[00:00:00] Stephen: Well, my podcast, today's Guest is Beth Stallwood. She's a coach, a facilitator speaker, a consultant and author, and she's the founder of Create Work Joy. Beth describes work joy as that positive, warmer, happy feeling you get about work when working or at work. We certainly need more work, joy, but where does it come from? And where do we get it? So we're gonna delve into that.

[00:00:21] Beth's first book WorkJoy, a Toolkit for a Better Working Life is out now. And our podcast, the WorkJoy Jam, is available on all major podcast platforms. You're gonna love this. Welcome to the Wow Work podcast. 

[00:00:34] Do you think 30 years ago people are having these conversations about, you know, changing the world of work, are creating workplaces with joy,

[00:00:43] Beth: I think it's really interesting because I come from a family where my mom loved her work and is like 70 something and still working and my dad hated his job but did it because he had to, cuz he needed to earn some money and was miserable at work. And I think seeing both sides of it, but that, I don't think they ever, ever thought that they could do anything about it. I think it's the whole, this is you, you know, you, you should be grateful to have a job, you should be grateful to have this attitude versus a actually you are giving yourself to this organization. There should be kind of some payoff other than just you get a salary.

[00:01:17] Stephen: I know here in Ireland, um, uh, secondary education wasn't free till 1967, so most people before 1967 didn't get an opportunity to go onto second level education. So you just left and you worked in the factory or the whatever.

[00:01:28] Beth: Yeah. You just did what, whatever was local to you. You went and did it.

[00:01:31] Stephen: and that was it. And you pretty much hoped that that job was gonna be there for life. That factory would still be running in 40 years time when you're retired or whenever it was, 50 years time when you're retired. And that was pretty much life for a lot of us back. And you just hoped that the organization had a good policy of treating their staff well.

[00:01:48] And some organizations were good at I, what I thought was interesting was you had likes of, I know where Cadbury had, did they have a place called Bourneville Town or something?

[00:01:56] Beth: So they had a whole town where they put people, you know, they had, they had a church and a whole like row of houses where people who worked in the factory could live and they did lots of kind of good work. So there are examples of it, like throughout history, but I don't think there's, there's not as much. Um, I don't think people realized they had so much agency to do something back then. They were kind of hopeful and grateful if they had a job. Whereas now I think people are like, well, hang on a minute. I can go and earn money in many, many different ways. Why should I give my services to you?

[00:02:28] Stephen: My dad worked for, uh, Jacob's Biscuits, which were, uh, yeah, yeah. He worked his whole life with Jacob's Biscuits, and they were a company from, originally a family from a Quaker family from Waterford in Ireland that eventually moved up to Dublin. Now, when they moved up to Dublin, to Bishop Street, where they had the, uh, uh, the first factory in premises, they actually bought the whole sort of street and, uh, yeah. So a lot of the workers would've lived around there, but they also bought when they bought the street. I think they bought the pubs on the street and they shut them down

[00:02:54] Beth: Shut them down so they wasn't drinking

[00:02:56] Stephen: Yeah, that didn't really go with the Quaker way of life, so,

[00:02:58] Beth: Yeah. I think I have a feeling that the Krenn family might have been the same. Back in the day, it was like a, you can have a church and a community center, but you can't have a pub type thing.

[00:03:07] Stephen: I think there was a whole idea around abstinence back then was a real sort of, yeah. Was a real part of society. Yeah. So that's changed over, oh, over the last, whatever, 60 years or so, and now we're having, you know, conversations about how we can create more joy. Can you tell me, Beth, what got you to this point or what was your catalyst that that sort of got you really interested in the whole idea of work, joy.

[00:03:29] Beth: I think I spent, I know I spent like the 20 years of my career so far working with organizations, working with individuals and coaching individuals, and so many times there are so many themes around people being miserable at work. You even have to look at like a meme or something and it's like, oh, hump day Wednesday. You can make it through. Thank God it's Thur, you know, all this stuff. It's like, okay, but what if work didn't have to be like that? What if it doesn't, and it doesn't actually have to be miserable. It doesn't, and there are so many things that you can do. And I kept kind of coming back to this idea when I was coaching people, that once people realized they had some power over it, that they could do some stuff, that there were activities and actions that they could take to be able to have more joy at work. 

[00:04:12] And I'm, I'm not talking about like I'm, I'm, I live in the real world. You are not gonna have 100% joy all the time at work. There's gonna be some stuff, there's always some stuff that is annoying. But actually, if you can get the balance of joy in the right direction, like more of it than there is not of it, work can be really great for you. Like there's a reason why humans work. Like it's good for us, it's good for the community, it's good for our sense of belonging, it's good for our sense of achievement. And actually finding the joy in that makes that whole process better and easier to do. 

[00:04:42] Um, so it kind of, it stemmed from that. And then at the beginning of lockdown, I had the situation where the first few weeks, everything I was doing got canceled cause it was all in person. And they were like, council, council, council. I was like, okay, well maybe now this is the time to write the book. I've been talking about writing the book for ages and I started putting some kind of real effort into it and doing some research and thinking about it.

[00:05:01] And the, the thing about my book is it is a toolkit is a practical guide. It's not a, here's all the research and to joy at work. There's a bit of that, but it's a, actually, here are some of the things that you can do to get more joy at work. So it's a, a kind of go do some stuff take and I'm, I'm big on personal responsibility. So it's take the ownership and go and do some stuff that will make you happier.

[00:05:21] Stephen: Brilliant. I like that. So while everybody else is baking banana bread and learning how to play the ukulele during lockdown, you were writing a book.

[00:05:27] Beth: Yeah. Well, I, I started writing it then I then put it on ice for like a year and a half. Um, while I did some, I ran some coaching programs around it. I did, uh, kind of my podcast around it, getting more and more information. And then I was like, okay, I actually have to write this now. , you can't keep saying you're gonna write it. You have to actually write it

[00:05:44] Stephen: Yeah. But you actually did it. It's a wonderful book. It is. And I like the ideas as well, because one of the things that you talk about is that when we even use words like work-life, balance work takes precedence, and that sentence,

[00:05:55] Beth: Yeah. And it drives me mad. That one is one of the ones that drives me absolutely insane because sometimes work takes over, sometimes life takes over. But actually when we think about it, work is a part of life. Life isn't a part of work. It's the, it's the other way around. And we should always be thinking about what's going. That's why it, the first proper chapter is about life. It's like, think about your life and how work fits into it. How much space is it taking? Because so many people are just overwhelmed with work.

[00:06:20] Stephen: So one of the things that I, that I'm beginning to notice with a lot of people that I'm talking to in workshops is that, that there is that bleed between work and life. Now that we've gone into the remote, uh, sphere, it, it's almost like that life, sorry, that work doesn't seem to end. So that bit where it used to be you physically clock out from the factory or the office or whatever, you know, and you walked out and you knew you could forget about work till you came back. With the invention of email, communication tools, platforms, and all this kind of thing. It has just made that, um, you know, less, less possible to be able to just have that absolute cut between work and now leisure and life.

