with this sort of tragic situation

2:38

where somebody

2:40

is piloting a hot air balloon

2:42

and it gets out

2:44

of control and there's all these people like

2:46

trying to help out and everybody's

2:50

and the narrator of the book

2:52

says I feel certain that

2:54

if I were the Uncontested

2:56

leader the tragedy would not have

2:58

happened and I Feel

3:02

that way all the time and yet

3:04

at the same time I also know

3:07

that if I were the uncontested leader

3:09

all this shit would be happening anyway

3:11

You know, like like the solution is

3:13

not to be the uncontested leader, even though

3:15

I think it's a very a

3:19

Very much of this human

3:21

imagination We all like to think if

3:23

we were in charge of the world, it would be a

3:25

better place Yeah, I'm curious Jason

3:28

as you're listening to the definition from burnout.

3:30

Just Where are you checking in on

3:32

this with these? three key

3:35

dimensions the overwhelming exhaustion

3:37

the feelings of cynicism and

3:39

detachment from the job and the sense of

3:42

Ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment. I

3:44

would say I'm with Kim. I'm

3:46

feeling a little cynical But

3:48

otherwise, I'm not taking any

3:51

of the boxes. I don't feel overwhelmingly

3:53

exhausted. I certainly

3:55

don't feel detached from from the job

3:57

and I feel Well,

4:01

we have accomplished a lot and I feel like

4:03

I also personally have accomplished a lot over the

4:05

last year so

4:07

I Think I think

4:10

when when you're when in all arenas you're feeling

4:12

sort of ineffective the other things come as a

4:14

result You know what I'm saying? If you feel

4:16

like you can't get anything done in your personal

4:19

life and your professional life Like

4:21

that's to me what leads to the cynicism

4:23

and detachment and then I become exhausted like

4:25

because I'm just sort of like not Looking

4:27

forward at any point to getting

4:29

back up and and doing it

4:31

doing it over again You know what I'm saying? So if

4:34

I think it feels like you're on a you're

4:36

in a hamster wheel It's

4:39

easy to become Cynical

4:42

and exhausted. Yeah, and I

4:44

think the reason why I have

4:46

been feeling cynical I mean there's one

4:48

specific thing that has happened in the last couple

4:50

of weeks that has really

4:52

got me That has

4:55

got me thinking so maybe you can help me feel

4:57

less cynical about the world as a result I mean,

4:59

I don't know why sometimes these little things happen and

5:02

they they perfect they affect

5:04

me more profoundly than perhaps they should

5:06

but I was dealing

5:08

with two different leadership situations

5:10

where the CEO

5:13

of the organizations Objected

5:18

to the word safety Hey,

5:20

they were like don't use the word safety I

5:23

don't believe in psychological safety and I'm just

5:25

like What the hell

5:28

is wrong with you people at you?

5:30

Like like what is this about so

5:32

maybe you all could help me have

5:34

more compassion for those leaders And

5:37

then I would feel less cynical I

5:39

think it really is when I feel

5:42

at my most cynical is when I have my least is

5:44

usually when I have no no Compassion

5:47

for what this person is like what would

5:49

what would cause a leader to object to

5:51

safety in some ways It's

5:53

partially a response to the thing to

5:55

the topic that we're discussing. I think

5:58

that if you If

6:00

your job is to be

6:04

a sort of shock absorber for your

6:06

team and you are

6:08

out of compassion for them, I

6:11

think it's really easy to become cynical that you making

6:13

the environment better for them is actually having making a

6:15

difference, right? Because they're all still going to be bringing

6:18

their issues. Like, you know, your team is still going

6:20

to be bringing the issues to you. There's

6:22

issues in the world. Like, it's all a

6:24

big mess. And so I

6:27

can imagine getting into a state where I

6:29

feel like, well, what

6:31

I'm doing isn't working for them. And it's certainly not

6:33

working for me because I'm getting burned out. So like,

6:36

screw all that. We're

6:38

just not going to worry about this stuff anymore. And let's

6:40

see what happens. It's a little bit like some

6:43

people get enamored with the idea that when

6:45

the rules that you have don't work, that

6:47

chaos is a better alternative. It's hard to

6:50

sort of calculate as opposed to saying the

6:52

hard work is to figure out new rules

6:54

that will make it better. Instead,

6:57

we're just going to lean into chaos.

6:59

Yeah, I think that makes a lot of

7:01

sense. And there was a

7:03

report, it was called the Future Forum

7:06

Pulse Report. It was a survey of almost 11,000 workers

7:09

across the US, Australia, France, Germany, Japan,

7:11

and the UK. Kim,

7:13

I'm curious, were those leaders based in

7:16

the US or US based? Not

7:19

the US, they were like, Silicon bow. If

7:23

we may be even more specific. And

7:25

this Future Forum Pulse Report found that executives

7:28

sentiment and experience scores had sunk to record

7:30

lows. And this was compared to a year

7:32

ago, execs reported a

7:34

15% decline in the working environment,

7:38

20% drop in work-life balance, and a 40% increase

7:41

in work-related stress and anxiety.

7:43

And the VP and co-founder

7:45

of Future Forum, Sheila Subramian,

7:48

said, but we're in the midst of

7:50

the biggest workplace paradigm shift we're

7:53

likely to see in our lifetimes. And leaders

7:55

are feeling that pressure.

7:57

And she added that the shifting

7:59

macroeconomic... conditions, great resignation, which we've

8:02

talked about on other podcasts, and

8:04

the changing demands of employees around

8:06

flexibility make it, quote, harder to

8:09

lead with confidence. You can no

8:11

longer rely on the old leadership playbook.

8:14

And I'm wondering if we also

8:16

add in not just the

8:18

changing demands of employees around flexibility, but

8:21

also perhaps around psychological

8:24

safety, and maybe a sense of

8:26

how can I know for my

8:29

thousands of employees what psychological safety is

8:31

going to look like for each individual person.

8:33

And I think it goes back to what

8:35

Jason was saying of just this sense of

8:37

like, I can't please everyone and I can't

8:39

make it all work for everyone. And

8:42

so it can feel overwhelming. Thinking back

8:44

to the conversation we had around

8:46

Amy Edmondson, with Amy Edmondson on

8:48

psychological safety, and this idea that it

8:51

might actually land very

8:53

differently for individual people. And

8:55

I'm also wondering if there's any intergenerational

8:58

challenge around that, like, well, I didn't have psychological safety

9:01

when I was becoming a leader. And now people are

9:03

wanting, you know, I don't know if there's any pushback

9:05

on that. I'll add one

9:07

other observation, which is that it could be an

9:10

objection to the word safety. I

9:12

think that there is a core

9:15

tenant. And maybe

9:17

it's like, confusing intellectual safety and psychological

9:19

safety. I think maybe those two ideas

9:22

are might be inflated here as well.

9:24

It might lead to an objection. There's

9:26

a liberal idea that we

9:29

shouldn't foster intellectual safety, right? The

9:31

liberal idea is like, we

9:34

live in a market of ideas. And

9:36

in a market of ideas, our goal is to

9:38

share them as clearly as we possibly can. And

9:40

to have those ideas sort of like, fight

9:43

with one another to come up with some

9:45

way forward, right? To find a way

9:48

forward. And I think people hear

9:50

that there's a thing

9:52

that is happening right now, which is that

9:54

there's debate going on to like, to the

9:57

degree to which we should create intellectual safety,

9:59

the ability to sort of like live inside of

10:01

a bubble and not have to worry about what people

10:03

who don't agree with you think etc.

