[MUSIC]
Hello, everybody.
Welcome to the Radical Candor podcast.
I'm Kim Scott.
I'm Jason Rosoff.
I'm Amy Sandler, and we talk a lot on this podcast about how managers can ensure that their
employees are staying engaged at work.
But what about keeping those managers themselves engaged?
Being a boss is a challenging job in the best of times.
The best of times these are not.
According to Gallup, only 31% of managers are actively engaged, and more than 50% are
actively seeking new jobs amid declines in employee engagement and well-being, record turnover,
and hiring rates, and an unprecedented increase in hybrid work.
Kim, in Radical Candor, you say that a boss's job is to guide a team to achieve results.
However, in the current landscape of constant disruptions, this job is feeling close to
impossible for some managers.
And what's more, those very same disengaged managers are leading to disengaged teams.
And what we're really talking about in many ways, and for a lot of folks is burnout.
And according to the National Institutes of Health, burnout is a psychological syndrome
emerging as a prolonged response to chronic interpersonal stressors on the job.
The three key dimensions of this response are an overwhelming exhaustion.
Check.
Feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job.
And a sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment.
I just had one of those.
I just had the exhaustion.
But I've been feeling cynical.
I've been struggling with my feelings of cynicism.
I know about detachment, but sometimes it's hard not feel cynical in this world.
Yeah, and it's interesting also on that sense of ineffectiveness and lack of accomplishment,
because I know for you one of the things we talk a lot about is like, you want to feel
like what you're doing has an impact.
Yes.
And some days I feel like, well, I don't know anybody who feels like they're having
all the impact that they want to have.
And honestly, if they are, they're probably having too much impact.
Like I think, I think we all, like there's one of my favorite books of all times is this
book by Ian McEwen and Enduring Love, it's called.
And it begins with this sort of tragic situation where somebody is piloting a hot air balloon
and it gets out of control.
And there's all these people like trying to help out.
And everybody's, and the narrator of the book says, I feel certain that if I were the
uncontested leader, the tragedy would not have happened.
And I feel that way all the time.
And yet at the same time, I also know that if I were the uncontested leader, all this
shit would be happening anyway.
The solution is not to be the uncontested leader, even though I think it's a very much
of this human imagination.
We all like to think if we were in charge of the world, it would be a better place.
Yeah.
I'm curious, Jason, as you're listening to the definition from burnout, just where are
you checking in on this with these three key dimensions, the overwhelming exhaustion,
the feelings of cynicism and detachment from the job and the sense of ineffectiveness and
lack of accomplishment?
I would say I'm with Kim.
I'm feeling a little cynical.
But otherwise, I'm not taking any of the boxes.
I don't feel overwhelmingly exhausted.
I certainly don't feel detached from the job.
And I feel like we have accomplished a lot.
And I feel like I also personally have accomplished a lot over the last year.
So I think when you're in all arenas, you're feeling sort of ineffective, the other things come
as a result.
You know what I'm saying?
If you feel like you can't get anything done in your personal life, in your professional
life, that's to me what leads to the cynicism and detachment.
And then I become exhausted because I'm just not looking forward at any point to getting
back up and doing it over again.
You know what I'm saying?
I think it feels like you're in a hamster wheel.
It's easy to become cynical and exhausted.
Yeah.
And I think the reason why I have been feeling cynical, I mean, there's one specific thing
that has happened in the last couple of weeks that has really got me thinking.
So maybe you can help me feel less cynical about the world as a result.
I mean, I don't know why sometimes these little things happen and they affect me more
profoundly than perhaps they should.
But I was dealing with two different leadership situations where the CEO of the organizations
objected to the word safety.
Hey, they were like, don't use the word safety.
I don't believe in psychological safety.
And I'm just like, what the hell is wrong with you people?
It's you like, like, what is this about?
So maybe you all could help me have more compassion for those leaders.
And then I would feel less cynical.
I think it really is when I feel that my most cynical is when I have my least is usually
when I have no no compassion for what this person is like, what would cause a leader
to object to safety?
In some ways, it's partially a response to the topic that we're discussing.
I think that if you, if your job is to be a sort of shock absorber for your team and
you are out of compassion for them, I think it's really easy to become cynical that you making
the environment better for them is actually having making a difference, right?
Because they're all still going to be bringing their issue.
But your team is still going to bring the issues to you.
There's issues in the world.
It's all a big mess.
And so I could imagine getting into a state where I feel like, well, that what I'm doing isn't
working for them.
And it's certainly not working for me because I'm getting burned out.
So like, screw all that.
Yeah.
We're just not going to worry about this stuff anymore.
And let's see what happens.
It's a little bit like some people get enamored with the idea that when the rules that you
have don't work, that chaos is a better alternative.
It's hard to sort of, as opposed to saying the hard work is to figure out new rules that
will make it better.
Instead, we're just going to lean into chaos.
Yeah.
I think that makes a lot of sense.
And there was a report.
It was called the Future Forum Pulse Report.
It was a survey of almost 11,000 workers across the US, Australia, France, Germany, Japan,
and the UK.
Kim, I'm curious, were those leaders based in the US or some or else?
US-based?
Not just US.
They were like, telecom-bout.
If we may be even more specific.
And this Future Forum Pulse Report found that executives, sentiment, and experience scores
had sunk to record lows.
And this was compared to a year ago, execs reported a 15% decline in the working environment,
20% drop in work-life balance, and a 40% increase in work-related stress and anxiety.
And the VP and co-founder of Future Forum, Sheila Subramion, said, "But we're in
the midst of the biggest workplace paradigm shift.
We're likely to see in our lifetimes."
And leaders are feeling that pressure.
And she added that the shifting macroeconomic conditions, great resignation, which we've talked
about on other podcasts, and the changing demands of employees around flexibility make
it, quote, "harder to lead with confidence."
You can no longer rely on the old leadership playbooks.
