[00:00:00] Stephen: Welcome to the Wow at Work podcast. Today's guest is Aoife O'Brien the podcaster from Happier at Work, not just a podcaster, but also the owner of the organization, Happier at Work, which can help your organizations, which work happiness audits, which we're gonna talk about a little bit later, uh, too, as well, 

[00:00:17] Aoife also talks about the imposter syndrome, which we might touch on today. And her organization also provides online and corporate programs. She's worked with eminent companies like Zurich, Allianz, and IBM. You're very welcome today, Aoife.

[00:00:31] Aoife: Thank you so much. I'm delighted to be here. Always a pleasure to chat with this Stephen, so I'm really excited about today.

[00:00:36] Stephen: Well, thank you very much. Well, it's always great to be able to, to, to talk with people who have the mindset that we can create workplaces, where people feel better about themselves. And that's what this is ultimately all about. 

[00:00:46] Aoife: This is it. And I think oftentimes we get caught in this trap, thinking work has to be work and work. The clue is in the name, it has to be hard work and it has to suck. Um, but I suppose I'm here to say it doesn't have to, and you're here to say that as well. It doesn't have to be that way.

[00:01:01] Stephen: When you think about it, if we'd had this conversation 25 years ago in an industry, we would've been shouting into an, an empty space where nobody would've been listening, a complete void where everybody went, that's not gonna be happening around here. That's very fairy. And I like the way it's all beginning to slowly, you know, change and people are beginning to, you know, through osmosis begin to realize that, yeah, this does really matter. A different workplace matters. I'm just really interested in what you think may have been the catalyst that brought you to this point. Like, I know what my Damian moment was, but what, what was it for you?

[00:01:37] Aoife: So for me, I, I like to feel like the, the seed was planted around 10 years ago. I was working in Sydney and hired into a job, working with people who I had previously worked with in London. And I loved my job in London. So I trusted these people and I went to work for this organization thinking it's gonna be quite similar. Uh, and I think up to that point, I'd really taken for granted that work was something that can't be enjoyed, and I really enjoyed, really enjoyed my role in London. Um, right before Sydney I'd worked for six months on a contract basis doing recruitment for the, the mining industry. And again, really nice atmosphere, great kind of a family atmosphere at work, and I absolutely loved it. So, uh, arrived into this organization in Sydney and they made a lot of promises that they didn't deliver on. And ultimately they were telling me that I was going to be, uh, promoted to be director level, asking me what kind of director I wanted to be. They were doing a restructure in the organization, and you know, they, they just made a lot of these promises. And then one of my peers who I know, I know he wasn't, and it sounds really like I'm up myself, but I know he wasn't as good at the job as I was, he was promoted to be my manager, but they didn't communicate that. So he pulled me into a meeting room one time and he starts talking about all of my clients that I was managing and what we're gonna do with the clients, and I was kind of like, this is strange. Like, why is he, why is he talking about my clients? He he's got nothing to do with them. And I was like, you know, so I asked him about it and he said uh, I'm your boss now. And I just thought, whoa, if there's ever a lesson in how not to be a boss, it's coming in and taking over and saying, this is everything that, that I want to do with your clients, and like a total kind of micromanagement approach.

[00:03:24] He never had any experience of management. I was previously one of his peers, so. It was a real kind of affront to me, it was a real knock to my confidence. And I started looking into like, what could I have done differently? You know, cuz I think in these situations we tend to blame ourselves. So what could I have done differently in that scenario to have chosen a different company, to, to manage myself better? Cause I know I didn't manage myself very well in that process. I can look back and totally admit that now. And I also wondered as a company, you know, what should they have done differently? What could HR have done? There were so many different issues. And, and it was a type of toxic environment. There was such a high turnover rate. And at the time I looked around and I thought, I definitely need to get outta here. So I applied for some other jobs and I was told about this wonderful role. And it was like, and it has this, and you know, for me it ticked all the boxes and she got to the end of the conversation and she said, oh, and it's for a cigarette company. And I just thought no way, I would never, ever work for a cigarette company. And, um, that kind of maybe put the nail in the coffin, so to speak. 

[00:04:37] So I was like, okay. So if I'm not taking this most amazing job, that's been offered to me because it's in a cigarette company, maybe it's just time to leave Sydney. I'm not sure if I want to give another two years of my life, because, you know, if you join a company, you kind of have to stay for around two or three years. Um, the company that I left, they probably thought that I would never quit because they had sponsored me. They were paying me a high salary. But I left and you know, that, that was kind of it. So that planted the seed and I went off and I traveled around the world for a year, but still, you know, the impact of that kind of, that knock to my confidence, it really stayed with me and I was looking at, where do I go from here? You know, I was traveling around south America at the time. Do I go back to Dublin where I'm from? Do I go back to London where I had come from prior to Australia? Do I go to New York where I've always, always wanted to live? Always wanted to work there. And in the end I settled on Dublin saying it doesn't have to be forever. You know, it can come back.

[00:05:36] So I always worked at these global market research organizations. So I took a, a job at the, the competitor, let's say, of the two organizations I had previously worked in and you know, it, it wasn't exactly a similar experience. I stayed with that company for, so the company in Sydney, I stayed there for less than 18 months. The company in Dublin, I stayed there for four and a half years. And in that time it was kind of, it was up and down like a roller coaster. And again, I started calling into question like, what's going on here? What could I do differently? What could the company do differently? And always kind of looking out from both perspectives because as an individual, it's really jarring when you're not enjoying your work. When you're miserable at work, it, it filters into every aspect. And that definitely happened to me in Sydney. I didn't enjoy Sydney because I didn't enjoy my job there. And in Dublin it was kind of similar. It's it's coming into all these different aspects of your life. And eventually I decided this is not the place for me at all.

