Zoe Amar 0:04 We are delighted that this episode of Starts at the Top is sponsored by Arvato CRM solutions. Arvato CRM Solutions designs and delivers award winning customer service, business process outsourcing, and digital and Intelligent automation solutions with some of the world's most respected brands, as well as innovative parity and public sector clients. They partner with clients to help them define their customer experience and transformation strategies by implementing the right technology, people and processes to improve their customer journey while driving new efficiencies and helping them prepare for the future. To find out more about how Arvato CRM Solutions could help an organisation like yours, and to receive a free no obligation chat, visit avato.co.uk/walesairambulance Bruce Daisley 1:14 You can't be resilient on your own can you, because we've realised the strength, the well being, the support we get from our social connections. Paul Thomas 1:25 Welcome to a brand new episode and season of Starts at the Top our podcast about digital leadership and change. I'm Paul Thomas. Zoe Amar 1:34 And I'm Zoe Amar. we're very excited today to be kicking off the new season by sharing an interview with one of our heroes: podcaster, author and work culture guru Bruce Daisley. Many of you will have heard of Bruce, his most recent book fortitude has just come out in paperback and we were delighted to speak to him a couple of weeks ago. We also have two copies of Bruce's book Fortitude to give away, to be in with a chance of winning sign up to our newsletter over at startsatthetop.co.uk Paul Thomas 2:12 We've both been fans of Bruce's work since his days as European lead over at Twitter. And since he started his podcast series, eat, sleep, work repeat many things in that podcast I've tried to bring into the workplaces that I've been involved in either working in or consulting into. And it's a brilliant, brilliant listen, we're both fully paid up members of his fan club very much enjoyed his last book too, which was called The Joy of work. So Zoe, what did you make of Bruce? And what did you make of fortitude. Zoe Amar 2:41 This was such an illuminating conversation for me and I found it very confronting in a really positive way in terms of our chat with Bruce and also the book itself, because it's forced me to rethink everything that I have learned over the years about resilience. Now, we've all been in a position, I'm sure where we have opened up to someone in the workplace about a problem we're having and they've said, Oh, you just need to be more resilient. And perhaps some of us have even said that ourselves in the past. And what Bruce does in his book is break down all the myths about resilience and how it's not just an individual responsibility. It's to do with the responsibility we have to each other in terms of the culture in the teams we create, the organisations we run, how we look after each other in the communities that we work and live in. And 10 days on from finishing the book, it's still going round in my head, and there's so much about it that I really want to put into practice with our team, and also the organisations that we go in and work with as part of our consulting work. So it's a really great book. And I would really encourage all the leaders out there to get hold of a copy and read it. Paul Thomas 3:52 Yeah, no, I agree. And I think it was very much something that is going to affect or should affect the way that leaders look at how they build that resilience, or build that fortitude within their own, within their own teams and the role that they have to play in enabling that very good to know that the answer is kind of you know, you are not alone. You are not the one person that needs to prop up everything because I think there's quite a lot of that within organisations and we see it quite, quite often, don't we that there are people that take on lots of that responsibility? I think for me as well, I think there's, I listened to this at one and a half speed on Audible before I got hold of my paper copy. And there are a lot of references and footnotes. It's such a well researched book. Towards the end of the book though I think it really starts to sort of kick into Bruce's own thoughts on how this applies. And I was really interested in his thoughts on how this affects each generation how we, as a generation sort of look at the next generation to come Gen Z. I know it's been an important, important sort of topic on this podcast and will continue, I think to be an important topic on this podcast. But you know, looking back at past generations and saying things aren't what they used to be. And I think he really starts to pour a bit of scorn on that and say that you know that it's not that Gen Z is a is a less resilient generation than the ones that have come before it's just that they are going to do things differently. And you know, you only need to look within your own four walls I think so to see how Gen Z is going to approach things differently the reliance on mobile phones for communication and things like that, that just haven't been there in the past. So yeah, I think there was a real sense for me of this book as being a bit of a rallying call. And I'm really interested to see how it is taken up in the future. One of the things that it talks about quite a lot when we talk about with Bruce was the the role that I think Carol Dweck and her thinking around growth mindset has sort of built into many organisations and I think it'll be interesting to see where Bruce goes with this and whether his thinking and its his ideas start to permeate into the businesses and organisations of today. So yeah, well, without further ado, we should probably get to the interview. So here's Bruce. Zoe Amar 6:21 We are super excited to welcome Bruce Daisley to starts at the top today, Bruce Daisley is one of the UK's most influential voices on fixing work published in The Washington Post, Harvard Business Review, Wall Street Journal and The Guardian. His