How to Confront Burnout & Moral Injuries - Duncan So

In today’s episode, I chat with Duncan So, the Toronto-based technologist, clinical practitioner, and burnout expert. Duncan gained his expertise the old-fashioned way, through lived experiences. 

He too experienced burnout, the reduction of recovery processes, leaving him drained and unable to perform at his desired level. And he came out of it using the same method that has helped hundreds of companies transform their employees situations, allowing them to rediscover joy, passion, and balance.

Duncan uses clinical processes, combined with coaching principles, to bring the latest science to workplaces struggling under the weight of today’s realities. 

We talked about burnout, the macro impacts of the recession, though quickly transitioned to access - with Duncan outlining how to prevent, manage and recover from the symptoms of burnout. 

Whether you think you're burned out, are a step away, or just want to learn about how to better manage your health in times of stress, this episode is for you. Well-being is the new performance according to Duncan, and I’m inclined to agree. 

I had a fun time connecting with Duncan and hope you enjoy our conversation.


Duncan So

Duncan is an expert in workplace wellbeing and burnout recovery, delivering clinical burnout retreat experiences to help workplace leaders quickly recover from burnout and empower their careers.  Having been a child of corporate burnout, it has led him professionally into the field of human flourishing for over a decade working on systemic social change projects.

He’s a social entrepreneur and change agent, on a mission to empower the we work with companies and communities on the path of business and social good.  He’s a graduate from the University of Toronto in Engineering.  In private practice, he is a Board Certified Master Practitioner of NLP, MER and Clinical Hypnotherapy with the Association of Integrative Psychology.

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Matt Burns

Matt Burns is an award-winning executive, social entrepreneur and speaker. He believes in the power of community, simplicity & technology.

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Transcript

[00:00:00] Guest 1: If technology's gonna go down this route and, and workplaces and leadership's not exactly where it needs to be, it's going to be a really big problem. And my burning question was, who's looking at this and who's looking at this? And. The feedback I got was, Duncan, you seem very passionate in this face.

Why don't Youi can, [00:00:20] looking at this

[00:00:34] Matt: constraint, strive, innovation. Hey everyone, it's Matt here for another episode of Thinking Inside the [00:00:40] Box, a show where we discuss complex issues related to work and. If you're interested in checking out our other content, you can find us@bentohr.com and wherever you find your favorite podcast. By searching, thinking inside the box.

And if you enjoy the work we're doing here, consider leaving us a five star rating, a comment and subscribing. [00:01:00] It ensures you get updated whenever we release new content and really helps amplify our message. In today's episode, I chat with Duncan, so the Toronto based technologist, clinical practitioner, and burnout.

Thomas gained his experience the old fashioned way through lived experiences. [00:01:20] He too experienced burnout, the reduction of recovery, leaving him drained and unable to perform at his desired level, and he came out of it using the same method that has helped hundreds of organizations transform their companies, allowing employees to rediscover joy, passion, and balance.[00:01:40] 

Duncan also uses clinical processes combined with coaching principles to bring the latest science to workplaces struggling under the weight of today's realities. Together we talked about burnout, the macro impacts of the pandemic and recession so quickly transitioned to actions with Thomas, outlining [00:02:00] how to prevent, manage, and ultimately recover from the symptoms of burnout.

So whether you think you're burned out yourself are a few steps away. Or just wanna learn about how to better manage your health in times of stress. This episode is for you. Wellbeing is the new performance according to Duncan, and I'm [00:02:20] inclined to agree. We had a really fun time connecting and I hope you enjoy our conversation.

And now I bring you Duncan. So. Duncan, you might have the record for the fastest podcast booking in the history of this show. We talked yesterday. We're chatting today, which I'm very excited about because this is a topic that's [00:02:40] been very top of mind for me. That is burnout and all the associated things along with that.

Before we get there, thank you for joining. Would love to hear about your background, your experiences, and what led you to today. 

[00:02:51] Guest 1: Yeah. Well, thank you for having me. I mean, quick story for, for those in your audience and, and my heart goes out as we share a lot of the same audience. These are the people [00:03:00] leaders out there, HR professionals, executives, you know, a lot of the servant leaders out there as well.

And you know, I guess was our topic today is on burnout. I just wanted to preface. I never even considered getting into the field of burnout. It was a little bit of an accident. And the story sort of starts, I'm an engineer of all [00:03:20] things. I'm an engineer. Uh, had that, uh, graduated from the University of Toronto engineering and had a chance to spend almost 10 years, a decade in the space of corporate IT and burned out.

So the funny thing is, during that time when, you know today, I can use a word burnout, but back then it didn't. And as a [00:03:40] millennial, quote unquote millennial, I thought I was having a quarter life crisis. So it was a little bit new and novel for a lot of people and, and, and, and many leaders at that time, baby Boomers, gen X, my mentors thought it was another millennial like, oh, another entitlement type thing.

But there was something sort of scratching in the back of my. [00:04:00] And when I meant burnout and identity crisis, literally I was who am I, what is my purpose? Spending this long in corporate IT and looking at my managers, looking at my directors and mentors, and I couldn't see myself doing what they were doing for the next 20, 30, 40 years of my life.

And it was a little bit of [00:04:20] a challenge. And so, you know, as an engineer, very, very left. Didn't have any emotional intelligence developments, wasn't very spiritually inclined and a really, really great problem solver. I didn't know how to get out of it, and at that time, the only thing that was [00:04:40] popular for dealing with these circumstances was pray love, and you can imagine young engineering me that I, I couldn't do that.

I couldn't just eat, pray, love, and hope for some sort of transformational process. And, uh, that led me down my path. Uh, I, I left the corporate IT world, decided to start a non-profit and [00:05:00] focus on really exploring this idea of today, what we might call human flourishing. And I spent a little bit of time in California where at that time that was very popular.