[00:06:55] Beth: And I think those boundaries, those boundaries have actually been disappearing before our eyes for about 20 years. But it was really highlighted when the kind of massive experiment into working from home happened during lockdown. It has been happening for a long time, since I, I think, since the invention of like the Blackberry. Do you remember the Blackberry back in the day? Oh, I love my Blackberry. I don't think they do them anymore, do they? But, um, that whole thing about taking work home didn't happen for a lot of people until about 20 years ago. And then more and more and more it's happened. And then when people have started this mass experiment of working from home, they are there having their work within their home life and that people started with, oh, isn't it great? I don't have to commute and I've got this time back and I'm, I'm gonna do the baking banana bread and learning to play the ukulele or starting a hobby up that I've never done before, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera.

[00:07:51] But then that time it got eroded by more conversations and more emails. And because I, I, one of the reasons I think it happens is when we're in a human conversation, like face-to-face in person, we get sometimes into a deeper level of conversation. We're able to kind of deal with things a little bit more collaboratively easily that way. And when you get onto the online stuff, it's like emails going backwards and forwards, which you could probably answer in a phone call in five seconds or a in person in two seconds. I'm exaggerating to make the point. And I think that those boundaries that have disappeared are ones that we really need to think about ourselves because so often it's actually not the organization that's making the boundaries disappear. It's us and making choices, maybe subconscious choices to keep working versus setting some boundaries to separate our life and our work.

[00:08:45] And there are so many positive benefits to working from home. I wouldn't wanna say that that's a bad thing. I think, you know, people experimenting with hybrid working is a great thing. I think we are probably in the most flexible working. Ways that the world has ever really since the kind of dawn of the industrial era. It's the most flexible we've ever been. Yet, just having flexibility isn't the answer in itself. So flexible ability, brilliant, I'm all for it, but we also individually take some responsibility to have boundaries, to be able to say, actually, this is when I'm stopping work. This is when I am working. And for organizations to also be respectful of those boundaries as well.

[00:09:27] But I do think a lot of times it's, it's us as individuals who we erode our own boundaries and then find ourselves in a situation where, because we've always workloads more than we were supposed to, or we are contracted to or expected to, it becomes the norm. And then breaking that cycle is really, really hard because everyone's like, well, you always used to do this. Why? Why are you not doing it anymore?

[00:09:50] Stephen: Yeah. And now we've had about three years of it. Like I, I think about it even when the lockdowns first started and everybody's sort of made makeshift, officer makeshift spaces to put, uh, you know, to, to do their work from. And I remember I was using the kitchen table and I discovered that from the kitchen table. Then, like my daughter was using another room in a house, like mealtimes were bleeding into work time in, in the fact that like there was remnants of work left when you were having your meal. And then after your meal was finished you could seal Steve the laptop was there, there was documents maybe that you needed our books that needed to be read. And it, it really felt like I was never escaping work. 

[00:10:22] And it took me about two, I think it was about last year. Yeah, it was last year. It was a bit January, 2022, I just decided to pull this room apart, which was a room for throwing lots of stuff into and just forgetting about them and that kind of thing. You all have rooms like that. Pull the whole thing apart and, and one of the things that I created was, um, I created, I bought a standing desk and cuz I'd, I'd looked into research, um, around this and it's just transformed. Absolutely. Evan, this is a little haven. And the great thing about this is that when I drop my laptop laid down and I close that door over here to my right, that's it. My work seems to end and I walk out of the room. And, and it's, it's just changed everything and it's just by doing that process, my life just feels different compared to what it had been two years ago when we were trying to find our way.

[00:11:04] Beth: yeah. I really agree with that. And I think, I think first of all, we all, because it was a emergency situation, not anything like reality when lockdown first happened, there was kind of this gung ho community in our house spirit that we're all gonna just get on and it'll be great. And then suddenly it's two years later and the new normal, whatever version that is has set in and we haven't really adapted to it.

[00:11:30] So I've done a similar thing. I now work in what used to be my garage and I'm able to shut the door at the end of the day and to kind of go back to home life. And it has, like you transformed kind of my thinking and how I approach my boundaries to work and life. And before it was very kind of muddled. And when I was like looking for clothes, I was also looking at my work and looking at my work, trying to sort out like the latest pile of washing. You know, you've always got these things going on in, in real life. And I think being able to have those boundaries. 

[00:11:59] But there's also, we also have to remember there's a massive privilege to being able to do that and having the space to do that. And there was a lot of people being really excited about the kind of working from home thing and working from the home offices during lockdown and beyond, and people who still work from home or do hybrid working now. But for every person who's doing that, there are also people who, during lockdown were in shared houses and working, literally sat on their bed with their laptop. I think sometimes we forget that there is a massive difference in the experience that people have working from home. Not everybody loves it. The home isn't a safe, wonderful, nice place for everybody. Our homes don't all have the space to be able to have a dedicated work environment. And I think, you know, people who love the office environment, we've all gotta remember that different things bring us joy. So individually, right, what brings you joy might not be the same as what brings me joy. Might not be the same as somebody else. 

[00:12:54] So one of the parts of the book I write about is like, you have to discover it for yourself. Yes, there are some things that you can do. So I, I suggest some experiments that people can work through that will help them bring the joy, but they've gotta fi find out what those things are. They've gotta work through it themselves. The answers aren't the same for everybody. Some people love being in office. Some people love being at home. Some people love the combination of both of those things. Some people love the commute as a way of kind of decompressing from work. Some people never want to get on a train or a car, or a bus or a plane ever again. So we have to work on the things that work for us, and actually dedicate some brain space to it rather than just kind of being in that hamster wheel churn of everything and going round and round and round and getting more and more like frustrated or more and more miserable, or more and more disconnected from people or more and more disengaged from our work, we have to step off it and kind go, okay, where do I want to be? How am I gonna make that happen?

[00:13:47] Stephen: I, I've had a couple of conversations with this. I had one with my partner and, uh, like the whole idea of like working remotely, uh, to hybrid, to hopping in and outta the office, to being back in the office full-time, which were all sort of options that were, were that, that were given. I think many people have that.

[00:14:05] And I know, we sort of got used to the comfort and the safety of working from home for two years. There was a reason why we didn't wanna go out the front door. And there was lots of reasons around fear of what was going on outside. And then when that began, the dust began to settle on, uh, on that, and I asked the question, would you want to work remotely for the rest of your life, your working life? And they suddenly went, oh, definitely not. But at the time, two years ago, the question was, yes, I definitely love this and I wanna stay here and I don't have to go back into to meeting anybody. But that changes cuz as humans, we're social animals and that's, that's who we want to, you know, we want to connect with others.