latest book, fortitude was described by the Financial Times as the Best Business Book of the Year at the end of 2022. He's recently been appointed as a visiting honorary professor at Bayes business school at City University in London, with a focus on organisational culture and the MBA programme. Previously, he spent over a decade running Twitter and YouTube, the latter at Google for Europe, leaving Twitter as its most senior leader outside of the US, Bruce runs the Apple number one business chart topping podcast: Eat, Sleep, Work, Repeat on work culture. Bruce, welcome to starts at the top, were so excited to have you here today. Bruce Daisley 7:20 Thank you, so lovely to chat to you. Zoe Amar 7:22 Likewise, and congratulations on the book. It's a great read. And there's lots we want to talk to you about on that very theme. We were wondering if we could begin by you taking us back to what inspired you to write the book. Bruce Daisley 7:37 Yeah, I'd written a previous book about workplace culture and, and that was sort of a labour of love. I'm obsessed with workplace culture, I'm obsessed from, like the experience when you join somewhere. And you very quickly, I had it when I worked in bars and restaurants, you'd work somewhere and you'd think I'm gonna have fun here. I can't wait for these people to be my friends. You know, you don't want to go in too hot too early. But you're intrigued with, you know, why this place is fun. And the last place you worked at wasn't fun. And I've always been interested in the mechanics of those things. Anyway, this book was a sort of follow up to the previous book I've written before. And I just became fixated with ideas of resilience, really how we talk about resilience, how we witness resilience, resilience is one of those phrases that schools are demanding of their pupils, firms are demanding of their employees. And it's just, it's an interesting dynamic, because resilience actually sort of this strangely toxic phrase. I was. I was in Beirut when there was this colossal explosion a couple of years ago, and about three years ago now, and my partner's Lebanese and we were there for this almighty... sort of the explosion decimated the city. And, you know, one thing that we might not recognise is our privilege in the in the West is that all of the glass installed in buildings in the UK is designed to shatter out woods and to withstand bomb blast to some extent, you know, consequence of, sort of 30 years of the troubles and and what we've what you find in places like Beirut is that's not the case. And so, across the whole of the city, the sound for two or three days was just the sound of broken glass being swept up. Anyway, I was just really interested because all of the news coverage, while I was there was, you know, the New York Times the BBC was saying, Oh, well, Lebanese people are resilient. And the interesting thing is the people on the ground one saying that they were, they were kind of really upset that this label was being put on them because they wanted help. And it was a bit like, you know, someone's fallen out of a boat. And you're leaning over the edge of the boat saying, well, you're resilient, you'll make your way out. And all you want is a hand out of water you just want someone to sympathise with the situation you're in and help you. And in fact, everyone was just sort of looking down saying you're resilient you'll cope with this. Anyway, it just sort of it made me reappraise like the word resilience and how we think about resilience. And, and so the whole book was this journey that kicked off with that, that tried to get to the heart of when the word is helpful, and what we get wrong about it really. Paul Thomas 10:23 That's great, thank you and then connecting that to the workplace. One of the things, one of the phrases that sort of stuck to me was this idea of the resilience orthodoxy, that there are many, many books out there on resilience. There are many, many approaches. And I come from a sort of a big corporate background, when Carol Dweck was a name that was was sort of thrown in front of us: growth, mindset, all of those sorts of things came along. So when you went in and sort of analyse that and have a look at that, what was it that surprised you the most out of what was already written in that resilience orthodoxy as you put it? Bruce Daisley 10:56 Yeah, the whole of the whole of what you might say about resilience, whether it is Carol Dweck, which is all about mindset, you know, the idea that if you believe you can learn and improve, then you can. All of it is about individual responsibility. All of it is suggesting that the only thing that's a barrier to your success is your own mindset is your own willingness to, to get up off your your feet, when when you've had a setback, the only thing stopping you, holding you back is you. And what you find is that, actually, the consequence of that is that people can feel helpless, they can feel, you know, maybe in a moment where they're not feeling especially resilient, maybe in a moment where they're feeling like they are failing or feeling vulnerable, then the idea that the only thing that's the obstacle to their successes themselves, can actually make you feel... well maybe I'm not up to this, maybe I'm not up to the challenge. And, and I just became really fixated with it, because it's, it's effectively it's like this politicisation of the idea of individuality. And you know, we're all fixated with individuality, we're all thinking all the time about how can I be more productive? Or how can I optimise my life so that, you know, I'm healthier or fatter or thinner, or, you know, we're always thinking about these personal optimizations. And, and so the whole of the resilience, orthodoxy, the whole of the resilience thinking that we see, is designed around that. And the challenge with it is, is that sometimes it means that you go looking for an answer in a place it can't be found, specifically, I'll give you the probably the biggest financial commitment to this