And I'm wondering if we also add in not just the changing demands of employees around flexibility,
but also perhaps around psychological safety and maybe a sense of how can I know for my
thousands of employees what psychological safety is going to look like for each individual
person.
And I think it goes back to what Jason was saying of just this sense of like, I can't
please everyone and I can't make it all work for everyone.
And so it can feel overwhelming thinking back to the conversation we had our own Amy Edmonds
and with Amy Edmonds and on psychological safety and this idea that it might actually land
very differently for individual people.
And I'm also wondering if there's any intergenerational challenge around that.
Like, why I didn't have psychological safety when I was becoming a leader and now people
are wanting, you know, I don't know if there's any pushback on that.
I'll add one other observation, which is that it could be an objection to the word
safety.
I think that there is a core tenant and maybe it's like confusing intellectual safety and
psychological safety.
I think maybe those two ideas are my beacon flated here as well.
I might lead to an objection.
There's a liberal idea that we shouldn't foster intellectual safety, right?
The liberal idea is like, we live in a market of ideas and in a market of ideas, our goal
is to share them as clearly as we possibly can and to have those ideas, like, fight with
one another to come up with some way forward, right?
To find a way forward.
And I think people hear that there's a thing that is happening right now, which is there's
debate going on to like, the degree to which we should create intellectual safety.
The ability to sort of like live inside of a bubble and not have to worry about what
people who don't agree with you think, et cetera.
And so I think there's a, on the far end of liberal is libertarian and I think there's
like a high degree of overlap between, especially like leadership at Silicon Valley and sort
of like libertarian values.
And this is like, I think, a battleground there.
And the difference between intellectual safety and psychological safety is really important
because psychological safety is what's required to get people to feel confident that they can
actually voice their idea.
In order to create intellectual combat, like to actually get the ideas to stand up against
each other, people need to feel psychologically safe to share their ideas, to feel like I
can say what I need to say without feeling like I'm going to be cast out of the tribe.
Yeah, I think also there's like, there's a, there's a lot of confusion between safety,
comfort and shame.
And I think like, so, so I think that often in order to be able to embrace the discomfort,
you need to feel safe like, and feeling unsafe is very different from feeling uncomfortable.
Like we have to feel uncomfortable in order to grow.
And, and that, to me, when I hear psychological safety, I, I imagine a world in which that
it is safe to be uncomfortable.
And I think some, that's not always how, what other people are hearing.
And I also think that when we are challenged, especially when we're challenged, if we've
said or done something that's biased, that, I mean, a, that is uncomfortable, but I think
it goes beyond discomfort.
I think there we feel ashamed.
And in that case, we have to own our own shame.
You can't expect that other people are going to prevent you from ever feeling ashamed,
because that's like the path to deep denial.
And so I think that sometimes there's a lot of confusion around those three things.
I think this conversation is just an interesting example of why it's so hard to be a manager
right now.
Yes.
Like, to, to some degree, like, these are deep sort of social fabric societal questions.
Like, how, what, what is the social contract?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, we're, and, and I think with the author of the forum, Hols report was, was getting
at is like, there's a shift that's happening as sort of like, what, what is a part of work
and what is not a part of work?
You know what I'm saying?
Like, what, what should people be able to say at work or not able to say, or not be able
to say at work?
And I, I don't think leaders had the tools to lead in the world before this shift happened.
Like, I don't think they were equipped well equipped to lead before this shift happened.
And I think the shift is making things worse.
Yes.
And I think there's another confounding factor in the shift.
It's not only just macro economic conditions and the great resignation and the changing
demands of employees, but I think there's a real shift in sort of what leadership means
and what good leadership looks like.
And that's the shift from the old sort of command and control, sort of approach to leadership
to a new more relationship based approach to leadership.
And I think there are, I think a lot of people when they become managers for the first time,
they kind of fall back on this old command and control and they expect people to, to do
what they say.
And people, I mean, I don't think it's ever happened that people do what a leader says automatically.
But people are more likely to be, I think in today's world, especially younger employees,
but even, even to older employees, are more likely to say, no, I'm not going to do that.
And I think a lot of leaders then feel a sense of humiliation when they get that kind of
feedback.
And you must do what I say and then people are like, no, I don't have, no, I don't, you
know?
And so I think like reminding leaders that telling people what to do doesn't work, silencing
people doesn't work is part of the solution to the burnout.
It's really interesting.
I'm wondering what the examples you started with with the couple of leaders who were pushing
back on the idea of safety, aware that we're not necessarily sure exactly what safety
means in their minds unless you have more to add from what Jason said.
But I'm curious as you talk about the philosophical kind of what's underneath this, your belief,
our belief that telling people what to do doesn't work, which by the way, I think because
you are inherently a rebel, telling you what to do doesn't work.
I do think there's like, I don't know the data, but some group of people who, and I'm
more of a rule follower than you that, you know, if my manager tells me to do something,
I'm inclined to do something because I want to sort of follow the rules, not that that's
always a good idea.
Yes.
And if your manager tells you, ask you what you think should be done, they're more likely
to get a better idea.
They're more likely to get better work out of you, which is why telling, telling me what
to do doesn't work for one reason, telling you what to do doesn't work for us.
That's what you might do it.
I can, it doesn't work for me because I won't do it.
It might, it might work for you because you will do it, but either way, we don't get,
but not as well.
And I'll be like, see, see, see, thing with, with, with resentment and just your,
eventually your, yes, that is true.
That is true.
If I have other options and all of that, I think what's interesting also about what you
were saying was around, and again, you know, only to the extent that this is helpful and
you have more specifics, but the folks that you're imagining, do you think that they,
their philosophy is more command and control rather than collaborative?
Is that, I think in one case, the, the, this manager, who is really flaming out, and, and
part of the reason for the flame out is that they're taking a command and control approach
to the situation and it is not working.
It's like, I'm, I have a chicken and egg question in my mind, which is like, which is, is
it the flame out that's leading to the command and control or is the command and control that's
leading to the flame out?
Really good.
Yeah.