And so it was the idea of like, not just the individual human flourishing, but from a systemic. How might that look like? And for me as a [00:05:20] young leader, I really wanted to broadly speak and change the world, but didn't even know what that meant. And so, you know, that was during the times of MBAs when I wanted to be what today we would call a social entrepreneur.

That was during a day where, um, you know, everything was very institutional [00:05:40] and nothing was very lean and, and sort of getting. And, and sort of getting through things quickly and understanding how to do things in a very practical sense, right? It was very bureaucratic and political back in the days, and today's very different.

Obviously very agile, very flat. Everything is go, go, go, go, go. And what I had explored in [00:06:00] the space of human flourishing obviously was very deep, but really brings full circle towards what we're dealing. Today. And so as a, as a young change maker during that time, you know, started to really look at, uh, areas of the sustainability development goals.

I've worked on projects that dealt with poverty and reinventing homelessness and [00:06:20] reinventing food banks had a chance to dive in things like blockchain, and had, uh, helped co-found, developed a project called The Earth Dollar, the Cryptocurrency that was all about alleviating poverty and bringing sovereignty back to indigenous folks.

Had to launched a school, had a school in Ghana, in Acra and [00:06:40] Ghana of all things to really look at the future of education for rural communities and, and had a chance to rub shoulders with organizations like the UN and the World Economic Forum, the British Council, doing that type of work and sort of as an accident when, when I sort of moved into this space, there was a specific modality or practice that [00:07:00] I fell in love.

As a, as an engineer. Uh, moving into, uh, the systems change leadership components, which, what's called neurolinguistic programming. So some of our audience might be scratching your head, what the heck is neurolinguistic programming mean? Uh, some of you might be very familiar for those in the leadership development or personal development space, and that's sort of, [00:07:20] uh, the area of what Tony Robbins got really famous in.

Um, so for those who are into Tony Robbins and interpersonal develop, And that type of stuff, I sort of dive deep into there, but not through Tony Robbins specifically, but uh, through my mentor, Dr. Matthew James, who, uh, really his, uh, hi Dr. Matthew and his father and Tony Robbins and a [00:07:40] selective group of people worked very closely together with, with the founders of nlp.

In the beginning, in the early days, to really see how to do change work and, uh, sort of empowerment work at a, at a deeper, sort of almost therapeutic level. And obviously today it got popularized through a lot of Tony's work through, you know, we [00:08:00] use NLP in sales, we use NLP in marketing, we use NLP in, uh, athletics, right?

And performance and all these great things. But at the same time where had I dive, I dive deep a lot deeper into NLP and really got into a lot of the therapeutic work, uh, which I've used today in a lot of my personal clinical practice. [00:08:20] To help executives, leaders, um, really quickly transform themselves out of burnout, uh, and into a very empowering state.

So that's sort of my story today and, and just, um, sort of doing what I can to, uh, move the do forward and helping people recover from burnout and managing those crisises very quickly. Well, it's 

[00:08:39] Matt: a [00:08:40] fascinating story. Um, you know, my own story has many parallels which we'll go through over the course of our conversation today.

And I know a number of our guests are shaking their heads or, or nodding their heads in some cases, but I think your story deeply resonates with a lot of us. You know, whether it's the idea of. Waking up in the corporate world, [00:09:00] realizing that how you've been spending your time isn't terribly fulfilling across all the spectrums that are important to human satisfaction and wellness, and all the things that we're speaking about, the declining returns of overworking and not looking after yourself.

Uh, and this, this idea around burnout becoming popularized and the, the idea [00:09:20] that. Because of the, the conditions around us that have shifted because of the increased expectations foisted upon all of us in a em, in a post pandemic world. I think it's more and more. You know, relevant to have the conversation.

So I'm eager to get into this with you on a number of friends. Before we do in the macro sense, [00:09:40] I'd be curious to dive a bit more into your story. And because you, as you mentioned earlier, you don't come from a traditionally, you know, self-help mindfulness background. You very left brain thinking, very technology enabled, and this, this was not something on your radar when you began your professional journey.

I'm curious when you started to [00:10:00] see the first signs of what you ultimately labeled as burnout and what did that look like for you 

[00:10:05] Guest 1: specifically? Yeah, so, you know, when I ran my school in Ghana, uh, and then I brought it online to really begin tapping into, uh, leaders in general. So actually I share this program.

I'm, uh, an instructor at the Center of Entrepreneurship, [00:10:20] uh, for at Centennial College here in Toronto. For this as. And it was a program called Start Your Impact Journey and specifically was focused on a lot of leaders that were moving away from career and diving deep into a field called Calling. Right?

So a lot of leaders today are called conscious leaders. A special breed of [00:10:40] servant leaders have this epiphany moment, right? Have this epiphany moment that realize for themself there's something greater than myself. And I want to channel that passion and purpose and energy into applying it to change, social change, positive change to the causes and communities that were, that are important to them, not just as a leader, uh, but for those that they [00:11:00] impact.

And so, as I was building this program for the first time and going into our pilot programs, I went about my third cohort. In this program, and one of the things that I recognized very quickly was a lot of leaders coming in for deep change work. I mean, I think like imagine change work where somebody knows that this is [00:11:20] their clear destiny.

This is something I have to do, but coming through a lens of trauma now what that feels like or sounds like or looks like. A lot of anger or a lot of, uh, hurt or a lot of guilt, shame, perhaps even at the extremes. A lot of hate. And sometimes we experience this [00:11:40] and at the extremes of like what we call social justice warriors, right?

Where justice is important and the fight is important, but it's coming from this place of deep woundedness and so, Of all of the great strategies and methodologies and frameworks we were using to equip and enable social change makers and entrepreneurs. [00:12:00] What was the biggest bleeding gap during that time was those emotions.