[00:06:32] And I went on to do, uh, I wanted to help people with their careers. I was like, I wanna make sure this never happens again. So I went on to do a career coaching certificate. I did a, a diploma in life and executive coaching, and then I started a master's in organizational behavior and it was through discussions I had with my lecturers about the, the instances or about the experiences I had at work, and they said that sounds something like fit. Like, it sounds like a fit issue. So I went off and I researched everything I could to do with this concept of fit. And for me, that became fundamental to what made me unhappy at work was not fitting in, in the environment. And I looked at these three elements and I'm sure we'll go on to, to kind of talk about them in more detail, but the idea of, um, values alignment. So making sure that, that as an individual, that your values align with the organization, and similarly that as an organization, you're hiring people with values that are similar to the ones that you espouse. Uh, need satisfaction at work. So making sure. Employees needs are being satisfied. And we can go into more detail about that as well. And then the other aspect is, is strength focused. So making sure people are focusing on what they're really good at and that they're not trying to hide or mitigate their weaknesses in some way.

[00:07:45] So I did all of my research about that. I became a little bit obsessed with this entire topic. I still am. And it's after doing my, my master's dissertation on it, a lot, a lot of people say that you get so sick of the topic that you never want to read about it again. But for me, I'm still hugely interested in it. There's still probably loads more to be researched around it in relation to fit and trust and the impact that it has on all of these different types of aspects of, of how we do our work. But that's kind of what brought me to, to where I am today.

[00:08:15] Stephen: Yeah, I love those light bulb moments that begin to happen within the workplace when we realize it could be different, it could be better. Um, and I like the way you've touched on values, cuz I know you've written recently about values, and the importance of that at work. And I think now more than ever, people are begin to realize that are my values aligned with the organization's values? And if they're not, maybe we need to part ways.

[00:08:34] Aoife: Sometimes when we're in that situation in work, it doesn't feel like we have a choice or it doesn't feel like, oh, I've had this light bulb moment. It's only when you look back that you realize, because at the time that was painful. When I was in Sydney, it was really tough going. This was someone who was my friend, essentially, and had suddenly become my manager and was micromanaging me. And it was, yeah, it was just, it was not a pleasant situation at all. So I suppose for anyone listening, who's feeling like work really sucks at the moment, i, I can totally understand what you will definitely get through it.

[00:09:08] I think even beyond making sure that that values align, I think it's important to make sure that as a company that you do, what, what you say you do. So I've worked in organizations. I think the organization in Sydney, I don't recall whether they had values or what those values were, but whether or not people say they have values is irrelevant because how people behave at work, they are the values of the organization and what gets tolerated at work, they, that becomes the behavior. So if it's acceptable for people to, uh, I don't wanna say micromanage, cause I think they're kind of isolated incidents, but if it becomes acceptable for people to gossip, for example, then that, that becomes an acceptable behavior and it goes against like open communication, for example.

[00:09:53] And so whatever types of things are tolerated at work, they become the norms at work. So that's kind of one thing. And making sure that if you say that you have these values of, and I can remember the ones in Dublin. And one of them that we had, we changed values. At one point, they did a huge exercise globally where all of the values were changed and, you know, they did a big, pure piece around that. Great. One of the prior values was simple. And this was a global organization where if you wanted to send out an marketing email to a local market, you had to get prior approval from one of two people based in the United States. And with the value of simple, it was far from simple. It was the most bureaucratic organization I've ever worked in. And I consider myself to be quite a fast learner.

[00:10:44] When I was in Sydney. There were people after two months, people coming to me asking me questions, and I thought you've been here for years. Why are you asking me these questions? That role in Dublin, it took me about a year to really get up to speed on everything that the company did and to really fully understand what was going on.

[00:11:04] So back to this idea of values. So once, once you ensure that your values, are they the lived experience and, and what I often see as well is companies using culture and using values as a marketing tool. So they're saying, come and work here. It's flexible and it's this, and we want you to come and we want you to, to be brilliant and to do your job really well. That's why we're hiring you. And then you get in the door and it's you realize that it's all been, it's all been a, you know, a market ploy you know, and in some cases like one client that I, I was talking to they're, they're mandating return to the office because they want to be able to see people working, even though what they'll advertise is, oh, this is a great and flexible place to work and, and all of these kind of things. So I, I think in the first instance, do what you say you do, don't deviate from that. And then it becomes important to make sure that you have the right people in the organization whose values align with the, with the values of the organization as well.

[00:12:05] Stephen: Yeah. Very well said, because I think in so many organizations, yeah, people do as the leaders do rather than do, as they say. So you can say that the organization here promotes, you know, a healthy workplace. We don't send out emails at the weekends. We don't burden people with text messages on a Sunday. But if that's the case that leaders in the organization is doing that, people will just follow. And that will be the way it 

[00:12:25] Aoife: totally. Yeah. That becomes the accepted behavior. And like, I always like to think of it as if, if someone's in a leadership position and, maybe people don't realize this enough, but if you're in a position of power, so if you are a people manager, if you're a, a manager of managers, if you're in a senior leadership position, then all eyes are on you and whatever you do, it kind of amplifies throughout the organization more so than if it was someone who's an individual contributor, for example. So if you are in a senior leadership position and, and to use that example again, because it's such a common example, I think, oh, I'll just send this email at seven o'clock. And so people know that I'm working and I'm working so hard, uh, and maybe that's not, what's going through your head, but you just need to get it off your plate, and you want to send something out. There's tools out there that allow you to send emails at a later date, you know, at a later time.

[00:13:19] Even if you had, and I've had this conversation and challenge this on my own podcast where someone says, you know, I thought it's perfectly acceptable if you write in your signature that I don't expect a response, I work unusual hours and people are working flexibly. But if you have core hours where, you know, you're saying, you can only send emails between nine and five for example, even if someone writes on their signature, I don't expect an immediate response, if you're receiving that. And I don't have my emails on my, my phone, but I know that a lot of people do. If you're receiving that, it's likely that you're getting a ding and you're gonna read it. And if you're read it, then you're, you're gonna want to respond to show that you've read it to show that you too are thinking about work and you're, , you know, that you're able to respond and that you're available and all of this kind of stuff. I think the temptation is too high for us to, to want to, to, to actually respond in those situations.

[00:14:15] Stephen: Or even just to look busy, because busyness is the 

[00:14:18] Aoife: I'm online too. It's not just you, who's working at 7:00 PM. In fact, maybe I'll wait until 9:00 PM and then send the email to show you just how hard I'm working. I mean, that's a, probably a conversation for another time, Stephen, this idea of productivity and time input versus like, what are the outcomes that you're getting from the time that you're putting into work, and the perception of presenteeism and all of that kind of, the rubbish things that we've been taught are, are really important at work where you have to work from nine till five and it's, it's not about flexibility and all of that kind of stuff.