is the US Army has got this really unenviable situation that more combat soldiers in the US are killed by their own hands, then by enemy competence. Obviously every death is a tragedy, but the idea that people are coming back and, and, and performing acts of suicide is heartbreaking. And, and as a result of that, the US military has spent about a billion dollars, trying to just try and create a resilience programme trying to make these people who are, you know, robust and strong and athletic figures, but trying to make them more able to be mentally able to cope with the challenges. And the thing is, when someone spends a billion dollars, which is what they've spent on training people to do something, the great news is, is that there's enough data created, there's enough people who go through that, that someone else will come along and research it, someone else will come along and say, Oh, you spent a billion dollars? Well, let's see how effective that is. And the great thing about that is that the work has been done quite extensively. And the people who've researched it have come back and said, Oh, basically all of the money you spent has had no impact. It had zero uplift in making people more resilient. Same training programmes that were created to do that have also been heavily implemented in schools. So if you know anyone who's in the education system, or you whether it's family, friends, your own kids, most schools have got resilience programmes, it's based on the same methodology. And when people have gone and checked it, they've said this resilience programme achieves absolutely nothing. So you've got this really interesting thing where because we've gone searching for resilience, loads of snake oil salesmen have come in and created these programmes to, to, to achieve it. And you know, the fundamental thing, I think, is that maybe we're looking for, for resilience in the wrong places. So resilience, isn't this thing that some of us have got some of us haven't got, it's not this switch that, you know, that person who sat next to you, who was able to deal with incredible things, they had resilience switched on, and you unfortunately, haven't found a switch. Resilience is actually something very different. Resilience isn't an individual thing in an individualistic world. This isn't something that some of us have. Resilience is a collective thing. Resilience is the strength we draw from each other. And that's why there are moments where people can be in a situation and you know, go through heartbreak, but they say, actually, it was the people around me that pulled me through it was the strength I drew from the people around me. You see, really fascinating examples of these, you know, you see people who've gone through wartime experiences people who've gone through whether it is, I mentioned the Troubles in Northern Ireland, but you witness it there. You witness it in places like Kosovo, where people who have gone through horrible, often sectarian experiences, they've gone through experiences, where they've they felt their community are under threat. But what happens is, quite often, when you look at them, they demonstrate an incredible strength to get through it. And when you look at it specifically, it's the extent that they were connected to a group that seemed to be the factor that pulled them through it. And I love sort of looking at the case studies of people who've gone through natural disasters. And you know, these things that people, their testimonies, they say like, Actually, I didn't know who all these people were around me, but we were all helping each other, we were all sharing food, we were all helping the person who was injured, and people demonstrating just this incredible strength, largely because they feel like they are enveloped by the support and the love for the people around them. So as you see that you start thinking, Okay, well, actually, a lot of that self evidence, someone in my research said, you can't be resilient on your own, can you? And of course, you, you know, the moment you hear it, you think, of course, it's it's such common sense. It's so self evident. But that's the challenge. Look, it's got direct implications for workplaces, it's got direct implications for families, it's got direct implications for for all of us, because the really interesting evidence of social science probably over the last decade, is that, we've realised the strength, the well being the support we get from our social connections. If someone goes into hospital, whether it's for a heart attack, or whether it's for an episode of depression, the biggest predictor of how they will be in two years and five years the biggest predictor is how many social groups they report feeling part of, like, you know, actually, when you see that you would go, why on earth would that play such a big part? But it's because human beings are innately social. And we don't even realise sometimes the invisible emboldening effect of those social groups. So you know, if you've got someone in your life who's struggling, actually one of the best things you can think about is, do they feel like they're connected to a community? Do they feel supported? And how can I be an agent in facilitating that? I think that for me is like the, the enlightening aspect of all of this really. Zoe Amar 17:55 100% And what I loved about your book Bruce, and I found both confronting and also really uplifting about it is the power of we as opposed to the I. And I wondered how some of those myths about resilience were playing out into what you've seen in the workplace, and what might need to change about that. Bruce Daisley 18:16 Yeah, I think most of us probably would reflect on the last three years and say, you know, actually, workers transformed in good ways and bad. In good ways. Most of us, the average UK commute is about 73 minutes here, the average London commute is about 84 minutes. And what what people say is that being freed up from that, two or three days a week has transformed their the