Those emotions like anger and rage and hate and hurt and guilt, um, are very abusive to your nervous system. It really not just hurts sort psychology, but it has a, um, a challenge where you can [00:12:20] sustain yourself when it comes to the entrepreneurial journey. Now, you know, for those who are entrepreneurs listening to this podcast of small business owners or even leaders in a corporate, We kind of know that, you know, when it comes to your emotions, it's a very, very important thing, and especially when it comes to entrepreneurship or change or navigating volatility, there is a [00:12:40] huge psychological toll when it comes to that.

And so it just so happened in the NLP space, I just. Learned a lot of the techniques it took to release things like trauma very quickly. As an example, in our, in our work, we can clear trauma in about anywhere from 30 to 45 minutes. So, you know, [00:13:00] benchmarking across other different modalities or therapies.

It's definitely one of the most effective modalities that I, um, come to a fast path with. And so as a school, I was doing a little bit of that work to help clear that trauma. So a lot of leaders were now coming in clear up the wounds and completely transformed. And that was a [00:13:20] time when burnout clicked into my radar.

So it's a little bit of a quick preface. We had, uh, launched a global shapers, uh, community out in, in our car in Ghana. And so we had a chance, my executive director had a chance to fly out to, uh, Dallas at that. And, you know, we had a chance to ask those deep questions [00:13:40] around what the World Economic Forum called the Fourth Industrial Revolution.

And so whether you are for or against, or in between the agendas of, uh, what the, what Davos or, or the World Economic Forum might stand for. What's really important from a very projection or systemic, uh, look of how we would go, uh, [00:14:00] in a broader society is that these technologies like AI and automation and internet of things are all individually very disruptive and can really change the world.

And what was also very clear from a technologist standpoint, from a engineering standpoint is we kind of knew that, um, technology is a catalyst. And so [00:14:20] technology doesn't necessarily, uh, mean will be the best of the world, the end of the world, but really amplify what leaders are doing today. And one of the biggest concerns for me when I was having these conversations was, If technology is that disruptive and that big of an amplifier, it's very clear from a leadership [00:14:40] standpoint, at least from, you know, even through the pandemic and maybe the good five years before that, that it could potentially lead us into our next human mass extinction.

Just because we're really, really, really good at extracting and being very, uh, short-term think. And that was a little bit of my concern and, and sort of rallying off of another really big [00:15:00] think tank group. And I'm pretty sure your audience is familiar with 'em. There's a group called Gallup, right? So Gallup does this poll and I call Gallup the grandparents of, of workplace engagement.

So HR must be like, oh, nodding your heads, right? So for every engagement survey you've been doing for entire career, G's been, you know, one of the, for the last 15, [00:15:20] 20 years doing. Tremendous effort of really kickstarting the entire engagement industry in the workplace. And in 2018, they, they launched a new report, like a new survey, new studies, and they began to double down on this idea of burnout.

And we know today at a systemic level that burnout, uh, has a very clear [00:15:40] relationship to how we, uh, utilize technology. And so for those who want to dive deep into that, just watch the Netflix documentary, the Social Dilemma, and you'll get a very clear understanding of how. Technology today really impacts our mental and emotional wellbeing.

And so you can imagine Gallup's such a big [00:16:00] organization and other organizations like the UN and like the World Economic Forum, looking at these big collective global problems and forecasting what the next 30, 40, 50 years are gonna look like. I start to get a little bit nervous and my nervousness was, well, if technology's gonna go down this route and, and workplaces and leadership's not exactly where it needs to [00:16:20] be, it's going to be a really big problem.

And my burning question was, who's looking at this? And who was looking at this? And uh, the feedback I got was, Duncan, you seem very passionate in this space. Why don't you begin looking at. And I was like, well, okay, uh, let's go. Right, let's go. And, and so I took a little bit of a transition from my school [00:16:40] and started to, you know, as I navigated the future of work, philanthropy, and education, just began to pick up the phone and talk to a lot of thought leaders and CHROs, VPs of HR sort of in this space, and asked them about, you know, Hey, Gallup has just done these reports on burnouts, hovering around 40%, around 60% for [00:17:00] millennial.

What are you doing about this? And, and are you seeing, uh, this in the workplace for yourself? And that was like 2018, 19. And that term wasn't even popular. Like they were like, what's burnout? Like, what is that? And, and the World Health Organization didn't even form it yet. That was sort of done, uh, sort of in the midst of the, the [00:17:20] whole pandemic.

And as we were riding through this, I was like, well, you know, you want to get behind this because the technology, we're using this sort of instant gratification. Everything needs to happen now. Hyper transparency, hyper connectedness, and needing to collaborate at the same time of always wanting to grow, grow, grow.

Um, that's going to [00:17:40] have a big mental and emotional toll on your workplace and really begin to hinder not just performance, but like what I've gone through in my back in those days. I call those. And corporate it is, you know, a lot of individuals are going to hit sort of that identity crisis and that's gonna pose a really big threat or [00:18:00] problem, especially when it comes to turnover, or at least like turnover.

When it comes to my workplaces and care for my mental emotional wellbeing, I'm being overworked, overspent, they don't care about me and I'm going to leave to find myself. And sort of, that left me full circle. What I want to get out of, which was really empowerment, right? [00:18:20] So empowerment is really my, my mission, my personal purpose, and gone full circle to, um, connect the dots of how to get people to empowerment, rise from the ashes, like the phoenix rises from the ashes, and now looking through that lens of burnout that were so many people are struggling with.

And 

[00:18:39] Matt: struggling [00:18:40] is one way to put it. I think when we look at the broader backdrop of what's happening in society, I think, ooh, there's lots of, you know, macro factors that are affecting it. But before we go there, I, I wanna do poke on a couple things that you mentioned. You know, we talked about earlier on the importance of clearing trauma.