Because I feel like is a natural human reaction, at least most of the humans that I know,
when things feel out of control, you try to take control where you can't.
Yes.
And this is a place, especially, you know, speaking as the CEO of a company, I feel like,
you know, I, I feel like I have a, you know, reasonable amount of power in this situation.
And so shouldn't I be able to control what's going on?
And I could imagine a situation where I was feeling desperate enough that I, that, that
that would come out in some, you know, in some way, shape or form that that would be my reaction,
my response to this, to a situation feeling out of control would be to try to exert control.
And I think what you're saying, Kim, that I strongly agree with is that there, there are
unintended consequences of making that choice.
Meaning you, to Amy's point, you might be able to control some people, but you're going to
wind up hissing off a whole lot of people that you absolutely need not to piss off in order
for you to have any semblance of, in order to reduce the loss of control that you're
feeling.
And I would, I would say what's happening in the situation that I'm thinking of is this,
this, this later is feeling out of control, you're right.
You know, some stuff went wrong.
And so trying to exert control.
And thereby losing, thereby having to confront like quite explicitly that they're not in control.
And therefore feeling more, it's a vicious cycle, feeling more out of control.
So trying to even harder to exert control.
And this leader who is afraid of revolution is fomenting revolution, like with their actions,
this leader is creating exactly what they fear will happen with their actions.
And it's just so unnecessary.
Yeah, yeah.
And I think the value of having, you know, you being able to observe it from the outside
and at Jason, your point was such a good one.
It's interesting because going back to that future forum, Pulse Report, this was from Fall
2022.
I think it still stands.
One of their key recommendations was for leaders to lead with trust by offering more
choice and flexibility.
And I know we talked about this before with the, um, quite, the, the, the great resignation
and quiet quitting.
But Kim, you know, for, seems like the last thing this person is open to doing is leading
with trust by offering choice and flexibility that would, that is not, that's not in this
leader's bag of tricks.
Nor is compassion.
And like one of the things that's so horrible about the situation is that I, I talked to this
leader's boss.
And this leader's boss said, well, you know, this person is, you know, more of a quantitative
person and not very good at, you know, at showing their care personally.
And, you know, but you got to give them a pass because they're good at other things.
And, you know, I, I don't think even the leader, I mean, at this point, I think this leader
is not going to succeed.
So the leader will go whether they want to or not.
But the, the problem is that if you wanted to support, if this leader's boss wanted to
support this leader, then what the leader's boss would have done is to say, here are some
ways, like, there's a gap in your skill set.
This is not something you're good at.
And here are some things that you could, you could either delegate, you could have someone
else like lead these, these specific meetings.
You could come up with an ideas team.
There are a lot of ways to help a person navigate around skills that they don't have and still
be successful.
But that's not what is happening.
But the, this leader's boss thought, I have to have this leader's back by denying that
there's any problem.
And so it's, it's like a, it's a tragic situation.
And I feel it's not one that I'm able to do any, I'm not able to fix it.
And it's very hard for me to watch it happen.
Having been on both sides of like the outside looking in and the person who is struggling
to figure out how to support a leader who is failing.
And on I'm saying, like, I think what you're describing back to the sort of like feedback versus
future-focused, you know, guidance that this question of, are we looking backwards to say
what's going wrong?
Are we looking forward to say like how it could go different in the future?
And I think part of what you're saying is like this person is, it's like the worst of
all worlds.
They're not discussing what went wrong.
And they're also not making suggestions about how the future could be better.
Yeah.
And so recreating the problem over and over again.
Yeah.
And making it worse.
And this leader is burning out.
And their team is burning out even faster.
I mean, when a leader is burnt out, it usually happens that their, their team is even more
burnt out.
You know, that burnt out is something that rolls downhill.
And it's like a snowball.
It's worse at the bottom of the hill than at the top.
Yeah.
And it's really interesting.
Yeah.
When you were talking about sort of is this leader resource to actually handle it?
And one of the things that came from Gallup under an article called the manager squeeze,
how the new workplaces testing team leaders in addition to managers needing to be consistent
and clearly communicating and, you know, making sure good is well defined what's actually
going on.
And 10 managers are agreeing that their supervisor keeps them informed about what's going on in their
organization.
So, you know, sort of that lack of clarity in a certain people out.
But also, only 48% of managers strongly agree that they currently have the skills needed
to be exceptional at their job.
So there was a real need for more training and development.
Interestingly from Gallup, they actually called one of the key skills, teaching managers
to have meaningful conversations at the right frequency with their teams.
And this is in fact exacerbated with hybrid teams.
So I'm curious, Kim, even in that example, just to sort of have the conversation around
a specific example for folks that might be struggling with this.
How often is this manager, this leader having conversations with their team members?
Well, yeah, they're not.
Meaning, and maybe the word meaningful or helpful conversation should be added.
No, I mean, one of the many problems in the situation is that as part of trying to regain
control of the situation, the leader canceled their meeting that all employees had.
And not only were they, is this leader not having meaningful conversations with their
employees, this leader is trying to prevent employees from talking to each other.
And so-
Should I say that was number four, community of shared accountability?
Yeah, that's like, yeah, not only is there no, there's, there's, there's, there's
not, not only is there no shared accountability, like this leader is trying is actively thwarting
community on, on the team.
It's like, it's so awful to watch.
And I feel I actually have compassion.
This leader is not a bad person.
This leader is a well-intentioned person, but has been getting terrible advice from their
leadership, has been getting, you know, as you said, like, you know, no, no communication
or poor communication from above has gotten zero training and development.
And in fact, I felt bad about the situation and offered to coach this leader and both
the leader and the leader's manager said, no, that was, that was number three, sorry, coaching
support to prevent burn out.
I wanted to, I liked this leader and I wanted to help and, and maybe like, I want to acknowledge,
maybe I have some ego that they didn't want me to coach them.
Like maybe I feel sad about that.
But, but, but I, I suggested other people, if not me, like get somebody, but no, that's,
that was not, I mean, what was going to happen?