work life blend that they've got, you know, they've felt like, on the days that they're not travelling into the office, they don't feel like they're failing to the extent that they were before. A lot of people are being forced further and further out of our cities and towns by the unaffordability of poverty. And so, you know, being presented with these long commutes isn't necessarily that you don't like your colleagues anymore, but actually, look you, you want to try and experience some part of life and, and live somewhere that you can, you can benefit from a bit of space. But so what we find is that people are living a long way away. And so as a result, most of us would say, working from home a couple of days a week has been life enhancing. But secondly, we've witnessed that the connections between people and their colleagues, people in their jobs have dissipated a bit. And I think it's an illustration that work culture for a lot of people and a lot of organisations was a bit of an accident, really, it was an accident that came from being around people a lot of the time, you didn't necessarily choose the people who sat near. But you would build up a bond and an affinity by the fact that you were in a tea round with them, or you were, you know, you'd spend time someone would bring some cake out on a day and and over time you built like this bond with those people. And what a lot of people are reporting now is that those connections have fragmented a bit or they've drifted away, they don't feel the same set, extensive connection. Overall, societally, that's actually probably not a disastrous thing. As long as you're replacing those connections that you had before. As long as you replace them with other connections. It's not a bad thing that your life isn't your, your whole identity of your life is defined by your job. But what we've we're finding is, people are sort of seeing a reduction in their connection to their work colleagues, and there's nothing to replace it. And so life is becoming lonelier, and I'll give you just a couple of places I've witnessed that I've, I've done some work with a London hospital and they said the levels of aggression that they're experiencing from patients is unlike anything that ever experienced before the pandemic, but I was working with a retail store recently and they said the same they said customer's now are more demanding are ruder, are sort of more aggressive than they've ever witnessed. And all of these things are consequences of loneliness, consequences of disconnection, the more disconnected we are, we tend not to trust people. And so there are real world consequences to all of these things, I think, look, from a team point of view, what might you think then? Well, I guess, you know, probably most of us have had an experience of working in a job of working in an environment where there was a good culture, and it might not be every job we've ever had. But we can fondly remember one team that we were part of that there was, there was something there. And I think the interesting challenge for all of us now is thinking or from a standing start, how do you create those strong connections? How do you create moments where you like each other? And I think that's the challenge of the moment really, I heard a beautiful phrase, which is the idea that that bosses, that managers, that leaders need to be entrepreneurial in fostering connection. And that a job of a manager now is not just to manage an individual not just to help develop the talent in their team, but also to try and build connections between those individuals try and sort of make everyone feel part of something bigger than themselves. I think that's the challenge of the moment really. Zoe Amar 22:19 Really kind of managing the community that is the workplace. Bruce Daisley 22:23 Absolutely. But yeah, resolutely that. Paul Thomas 22:27 We had a conversation in our last season didn't we Zoe with Dr. Michael Rucker, whose book came out last year, the fun habit, we had a really good conversation. I think one of the chapters in your book also mentioned this idea of forced fun and the problems that that brings around. But that was a real spotlight on a couple of leaders that came in and had that conversation with us. He said, actually, there's been a period of self reflection, I've looked at myself as a leader and what I need to be and who I need to surround myself with, which is completely different, I think, from the sort of the singular vision that I was used to, perhaps in the workplace quite quite a lot in my time in the corporate world, but also how they create those opportunities for just spontaneous fun and connection. And that might be grabbing everyone and taking them out with the kids to the park or something because you happen to live locally, or whatever it is, are there any other sort of examples or suggestions you can make as to how leaders take that next step from the realisation, I think during lockdown that things need to change, and they need to be different, but then to creating this sort of place where that that sort of hybrid work is supported through meaningful connection with their employees and colleagues? Bruce Daisley 23:41 Yeah, I think probably the big lesson we've got from the last couple of years, really, is that most connection needs to be done in work hours, I think, you know, a lot of organisations may be used to sort of style, their culture is work hard, play hard, and that, you know, their culture is built late in the pub, and between, between colleagues sort of going in, and after work debriefing over a few drinks. I think the truth of that is that actually, firstly, it's interesting to see the strength of connection that people spoke about in in those eras. But, you know, we I think we recognise that it wasn't an inclusive environment that, you know, while there might have been a strong bond amongst the people in the pub, only half the team or only a third of the team were there. And, and generally, it's the people with care responsibilities, or