[00:14:51] Stephen: a very 19th century concept in a 21st century world, as I've said before. And I love the ideas that you talked about gossip in the workplace too, as well, and reminded me of a speaker, Dominic Monkhouse that I've seen speak at our Happy Workplaces conference a couple of times. And Dominic is really interesting. And he uses this thing called triangulation. So to this is the cut head gossip. So triangulation works in the fact that, Aoife comes to the HR manager, whoever her boss and says, listen, and I'm working besides Steve, um, on this plan office, but he has cheese and onion sandwiches every day at 12 o'clock. And it's driving me nuts. 

[00:15:23] Aoife: That would drive me not Steven. I hope you're not doing that.

[00:15:26] Stephen: yeah, our egg and onion sandwiches and is just, is driving me absolutely nuts. Um, can you speak to him? And what Dom would say? He said, well, I'm gonna give you 72 hours to actually speak to Stephen about this yourself. And if you don't within 72 hours, I will tell Steven that we've had this conversation. And by knowing that it just immediately cuts out the need for gossip in this. Cuz it allows everybody to have these open conversations without thinking that they need to go to somebody else to sort it out. It's sort it out themselves. 

[00:15:52] Aoife: When it comes to gossip about work, you have to have one person speaking, but you have to have another person listening. So if you can be the person who doesn't listen to gossip and he shut someone down, say, I don't actually speak about people when they're not here to defend themselves, then I think you can close those things off quite quickly. 

[00:16:06] Stephen: Yeah. I think. what that does it does that, knowing that if every time you go to your boss to say, listen, I Aoife is just driving me nuts with this, that every time you're told, you go resolve this or else I tell EOFire that we've had this conversation. Like it stems from the idea of where transparency works really well. Like when you think about companies are not even just companies, but, um, countries. In Norway, everybody's tax returns are visible to absolutely everybody in the country. So you can actually go onto a website and you can check everybody in the country, what their tax returns are.

[00:16:35] Aoife: if you have time to do that, of

[00:16:36] Stephen: if you have time to do that from the Royal family down to your neighbors, so you can actually find out like who's paid what tax throughout the year. Now they've been able to do this in 2014, it went online before that. I think you had to send in, um, a letter of request to find out what Stephen Dargan's tax returns were. That's just the way the Norwegian country works. But since 2014, what they've done is that if you request the tax returns of your neighbor, the earnings and tax returns of your neighbor, they will also get an email to say, Stephen has just, or Aoife has just asked for your tax returns. So that's triangulation in a different form. So it opens up that in the knowledge that everything is open, even to the point of the request that you've made.

[00:17:16] Aoife: But it empowers people to solve their own problems. First of all, and it, it encourages them to take responsibility for, you know, if, if I go to my boss complaining about you, then I'm kind of passing that problem onto someone else would, and not taking full responsibility for a problem that I rightly own because it's, it's my problem. And so, by refusing to do that, then the power comes back to me of, okay, I need to take responsibility here, and I need to, to take action. I need to do something about it. You know? So I I'm suddenly, I'm empowered to actually take, take back control over the issue that I have, or get over it and be like, well, it's not that big a deal if he's eating cheese and onion sandwiches.

[00:18:00] Stephen: It reminds me of, um, that when Google tried to do this a number of years ago, remember Google, um, had the, the, the radical concept of getting rid of all leaders back in about 2002 or 2004, and about that time. So they decided they wanna get rid of leaders in the organization. So I think there was about 300 engineers working in the company at the time. It was a small enough company and they did, they got rid of leaders and they gave it to actually one guy would take care of all that sort of happened to work out rotas, holidays and, and all other sort of complaints. And that was his role and leaders were gone. And I think after about six weeks, they quickly realized that it was impossible, cuz this guy got snowed under with all sorts of like, you know, infighting and all this kind of stuff. So they had to reinstate managers within, into the organization. So they revisited wasn't it back in about 2008, the, uh, Google Project Oxygen was brought into play too as well. So all that stuff that we talked about, the infighting, the gossip had created the need for leaders again, but when they looked at that, they decided that there was roughly 10 things that created, um, a great leader. And one, top one is, is be a coach. And, and the second is don't micromanage people and we've spoken about this. So many leaders get caught in the world of micromanaging others and getting involved. And you don't, you want those problems that we just talked about gossiping or whatever else within the organization to be dealt with within the team and the manager's free to do whatever else he's supposed to be doing to leading the team.

[00:19:20] The other thing that I found interesting is when we, we spoke about values, we're gonna go onto fitness a second. But, um, I always remember seeing, um, Nikki Gaden be from the company, propeller net, talk about their values and they're a Brighton based marketing company and they had 15 core values. She has a brilliant book called super engaged and, uh, she spoke about core value, number 11 within the organization, which they, which they share with people who come for interviews. So they share the, these are the core values of the organization. If you wanna work for this, our company, these are the values that we live by. And, and core value. Number 11 is say no to bastards.

[00:19:56] And say no to bastards works along the concepts that sometimes we have customers that take up a lot of time, take up a lot of effort and can be quite rude. And really when we're trying to create an organization where people feel good about themselves, maybe it's time to cut the ties with those clients, because maybe they're taking up too much time that we can't give to other clients, and maybe we just need to have a really nice conversation and just say, listen, maybe we're not aligned in our values, and we part ways. And I kind of like that. And there's something very sort of liberating knowing that you're working for an organization that has you at the heart.

[00:20:29] Aoife: I think that's, that's a really important point, Steven, like on multiple, multiple levels. The importance of it's not just the employees, but it's how employees, you know, how the values align with the values of your customer as well. And, um, I recently read the book, the, the No Asshole Rule, you know, so it kind of, it rings of that type of type of approach where you don't want to work with people who treat you badly, basically.

[00:20:53] But I've been, you know, my entire career has always been client facing roles and you've had clients who are really difficult because they are the client and you kind of have to do what they say and unrealistic deadlines, and they'll say, I want something tomorrow. And then two weeks later, you'll get a question about what you sent them through, you know, and a really tight turnaround that you've worked till one in the morning to get across to them.