[00:14:38] Beth: And I think beyond the connection, when we think about the other things you get from being together with other humans, so connection, important one, belonging, obviously based things of what humans need to feel good to feel neutral, to feel human, let alone getting to the point of feeling any joy about it, we need, we do need human connection. But the other things that you miss out on sometimes when you are not in that space. And I am a real advocate for hybrid, I'm for flexible working, for making it work. But you do miss out on the accidental conversations. You miss out on kind of the, I call it like the organizational learning by osmosis. You know when you're sat next to someone and you hear them do a really great conversation, you're like, Ooh, next time I'm doing a sales call or whatever it is, I'm gonna try that out. Or when you are there and somebody says something about an opportunity that you'd never heard about before and you are, you wanna step into like that area and a career and you would never have known unless you'd been sat next to 'em, a lunch break or something. There's something for me about. allowing the more informal, the more casual conversation that are helpful in workplaces to happen. And those things you can, if you are really mindful about it, replicate them online. You can replicate them digitally, yet they're not so easy to do. It's like formalizing the informal, which is possible, but it takes a lot more effort to formalize a, uh, a coffee conversation than it does when you are just stood next to somebody at the coffee machine. And it's slightly more awkward because it's not how humans necessarily naturally will react to each other.

[00:16:14] Stephen: Yeah. I think all the best leaders over the course of the last two and a half, three years are the ones that have had those one-to-one sort of calls that have touched base with the person on a human level, rather on a productivity level or a work level. Just to say, you know, Beth, how are you? How's the family? How's life? Anything I can help you with?

[00:16:29] Beth: And I think for me, starting with being human Is there always a good place to be? Whether you are a leader, whether you are somebody who's new to the world of work, whether you've been around for donkeys years and are, are just trying to make work, work for you. I think there's something around remembering that you are a human and allowing yourself space to not be perfect, allowing yourself space to experiment, to get things wrong, to try things out, to learn, to grow, to do different things. Um, all of those things are based on the best place to start is, let's just remember we're all human beings here. And there are lots of organizations that say things like, like humans are, you know, people are our greatest assets, so let's remember that they are people and remember that they are here and they have lives beyond work.

[00:17:12] And I actually think one of the benefits of having. Initial lockdown when lots of people, and we should also remember, not everybody was, there were a lot of people who weren't working from home. You know, doctors, nurses, uh, post people are, um, refuse collector, there were a lot of people not working from home. But the people in the kind of knowledge-based economy were mainly working from home. Is that suddenly I think leaders were exposed to seeing people's lives beyond their work, especially when people had kids or, you know, think people to look after dogs, cats, seeing people's, you know, you see behind me, you see my, my world of work or my world of home, and I think that was a really big benefit to leaders becoming a little bit more empathetic and understanding people from a human level, seeing into people's lives rather than just thinking about people as they are here to work.

[00:18:07] This is the, you know, like you have your work-based personality and your home-based personality, and the, the, the theory is the closer those two things are, the happier you will be at both working at home, so, you know, not having to mask too much. Now I always think, okay, there's a probably home-based Beth and a professional filter based Beth and they, they might be very similar, but there's probably some stuff you were doing either way. But I think there is something around leaders seeing that and remembering that people are human. But I think we all have to remember ourselves that we are human as well. And there's so much about work and kind of overworking yourself and perfectionism and trying to do everything and trying to be good at everything. And I think that is actually a route to quite a lot of what I call work gloom, which is the stuff that just makes you feel miserable.

[00:18:54] Stephen: I was gonna get onto that now, onto the work lumen. Just before we do that, I do remember, son, I forget who it was, who had made a statement during the whole sort of last two and a half years that really we were just humans trying to navigate through a pandemic while getting some work done, you know? And pretty much that summed up where we were at, uh, rather than the other way around, you know?

[00:19:11] So I like the idea in your book, you talk about a couple of different areas, um, but you focus on work joy, but if you also talk about work Lu, you've just mentioned it there. Can you

[00:19:19] Beth: Yeah. Should I tell you a bit about work? Like. Okay, so, um, I probably haven't described work joy either, so I'll do a little bit of both. So work joy is that feeling either a, I call them like micro moments or kind of the fundamental factors that bring you a sense of joy at work. So that bring you that feeling engaged, a little skip in your step, a smile on your face, that feeling of being either kind of good at what you do, of having a great conversation with somebody. It could be so many different things that bring it for you. And that joy isn't gonna be there 100% of the time. And if it was, you probably wouldn't recognize it as joy either. So in the middle there's kind of like this neutral zone, which is a kind of just getting through life and feeling good about stuff, but not like, this is amazing. This is brilliant. So there's someone in between.

[00:20:00] On the opposite side of that is what I call work gloom. And I will tell you now, when I first started writing the book, it was not the word gloom that was used, but I thought we'd be a bit more professional. Again, employ the professional filter to this. So work gloom is where it came from and work gloom can come from many different angles. It can come from ourselves, it can come from other people. Um, it's that kind of state of a bit disengaged, feeling a little bit miserable, feeling a bit like you can't get things done. Feeling like whatever you do doesn't work. Feeling like you just don't wanna be here, like you are annoyed with everybody. It can kind of range from like, Ugh, I'm being a bit computer, says no about stuff to actually like chronically feeling that horrible do. Remember that Sunday night pit of the stomach, utter dread about going to work, because you know what's coming at you. Like we from there to also like, Ugh, I want to throw my laptop out the window cuz technology doesn't work.

[00:20:59] There's lots of little things, little things to big things. Same with joy, same with gloom. Little things to big things, things that kind of add up o over time. And I always talk about it like mountains where Molefi hills wants stood. Like little things that happen so often, they're either brilliant or they're so annoying for you. You know, the person who always emails you and bcs, seasons your boss or you know, little things, big things, everything that happens in between working relationships, your boss, the way the organization does, their culture stuff, which is whew, such a complicated beast of many, many, many, many different factors. But work glam can happen occasionally and it can also be that chronic, I need to escape here kind of level. 

[00:21:44] And the, the way out of it is actually to try and get to neutral. It's to try and go, okay, what is it that's bringing me this gloom? And sometimes even if you just know that it can help you. But I think for me, I would always focus more on building joy than, and, and doing a bit of managing the gloom because there is always gonna be some stuff at work. There's always gonna be a policy or an annoying bit of technology or you know, you don't always get to choose who you spend your time with at work. There'll be some people you just don't get on with. So allowing, allowing them there to be some gloom isn't the end of the world. It's like how quickly do you get out of it and get into that neutral space to then be able to build some joy? 

[00:22:21] And so many people that I've worked with over the last few years when we've been working through the work joy programs is that the more you focus on the joy and the more they build that, the less the gloom seems to matter. Like, it's like, oh, I can handle that. I have the resilience, I have the ability to handle it. Because overall I'm feeling quite good at work.

[00:22:38] Stephen: Do you think it's the, um, uh, it's responsibility of the organizations though, to ensure is, is I think that's what organizations are getting better at now, is creating workspaces where people feel good about themselves. So there's less opportunity for the workload to appear.