And I think for folks on, on listening to this, many of them are familiar with that term and [00:19:00] others may not be. But I just wanna drive home the importance of that. We're not always meeting people. In the same place. And to your point, people do come to all manner of social interactions in both a professional and non-professional context with their own forms of trauma.

And if we aren't mindful and informed about what people are [00:19:20] bringing to conversations and interactions, we can miss cues and ultimately we won't benefit from the full potential that someone can truly bring to bear when it comes to things like collaboration and teamwork. And, you know, there, there definitely was, you know, as somebody who spent like yourself many years in the, in the large corporate world, prior to launching my own business, there was definitely a [00:19:40] sentiment in the corporate world for many of the years that I inhabited it.

It was expected that your air quotes personal problems weren't brought to work. There was no recognition or acknowledgement of things that people brought. It was very much an expectation of, we don't wanna hear about it, we just want you to do your job and just kind of like keep quiet. Um, and I'm of course, being overly dramatic, but in a lot of organizations [00:20:00] that wasn't all that implicit.

It was quite explicit and. The importance of me meeting people where they're at has increasingly taken on greater shape and form as we encourage people to bring their full selves to work or operate as their best versions of themselves. Um, you know, I think the pandemic was instrumental in kind of tearing down that fallacy of work [00:20:20] life balance.

And really what we should be striving for is more work life integration. And when I think. Burnout. When I think about trauma, when I think about social cohesion, part of me looks at hybrid work, which is the predominant modality now for most of us that are not in very specified industries like [00:20:40] retail, for example, or, you know, being a, you know, a first responder perhaps working in healthcare.

For many of us in, in knowledge-based roles, hybrid work has now become the predominant medium. And my question for you is really how do you think about hybrid work? In light of your own personal experience, and how do you think about burnout in the context of [00:21:00] hybrid work? When we're looking at things like meeting people where they're at, the importance of acknowledging traumas, the importance of looking for early warning signs of burnout.

There's no doubt that's more challenging when the medium is digital. I'm just curious about just your overall thoughts. You know, where we find ourselves today, it would seem like we're [00:21:20] in some ways moving in the right direction, providing people with more freedom, more autonomy, more empowerment, and at the same time placing greater expectations and burdens on them.

So I'm just curious how you see all that wash out. 

[00:21:31] Guest 1: Yeah, that's, that's lots of great observations and, and, and great question. I hybrid work for me is here to stay. Obviously, you know, as an entrepreneur, as a small business [00:21:40] owner, you know, I was, I moved away from corporate to instantaneously having all the freedom and being my own boss.

Like you go from, you know, a senior level and in the corporate world to being the CEO of your own, of your own company. So, you know, titles aside, obviously sort of a person self-rising up at the top, you know, with a lot of today's autonomy and flexibility. And, you know, I do [00:22:00] want to preface this because I'm not saying this is new, but definitely has been amplifi.

Because of the pandemic. It sort of has put so many of us in what today I would call a collective dark night of the soul because so many of us have instantaneously recognized that there is more to life than [00:22:20] work. And so like you said, Matt, that completely blew apart the idea of work life balance of the very sort of industrial term.

And now we're moving towards work life integration and we're hearing these. Even promoted by, you know, thought leaders like Ana Huffington and Jen Fisher from Deloitte, uh, their Chief Wellbeing officer. This idea of, uh, work [00:22:40] life or life work integration and bringing your whole self to work. Now, while that opens a lot of opportunities and definitely a brave new world for so many HR leaders to navigate, you know, one of the challenges with the speed of what, how we're going through not just society and change, but how work is changing.[00:23:00] 

Very quickly, and we kind of know of 2022 and a lot of people who are going back to the office don't want to go to the office. And we have clear reports and studies showing now that people would rather quit their jobs with no future prospect if it means not going back to the office, for example. And so for a lot of people, that [00:23:20] means, uh, yes, I wanna bring my whole self to work, but that whole self also include.

Baggage, right? So also includes the pain and like you mentioned, matches like Matt, like, you know, meeting the person where they're at now. From a very workplace perspective. From a very business perspective. That can be very challenging, right? Because, [00:23:40] you know, when we look at work and its relationship with labor and economy and our, sort of, our older way of thinking of the economy in gdp and profit and economy and capitalism is sort of like the, the, the bedrock of what makes a lot of free countries, free countries, especially from a North American lens, is starting to really.[00:24:00] 

Have us reevaluate and look at, uh, those aspects because with what I would call the work life learn during the whole pandemic, because, you know, we have, you know, women leaving the workplace in droves because they're really thinking about not just, uh, what kids or family planning will look like, but perhaps.

Millennial [00:24:20] millennials today are now dealing with not just their children or their aging parents, right? So, you know, we're, we're the first time in sort of recorded history where we have like a five generations all sort of compressed together at one time. And what that really means for the next 5, 10, 15 years.

What it means for the future of education are children are being brought up in a [00:24:40] time where there's a lot of stress. There's war going on now there's a lot of, the reception is putting a lot of pressure, the, you know, a lot of confusion and volatility and, and change that's happening at really rampant speeds.

And a lot of it's thanks to technology, right? That's really been a catalyst and amplifier of all of this. And so it is a brave [00:25:00] new world for all of.

[00:25:04] Matt: Hey everyone, it's Matt here. I hope you're enjoying today's discussion. And before we continue, I want to make you aware of my latest creative project this week at Work, presented in partnership with my good friend Chris Rainey of HR Leaders. Each Friday will live [00:25:20] stream on LinkedIn at 7:00 AM Pacific Standard.

