Me & We...The Best of Both Worlds

Welcome listeners to another episode of the No Ego Podcast. As you know, in this season which we're just wrapping up, I am bringing to you the people whose work I love, admire, and respect, the people I've turned to for answers in helping you figure out how do we come together and use this as an opportunity, these times, to create workplaces that really work for us and nourish us and, and bring out our best work. And so today I'm so excited to bring to you both a friend and an organizational psychologist, a Canadian. Canadians are some of my favorite people. I think they have a leg up on some of us Americans. Dr. Laura, and I'll tell you a little bit more about her, but Dr. Laura, welcome to the podcast.

Thank you so much, Sy. It's my pleasure to be here.

It's so fun to have you here, and I'm so excited to dig in. So you've got this incredible background as an organizational psychologist, as a researcher. Um, people might not know you also are a fantastic author, both fiction and nonfiction, screenplays and books and papers. And, um, I am loving that you're out now on the speaking circuit because I am so excited for people to get your messages beyond what you're writing. And I also love your podcast. What's the name of your podcast so people can tune into that as well?

Sure. So it's called Where Work Meets Life, and it's on, on all the major podcast platforms. And you can also find it at drlaura.live, which is my website.

Perfect, perfect. And we've been talking a lot together, kind of co-coaching each other, because I'm so excited that, as I said, you're out speaking on the circuit. People are We're loving your conversations that you're hosting, and I hope a lot of people, as they tune into the topics we talk about today, look for more information about you. One of the things people, I think, really enjoy about me is I bring in the organizational— or the behavior economics and the study of human behavior into the workplace. And you do exactly the same thing, which I think people are just gonna love how you use that. Thank you. evidence-based practice to fuel your recommendations about how we can work differently. I want to start because you were studying remote work before that was even on anyone's radar. I mean, it was like maybe if we had to have someone doing coding from a remote location, we let some IT folks like dial in. But pre-pandemic, you had assembled a body of work about remote work, how to make it work for the organization, what the benefits were for people, like how to make remote work work. So do you want to— should we start there just with some of the things that you have found? Because I know you've gone beyond that with a lot of well-being. And you're— I would call you an expert kind of on the future of work. Like you're a thought leader on new ways of working together. And that started before the pandemic, but boy, you've really kept your research agenda up. And so I kind of want to follow that progression. So what did you know pre-pandemic about remote work? And then how has it changed now that we're all figuring out the right way, the right formula to get people back to work?

Sure. Yeah, no problem. So I, in the late '90s, I actually found myself working on distributed or virtual teams. So, early in my career, I was working with people who were located not only across Canada, but people in the US, people in Europe were on my team. And I had leaders who were in different countries from me or different cities. And it was just so fascinating to see those dynamics at play and what it felt like to be working with people you hadn't met physically and to be really productive and engaged in these teams with all the dispersion and distance between us. And so, when I decided to embark upon my doctorate, it was 2002. And I really wanted a topic that was cutting edge and current. I didn't want to take a small, tiny slice out of an area in organizational psychology that just didn't have much impact. I wanted to do something that was Really future-focused. I've always been a futurist. I'm always thinking 5, 10 years ahead in my career and my life, for better or worse. I

was just gonna make that comment. Of course, for your doctorate, you picked something big and meaty and, um, moving us forward. That's been my whole experience of who you are as a person, is just like—

Oh, thank you.

That future focus. So—

That means a lot coming from you. Thank you, Cy.

Some of us pick easy things so we can get our degree over with, but you did not take that path.

Well, it was funny because at the time, um, so it was about what leadership styles work best in what we call virtual teams when you're at a distance from each other. And we studied the early video conferencing platform in a laboratory where everybody was on a different Square on a screen. And literally, I have a photo of it I use in some of my keynotes that is like early Zoom. We were studying early Zoom and how it impacted team performance and cohesion. So how well the team gelled together.

That's so cool, except they were really different monitors just put up like a Jeopardy. For those of us that are old enough, like a— what was that? Hollywood Squares, kind of.