without the money to spend in a pub, or, you know, with things that they need to do, or long commutes that weren't there, or they just didn't want to spend a lot of time with men in the pub. But you know, there was the, you lost something there. And so the critical thing is recognising that you can create those connections with that sort of social interaction, but that maybe doing it in the pub is there is the wrong thing. And so just, that's a learning really of recognising that these things have got a value to them. And as they've got a value to them, you should set time aside within the working day to do them. So I think that's one of the critical differentiations, anyone who is the champion of their culture that was created like that. It's just a small adaptation to recognise you've got to do it in work hours. But I think just try and set about those things. In my previous book, I highlighted someone who, a receptionist who used to work at a company, and she'd sent around an email one afternoon, she, she told the people she was working with she was like the temp, she was the short term receptionist, and she told everyone this terrible culture that no one seems to like each other. It's sort of a horrible environment and no one listened to her so she sent an email around the company going it's the best time of the week it's crisp Thursday. And she'd invited everyone to come and share a small stack of Pringles a few Kettle chips at Crisp Thursday, and it's like, I mean, it feels like such a trivial thing. But over the course of sort of the next few weeks, it started to become a little tradition inside the organisation. People would say to each other, oh, look, well, let's not have a meeting. I'll, I'll meet you at Crisp Thursday or are you going to Crisp Thursday later, tell me about what happened on your date last night and, and it just became a place that was part of the fabric of the socialisation of that company. And I think we can all learn a little bit from crisp Thursday. It's in work time, it doesn't have to be overcomplicated. It's just the joy of connecting and the recognition that, you know, you probably wouldn't put the connections between colleagues as part of a PowerPoint slide as part of a strategy document. But it plays such a fundamental part in our experience of work and creating motivated and driven workplace cultures that, you know, neglect it at your peril really. Paul Thomas 27:02 I hope they had hula hoops. We've just discussed our lunch and I enjoy hula hoops. But it's funny because in a previous role, I remember listening to the podcast and you were talking about I think it came out on Twitter didnt it, tea time. And we used to do that every Thursday at four o'clock tea time. And sometimes it was it was really massively oversubscribed, we had people pouring out the door. And other times you struggled to get two or three people along. But it was a really good way of marking a time in the diary say, right, just happens at this time just get used to it. Bruce Daisley 27:35 Yeah, that's right. And rituals are a really good way of symbolising what's important for an organisation I've chatted to, to more than one firm, and they said, like, one of our rituals here is we do really elaborate, involved engaging leaving speeches. And you know, a lot of firms might sort of hesitate at that, you know, they have a conflicted relationship with people leaving, but these organisations thought, actually, we wanted to celebrate the heroes that have built our success. And, you know, we all recognise that most of us won't retire from this place. So we're all gonna leave at some stage. But if we celebrate with warmth, with humour, and with love the people who are leaving, then it goes to show that, you know, actually, it's celebrating great success is an important part of being here. Now, I've heard a few firms do that. And they said, it's a ritual here that we do these really well. And, you know, those things, they, they subconsciously communicate so much to people who work there, because it's a demonstration that, you know, we value people, we value their development, we value their progression, and there's no shame in leaving at some stage in your career. And I think that's the critical thing, rituals, and these things tend to signify what's important to an organisation. So if you've, if your ritual is you always celebrate people's birthdays, or you always celebrate, you know, great successes, or you've, I used to work at one organisation where there was loads of internal awards, and it was a company that had teams working on lots of different things. But we always had annual awards, and, and the ritual there was we're going to celebrate success. And so whatever your rituals are, they kind of subconsciously, communicate what matters to an organisation. So they're, they're really important, you know, if your ritual is there's never any company wide meetings, who never communicate, there's never any sort of opportunity to pose a difficult question to leaders, then that ritual, or the absence of that ritual also communicate something. So I think recognising what's important to an organisation and setting time aside for it is a really important part of the covert communication of a culture of an organisation and, you know, something we need to pay, pay some attention to, I think. Zoe Amar 29:57 It's about meaning, isn't it? And what we're encouraging people to give meaning and I suppose attention to as well. Bruce Daisley 30:05 Yeah, exactly. Right, exactly. Right, sort of helping people to interpret what we're meant to give meaning to. Yeah, it's really vital. Zoe Amar 30:14 And on that note, a painful story, I wanted to ask you about trauma, because in the book, you explore the impact of trauma on people and their relationship to their inner strength. And obviously, we're coming out of a period where people will have been very traumatised. What's your take on what leaders can do to create more and that sense of collective strength is a bit of a