[00:21:16] And I say organizations, but realistically it's the people in the organizations. Isn't it? Very rarely, you have people who have your back to say actually that client is, not that they're not that important, but that client is causing way too much stress for us. It's causing, you know, way too many problems. Whereas I, I recall in an unnamed organization that I previously worked for, that's our biggest client, and we have to do what they say. That's our biggest client. We have to make sure that they are happy as opposed to focusing on the people and whether or not the people working on that client.

[00:21:53] Like there was, um, this would've been it's a, the client organization was also a global organization. And I know in one of the other countries, one of my colleagues burnt out from everything that he was dealing with from, from the client and the pressure that the, that, that he was probably putting himself wonder in order to, to deliver to this client. So it's, it's really, really important, I think.

[00:22:14] And I love that approach. Like, just from something as simple as it's not all about the money, it's about creating happier working environments. And if that, if we're not working with that client that opens up space to work with another amazing client to work with. 

[00:22:28] And from a client's perspective, it puts the, for the, um, The focus back on being human at work, I think isn't it? And not, not treating people really poorly and not making demands where you're saying, actually I want this, this and this. Uh, or can you do this in a high turnaround? Like if I'm with the, with the suppliers I work with, I'm always really open about it. Like, listen, I can get this to you by this date. Can you turn that around? If I, if I'm late on the deadline, can you still turn it around in the deadline that we've agreed? And it's, you know, usually they'll be fairly flexible and be able to help me out because they know that it's not something I, I would normally do.

[00:23:03] Stephen: I'm also interested in that you spoke about fit, and this is something that you've, you've had a good study of, and you've, you've spent some time working on this. Can you explain the concept of it and what it involves? 

[00:23:13] Aoife: So for me fit. It's like, you feel like you fit in, you feel like you belong, you feel like you're in the right place. And it has really positive impacts on things like engagement at work and, and job satisfaction and productivity. So if I look back and of course this is with, uh, clearer eyes with 2020 vision, when you're in it at the time, it's really hard to see the wood for the trees. But when I look back, if I think of my experience in Sydney, for example, the values that I had, that I held really dear, one of them is commitment. And in my mind, or in my, the way I would explain commitment is I do what I say I'm gonna do. If I say you're gonna be promoted, then that's not an empty promise. That is definitely going to happen. And so if someone tells me that, then I'm going to believe that. And when they don't follow through on that, then that really frustrates my, my core value or it really makes me think like, well, if they're lying about that, then what else are they lying about? If the values are jarring with my values, then, then what's going on there?

[00:24:16] if I think of the strengths piece then, and, and, and the strengths piece really is what came to the fore when I worked in Dublin. I had the choice of being on the leadership team and working in an area I didn't have that much interest in, or maybe wasn't that strong and experienced in, or staying in an area I was really experienced in, but reporting to someone on the leadership team. And I chose, of course, the leadership team from an ego perspective. I wanna be on the leadership team. I don't wanna report to Someone else. So I worked in a role that didn't capitalize on my strengths. I did what I could in that role. And if I think about my values, one of my values is excellence. When I do stuff, I want to make sure I do a really, really good job. It also went against my value of like, I was doing a good enough job, but I wasn't doing a really excellent job. And I always liked to kind of, to give my all so, in that role, I think definitely I had a little bit of that.

[00:25:11] if I think back to Sydney again, then, and this needs satisfaction piece, and I'll go into a bit more detail on that now, but our needs are, we have three, at least what I studied, where the, the three basic psychological needs for autonomy, relatedness, and competence.

[00:25:26] So you have autonomy, which means a sense of choice or, or control over what you do and how you do it. And with the pandemic that brought so much choice and control, you know, with flexible working, with remote working.

[00:25:38] Then we have the relatedness piece. And that is how well you get along with the other people in that organization, but also a piece of that is how you relate what you do on a day to day basis to your overall personal life goals first of all, but then also, how do they relate to what you're doing on a day to day basis in the organization or, or, or how do you relate what you're doing on a day to day basis in the organization to what the organization is trying to achieve. So what are their objectives and what role do you play and how do you, how do you make the relationship between what you do and the impact you're having to what the organization is trying to do? To understand the importance of, of the role that you play in the organization. 

[00:26:23] And then the third element, uh, is competence. And that's our feeling of being capable of doing the role that we're doing. And if I just pick up on on the autonomy piece and, and this, competence piece for a second, it's not about just giving people a whole load of autonomy. And I see people talking about this all the time. It's about providing them with enough guidance.

[00:26:44] So it's like a balancing act. And so it's not just about like, here's all of the, the autonomy that you need. It's if you have too little autonomy, you are being micromanaged. You're being told what to do. You're being controlled. You're, you're set, you know, you have to be in the office five days a week, nine to five, and there's no, you know, we don't trust you enough to go out and, and, and work from home or work remotely or work in a hub. But if you have too much autonomy equally, it's not as bad as if you have too little, but if you, if you have too much autonomy, you lack the guidance of what it is that you're supposed to be doing. And you're kind of left floundering and trying to figure out like, which direction are we going in? And I'm not really sure.

[00:27:26] And then on the competence piece, and you know, this kind of brings up this idea of imposter syndrome. If you feel like you don't have enough competence to do the role, you might feel like you're in imposter, you might feel like, oh, I'm not good enough or they're gonna find me out. If you have too much competence, so if it's not challenging enough for you, then you might feel a little bit bored and complacent that you're not really maximizing, you know, your full potential, that all of the strengths that you have, um, so that you know, that those are the, the elements of need satisfaction at work.

[00:28:02] So we have the values piece, um, which is so it's important to have, and, and in the, the, uh, the technical or the academic terminology, they call it the values congruence, and then there's needs supplies, so can the organization supply to the needs that you have as an individual? And then the third element is the, I call it strengths, but in the academic, uh, literature, it's called demands abilities. And that's the most common one that you'll see. So if you see a job ad for example, and it says something like, and you need 10 years of experience in sales, or you need five years of whatever, this kind of skill and, or a list of skills, that's, uh, looking for people who have the ability to meet the demands of the role. So they're looking for someone with very specific skills. And in the fit research, that's actually the least important factor, but that's the one that we tend to mostly focus on. We don't look at things like, can we satisfy their needs for autonomy and competence and relatedness, or are their values aligned with our values? And therefore, are we providing an environment for them to be able to really thrive? We tend to focus on, do they have the skills to match the role that we have?

