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 charity 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 arvato.co.uk/walesairambulance

Michelle P. King  1:06  
The worst way you can manage a hybrid workforce is transactional. You can't command and control and tell people what to do when they're working from home, you gotta coach,  you gotta delegate, you gotta support, you gotta provide feedback.

Zoe Amar  1:25  
Welcome to a brand new episode of Starts at the Top our podcast about leadership, digital and change. I'm Zoe Amar.

Paul Thomas  1:33  
And I'm Paul Thomas. Our podcast is all about leadership and brings you interviews with leaders who we believe are driving a positive change in the world. 

Zoe Amar  1:41  
Change comes in many forms and we're equally interested in speaking to leaders who are making incremental change and shifting the dial within their organisations. As we are speaking about huge systemic changes that impact the world of work. The driving force of our podcast is to share these stories across sectors and industries so that we can all learn from each other. 

Paul Thomas  2:04  
Our next three episodes are focused on books and interviews with their authors. Whilst we've approached these conversations from a leadership perspective, not all of these books are leadership books. The first up this week is our discussion with Dr. Michelle Penelope King, author of How Work Works: The subtle Science of getting ahead without losing yourself. 

Zoe Amar  2:22  
And next week, we have a conversation with Mathilda Della Torre, the author and founder of Conversations from Calais, which has refugee stories from the Calais camps. And the following week, we're sharing our discussion with Samuel Kasumu, one time adviser to Boris Johnson, and author of The Power of the Outsider: Journey of discovery. 

Paul Thomas  2:46  
So Zoe, Michelle's book covers some topics that we've covered on the podcast quite extensively, namely the changing work environment, certainly since Covid, but also about a new younger generation entering the workplace and starting with their careers. 

Zoe Amar  2:59  
Yeah, I thought Michelle was really fascinating of the subject of leadership and the importance of networks and also how organisational culture is really shifting and changing now post lockdown. What I really enjoyed hearing about from Michelle was about how leaders need to create work cultures that are truly focused on fulfilment, understanding what employees want from work, and what they're looking for from the workplace today. And that's also going to be a theme we're exploring in with another of our upcoming guests soon. 

Paul Thomas  3:32  
I think it was also good to explore the nature of leadership with Michelle and ask her the question: can leadership be taught? Or is it something that some of us have, and some of us just don't, and no spoilers as to Michelle's views, but I think there are natural leaders in all walks of life. But I'd certainly agree that it's wrong to say that it can't be built into us as we grow professionally. And personally. 

Zoe Amar  3:53  
It's a really interesting topic. Well, maybe we could just very briefly just for a moment, just pause and discuss that. I mean, you must have had at some point in your career, someone take you aside and say, Paul, you've got potential as a leader or Paul, as a emerging leader, have you thought about this? Was there a sort of moment where that happened for you?

Paul Thomas  4:15  
I don't know. I don't know. I think I mean, well, you know, apart from at scouts, I think I was a sixer for a little bit of time that I was there. So you know, that's literally the leader, of a little group of... can't remember what it's called? Perhaps one of my weaknesses is also a strength. I find it hard to let go of control. So I think what I find is, in my first sort of proper grown up job, I ended up as a client services manager, because well... people were leaving, people left, I wasn't the only one left, but people left and I sort of automatically felt like I could step up into that role. And so I think I've got that sort of drive in me to step up and say, Here I am. I'm willing to sort of take the lead. But I wouldn't necessarily have put myself forward as a natural leader. I mean, I think you and I, both really, are a little bit on the introverted side. So there's a sense of, it takes a lot of energy for me to step up into that type of role, but to a degree, I guess, but then I think it was really in my, in my sort of big, grown up job that I was in for 10 years, as you know, we talked about it before, Grant Thornton. And that was where I was sort of working, sitting down looking at their competency framework and saying, Hold on a minute, I think I should be higher up this because I'm doing all of these things. And, you know, you sort of recognise well I'm doing all these leadership type things and didn't even know I was doing them. That was the point where I said, Well, hold on a minute, surely I should be promoted. And my manager at the time went Yeah, you're right, you probably should. How about you...?

Zoe Amar  5:53  
Interesting... That's fascinating. And the reason why I just wanted to talk about this briefly, is, I think I've had a kind of similar trajectory, in some ways. I mean, when I was young, I would never, ever, ever have thought of myself as a leader, particularly when I was working in the city, which was before I came across to the charity sector. Never, never in a million years. And it was really only when I came across to the charity sector, and I started to get maybe a little bit more established in role after I'd been doing stuff there for a while. And people started talking to me about leadership and 'I see you as lead', and that sort of thing. And it felt very alien actually, to start with, not because those people weren't being lovely, but because I just genuinely did not see myself in that way. And one of the reasons why I think I've kind of carved out this weird portfolio career that I have, is because maybe I just don't see myself in that conventional template of leadership, not that there's anything wrong with that. And I'm sure there's something to do with that being a woman of colour and wanting to create my own path in some ways. And also, because I'm, you know, was never really sure when someone like me would fit into a conventional leadership path anyway. But it's interesting is it because I think your point about leaders being born, not made or made not born even, depending on your perspective, there's a lot of crossover there with our conversation with Michelle, or how do we create leaders? How do we nurture them? How do we find them? And obviously, that topic of what does leadership look like now? Really similar to some things we discussed with Sarah Hughes and also a topic, we will be exploring more in the future hopefully.