coping mechanism and a way of looking after people following the last three years? Bruce Daisley 30:46 Yeah, I mean, the trauma thing was just, I think a critical step to distributing notions of resilience, you know, that someone said, I was looking through mentions of, of trauma of resilience on Twitter. And one person said, you know, resilience is your ability to silence your own trauma experiences, and just get on with life, or someone else said, resilience is silence. And, and it's really interesting, you know, effectively, the whole core narrative of resilience is no matter what bad thing has happened to you, resilience is showing up and still dealing with it. But what that means, of course, is you sort of, you're diminishing and disrespecting the bad things that have happened to them. And so I was just intrigued with that. And so that's why I go into trying to sort of unpick some of the resilience stories that we get told, and say, Look, you know, there's often more to these stories than meets the eye. I think, from an employer's point of view right now, just thinking about the lived experience of colleagues and of employees is a really important part to start thinking about how you can create something different, you know, most of us are in an environment where we want our organisation to be more effective than the competitors, we want us to do better, and maybe have more motivated employees, we've recognised that, you know, that sort of extra Mojo that someone has can be a real differentiator, you'll know if you go into a restaurant, and you receive service, that is incredible, and, and attentive and human and, and humorous, you know, that you'll think I'll go back there, I loved it there, it was so special look, and that's the true for all of us, when we're creating culture, we want something that feels like that, that amazing restaurant, rather than somewhere that was just transactional. And I think, from a standpoint of exploring what the employee experiences is really critical. Most employees, their experience of work is shaped by things that we don't even recognise. And the, I guess, there used to be three of these things, there used to be three of these things that were the office, calendars and email. And by email include teams or or slack, whatever you use. And now, okay, the office has changed in that, although it does play a part. But we don't recognise that calendars and, and, and electronic communication play a fundamental pillar of workplace culture. But you know, if you think about the calendar, most of us have got 40 hours a week ready to be scheduled. And anyone can schedule a meeting with you if they see a gap. And so anyone can put an item in your to do list and without your permission, because they see that you had, you know, a gap in your to do list. And we don't recognise that that plays a fundamental part in the organisational culture inside an organisation. One of the biggest predictors of people's sense of wellbeing is whether they feel any sense of control. Well, you know, you don't feel control if you arrive at work, and you looking at your calendar thinking, wow, I've got seven hours of meetings today. And then just as you're sort of contemplating how you're going to navigate that, you see another 30 minute meeting drops in, and you suddenly sort of feel a total absence of control. You're like, oh, how am I meant to do my job here? We don't recognise that that plays a fundamental part in shaping the culture and the spirit and the, the operating system of organisations. So I love it when people say, okay, so recognising the importance of control, what is the way that we could differentiate our culture from other places, one of the best examples I've seen in the last 12 months is a lovely piece of work in into creating meeting free days. So this was the idea that organisations would, and they could choose whether it'd be a day that people are working from home or a day that people in the office, they created the day where people had no meetings put into their calendars by anyone else. So you could still put a 30 minute cup of tea in with someone you could still put that you're going to have lunch with someone yourself, but no one could put anything into your calendar except you. And what I love about it, is that what you realised very quickly, this was 70 different companies, they had to have 1000 employees each, but what you recognised really quickly is people said, oh, gifting that control back to me, was energising. I felt like it was the best day of the week. I felt like the old days where I was able to get my job done. I had loads of laughs with people It felt really motivating. Fascinating. So that small act of pushing back against the hegemony of calendars suddenly create a cultural difference. And I think that's it. So employers need to be thinking about, you know, the sense of connections and to control that people have got the need to be thinking about the lived experience of the people who work there. And I think quite often, there's so many aspects that we don't even consider, you know, the old aspect of the office was that it was just, it wasn't even considered, if one of your friends said, I've got a new job, then you knew that they would be going to the building that they were interviewed in five days a week from nine o'clock in the morning till half five in the evening. That was it wouldn't even negotiable. We didn't even consider it to be some, some element of work because it went without saying, and yet these things take play a really big part in how we experience work and the impact it has on us. Zoe Amar 36:32 100% And there's something there about how the power dynamics have shifted, haven't they? And how can anyone feel a sense of power if they don't feel in control of their own time? Bruce Daisley 36:42 Yeah, exactly. Exactly. You know, if you're one of those people who opens your calendar in the night before, and suddenly you're thinking, I've got a full day tomorrow. And, you know, I've got got things