[00:29:16] And I think this, this whole idea of 10 years of experience or defining experience in, in terms of years, again, a conversation for another day, Stephen, but like for me, it's, it's pretty meaningless. You could have had 10 years and of experience in sales where someone is phoning you up and they're all inbound sales, or you could have 10 years of experience of dealing with really difficult customers where you've grown from that, and you've learned a lot from that experience as well. 

[00:29:42] So, um, they are the, the, the three core elements of fit as, as, uh, as I looked at it. Um, so this, this strengths piece then is making sure that people are really maximizing their strengths, that they're really tapping into what it is that they are, um, that they're here to do that they're naturally good at. And sometimes we don't realize because something comes so easily and naturally to us, we assume that everyone can do this just as easily and naturally to us, but sometimes they, they are what our strengths are.

[00:30:14] Stephen: It always reminds me of when my, uh, I have any technical issues with my computer, whatever, you know, and my brother works in this whole field and I say to him, listen, Alan, I have this problem and he'll send me off some stuff. Did you do that? And, and he just talks in his head like he's at the keyboard and, uh, he's not at the keyboard and I'm going, what, what, what button is that? Or what is this? And he gets frustrated then because he go, well, why don't you know, this? Why don't, you know, if you press these two tree buttons together, this is what happens? And did you check the so, so that's exactly where, where you're coming from. 

[00:30:44] I also like the idea that when you talked about autonomy now and, and Henry Stewart, who we know who's written the brilliant book, happy manifesto talks about this great autonomy comes from freedom within guidelines. If you're giving the right guidelines and you're given the right tools to be able to know what you you're, you're able to do, given some guidelines, how to go about that. 

[00:31:01] Aoife: I mean, so many companies, I think they they're missing a trick on that. They just think that they need to send people off or, you know, they've, they've hired good people, so they can think for themselves, but you need to provide those guidelines and those guidelines need to come from the top. So it needs to kind of come down through the organization. These are the parameters in which we're working and you go off and you solve that problem. But within these parameters, you know. 

[00:31:24] And I loved Henry's book. I read it actually when I was in genere finally, um, when I was in HEIF the last time. And, one of the things that, that struck me, that he talks about his own organization, I think that they, you know, the, their self approved expenses or something like that, where they trust people to manage their expenses as if they're running the company themselves. So they don't take the Mickey basically, that they're, that they're trusted in that way. And when you trust people in that way, I think that trust is reciprocated. So they don't, you know, they don't take advantage of those, those, uh, policies that, that are maybe perceived as being a little bit, more flexible than in other organizations, for example.

[00:32:02] Stephen: So this Henry's company already interested and I'm biased because I do work for Henry's company as well. But they have some great not just ideas, but actions that pull people into this whole idea of trust. So preapproval is quite important within the organization. So Henry has done preapproval for, for many things.

[00:32:19] I know there was a 19 year old girl Libby who had worked for the organization and had looked at the, uh, sort of the eating area, the canteen area, uh, where people come in and have a coffee and they can have their lunch there too as well. And she said, God, this looks a bit dreary and a bit drab. I could do something else with this. And Henry just said, well, I'm gonna give you preapproval. Here's the budget. It's gonna be small, but see what she can do. And she created this beautiful area that we use now to be able to eat in the inside of the canteen that looks really colorful and excited. But Henry just gave her a couple of guidelines and a, and, and a bit of preapproval. And she went and did that. 

[00:32:53] But he went further. He went to the website, the website for the organization, which is a huge big website because there's, there's, there's so much depth to it as well. Gave guidelines to Johnny to be able to go and put together the website. Gave him some guidelines on what was needed around sort of SEO stats and that kind of stuff, and what was needed and what metrics they needed to be able to pick up from the website, and what people needed to be able to do in easiness. And Henry never saw that website till it was just about to be launched. It was the night before he saw it first and he couldn't do anything about it was gonna be launched the next day. So it obviously had the colors and they had the branding and all that kind of stuff where, you know, were given that they would be part of it, but he was strong enough to be able to do that. And that's creating an organization where people feel trusted. And imagine how empowered Johnny and Libby boat felt from being given that, that, that empowerment to be able to go off. 

[00:33:46] Aoife: Well, it brings up another point from the employee's perspective. Like I, maybe it's just bringing up a whole lot of stress for me, but I'm like, if I was Johnny, I'd be like I don't even know where to start, but obviously you need to provide those guidelines that are enough to know the direction that you're going in. And as an employee, maybe you don't have words for it. Maybe you, you don't know exactly how to describe this. But if you don't have enough clear direction, then that's gonna cause you a great deal of issues in, in work, because you're trying to figure things out as you go along or there could be changing expectations and changing priorities without any sort of explanation. And it's not really clear how everything links together. So I think it's important to, to call that out as an employee, you might be feeling a bit like not sure where to start and it's really debilitating.

[00:34:35] Stephen: It reminded me of my very first job. There used to be a supermarket chain called H Williams in Ireland. That

[00:34:40] Aoife: I remember them. Are, are they when you say that now I'm like, are they gone?

[00:34:44] Stephen: they're well gone. I think they're gone with a long time anyway, so that was my first summer job when I was a teenager. And I remember working, um, in the local branch of that just as. One of the guys who, you know, stocks, the shelves and all that kind of stuff and sweeps up and pretty much I've been there, it was my first week. I think it was my second week or whatever, you know, and just finding my feet. Like I was half scared of the storm and in the back as he used to shout, every time he went in looking for something and I. Cause I was so young, I just didn't know where everything fitted, wherever everything was or what was on this aisle or what was on that aisle.