Paul Thomas  7:41  
Yeah, I think it's going to definitely come up time and time and time again, isn't it? And I think it's different for everyone. But you know, there are those people that certainly in the world of sports, you know, obviously interested in the world of sports, where people say, a natural born leader, and you actually wonder where it has come from. And I don't think it is always natural, because, you know, you start off in the sporting world, and in the lower leagues in, you know, grassroots football and stuff like that, for example. It's really hard to see some of that emerging. And whispered quietly. I see some of that in my own son, who has recently been made captain of his team. And because he's not afraid, I think it's basically finding that voice and bit not being afraid to have an opinion, and talk about things and start to show those qualities that sort of get recognised and get you propped up as a leader or in a leadership position. I think the danger is sort of accepting that person, as the leader, and then ignoring those traits or the traits that other people within the team are starting to show around that thing. And you see that in sports and you see it in the working life as well. So I think it's a topic that we'll continue to tap into on this podcast. 

Zoe Amar  8:58  
Now for our conversation with Michelle.

We are very excited to welcome Dr. Michelle Penelope King to the podcast today. She is a globally recognised expert on inequality and organisational culture. Based on over a decade's worth of research, Michelle believes that we need to learn how workplaces work so we can make them work for everyone. She is host of the popular podcast The Fix, and she's also the author of the best selling award winning book, The fix How to overcome the invisible barriers that are holding women back at work. Her second book, How Work Works The Subtle Science of Getting Ahead Without Losing Yourself will be published imminently in the UK with Harper Collins. And we're going to talk to you about that today. Michelle is the founder of The Culture Practice, a global DEI consultancy that provides leaders and employees with the assessment, development and inclusion coaching needed to build cultures that value difference, and we're going to be talking about that theme as we go through our conversation today. She's also a senior adviser to the UN Foundation's Girl Up Campaign, which enables young women to navigate and overcome the barriers to their success. Before this, Michelle was the director of inclusion at Netflix. And before that, she was the head of UN Women's Global Innovation Coalition for change, which included managing over 30 private sector partnerships to accelerate the achievement of gender equality and women's empowerment. Michelle has two decades of international experience working in the private sector. And in each of her roles, Michelle lends her expertise to advancing workplace cultures that work for everyone. Michelle is a published award winning academic as well and clearly a woman of many talents. And we're looking forward to hearing more about all of that today. Michelle, welcome to Starts at the Top.

Michelle P. King  10:52  
Thank you so much for having me. What a long bio goodness, thanks Zoe that's very embarrassing. Thank you very much. 

Zoe Amar  11:00  
Not at all we wanted to do you justice. We're so pleased that you're here today. And thank you for coming. I'd love to talk about your new book. It's very exciting. So let's begin at the for coming. I'd love to talk about your new book. It's very exciting. So let's begin at the beginning. Can you tell people a bit about what the book is about and what prompted you to write it. 

Michelle P. King  11:16  
Sure. So How Work Works. The subtitle is The Subtle Science of Getting Ahead Without Losing Yourself is really a book that explains the how of work. So what I mean by that is, you know, most of the books on how to get ahead will focus on what you need to do, right. And it's very much a win lose mentality, this idea that you work harder if you hustle more, that's how you can get ahead. And actually, as a researcher, having spent the better part of 20 years researching organisations, I've really looked at, you know, what does it take to get ahead? So we all know people in organisations, who don't really have the performance goals, or the background or the education to get the promotion they get and, you know, leaves a lot of questions like, how did they get there. And so for me, I wanted to understand that and I researched it, I had a good look at it. And what you find is companies have all the formal processes in place policies in place around how they promote how they develop. But the reality is, all of this tends to happen in the informal. And so for me with How Work Works, I wanted to show, you know, not only how this has happened in the past, so in many ways, it's created a tonne of inequality in workplaces, but also how the world of work has changed. And so how, you know, we need to manage our interactions with one another, we need to manage the informal side of working life, quite literally how we undertake our tasks, because the new world of work is more informal is more ambiguous, and it's only going to get, you know more so. So we have to really invest in understanding how we work together. Because there are very few jobs where you can go in and just do a task, and variably to you know, do your job, you have to work with others. In fact, it's about 83% of jobs require some form of collaboration. And so knowing how to work with others really enables what you can achieve. So I always say how is more important than than what you do. So we need to focus on that and understand it. So this book already tries to reveal the four ways in which workplaces work, and you know why that matters for your career success.

Zoe Amar  13:23  
And that's really bringing that conversation about the how of work out into the open, isn't it in a way that I think is very refreshing. And do you think that workforces now, people working in organisations, do they have greater expectations on transparency? 