[00:22:50] Beth: Yeah. I think organizations are getting more and more savvy about the fact that if they want people to do great work, they're gonna have to have people in a great position. Right? That, that they're gonna people who. Feel good. And whether we call it joy or whether we call it engagement or whether there's so many different ways you could describe what I call work joy. And I'm really happy that there's many, many definitions for it. There is so much evidence that proves that that equals better performance, that equals better engagement, that equals better customer service, that equals 1,000,001 different things that are positive business indicators. Having people who are fully engaged, interested, happy in their work, happy in their life, able to work together with other people, able to collaborate, able to be creative and come up with solutions. I dunno about you, but have you ever come up with a great idea when you feel miserable? 

[00:23:39] Never once. Have you ever come up with a good idea that's been seen through where you've done it completely on your own?

[00:23:45] Stephen: Yeah. If I'm in a quiet space and I feel good. Yeah. Yeah.

[00:23:47] Beth: So remembering that there are different factors, right? So some, you know, coming up with an idea on your own, then maybe bringing it to a team of people and then working through it. We've got different things that make a different space. I think sometimes organizations rush to an answer to the challenge.

[00:24:02] So, you know, for many years there's been the whole focus on wellbeing, which is a fantastic and very, very worthy topic to be thinking about. But I've seen many organizations go from zero to what they think is hero by going, we're gonna really focus on wellbeing. So we're putting a yoga class on, on a Friday lunchtime. And you go, okay, but is that actually what wellbeing is? And it don't get me wrong, that is better than nothing. And I would always take us doing something over doing nothing because one step forward, one action in any direction always feels better than standing still. So there's definitely something there. But I think there is something here around actually, what's the root cause of things that bring people joy in your organization? It'll probably be different for all of them and it'll be different in every organization. And how do you build an environment and a structure and a process and a culture that allows that to happen.

[00:24:49] But the first thing I think is we need the individuals to be engaged with the idea that they have some responsibility for it. Now, in the future, there is gonna be, I'm sure I'm gonna write a book about actually how do you create a joyful organization, but you can't create an organizational joy organization just by the organization doing stuff. We have to get the individuals doing stuff as well.

[00:25:08] Stephen: Absolutely. I'm, I'm interested in that because when you talked about the mental health, um, sort of idea that we do a Wellbeing day or whatever, a Wellbeing week, and a lot of organizations do that probably, which sometimes I feel sometimes they could be box ticking exercises that somebody has come up with this at a meeting and they say, yeah, we need to address this. So we'll have this particular week are, because the calendar is full of days that are, uh, you know, associated with everything. You can have pancake day, you can have chocolate spread day. There's lots of other days. So somebody jumps on the fact that it's World Happiness Day or it's world's Happiness at work day, and suddenly everybody goes, let's concentrate on that for today. And then what actually happens is then they do something for that particular day and then that's forgotten about and they move on to the way they used to work beforehand.

[00:25:49] Beth: Yeah. And I think what we need to remember is much of that stuff is really well-intentioned, but not necessarily great in the outcome space. So box ticking is possibly like, we just need to do it well-intentioned is I think this is a really good idea and could really help people. And sometimes we need to go okay, but well-intentioned is also how does this actually really work for individuals? Does everyone really want a yoga class? Would somebody else like something else? And I think I, you know, wellbeing is not necessarily my expert area. I think if you got more work joy, you will feel a better sense of wellbeing. I think there is an outcome relate wellbeing, outcome related to work joy. 

[00:26:26] But I think organizationally we need to think a bit deeper about. Wellbeing. I think we need to think a bit deeper about joy at work because some people kind of do the whole, again, well-intentioned, oh, well, we just need to have more fun.

[00:26:39] Stephen: Yes. First phone.

[00:26:40] Beth: Forced fun and organized. Fun for some people is great. Some people love it. Some people love an event. They love a thing, they love a special day, you know? Let's bring cakes in and have fun. Although there was, there was something recently wasn't there, that they wanna stop organizations having cakes in the office. I, I mean, I, I dunno where that comes from, but I think there is something here around organized and forced fun isn't fun for everybody. So there's something for me about the connection of leaders to their people and knowing what works for them and knowing what their teams actually appreciate.

[00:27:11] Forced fun also quite often happens outside of working hours. I dunno if you've ever noticed this, like you kind of have to come and do this, but we're gonna go out for drinks after work. So then, you know, people with kids have to organize a babysitter and some people feel really uncomfortable going for drinks and some people actually are more introverted and want to spend their time one-to-one with people. So there's a million different things, and I think this is where it does get complicated is you are not going to be able to please everybody all the time. But I think organizations could do a better job at understanding what it is that brings their people together, that brings them joy, that brings them a sense of work is great, and dig a bit deeper into that so that they can do the things that actually make a difference.

[00:27:53] Because I tell you what, some of the things that I know would make a difference in many organizations are not related to the things you think they are. They're not going out for drinks. It's not having a yoga class. It's having a computer that works when you switch it on. Like seriously, like having technology that works that enables you to do your job. Having a manager that speaks to you like you are a human being. Having, I don't know, you know, thinking about people in like schools and uh, hospitals, et cetera. Having enough staff to be able to do the job that you are asked to do properly and within a sensible timeframe.

[00:28:26] So I think we sometimes think that the joyous bits all about the kind of happy clappy positivity things, and sometimes they're about getting the absolute basics right.

[00:28:36] Stephen: Yeah, you're absolutely right. Like I fall into the category of where I'm quite happy when somebody says, well, I would've been very happy when somebody says, let's go for drinks, or let's have a day out and do something that wasn't work related, simply because I wasn't doing work and I was doing something else, like running around a field looking for clues, and I kinda like that stuff. So I would do that stuff outside of

[00:28:54] Beth: So would I love it

[00:28:55] Stephen: Yeah.

[00:28:55] Beth: But not everyone does.

[00:28:56] Stephen: no, there's a whole group of people, and I did this a couple of weeks ago, talk when I spoke to Pete Mosley, uh, who talks about, you know, the art of, uh, shouting quietly and he talks about introverts and how difficult it is to, to, to enter into a, into a world of work that has been sort of pretty much designed for extroverts. The loudest voice gets heard first. Yeah. The first idea that comes is from the loudest voice. Um, all the activities are built around. Yeah. Let's all meet together and have some sort of a loud run around and drinks afterwards, as you

[00:29:25] Beth: even if you just think about the context of work-based meetings. Work-based meetings are designed as an extrovert activity. Just a meeting in itself. That's kind of, and I, you know, I don't like to pigeonhole people into categories too often cuz there's also ambiverts and there's people who are performing introverts and there's people who are kind of introverted extroverts if they're, if, if there is such a thing. But we need to remember that people come from different backgrounds, they come from different experiences and they come from different styles and things that they really, really prefer. And I think remembering that your personal style is important and matching some of those things is really good. And I would also say to any individual is that stretching yourself out of your comfort zone is also a really good thing. So if maybe that isn't your number one thing, maybe you don't do it all the time, but maybe you do occasionally turn up to the, the commun communal drinks because it's actually good for you to try some of those things out. And equally, for the e, more extroverted amongst us, it's probably good for me to sp in a room on my own occasionally and not talk to people.