That's 10:00 AM Eastern Standard Time and 3:00 PM GMT for our European viewers, and together bring you the latest trends, news on topics emanating from organizations, everything from culture to technology, and the future of work. Joining is easy. [00:25:40] Just follow me on LinkedIn. Click the bell at the top right hand side of my profile and you'll get notified when we go live each.

And whether you do experience the content live or later, if you've been following me for a while, you'll no doubt recognize the fun banter Chris and I have developed over the years and whether it's been podcasts or digital events. We're so [00:26:00] excited to, again, bring you the topics affecting today's workplaces and their leaders.

and now back to our discussion. 

[00:26:09] Guest 1: It's just beyond just hybrid working. It's sort of really thinking, okay, work is not one category in life is everything else. This work is [00:26:20] just a part of life. And where I usually begin the conversation of not just work life integration, because I do come from a very empowerment lens, is the concept of work life fulfillment.

And I want to sort of touch on lightly a phenomena that we've, uh, you know, I [00:26:40] guess hashtag the great resignation or sort of moving on what we, the Gen Zers or Zoomers are calling Quiet, quitting Today. You know, those are all just symptoms or reflect. The inner to promote so many of us are cheering for.

And it really comes down to, again, the same questions that I asked during my [00:27:00] time of burnout, which is who am I, what is my purpose? And are we meant to do greater things? And more importantly, how can we live a more fulfilling life? How can we a little more fulfilling? And the good news is the answers to that question has been done already.

It's so a lot of, [00:27:20] especially whether it's evidence based approach, whether it's from a spiritual lens or, or whatever it is, it really comes down to our values, our deep floor values. Not a, a brand exercise, but. The values of how we're neurologically wired and invented as kids, and so we know at a very deep level things that motivate us [00:27:40] intrinsically, right?

Things that turn us on and give us that sense of fulfillment. And at the same time, when we violate those values, it creates an enormous sense of neurological pain inside of us. And that's why today another way of, of defining burnout that was used for a lot of, you know, your doctors or [00:28:00] social workers, frontline workers, It's this idea of what we call moral injury, right?

So while we're not dealing with light bridge death situations, a lot of us in the corporate world or in the knowledge based world, uh, do lean our, like, a huge part of our identity is in our, in our work. And so many of us aren't even aware [00:28:20] of what values are, let alone what our personal values. And the closest thing that we might recognize as values are, is that brand exercise that a lot of companies do, whether it's through marketing or through HR that tries to influence our behaviors, but don't do a really great job of [00:28:40] connecting workplace values and behaviors to personal values.

And what we're seeing today in the workplace and droves is a lot of people are beginning to. Feel like their values are being violated. It hurts, right? It hurts to work, and it becomes a grind. And then we quiet, quit. We're [00:29:00] overworked. We're sort of passively aggressively setting those boundaries. And then just really, really, really confused around, you know, what does my career going to look like?

And for a good chunk of employees, Are sort of leaning on the workplace as a whole to have that solution sort of all done for them [00:29:20] so that they can jump right in. And you know, from my experience, sort of navigating through this experience. Um, you know, I don't wanna peel the bandaid or be, you know, sort of plaag note filter is.

It needs to be a collaborative approach. It's not just a workplace issue, it's also an individual issue. It's not just a systemic issue, it's an individual issue as well. [00:29:40] And we all have to come together individually, collectively to really begin to solve what we need to solve as a very complex issue and clearly communicate our needs and be able to navigate this with a lot more.

Than we are today and, and, and do our best not to [00:30:00] create more conflict and more stress, because we have already enough of that. 

[00:30:04] Matt: Well, I couldn't agree more. And you know, as you were speaking, I couldn't help but think about a series of articles that I've read over the last couple of days. You know, it's obviously received a lot of attention both on social media, but certainly in the broader media landscape.

And that is Elon Musk's [00:30:20] acquisition of Twitter and the subsequent reduction of, uh, workforce. And then his most recent comments about needing employees need to work hardcore to be considered successful members of the new Twitter, the Twitter 2.0 as he characterizes it, and really pointing to a shift [00:30:40] change, a seed change, and how the organization's gonna.

And really trying to separate who he feels are people that are more committed to the firm and those that may be, you know, conditionally committed to the firm. You know, to me, those comments just reek of someone who's not very connected, quite tone deaf, not connected to [00:31:00] the workforce. Others would argue that it's a practical, pragmatic view to how to run a business.

I'm curious if you've a, had a chance to see those articles and more recently the updates from Twitter and Elon Musk, and b, how you feel those particular updates, if you have read them, um, connect to our broader 

[00:31:18] Guest 1: conversations. A [00:31:20] yeah, I mean, you know, and, and I'm gonna put it out there, like, I'm a huge fan of Elon, right?

So I'm a huge fan of Elon from the lens. How mission driven he is, how successful he is as a social change maker, and his mission for, you know, a lot of the broader things right now. At the same time, Twitter's a little bit of an interesting sort of, you know, a corner case. [00:31:40] It's just because, you know, he's again, from, from probably Elon's lens, he sees Twitter ads, his branded Grand Vision.

Being able to create that open sort of town square where everyone would talk about now from the lens of, you know, now he's a ceo, he, he's being very business focused. He wants to go private. One of the things that he may [00:32:00] not be very aware of, and, and you know, I'm not, I'm not defending him or anything, but it's just more of what we call a projection, right?

We all, we all project ourselves and back in the days when Elon was doing his SpaceX and Elon was doing his Tesla amongst all of the pressure. Elon's a very, very interesting character [00:32:20] type. And a Huffington is very vocal around wellbeing. Even wrote an open letter to Elon like, please don't, don't sleep on the factory floor.

This is not a very healthy way to be a successful leader. And Elon just does what Elon does, right? And so, you know, Elon does sleep on, on the, uh, in the factory and he is, he's doing what he knows [00:32:40] best for himself to be successful and he. Naturally, we all do this as human beings. It's easy for us to gravitate, and he naturally just, um, extends himself and projects to other people to be like him.