10:05

and so I think there's a

10:08

on the far end of liberal is

10:11

libertarian and I think there's like a high degree

10:14

of overlap between especially

10:17

like leadership at Silicon Valley

10:19

and sort of like libertarian values and

10:21

and this is like I think a

10:24

battleground there and the difference between intellectual

10:26

safety and psychological safety is really important

10:28

because psychological safety is what's required to

10:31

get people to feel confident that they

10:33

can actually voice their idea in order

10:35

to create intellectual combat like

10:38

to actually get the ideas

10:41

to stand up against each

10:43

other people need to feel psychologically safe

10:45

to share their ideas to

10:47

feel like I can say what I need to say

10:49

without feeling like I'm gonna be cast

10:51

out of the tribe. Yeah I think

10:53

also there's like there's a lot of

10:56

confusion between safety,

11:00

comfort, and shame and I

11:02

think like so

11:04

I think that often

11:07

in order to be able to

11:09

embrace the discomfort you need to

11:11

feel safe like and

11:14

feeling unsafe is

11:17

very different from feeling uncomfortable like

11:19

we have to feel uncomfortable in

11:22

order to grow and and

11:24

that to me when I hear psychological

11:27

safety I imagine

11:29

a world in which that

11:32

it is safe to be uncomfortable and

11:35

I think some that's not always how what

11:38

other people are hearing and I also

11:40

think that when we

11:43

are challenged especially when

11:45

we're challenged if we've said

11:47

or done something that's biased

11:50

that I mean a that is uncomfortable but

11:52

I think it goes beyond discomfort I think

11:54

there we feel ashamed and in that case

11:57

we have to own our own shame. expect

12:00

that other people are going to prevent you

12:02

from ever feeling ashamed because

12:04

that's like the path to deep

12:07

denial. And so I

12:09

think that sometimes there's a lot

12:11

of confusion around those three things. I

12:14

think this conversation is just an interesting

12:16

example of why it's so hard to

12:18

be a manager right now. Yes. Like

12:20

to some degree like these are

12:22

deep sort of

12:25

social fabric societal questions

12:27

like how what

12:29

what is the social contract you know

12:32

what I'm saying like and and

12:34

I think with the author of the

12:36

Forum Pulse report was was getting at is like

12:39

there's a shift that's happening as to sort of like

12:41

what what is a part of work and what is

12:44

not a part of work you know what I'm saying

12:46

like what what should people be able to say at

12:48

work or not able to say yeah or not be

12:50

able to say at work and

12:52

I I don't think leaders had the

12:54

tools to lead in the

12:57

world before the shift happened like

12:59

I don't think they were equipped well equipped to lead

13:01

before the shift happened I think the shift is making

13:03

things worse. Yes

13:06

and I think there's another confounding factor

13:08

in the shift it's not only just

13:11

macroeconomic conditions and the great resignation

13:13

and the changing demands of employees

13:15

but I think there's a real

13:17

shift in sort of what leadership

13:19

means and what good leadership looks

13:21

like and that's the shift

13:24

from the old sort of command

13:26

and control sort of

13:28

approach to leadership to a

13:30

new more relationship-based approach to

13:32

leadership and I think

13:34

there are I think

13:36

a lot of people when they become managers

13:41

for the first time they kind

13:43

of fall back on this old command and

13:45

control and they expect people to do

13:49

what they say and people don't I

13:51

mean that I don't think it's ever happened that

13:53

people do what a

13:55

leader says automatically but people

13:57

are more likely to be

14:00

I think in in today's world,

14:02

especially younger employees But even even some

14:05

older employees are more likely to say

14:07

no, I'm not going to do that

14:10

and I think a lot of leaders

14:12

then feel a sense of humiliation when

14:14

they get that kind of feedback and

14:16

And you know, you must do what

14:19

I say and and then people are

14:21

like no, no, I don't know I

14:23

don't you know, and so I think

14:26

like reminding leaders that telling people what to

14:28

do doesn't work Silencing

14:30

people doesn't work is part of the

14:32

solution to the burnout him. It's really

14:34

interesting I'm wondering what the examples you

14:37

started with with the couple of leaders

14:39

who were Uh pushing

14:41

back on the idea of safety aware that

14:43

we're not necessarily sure exactly what safety means

14:45

in their in their minds unless

14:48

you have more to add from what jason said, but

14:51

I'm curious as you talk about

14:53

the philosophical Kind

14:55

of what's underneath this your

14:57

belief our belief that telling people

14:59

what to do doesn't work Which by

15:01

the way I think because you

15:04

are inherently a rebel telling you what to do doesn't

15:06

work I do think there's like I

15:08

don't know the data but some group of people

15:11

Who and i'm more of a rule follower than

15:13

you that that you know If my

15:15

manager tells me to do something i'm inclined

15:17

to do something because I want to sort of follow

15:20

the rules Not that that's always a good idea.

15:22

Yes And if your manager

15:24

tells you asks you what you

15:26

think should be done. They're more likely to

15:28

get a better idea They're more likely to

15:30

get better work out of you, which is

15:32

why telling telling me what to do doesn't

15:34

work for one reason Telling you

15:36

what to do doesn't work for us But

15:38

you might do it like it doesn't work for me

15:40

because I won't do it It

15:43

might work for you because you will do it But

15:46

either way we don't get but not

15:48

as well and i'll be like seething

15:50

seething with with resentment and eventually you'll

15:52

quit Yes, that is

15:54

true That is true. If I

15:56

have other options and all of that. I think

15:59

what's interesting also about what you were saying was

16:01

around, and again, you

16:03

know, only to the extent that this is helpful

16:05

and you have more specifics, but the folks that

16:08

you're imagining, do you think

16:10

that they, their philosophy is more

16:12

command and control rather than collaborative?

16:15

I think in one case that

16:17

the, um, this manager,

16:20

who is really flaming out,

16:23

uh, and, and part of the reason

16:25

for the flame out is that they're taking

16:28

a command and control approach to

16:30

the situation and it is

16:32

not working. It's like,

16:34

I'm, I have a chicken and egg question in my mind,

16:36

which is like, which is, is it the flame out that's

16:38

leading to the command and control or is it the command

16:41

and control that's leading to the flame out? Really

16:43

good. Yeah. Because

16:45

I feel like it is

16:48

a natural human reaction, at least most

16:50

of the humans that I know when

16:52

things feel out of control, you try

16:54

to take control where you can. Yes.

16:58

And this is a place, especially, you know,

17:00

speaking as the CEO of a company, I

17:02

feel like, you know, I, I

17:04

feel like I have a reasonable amount

17:06

of power in this situation. And so

17:09

shouldn't I be able to control what's

17:12

going on? And I

17:14

could imagine a situation where I

17:16

was feeling desperate enough that I, that, that

17:19

that would come out in some, you know,

17:21

in some way, shape, or form, that that

17:23

would be my reaction, my response to this

17:25

to a situation feeling out of control would

17:27

be to try to exert control. And I

17:30

think what you're saying, Kim, that I strongly

17:32

agree with is that there,

17:35

there are unintended consequences

17:37

of making that choice. Meaning you,

17:39

to Amy's point, you might be

17:41

able to control some

17:44

people, but you're going to wind up

17:46

pissing off a whole lot of people that you absolutely

17:48

need not to piss off in order for you to

17:50

have any semblance of, uh,

17:53

in order to reduce the loss of control

17:55

that you're feeling. Yeah. And I would,

17:57

I would say what's happening in this situation that I'm

17:59

thinking. of is this

18:01

leader is feeling out of

18:04

control. You're right. Some stuff

18:06

went wrong. So trying

18:08

to exert control and

18:11

thereby having to

18:15

confront quite explicitly that they're

18:17

not in control. Therefore,

18:20

it's a vicious cycle, feeling more

18:23

out of control. So trying even

18:25

harder to exert control. This

18:28

leader who is afraid of revolution

18:33

is fomenting revolution with

18:37

their actions. This leader

18:39

is creating exactly what they

18:41

fear will happen with

18:43

their actions. It's just so

18:46

unnecessary. Yeah. I

18:48

think the value of having you being able

18:51

to observe it from the outside, and Jason, your

18:53

point was such a good one. It's interesting because

18:55

going back to that Future Foreign Pulse report, this

18:58

is from fall 2022, I think it still stands.