It looked like Hollywood Squares. squares. And we were able to compare teams that were face-to-face solving the same problem with teams that were purely video, and then teams that were purely text-based, and then compare the differences. It was so interesting.

That sounds fascinating.

And back then, we found that video came quite close to approximating face-to-face when it came to team performance. So, that was interesting. And it shows us that a fair number of things can be Achieved by Teams when you are using the combination of video and text and audio, but you have that video component.

That's cool because I think some people, when they look at what can be done, it's not as important whether you're in person or virtual for work to be done. And in fact, I think there's ways we could get work done and problems solved and input gained from everybody better virtually than in person. I think what people start to confuse is their human connection they crave, um, maybe doesn't come through. And so they just automatically assume to do good work, we all need to be back together. But I think we can do good work virtually and then cure our craving for soul connections by coming together as needed. So I, of course, love your research because it kind of validates that theory.

Well, it does. And it was interesting, and I'll tell you what I knew before the pandemic, many years before the pandemic. I was convinced that certain personality types thrive working remotely and others struggle working remotely. And they do better with the structure of a more traditional work schedule and an office. So, we actually sought about collecting data on that. And we found that there was a personality profile of a remote worker. Interesting. Yeah, my research partner who later became my business partner, Dr. Tom O'Neill from the University of Calgary, he and I collected this data and we ended up in Scientific American magazine with the first remote work personality profile. And it's very true that most people work well in a combination effect. And we now call that hybrid. That's the term that's evolved. We didn't use hybrid back then.

Back then. But

the combination of time in an office, so you do get that community, that connection, etc. And then, time remotely where you save the commute and you can do heads-down, more focused work. And that mix of sort of a 2-3 day split tends to be the best for most people. But there are always exceptions and it's not a one-size-fits-all because there are some people that work best remotely and they get their soul connection, like you called it, Sai, from their community and other ways of connecting with real live human beings. And then, there's a percent that do best with the office. They like going to an office. And we're finding that especially the oldest generation who didn't grow up with technology, they're the ones who are pushing back most. Yes. To bring people back because they're the ones that have that lived experience and they don't really know any differently. So that's the trend that we're seeing now.

Interesting. And I wonder, does like my remote work personality change over time? Because I must say that when I had a bunch of little kids, going to work was the only way I could set boundaries. I'm like, I have to be in the office by 8 o'clock. These kids have to be dropped off. But now that I'm an empty nester, I'm like, if I never have to go into the office again, Except to love up my people, I'm fine. Did you find it changed? I know generationally there were some preferences, but did it change as people's life cycles, their life development stage changed?

Well, I think your personality traits don't change as much, but your learned behaviors and your preferences change based on where you are in the world, where you are in your career, your commute time, your home situation. So yes, People that are empty nesters are more likely to have a quiet, focused work setting than they did when they had little kids. And that's why the pandemic was a huge impact on so many parents with young kids.

Yeah. And I think we forget too that if you follow a more traditional trajectory, by that point in your career, you also have a lot more resources than somebody who's just starting out You know, one-bedroom, um, you know, apartments with, you know, a young child or something. I, I can see where circumstances play in there. But what I heard you found out back then, before we called it hybrid, is that, um, it's probably not as formulaic as we want it to be. Like, what's the answer? Everybody in for 3 days, or everybody in— And I see people really trying to solve this, like tell us— they want the research to tell us the answer transactionally. And just like a leader wants to know what the manual says so they can go, the policy states, and outsource kind of their— this complexity or this conversation we need to have. But you're really saying is there are some targets of some time in and time remote, and that it can be pretty individualized. for some folks, it's not a one-size-fits-all. What else would you tell people that are really struggling with leaders, usually older generation whose lived experience is get everybody's butt back here so I feel better that I can see them actually working, and younger experience, which is like, I have a 2-hour commute, I'm not going to come see you every day, but I would be glad to come in when there's meaningful work to be done. If you were to give us the primer of how to have conversations about that or think our way through Creating a workplace that isn't just random policies? Like, what would you tell us?

