The Opus Way: Fueling Ambition Without Burnout | Janine Mathó | 718

And welcome, welcome, welcome. This is Peter Winick. I'm the founder and CEO at Thought Leadership Leverage, and you're joining us on the podcast today, which is Leveraging Thought Leadership. Today my guest is Jeanine Mathot. She is the author of Live Your Opus, and we'll talk about the Opus Way, which is a framework. She has held interesting leadership roles at Harvard Pearson and the C-suite twice. And she's raised 3 children, which I don't know which is more difficult. Anyway. Well, and, you know, I, I've gotta say, she's talking to me today from the south of France. So, you know, cue, cue the music there. So anyway, welcome, Ginni. How are you?

Thank you, Peter. And it's a beautiful day here. Really beautiful spring day.

So how did all this happen? Right? Like, how did, what was the path that led you to, where we are today?

The path that led me to where we are today started at least 6 years ago when, you know, I had been working, I was actually VP for thought leadership and corporate affairs at Pearson, and we'd gone through reorg after reorg. I had some changes in the C-suite. Things were getting more intense than usual. And actually, I think I didn't have language, but I would, I would say I was already at the beginning stages of burnout.

Okay.

And I didn't have the language for that. I just thought, well, this is like ongoing stress, more than usual, a lot less sleep, even more than usual, too much work, right? Even more than usual. But I thought, well, it'll pass, right? Just kind of what comes with the job. And, um, and I didn't realize how intense it was. And then, um, I would say a few weeks after I'd kind of come to that realization, my mom was killed in a car crash.

Oh, okay.

And within a month, those things kind of really collided. And it was January 6th, 2020, and I couldn't get outta bed for the first time in my life. Couldn't work, couldn't function, hadn't slept in about 9 weeks. Weeks, wasn't really eating, and was put on, on time off from work, mental health leave from work. And I think, you know, I was one of those classic high achievers, overachievers who just kept climbing. And I thought that I was invincible. You know, I just thought it's the next job, it's the next promotion, it's the next move. And I never really thought that I would be someone who would, you know, come to something like burnout or have any mental health challenges. And so for me, that process of being, you know, stepping out of work raised a lot of questions like, who am I without my affiliation? Who am I without the job?

Let's stay there for a minute. Because yeah, 'cause I think we're, we're all subject to that, right? So one is everyone around us is doing the same crazy stuff, you know, get up at all hours of the night working late at night work. Like, so it's normal, right? And it's actually kind of the, the, what got you here thing, right? You didn't get here by being lazy, sitting around, you know, sipping tea in the middle of the day and all that sort of stuff.

No.

But at some point it's like, wait, there, there's a line between I'm, I'm achieving and, and I'm, you know, deteriorating, right?

Yeah. Yeah.

You know, and, and even though I might be putting the points on the board, the, the part of the balance sheet where we don't show the cost is on the personal side, health, stress, wellness, et cetera. Yeah. So, so how did that lead to Or bridge that to The Opus Way, cuz now like, you know, yeah, fade to black, fast forward through COVID the last 6 years, whatever. Yeah. They're awful. Okay. And the, and, and all the pre stuff, the book wouldn't have been possible without that, I imagine. Yeah.

No, the book would not have been possible without going through that and everything that came after it. And The Opus Way is sort of, I guess, an answer to a question that stuck with me during burnout recovery, which was How can ambitious people create healthy, meaningful lives with, and, and careers obviously without losing themselves or what matters most? And there is a line between, as you say, kind of overwork and deterioration. I just didn't know what it was. And so for me, the book is my attempt to answer that question. It's an attempt to help people to reclaim their energy, help people see actually how much agency you actually have within the context of stress and actually Frankly, we, we all just weren't prepared for this, right? Like, like most of us didn't think we'd be ending up working under such intense pressure in corporate jobs when we were in, say, 5th grade.

Uh, yeah. And it, and it's not slowing down. So, no, it used to be, it was like one from column A or one from column B, incredibly successful or healthy, meaningful life. And you're saying no, it's, it's one from A and one from B, right? And, and yeah, agency's an interesting word because You know, a lot of us said, well, the only way to achieve agency is go out on your own, do your thing, whatever. So that's an interesting piece. Give me a sense of, I'd say the business side of this, but who is this written for? And, and what are you hoping changes either at the individual level, the team level, the org level as a result of embracing these ideas?