I'm meant to do. And so, for so many of us remember hiring people, and, and hiring them to do a job we urgently need to do. And I had to check in with them when they'd been there six months. And they said, Yeah, I get so many emails every day, I have so many meetings, I don't have time to do the job. And you think, Wow, this is this is a sort of form of collective insanity, that we've created a version of work where people can't even do the job that we've hired them to do because we've just encumbered them with all these additional elements. So I love it when I see examples of organisations pushing back against that and saying that we can do things differently. Paul Thomas 37:34 It's a constant conversation I have with my new work colleague, who is my wife, who shares the same office space as me now, for the last three years, is, you know, what calls have you got today? Well, these are the calls. But outside of those calls, I've actually got to do some thinking and I've got to do some, some some written work, some actual work. I love the sections in the book towards the end, where you were talking about family and particularly kids too, we've both got kids, my eldest is 14 and he's very much at that point where his phone is his interface to the world. And I think the thing that really got me was we were constantly on him to organise activities, when are you seeing your friends, and what are you doing and all that sort of stuff. And he's saying it's fine, it's fine, it's fine. It's all through the screen and how we used to go and knock on somebody's door and say how you doing. And it's that connection, I think that I started to really think about is looking at him in the way that he's interfacing with his device, and how we are working in the same way connected and staring into a screen sort of, I don't know, up to 6,7,8 hours a day perhaps. And that sense of potential isolation that sort of builds around that for all of us. But and that seeming to be the biggest challenge of the next five to 10 years for leaders and everyone in work and everything. So what what do you see as the biggest challenge for the next five years? 5 - 10 years, I guess? Bruce Daisley 38:59 Yeah, I think you know, it's interesting when you, if you go onto glass door, the place where people can go in, review their employers, you still find that culture is the biggest consideration. I think people especially recognise it when they've worked through a toxic culture, or they've worked in an environment that makes them, sort of clouds their life, it sort of, you know, a bad job can just fill your life with dark storm clouds, it can it can make your whole life feel wretched and miserable, you can, you know, it can impact your relationship with the other people in your life. So work plays a really strong role in the lives that we lead. And I think, you know, critically, organisations that understand that and think about that are going to benefit. The things we witness are that, you know, that culture. That every team, to some extent, has its own cultures. It's not like just every company, every team, so you can work in, in one team with a group of people and the people on the next desks or the people in the, you know, the next team can have a very different experience. And so just understanding how you can make those connections more human, warmer, is just the challenge, you know, being entrepreneurial about those connections is just the challenge for for leaders right now. So, I suspect, you know, broadly we're going to witness that and societal loneliness has been going up I suspect that trend will continue. And so organisations that are able to create something that feels special while maybe only being in each other's company two or three days a week, that's going to be the the secret sauce really. How can you create a strong sense of cohesiveness, A strong team bond when you're not around each other every day? That's the the real, the opportunity for anyone to set about trying to create really. Zoe Amar 41:04 Yeah, definitely, if you get it right, it can be a real differentiator can't it. Bruce Daisley 41:09 Yeah, that's right. That's right. That's right. Zoe Amar 41:11 And then speaking of communities, obviously, you worked at Twitter previously. And there's been a lot going on with Twitter over the last few days. And isn't there at the moment? What's your prediction for what's going to happen to Twitter over the next couple of years? Bruce Daisley 41:28 Yeah, it's an interesting one that, you know, the think it's Elon Musk's quite a capricious leader, I think we're recognising, you know, he seems to change his mind a lot. And and as a result of that, I mean, look, there's a whole load of people who don't use Twitter and find this constant discussion of it to be sort of baffling. Why, why did we do we find ourselves talking about Twitter all the time, when we, we don't talk about Pinterest all the time, we don't, we don't talk about Snapchat, even, you know, Snapchats twice as big, but we don't talk about it, it just has no impact. So it demonstrates for the people who use it, it has this really big emotive part in their lives. But these, it's just an exhausting consequence of the way he's running things right now. It's just, you know, the constant stop, start the verifying then and unverifying people the changes to changes to the sort of the abuse policy just seems to be unpredictable. And the critical thing with Twitter, I think, is that it's, it's had relevance with journalists. And in Elon Musk's favour, it's been difficult to replace. What you find is that when any product has got a network effect to it, you know, it's got a natural strength, as soon as something is connected, you know, there's, there's not another internet, there's not another phone network, because, you know, everyone has to be on one network, you don't you don't get competitors to these things. And so, what I mean is, where you can find the same, you can find everyone in the world. But you know, so I think the