[00:35:15] And I remember the manager one Saturday looking at me and, um, just, and I'm walking up and down pushing some sort of a trolley, trying to put back to returns. And I couldn't find out where the, um, you know, the, the washing liquid should be or whatever was really, and he says, listen, sunshine, you're gonna have to work faster. And he said, okay, I'm just trying my best. And then he met me later in the day and I'm still wandering around, uh, you know, doing something similar and going slow. He said, listen, son, I'm gonna have to give you the bullet. And I said, well, what's the bullet? And he says, um, you're fired. You're gonna have to go. And I said, oh, I only started on Thursday. It's really different. And he went, oh my God, I'm so sorry. He said, you only started on Thursday? He says, yeah. I says, I'm just trying to find a, and he said, oh, and then he realized, and he said, oh, I'm gonna give you the best training ever. But the truth was that I had just been thrown at the deep end, and everybody within the organization, just say, yeah, just, you know, bring that trolley around and dump everything back onto the aisles and that kind of stuff. Or somebody say run up this. I just knew where nothing was. 

[00:36:09] So one of the things that Henry talks about as well in this book is that it's higher for attitude and train for skill. So when it comes to the interview process, think about what is the attitude of the person we can give people skills later down the road, even knowledge. We can even need knowledge in the background a lot of the time, but that's what we're failing to within organizations. We're hiring people for skills.

[00:36:31] And you're even saying with the 10 years of sales experience or 10 years experience in this does not mean you're gonna have the attitude that's gonna fit the organization. And you could actually be a bad fit for the organization, cuz your attitude might be not what is needed.

[00:36:42] Aoife: You know, there's also research that shows and, and the numbers from the varying different, uh, pieces of research that have been done, like the variance is huge, but it's between 30% and 200% of a person's salary if they leave an organization. So if you make a bad hire, imagine that. And I'm thinking back to Sydney, I was there less than 18 months. So from their perspective that, that was maybe a bad hire, they paid me a high salary. They sponsored me, they invested a lot of money in me. And I like to think that I, I paid that back with the clients that I worked with and with the client service I provided, et cetera, cetera, the relationships I built at work.

[00:37:19] But companies lose money by, by losing people from the organization when it's not a good fit. So if you hire the, the wrong person and especially at a senior level, so if you're thinking maybe, you know, if someone's earning 30 grand or 50 grand, but then think of someone who's earning a hundred or 200 grand, when you hire someone at that senior level, how much is that actually costing you if they're not a good fit within the organization?

[00:37:43] Stephen: The other thing I find really interesting is you, do you do a happiness audit for companies. How does that work? 

[00:37:48] Aoife: It's based on the research that I did. So it's questions around the values. Alignment piece. Are the values being lived in the organization? How well do they hire for the values fit or the culture fit in the organization? Then looking at needs satisfaction at work. So looking at the, the three needs of autonomy, relatedness and competence. But then sometimes we have additional needs as well. So you might have a, a need for status or power, or you might have a need for self-expression, for example. Like, these are all intrinsic motivators inside of us that, that really drive us to do better work. And then the third element will be around values, needs and strengths. So how well are, do we know each other's strengths? How well are we utilizing the strengths of people? 

[00:38:29] And I did a, a poll interestingly on LinkedIn a few months ago now, and I was even shocked by this number. So I asked like, so it was simple question. How well are you using your potential or how well are you reaching your full potential at work? And 80% of people said that they weren't, like. And like I work in this area and even that was a really shocking number for me, that people feel so much that they have way more to give than they have the opportunity to give at work. And certainly when I worked in corporate, we didn't talk about this stuff. You kind of knew who to go to, to ask a question about something specific, but that was more on the technical side of things. But we never had an open discussion about what each of us brings to the table.

[00:39:14] And, and I think equally, talking about what we're not good at. So it's not about mitigating weaknesses. It's not about covering up that like, oh, I'm actually really bad technically, or I'm actually really bad at this, or I'm really bad at numbers or whatever it might be. It's about bringing people together to work who have complimentary strengths. So, so you were saying Stephen earlier about, if you're really good at a, a certain area, but you're not necessarily good at the, the execution side of things, then who is good at, at executing and therefore, can you be paired up with them? So you you're coming up with all these amazing ideas that other people can't come up with because they, that's not how they think that's not a strength of theirs. And then you work alongside someone who you just tell them what the idea is. And their strength is executing on ideas that are told to them, you know, imagine the winning formula that that would be if we could actually do that at work.

[00:40:06] Stephen: Just to reference what we were talking about. We're talking about the strengths finder test, which is something that we both have have done before and which I use their teams. And it, the Tom Rates, uh, strengths finder test. I think it's evolved at Gallup as well in Gallup for years. I thought we're just the top 40, but there are a lot more than that. They do lots of, lots of, um, delving into data, specifically around your workplace. And I think this involves roughly about 126 to 136 questions, something like that. And what it does is it gives you your top five strengths. So everybody has got five strengths and those five strengths then fall into four different categories.

[00:40:39] I think it's, isn't the strategic thinking, uh, execution, relationship building. And I can't remember exactly what the other one is. But all of our strengths, the five will fit into. We might be lucky and we might fit into all of those four categories. I don't.

[00:40:53] Aoife: I must look up the categories actually. Cause I didn't realize that I just know my, my strengths and I, and I'm now I'm kind of thinking I'm like, I remember four of the strengths. I don't remember all five. I'll have to go look at them again to make sure I'm working to my strengths.

[00:41:05] Stephen: So what we do is you find out the five strengths of the people. So, so if you get your team together and you work out what everybody's individual strengths are, but that's great. You might have, mine might be positivity or winning over others or empathy or whatever it might be. And then, cause I think there's 35, 36 strengths altogether is, and this is great. So teams work very well with the whole diversity of everybody else's ability and, and strengths. And what we do then is you can actually look up then, uh, on the four different areas, execution strategy, uh, strategic thinking and relationships, and what you can actually find out is where everybody's strengths lies. And it's about recognizing not everybody's gonna have strengths in every different area and we can, we should celebrate that. And that's brilliant too. But when we come across a project, let's have a look. If we have filled all of those different areas with everybody's strengths.

[00:41:56] So if we're understanding that everybody's coming up with great ideas, but nothing's getting done, maybe when we look at the execution column, we realize, God, actually, no, one's, nobody's got any strengths in there. Maybe we need to bring in Colm or Dave or Sarah or whatever in, because they've got that skill. And suddenly you find that the project suddenly gets its legs off the ground because we've done that.