19:01

One of their key recommendations was for

19:03

leaders to lead with trust by

19:05

offering more choice and flexibility.

19:08

I know we talked about this before with the

19:11

great resignation and quiet quitting.

19:14

But Kim, it seems

19:16

like the last thing this person is open to

19:18

doing is leading with trust by offering

19:20

choice and flexibility that way. No. That's

19:24

not in this leader's bag of tricks,

19:27

nor is compassion. One

19:30

of the things that's so horrible about

19:32

the situation is that I talked to

19:34

this leader's boss. This

19:37

leader's boss said, well, this

19:39

person is more of a quantitative

19:42

person and not very good at

19:46

showing they care personally. But

19:50

you got to give them a pass because they're

19:52

good at other things. I

19:56

don't think even the leader,

19:59

at this point, I think this leader is not

20:01

going to succeed. So the leader will go

20:03

whether they want to or not But

20:06

the problem is that if you wanted to

20:08

support if this leader's boss wanted to support

20:10

this leader Then what the

20:12

leader's boss would have done is to say

20:15

here are some ways like there's a gap

20:17

in your skill set This

20:19

is not something you're good at and

20:21

here are some things that you could

20:23

you could either delegate You could have

20:25

someone else like lead these these specific

20:27

meetings You could come up with an

20:29

ideas team There

20:32

are a lot of ways to help a person Navigate

20:36

around skills that they don't have

20:38

and still be successful But that's

20:40

not what is happening that the

20:42

this leader's boss thought I have

20:44

to have this leaders back

20:47

by denying that there's any problem

20:49

and So

20:51

it's it's like a it's a tragic situation

20:55

And I feel it's not one that I'm able

20:58

to do anything. I'm not able to fix it And

21:01

it's very hard for me to watch it happen having

21:04

been on both sides of like the outside looking

21:06

in and the person who is Struggling

21:09

to figure out how to support a leader who is

21:11

failing. You know what I'm saying? Like yeah, I I

21:13

think What

21:16

you're describing you go back to the sort

21:18

of like feedback

21:20

versus future

21:22

focused You

21:24

know guidance that this question of are

21:26

we looking backwards to say what's going wrong? Are you

21:29

looking forward to say it like how it could go

21:31

different in the future? And I think what part of

21:33

what you're saying is like this person

21:35

is it's like the worst of

21:37

all world They're not discussing what went wrong

21:39

and they're also not making suggestions about how

21:41

the future could be better. Yeah And

21:44

so recreating the problem over and over

21:47

again Yeah, and making it worse

21:49

and this leader is burning out and

21:51

their team is burning out even faster

21:53

I mean when a leader is burnt

21:55

out it Usually

21:57

happens that their their team is

22:00

even more burnt out. You

22:03

know, that burnout is something that

22:05

rolls downhill and it's like a

22:07

snowball. It's worse at the bottom of the hill

22:09

than at the top. Yeah. It's really

22:11

interesting. Yeah. When you were talking about

22:14

is this leader resource to actually handle

22:16

it? One of the things

22:18

that came from Gallup under

22:20

an article called the Manager Squeeze, how the

22:22

new workplaces testing team leaders, in

22:25

addition to managers needing

22:27

to be consistent and clearly

22:29

communicating and making sure good

22:31

is well-defined. What's

22:34

actually going on, only three in 10

22:36

managers are agreeing that their supervisor keeps

22:38

them informed about what's going on in

22:40

their organization. So that lack

22:42

of clarity can burn people out. But also

22:44

only 48 percent of managers strongly agree that

22:47

they currently have the skills needed to be

22:50

exceptional at their job. So there

22:52

was a real need for more training and development. Interestingly

22:54

from Gallup, they actually

22:57

call one of the key skills, teaching

22:59

managers to have meaningful conversations at

23:01

the right frequency with their

23:03

teams. This is in fact exacerbated

23:06

with hybrid teams. So I'm curious, Kim, even

23:08

in that example, just to have the

23:10

conversation around a specific example for folks that

23:13

might be struggling with this, how often is

23:15

this manager, this leader having

23:18

conversations with their team members?

23:20

Well, yeah, they're not. Maybe

23:23

the word meaningful or helpful conversation should

23:25

be added. No. One of

23:27

the many problems in this situation is

23:29

that, as part of

23:31

trying to regain control of the

23:33

situation, the leader canceled the

23:36

meeting that all employees had.

23:43

Is this leader not

23:45

having meaningful conversations with their

23:48

employees? This leader is trying to

23:50

prevent employees from talking to each

23:52

other. Should I

23:54

say that was number four, community

23:57

of shared accountability? Yeah. Not

24:00

only is there no shared accountability, like

24:04

this leader is actively thwarting

24:07

community on the team. It's

24:11

so awful to watch. I feel I

24:13

actually have compassion. This leader is not

24:15

a bad person. This leader

24:18

is a well-intentioned person,

24:21

but has been getting

24:23

terrible advice from their

24:26

leadership, has been getting, as you

24:28

said, no

24:30

communication or poor communication from above,

24:35

has gotten zero training and

24:37

development. In fact, I

24:40

felt bad about the situation and

24:42

offered to coach this leader. Both

24:45

the leader and the leader's manager said,

24:47

no. No, that was number

24:49

three, coaching support to prevent burnout.

24:52

I like this

24:55

leader and I wanted to help. Maybe

24:59

I want to acknowledge, maybe I

25:01

have some ego that they didn't want me to

25:03

coach them. Maybe I feel sad about that. But

25:07

I suggested

25:10

to other people, it's not me like get

25:12

somebody, but no, that was not what

25:15

was going to happen. Yeah. I

25:17

know it's not quite the same thing, but as

25:21

you're describing that, Kim, it made me think

25:23

of the

25:26

advice that I got when I was doing

25:28

my scuba certification which is, never

25:30

try to help a drowning person by jumping in

25:32

the water with them. That is what

25:34

I did. That is exactly what

25:36

I did. Oh my God. Because

25:40

then there will be two people to rescue.

25:43

Yes. It's true. The

25:47

situation upset me so much, it kept me

25:49

from sleeping for two nights while I had

25:51

COVID. Which

25:54

is interesting because going back to, what precipitated

25:56

all this was we talked about burnout and

25:58

you said, feelings of cynicism. Yeah,

26:00

it was me jumping in without my

26:02

wet suits in my mouth. Trying

26:05

to save a drowning person. But what do you

26:07

do if someone is drowning? You've got to help.

26:10

The whole idea is learn to

26:12

throw the life preserver. Like, essentially,

26:15

the reason why

26:18

I think that image was coming

26:22

to my mind, which is because I think that

26:25

a huge part of the burnout, I

26:28

believe, like this is anecdotal. I don't have

26:30

all of the data of Gallup

26:33

and these other folks. Or

26:36

maybe there's some slice of data. It's the

26:38

Rosoff Report. It's the Rosoff Report. Is

26:42

that people do not know how

26:44

to deal with the emotions of

26:46

other people. They barely know how

26:48

to deal with their own emotions.

26:50

And right now, the workplace is

26:52

loaded with emotion. Yes, and

26:54

trauma. Not just emotion, but trauma.