challenge will be is if a competitor comes along, and, and represents a, an equally valid offering, I think, you know, as soon as you've got a substitute, people will willingly switch. And at the moment, there hasn't been a replacement for it. So most people I know are using it a bit less than they were using it before, and, and maybe trying to wean themselves off it. So, you know, he's a baffling character, because I think he's, he's worn a lot of people out with his, his constant changing, his perspective, and, and probably, you know, he already overpaid for Twitter, they paid about $44 billion. And it's probably worth about, it was probably worth about 10 billion. And, you know, conceivably it's gone down since he bought it. Zoe Amar 44:04 I think he needs to read your book, Bruce. Bruce Daisley 44:09 Yeah, he seems to be very focused on the individual and I don't think he's interested in, in collective strength really? Paul Thomas 44:17 Well, that's what I was gonna say. And I've sort of said, you know, in our, in our comments before, we sort of talked about falling out of love with Twitter, and I was, like, you know, bloody Mr. Twitter at the work I used to do, I was the person that set all the social media policies and got people thinking about it as a channel in the first place. And it's that sense of community that I think is the real core strength of it. I always harp on about the the halcyon days, and you probably their 2012. And around the Olympics, when Twitter just came to life. I mean, we were all talking about collective dread, there was a collective dread around the entire start of that Olympics, Olympic Games wasn't it, Oh my God, we're gonna look like idiots in front of the world. And it was just amazing, the whole thing from start to finish, brilliant, and all exacerbated by this sense of community and belonging that came through Twitter, it was just a joy to be on. And it's just gradually sort of slipped away from that. So it's interesting that that's the point we come back to, isn't it that he's so concentrated on the power of the individual, and the journalists and those types of people who are using it, do get individual connections out of it, but the sense of connection and community is the bit that really is suffering and disappearing into other platforms sadly. Bruce Daisley 45:31 Yeah, you're exactly right. And you know, there is something, there is something joyous about feeling like we're all in it together, it's a bit like when you do get those, whether it is you're a fan of Eurovision or, or tournament football, there is some sense of joy of knowing that you're experiencing this big event while other people are experiencing it, Twitter was able to tap into that, and to some extent magnify it. And, and I think, you know, when we get disconnected from those things, it's why big live events have still got such a draw to them. Because you know, if you can get loads of people watching the same thing and feeling like they're in it together, there's something transformational about those moments. And, and Twitter was very effective at creating them and harnessing them. And you know, when you've got someone who's fixated on themselves and their own, you know, for the, for all his wealth, he does seem to be someone who's preoccupied with what people think about him. And it just, it serves to reduce the magic of those moments I think. Zoe Amar 46:33 It's the power of community once again, isn't it? And that's quite a hopeful note to end on, actually, because we can't be the only people who are missing what Twitter once was because we're missing that sense of community and as I say people coming together. So a great reminder why that's so important. Bruce, thank you so much for coming on. Where should people go to find out more about your fantastic book? Bruce Daisley 46:57 Yeah I mean, look, you know, there's a website, eatsleepworkrepeat.com. That's got all of my stuff on it. But yeah, the books widely available. It's out in paperback now, which, which I always think is the when the books really arrived, when it's when it's in an affordable form, where you can shove it in your bag or your pocket. So yes, I've been blown away and thrilled by the response to it. And yeah, it's widely available now. Zoe Amar 47:23 Highly recommend. I loved reading it. Paul Thomas 47:26 we'll also have a couple of copies to give away as well. So stay tuned to the end of the podcast, and we'll tell you how you can get one. Zoe Amar 47:33 Absolutely. And we'll put links to everything in the show notes as always. Bruce, thank you so much for coming on today. That was wonderful. Bruce Daisley 47:40 Lovely to chat to you both. Zoe Amar 47:43 Thank you so much to Bruce for a great conversation. For more info about his book, Fortitude, do check out findfortitude.net and sign up to Bruce's newsletter, which I'm a big fan of, makeworkbetter.substack.com. I will put links to both of those in the show notes. And if you haven't listened to it already, we heartily regard his amazing podcast, eat sleep, work repeat, we also have two copies of Bruce's book fortitude to give away to our listeners. To be in with a chance of winning, sign up to our newsletter over at startsatthetop.co.uk Paul Thomas 48:26 And this is only the start, we've got really exciting guests coming up this season of Starts At The Top so standby for more information about that and more episodes coming up over the coming weeks. In the meantime, you can still find us on Twitter, we are still just about there. But watch out for us making a bit of a splash on Instagram fairly soon. We're at Startsatthetop1 on Twitter and you can also email us at startsatthetop@gmail.com Zoe Amar 48:52 And if you listen to us on Apple podcasts or anywhere else that you get your podcasts you can rate and review, please do. It all helps more listeners like you hear about Starts at the Top. We'll speak to you again in a couple of weeks. Thanks so much and see you next time. Paul Thomas 49:09 Thank you Transcribed by https://otter.ai