[00:42:14] And I think it's, it's a really good exercise, but it's a really good way to acknowledge. We're all different and there's something brilliant in that difference. You can't make me become this fantastic mindset around mathematics, if that's not my case. So I'm not, I don't fall into that role, but it's celebrating what I am good at and using that. And that goes back to your 80% that you spoke about. If we can recognize what everybody's strengths are and find ways to be able to utilize that every day, that 80% changes, it suddenly becomes a much lower figure and people feel 

[00:42:42] Aoife: This is, it, Steven. And, and I think traditionally at work, we've been so concerned with understanding our weaknesses and mitigating our weaknesses and developing our weaknesses. But like the research shows that it's much more impactful. If you focus on your strengths and you focus on improving in the areas where you're already strong, rather than trying to compensate for areas where you're weak.

[00:43:04] Stephen: Think about this, the whole school system. And you know, and I know this cuz we've gone through it in, in Ireland. The whole school system is based around you do your 10 subjects for your junior cert. And then you go to your leaving cert, which is your final exams, which is like your a levels. And in that we don't do like they do in the UK with three A levels. We do rough seven to eight subjects.

[00:43:25] Aoife: Seven. Yeah. Yeah. Six and then six of them are counted towards your final grade. Yeah. 

[00:43:30] Stephen: You're doing all these subjects and, uh, you realize that I'm only doing seven subjects. Cuz I was told to do seven subjects. I like about two of them, possibly three at a push. So what actually happens is then throughout your schooling years, for the last two years of school, you don't get to concentrate on the subjects you're good at because you're getting grinds and you're getting tutoring and the subjects you're weak at because you wanna get enough points to get yourself across the line, to get the points you need to go onto third level education. And it's a really broken system.

[00:43:57] So you have all these students panicking and worrying and working on the weaknesses and no one gets to really sort of, uh, embrace their strengths. And I think we need to do more of that and this whole idea that we can become better by just working and fixing our weaknesses. That's not the case. That's fine. If you, if you've got poor social skills and you wanna be able to, you know, integrate better with groups and of people and get out there, that's fine fixing those small things. But really it's a waste of time trying to spend your whole life trying to fix the things you're not good at and not concentrating on what you're great at.

[00:44:30] Just to come on, I want you to, to, to tell me what you think are the future trends that you see emerging within the workplace.

[00:44:37] Aoife: There's a few things, but I think that the fundamentals really are, that it's gonna be based on not our inputs. So it's not what you put into work, which traditionally up to now has been nine to five, Monday to Friday, but it's more about what are the outcomes that are expected. And I think this in itself is gonna, it's gonna demand a huge shift in mindset. Because if I think about, and like, this is kind of more of an anecdote from a friend of mine where she said, oh, well I worked a couple of hours extra on Wednesday, therefore I feel justified in taking a couple of hours off on a Friday, when the mentality really should be that I've, I've completed what I set out to do today. This is the impact that it's having on the organization, and I know that this. Is an important outcome for the organization, and I know the contribute, the contribution that I made towards it. So I think that shift in mindset towards outcomes rather than the inputs that we do at work, which traditionally will be things like time, um, but energy also as an input. 

[00:45:38] And this kind of ties in with this idea of strengths. And this came up, you know, a couple of times on, on LinkedIn this morning. And if I think about something, you know, this was going back probably, uh, over 20 years ago now where I was doing some work for a family friend. And it was something that I didn't enjoy. And at the end, I think they gave me like 20 Euro or not 20 euros, 50 euros, I think for it. Whereas I in. Perception. I was like, that took so much energy from me, I thought I, you know, whereas he was giving the time. So when we perceive work to be really difficult, we think we should be paid more for that work. When in fact the, it, it should represent the value that it gives to the organization. And, and usually if it's, if we're not working to our strengths, we find something that is really difficult, and we feel like we're being underpaid somehow, because it's harder to do. And it's, you know, whereas there might be someone else who finds it really easier.

[00:46:31] So I think this idea of focusing on the outcomes that an organization is trying to achieve working to people's strengths, understanding what the, what those strengths are and putting people in the right roles to be able to achieve those. And I know Steven we've talked before about the, the four day week and flexible working hours. And like, to me, that is that's the future that, you know, organizations are already starting to do that. And I think it, there's a funny one because there's some organizations who are not offering that. And there's some employees who are so afraid to move, or they think that they're not going to get the same level of flexibility if they change roles, even though they're miserable in the role that they're in at the moment. And I suppose if an organization is not offering flexible working, if they're mandating people to be in the office, when they don't necessarily need to be there to get their job done, then that's gonna cause issues for them in relation to being able to attract talent. And employees need to know that there are other options out there if they are not happy in the road that they're doing, and they think I won't get the same salary, I won't get the same flexibility, I won't get the same commute, I won't get the same whatever, that there are alternatives out there and you need to, you need to look at what those alternatives actually are.

[00:47:46] Stephen: Yeah, I think it's gonna be a big drain on talent. If companies don't embrace this flexible way of working and certainly to four day week is not just a pioneer sky idea. It's actually 

[00:47:56] Aoife: it's happening. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's they, they're doing a pilot study with over 70 companies in the UK at the moment. There's one running in Ireland. There are companies in Ireland who've been doing it for a long time. They're doing a pilot in the us at the moment as well. Like this is the global movement and it has been shown to increase productivity.

[00:48:16] And you know, this is another thing that I know Henry talks about, and I'm a big fan of as well, this idea of how do you define productivity and, and, and, um, Andrew Barnes, when he was on my podcast, he, he was saying like, if you have to ask, how do you define productivity then you're obviously not focused on it at the moment, you know. Or, or if you're talking about productivity and saying how, but if I do this, then how would that impact on my productivity when they're very obviously not measuring how productive people are being at the moment, they're measuring the inputs of time, they're saying, well, this is the amount of time that we're spending doing these tasks, as opposed to the quality of the work that's produced, or thinking about what are the outcomes that we're trying to achieve with this.