Well, I would say first of all, it's not a one-size-fits-all. And by that, I mean every organization is different. Every person is different. And every job is different. So, you got to look at it. It's variable. So, formulaic solutions to it are very, very dangerous. I think it's the one-size-fits-all mentality, thinking that you'll motivate, inspire, and get the most out of every person by treating them the exact same. Not going to happen, right?

Yeah, it's when people want to be like equal and fair instead of equitable, like giving, you know, negotiating that out like with people. And I think one other factor changes as our work changes. Like when you know, we're heavy in strategy formulation. Like, we want to be together on my team. This is just for my team. Right. When we're heavy into program execution delivery, we may not see each other for 3, 4 months, like ever in person. But I think it's having that conversation with how are you doing? What do you need? What's the business need? And we kind of have gates we go through, like, First is customer needs, like what serves the customer. And sometimes that's all of us on a call or seeing all of us on site for them, that some things just feel better to them, not virtual. And then what serves the team and what serves the organization. And overlying that is how big of a compromise individually is this for you? Like, does it You might say, I know the client wants this on site. Alex and Anna are expecting a new baby in December. Like, that's where individual needs trump organization or customer needs. So I think that it's just a lot of conversations that we're not that good at that balance community goodness with individual goodness. And I think individuals are a lot about like I want my preferences to trump business needs. And organizations are a lot about, I want our needs to trump your personal life. Neither one of those trumps are going to work out well.

No, absolutely not. And I have a slide where there's 2 columns sides. So, there's me and all the things that I want, right? My work-life balance, my family, my time, where I focus most. And then, the other side is we and what does my team need and my other team members who might really value that physical time together with me on certain days and what my customers and clients need. So you're bang on. It needs to be a balance. And I find when it's too heavy on one side or the other side, it's not the ideal solution. It's not going to be sustainable.

And I think that's the missing part of the conversation, Dr. Laura, is a lot of individuals are representing their needs, that they don't wanna lose something they feel they gained during this great experiment in remote work. You were already setting it.

Mm-hmm.

You know, they don't want to lose their flexibility, or they don't want to lose their ability to, you know, potentially, if they choose to be parents, parent differently. Or, um, and so they're coming in like we're in negotiations, representing themselves. The business is overreacting to that, trying to remind people we've got a business to run. Neither one of those things are helpful. Like, when I counseled, you know, couples that were looking to enhance their coupleship. You know, Dr. Perel talks about— Esther Perel talks about you've got to have independence offset with like community and mutuality. And that's really in a relationship, you have to figure out the healthy tension between both. And we both have to be willing to turn towards and lean into, I'm glad to do that just because it's good for others. Mm-hmm. And inconvenient for me. And I also hope that some of what's convenient for me can be honored as well. And I think that's the missing link, because most people are coming in to get their preferences rather than saying, here's what I would like and here's what I can offer, here's where I can give, um, so that we can have relationship. Mm-hmm. I don't think any marriage would work if it was like, if you stopped serving my needs and my needs only, regardless of your expense. The relationship is not going to work. I'm leaving. And I think in jobs, we leave right now without doing our part in the community. So I'll shut up there.

No, that's beautiful. That's me and we. And it works in romantic relationships. It works in friendships. And it works in business relationships. Me and we. Balanced.

The balance.

Best of both worlds. So something that I wanted to say from one of your earlier questions Is that I think one of the big challenges is leaders need to up their game. And one of the areas that they need to up their game in is really truly looking beyond their own selves. And I know you're the expert on ego, not me. But what I'm seeing is a lot of leaders see the world through how they experience it. So, and there's this similarity bias that we say just because they want to be in an office every day and they work their best in a physical office, going to work is an office, driving somewhere, commuting somewhere. They assume that their people work best that way. And that's the similarity bias. And I think leaders need to be very, very careful of that because you're putting your own identity onto the person. And the other bias is the proximity bias. Proximity bias, where people who I can see and are near me are working harder than the people who are remote. And in a lot of cases, you're, you're off when, when you make that assumption.