And now, so you can imagine when he's walking into a culture like Twitter, who's. You know, very, a [00:33:00] lot more liberal and, and, and, and sees things more in a holistic viewpoint, not just in wellbeing, but you know, as a whole. Uh, just vary the Silicon Valley's view of, you know, moving towards even, uh, you know, the more conscious areas of workforce management.

Like even self-management Holocracy, for example, and he is [00:33:20] coming. As a, as a big change maker and just really galvanizing everybody. And so, you know, he essentially just wants people to be like him. If you think about it, he wants the geniuses, he wants to attract those who are not just extremely hardworking, but will put in all that effort and time.

And where I think a lot [00:33:40] of, uh, HR leaders, especially people, people leaders or people centric leaders who lean on the, the philosophies of, you know, culture is important. People's the number one thing you want to do, um, and build culture for the long term because you want to create sustainable change. Um, and that's sort of where I feel Elon's [00:34:00] a little bit shortsighted.

Not that he, uh, he intends to do that, it's just he's coming in from a very business lens. I have to turn this business around very quickly and probably so many of us aren't really aware of what's happening inside Twitter, and he's probably trying to clear that up. And what I sort of want to [00:34:20] share as a lesson for so many people is, You know, what it means to sort of sacrifice wellbeing for performance.

And I think that's, that's a very short sided thing to do. And my, my argument is, um, sort of my new mantra for, for today and probably for the next five years is wellbeing is a new performance. [00:34:40] And I think Elon's doing to very quickly recognize that, um, it's not people or Twitter or a tech company that's not very sustain.

And so while you may get his short term wins to turn the company around, eventually he's gonna be faced with a cultural problem. Right? So a lot of HR leaders are probably nodding their heads like, yes, right? If your cultural has a [00:35:00] problem, you're gonna eventually have a challenge hiring for the talent you're looking for.

And what Elon, I guess has for him that a lot of other companies may not is Elon Musk himself is a one person brand, right? So he himself is the. And so he'll have to deal with [00:35:20] those challenges moving forward, where eventually Elon's going to burnout, right? So when Elon burns out and he needs to lean on Twitter as a brand, SpaceX as a brand, Tesla as a brand, and it sort of decouples from Elon Musk, uh, he may have his own personal challenge, his own existential crisis.

Being way too [00:35:40] intertwined and coupled, uh, with his work and then having to deal with that when he wants to sort of exit and, and have a legacy left behind where his companies can survive on their own. So, you know, I'm pretty sure a lot of cultural leaders and brand leaders building, um, sort of culture as a brand to build a talent pipeline for that.

We'll probably [00:36:00] recognize that now. That is probably. Or a gap that I you'll need to address moving forward. 

[00:36:06] Matt: I think that's a really balanced take on it. And I think largely, I agree with it. I, anytime you're merging two entities, and to your point, Twitter as an entity has definitely postured itself traditionally in a very different way than the organizations that [00:36:20] Elon has founded himself.

There's obviously complexity when you're acquiring a business and. Complexity when you're integrating that business into a broader culture and there's expected friction that's going to occur, and most individuals who've been in that industry, myself included, who've had the privilege of [00:36:40] connecting entities together, big and small, would tell you that a lot of work needs to go on the front side into assuring that you're thoughtful about that integration for a number of reasons.

The first reason, of course, would be. You wanna make sure from a cultural perspective, that you have alignment from the old to the new to ward off [00:37:00] against a, an influx of regrettable attrition to ward off against the loss of institutional knowledge. And you reference the term earlier, quiet, quitting.

That's probably the most toxic where people actually don't leave, but they more or less just contribute the bare minimum to ensuring that they keep their jobs. [00:37:20] And for an organization. Needs an overhaul as, as Elon sees it, and now that he owns it, that's his right to make that decision. I, I stand behind his thinking to put out a bold message to galvanize the troops, as it were, and to signal to the marketplace that things are gonna be different as a beacon to [00:37:40] attract new people into the organization that are more like-minded.

All that makes sense. And I also share your, your belief that it is shortsighted that. In the end, this may actually work out that people who can self-select out of the organization will free up space for individuals to join that are better aligned. That while [00:38:00] ultimately to ensure success, the organization is going to have to align itself to how Elon views the necessity to run it.

Otherwise, it's gonna be in constant conflict Internally. I also agree with the idea that shortsightedness is a bit of a blind spot. For somebody that, in most cases, has [00:38:20] built organizations from the ground up and had been involved in the, obviously the proliferation of those organizations. In some cases the talent selection.

But when you're inheriting thousands of workers, leaders, people from all walks of life, people that joined under a very different pretense and are now operating under a new set of [00:38:40] circumstances. I do think that signaling the way that things are gonna be on a go forward basis in the manner in which it's been done does create more problems.

And that's not to argue that change can occur that business owners can't run their businesses that they see fit. But when I hear stories about things like [00:39:00] people not being notified of the fact that they've lost their jobs, other than by logging on and not having access to the system, or I hear conversations around.

People being let go and then called back and being asked to take their jobs back hours later, and being given a timeline to make that decision. It's clear that there wasn't a a lot of [00:39:20] thoughtfulness and care, or there wasn't enough thoughtfulness and care and how that activity was messaged, how it was undertaken.

And ultimately how it was perceived. And as somebody who's sat through and been part of many activities like that in the past, I can tell you that the ripple effects of poorly [00:39:40] handling transitionary periods will ultimately affect the organization in both the short term as well as the long term. And while we've been talking about the impact to human beings, and we've been talking about the impact to employees that, and that of course is top of mind.