26:57

And even if you don't like the word trauma, people

26:59

are in pain. There is pain

27:01

in the world. And you can

27:04

try to say that it is imagined,

27:06

and people are relatively well off, and

27:08

they're safe, especially if you're talking about

27:10

someone who's working a desk job. There's

27:13

lots of more dangerous positions to be

27:15

in. But that is why that

27:18

image of jumping in the water came

27:23

to mind, is because I think the

27:26

idea is true. When

27:32

we suffer and we feel isolated,

27:34

we are not just twice as

27:36

bad off. We are 10 times

27:39

worse off. Suffering and isolation is

27:41

10 times as bad as suffering alone. And

27:44

so there's a- You mean suffering and

27:46

isolation versus suffering together, you

27:50

mean? Versus suffering alone. I'm saying

27:52

suffering and isolation is

27:54

10 times as bad as the

27:56

suffering alone. And the bomb is in

27:58

community. someone there to help

28:01

you. But if that person also does not

28:03

have, is

28:05

also suffering and doesn't have good tools

28:07

to deal with their emotions, I think

28:10

that's where you're sort of like dragging

28:12

each other down. You know what I'm

28:14

saying? And it's almost unavoidable. It's very

28:16

predictable and almost unavoidable. And

28:19

there's a question in my mind of like, is

28:22

it training? I mean, coaching seems like a good idea,

28:24

but can you get a coach for every person on

28:26

your team? Probably not. Like most people can't afford to

28:28

get a coach for every person on their team. You

28:30

got therapy for the people on your team who need

28:33

therapy. Most insurance companies don't

28:35

pay for therapy. Like it's

28:38

really hard as a manager to know what to do.

28:40

And I feel strongly about this because

28:43

for the same reason that you described Kim, which is like

28:45

you have, I've had many

28:47

of these conversations with managers who are in

28:50

bad situations and almost entirely of their own

28:52

making, or at least they made it much

28:54

worse, like their own choices and behavior made

28:56

it much worse. And you talk to

28:58

them and as you peel back the layers, you realize

29:00

like this person didn't really know what

29:02

they were doing. They didn't have the tools to

29:04

deal with it properly. Now they might

29:06

be so defensive, they're unwilling to hear an offer

29:08

of help and see it for

29:10

the life, you know, the life ring, life

29:13

preserver that it is. But

29:15

you have, you can have compassion for

29:17

it. You can see it for the sort of

29:19

tragedy that it is, which is a

29:22

difficult situation, a nearly impossible

29:24

one to come out of

29:26

unscathed, left the person feeling

29:28

under resourced, emotionally, tactically, et

29:30

cetera. And then they made

29:32

more mistakes, which made the situation worse and

29:34

after dealing with the consequences of that. And

29:37

so how to help? Like if you, let's

29:39

imagine, I think let's talk about what to

29:42

do if you're the burned out manager. But

29:44

before we talk about that, let's

29:46

talk for a moment about what to do

29:48

if you have a burned out manager who

29:50

is, you know,

29:53

you can have some compassion for their

29:55

burnout, but how do you

29:57

prevent them from dragging you? and

30:00

you're holding them down with them. I

30:02

love that question and actually, Brandy, are you willing

30:05

to jump in here too? Because I did want

30:07

to get your perspective on this. I think one

30:09

of the things that I really appreciate was

30:11

even just starting this conversation off and asking

30:14

Jason where you stood on the definition of burnout

30:16

and Kim where you stood on the definition of

30:18

burnout. And so Brandy, since

30:21

we both report to these

30:23

fine folks, maybe

30:25

we can role play a

30:27

little bit from that perspective. But before we do,

30:29

Brandy, since we actually started

30:31

this conversation talking about how you're still navigating

30:34

through the impact of COVID as is

30:36

Kim, I'm curious how

30:38

does having been sick for the

30:40

past couple weeks layer into this

30:42

definition of burnout that we

30:44

talked about? I kind of feel like

30:46

it's just, I will say

30:48

that there was a point on like Friday

30:51

evening where

30:55

Bodhi almost bit somebody at the dog park

30:57

and I wasn't feeling well and I couldn't stop

30:59

coughing. And I was like, I'm

31:01

just all done. Like it's

31:04

too much, I can't handle anything anymore. It just

31:06

feels like the past few years are just have

31:09

just culminated for me in that moment. And I

31:11

just felt so defeated. So

31:15

I think it is really hard to

31:18

catch up when you have been sick.

31:21

And then it just also feels

31:24

like everything is unstable and there

31:26

is no going back to normal. That's

31:29

how it feels for me. I don't even know what that

31:31

is. I don't know

31:33

if that answered your question, but. I'm

31:36

sorry. Well, I think it really did.

31:38

I mean, I know that it's been a hard time and I

31:40

think that these moments of just feeling

31:42

sort of the what's the point, I was

31:44

having a conversation this morning with someone else

31:46

about being creative and not just having time

31:48

for your own creativity and that

31:51

when you have time to do things that sort of fill

31:53

your cup outside of

31:55

work, how that can bring into the

31:57

workplace, but when sort

31:59

of the. Outside world is also feeling very

32:01

stressful and unsafe and the work world is

32:04

also feeling that way and then you're sick

32:07

um, the other thing brandy and I don't know if this adds to

32:09

it for you is just this feeling of like the

32:11

cumulative grief and exhaustion the past

32:13

few years And

32:16

so it's it's not like this is like you

32:19

had you were sick and you had a rough week.

32:21

It's like it's three years Yeah,

32:23

and I mean i'm not a manager right now, but

32:25

I in my

32:27

life tend to be kind

32:30

of the like trash can

32:32

for other people's problems,

32:35

so, um, you know, I think in like

32:37

one day I had like my

32:39

brother and two friends all texting me

32:41

this really terrible stuff And

32:44

it's hard. So I imagine that much It

32:46

must be like that for some managers where you're

32:48

having to hold all of these emotions for

32:50

these other people But

32:53

you're barely able to hold your

32:55

own and That

32:58

feels very hard right now and it does

33:00

feel cumulative and it doesn't feel like it's

33:02

going to get better. I think is the

33:05

biggest issue Um,

33:07

but it does it doesn't feel like there's an end

33:09

in sight. I Time

33:11

has no meaning at all to me.

33:13

I don't Yeah,

33:15

it all feels very existential Yeah,

33:19

and I so first of

33:21

all, I just want to say brandy if there's anything

33:23

that we can do to Uh

33:26

to to help you feel Like

33:29

we've got your back and that there

33:31

are many balls you can lay down

33:34

Uh or toss to us and we will catch them

33:36

for you Uh, I hope

33:38

I hope that you will toss us those

33:40

balls. I I also think Like

33:43

one of the things that can contribute

33:45

to burnout is this feeling? trapped

33:49

And I had this one up. So When

33:51

I was when I was sick the last couple of

33:53

weeks, I was like, oh my

33:55

gosh, i'm like Canceling all these

33:58

things so that I can recover But

34:00

then I'm now I'm dreading getting well because

34:02

I'm gonna be so like I'm gonna get

34:04

sick again because there's all this stuff That

34:06

is piling up and I

34:08

have a version of the same Feeling

34:11

sometimes when I go on vacation I'm like I'm

34:13

canceling all this stuff like but all these and

34:15

I'm not gonna check emails and then like all

34:17

these emails 14,000 emails

34:20

are and so I think that

34:22

the more we can consciously

34:24

say You know like we're not

34:26

gonna check all the like We're not

34:28

gonna check all those emails that piled up

34:30

on our way when we were on vacation

34:32

Like and and and we're not gonna try

34:34

to catch up after we were sick We're

34:36

gonna like gonna cancel some things So the

34:38

more the more things that

34:40

we can take off your

34:42

to-do list and put on the proactive

34:44

forbearance list I think I think

34:46

that was I don't know if it'll help

34:48

that's what has helped me when

34:50

I'm in when I feel that way I Randy

34:54

and I have had direct conversations about this.