Michelle P. King  13:40  
I think so. I mean, I think one of the challenges I just want to put in context for your listeners, is whenever you hear things like informal or persuading or managing how work gets done, it always sounds a bit, a little bit devious, right? Because we're associated with things like office politics, so we start to think of this in terms of that 1950s workplace where it's cloak-and- dagger and people are doing things behind and people's backs. And it's all about who you know. And often we associate that with the old boys network. And all of those sort of images and associations are actually correct. Like in the 1950s, the informal side of working, was dominated by white men in particular, there were a whole bunch of informal rules for how you network, how you collaborate, that did exclude a huge percentage of the population. That has changed. So I'll give you a quick example, in the book, one of the areas of the four areas we focus on really looks at informal networks. So we all know about informal networks, we all know about how important they are for career success. If your listeners don't know 70% of all jobs come through the informal network and are not even advertised, right. So it matters, like who you know, and how you manage those connections matters. In the 1950s, you could just informally network with white men, and be okay, because white men made up you know, the majority of leadership positions, that has changed as workplaces become more demographically diverse, probably one of the worst things you can do is only you know, network with people who look like the dominant group. So diversifying your network is arguably one of the most important things you can do in terms of managing your employability in the future. So that's one way that it's changed. And so yes, absolutely. For a lot of people they feel like in the past, it wasn't transparent, because it wasn't. The reality is today, though, how workplaces are functioning is they are more informal, they are more ambiguous. And so this book aims to actually bring to light or what is the informal look like, from a scientific basis, what is it when we're talking about informal? How does that function? And more importantly, how can we do this in a way that is more equitable, and that is ultimately will benefit us. Because I think in the past, you know, while those systems might have worked to keep certain people in positions of power, was actually largely very detrimental to organisations. So I can share examples of that as well. But I think it actually did more harm than good. And a great example of that today is, you know, I had a white male in a leadership position, I was coaching last week who has just lost a job, he cannot reach out to anyone in his informal network for, you know, future jobs, because he hasn't been managing it and everybody in his informal network looks like him. And he, you know, just hasn't got that diversity in his network to really help them access jobs. And we know how important it is to manage that. So he's an example of someone who hasn't invested in his informal network and where he has largely, people similar to him in his organisation at the same level, that actually can't really help them with access and jobs. So diversifying networks, just a great example of the way in which we need to make a lot of the informal side of working life all transparent. 

Zoe Amar  16:46  
Amazing, yeah, I think that's, that's absolutely fascinating. And you talked about those kinds of different pillars, those different pathways, which I know is such a big theme of the book, can you tell people in a bit about what those are and what people need to be doing about them? 

Michelle P. King  17:03  
Sure. So I mean, I've touched on informal networks, but I feel like we could do one whole podcast episode on that. And if we have time, I'd really like to talk through the tangible things people can do to grow their informal network just because it is so important. And you know, for a lot of people, they're even thinking, well, what is my informal network, so we can talk through that. But informal networks have a starting point. And then the second piece around this is what I noticed in my own research was what I call informal information sharing. That's just a fancy term for people sharing bits of information that either help you do your job or help give you some form of advice or help provide some form of social support. And what you find is generally your ability to access informal information is going to build your self awareness. So we know that about 90% of people lack self awareness, 90, nine, zero. And why does that matter? It matters because people tend to either overestimate how good they are, or underestimate how good they are. Now, if you're an underestimated listening to this, where you consistently think you're worse than you are, I've got good news, you can become self aware by doing some of the practices that I'll share in a minute. But if you're an over estimator, it's a lot harder. So over estimators simply aren't open to feedback, right? So self awareness is really understanding how you see yourself and then how others perceive that in terms of your behaviours, and the impact those behaviours have and knowing how to close that gap. And the problem with over estimaters is that they're just not open to the feedback in order to do that. Why does that matter? Because just having one over estimater on your team can reduce your team's performance by 50%. And the reason for that is because that person is going to be quite belligerent. They're going to have their idea you know, they're what we call in academia, the competent jerks. We all know the people who just refuse to take feedback, don't modify their behaviour, aren't managing how they come across, and it can derail a whole team's, sort of morale. So that's, you know, I think what we've got to recognise a lot of us aren't self aware and the hierarchy of an organisation, the more sort of challenges you've got with it. So in academia, one of the terms we use is we call it the CEO disease, because leaders really lack access to a lot of that feedback, and the type of feedback they get not really helpful, and so they don't moderate their behaviour. So self awareness is a big one. And then I think the third piece is really around informal development. So you know, 70% of all learning happens on the job, we've really got to get to a place where we start to manage how we're learning because that's gonna affect our employability. So your potential in terms of how far you can progress up an organisational hierarchy, or the types of projects you can take on if you just want to stay at the level you're at all depends on your ability to learn. And the challenge is, most of us don't even realise it's our job, right? Your workplace is not going to give it to you. So if 70% of learning happens informally, happens on the job. And if social and emotional skills are what we need to develop in this new world of work, we've got to know how do we do that on the job. So the book shares how to do that. And then finally, I'd say one of the most important things to think about is how you're managing your advancement. So I don't just mean this in terms of like getting to the next level, I think it's recognising the world of work has changed. And how it's changed really requires that you manage your employability both within and outside of the organisation. So most people don't sort of actively manage their employability and think about the way in which they've got to invest in in their career, so I share you know how to do that. And importantly, how to find meaning at work. Because something we don't talk about, it's become really uncool is how you know workplaces, they're the place we spend the most number of hours, right in a day, next to sleeping, work is number one, right, in terms of waking hours, over a lifetime. And for some reason, it's become uncool to care about work. And for me, what we've got to recognise is, you know, your workplace can be meaningful, no matter what you do, even if you do a mundane task, and it needs to be meaningful, nine out of 10 of us would forego a significant portion of our earnings. In fact, as much as we spend on housing, for greater meaning at work, and meaning really comes through connections that comes through understanding how do you build your own fulfilment in your workplace, even if you hate your boss, even if you hate what you do. And so I think somehow, in the conversations around workplaces, we've lost the point that we are our workplaces. If you hate going to work every day, I've got bad news for you, you're contributing to that. So this book really shares how you can find meaning how you can take back some of that control, and actually enjoy going to work which is a big part of all of us. 