To put things in a context that Elon and the shareholders of [00:40:00] Twitter would probably more than I with, is a significant financial impact as well. And I think one thing Duncan, we've talked about in this podcast is obviously the necessity to ward off things like burnout, to be more mindful, to think more collaboratively.

For all the reasons that we've [00:40:20] discussed. It's ultimately better for, for people. You achieve stronger performance and people can have sustainable success at the individual team. And then also at the organizational level. It's also just really good business. And the great thing about entering into this phase of how we're looking at the future of work and the [00:40:40] future of professionalism and leader.

Is that we no longer have to make a decision between trading off wellbeing and organizational performance. In fact, they're symbiotic and efforts taken to detach them or that seemingly go against that blend. Are ultimately not having the same sustained [00:41:00] success as it once did, and it's because of the conditions that you mentioned earlier.

We've evolved the economic model that we're operating under from industrial into thought, and when you're an industrial model, you can compel. Workers to adhere to a clear set of standards. You can more clearly manage productivity and you can [00:41:20] expect a different level of work conditions and standards than obviously are present today in a knowledge based economy.

And again, using a reference for the drew upon earlier where we have to think about the link between intrinsic motivation, discretionary effort, and ultimately performance. It's incumbent upon all of us organizations, leaders and individuals to [00:41:40] understand that wellness. Is a predictor of performance and ultimately a predictor of success.

And I'm curious for yourself as you're working with organizations and their leaders, how you make that case. How you make the case beyond just the moral imperative to look after your people. [00:42:00] If at any point those conversations also take a financial context or posture, or if they take a productivity context or posture and how you may appeal to people that maybe.

As quickly resonate with the message of doing the right thing, how you bring it to life for 

[00:42:14] Guest 1: them? Yeah, great question. I mean, I'll just go straight to cost, right? From a very ROI standpoint, [00:42:20] we're in a very, especially in the tech spaces that we call the war on talent, is we've, we're moving towards a exhaustion of what I call extrinsic motivat.

So a big extrinsic motivator is obviously money, right? And so we hear and even disparity, right? So at Silicon Valley, definitely pays our engineers a whack ton more [00:42:40] so, I mean, for those who have, um, sort of left that Twitter space and a lot of and all these big tech startups. You know, the good news is talent's gonna be now available to other companies who definitely need that the most today.

Now, sort of speaking on that, When you have young Gen Zers coming in and you know, wanting like [00:43:00] 70 80 K salaries or a hundred K salaries, or they're stepping into talent, their talent and because of market forces equals a lot of money. You know, that can only go so far and that just really puts a lot of pressure that would pressure on.

Not just the, the whole talent attraction process, but the retention process because you know, you can't, how do you, [00:43:20] how do you rebalance that when you know that level of pay scale is being affected and you know, echoing sort of? Well, today we will call quiet quitting and the great resignation. You know, we're hearing a very loud cry, right?

So this is what we call Cry for Help. A really large cry for help that so many people [00:43:40] in the workplace right now want to have, want to bring in more meaning, uh, into their lives, and would have that payoff, a very clear payoff. Um, if they achieve meaning or fulfillment in their work, um, in reduction of their pay.

Now, the challenge is obviously then HR would be left with, so how do I kind of do that, right? Because [00:44:00] there is your standard compensation models, and then what the heck does intrinsic motivation actually mean? And so, you know, it really comes down to values, right? So a lot of HR needs to, uh, and, and there's a relationship to burnout, by the way, as well, because when you are aligned with your personal values to that, or the organizational values as, as a collective, now I'm [00:44:20] not having group things.

So it's not about just beliefs, but values being at the deeper levels. Uh, what are the emotions, right? Things like joy and love, connection, all those deeper human element. That really bring fulfillment for an individual person. And what I do promise you is if HR or people, leaders in companies get really good at [00:44:40] connecting values and meaning for their employees into what they're doing, um, they can ease off the, the tensions of compensation and JU is just because, again, if you snowball out over.

What's really amazing about deep fulfillment [00:45:00] is if you're fulfilled in your workplace, you kind of don't even want to leave. And now I'll share with you a case as an extreme example, just to show you how we can map that across is those that work in the non-profit spaces. Because we all know if you work in non-profit that you don't get paid very well.

But if you, [00:45:20] you were to ask non people who work in non-profit if they. Um, work back in the for-profit spaces. A lot of them would say, heck no, because there is so much meaning that derives from the work that I do. It's sort of what I want to do now because we're sort of in this gray area now of a lot of companies being more purpose [00:45:40] oriented.

Me focused. You know, triple bottom line, those type of things. One, it reflects, there is a shift in consciousness as a whole, uh, for, for everybody who is looking at how we relate to work and life. And secondly, from a very tactical and tactical approaches, you know, making [00:46:00] sure that. Whether it's integrated tactically in performance management.

Cause I know it's q4, it's a lot of performance management reviews, right? Or integrated into how managers are shifting towards a coaching mindset or integrated into l and d, right. With how it's not just about learning, but development of the person as a whole. [00:46:20] Um, and making sure all that's sort of encompassed so that there.

Almost a map, right? Some of a map you can almost imagine if we were to reinvent how we talk. Resume today isn't just a resume of path, experiences, and skills. Resumes are, today is a collection of our biography, of our [00:46:40] path, present, and future. Having individuals know very clearly what it means to be them where they want to go, and not have an identity crisis, right?

Not like, you know, who am I, what do I do? But get very clear Today I'm going to learn the specific skills that help me hone down into what that discovery and exploration [00:47:00] process of who I am, my natural talent. That relationship, the passion and skills, and getting into my flow states and being in really tapping into my engen and connecting that to how I want to contribute into the workplace.

And it's super clear today, if you look at the [00:47:20] sort of attrition numbers or the turnover numbers, especially like voluntarily voluntary attrition numbers, is it's very short tenure, isn't like, you know, back in the the industrial age like 20, 30, 40 years ago where. Average tenure might be like 20, 30, 40 years.