So this book is, is written more for individuals, although it can be used with teams and it's written for people who are feeling depleted. It's written for people who are at a pivot point. Maybe some inflection point. Maybe they're just saying, when am I gonna start feeling as successful as I'm supposed to look, like as I look, right? Or maybe people think I am, you know, is this it? Is this is what I've been working this hard? Is this it? So that's kinda who it's for. And I think the big change I want people to see is that energy needs to rise to the level of your ambition. You don't need to drop your ambition. There's a lot of talk about like, oh, did you take care of yourself? So you have to slow down, you have to pause, you have to pull back. I mean, sometimes, right? But I'm not advocating, and I think for people like, like how I was and how I am, super high achieving, that doesn't work. So I'm not saying lower your ambition. I'm saying you need to power that. So, okay, how are you gonna power that? And the book is, is an attempt to help people do that. Um, it takes people through a 12-week journey, so you know, you can take it from different directions, but That's the gist of it. That's the big change that I wanna see.

So let, let's go to business models for a bit. It seems like a bit of a, a shift, but that's kind of what we do sometimes.

Okay.

So who's exactly paying for what here? What are the underlying business models in this next chapter for you, if you will?

Uh, for, for me? Yeah. Good question. So I have—

you and Opus and, you know, all, you know, Opus being part of the—

so I have been working with senior leaders and sometimes with teams or small groups to help them operate better under pressure and with significant change. So I'll still do some of that, but I'm actually more interested in the bigger question, which is when are we going to start changing how we prepare people so that when they are in these situations, they know how to, to be different, right? So they know how to handle pressure so that they're taught. I mean, there's just so many things that we're not taught, if you will, in school that we need in leadership. And so I'm interested in working with a very small number of organizations who are really ready to take their team's energy to the next level. So, so, organizations that have ambition.

So that work, let me, so let me, let me push on that.

Yeah.

You know, I could see that playing out in a couple ways. One is sort of at the top of the house and an advisory consulting level. Let's create, exactly, the systems and processes and such so that people here can, can adhere to this, right? Exactly. And then, you know, The other end of that continuum is, you know, doing team or group workshops or coaching. Is it the, the first or, or what's the—

I'm more interested in top of house and/or something more like, I'm calling it embedded retainers. So something a bit more like working really closely with a leadership team that wants to also influence the full culture across the org. So yes, workshops and coaching would be part of that. Of course, they're part of anything. But my idea is actually more to build the capacity internally. So that I, so that I work myself out of a job.

Right, right. No. So I, I, we just came full circle from the standpoint of when I, when I asked you who's it for, you're like, yeah, the individual, no doubt. Like you, you've got an individual.

The book is for the individual. Yes.

Right. So the book is for the individual, but then you've got this suite of services, similar IP, same IP, same methodologies and such as in the book. Absolutely. But I wanna go bang right at the top of the house and say, okay, here's, here's the things. And, and I would imagine it's sort of a classic, let's take a look at what you're already doing. Uh-oh, this is wrong. This is good. This is better. Let's instill this stuff, let's develop the capabilities, rinse, lather, repeat, get the heck out of there, right?

Absolutely. Yeah. I'm one of those people who actually really likes to help people build capabilities and, and work myself out of a job, even in coaching. So I think, I think there's too many of us who sort of stick around for too long, and I think the idea is to build the change and build the capacity.

Yeah. So the, the building of the capacity piece, there's lots of ways that that could happen, right? It could be certification, it could be licensing, it could be training. So like, how do you— if I said to you, okay, great, sign me up, I've got an organization with 20,000 people, and how do I build, build the capacity across 20,000 people?

Yeah, I think I would start at the top. And yes, we can do train the trainer. Yes, we can do sort of— yes, we can do all the things you said. But I mean, I think it's starting at the top and figuring out what's happening. And I also have some really interesting diagnostic tools that I'd love to use with senior leaders that help pull out and pinpoint what's really happening underneath the surface. So why things might be looking the way they look, why decisions are taking too long, why people are showing up the way they're showing up, why teams aren't getting along, that kind of thing.

So stay there for a minute. So tell me a bit about the tools, how they came to be, and how you take them into the marketplace.

Sure.

I'm a tool nerd amongst others. Yeah.

And I'm at the beginning of this journey. So I have, I have tools. I have a lot of tools that I've shared in the book. Right.

Okay.

But when I turn those towards organizations, organizations, it's a little different. So I do have sort of diagnostics of what I call sort of executive leadership diagnostic tools that really take a look at how people are expending their energy and nurturing their energy and taking a look at how is that supporting their leadership or not, right? So first on individual, but once you do that, so for example, I've done that in a context where I did it over like 100 people, then you're getting a picture of the culture. Then you're getting a bigger picture when you're looking across all of the, all of the leadership, for example. So that's one of, one of the tools I have. I've got, uh, in the book I have a set of energy principles. We do use, I bring those into my work, but it isn't sort of like, um, here, take this and go use this in this order. In the book it is for individuals. When I'm in an organizational context, it's different.