I love that you brought that up and how people can question their own thinking, because as we want more diverse and actually then do something with the diversity we have our people recruit, like actually leverage it and include it and give a sense of belonging, I think we have to realize how few people in the world are actually even like us. Like, our similarity bias really is narrow-minded thinking. Like, I've never had a 58-year-old white girl from Iowa work in my company. So like, I, I have no way of relating to anybody if I'm just operating out of my, um, bias. So I love that that's a place to start with leaders, is look at your— your bias and your fears? And how do you counteract that proximity bias with actual trust or your similarity bias with actually seeing people as the humans they are, not what you're projecting? Yeah.

And there's all this important talk about inclusivity and flexibility. Flexibility is inclusivity. One of my recent podcast guests said that and it's so true. If you take away flexibility, so if you take away the choice that people did have about where and when to work and you put on the cookie-cutter, one-size-fits-all approach, you are pulling away from inclusivity because certain people are highly sensitive. They have certain needs. They might be highly distractible in an open office environment, etc. So you're pulling away the ways that they focus and produce best.

That's so true. And when it comes to flexibility, it's a great way to empower people for self-determination. Like, figure out the bands in which people can self-determine and then give them total freedom in that, which takes a lot of trust. And, and we talk about it at Reality-Based Leadership, like, define your non-negotiables. Like, we want once a quarter at our company to be coming together. We've saved what we used to pay for leases to take great trips to Mexico and other places. But that's a non-negotiable for us, is the coming together of 2 to 3 days of reconnecting and planning. And, and then we have some things we put out there that here's blocks we'd like you to accommodate, figure those out. And then the rest of your time, as long as you get your work done, You get to determine. And the only time I talk to anybody about how they're determining that for themselves is when they aren't meeting expectations. And it isn't, you have failed us. It's like, where do you need to grow next in your ability to self-determine and set boundaries and plan and project manage so that you can not lose that privilege? And I think so many times we have someone who's low in accountability doesn't do well with flexibility or self-determination. And instead of performance managing them, we change the rule for everybody.

All the time.

That happened at Yahoo way back when Yahoo let everybody go home and work from home. And then some people didn't produce. And so instead of dealing with the few people, they called everybody back very rigidly. And then their retention was like, they lost like 50% of their best people. Yes. Because they are ruling for the low accountable.

I call that the boomerang effect. And I've used that in my keynotes where it's you give the gift of flexibility, the boomerang, right? And then, it comes back and you pull it back. IBM did the same thing. And we talk about those 2 cases. And in our Work Evolution company where we specialized in this for 7 years before we sold it during the pandemic, we really saw a lot of the boomerangs happening. So then, During the pandemic and as the pandemic eased, we talked about that. We said there's this boomerang effect from the past. And the data says you're gonna lose great people if you pull this gift away. And so I've said it till I'm blue in the face, Sai.

I trust that. I trust that. And I think anytime we're looking for a solution and we're on a spectrum of polarized thinking, like either/or, We just toddle back and forth with a non-solution. Like, we give it and take it. We've got to transcend that. And I think that takes leaders being able to first evolve themselves, as we talked about, through their biases, but also evolve themselves to see people as discrete humans and to develop their own trust. Because if I feel like I can't trust my people, what it really is telling me is I can't trust myself to lead my people. I can't— I don't trust my skills to lead in a variety of ways, whether someone's virtual or in the office or hybrid or— and so I think so many leaders, instead of upping their own skills, and individuals as team members upping their own skills, they're outsourcing that to give us the right answer, and then we'll just be victims of that. It's like, no, no, no, you got to co-create the right answer.

Exactly. And I feel that fear— you mentioned the word fear— I feel that's key. So, if they're seeing their profits go down, their revenues go down, market conditions are changing, and yet they'll blame it on the people are working from home, they're not as productive. And then, I'll say, well, what data do you have? What data are you collecting on individual productivity performance and goals and KPIs? But they're not.

Yes.