Yeah, I know it's not quite the same thing, but as you were describing that, Kim,
it made me think of the advice that I got when I was doing my scuba certification, which
is never tried to help a drowning person by jumping in the water with them.
That is what I did.
That is exactly what I did.
Oh my god.
Because then there will be two people to ask you.
Yes, yes, yes, yes, it's true.
And like the situation upset me so much, it kept me from sleeping for two nights while
I had COVID and, you know, like, yes, which is interesting because going back to, I mean,
what precipitated all of this was we talked about burnout and you said, oh, feelings of
cynicism, what precipitated that?
Yeah, so it was me jumping without my, without my wet seat in my mouth, drowning, but what
do you do if someone is drowning?
You've got to help.
The, the whole idea is like learn to throw the life preserver.
Like, yeah, essentially, the, and I think the reason why I think that was, I think that
was the image was coming to my mind, which is because I think that a huge part of the
burnout, I believe, like, this is anecdotal.
I don't have all the data of the, of gallup and these other folks.
Or, maybe, it's the, it's the, it's the Rose Off report.
It's the Rose Off report.
Is that people do not know how to deal with the emotions of other people.
They barely know how to deal with their own emotions.
Yes.
Now, the workplace is loaded with emotion.
It is like trauma, not just emotion, but like trauma.
And even if you don't like the word trauma, like people are in pain.
Yes.
There is pain in the world.
And, and you can try to say that it is imagined and like people are relatively well off and
they're safe, especially if you're talking about, you know, someone who's working a desk
job, like, you know, there's lots of more dangerous positions to be in.
Yeah.
It is, that is the, that is why that image of jumping in the water came to mind is because
I think the idea is, it is true that when we are, when we don't, when we suffer and we
feel isolated, we are not just twice as bad off.
We're 10 times worse off, right?
Suffering isolation is 10 times as bad as suffering alone.
And so there's a, you mean suffering is then suffering.
And suffering and isolation versus suffering together, you mean?
Versus suffering alone.
I'm saying suffering and isolation is 10 times as bad as the suffering alone.
And the bomb is like in community, to like to have someone there to help you.
But if that person also does not have, you know, is also suffering and doesn't have good
tools to deal with their emotions, I think that's where you, you're sort of like dragging
each other down, you know what I'm saying?
Yeah.
And it's almost on a, it's very predictable and almost unavoidable.
And there's a question in my mind of like, is it training?
Is it, I mean, coaching seems like a good idea.
But can you get a coach for every person on your team?
Probably not.
Like most people can't afford to get a coach for every person on their team.
Can you get therapy for the people on your team who need therapy?
Most insurance companies don't pay for therapy.
Like, yeah, it's really hard as a manager to know, to know what to do.
And I feel strongly about this because for the same reason that you described Kim, which
is like you have, I've had many of these conversations with managers who are in bad situations
and almost entirely of their own making, or at least they made it much worse.
Like their own choices and behavior made it much worse.
And you talk to them and as you peel back the layers, you realize like this person didn't
really know what they were doing.
They didn't have the tools to deal with it properly.
Now they might be so defensive.
They're unwilling to hear an offer of help and see it for the life, you know, the, the
life-ring, life-preserver that it is.
But you have, you can have compassion for it.
You can see it for the sort of tragedy that it is, which is a difficult situation, a nearly
impossible one to come out of unscathed, left the person feeling under resourced, emotionally,
tactically, et cetera.
And then they made more mistakes, which made the situation worse and out of the deal,
but the consequences of that.
And so how to help?
Like if you, let's imagine, I think let's talk about what to do if you're the burned out
manager.
But before we talk about that, let's talk for a moment about what to do if you have a
burned out manager who is, you know, you can have some compassion for their burnout.
But how do you prevent them from dragging you and your whole team down with them?
I love that question and actually, Brandier, are you willing to jump in here too?
Because I did want to get your perspective on this.
I think one of the things that I really appreciate was even just starting this conversation
off and asking Jason, where you stood on the definition of burnout and Kim, where you stood
on the definition of burnout.
And so Brandie, since we both report to these fine folks, you know, maybe we can, we can
role play a little bit from that perspective.
But before we do, Brandie, since we actually started this conversation talking about how
you're still navigating through the impact of COVID as is Kim, I'm curious how does having
been sick for the past couple of weeks layer into this definition of burnout that we talked
about.
I kind of feel like it's just, I will say that there was a point on like Friday evening where
Podia almost bit somebody at the dog park and I wasn't feeling well, like, couldn't stop
being and I was like, I'm just all done.
It's too much.
I can't handle anything anymore.
It just feels like the past few years are just just culminated for me in that moment and
I just felt so defeated.
So I think it is really hard to catch up when you're, when you have been sick and then it
just also feels like everything is unstable and there is no norm going back to normal.
That's how it feels for me.
I don't even know what that is.
I don't know if that answered your question, but I'm sorry.
Well, I think it really did, I mean, I know that it's been a hard time and I think that
these moments of just feeling sort of the what's the point I was having a conversation this
morning was someone else about being creative and honestly having time for your own creativity
and that when you have time to do things that sort of fill your cup, I would side of
work how that can bring into the workplace, but when sort of the outside world is also
feeling very stressful and unsafe and the work world is also feeling that way and then
you're sick.
The other thing, Brandi, and I don't know if this adds to it for you is just this feeling
of like the cumulative grief and exhaustion that has passed few years.
And so it's not like this is like you had you were sick and you had a rough week.
It's like it's three years.
Yeah.
I'm not a manager right now, but I in my life tend to be kind of the like trash can for
other people's problems.
So, you know, I think in like one day I had like my brother and two friends all texting
me this really terrible stuff and it's hard.
So I imagine that much, it must be like that for some managers where you're having to hold
all of these emotions for these other people, but you're barely able to hold your own.
And that feels very hard right now and it does feel cumulative and it doesn't feel like
it's going to get better, I think is the biggest issue.
But it doesn't feel like there's an end in sight.