Zoe Amar  21:47  
And the world of work, I mean is obviously changing hugely, isn't it, you talk there about how employees and what they want and their expectations to change as much as what they need to do. And we're really seeing this plate shifting nature of how work is beginning to evolve post pandemic with the drive of hybrid working the need for greater inclusion, also the rise of AI and you talk about all of those things in your book as well. If we could all get into a time machine now, how do you think the world of work is going to change over the next few years?

Michelle P. King  22:20  
Well, so a couple of things. I think this framing is quite important for the audience. I say the world of work has actually already changed. So I share this great little story about a monk who's calling out to a Zen master on the other side of a riverbank. And he says, you know, how do I get to the other side and the monk looks left looks right. Sort of pauses for a minute and then yells back, you are on the other side. And I think the point of this for me is for the audience to take away we are on the other side, the automation is here, right? And our ability to navigate this new world of work is really critical. So what do I think people need to take away in terms of how do you prepare, I think the first thing is recognising you're going to work with people who do not share your background, you're going to work for people who do not share your background in terms of demographic characteristics. So it's really important that you understand how to bridge your differences of others that requires advanced social and emotional skills. The second piece is even with the rise of technological skills, studies show that those roles in particular, they need advanced social and emotional skills, because technical roles in particular, those individuals are not going to work just on their own, they're going to have to collaborate, right? I think the third thing is recognising workplaces are going to become much more informal. So we're seeing a reduction in hierarchies, organisations are becoming flatter and arguably one of the most at risk roles and organisations are mid level managers. So those roles are disappearing, and you're getting a lot more self managing teams, particularly in a hybrid work environment, right. And we know you know, people have debates over hybrid. It's really exhausting. I have a whole rant on that in the book. The reality is hybrid is here to stay there are a tonne of costs associated with that, one of which is more ambiguity. So it becomes a lot harder to navigate a hybrid environment because you're not getting a whole person's context, you don't know the morning they've had at home, you can't see the environment that they're in, right, you can't read all their social cues, it's a lot harder to do that informal stuff in a hybrid environment. So all of this boils down to the fact that workplaces are becoming more ambiguous, more informal and requiring a greater level of social and emotional skills. So the message to the audience if you want to future proof your career focus on social and emotional skills, which the book really takes you through right, four ways to do that. I think anyone who's sitting here going, how true is this...? 75% of your career success depends on your social and emotional skills, not on your technical skills, technical skills account for 25%. One of the reasons for that, it's very easy to learn, you go on a course. And you can learn the technical skills, right, you can brush up on that you can't do that with social emotional skills, you can go on as many courses as you want. But those skills are learned through practice, they learn through trial and error through observing through getting feedback from your peers. So that's why you've got to invest more in developing those skills,

Zoe Amar  25:12  
Are we preparing young people enough for this, do you think for this society, because what you've described there is this very ambiguous shape shifting landscape, for goodness knows when I came into the workforce, 20 years ago, I found it hard enough to read the intentions of, say, senior partners in the firm that I was working, let alone with all these new developments that we were seeing now and you describe it so well in your book, I mean, as a parent and Paul as a parent as well, what should we be doing to prepare our young people for this, you know, quite challenging, very sophisticated world of work that they're going to be joining in a few years time.

Michelle P. King  25:48  
So Zoe, I have really bad news, really bad news... so the bad news is I just did a study on Gen Z and millennials. So 1000 from the UK 1000 from the US on exactly this question. Right? So really trying to understand their ability to navigate ambiguity, variability, navigate informal social and emotional skills, how comfortable are they? So a couple of things, the report is actually being released in I think, a week and a half.

Zoe Amar  26:15  
Ooh, interesting.

Michelle P. King  26:17  
Yeah, well, I'll share some of the highlights so I think that the main sort of highlight and takeaway is that there's a higher rate of social anxiety. So Gen Z, millennials, in particular will say, look, we think we've got the social skills we need to do our job, employers are saying we don't think you do, right. And what you're seeing is they believe that the skills they need to navigate the social aspects of work, however, 9 out of 10, millennials and Gen Z's actively avoid social interactions at work because of social anxiety. So my point is social and emotional skills are learned behaviours, right? They're things we can develop and cultivate over time through practice, if you're not engaging those skills, because you're actively avoiding social situations, because they make you anxious, you're not developing the skill sets. That's why there's a discrepancy between what younger generations believe the skills they believe they have and what employers present. So that's one aspect. The second aspect is, it logically follows that social and emotional skills happen in the informal. So how comfortable is this generation with informal? What we're seeing is they are less comfortable, right? So there was a separate report that came out showing, you know, particularly for millennials, they're a lot less comfortable. There's sort of 70% or below average on their ability to navigate ambiguity. So ambiguity is like, can you solve problems that don't have a ready made answer? Are you comfortable doing things without clear instructions, all of that? So how does this show up for people at work? Well, a great example of this is you'll get a millennial and I've just made that cut off. So you'll get a millennial saying to manager, hey, when you want that report by, right, and the boomer might come out and say, Look, if you can get it to me by Tuesday, that'd be great. Now to a boomer that says 5pm, Tuesday, that report better be on my desk, right? That's the subtext of what's being said what the millennial hears is, at some point, next week, early next week, that'd be nice. Right? So they might get it Wednesday, might get a Thursday. So that's where you see the conflict show up. We're actually for millennials and below, you need more explicit instructions, and more explicit feedback. So we see those generations really wanting regular, more regular explicit feedback on how they are going. So why is this? Why are we seeing a decline of their ability to manage ambiguity and the informal side? Social media. So if we just think about dating and apps like Tinder or Bumble, you know, back in the day, you would have to go to a bar, you'd have to look at the social cues as to whether someone's looking at you if they're even slightly interested to then decide if you go over and talk to them and engage with them. Today, you swipe left or right, I don't even know right, but you swipe one of the way that's it. That's it. So the the ability to develop some of those social skills has actually declined right at a time where we actually need them now more than ever, so I call this the ambiguity paradox. And the challenge is, I think, managers from sort of that older generation struggle to realise that not only do younger generations not have the same skill sets, because they haven't grown up in the same context. But they also don't realise what younger generations need. So one of the more sort of shocking statistics that came through was for this cohort. In my study, what we found was for those participants, 75% of them said, the number one cause of stress for them at work was their line leader. So what we're seeing are managers are just not managing this generation, and... or those two generations the way that they need. 