34:56

I think it's like It's

34:59

got to be okay for stuff not to

35:01

happen And I know that that like sometimes it's

35:03

existential for the company But most of the time it's

35:06

not and I think there's a lot of like Confusion

35:09

about that about like when you

35:11

can drop a ball and

35:13

not only safely drop that ball But

35:15

like ignore that the ball even exists like don't

35:17

you know what I'm saying? I forget about the

35:19

ball Correct exactly It's

35:22

it's like it's not even that Yes

35:25

That's that's why the idea of the proactive

35:27

forbearance list is so potentially powerful if you

35:29

do have the psychological Fortitude to look at

35:31

it and feel good about not doing the

35:33

things I will say the one downside

35:35

of proactive forbearance for me is that list is

35:38

sort of a reminder that I failed Yeah,

35:40

it becomes a to-do list. That's still there.

35:42

It's like no no no Proactive

35:45

forbearance means I'm not gonna do it.

35:47

I'm not gonna I'm never gonna do it.

35:49

Maybe yeah, it's to be Maybe

35:51

it needs that name because for me when

35:53

I think of proactive forbearance There's an element

35:55

and again, this is like my inner critic,

35:57

but it's just like It's

36:00

important. Like, you're the

36:03

wisdom. No, no, no, no,

36:05

no, no. I know that's not the intent. I

36:08

know that's not the... I'm just saying that there's another... It

36:10

does take like... I think when Jason said

36:12

you have sort of the psychological fortitude, I

36:14

mean, I think, you know, for

36:16

me, my own experiences of burnout, when

36:19

it does feel like just there is

36:21

a mismatch between number of hours in

36:23

a day, my energy level, and

36:25

the amount of work that has to be done.

36:27

And I feel like something is going to get...

36:30

And what has tended to happen is because I don't

36:32

want the ball to drop, what's given is sort of

36:35

my capacity. And I'm very aware after the last

36:37

few years and age and what... Like,

36:40

I actually don't have that. Like,

36:42

I do have to be more selective and

36:44

I feel very fortunate. I'm in the kind of

36:47

role where I can be more intentional. But I'm

36:49

aware if there was this constant feeling of like,

36:51

if Brandy's doing, for example, social

36:53

media is one thing in the docket, it's like...

36:56

It's not like that's ever something that stops,

36:58

right? So feeling like, let's say there's something that

37:00

is more of an ongoing piece. I

37:03

do think it takes both the workplace

37:06

boss saying this is

37:08

actually a ball that can be dropped. And

37:11

then it's our responsibility to actually become

37:14

more okay with the ball being dropped. But

37:16

I would say that is a practice I've

37:18

had to do for myself. I

37:20

think we need to celebrate it, the

37:22

ball being dropped. Like, I had a

37:25

professor at business school who said, if

37:27

you don't miss a few flights, you're

37:29

spending too much time at the airport. And

37:31

so... And that was like incredibly helpful to me

37:34

because now every time I miss a flight, I'm

37:36

like, well, good. That means I haven't

37:39

been sitting too much time at the airport. That would get

37:41

me a divorce. Yeah.

37:45

I can only do that when traveling alone.

37:47

When traveling with Andy, I have to be

37:49

prepared to spend more time at the airport. Like,

37:53

I feel this way about email. If I

37:56

don't, at least once a week, miss an

37:58

email that I really regret. missing, that

38:01

I'm spending too much time doing

38:04

email. And

38:06

so when I miss

38:08

that email that I do regret missing,

38:11

it's not that I'm pretending that, well,

38:13

maybe this is a way of pretending that I

38:15

don't feel regret. But I

38:18

try to realize that having

38:20

caught that email would have come at too high

38:22

a price, which

38:24

is me spending two hours every day doing

38:26

email, which is just, I've got better uses

38:29

of my time. And so I think part of, and

38:31

I will burn out. If

38:35

I spend two hours a day doing email, I will

38:38

burn out. I will get pissed off. I'll be grouchy.

38:40

I'll start replying the emails in the rudest

38:43

least care personally possible way because

38:46

I'll be resentful of people for

38:48

sending me. So

38:50

I think trying to... So what would it look

38:53

like to celebrate this splat? Well,

38:55

I mean, I will tell you. So I'll

38:58

give you a very specific example. I've been

39:00

very eager to teach

39:03

a class on management to help

39:06

with this more training and development

39:08

burnout thing that we were just

39:10

talking about. I want to

39:12

teach a class at Harvard Business School on

39:14

management because I felt like I learned a

39:17

lot at business school, but I didn't learn much

39:19

about how to manage people. And

39:22

so there's a senior person... No comment on the

39:24

irony there, but please go on. So

39:28

I sent an email to

39:30

Deb Spar, who is a

39:33

senior leader at Harvard Business School. And she's

39:36

like, yes, I love this idea. Let's do

39:38

it. I missed her reply. And she sent

39:40

me a reply two weeks

39:42

after that saying, did you get my email?

39:44

Missed that one also. And

39:46

then I was thinking, why did Deb never reply to

39:48

me? And I did a search and I saw

39:51

this. And I was like, oh

39:53

my gosh, I'm so sorry. But

39:57

luckily Deb is a person who

39:59

does not have... a big ego about

40:01

people missing their emails and she laughed

40:03

and it was like, so it

40:05

turned into like a funny thing between

40:08

the two of us and now we're back on

40:10

track. Can I add one more coda

40:13

to the story? Yeah. So

40:15

as you know, I am very committed to getting

40:17

my deadlines met and as I recall- I'm

40:21

very committed to missing mine. Well, but

40:24

ironically, or if that's even the right

40:26

word and we'll check with Alanis Morissette

40:28

if any of our listeners are that

40:31

era, Jason is usually our generational

40:34

checkpoint. But Kim,

40:36

you would ask me to help put

40:38

something together because I used to write

40:40

case studies at Harvard Business School and

40:43

you wanted to like put a document into that

40:45

language and it was kind of last minute when we

40:47

talked, it was like a Friday and then you need

40:50

something by like a Tuesday and then I had a

40:52

very busy Monday. So ordinarily I would have been like

40:54

working on the weekend and Kim wants me to do

40:56

this thing and I really need to do it and

40:58

it's really important and it's Monday and then I

41:00

was like, I'm just, I'm too busy. Like I'm

41:02

going to have to start to look at it

41:04

on Tuesday and then I checked

41:06

in with- I can't remember who reached out

41:09

to whom but you were like, oh,

41:12

what I said was actually good enough already. So I

41:14

was like, oh my gosh, it actually worked out that

41:16

I had to celebrate. So

41:21

I think there's something to it. Yeah. Yeah.

41:25

And I think that's a

41:27

really important thing to celebrate,

41:29

especially if you're working on

41:31

not holding yourself, like

41:33

not being punishing to yourself

41:36

on deadlines, on forgiving yourself for

41:38

missing some deadlines. Yeah. There's

41:41

a quotation, I haven't dug deeply into

41:43

this, it's attributed to Douglas Adams who

41:46

wrote The Hitchhiker's Guide to the

41:48

Galaxy and the quotation is,

41:50

I love deadlines. I like the whooshing sound

41:53

they make as they fly by. Yeah.

42:00

people love deadlines. A deadline

42:02

is not useful to me at all. I

42:05

think there's the spirit of celebrating

42:07

in that quotation. That's why it

42:09

popped into my brain because there's

42:11

something beautiful. You

42:14

can appreciate that there's an action,

42:17

an emotion, you miss the deadline, like something has

42:19

happened, you're going to appreciate

42:21

that moment without beating yourself

42:24

up about it. Yeah.

42:26

What this conversation makes me think of

42:28

is we ask the question, what

42:30

can you do if you have a boss who you

42:32

think is burnt out or burning out? What can you

42:34

do? I think the

42:36

answer to that is take care of your own

42:38

shit. Yeah. Take

42:41

care of yourself. Don't

42:45

be another drowning person. I don't know if that's

42:47

entirely in each of our control. I

42:51

think I mentioned this on the podcast before, but I

42:53

went through a period of time in my life where

42:56

I was in therapy, I

42:58

was learning about meditation and mindfulness and

43:00

all this other stuff. I had this

43:02

nagging sense of guilt that I was

43:04

being very selfish. Yeah.