[00:30:22] Stephen: I am kind of with you on that one as well, because I would come across as quite extroverted, but I certainly need that silent downtime. Uh, and, but we also need to be mindful of what are the activities that we're getting everybody to do. Suddenly everybody's doing a fire and coming outta your comfort zone certainly might be that. So it might, it, it, it might do the, uh, you know, the opposite of what, what you expect with that. 

[00:30:40] Yeah. I think, I think what actually happens sometimes at organizations is there's almost like a, a knee-jerk reaction specifically in the last three years, cuz they not three years, five, six years now. I've seen this now when people have begin to talk more about sort of creating workplaces where people feel good about themselves, happier workplaces. I've ran conferences on this. I've looked at companies, I've had companies or speakers that have been really, really good on the company culture and do doing that. But there are other companies that have been by the wayside, they've probably been older companies that haven't seen a need to do that and realize now that there is a train that's going a different direction to where they're going. And sometimes companies don't quite know what to do, so they'll do simple things like, you're right, the yoga classes at 12 o'clock on a Friday, whatever, you know. And those yoga classes are mindful sort of, um, you know, meditations that they might have for a short period of time. Don't. Do any, anything positive If suddenly the, the minute you walk outta that yoga class or that mindful meditation, you've got 45 emails on your desk that you have to respond to, or deadlines that are just, you know, above what you can actually, you know, uh, contain are, are, are, do.

[00:31:43] And I think that's the problem. You know, the, you're absolutely right, Beth. When you talk about the fact that what we do need is to give people the right tools to be able to do their best work and be able to allow people to, to, to apply their strengths, what they're good at to, to what they do at work. 

[00:31:59] Beth: Yeah. And I, I think that that strengths-based thing is a really interesting thing as well, is that we often think about the things that surround the work, but have we really thought about the work itself? Is the work interesting? Is the work engaging? Is the work developing somebody's skill? Is the work in their zone of genius? Is the work something that's gonna stretch and develop them? Is the work itself interesting? Because there is a big difference between ending a week, exhausted, cuz you've had loads of deadlines and it's been a right slog to get through it, to ending the world, what I call like joyfully exhausted, which is, oh, I've done amazing work this week. I have been so into it. And it feels really different. It feels like achievement. It feels like, oh yeah, this has been amazing. I have learned something. And we, we need to remember that learning something is, is great for humans. We love it. Um, so I've learned something. I have done amazing work. I have been able to spend the majority of my time in an area where I have expertise that I enjoy doing it, that it's within my skillsets, within my authority. It's within my power to be able to get stuff done. I have been able to influence stuff. I have been able to work with great people. 

[00:33:12] So, Rather than just thinking about the stuff that's outside the work. So your yoga classes or do you have a lovely, um, yoga and cereal bar out for breakfast and do you have a nice looking workspace? All of which are great things to have? They are no good if the work itself isn't interesting, isn't focused in the right direction, isn't structured well, isn't with a sensible deadline and a project program.

[00:33:36] So I, I, you know, it, it is kind of a let's get those bits right. And you know what, I have worked in beautiful offices. I've also worked in not very exciting offices. I've worked in inspiring offices, but to me, the office was never the thing it was around, like, is the work interesting? Is it in my wheelhouse?

[00:33:55] Stephen: Well I think Daniel um, M Cable talks about this, he talks about the sort of the, the seeking system that we have as human beings and that sort of get act, it's sort of gets activated when we, we, we do stuff like we have, have ability to be able to self express who we are. We do a bit of experimentation. We have a sense of purpose in what we do at work. There's exploration going on and that fields feeds into sort of zest and curiosity, you know, and creativity. And that begins to activate again, the seeking system. So it's like a virtual loop or whatever, you know. 

[00:34:25] Like, I'm always constantly amazed. Um, and I know, um, Happy Training, who I do do work with, they're based in, uh, Aldgate in London. They're fantastic at this because they used to, every year they'd get all the jobs and roles that are needed within the offices, and they would put them up onto, uh, sort of big whiteboard and post-it notes, and everybody would, all the roles that were required and they would get everybody to, to, to pick the roles that they actually enjoyed doing. And, um, of course what would actually happen was that loader roles would be, would be favored by certain people and would be some left. And the ones that were left then were just put on rotor for everybody else to share. But people would be amazed and guess, I can't believe you, you like doing that? Yeah. And others they go, yeah, yeah, yeah. I kind of like that. Oh, so there's a job for everyone and.

[00:35:09] Beth: And I think so often, um, people and organizations, especially managers and leaders, make an assumption about where people are in their job currently, is where they want to be. And we kind of go, Okay, people very rarely explore what people have done before or what they're genuinely interested in. They tend to see people on kind of, it's, you know, it is a time limiting thing and you know, people don't have the opportunity to go deep, et cetera. But if you really, really ask the question, you know, if you could do any job in this organization, what would you do? Which bits of your job bring you joy? Which bits of your job bring you gloom? Is there any way we can reduce some of that and increase some of that? You would find that you would have people in better places. You would probably fill some of the gaps that you have in your organization internally. 

[00:35:53] And I think there are many organizations who miss a trick on internal talent movement because they simply don't know who's brilliant at war or who could be brilliant or who has that interest and that curiosity in that area. So I think there's something there about. Organizations can be better with their talent by understanding who they are and you know, what brings them joy. And I think we need to sometimes separate what we are good at and what brings us joy. 

[00:36:18] So I know many people who are kind of really what I would call promotion ready. Like they are ready to transition their career and have been for a long time, but they've become so good at the job they want to, they do currently do, even if it's not what brings them joy anymore, that people don't want them to move on. Because by moving on, they create a gap for that manager, for that leader, which cannot be filled. And it often happens with people who end up in kind of administrative supportive roles, is they get stuck in those roles because they're so good at them, even if they don't enjoy them. 

[00:36:51] And I think, you know, there's stuff that I'm good at that I don't enjoy doing, so I just don't tell anybody I do it anymore. But I have that luxury cuz I, you know, run my own business. So I'm the CEO of me. So there's, but there, there are other people who are like, actually I'm stuck here and I've got myself stuck by being so good. And people see this as a strength, but they've forgotten that it's strength plus joy that equals real engagement.

[00:37:13] Stephen: Yeah. But there is also the opposite end of that, or the alternative side of that is that we often promote people because they're particularly good at maybe being a mechanic, or Dave might be a good programmer and they love, you know, finding solutions through programming or tinkering around with engines, uh, through being a mechanic. And suddenly you make them the foreman or the boss or the team leader, and that's never where they want to be fitting out. Rotors, you know, working out holidays, um, all the other stuff that comes with being that manager leader role.