Paul Thomas  29:49  
I think this is getting really into the crux of why... it's a situation we're in at the moment, both Zoe and I, as we said, we got kids around that age. And one of the things we've noticed with our eldest is, this sense of, the pandemic and lockdown really affected them in the way that I think, home and the attributes of home became this really completely safe place in more ways than one than it ever was before. You know, we tried to keep creating a safe place as a parent, but this was a safe place when the world was dangerous. And that time, they missed out on those crucial years of school and education, where it was transitioning from one school to the other, those informal networks as friend networks that they were creating all of that as suffered. And I think you're exactly right, a lot of that is based around anxiety and the social media aspect of it, they only communicate through a device, they only communicate through a phone. And that sort of juxtaposition of that generation going into a workplace that's populated by people that just have no time for that, the amount of times that we've heard that this generation just isn't interested in hard work. It's not true at all. It's just that they don't understand work in the same paradigm as we do. It just exists differently. So I guess, the book is, is going to help people towards this, but how do you equip leaders to have that conversation with the people that are entering their workplace and not just dismiss it?

Michelle P. King  31:26  
So I think the first thing I would say, and look, the book is written for, in particular, for emerging talents, it's written for anybody who is looking to advance in their work. But in particular, younger generations coming through, I think this is a really helpful book because it shows you how the world of work has changed. It shows you the new ways of working. I think for managers, it's helpful because a lot of managers are leading in that transactional command and control 1950s way that might have worked in the 1950s, where people come in and just do one task and leave. And so you're managing people who are just doing a task. That's not the world we're in today. So the world of work today is called the hyper social workplace, right, to get anything done, you've got to work with other people. So what I would say to managers in particular, is like, you have to make sure that you are, you, yourself are investing in self awareness. So if I, not only is the self awareness gap big with graduates, but I argue the reason it's big with graduates is because it's big with managers. So if I look at mid level managers across the board on things that matter, particularly to younger generations, you know, we look at inclusion as an example, 45% of employees experiences of inequality at work, are directly attributable to the line leader. And again, there was a HBR study that came up the other day that aligned with my findings, which found that 75% of mental health challenges at work are directly attributable to the mid level leaders, right. And what we're finding is we've got managers who really don't know how to manage because organisations have pushed this transactional way of leading, we're actually the context has changed, the worse way you can manage a hybrid workforce is transactional, you can't command and control and tell people what to do when they're working from home, you got to coach you got to delegate got to support, you got to provide feedback, you've got to have a difficult conversation. And those are things that managers by and large, don't know how to do. So I would say if you're a manager sitting there, and you're thinking, well, I want to do this better. How can I actually get some feedback that's going to help me understand how someone else is perceiving the impact of how I'm managing? I would say the first thing we know is if people aren't comfortable giving you feedback, that's going to be a challenge. So one study came out that said, if you just spend 15 minutes a day for 10 days, the 15 minutes a day for 10 days, reflecting on the following three things. What went well at work today? What could I, you know, what didn't go so well? And what could I do differently? So maybe five minutes on each question, you will increase your self awareness by 23% in just 10 days, and that's because you're taking time to reflect right and I think there's other studies that show asking sort of why questions like why did that millennial do that and get the report to me on Wednesday, it must be because they lazy, really unhelpful. So you want to shift from why questions to what questions, like, what could I have done to get a different outcome? What would have been a better way to do this? Right? And I think managers do spend a lot of time in the why. And that's where the stereotypes and biases and inequality creep in, rather than on what can we do differently to make this work better? I think the second thing is around feedback a lot of managers I've worked with, and this is my anecdotal view, I really struggle with giving and receiving feedback effectively. So in the book, I actually have a model for how to do that. It's my ACM model, it's my gift to your audience, which is if you are trying to give feedback, so if we go back to the report problem of getting that not on Tuesday at 5pm, as you wanted, I think managers, you know, A stands for awareness, you want to make the person aware of the impact their behaviour has, hey, you know what, you didn't get that report, I thought I communicated that the impact was, you know, we didn't get out on time. And we missed a deadline with client. C stands for corrective action, like in the future, what you know, what can we do to actually make sure the deadlines are clear, that's where you're gonna get inside on, P hey, I've not been clear enough for this person, they need more clarity. And then M is moving on. So my biggest thing for managers is they make it weird, right? They make it weird. So they give the feedback, then the person gets upset, then they're upset. And next thing, the person who's giving the feedback is crying, like, the whole thing becomes a drama. And I think, again, in that transactional world of leading, where you just told someone what to do, you could get away with just barking at them right for not getting the report done. That's not the world we're in now. So managers have to find a different way to do this. And I think managers that are really effective at managing across generations, give and receive feedback all the time, it's just how they work. And they are open to it themselves. So they will use ACM almost account for themselves before they've even kind of you know, given someone else feedback. So the manager might have said, hey, you know what, I didn't get on time, was I clear? Was there something different I could do and then move on. So I don't see enough of that with with managers. There's a lot of generational blaming, rather than trying to understand differences.