43:06

I was spending all this time on myself and

43:08

I was being incredibly selfish. Shouldn't I be there

43:10

for my team and spending this time with them

43:13

and there's work deadlines that I'm missing because I'm

43:15

going to this meditation group on Tuesday nights and

43:18

all this other stuff. I

43:20

kept feeling guilty. This

43:24

went on for nine months. I still

43:26

did the things because I needed it

43:28

so badly in order to get my

43:30

health back into a reasonable state.

43:33

I needed to do some things differently, but I

43:35

was managing this guilt. It

43:38

wasn't until the moment that I

43:40

realized nine months in that

43:43

I had a day where I didn't

43:45

have to deal with my own problems

43:47

and instead I solved the problem for

43:49

somebody else. I wasn't

43:51

so consumed with what was going on with me

43:54

that I actually had the brain power available to

43:56

help somebody with a problem that they were having.

44:00

isn't selfish because if I don't do this

44:02

I will not have any capacity left for

44:04

anybody else to do anything and

44:06

that's what it was like so bad for me that that's what

44:08

was happening so that's why I'm saying help yourself

44:10

like it's not so much about getting the work

44:13

done or taking a work thing off of your

44:15

plate like if you can come to work with

44:17

more capacity for other people you

44:19

are doing like you're helping to

44:21

alleviate burnout by doing that and

44:23

I think this is good advice whether

44:25

you have the burned-out manager or you

44:28

are yeah yeah I mean

44:30

like I had almost the

44:32

exact same situation where

44:34

I you know we've talked

44:36

about our different happiness recipes and and

44:38

I had sort of come to realize

44:40

that I had to get enough sleep

44:43

and I had to exercise and

44:45

that meant that I couldn't exercise in the morning

44:47

the way I used to because then I wouldn't

44:49

get enough sleep and so

44:51

I decided that I would go work

44:53

out at lunchtime at noon every day

44:56

and I felt so guilty leaving

44:58

the office to go work out

45:00

and and all of a sudden

45:02

I and

45:04

I felt guilty like when

45:06

I shut my laptop at 930

45:09

so that I could be in bed by

45:11

945 so I could be asleep by 10

45:13

I felt guilty then too

45:15

and I realized that I had to

45:18

let go of those feelings of guilt and instead

45:20

turn it on it turn it on its

45:22

head and realize I cannot show

45:24

up for my team in the way that

45:26

I need to if I don't shut my

45:29

computer and I'm 945 and

45:31

if I don't go exercise

45:33

at noon like I had

45:35

to do those things not only for my

45:37

own sake but for it was not robbing

45:40

my team in order to take care of

45:42

my house and and I

45:44

think that is true whether you

45:47

are a leader who's trying to

45:49

be you know radically candid and

45:51

caring about your team it's also

45:53

true if you are sort

45:56

of a follower who needs to speak truth

45:58

to power and And

46:00

either way, you need to take care of yourself

46:02

first. Yeah, I

46:05

so appreciate that. And you know, one of

46:07

the teachings that really resonated

46:09

with me is from Tara Brock,

46:11

who's a mindfulness teacher and

46:14

a psychotherapist and shares this

46:16

idea from Buddhism of two

46:18

arrows. And the first

46:20

arrow is the experience that you know, we as

46:23

humans might feel like fear, aggression,

46:25

greed, and pain.

46:27

And then the second arrow is actually

46:29

the self aversion, the judgment that we

46:31

have the first arrow. So

46:34

it's like, we don't like that, that we're feeling selfish,

46:36

or, you know, Kim bringing in the idea

46:38

of pain. And it's like the first arrow

46:40

is like, there will be pain, you

46:42

know, the first arrow that hurts, but then

46:45

we shoot the second arrow into ourselves. And

46:47

so it's really about, you know, we can't

46:49

control the first one, but we can manage

46:51

that second one of, of how

46:53

we're reacting to the first one. And that those

46:55

ideas of the two arrows has really helped.

46:58

And I think going back to the workplace, like the

47:01

first arrow would be sort of taking my responsibility to be

47:03

like, okay, if I have to, you know, do this amount

47:05

of work and do my best to do the work, and

47:07

then the second arrow sort of like, letting

47:10

it go and just, you know, letting

47:12

it go splat and then not beating

47:14

yourself up. But the other thing, you

47:16

know, Jason, when you're talking about sort of your capacity

47:18

as the person who might have

47:20

the manager who's struggling with burnout, and

47:23

the reason why I brought Brandi in on this in the

47:25

first place was, you know, Brandi, right now, you've been sick,

47:27

you might not have that capacity for sort of

47:29

asking upwards, but beyond us managing

47:33

our own second arrows. That's

47:37

one thing that, you know, would

47:40

be helpful for,

47:42

for me or for another team

47:44

member to do. And Jason, I'll

47:46

start with you. What's one way?

47:49

And the reason I also ask is managers,

47:51

it can be hard for leaders

47:53

to accept help and to ask for help. And

47:57

I would say that's probably fitting for both

47:59

you and Cam. And so I'm just asking

48:01

in that spirit of what's one thing that could be

48:03

helpful That you could

48:05

do to help us feel less burned

48:08

out. That's right So one

48:10

thing that I found to be to be

48:12

really helpful When I

48:14

was feeling burned out was I remember I had a

48:17

person who reported to me came to me and One

48:20

she acknowledged like hey, it seems like you've been

48:22

under a lot of pressure lately You

48:26

know, I I need your help

48:29

With this particular problem like there was a decision that needs

48:31

to be made I needed to weigh in on this decision

48:35

But it was like a path to actually getting

48:37

to me being able to weigh in was sort of unclear And

48:40

so she said, you know, this is what would be

48:42

helpful to me is if you could If

48:46

you could do these three things like she just gave

48:48

me a list of like that This

48:50

is what would be helpful to me and

48:52

to me I saw that as compassion because what I admitted to

48:55

her is like look It's gonna take me a while to figure

48:57

out how to get there and she's like I I know And

49:00

I think if you do these things it's going it's

49:02

going to help. So she wasn't say

49:04

it wasn't like an act of

49:07

purely of like generosity on her

49:10

part But she saw it as an opportunity

49:12

to offer me some some guidance as to

49:14

like how I could make the

49:17

path to Helping her as

49:19

short as possible and I saw

49:21

that as like an act of compassion for me

49:24

and she you

49:27

know, you know, I'm Lucky enough to

49:29

have hired and worked with very Smart

49:32

people and my careers turned out to be

49:34

totally right It was actually quite easy to

49:36

get the information that she needed and I

49:38

was just stuck because I was so burned

49:40

out Like I was feeling like it's

49:43

trapped trapped to bring that word back

49:46

and I I

49:50

Think of that now like it what when when

49:52

I'm struggling With

49:57

you know, and I'm working alongside someone who

49:59

is seeming burned out, I'll

50:01

often say, well, you know,

50:03

here is a concrete thing that was helpful

50:05

to me or might help me. Um,

50:07

or here's a way that, um, I

50:09

know this is really tough, but here's a way that

50:11

you might approach this, um, that has worked for me

50:14

in the past. And that sort of

50:16

suggestion, um, The

50:19

show of like, we're on the same side, even though

50:21

like I'm, I might be annoyed at you, especially if

50:23

you're my manager, because you're not doing everything I need

50:25

you to do. Yeah. I think that's

50:27

really true. I mean, for me, when I

50:29

feel burned out, um, it

50:32

feels to me like

50:36

I'm totally incompetent and

50:39

when I am burnt out, I feel

50:41

like even things that would, and at

50:44

other moments in my career, feel

50:46

easy, feel impossibly hard,

50:49

like everything feels impossible.