They're not. And then, they use time as an indicator of performance, face time. And I have a line that I use that people will slack whether in the cubicle or on the couch. So, if you get a slacker, and we did some research years ago on slack, on cyber slacking actually. But people who are slackers are not conscientious. They're not diligent. They have certain values that will Make them slack wherever they are. And rest assured, me sitting in this desk right now, I'm, I'm not necessarily more productive than I would be at my desk at home. It's about how I'm wired, my values, and my personality.

I think that's so important. And I also think when they do look at productivity data, they look at it in, you know, a mass rather than by accountability levels, or— and so it really masks maybe a real issue, which is performance management of a hybrid worker. Or, um, yeah, we're looking for easy answers. What do you think is the, um, the opportunity here? Because I know you also talk a lot about— I'm loving all your new speaking topics on well-being and how as a workplace we can co-create that with our team members. Like, what are some of the benefits if we get this right, or how does it impact well-being? And we've heard getting it right is being more data-based, and it's not so simplistic. But what's the opportunity here if we do get this right? What are you seeing?

Well, creating more humanistic or human-focused Leaders that develop their empathy muscle and develop their trust muscle, which is not easy. It's really, it's hard work. But it, like you said, it ups their game. So, I think there's a real chance to grow better leaders. I also think that pulling everyone back to the office— notice how I don't say back to work because if you say back to work, you imply that they weren't working when they were remote.

Oh, what a good catch.

The opposite of that.

Yeah, language is important. So, I'm gonna watch myself on that one. Back to the office.

You know what? It's so ingrained though. If you listen to people around you, it's back to work, back, you know, going back to work. Are you going to work today? And it's taken me a lot to change my language. And I'm a researcher in this. So, I mean, it's tough. Work should be a verb, not a noun.

I love that. I even find that depending on what room I'm sitting in, I even define that depending on what room I'm sitting in, whether people interrupt me. If I'm in the office, no one ever knocks on my door. Recently, to be more comfortable, I have, um, some pain in my lower back. I've been sitting out in the kitchen and everybody walks by and they go, are you working? And I'm like, Yes, I'm in front of a computer. I am working. So, it's even in the office. I mean, in the space that I'm in.

Yeah, exactly. So yeah, the language is important. But it's— I really do feel there's a mental health pandemic going on. So, the post-COVID pandemic is a mental health pandemic stemming from all the levels of uncertainty, fear, anger in the world. Yeah, unsettling polarization within each of our countries, but within the world. And I think that the mental health issues and such are very delicate right now. So if we add in unnecessary commutes, I'm not saying that every commute is unnecessary, but I'm saying if you think I need to be in an office 5 days a week, which is 10 commutes a week, which for some people can be 20 hours of time spent in traffic congestion. I just think you're putting another nail into their mental health challenges. You're just doing more damage through that. And I find it very, very sad to have that knee-jerk reaction when we're— I agree. in a mental health crisis.

Yeah, it's almost like, how can I be least lenient at the time where my people are most vulnerable? It just seems a mismatch. You know, maybe there is a better formula. I don't think there is. But what's the most humane formula? Where can I give? I was talking to a guy on the plane, and he was doing some ROI stuff. And so we got talking about how you figure from— he was a behavior economist— how you figure ROI. And what he's gonna publish on is scoping burden and ensuring that any requests of additional burden comes with a high enough ROI that it can be justified, whether it's a commute or whether it's you have to turn your cameras on, you know, in a meeting. What do you think about that anyway? I tend to be really rigid. I'm like, cameras on, people. I don't care what you look like. If you A lot of women are like, guys can just turn their cameras on. I have an hour to get camera ready. I'm like, on my team, I don't care. Show up in your durag. I don't care. But cameras on are important for our virtual meeting. But maybe that's just a hangup I have as a leader. What do you think about cameras on?

I think they're very important for a couple of reasons. And from the research that I did back in the early days of the early 2000s, I would say they just, they make you more focused, more engaged, more feeling a part of something. When you turn off your camera, you can get away with so much more multitasking.

I think so.