Paul Thomas  36:07  
It's really interesting, because the way I'm listening to you now I'm thinking, that's the way we have conversations with our children. So I think there's a rebadging of your book, that can be How Parenting Works, because it's exactly that, those are the types of conversations we try to have with our children. But it's funny because I used to do a lot of work around getting people to invest in their informal networks, through social media within organisations. And one of the things that we always talked about there was this new generation coming into the organisation with all of the tools, they know how to do this, they're equipped with social media, they're equipped with the phones, they're equipped with all of that stuff. And that's really exciting to see how that impacts on the world of work. But what they're met with is this barrier of resistance, which is no, this is the way things get done round here. This is the way that things have always been done. And what you're saying here makes me think that that's only going to increase and the less this middle layer, that starts to think in that way that people are going to young people are going to be entering organisations all over the world going, I've got these great ideas, and I want to be heard and just not. We've heard from people on this podcast that they won't stick around, that organisation will lose out in the long term because the young people coming in who aren't listened to, will just go off and do it somewhere else, do that work somewhere else where they are accepted and where these organisations are open up to that. So I think, you know, that's my sort of read on it's exactly right, but they will move on, they're not going to wait around for the organisation to get with the programme. 

Michelle P. King  37:35  
100% Yeah, I mean, that's it. That's it in a nutshell, they'll quit or they'll quietly quit, which I think is just the worst thing in organisations. Quiet quitting, I talk about at the end of the book, but that for me is such an example of where we're at today. Like how and the interesting thing about quiet quitting. So when someone comes up, does the bare minimum leaves but actually isn't making a positive overall contribution isn't contributing beyond just the task, you know, that for me is a disengaged employee and the cost of that on businesses... studies showing the cost and the interesting thing is individuals think, well, I'm getting what I want, right? I'm doing the bare minimum getting paid. Not true. So actually, your mental health, your sort of morale, your engagement, your fulfilment, it's negatively impacting you. So I think what we have to recognise, again, is not employee versus manager versus organisation. We're all in this together because we want to go to work, we want to make a contribution, we want to enjoy what we're doing and find some meaning from it. Those are core fundamental psychological needs, right? There's three of them. Like you want some autonomy and freedom over what you do. You want some sense of competence and mastery over your tasks, your ability to feel good about what you're doing. And you want to make sure that in your organisation, you have opportunities to connect with others. Three core needs every single person has them in different ways, different amounts in organisations, and I think when we do quiet quitting or anything like that we forget that actually we are a workplace and the person we're hurting is ourselves. So I don't think it's also just about quitting either. I think we have to start taking some ownership back on. Well, how can I meet my needs? You know? And the reason I say this is because it's quite likely you're going to work for someone who's not great at managing, like, just the odds are that those are the odds, right? I hate said, but I'm a researcher. And that's what the data tells us. So it's more about well, how do you navigate that if you're working for someone who's not great? And you know, how do you still get fulfilment? How do you still get mastery, and there are moments where people can quit, but not everybody can afford to? So we have to find other ways to make it work.

Zoe Amar  40:00  
Yeah, absolutely. So we talked there about the relationship between the manager and the leader, and also, obviously the team as well. And that takes us really nicely on to one of the most moving chapters in your book about inclusion and belonging and some of the insights from it. And as a woman of colour, that chapter really resonated with me. So you talked about how something as simple as being ignored by colleagues, you know, so social spaces in the workplace can lead to a 25% decline in someone's performance on a team project. You also talked about how the part of our brain that registers physical pain is activated when people exclude us from social groups. And that, again, really resonated with me because as a woman of colour, when I've been in a situation, sometimes when I felt excluded in the workplace, you feel it bodily, I would say as well as mentally. So for all the leaders out there who do want to help their teams feel that they've got that greater sense of belonging in the workplace, what practical things can they do to create that?