[00:37:37] Beth: Yeah. And I, I think promoting based on your, you kind of really good at your technical skill is usually a route to an unhappy manager and an unhappy team. If you promote based on people's ability to deal with people and, uh, be able to lead things and be able to have a more strategic vision and be able to step into the future, even if that person doesn't have the technical capability of somebody else, they'll probably be better positioned.

[00:38:04] I would say that with caution in that there are some, obviously there's all nuance to this, isn't there? There are some roles in the world. I think to be more senior, you probably need them to also be good at it. Like I would imagine somebody who, um, is supervising surgeons in a hospital probably needs to understand a bit more about surgery. I probably think there are some roles where I would go, do you know what? I actually do want you to have a qualification and be good at that particular thing. But a lot of times, again, if we're talking knowledge economy, if we're talking office work, if we're talking things in that world, leadership is a capability that will bring out the best in the people who are the technical experts. So let's allow the leaders to do a really good job.

[00:38:44] Stephen: I think. Yeah. I dunno, have you ever read the book Bullshit Jobs by David Graeber?

[00:38:47] Beth: I have not, but it sounds right up my street,

[00:38:50] Stephen: You would love it. Yeah. Sadly, David's passed away, but he was an anthropologist with the London School of Economics and, uh, he wrote his, uh, the, the Bullshit Jobs a number of years ago. Um, I think it started about 2013 in, uh, uh, column he did for Strike Magazine. I remember reading it at the time, and I, I was fascinated by it. But the whole idea is that we've created lots of work out there that makes no sense at all. So there are jobs that, that really, if the world, like if the job didn't exist, if it wasn't there tomorrow, the world would still turn and nothing would change. And people are stuck inside of those roles and they must be feeling lots of what you call work lump by being in, in, in those experiences because somebody has created a job cause they wanna feel important or they're, they're duplicating or replicating work that could be done by software somewhere else.

[00:39:35] Beth: Yeah. And I think we are on the cusp. If I were to kind of get my, um, future goggles on, like into my crystal ball, I think we're on the cusp of a big change around work. Um, you know, when you think about things, AI machine learning jobs that can be done by a machine 10 times as quick and 10 times as accurately as a human being. I think the jobs that of the future will be very different. 

[00:40:00] And even if you look kind of 25 years to now or to 25 years in the future, you know there are jobs now that didn't exist three years ago. You know, there are jobs that didn't exist 10 years ago. There are new jobs coming on time and time again because there's new technology that requires different kinds of people to work on it. But I think we are at the, the stage of kind of industrial development and technical advances, and I'm not really techy, but from, from what I hear is coming up that some of those jobs will be gone and we need to think about what is the purpose of work and how does work fit into a world where computers do a lot of the things that we used to do? And how do we make work in the future better?

[00:40:47] Cuz there is a risk, right? There's a risk that, you know, massive experiment on working from home because we had to remember, I, I really liked your point about actually we've been getting, we've been, we're getting through a pandemic whilst working. You know, we've been doing that side of things. On the other side of that, we are now hearing a lot of, oh, we want everyone back in the office now, this hybrid working thing, we're not so sure about it. And I think a lot of people went very hard with the kind of gonna do three days at the office and two days at home. And then they've realized that one size does not fit all. It doesn't really work that way. 

[00:41:18] And I think we're, we are slightly, if I was, if I were to put my pessimistic, rather my optimistic hat, which I don't do very often, I'm gonna do it for a moment. I think we are slightly at risk of going backwards in how we treat and work, how we treat work overall and the culture that we create in our organizations. I think may, people think maybe it's swung too far flexibly, but actually I think we need to kind of rewrite the rules of work. If I were gonna start from scratch, it's like, okay, what does work really look like? How do we make sure that everybody has some kind of purpose in their work? That they're able to kind of be themselves, they're able to kind of live their values, they're able to work in a way that works for them. 

[00:41:57] Now, we always talk about this like flexible working is brilliant, flexible working is great, but we also have to remember that there are organizations where if you are a customer service person and your phone lines are open from nine till five, well you probably can't work at eight o'clock at night or seven o'clock in the morning because that's not the way the work needs you to work. So there are some bits around it. I think we need a more open. A more honest, a more structured conversation around actually what, what kind of flexibility is possible and how do we create a win-win situation for the organization and the individual? And it's not all about what the organization wants. It's not all about what the individual wants. It's about how do we create a partnership.

[00:42:36] And I often talk about the organization you work with, not that you work for. So you are choosing to work with them. And I think that gives you a sense of, actually I'm here with them. We're doing this in partnership. We are, we have an exchange of goods and services and time. So let's make the best of that conversation. And remember that one size does not fit everybody.

[00:42:58] Stephen: Yeah. I think that there are conversations that organizations need to have that include their people. Like what do you want from work and how should it look and how can we shape it? And if we threw the ball back to you, what way would you create it or design it? And if we said things like, if we are going to do a hybrid model, like rather than us tell you what the hybrid model should look like, tell us what you think the hi hybrid model should work like and what it should look like.

[00:43:19] You know, I like I, I mentioned quite a lot in this podcast, uh, Ricardo, um, Semler's book, the Maverick on his company, Semco, Brazilian company that he, that he took over from his father. Like, and I was amazed cuz I was working in manufacturing at the time and I was amazed at how much autonomy he began to give the manufacturing process. So he told the people within the factory, you can design or you can paint, or you can have flower pots, uh, around your machinery. You can decide in your teams what shift you wanna work. And if you wanna start at 10 in a day, just that here is the actual productivity that you need to get to save us 300 widgets a week is needed. Find a way to make those 300 widgets, but we're not gonna ask you when you're in or out once you get the 300 widgets because that's what we need.

[00:43:59] And I thought that that's very liberating. But that was the first time, and this is back in the, in the eighties into the nineties, that somebody had actually sat down and said to their, their teams, um, what way do you wanna work? And, and, and how can we get to the goal? This is the goal, the 300 widgets, but we'd allow you the autonomy to do that. And I think organizations need to do more of that.

[00:44:17] Beth: And I think that the organizations that are doing good work culturally are doing some of that. They're questioning, they're listening, they're doing, you know, the conversations that make a difference. They're having, you know, surveys or understanding what it is that people want. But we have to remember though, that organizations are structures, right? They, they are built on some kind of structure, and there will be some timing, some things that have to be done. And I, I really, really like it when organizations can get to kind of, let's be outcome driven. So I think in things like manufacturing, it's really great. This is what we need to produce, therefore, let's break down that work.

[00:44:53] I think it becomes more challenging to do outcome focused when you have people who are doing things like advising and guiding and creativity and trying to build things that don't really have an outcome. So if I, you know, take a world that I've worked in a lot, when you work in something like an HR world, as an example, if you are an HR business partner, so you may have some projects that have specific outcomes, but you don't know what challenges are gonna come up on your desk on a day-to-day basis. You don't know who you're gonna need to talk to.