It's so much easier not to be here now, which is meaning be in the moment now with your people. I mean, if you're terribly sick or if you've been on meetings all day and your eyes are sore, that's another thing. But then, you should come on and say, look, My eyes are really sore, this and that. Do you mind if I turn it off? And that's why.

And I, I'm so glad to hear that because I think it's really important. And I get asked— number one question I get asked for performance management stuff is, how, you know, how do I address someone who just consistently won't turn their camera on? And for me, I'm like, back out of that. Tug of war. You know, it's like with an adolescent when we demand something. Like, and talk more about engagement. Like, if you are today not feeling up to it, you're gonna have your camera off. I need to see your engagement in the chat. I need to see some emojis from you for people to know, like, are you clapping or gawking or, you know, guffing at the comment that was made? Um, but to me, it's, it's It's part of being a team member and it's engagement. And it's, it's one of those times where your personal preference can't trump the health of our meeting and the needs of your teammates. And so it goes back to that balance you talk about.

And that's why we're a huge fan of team playbooks or charters, where when you're in a remote team, you come up with the rules of engagement for the team and you all agree upon them. And that includes meeting habits, meeting preferences, communication tools that we're using, our response times, how we each handle stress, and how we communicate when we are at our limit. So, you have these open, honest conversations as a team. You capture the expected behaviors and then you sign off on it. Okay? And then, you onboard new members to it. And then, you make adjustments and tweaks as time goes on. And it makes a huge, huge difference. To these, you know, rules of engagement, basically.

I think it just sets great expectations, which we all know leads to enhanced performance, the clarity on that. And I like the words you use because it follows kind of boundary setting. A lot of people think boundaries are like the non-negotiables, but they can also be the preferences, the desires, the limits

on

How we look at that. It's so important. What other recommendations do you have for leaders working with hybrid work experiences?

Working with hybrid?

Yeah, like I have my team and they're decentralized. And what are some other things? How can we— I think we need to develop team members and leaders because it's shared accountability, but Do we have some concrete suggestions? I know you've already given us so many, like a playbook and not a one-size-fits-all and many of those things. Are there other things you want to add to that list?

Well, I think it's about truly connecting. And it's about the importance of the one-on-ones that the leader has with each individual where they can truly get to know the person, get to know their challenges. And that's That's where you find out if there is a mental wellness issue at play. That's where you find out what's going on in their world, in their life. And again, I think those one-on-ones, whether you're remote or whether you're together, need to happen regularly. And too often, they get canceled.

Yeah.

I also think that in a hybrid context, being very intentional about your time together. When you are dragging everyone into an office, you better make it worthwhile. You better make it an engaging, collaborative experience. And I'm afraid that that takes more work than everyone just showing up and sitting at their desk all day. You need to be a leader who is purposeful about community connection, caring, celebrating, honoring one another as human beings. And you can do that really well remotely too. But again, it takes extra effort and intentionality. And it takes good use of the different tools. Like you said, emojis, you know, using emojis, using video, using memes, right? I mean, our team uses really fun memes and it really is a fun way to celebrate and connect with each other.

I love it when people bring memes in. I'm not as talented at that because I'm usually kind of facilitating. But I love when somebody is listening and they come up with the funniest perfect meme and throw it in chat. I appreciate all that you're saying. Another really cool thing I saw recently, because, you know, reality-based leadership, we talk about no meetings after the meetings, which is where I didn't speak up in the meeting and then I go complain about not feeling empowered after the meeting. And someone who knows my work says, Sai, we do have meetings after the meetings. And I said, oh my gosh, tell me more about that. And they say that they leave the chat Open. I don't know what format they use because they know that processing continues after a meeting, and so they leave the conversation open. Now the difference is it's not drama triangle where two people go talk about a third. It's not someone playing victim that you know they couldn't bring something up. It's all there for the people attending the meeting, but the chat stays open, and they're like, "Hey." Here's what was cooking for me that I couldn't identify right in the meeting. Here's additional thoughts, and they just leave the conversation going. And they have found really great circle backs. So at the next meeting, they're like, okay, in the chat we took these different directions. Let's circle back. And they said this really enhanced the conversations they have person to person because there's this ebb and flow where some of your more introverted people aren't put on the spot. Like they can think about it and come back in the meeting and. And it doesn't end the conversation. And I think too many times when the meeting's over, there's lingering stuff happening that we don't capture or consider. I thought that was genius.