Time has no meaning at all to me.
I don't.
Yeah, it all feels very existential.
Yeah.
And so, first of all, I just want to say, Brandy, if there's anything that we can do to help
you feel like we've got your back and that there are many balls you can lay down or toss
to us and we will catch them for you.
I hope I hope that you will process those balls.
I also think one of the things that can contribute to burnout is this feeling trapped.
And I had this one, so when I was sick the last couple of weeks, I was like, oh my gosh,
I'm like cancelling all these things so that I can recover, but then I'm now I'm dreading
getting well because I'm going to be so like, I'm going to get sick again because there's
all this stuff that is piling up.
And I have a version of the same feeling sometimes when I go on vacation, I'm like, I'm cancelling
all this stuff, like, but all these, and I'm not going to check emails and then like all
these emails, 14,000 emails are.
And so I think that the more we can consciously say, you know, like, we're not going to check
all the, like, we're not going to check all those emails that piled up on our way when
we were on vacation.
And, and we're not going to try to catch up after we were sick.
Like I'm a cancelsome thing.
So the more, the more things that we can take off your to-do list and put on the proactive
forbearance list, I think, I think that will, I don't know if it will help.
That's what has helped me when I'm in, when I feel that way.
Randy and I have had direct conversations about this.
I think it's like, it's got to be okay for stuff not to happen.
And I know that like sometimes it's existential for the company, but most of the time it's
not.
And I think there's a lot of like confusion about that, about like when you can drop a ball
and not only safely drop that ball, but like ignore that the ball even exists.
Like don't, you know what I'm saying?
I thought about the ball.
Correct exactly.
It's like, it's not even, yes, that's why the idea of the practice forbearance list is
so potentially powerful.
If you do have the psychological fortitude to look at it and feel good about not doing
the things, I will say the one downside of,
correct.
Forbearance for me is that list is sort of a reminder that I failed.
Yeah.
It becomes a to do list that's still there.
It's like, no, no, no, no, no.
Proactive forbearance means I'm not going to do it.
I'm not going to, and I'm never going to do it.
Maybe it needs to be, maybe it needs that name because for me, when I think of proactive
forbearance, there's an element.
And again, this is like my inner critic.
But it's just like, it's important.
Like, here's a list of your failures.
I know that's not the intent. I know that's not the... I'm just saying that there's a
number... It does take, like I think when Jason said you have sort of the psychological
fortitude. I mean I think you know, for me my own experiences of burnout, when it does
feel like just there is a mismatch between number of hours in a day, my energy level, and
the amount of work that has to be done, like something is going to get and what has tended
to happen is because I don't want the ball to drop, what's given is sort of my capacity
and I'm very aware of to the last few years and age and what. Like I actually don't have
that, like I do have to be more selective and I feel very fortunate. I'm in the kind of
role where I can be more intentional, but I'm aware if there was this constant feeling
of like if Brandy's doing, for example social media is one thing in the docket, it's like
it's not like that's ever something that stops, right? So feeling like let's say there's
something that is more of an ongoing piece, I do think it takes both the work place boss
saying this is actually a ball that can be dropped and then it's our responsibility to
actually become more okay with the ball being dropped, but I will say that is a practice
I've had to do for myself. I think we need to celebrate it, the ball being dropped.
Like I had a, I had a professor at business school who said if you don't miss a few flights
you're spending too much time in the airport. And so and that was like incredibly helpful
to me because now every time I miss a flight, I'm like, well good, that means I haven't been
sitting too much time in the airport. That would get me a divorce. Yes. I can only do that
when traveling alone. When traveling with Andy, I have to be prepared to spend more time
in the airport. Like I feel this way about email. If I don't, if I don't at least once
a week, miss an email that I really regret missing that I'm spending too much time doing email.
And so when I miss that email that I do regret missing, like it's not that I'm pretending
that well, maybe this is a way of pretending that I don't feel regret, but I try, I try to
realize that having caught that email would have come at too high a price. And which is me
spending two hours every day doing email, which is just not, I've got better uses of my time.
And so I think part of part of and I will burn out. If I spend two hours a day doing email,
I will burn out. I will get pissed off. I'll be grouchy. I'll start replying the emails
in the rudest least care personally possible because I'll be resentful of people for sending
me. Like it's it. So I think trying to what would it look like to celebrate this
platt? Well, I mean, I will tell you so I'll give you a very specific example. Like I've
been very eager to teach a class on management to like help with, you know, this more training
and development burnout thing that we were just talking about. I wanted to teach a class
at Harvard Business School on management because I felt like I learned a lot at business
school, but I didn't learn much about how to manage people. And so I, there's a, there's
a senior comment on the iron either, but please go on. So I sent an email to, to Deb Spar,
who is a senior leader at Harvard Business School. And she's like, yes, I love this idea.
Let's do it. I missed her reply. And she sent me a reply two weeks after that saying,
did you get my email? Missed that one also. And then I was thinking, why did Deb never
reply to me? And I did a search and I saw this and I was like, oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.
You know, and luckily Deb is a person who does not have a big ego about people missing
their emails. And she laughed. And it was like, so it turned into like a funny thing between
the two of us. And now we're back on track.
Can I add one more, um, Coda to the story? Yeah. So as you know, I'm very committed to
getting my deadlines met, um, and I'm very committed to missing mine. Well, but ironically,
or if that's even the right word, and I will check with Alana's Morissette, if any of our
listeners are, um, that era Jason is usually our generational checkpoint. Um, but Kim,
you would ask me to help put something together because I used to write case studies at Harvard
Business School. And, and you wanted to like put a document into that language and was
kind of last minute when we talked. It was like a Friday and then you know, something by
like a Tuesday and then I had a very busy Monday. So ordinarily, I would have been like working
on the weekend and Kim wants me to do this thing. And I really need to do it. And it's really
important. And it's Monday. And then I was like, I'm just, I'm too busy. Like I'm going
to have to start to look at it on Tuesday. And then I checked in with, I can't remember who
reached out to whom, but you were like, Oh, what I said was actually good enough already.