Different because every organization's different and where they need to start. And then, so it's almost like a triage. Right? Like you go in and go, yeah.

And I think, I mean, you asked me from a business point of view, and I think that's one of the things that I'm interested in proving is how can I take the tools I have into more complicated organizations and then set them up so actually they could be more easily then adopted by another organization without me. Right. So I know how to, I know how that works. Yeah. I know how that works on the individual level. I have a sense of how it works on the organizational level, but that's still where I want to go and prove. Yeah.

And, and I love that because I'm just making some notes here as we're talking. I love that because if you are, the only way you can get your ideas embedded in an organization requires you to be in the room or in the Zoom. Congrats. You have a practice. You don't have a business. Yeah. Right.

Exactly.

Exactly. And, and there's nothing wrong with the practice. Doctors do it, lawyers do it, whatever. But it's limiting because if you're talking to me right now, then you can't be helping somebody else. But right now as we're talking, these tools can be deployed. I wanna ask you sort of the, well, let me, let me frame it this way. On the one hand, I would say there's probably a self-selection piece to this, right? The organizations, the companies, the people that lean in are probably going, yeah, this makes sense. I feel this, I sense this. I, I might not have the vocabulary or the data to back it up, but something, something smells funky here, right? Yeah. So there is a self-selection piece, but I think the, the other side of this, because you have the tools, is, you know, if the green visored CFO comes in, everybody's worst nightmare, right? And says, show me the money. What's the, who cares if they're burning out? Who cares if they're miserable and going home and kicking the dog? Show me the ROI. How would you respond other than you're a jerk?

Do you have ambition for this company? Do you, how long is it? How long is that ambition? And if so, let's juice up the people, right? Okay. Let's, let's, power them up so that they can hit that ambition so that they can be with you in a sustainable way. Let's, so that they're with you for the long view, right? Not just for this moment, this now.

So it's, it doesn't mean that teams, so there's something counterintuitive there and it, one is the retention piece makes sense, but the ambition, 'cause I would, I would assume, and obviously wrongfully so, that it's about cutting back a little bit. But you're saying, no, let's, let's throttle, you know, let's not throttle them. Let's have them be as ambitious as they can be, which will be more performance, right? We'll increase performance better.

There may be, and there probably are organizations in which we, there would need to be cutting back, right? There are, but I would say if you're talking about, you said self-selection, so in the quote unquote right kind of organization where they have the priorities fairly clear, where they understand that the environment their folks are working in, then, then yeah.

Got it. Got it. And if it's not self-selection and, and, you know, this is something I find sometimes those that could use it the most are the least to come to you. Right. But how are you, we, we don't wanna spend a lot of time and energy converting people, you know, that this is like, you spend some and you, you, you present your case and they either get it or they don't. Right. Is that kind of where your head's at?

Yes. I think if folks think that wellbeing is quote unquote wellbeing and it sits over there on a shelf, then that's, that's probably not an organization that I'm gonna work with because I'm talking about so much more than wellbeing, right? I'm talking about how are you actually gonna power people's energy? How are you gonna actually have leaders who know how to steady themselves and others over and over and over repeatedly under pressure, right? And so how it's, right. So leadership more than wellbeing, it's more than wellbeing, it's leadership strategies. And so if it's, if the organizations are saying, oh, it's wellbeing that sits over there, Yeah, then you're not for me.

So that leadership strategy framing is interesting because we know everything we've learned in management leadership is that you have to model it, right? If I'm a leader and we're teaching people how to be candid or resilient or give feedback and I don't do any of those things. Yeah. I could put my people through as many programs as I want, but when they watch and say, what gets rewarded here? How do the high performers behave? How do the leaders behave? That's actually what they're gonna replicate. So if you don't—

Absolutely.

Sort of develop those capabilities in the leaders to say, oh, so-and-so's able to do this. So-and-so actually behaves like that. And then, um, I, I wanna go to some of the language and the models because—

let me just, let me say one thing real quick. I think for me, the place I come from is I've been working with individuals more than, or more than organizations. And you can work with individuals who are very, very senior or in the C-suite, but alone they cannot change everything. Yeah. Right.

So like, well then that's really therapy, right? Like, oh, really? Right.

Like, which, You know, you know, it's, it's great that they sort of, uh, seem and they have more tools and more frameworks that they can use with themselves. Some of them take that into their teams, some of their teams I work with, but that still leaves them in the context of the wider organization. If the wider organization is struggling, the team is still gonna struggle. They're not gonna have the tools.