[00:45:23] So actually for me, I would love to find how do we balance the need for outcomes, which I love because it stops focusing on how many hours you are in the office for a day and presenteeism and all that stuff, which only leads to gloom and bad workplaces. So there's no, there is, there is nothing good that comes out of presenteeism, let's just accept that. But actually, input doesn't have to be about when you are in. Input can be around actually. How are you utilizing your skills? What is the feedback from the people who use your service? How is your product making a difference in that world? And I think we need different measurement systems.

[00:46:05] And there's, there's a really great book, uh, by, uh, Dr. Kath Bishop called The Long Win. And it's all about how do we actually think about the long term stuff and the inputs and the, how do we get more collaborative? How do we get more curious? How do we actually create workplaces that make a real difference? 

[00:46:23] Stephen: Like we go back to wasn't it, isn't it uh, Maynard Keens back in the 1930s talking about the 15 hour week, the possibility of that in the year 2030 and, um, that, that never came to, to, to pass because so much sort of got caught in the way of that the consumerism took over our world, the need to produce more took over our world and we had to pay for it somehow. So we never got to, to that 15 hour work week. So there was lots of people lobbying against the idea of the shorter working week and producing less.

[00:46:53] Cuz that brings you back to, uh, when I talk about the David Graeber, job,, uh, book, the whole idea of there's jobs that are there, and there's no reason behind them. When you think about it, somebody's delivering pizza at four o'clock. We're only delivering pizza at four o'clock because some people are working a night shift somewhere that we've made them make extra widgets throughout the night, and you've gotta give them the pizza to keep them going. So we've created this 24 hour world. It's, it's, it's a really interesting read. I'll stick it into the show notes as well as the book that you've just mentioned as well. 

[00:47:19] Beth: Yeah, it'd be a good one to have a, have a think about because, you know, the, the world of work is going to change. It will, it's changing at speed. It has changed at speed. It will continue to change at speed. And I think there's a lot of power within the people who are at work, who are working, who are working with organizations, who are working in organizations. And I think there's something here about we can all take a little bit of responsibility for how the world of work looks in the future.

[00:47:43] Stephen: because you talk about this in your book, don't

[00:47:45] Beth: Yeah, it's not actually around waiting for your boss to do something for you or waiting for your, I mean, one of the things I talk about in my book is the fact that an organization isn't a sentient being, it cannot think, the organization cannot think it cannot care about you. The individuals within it can, but actually the organization itself is is kind of a construct that we have made up to organize work. I mean, there's, the clue is in the title. Um, but it's not real. It's not real in sense. It's not a human being. So when you say, my organization doesn't care about this, I'm like, well, an organization can't care about something. So who is it in the organization that doesn't appear to care about that? Okay, so how do we influence them? What can we do?

[00:48:23] And you know, I said at the beginning, personal responsibility is a really big thing and we shouldn't all be waiting for organizations to fix their problems. We should be making suggestions to how to do it. I know that that sounds hard to some people if you're in an organization that doesn't wanna listen. But there are other organizations out there that probably would love to have you helping them make that happen. So you have choices that you can make about where you work. And I think if we can all take a little bit of responsibility for creating a better workplace, for creating a better work environment, for having ideas, for working with our colleagues in a really great way for remembering that our bosses are still human beings and they're not gonna get it right every time, and that actually moaning about them probably isn't gonna help, uh, for giving them some feedback about how they could do things better, for giving them a bit of a break when they're trying to do, please 20 different people and it's impossible to please 20 different people all of the time. 

[00:49:13] So I think we can all, if we, if we all did that, I think the world of work could be a really interesting, brilliant place in the future. I'm not, you know, I'm not saying it's gonna be perfect, but I think we can, and we actually do all have an influence about what our world of work is like.

[00:49:27] Stephen: Yeah, but we've always, I suppose, and you might have experienced this too, and I certainly have, have turned up to work for organizations with lots of enthusiasm and lots of get up and go and drive and you're turning 'em into this organization. We possibly may have a really old culture that suddenly when you arrive, there you go and yeah, you're probably, we used to call it what we used to call years ago, sit by Nelly, where you sit by somebody and they, they'd show you the ropes and you'd follow what they do, and then suddenly you get a feel of the role. And I remember doing that a number of years ago and I, I remember witnessing it a lot where suddenly you were trying to take on help somebody else out within the organization by doing something and they'd go, hang on a second here. That's not what we do here. 

[00:50:04] Beth: Yeah.

[00:50:04] Stephen: don't start doing that, you said, but just natural isn't that you'd wanna help somebody out cuz they need some help. And suddenly all that, uh, you know, motivation and the drive sort of can get sucked outta you by the, the culture that has been created over time.

[00:50:15] Beth: Yeah. And you have a number of options if that's where you've ended up, like kind of, you could have started like that. You could have ended up like that. You know, cultures change over time is number one. You might have actually outgrown that organiz. You might have outgrown it and it might have started brilliant and it's no longer what you want. And the kind of feelings of being annoyed or frustrated or wanting it to change or like it used to be, et cetera, aren't actually gonna help you. So you probably need to do something about that. So you could have outgrown it and need, it's actually a sign for you to move on. 

[00:50:45] It could also be a sign that you need to change something about your attitude towards work and to really engage with what the change really looks like and to kind of move forward with it. It could be a sign that you need to think about how do you reengage yourself with the job and the organization as it is. And there are so many different things that you can do and you, but you don't have to stay stood exactly where you are. You don't have to stay in the frustration zone. You can move outta it. And sometimes those choices will be to stay in that organization even if it isn't perfect, because it gives you, you know, there are so many things that work. I, you know, it's nice and local to me. I don't have to commute. It's a good salary for what I do. It helps me with my flexible work, whatever it is that the reasons why, but know and be clear that they are the reasons and the choices you're making to stay in that organization and that you have made that choice for yourself. Nobody is making you do it. But with that choice, actually a responsibility not to bring other people down with you, and not, I call it like a, not to become a mood hoover that makes it for everyone else because you have made a choice to stay.

[00:51:46] Stephen: Yeah, but I, I've been also the ENT of that where I remember somebody in work that I was managing, um, I remember I was, I was helping that, that particular person to be able, having a problem that they were having on their plant or whatever, you know, and I was helping them to be able to, uh, rectify the problem. They were the operator, you know? And, uh, they turned around to me and, and I remember she looked at me and she said, do you know what? You make me effing sick. You're always so effing happy and. 

[00:52:10] Beth: Yeah. 

[00:52:11] Stephen: being the opposite end of the, of the mood Hoover than I was the annoying, uh, positive person within the department. And I think we need more of the, like, that particular culture was a culture that had been, you know, there over time that had created this. These were motivated people, I'm sure when they came in the door at first, but suddenly by the end of it, things were different.