I was like, Oh my gosh, it actually, that's a way to celebrate. So I think there's something
to it. Yeah. Yeah. There's something to, to celebrating missing something, like especially
if you're working on not, not holding your, not holding yourself, like not being punishing
to yourself on deadlines, you know, on forgiving yourself for missing deadlines. Yeah.
There's a quotation I haven't done deeply into this that's attributed to Douglas Adams
who wrote the Hikers Guide to the Galaxy. And the quotation is, I love deadlines. I like
the wishing sound they make as they fly by. Yeah. So people love deadlines. I, I, a deadline
is not useful to me at all. But I think there's the spirit of celebrating in that quotation.
That's why it popped into my brain because it's like, you can, there's something beautiful.
Like you can appreciate that there's like an action and emotion. You like you missed the
deadline. Like something has happened. You're like, you're, you're going to appreciate
that moment without beating yourself up about it, right? Yeah. What this conversation makes
me think of is we ask the question, what can you do if you have a boss who you think is
burnt out or burning out? What can you do? And I think the answer to that is take care
of your own shit. Like, yeah. Like, like, like, like, take care of yourself. Don't, don't,
you know, don't be another drowning person. I know it's not entirely in each of our control.
But I, I, I think I mentioned this on the podcast before, but like I went through a period of time
in my life where I was, like, it was in therapy. I was like learning about meditation and mindfulness
and all this other stuff. And I had this nagging sense of guilt that I was being very selfish.
Yes. I was like spending all this time on myself and I was being incredibly selfish and shouldn't
I be there for my team and spending this time with them and there's work deadlines that I'm missing
because, you know, I'm going to this meditation group on Tuesday nights and all this other stuff.
And I, I kept feeling guilty and and it was, this went on for nine months. I still did the things
because I was so, I needed it so badly, like, in order to get my health back into a reasonable
state, like I needed to do some things differently, but I was like managing this guilt.
And it wasn't until the moment that I realized like nine months in that I had a day where like,
I didn't have to deal with my own problems. And instead I solved the problem for somebody else.
Like, I wasn't so consumed with what was going on with me that I actually had the brain power
available to help somebody with a problem that they were having. And I was like, this isn't selfish
because if I don't do this, I will not have any capacity left for anybody else to do anything.
And that's what it was like so bad for me that that's what was happening. So that's why I'm saying
help yourself. Like, it's not so much about getting the work done or taking a work thing off of
your plate. Like, if you can come to work with more capacity for other people, you were doing,
like, you're helping to alleviate burnout by doing that. And I think this is good advice whether you
have the burned out manager or you are the burned out. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, like, I had almost the exact same
situation where I, you know, we've talked about our different happiness recipes. And I had sort of
come to realize that I had to get enough sleep and I had to exercise. And that meant that I couldn't
exercise in the morning the way I used to because then I wouldn't get enough sleep. And so I
decided that I would go workout at lunchtime at noon every day. And I felt so guilty leaving the office
to go workout. And all of a sudden, and I felt guilty, like when I shut my laptop at 930 so that I
could be in bed by 945. So I could be asleep by 10. I felt guilty then too. And I realized that I had
to let go of those feelings of guilt and instead turn it on it, turn it on its head and realize I cannot
show up for my team and the way that I need to if I don't shut my computer and I'm 945. And if I don't
go exercise at noon, like I had to do those things, not only for my own sake, but for, it was not
robbing my team in order to take care of myself. And I think that is true whether you are a leader who's
trying to be radically candid and caring about your team. It's also true if you are sort of a follower
who needs to speak truth to power. And either way, you need to take care of yourself first.
Yeah, I so appreciate that. And one of the teachings that really
resonated with me is from Tara Brock, who's a mindfulness teacher and a psychotherapist and shares
this idea from Buddhism of two arrows. And the first arrow is the experience that we as humans might
feel like fear, aggression, greed, and pain. And then the second arrow is actually the self-aversion,
the judgment that we have the first arrow. So it's like we don't like that we're feeling selfish or
you know, Kim bringing in the idea of pain. And it's like the first arrow is like there will be pain,
you know, the first arrow that hurts, but then we shoot the second arrow into ourselves. And so it's
really about, you know, we can't control the first one, but we can manage that second one of
of how we're reacting to the first one. And that those ideas of the two arrows has really
helped. And I think going back to the workplace, like the first arrow would be sort of taking my
responsibility to be like, okay, if I have to, you know, do this amount of work and do my best to do the
work. And then the second arrow, sort of like letting it go and just, you know, and letting it go
splat and then not beating yourself up. But the other thing, you know, Jason, when you're talking
about sort of your capacity as the person who might have the manager who's struggling with burnout.
And the reason why I brought Brandy in on this in the first place was, you know, Brandy right now,
you've been sick, you might not have that capacity for sort of asking upwards. But beyond us
managing our own second arrows, that's one thing that, you know, would be helpful for
for me or for another team member to do. And Jason, I'll start with you. What's one way? And the
reason I also ask is managers, it can be hard for leaders to accept help and to ask for help.
Yep. And I would say that's probably fitting for both you and Kim. And so I'm just
asking in that spirit of what's one thing that could be helpful. But you could do to help us feel less
burned out. That's right. So one thing that I found to be to be really helpful when I was feeling burned
out was I remember I had a person who reported to me came to me. And one, she acknowledged like,
hey, it seems like you've been under a lot of pressure lately. You know, I, I need your help
with this particular problem. Like there was a decision that needed to be made. I needed to weigh in on
the decision. But it was like a path to actually getting to me being able to weigh in was sort of
unclear. And so she said, you know, this is what would be helpful to me is if you could,
if you could do these three things, like she just gave me a list of like, this is what would be
helpful to me. And to me, I saw that as compassion because what I admitted to her is like, look,
it's going to take me a while to figure out how to get there. And she's like, I know. And I think if
you do these things, it's going, it's going to help. So she wasn't say it wasn't like an act of
purely of like generosity on her part, but she saw it as an opportunity to offer me some,
some guidance as to like how I could make the path to helping her as short as possible.