50:52

I mean, I would say probably for

50:54

me, the most extreme example

50:56

I had of this was probably

50:58

like postpartum, like right after the

51:00

babies were born, like it

51:02

felt, it felt impossible

51:05

to drink enough water. It

51:07

felt impossible to

51:10

eat. It

51:12

felt, and then I remember I had to give

51:14

a talk at my, at my

51:16

high school. We were going back

51:18

to Memphis to, we took the kids back and

51:20

we were, and like, I did

51:23

not have a hard time getting up in

51:25

front of people usually and giving a talk.

51:28

And this felt terrifying to me, like, like

51:31

absolute. So it's like some

51:33

version of incompetence and,

51:36

and fear of things that ordinarily do

51:38

not cause me to feel afraid. Um,

51:42

and, uh, and, and I often,

51:44

you know, I don't usually react

51:46

at my best when I'm feeling incompetent

51:49

and, uh, and afraid. And so

51:51

I think like the thing that

51:54

I need when I'm feeling that

51:56

way is, I think

51:58

that's why your story is so good. And you had

52:00

someone who came and said here's what you can

52:02

do that would be helpful Like you I want

52:04

to be helpful to people and I'm what you

52:07

know So here's the here's the fastest

52:09

possible way for you to demonstrate your

52:11

competence Yeah And

52:14

that's why like Amy the other day you said I

52:16

understand now what Kim what I can do to show

52:18

Kim I care is to end on time like that

52:20

was really meaningful to me because

52:23

that is true like giving me a few

52:25

extra minutes back is Is

52:28

worth more to me than checking in

52:30

and seeing if I'm okay I

52:32

remember at one point I was really burned out. This

52:35

was when we were Shutting

52:37

down candor ink and

52:39

I was really burned out and really stressed

52:41

out I was like at really at my

52:43

wits in not just at my wits in

52:46

I had lost with ton of weight I

52:48

couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat like I was

52:50

at my physical ropes end as

52:52

well and my My

52:55

father who we've talked about who I love

52:57

dearly called me and like yelled at me

52:59

for why wasn't I turning to him? for

53:02

help and spending more time talking about

53:04

I was like I Just

53:07

told you what I need from you is like

53:10

just back the fuck off and let me

53:12

like Try to deal

53:15

with my own stuff. Like I need

53:17

time. That's what that's what I need

53:19

That's usually when I burnt out. I need more time

53:21

Kim I I so appreciate

53:23

that and also even just your

53:25

I love hearing about your relationship

53:28

with your father and

53:32

It resonates so much with me because I think

53:34

you know We are

53:36

so different and what care personally looks

53:38

like for me is exactly

53:41

what is not care personally for you and

53:43

vice-versa And so like I

53:45

feel so and we both want to

53:47

help so much And so yeah for

53:49

me to hear that I can do

53:51

something that is helpful for you It

53:54

just it makes me so happy. So with that, I

53:56

really want to end this podcast We get you out

53:58

and give you a few extra minutes I

54:01

wasn't, that was not a passive way. I'm

54:04

enjoying this conversation. I'm enjoying

54:06

this. No, but I just,

54:09

first of all, I want to acknowledge, like even hearing

54:11

you talk about just your

54:13

aversion to feeling incompetent and

54:16

you know, I will often think, how can, like, I

54:18

look at your schedule and I just marvel at like,

54:20

how do you do it? And, and

54:22

so it's, it's, I hope

54:24

that our listeners get the same

54:26

feeling that I had as I listened to

54:28

you, which is like managers

54:31

are people to leaders are people

54:33

to the more that we can

54:35

see that and acknowledge that the more we

54:37

can actually start to look at what would

54:40

be most helpful for that person. Yes. And

54:42

to really, and by the way, it could be

54:44

a total win-win because now you've got 15 extra

54:47

minutes or whatever it was, you know? Yeah. So

54:49

I just, I'm really, I'm really touched by

54:52

that. And also Jason, what you shared before

54:54

we closed, Brandy, since I brought you in

54:56

on the burnout friend, was there

54:58

anything more that you wanted to echo what

55:00

Kim said about the feeling incompetent? And

55:03

I think a couple of weeks ago, Kim, you and I talked and

55:06

I was like, maybe I'm just doing life wrong. Like, I

55:08

don't feel like I have time to eat or I can

55:10

drink enough water. All those things

55:12

seem very hard for me when I'm

55:14

burnt out. I don't know how people fit

55:17

all those things into a day at the

55:20

best of times, let alone when you're burnt out.

55:23

So yeah, just I guess acknowledging that

55:25

like everybody goes through that. I'm not the only

55:28

dehydrated person or person who doesn't have time to

55:30

prepare meals. But

55:32

it feels like that sometimes. Like why does

55:34

everyone else seem fine? And I can, yeah. Why

55:37

is everyone else drinking all this water? And I can barely get a

55:39

sip of water. And

55:43

then I beat myself up for like

55:45

relaxing at night. Like, well,

55:47

I could, until bed, be doing work. But

55:52

I don't want to spend all my time

55:54

working. It's kind of a vicious circle. Yes.

55:57

And I think the only thing we haven't...

56:00

discussed yet about dealing

56:02

with burnout. So if you're the manager who

56:04

has burnout, I'm

56:07

recommending radical self care. Like if you're

56:09

burned out, I

56:11

think you have to overcorrect

56:14

because almost everything you're going to do is going

56:16

to be an under correction. Like

56:18

the things that seem sensible are gonna

56:20

be an under correction. You know what

56:22

I'm saying? So if it's like, if you

56:24

feel like therapy twice a month would be

56:26

better than therapy once a month, but like

56:29

you only really have time for therapy once

56:31

a month, you need to do therapy twice

56:33

a month. Four times a month. Yeah,

56:36

like everything you're thinking of

56:38

that is reasonable is going to be an under

56:40

correction. If you think, you know, getting out for

56:42

a walk twice a week would be helpful, getting

56:44

out for a walk every day is going to

56:46

be more helpful than getting out for a walk

56:48

twice a week. So I'm like recommending people think

56:51

radically about how they can start

56:53

to recharge their batteries. So that's thing number

56:55

one. And thing number two that we haven't,

56:59

I don't think we talked about at all was the

57:01

importance of momentum. I think one

57:03

of the hardest parts about coming

57:05

out of burnout is

57:08

it's very easy to slip back in

57:10

because something's gonna go wrong. Things are going

57:12

to go, like you're not at your best.

57:15

Even though you start to feel better, let's say you start

57:17

to feel a bit more energized. You know,

57:19

you've got your own emotional regulation back under

57:21

control. You're exercising a little bit more. You

57:23

start to feel a little bit better. You're

57:25

not at your best. You're not at your

57:27

peak performance. So things that shouldn't go wrong

57:29

are going to go wrong. Yes.

57:32

Not only is it

57:34

important not to judge yourself about that, I

57:36

think it's really important to think about how

57:38

you can break things down

57:41

into clear, achievable

57:44

milestones or goals or moments. And

57:49

Kim, your point about email is like, I

57:51

think if I was in your shoes, I would

57:54

say I'm going to, and I was

57:56

burnt out, but I still need to do email. Knowing how

57:58

much I hate it, I feel like it's raving. of my

58:00

time, I would set a thing which

58:02

is like I'm going to do email for 15 minutes at

58:04

this time of day. Yeah. Like,

58:06

yeah. I'm going to

58:08

feel like yes, I've done that thing even though I know I

58:10

didn't want to do it and was hard, but I

58:13

did it. I sat down, I did 15 minutes of

58:15

email and that seems so trivial when you're like, I'm

58:17

managing a team of 150 people. Yeah.