I think that is genius. And I know Teams does a great job of that. When we're in Teams, our meetings continue after Teams. But other platforms that are, you turn them on and off, like Zoom doesn't do so well at that.

It doesn't. I think some of their updates might be trying to capture some of that. You know, I wanna go back to wellbeing and the mental health crisis because, I mean, any data you look at, people are feeling more stressed. I believe in some ways we've prepared them less for life as a human. We're not necessarily teaching, um, how to regulate emotions. We're not teaching people about, you know, the vagal nervous system or their somatic experiences or trauma. We're getting there, but I think Instagram and TikTok are better at teaching these things than some of our formal avenues. And so we have an underdeveloped— in my opinion as a counselor— an underdeveloped set of human beings meeting some of the most complex, uncertain times, which is like a recipe for disaster. Do you have other things that we can do to support the well-being of our people and, and maybe help them build in Also some resiliency or some greater capacity to move more skillfully through this world?

Well, I would say in school is when we need to be teaching them these skills. Like you said, emotional regulation, stress management, setting boundaries. We need to teach them all about mental health, mental wellness, mental illness. Just like we do other forms of disease in a science class. We need to make the mental wellness topic just very, very much out there. And I

think that— Normalize, very normalize it.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And I think that we're doing a better job, like you say, but we're also not preparing kids as well to be resilient and to deal with failure and to deal with competition. I mean, it's a competitive world and a competitive landscape whether we like it or not. And we need to teach these kids how to bounce back and grow from adversity.

Yeah. And you talk about the boomerang effects. I think a lot of us our age grew up with probably a little trauma with a small or capital T where we're like, my parents were like, I'm not supporting you. Go work it out with your teacher. And I'm like, well, I'm 12 and she's 40. Like a little help here. But I think you know we boomerang to the other side where we don't often facilitate our kids working out. You know much of that. I have this fantasy that every onboarding to a position like comes with like the old codependency treatment where we put people through a couple of weeks of like. learning about boundaries, learning about their responsibilities in the world. I have this fantasy that as adults we put them through a little mental health treatment program the first 2 weeks of their job, and then we have aftercare for them to come together and talk about non-work things. I'm all about bringing that back into the workplace, only because I think the workplace is where we could actually connect with most people.

Yeah. And I also want to say something that really stands out is we're often focused on treating the individual. So, when they are mentally unwell and they're going through a burnout or a crisis or whatever, it's about them. But we don't focus enough on creating workplaces that are healthy and non-toxic leaders. Yeah. I'm seeing a lot of toxic leadership, toxic And I'm seeing the impact of that on human beings. And

then I learned that personally because I felt like I really minded my mental health and that I used to preach always like succeed in spite of your circumstances. And what I've really learned in the last 10 years is there really are some circumstances that can take healthy people under. Like, it's still my responsibility to leave that. It's my responsibility to, you know, take care of myself. you know, learn my part in that, all of the things I preach. But I do think there are just some workplaces that can take— um, you know, we all are vulnerable and susceptible, but I, I'm seeing more toxic leadership too. I don't like to throw around the words of like narcissistic, but certainly the, the traits of that, um, being prevalent. Um, somebody did some great work on the number of sociopaths that get in senior leadership. Um, who wrote that book? Have you read that book?

Made in Suits? Yes. Snakes in suits. Yeah, that's a good one. And I ended up doing a series on narcissism on my podcast about a year and a half ago because I, I just really wanted to understand, like you said, is it an all-or-nothing phenomenon? And it really, it is on a continuum, right? From you can have healthy narcissistic behaviors to very, very unhealthy and damaging narcissistic behaviors. And

I think we all have narcissistic behaviors. That's why I dislike on Instagram where it's like everyone's ex is a narcissist, but But I think it's important to bring it up. And what I love about when you study something like narcissism, you use it for your work, but you also use it in your fiction writing. So I have to, like, hear a little plug for— you write some pretty crazy storylines.