Michelle P. King  40:52  
What a good question... So this book, just for the audience, it isn't like some manifesto on inclusion, because I do talk about that on the first one, but as Zoe shared, you know, we really do, I do go into belonging. And the reason I go into belonging it's because it's a fundamental human need, that drives a lot of our behaviours and interactions at work. So, you know, thanks for sharing the impact that had because you write this and you think, well, I don't know how this is gonna land, you know. So it's great that you know, you saw your experience in it. I think, for managers, the first thing to recognise is, I get really frustrated with the view that somehow diversity and inclusion is an add on right, rather than like a core fundamental part of business. And I do feel that current diversity and inclusion initiatives have failed and have failed managers have failed leaders in understanding and enrolling in particular the dominant group, which was white men. So if I look at my own work, my own research from my first book, it's very clear, most of the initiatives we're putting in place do not work a very expensive, like companies in the US, for example, spend 7 billion a year on DEI initiatives. And you know, what we're finding is pretty consistently half of their employee population at any one time feel some level of isolation, disengagement exclusion in their workplace. So we've got a lot of managers, a lot of backlash, particularly out of the US now happening where people like can this DEI stuff go away, when can we get on with real work, it excludes men, exhausted with it, right. And the reality is, what we've missed is this is the job of a leader. This is core business, because workplaces are hyper social workplaces. So how we work enables what we can achieve. So the productivity, the safety, you know, the profitability of the organisation, all depends on getting people to work effectively together. And so for me, the starting point is recognising this is my job. This isn't some magical add on. And if I wasn't looking at it before, that's on me, because I was leading in that transactional way and missing the context of change. I think the second thing is to really focus on the lived experience. So what do I mean by that? A lot of leaders love looking at the numbers, right? How many women do I have? How many racial ethnic minority women? How many people with disabilities? Like give me the numbers... I'm here to tell you, the numbers are an outcome, right? They're not an input. So what do I mean by that? Workplaces, in a McKinsey study, showed to have become more demographically diverse, but less inclusive. So we're not even harnessing the value of the diversity we're bringing into organisations so what are we doing? So to really see the value of diverse perspectives to get the innovation and the collaboration you want to seek to get greater creativity, you know, you have to as an organisation, invest in the lived experience. So understanding, you know, how does a black woman experience our team? What is it like for someone with a disability to work in an office environment or to work virtually. How people experiencing the team and for leaders they work for a culture survey in order to know this. You don't need to do that. So you can ask people so if you're listening to this, one way to stop is I would encourage you again the self awareness gap we just talked about, ask your team members these five questions, you can do this in a group or one on one, and then play back what you find. So the first question would be, you know, what would a culture that really values people differences look like? So what would a team environment look like? Well, we really value individual differences, what would that look like? And then the second question should be, you know, what does inequality look like in a team environment? So how does that show up discrimination? What does that look like in how we're experiencing the organisation? The third question should be, you know, what can we do over the next 12 months to create an environment where we really value differences? What would that look like? And then the two hardest questions are, what am I not doing as a leader to create that environment? And what do I need to stop doing as a leader to create that environment? If every leader made it a practice to regularly ask those questions, you would start to see some major gains on, you know, how we're tackling the inclusion experience. The problem is, leaders aren't owning the agenda. That's why 46% of employees experiences of inequality are directly attributable to line leaders behaviour, leaders aren't leading. And as a result, they're not creating cultures that are inclusive. 

Zoe Amar  45:08  
And as you say, that's such a key part of the job now isn't. And if you were a leader, who was say, interviewing a leader, who you think you're bringing into the organisation, how do you really screen for that? Because what I love about your questions, they're really tangible, practical things that leaders can ask, as you say, there's so many people out there just talking about DEI now aren't there, but if I'm a leader who's trying to hire another leader, what can I ask at the interview to find out if they're really committed to creating that sense of belonging in their team?

Michelle P. King  45:44  
So we could ask a lot of questions Zoe, but I actually asked every leader this question when I was interviewed for my role at Netflix, so the question is, what do you do every day, to practice inclusion. And what I found even in my own research, outside of, you know, when I'm interviewing leaders to decide if I want to work in that company, is most leaders cannot tell you. So when I did my PhD, that was one of the questions and most leaders could not tell me what they do, either on a daily basis on a regular basis, to build an inclusive workplace or to practice inclusion or to... they cannot give you a tangible thing. So you know, this is where we see DEI or diversity and inclusion are separate from what we do. It's actually, it is the job. So leaders should be able to say, hey, these are the ways I'm actively building collaboration in my team. These are the ways I'm building a high performing team by getting people to share their ideas and behave inclusively. These are the ways I'm resetting what good looks like as a set of behaviours to make sure people know this, and I'm gonna hold them accountable to, these are the ways I'm managing people's experiences by collecting their feedback, understanding, you know, how I'm showing up, how I need to change, you know, what we need to do as a team, to make sure we're building an environment where people feel safe, people feel like they can contribute in a culture that is inclusive employees are six times more likely to innovate. This is the job of managers today. The problem is it feels like nobody said that. And as a result, managers still think it's literally managing by objectives and walking around and, you know, that's what this whole push to going back into the office is all about. It's what we're comfortable. It's what we know, it's presenteeism, and there is no relationship, the data, all the data will tell you, there is zero relationship between presenteeism so how much time I spend in the office and productivity. So in my first book, I shared a wonderful study. It's a big study in America that shows the most productive employees and organisations are mothers and specifically mothers of two children. As a mother of two children, I promise you, I know why that is because I don't have the time to do anything other than when I'm at work, work and produce and focus on it, right. And so the problem is, I think we need to really upskill managers to understand how to lead in this new world and recognise this is their job.

Paul Thomas  48:04  
Is part of the challenge here the differentiation between what we call leaders and managers, because we're talking about leaders, not just in this conversation, but in our podcast generally, because we're talking about leaders, not just in this conversation, but in our podcast. Generally,
 we talk about leaders and leadership all the time. And that's not a job title at all. Manager is a job title. Leadership is a behaviour, it's a capability that you either have or you don't have. And we just put an episode out today with Ben Williams, CEO of Loopin and we have this exact conversation with him that leadership isn't learned behaviour within organisations. It's really, it's noticed, you have leadership ability, you don't have leadership ability. So we're going to focus on you and not you. And actually the challenge here is that we have a whole bunch of people who are called managers who are looked at as leaders and have no leadership capability whatsoever.