[00:52:29] Beth: Yeah. I mean, I have also been accused of being annoyingly happy and positive, um, throughout my career. And I think there are some people who naturally veer towards that side. And there are some people who naturally veer towards the other side. And I think if you are one of life's happy people, If you are one of life's kind of, let us find the best way to do this, and in every, in every situation, there's a challenge that can be overcome, and there is light at the end of the tunnel and there's some shiny stuff there, is we need to remember that not everybody thinks like that. And sometimes we need to step away from the people who think in the opposite direction because we're just gonna annoy each other. We're just gonna, they're gonna be like, why you? Why don't you understand the reality of this situation? Cuz there's some crap here. And we are going, let's just ignore the crap and put some shiny stuff all over the place. But we also need to remember that we don't want them to bring us down. 

[00:53:17] So there's some kind of like, it's not bringing us down, but it's being respectful that other people are making their own choices about their own life and their own work. And sometimes however much we try and influence that, or we want to kind of bring them to our level of joy, that's not gonna happen. So focus on yourself. Focus on getting your own joy and allow other people to go on their own journey with it.

[00:53:38] Stephen: Can you give us five tips on, on how to create sort of work joy?

[00:53:41] Beth: I can. I could probably give you 55, but I will ma, I will keep it to five, otherwise this will be way too long. So number one, and this is the most important one, is to remember that you are responsible for your own levels of joy at work. It is not the responsibility of your boss, it's not the responsibility of your organization or your coworkers. So I think there's a mindset bit there around it is your responsibility. The great thing about being in your responsibility is you are in control of it, so you can do something about it.

[00:54:09] Stephen: But even if you have a bad manager, because I, I, I do come from the, the whole mindset that people don't leave organizations, but they can leave poor managers or they can leave organizations if they're particularly bad too. But, so I think there's some organizations that I certainly wouldn't want to work for.

[00:54:22] Beth: And I think, I mean, that would pro I'm gonna, I'm gonna, I'm gonna give it as number two, even though I think it'd probably be with number four or five. Number two is remember to choose the people you work with carefully. So if you're going into a new organization, you are applying for a job while they're interviewing you, interview the bosses as well. Find out what they're like. Get an understanding because you're so right. That immediate boss to employee relationship is critical for your level of work, joy. But remember, they aren't responsible for it. You have a responsibility to be working in the right space with the right people as well. So yes, always interview the boss you're gonna work with and find ways of working with them in the best possible way.

[00:55:02] Number two was gonna be, have a really, really clear, without any doubt, understanding of what brings you joy. Now I do have it and people can download it straight from my website. It's totally free. There's a tracker that you can use, takes five working days, and by the end of it, some people have done it, have been totally transformed. They're like, oh, now I know what brings me joy. I can just get on with it. I can just make it happen. So sometimes just doing that makes a massive change. So what brings you joy? What brings you gloom? And really reflect on that. Know it. Cause if you know it, you will seek out opportunities. Your brain will do it for you. There'll be a whole subconscious thing that goes, oh, I'm suddenly doing more of that because I know it brings me joy. So you need to work that out. And the other side what brings you gloom?

[00:55:42] I think, um, what was that number three? Number four for me would be engage your squad. So we rarely work completely on our own. Now, sometimes you'll be working on your own, but actually most of the time in life and in work, we need people around us to help support, to challenge, to give us a kick up the arse when we need it to give us a shoulder, a cry to cry on when we need it at that end. So think about your network, who you have in your life, who is in your squad, who is helping you to do the things you wanna do? Who do you go to when you've got a challenge? Who do you go to when you need a bit of magic in your life? And really, really understand who they are. And I think having them and really engaging them and working with them can be really, really helpful.

[00:56:26] Stephen: that's like your support networking

[00:56:27] Beth: support network? Yeah. I call it your squad. And in the book they, I've kind of defined six different roles. I think people can play on your squad and have a little read of that. And actually on the download that comes with the book, there's an exercise you can do to, um, work through that.

[00:56:41] Um, and what, what was I up to? Is that number? Am I number five now? I think I'm number five. I got a bit lost as we went through. I think this is a really important one, is to define your boundaries. Which are the boundaries you're gonna hold really firm? And I always say, have a few firmly held ones. Don't have too many because you do become, the computer says no slightly annoying person in a team. But if you have a few firmly held boundaries, if you have a lot of what I call bouncy boundaries, which are kind of situational, environmental dependent, and you're able to kind of flex around them, that can be really helpful. And then have some people or some things that you are always gonna be really, really open to and flex no matter what, because they're so important or the thing is so important that you will always make that happen. 

[00:57:21] So I would always say focus on what are your boundaries? And actually we often talk about boundaries, but very rarely do people sit down and work out what they should be. And then the most important thing with boundaries is make sure you communicate them. No one is gonna know what they are unless you tell them. So it's no good saying, oh, people really break my boundaries of not working after 6:00 PM It's like, okay, well if you ever told them that you're not gonna do that because it's like important time to you. No. Okay, let's have the conversation and be more open around them.

[00:57:49] Stephen: That's good. Well, good organizations allow the conversation to happen. You know, you can be more assertive. It can be difficult in other conversations where that can't happen. There's lots of people probably shouting at the, uh, the audio today and saying, I see I've tried to do

[00:58:00] Beth: I've tried

[00:58:01] Stephen: where I work. Yeah.

[00:58:02] Beth: And it might not right there. You know, in your workplace you will have a unique experience to you based on who your manager is, what the organization's like, what the cultural norms are, what the policies are, et cetera. What I'm gonna suggest to you is that if you can do these things, they will be worth doing, but you are gonna be doing that within the context of other people and other things. So if that thing doesn't work, don't give up. Try experimenting with something else.

[00:58:27] Stephen: Brilliant, brilliant. More work joy. That's

[00:58:30] Beth: More work, joy

[00:58:31] Stephen: How can people get in contact with you, Beth?

[00:58:33] Beth: so people can contact me through the website, which is create work joy.com or through my website, beth stallworth.com. Either way, it would be brilliant. We are on all the social media platforms at Create Work, joy, love to get people there. And obviously we have the Work Joy podcast, the work Joy Jam as well. So do go and have a listen, uh, get in contact. I love to hear from people about what's getting work joy, and obviously if you're interested in it, go and buy the book. It is a toolkit, 12 chapters, 12 things to do that you can actually go and do and try some stuff out

[00:59:05] Stephen: Lots of practical tips in that. That's brilliant. We're gonna put all that stuff in the show notes too as well. Beth, it's been an absolute joy. What a great way to spend an afternoon.

[00:59:12] Beth: Oh, thank you Steven.

[00:59:13] It's been wonderful chatting to you. I think we could probably chat for another few hours, but thank you for inviting me on. It's been wonderful.

[00:59:19] Stephen: It's been great to be able to spend the guts of an hour talking to Beth about work joy, all the different books and links that we spoke about, I'm gonna stick them into the show notes, you're gonna get a chance to be able to catch up with them and learn a little bit more about Beth and what she shared with us today. What a wonderful way to spend the afternoon. Take care.