Right. So that's agency with an asterisk, right? As an individual.

Yeah, absolutely.

So let's talk about the models and the framework, cuz I think oftentimes the power of great thought leadership inside of an organization is you're giving people models and language and such, because I think the way you describe this, a lot of people say, yeah, I get that. I get that. I get that. But then if we wanna embrace that in an organization, talk about the power of the models and the language and all that. So, yeah, how that helps scale it. Yeah.

I have a couple of different models. So one of the models is looking at, it's the change continuum. So, obviously lots of organizations are bringing change in, change, change, change is constant. Yep. So this is a fairly, what I consider to be fairly basic, just so we're super clear, my my MO is never— is always to use all of the sort of academic research and then tailor it down so that a 15-year-old can understand it. So you will never hear me talking about academic research in an academic way. I have worked at Harvard, I have done that chapter of my life. I don't find that that's very useful in this context. So I have, uh, what I consider to be a very easy-to-use change continuum. It helps people identify where they're at. How are they feeling about change right now? How are they feeling about change in the context of, of maybe one particular initiative at work versus another, something going on at home, something else in their life.

So she's, she's really useful.

Yeah.

Yeah. So let me, let me pause you there for a minute. So now we've got this change continuum, and now let's say I'm in an org, I'm in a team. Let's just start at a small unit. And we've all been exposed to that. Now I can have a conversation with a colleague or my boss or, or whatever and says, hey, you know what? Here's where I'm feeling it on the change continuum.

Yeah.

Right. And just the power of saying, look, I'm over here. We all know what these words are and we've been taught this, whatever. Then the leader can say, oh, I get it. Okay. So that's not a great place to be. Right?

Right.

And you wanna get to this part. Let's talk about how we get you there versus—

Exactly.

If you don't have that, the, even just the framing of that conversation, it could be awkward. Yeah. Could be difficult. Could cause more anxiety than saying—

Exactly. You know, and it's paired. So the change continuum is paired with something else, which is around energy. So it's an energy framework called Opus 8. So it sort of says if you're this archetype and you're feeling this way, like if you are a, okay, if you're a catalyst and you're energized and you love moving fast and you love change, here are the things you need to look out, look out for, right? And burnout is one of those things, right? How do you overextend yourself? So maybe you're a catalyst, maybe somebody else is a hesitator. Like the catalyst has brought in the change initiative and you've got 3 hesitators on your team. Okay, well, how are you gonna bring them to where you need them to be? Right? What do you need? What can we value in them? First of all, cuz there's value in being hesitator sometimes.

Yeah.

And then what do you need to do to help move them? Maybe you need to move in a little or they need to move up a little. So how do we, how do we help move people? And it's not a static continuum and the energy piece is not static either, but it's more to give you a sense of how you deal with it. Yeah.

And I, I think that's really cool because it gives the leaders and the managers, because if I'm a hesitator, whatever, right? I'm gonna think everybody's like me because why wouldn't they be? That's the greatest thing to be. Right? But then I realize like there's other people that operate differently. And I said, oh, okay. You know, Janine's more like this one is more like the, okay, get it. There's a, there's a way that people operate that's different than me. Cool. So, so if we were to schedule a time to talk a year from now, okay.

Right.

And the book's been out a while and you're doing more organizational work, whatever. What, what are your hopes? What would be different and, and what would be outcomes that you're hoping for?

For myself from a business point of view or all?

Any, any, any way you want to take that?

Yeah, I mean, I'm hoping to find the right set of 1 or 2 partners in the next year that will take this work deeper so that I can validate the frameworks more thoroughly in the organizational context. So I know they work.

So you, you wanna stay in the thought leadership space and find strategic— let me paraphrase— strategic partnership.

Strategic levers.

Yeah. JAG.

Strategic partnership. And so I understand what are the levers that really work. Yeah. And how can we then replicate that more broadly? And also, you know, I talk about, um, You know, I'm rethinking how people are, are, how we're developing people writ large. So I'm also doing some partnerships with K-12. I'm doing an advisory in higher ed, um, because I'm really interested in how we treat, train the next leaders of the next generation, both in leadership development more formally, but also further back down the pipeline.

So fantastic. Well, well, this has been great. I hope to have that conversation in a year and you've, you've hit that and surpassed it.

So thank you.

Good stuff. Thank you for your time today.

Thanks for your time.

To learn more about Thought Leadership Leverage, please visit our website at thoughtleadershipleverage.com. To reach me directly, feel free to email me at peter@thoughtleadershipleverage.com. And please subscribe to Leveraging Thought Leadership on iTunes or your favorite podcast app to get your weekly episode automatically.