Yeah, I wrote a book about a billionaire abducting his high school sweetheart 10 years later, and he creates the perfect life for them. And it's about trusting your intuition. It's about obsessive relationships and the early warning signs of an obsessive boyfriend. And I wrote a sequel to it that happens 12 years after the first book. And it has a lot of important messages. Yes. Even though it's fiction, it really gets at the mental health. So what extreme mental illness looks like, whether he's a You know, a narcissist, sociopath, etc. But it really gets into how you, you deal with these situations and how you, you trust your own intuition.

I think that's so important. And a lot of times people read self-help books, but what I think, like, not reading as much fiction as we used to— and that's why I love, if you're not a reader, listening to podcasts. And it's the story behind it, because there's just these key themes, whether it was, you know, Carl Jung or these archetypes. Like, there's just these key themes that make up fiction and nonfiction that are kind of universally true that you need to figure out about yourself, which I wrote a lot about in Life's Messy, Live Happy. Um, I can't believe you're not the busiest speaker out there, personally, because the, um, you're like my best-kept secret. I sing your praises all over the place because everyone I run into is like, oh my gosh, I'm looking for, you know, help with how do we create a workplace that supports people's mental well-being, physical well-being? How do we figure this out? And not that one keynote will solve everything, but I think your keynotes would really change the conversations people are having at work. It wouldn't be just like HR trying to argue with the C-suite. I think it would really redirect people's conversations to saying. you know, what's workable here? What's my bias? What's helpful to the people to not add burden? What do we really need to get done? And how can we put together something that can serve all of that? And, and that's what I like about your philosophy. It's evidence-based, but it really includes and, not, um, it's not prescriptive. It's— Yeah.

And from running a counseling psychology practice for 15 years and for, from practicing as an organizational consultant for 20 years, I really have both. Like, what are the impacts of people in a counseling setting? What are the clients of Canada Career Counseling saying about their toxic leaders and workplaces? And what's going on there? And then, what can we do systemically to change this pattern? So, I look at it from the organizational perspective, societal, and then individual. I like playing on both levels.

Well, and I think that's what gets fascinating because whenever we talk about what the organization can do, what people say is, what about the people? And whenever we talk about how to support the people and what to expect from them, we talk about, but how do you do it systematically? And you talk about both of those, that they aren't mutually exclusive. And there's quite a few places where it's the same goal, the same intent, like you really can meet someplace in the, in the mid-range. So I normally don't bring people on and like rave about them, but I, um, I love your work. And I just know so many of my, uh, companies are trying to figure this stuff out, and I wanted them to know that there's this awesome resource out there, that your data isn't just pandemic-related. You've looked at this for a long time, plus you bring in the psychology of the human. Um, it's just really good stuff. I know people are going to want to know more. How do they find Dr. Laura? And that's different from the Dr. Laura, what's your one question so I can kind of be mean to you, the old radio show host that I thought was such a mean therapist. But you're the nice Dr. Laura from Canada. How do they find you?

Yeah, I'm the Canadian Dr. Laura, but I do work all over the world. The more I work with different people all over the world, the more I realize we're more similar than different. First of all, there's more similarities in terms of what humans need in terms of appreciation, respect, love. It's really a cross-cultural thing. And yeah, I'm delighted to connect with people. My website is www.drlaura.com. Awesome. All as one word, drlaura.live, L-I-V-E. So, that's where to find me. My novels are on there too. So, that's exciting. Losing Cadence is being positioned for a series. So, we're really excited to have an amazing screenwriter and producer, and we're in the final stages of getting that project launched. So, very, very excited about that. And excited to do more speaking. I love to speak and I love to, to help make human lives and organizational lives better.

It's really that simple. Well, I'm thrilled that we've gotten to be friends and I appreciate you so much coming on. And I really hope people check out your work. So thank you and be well.

Thank you, Sy. Take care.