Get a gold watch. Today's tenure, like what, the year, two years, three years [00:47:40] maybe. I don't know the, the exact numbers, but even in Silicon Valley, it's like under a year, right? Some people leave in a few months, could be very task based or project based. And so it's very important. So for a lot of organizations, especially around managing.

Is to really see the full cycle. It's no longer just about retention, but if you're going to [00:48:00] retain them, it's about in that short amount of time that you're retaining them, how do you bring the best out of that and how that leads to the best performance and the best outcomes and outputs you can get for your specific tasks, for your business and so forth.

And the flip side is true, right? So attrition's a little bit lower today or so. Attrition's a little high so [00:48:20] people are leaving, they're jumping between different companies. Where there's that gap, it's a lot more fluid. And for those coming in, how do you continue on that narrative of their growth path?

And so I think, you know, I'm not saying HR needs to bring a component of life coaches in, but definitely there is an advantage of. Bring in that type of [00:48:40] thinking right into how they're managing the entire talent pipeline in terms of, uh, growth of skills. Not one hit wonders. How do you build competencies?

So even if we're moving from one company to the next, how that sort of, uh, connects to alumni groups and leaves a really great impacting for a lot of people moving between [00:49:00] organizations today. That there is no regrets working for their current organizations or the path organizations and that workplaces as a whole, like HR as a whole, we all sort of band together, connect together and think a lot more collaboratively from that sense and not competitively.

And that, that [00:49:20] I think is gonna be a, a, an interesting shift when it comes to the future of work for, for so many HR and people leaders. And 

[00:49:27] Matt: speaking of future Duncan, what does yours look like? What does the next year look like for you as you continue to tackle the challenges of burnout for clients and for organizations around the world?

[00:49:36] Guest 1: Yeah, so, you know, sort of a public service announcement for a lot of, [00:49:40] especially if you're an HR and you're listening to this today, you know, speaking with a lot of HR leaders and especially the space of burnout. So burnout is clear. Pre pandemic is hovering around 40, 40%. Now it's probably hovering around 75%.

So surveys aside, you can even use that as a very safe assumption. And roughly around [00:50:00] 25% to 30% of organization is probably actively burnt out, right? So these are the ones that are really, you know, in the, in that diminishing returns. So my clear sort of service announce public service announcement.

Prevention of burnout isn't exactly the place you wanna focus today. If you wanna go dollars for dollars, [00:50:20] we people are burned out. It's not like they're not burned out, they're thriving, they're excelling. That's a very small component of organization. They're actually experiencing burnout. And so for HR leaders to look at 2020 threes planning and your earmarking mental health and burnout, um, as something you're looking at for 2023, focus [00:50:40] specifically on.

So recovery is a process, like an injury, right? Recovery is a process. Prevention is a practice, right? So while I'll, I'll always put out there that an ounce of prevention is worth way more, like more than a pound of cure. Right now isn't a time for prevention and is [00:51:00] a time to really look at, you know, bringing practitioners and experts who are really good at recovery and helping those recover and measure that.

Right? And that's where the ROI is, because I like prevention where it's like, well, I don't know. They're avoiding it, right? So as long as they're doing well, I don't even know what the ROI means, but we know that there [00:51:20] is an ROI question. When it comes to recovery, especially late stage, mid late stage burnout, when.

Your employees are going through or leaning into crisis mode, meaning is I'm doing nothing, but I'm getting worse and worse every day, and now I'm exhibiting not just fatigue, but now I'm rapidly [00:51:40] having a mental health crisis. Maybe I can't get out of bed. I can't even make decisions anymore, making wrong decisions and things are compounding.

You're just being a very triggered app people and just really not being a very healthy individual is becoming very toxic. Those are all very clear signs that, you know, not just do they need to [00:52:00] seek professional support, but within the workplace for those who aren't even there yet, to make sure there is a level of support to help them recover and to really share from a longevity or sustainability perspective.

Because yes, therapists too are burning out because we're getting a lot of people at our doors. Making [00:52:20] sure if the workplace can offer a little bit of that buffer, um, that they have the capability and the competency to share, to build those skills for recovery right into the workplace. And it's something I'm very passionate about.

And I spent the last year and a half putting together a playbook for this. And I offer this [00:52:40] for free to workplace leaders because I know. It's one of those things that workplace, uh, HR leaders, workplace leaders need to learn now because if they don't, the biggest challenge with burnout left unattended is we're going to be experience experiencing an epidemic of what we call workplace trauma.

When that [00:53:00] happens, then it's not just a workplace issue becomes so issue, and quite frankly, and honestly and openly, I'm a little scared because a lot of our healthcare system isn't that equipped to take care. That many people in such a short amount of time. And so for this year to next year and probably next five years, it really is [00:53:20] a, a big collaborative effort of workplaces, uh, even in public, in in public, um, places as well to figure out what we can do to really turn around.

Burnout and really get us back to wellbeing, fully recovered, and then back, you know, after recovery, then back to thriving and talking about things like [00:53:40] thriving and prevention and being the best in wholesale that we want to be. Duncan, thank you so much 

[00:53:45] Matt: for joining us today. It's been a really interesting conversation and certainly one that you and I are both passionate about.

I'm looking forward to seeing what happens in the coming months as well. I think we are entering into a very precarious period of time for all of us, and you know, [00:54:00] I, I share your hope that we can get through this in a more constructive and more healthy, mindful way. Um, and looking forward to staying in touch just more broadly.

I'm really passionate about the things that, uh, you're, you know, the ropes that you're pulling on. And, uh, just wanna wish you a ton of success for the balance of this year and on, uh, to the next. All right. Thanks.[00:54:20] 

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