Michelle P. King  48:56  
Wow. Okay. I really disagree with all of that. And so the reason I disagree with it is because is... So we come back to research right, definitions are important. So what do we mean by leadership? If I ask you what does a leader look like and you close your eyes and you imagine it, I want the audience to do this now unless you're driving, is you're gonna picture a white middle class, heterosexual, able bodied male who is dominant, assertive, aggressive, competitive, and exclusionary. Don Draper, if you watch Mad Men and that show about the... that's the image, right? We've all got an image of who this is, that is consistent across operating environments, context geographies, over the last 30 years, in 97% of organisations, they have this deeply ingrained, I've called into my own data success prototype, it's that mental image of what good looks like when it comes to leading. So the reason it's unhelpful to say some people are just naturally more leader like is what do we mean by leader like, because leader like historically, is extremely gendered. It's extremely racialized. It's extremely classist. It's extremely ableist. And it's associated with outdated ideas that actually no longer serve us. So men need this freedom, by the way to deviate from that standard more than anybody else. Because men, their masculinity is tied to that outdated leadership standard that actually doesn't serve them. So when men deviate from it, and try to be more inclusive, more democratic and caring, they're not only seen, as you know, deviating from it, and now penalised because they're not conforming to this outdated notion of what a leader looks like. So they're seen as less leader like, but they're also seen as less of a man. Right? Even though the context is changing, those behaviours are more effective. So what we need to do is recognise while that might have been the standard back in the 1950s, and my book goes into historical reasons for how the standard came about, what we have to recognise is the world of work has changed, that standard no longer works. A leader today who is effective is anyone from a demographic background who is inclusive, democratic, caring, curious, like a leader who really engages in behaviours that focus on managing the lived experience. I would disagree with whoever you mentioned before that absolutely, can you teach curiosity and practices associated with it? Yes. Can you teach someone how to be democratic, caring...? Absolutely. Are there people who have sort of natural personality traits that might be better suited to that way of leading, of course. But this idea that we box people in you are naturally born a leader, absolute nonsense, like leadership is contextual, you can learn it and it's about understanding how do I lead in this new world of work? One thing I will say is that if we go back to my earlier point, that mid level managers are sort of leading organisations, I would argue that you're absolutely correct. So what do we mean by leader versus manager, if managers are going, you've got a lot more self managing teams, I would argue that most of us actually are going to have leadership responsibilities. So I'll give you a quick example. A lot of decisions around pay and performance ratings in organisation studies are showing increasingly are going to be made by your peers. So in self managing teams, the future pay and promotion decisions are going to be up to your team to give feedback and input into how well you're doing and whether or not you deserve that bonus, or that promotion, I think is going to be made much more by consensus. So arguably, we all have a leadership role to play in demonstrating those new attributes and the new sort of leader in this context, that is hyper social.

Zoe Amar  52:28  
This has been fascinating. Michelle, thank you. So if we could just ask you one final question before we wrap up. So if I'm a leader, and I'm listening to this, and I'm thinking God, I really want to prepare my team for this new world of work that's coming at us fast. What is the one thing that they can start doing today that's going to make the biggest difference? 

Michelle P. King  52:48  
Oh, what a good question. I think the number one thing I would say, is focus on how your team is working, rather than what your team is achieving or doing. So try and get that reshift the balance from when you're in a team meeting, don't just focus on the agenda, don't just focus on the task. Let's talk about how are we going to do that. If you have a project how are we going to make sure we've got diverse perspectives on that to enable some of the innovation and the diversity of thought? How are we going to make sure on the team meeting, we're collaborating effectively, and everybody's got an opportunity to talk? How are we going to evaluate the way in which we're all showing up to ensure effective collaboration, problem solving and creativity as we work together to manage the how and get your teams to focus on the how and this is true for setting goals. So when you set your KPIs set goals around the house, and it's also true when it comes to performance reviews, that when you give your team feedback, don't just give them feedback on what their... nobody wants to work with a competent jerk. So studies show people would rather work with a lovable fool then a competent jerk. So the reality is we want to work with people that are easy to work with. And I think managers have to recognise the how really matters, that matters in terms of your team's moral, all of that. Everything we want is on the other side of how, to try and shift that balance in terms of how you manage.

Zoe Amar  54:09  
Everything we want is on the other side of how. I'm going to get that made into a sign in neon and put on my kitchen wall. Michelle, thank you so much. It's been brilliant to talk to you today. We have loved hearing about the book. Can you tell our listeners where they can get your book?

Michelle P. King  54:25  
Yeah, sure. So I mean, all major retailers, but Amazon's always a safe bet, particularly in the United Kingdom. But all major retailers will stop the book. You can also visit my website, michellepking.com. And all the retailers are up there as well.

Zoe Amar  54:40  
Wonderful and we'll include some links in the show notes. Michelle, thank you so much. It's been wonderful to chat to you. Thanks for coming on Starts at the Top.

Paul Thomas  54:47  
Thank you very much. 

Michelle P. King  54:48  
Thank you Paul, such a privilege. Thank you Zoe, have a good day.

Zoe Amar  54:52  
Our thanks to Michelle for her time and sharing her insights with the podcast. How Work Works is published by Harper Collins and is out now. We will share the link in the show notes. 

Paul Thomas  55:03  
Our next episode, as we said is going to be with Mathilda Della Torre, who is author of Conversations from Calais. You can support the podcast by leaving us a five star review wherever you listen, whether that's Apple podcasts on Spotify or Google.

Zoe Amar  55:18  
And if you've enjoyed listening to this episode, please do hit share and send it to someone it's made you think of. Thank you for listening. Bye for now!

Paul Thomas  55:26  
Thanks for listening. Bye!

Transcribed by https://otter.ai