And I saw that as like an act of compassion for me. And she, you know, I'm lucky enough to have hired
and worked with very smart people in my careers turned out to be totally right. It was actually quite
easy to get the information that she needed. And I was just stuck because I was so burned out. Like I
was feeling like it's trapped trapped to bring that word back. And I think of that now, like when,
when I'm struggling with, you know, working alongside someone who is seeming burned out, I'll
often say, well, you know, here is a concrete thing that was helpful to me or might help me,
or here is a way that I know this is really tough, but here's a way that you might approach this
that has worked for me in the past. And that sort of suggestion, the show of like we're on the same
side, even though like I'm, I might be annoyed at you, especially if you're my manager because you're
not doing everything I need you to do. Yeah, I think that's really true. I mean, for me when I feel burned
out, it feels to me like I'm totally incompetent. And when I am burnt out, I feel like even things that
would in at other moments in my career feel easy, feel impossibly hard, like everything feels impossible.
I mean, I would say probably for me, the most extreme example I had of this was probably like
postpartum, like right after the babies were born, like it felt, it felt impossible to drink enough water.
It felt impossible to eat. It felt, and then I remember I had to give a talk at my, at my high school,
but we were going back to Memphis to, we took the kids back and we were, and like I just not have a
hard time getting up in front of people usually and giving a talk. And this felt terrifying to me, like
like absolute. So it's like some version of incompetence and fear of things that ordinarily do
not cause me to feel afraid. And I often, you know, I don't usually react at my best when I'm feeling
incompetent and afraid. And so I think like the thing that I need when I'm feeling that way is,
I think that's why your story is so good, Jason. You had someone who came and said, here's what you
can do that would be helpful. Like you, I want to be helpful to people. And I'm, you know, so here's
the, here's the fastest possible way for you to demonstrate your competence. Yeah, exactly.
And that's why like Amy the other day you said, I understand now what, what I can do to show Kim I
care is to end on time. Like that was really meaningful to me. Because that is true. Like giving me a
few extra minutes back is worth more to me than checking in and seeing if I'm okay. Like I remember at
one point I was really burned out. This was when we were shutting down, cantering. And I was really
burned out and really stressed out. I was like, at really at my wits in, not just at my wits in. I had
lost with a ton of weight. I couldn't sleep. I couldn't eat like I was at my physical ropes end as well.
And my, my father who we've talked about who I love dearly called me and like yelled at me for why
wasn't I turning to him for help and spending more time talking to him about this. And I was like,
I just told you what I need from you is like just back the fuck off and let me like try to deal with my
own stuff. Like I need time. That's what that's what I need. That's usually when I work down I need more time.
Kim, I so appreciate that. And also even just your, I love hearing about your relationship with your
father. And it resonates so much with me because I think, you know, we are so different and what
careperson looks like for me is exactly what is not carepersonally for you and vice versa. And so
like I feel so and we both want to help so much. And so for me to hear that I can do something that
is helpful for you, it just, it makes me so happy. So with that, I really want to end this podcast
we can you out and give you a few extra minutes. I wasn't there was not a pass of way. I'm doing this
conversation. I'm enjoying this. No, but I just, first of all I want to acknowledge like even hearing
you talk about just your aversion to feeling incompetent and, you know, I will often think how can
can I, like I look at your schedule and I just marvel at, like how do you do it and and so it's,
it's, I hope that our listeners get the same feeling that I had as I listened to you, which is like
managers or people to leaders or people to the more that we can see that and acknowledge that,
the more we can actually start to look at what would be most helpful for that person. Yes.
And to really, and by the way, it could be a total win-win because now you've got 15 extra minutes
or whatever it was, you know, so I just, I'm, I'm really, I'm really touched by that and also Jason,
what you shared before we close Brandy since I brought you in on the burnout front. Was there anything more
that you wanted to echo? I just wanted to echo what Kim said about the feeling incompetent and I think
a couple of weeks ago Kim you and I talked and I was like, maybe I'm just doing life wrong, like I don't
feel like I have time to eat or I can drink enough water. All those things seem very hard for me when
I'm burnt out. I don't know how people fit all those things into a day at the best of times,
let alone when you're burnt out. So yeah, just I guess acknowledging that like everybody goes
through that, I don't think I'm not the only dehydrated person or person who doesn't have time to prepare meals,
but it feels like that sometimes. Like why is everyone else seem fine and I can, yeah, why is everyone
drinking this water? And then I beat myself up for like relaxing at night, like well I could
until bed be doing work, but that's not, I don't want to spend all my time working, it's kind of a
vicious circle. Yes, and I think the only thing we haven't discussed yet about dealing with burnout,
so if you're the manager who has burnout, like I'm recommending radical self-care, like if you're
burned out, like I think you have to you have to over-correct because almost everything you're
going to do is going to be an under correction. Like the things that seem sensible are going to be
an under correction. You know what I'm saying? So if it's like if you feel like therapy twice a month
would be better than therapy once a month, but like you only really have time for therapy once a
month, you should, you need to do therapy twice a month. For a time, some month. Yeah, yeah, like everything
you're thinking that is reasonable is going to be an under correction. If you think, you know,
getting out for a walk twice a week would be helpful, getting out for a walk every day is going to be
more helpful than getting out for a walk twice a week. So I'm like recommending people think radically
about how they can start to recharge their batteries. So that's thing number one and thing number
two that we haven't, that I don't, I only be talked about at all was the importance of momentum.
I think one of the hardest parts about coming out of burnout is it's very easy to slip back in
because something's going to go wrong. Things are going to go, like you're not, you're not at your
best. Even though you start to feel better, let's say you start to feel a bit more energized,
you know, you're, you've got your own emotional regulation back under control,
you're exercising a little bit more, you start to feel a little bit better, you're not at your best,
you're not at your peak performance. And so things that shouldn't go wrong are going to go wrong.