58:20

That's my point about momentum is like the team

58:22

of 150 is going to be flopping all over

58:24

the place. Things are going to be

58:26

going wrong. You're not going to know what's going on, but

58:28

you can control like find those things that you can control

58:31

that you can actually get on commit to doing them and

58:33

like, take them off a list. Like for

58:35

me, physically, like keeping track

58:37

of stuff on the computer is

58:40

great for me when I'm not burned out. But

58:42

when I am burned out, I literally need to cross

58:44

stuff off a list in order to feel like I've

58:47

done anything. Yeah. I

58:49

think that there's like something about

58:51

the physical, the somatic like

58:53

reaction that I have of crossing off the

58:56

list is satisfying. And so think about those

58:58

small things you can do to start to

59:00

build momentum and to rebuild your confidence in

59:02

your own competence. Yeah. Right.

59:05

To be like, I can do things. Yes.

59:08

Yeah. I can do

59:10

things. It's really, uh, is

59:12

really important because incompetence is

59:14

exhausting and one's own and

59:17

other people's incompetence is exhausting,

59:19

but one's own incompetence is

59:21

even more, at least for me, is

59:23

even more exhausting. Yeah. Like

59:26

there's one set that I think Jason, you

59:28

and I had this conversation where my phone

59:30

was running out of battery and I said,

59:32

the thing I hate

59:34

about myself is that I cannot remember to

59:37

charge my phone. We're like,

59:39

you were very kind when you responded

59:41

to that. Like you, you, you took

59:43

it seriously. Um, I was

59:46

like, you were so nice

59:48

to me that I've actually been better about plugging

59:50

my phone in. Sounds like I think it's

59:52

okay. I've been nice to myself. Yeah. Yeah.

59:56

Yeah. Cause your inter rebels like stop

59:58

yelling at me. I'll show you. I'm gonna fuck in

1:00:00

that iPhone. That is exactly

1:00:03

right, Amy. That is the voice inside my

1:00:05

head. You're like, I'll show you a phone.

1:00:09

It's like running out of gas. I ran

1:00:11

out of gas several times when I first

1:00:13

started driving because I was rebelling again.

1:00:16

What a dumb thing to rebel again. But

1:00:18

I'd lose your bet anyway. So, yes, I

1:00:21

think... And the

1:00:23

other thing that I'll say on radical self-care

1:00:25

that I have found helpful anyway, and I

1:00:27

know if others will, that not

1:00:30

only do I put the things in

1:00:32

calendar that I have to do, but

1:00:35

I also put the things in calendar that I want

1:00:37

to do. So, my calendar

1:00:39

looks like I'm super duper busy, but if

1:00:41

you'll notice, there's time for lunch in there.

1:00:44

There's time for a walk in there. There's

1:00:47

time to stop working and start preparing

1:00:49

dinner and eating

1:00:51

dinner with the family in there. So, there's like...

1:00:55

And for me, blocking... There should be things that

1:00:57

you look forward to in your calendar. Yes.

1:01:00

And now... Yes, yes. And

1:01:02

now really, almost everything in my calendar I

1:01:04

look forward to. So, it doesn't burn

1:01:07

me out. If more than half the

1:01:09

things in your calendar are things you dread, try

1:01:11

to make a change. Well,

1:01:14

on that note, let's get into our

1:01:16

tips. All right, let's do it. To

1:01:18

start putting radical self-care into practice. Tip

1:01:21

number one, radical self-care.

1:01:24

Caring for others starts with caring

1:01:26

for yourself. Don't beat

1:01:29

yourself up or feel guilty for feeling

1:01:31

burned out. Give yourself

1:01:33

the break you need. You

1:01:35

can't possibly care personally about others

1:01:37

if you don't care about yourself.

1:01:40

And if you are feeling burned out,

1:01:42

you need to care about yourself more.

1:01:44

So, when a mentor of

1:01:47

mine said, if I am feeling burnt

1:01:49

out, or if I'm in an especially

1:01:51

stressful time, I work out twice a

1:01:53

day, not once a day. So, do

1:01:55

more self-care, not less, when you're feeling

1:01:58

burned out. Tip number two. do.

1:02:00

You don't have to do it alone. Seek

1:02:03

community. If you're a manager, you

1:02:05

can find a mentor, a coach, peer

1:02:07

group, other people who are going

1:02:09

through similar things as you for guidance, community, and

1:02:12

most of all, support. We don't have to do

1:02:14

this alone. It might be

1:02:16

self-care, but we can do self-care

1:02:18

in community. This can help you

1:02:20

build the kind of momentum that Jason was

1:02:22

talking about, momentum that will

1:02:24

help us build our

1:02:26

own confidence in

1:02:28

our competence. Tip number

1:02:30

three, if you're not a manager

1:02:33

and you think your manager is dealing with

1:02:35

burnout or you're dealing with burnout yourself, tips

1:02:37

one and two apply equally well to you.

1:02:41

I think sometimes it can be easy to imagine

1:02:43

that if you just focus on the work, that

1:02:46

that's the thing that's going to help your boss

1:02:48

the most. But we'd argue that

1:02:50

focusing on yourself, making sure that you're

1:02:52

coming to work with

1:02:54

energy and excitement has

1:02:56

an equal, if not bigger

1:02:58

impact on the burnout that others

1:03:00

around you are feeling. For

1:03:02

more tips, you can go

1:03:04

to radicalcandor.com/resources, download our free

1:03:07

learning guides, sign

1:03:09

up for Radical Candor on Masterclass and get

1:03:11

our lit video book. You can also register

1:03:13

for our workplace comedy series,

1:03:15

The Feedback Loop and more. Show

1:03:18

notes are at

1:03:21

radicalcandor.com/podcast. We

1:03:24

like to say praise in

1:03:26

public and private, criticize in

1:03:28

private. So if you like what you

1:03:30

hear, go ahead, rate and review us wherever

1:03:33

you find your podcast. And

1:03:35

if you have criticism for

1:03:37

us, email it to podcast

1:03:40

at radicalcandor.com. Kim,

1:03:44

shall we talk about a few of our favorite

1:03:46

things? Shall

1:03:48

we talk about our favorite things? All

1:03:53

right, let's do it. All right. Today, I want

1:03:55

to talk about my blue jeans.

1:03:58

I love and have. love since

1:04:00

I was like eight years old my

1:04:03

blue jeans my Levi's 501 shrink to fit blue

1:04:07

jeans I don't know why

1:04:10

I love these jeans so much but

1:04:13

they make me feel they

1:04:16

make me feel happy and

1:04:18

calm not burnt out I

1:04:22

love them so thank you

1:04:24

Levi Strauss for my

1:04:27

Levi's 501 shrink to fit

1:04:29

jeans I'm so excited to

1:04:31

keep this conversation going in the meantime go

1:04:34

get your Levi's 501 jeans and

1:04:36

they're on already I promise I'm

1:04:38

not sitting here in Mondays although

1:04:42

we could but I am

1:04:46

The Radical Candor podcast

1:04:48

is based on the

1:04:51

book Radical Candor be a

1:04:53

kick-ass boss without

1:05:00

losing your humanity by Kim Scott

1:05:02

episodes are written and produced by

1:05:04

Brandi Neal with script editing by

1:05:06

me Amy Sandler the show features

1:05:08

Radical Candor co-founders Kim Scott and

1:05:10

Jason Rosoff and is hosted by

1:05:12

me still Amy Sandler Nick

1:05:15

Karisame is our audio engineer

1:05:18

the Radical Candor podcast theme music

1:05:20

was composed by Cliff Goldmacher

1:05:22

follow us on LinkedIn Radical

1:05:25

Candor the company and visit us

1:05:27

at radical candor.com