Yes. Not only you not need to, is it important not to judge yourself about that, I think it's really
important to think about how you can break things down into clear, achievable, milestones or goals
or moments. And Kim, your point about email is like, I think if I was in your shoes, I would say I'm
going to, and I was burnt out, but I still need to do email knowing how much I hate it. I feel like
it's robbing of my time. I would set a thing, which is like, I'm going to do email for 15 minutes at
this time of day. Yeah. Like, yeah. And I'm going to, when I'm done with that, I'm going to
celebrate, I'm going to feel like, yes, I've done that thing. Even though I know I didn't want to do
it and it was hard, but I did it. I sat down, I did 15 minutes of email. And that seems so trivial when
you're like, I'm managing a team of 150 people. Yeah. But that's my point about momentum is like,
the team of 150 is going to be flopping all over the place. Things are going to be going wrong.
You're not going to know what's going on, but you can control, like find those things that you can
control that you can actually get done, commit to doing them and, and like, tick them off a list.
Like for me, physically, like, keeping track of stuff on the computer is great for me when I
am not burned out. But when I am burned out, I literally need to cross stuff off a list in order
to feel like I've done anything. Yeah. I mean, there's like a, something about the physical,
the, the somatic reaction that I have of crossing off the list is satisfying. And so think about those
small things you can do to start to build momentum and to rebuild your confidence in your own
competence. Yeah. Right. So to be like, I can do things. Yes. Yeah. I can do things. This is really,
is really important because incompetence is exhausting. And one's own, and other people's incompetence
is exhausting, but one's own incompetence is even more exo, at least for me is even more exhausting.
Like, like, there is one thing that I think Jason, you and I had this conversation where my phone
was running out of battery. And I said, the thing I hate about myself is that I cannot remember to
charge my phone. You were like, you were very kind when you responded to that. Like you took it
seriously. And I was like, you were so nice to me that I've actually been better about plugging my phone in.
I've been nice to myself. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Because your inner rubble is like, stop yelling at me.
I'll show you. I'm not going to plug in that up in phone. That is exactly right. I know. I know.
Voice inside my head. I'll show you a phone. It's like running out of gas. Like I ran out of gas
several times when I first started driving because I was like rebelling again. Like, what a dumb thing
to rebelle again is, but I'd lose, but anyway. So yes, I think, and the other thing that I will say on
radical self-care that I have found helpful anyway, and I don't know if others will is that
not only do I put the things in calendar that I have to do, but I also put the things in calendar
that I want to do. Yeah. So my calendar looks like I'm super duper busy, but if you'll notice, there's
there's like time for lunch in there. There's time for a walk in there. There's like time to stop working
and start, you know, preparing dinner and eating dinner with the family in there. So there's like
and for me blocking, there should be things that you look forward to in your calendar. Yeah. Yeah. And now,
yes. Yeah. And now really almost everything in my calendar, I look forward to. So it doesn't
burn me out. If too many, if more than half the things in your calendar or things you dread,
try to make a change. Well, on that note, let's get into our tips. All right. Let's do it.
To start putting radical self-care into practice. Tip number one, radical self-care.
Carrying for others starts with caring for yourself. Don't beat yourself up or feel guilty for
feeling burned out. Give yourself the break you need. You can't possibly care personally about
others if you don't care about yourself. And if you are feeling burned out, you need to care about
yourself more. So when a mentor of mine said, if I am feeling burnt out, if I'm in a
especially stressful time, I work out twice a day, not once a day. So do more self-care.
When not less, when you're feeling burned out. Tip number two, you don't have to do it alone,
seek community. If you're a manager, you can find a mentor, a coach, peer group, other people who
are going through similar things as you for guidance, community, and most of all support. We don't
have to do this alone. It might be self-care, but we can do self-care in community. This can help you
build the kind of momentum that Jason was talking about, momentum that will help us build our own
confidence in our competence. Tip number three, if you're not a manager and you think your manager
is dealing with burn out or you're dealing with burn out yourself, tips one and two apply equally
well to you. I think sometimes it can be easy to imagine that if you just focus on the work,
that that's the thing that's going to help your boss the most. We'd argue that focusing on yourself,
making sure that you're coming to work with energy and excitement has an equal, if not bigger,
impact on the burn out that others around you are feeling. For more tips, you can go to radicalkander.com/resources,
download our free learning guides, sign up for radicalkander on masterclass and get our lit
video book. You can also register for our workplace comedy series, The Feedback Loop. And more,
show notes are at radicalkander.com/podcast. You like to say praise in public and private,
criticize in private. So if you like what you hear, go head rate and review us, wherever you find your
podcast. And if you have criticism for us, email it to podcast@radicalkander.com.
Kim, shall we talk about a few of our favorite things?
Shall we talk about our favorite things?
All right, let's do it. All right, today I want to talk about my blue jeans.
I love and have love since I was like eight years old, my blue jeans, my Levi's 501 Shrink to Fit
Blue Jeans. I don't know why I love these jeans so much, but they make me feel, they make me feel
happy and calm, not burnt out. I love them. So thank you, Levi Strauss for my
Levi's 501 Shrink to Fit Jeans. I'm so excited to keep this conversation going. In the meantime,
go get your Levi's 501 jeans. And I'm done already. I promise. Okay.
I'm not sitting here in Mondays. Although we could, but I am.
Oh, how do we get there? All right, let's say.
All right. Bye. Thank you. Bye. The Radicalkander podcast is based on the book Radicalkander,
the kickass boss without losing your humanity by Kim Scott. Episodes are written and produced
by Brandy Neal with script editing by me, Amy Sandler. The show features Radicalkander co-founders,
Kim Scott and Jason Rosoff and is hosted by me. Still, Amy Sandler. Nick Perissamy is our audio engineer.
The Radicalkander podcast theme music was composed by Cliff Goldmacher. Follow us on LinkedIn,
Radicalkander the company and visit us at Radicalkander.com.