[00:48:59] And, you know, this ties in a little bit with the idea of imposter syndrome that I talk about as well. Um, I read a really interesting article yesterday about perfectionism, and sometimes we have the temptation to, first of all, procrastinate, if you're given this high profile project, you're like, I'm gonna put that on the back burner now, and I'm gonna, I don't have the head space to do it now, or I don't have the three hours of time that I need to really think about how I'm going to approach this. So I put it on the back burner. So first of all, you've procrastinated on it because you're probably self doubting and, and all the rest. Um, you come back to it at a later stage and you end up kind of flurrying to the finish line, to do a half a half good job or a good enough job versus, um, you know, the, the alternative is that you're pushing out the deadline.

[00:49:46] And like one of the things that really resonated for me in that we do have a tendency to want to make things perfect. But if you start tackling that early and doing a little bit at a time and with a clear understanding of what good enough looks like rather than if you're given two weeks, sometimes the temptation is to work that entire two weeks on that project. And you've invested all of this time. And for, for what outcome? You know, it's, if you had two hours to do that project versus two weeks, how would. How would that look different? And, and what can you, what can you do differently?

[00:50:19] And I suppose the, the point is that we're so busy trying to perfect things and, and maybe trying to compensate for our weaknesses in some way, or trying to, uh, to do things to the standard that we think they should be done, and, you know, I've said earlier, I have this, I have a standard of excellence. Like I like to do things in a really excellent way. But equally, how do we define what good enough actually looks like? You know, and, and how do we let people know when, when the work is actually done?

[00:50:49] And if I relate this back to, I used to deliver, uh, presentations at clients all the time, and you could spend an additional couple of hours putting transitions on the slides, animating your slides, making sure all the grammar is right, changing the fonts, changing the sizes on things, but like who benefits from that? And, and, you know, could that two hours have been better spent doing business development calls, for example. So it's really thinking about how, how are you spending that time and what is the impact that that's having on the business.

[00:51:20] Stephen: Isn't it called Parkinson's law?

[00:51:22] Aoife: Yeah, yeah. That time stretches for how you know. So if you have a week versus two weeks, you're still gonna use up all the time that you've been given. And that's, I think I suffer from, from that a lot. I much prefer short, tight deadlines. If someone wants me to do something, I much prefer that it's like, yeah, if you want that tomorrow, that's no problem. And I'll just turn something around, uh, for them really quickly, rather than saying, I want something in two weeks time and I like, I really am like, oh my God, how do I start? And how do I, how do I deal with this? And yeah, I'm much, much prefer those short, short deadlines.

[00:51:54] Stephen: Yeah, I like that. I always remember watching those DIY programs where they would fit out a restaurant and it'd be the night before the restaurant was due to open and they're still painting it or whatever it might be, you know? And it's just, that's Parkinson's law in place. And I think we're all a bit like that. Yeah. I'm which on that one too, as well.

[00:52:10] Actually, before we even say that, cause I was just thinking that Henry's company happy, Happy are actually gone on the four day week. They're part of that, um, pilot study in the 

[00:52:17] Aoife: I saw that. Yes. Brilliant.

[00:52:19] Stephen: And actually Elena Kerrigan, who is my lad last podcast from Think Productive. They have been doing the four day working week for, for 11 days, 11 days, 11 years. And I know we mentioned beforehand to anybody who doesn't know who Andrew Barnes is, andrew Barnes is the author of The Four Day Work Week. His company Perpetual Guardian based in New Zealand in Auckland have been doing the four day week since 2017. That's a really interesting book. If anybody wants to get an insight into, um, into how a company has started from scratch to, to, to look at that concept and then go down that journey and find out, you know, the benefits it's done. And also you can check my podcast, the last one on Elna Kerrigan. She talks about what they've done for the last 11 years.

[00:52:59] Yeah. I kind of like the companies that are beginning to embrace, how things could be different. Like we're never gonna get to the end of our lives and go, you know what? I, I should've worked harder. I should've done more work. I, 

[00:53:10] Aoife: yeah, yeah, yeah, 

[00:53:11] Stephen: more time in the office.

[00:53:13] Aoife: yeah. but what we might say is I should have enjoyed what I worked out more and, you know, I should have thought about the impact. And, and if I kind of, you know, tied this back to what I was saying at the start and, and my experience in, I worked in Dublin and London and Perth and Sydney, uh, aside from multiple summers working in, in Germany and the us as well. And again, this is this idea of looking back with 2020 vision. Like if I think about the, the impact that I want to have on the world, versus the impact that the companies I worked for were having on the world, they were helping these big global companies to sell more products. And like, that's not the impact that I want to have on the world. You know, they were analyzing data to help them to, to effectively to sell more. So driving consumerism, driving obesity, driving pollution, food, waste, all of that kind of stuff. If you want to kind of think of it like that. Whereas for me now, I'm like, how do we take the approach that they had? So how do you, how can you use data and how can you use research to affect good in the world and to have an impact on people's working lives? Because, and stemming, from what I said at the start, my own personal experience of being in unhappy working environments and you know, how do we, how do we change that?

[00:54:33] Stephen: Brilliant. So to finish off, what do you think could be three practical tips, even if you just get two practical tips that companies can start today to actually create workplaces where people, feel good about themselves.

[00:54:44] Aoife: Well, if it's three, then let's talk about exactly what I spoke about. So the values alignment piece. Um, are your values being lived and, and are you hiring people whose values align? So that would be like tip number one is around values.

[00:54:59] Tip number two, then are you satisfying? People's needs at work? Uh, so are you giving them the autonomy that they need? Are you giving them feedback as to how they're doing a great job? You know, so building their level of competence in what they're doing. And are you relating to them? How the impact that, that what they do on a day to day basis is having on the organization. 

[00:55:23] And then the third element is, are you having conversations about strengths? Do you know what people are good at? Are they good at stuff that you didn't even realize because of something? And I know Stephen, we've talked about this, having strengths outside of work, you know. Are they working on something that utilizes their strengths outside of the workplace? And how do you bring that in so that they're using those strengths internally as well at work.

[00:55:45] Stephen: Oh, I love that. And we need more of that as well. The recognition, and I think one of the key things that came from what you just said is communication between leaders and their employees, um, about all of these different types of things. Are values aligned? Are we meeting your strengths? Are we, are we getting you to play to your strengths, putting you into a role where you feel comfortable where you're doing your best work,

[00:56:03] Aoife: I mean, it sounds really simple, but it's not necessarily easy to have those conversations, but it's, it's worth having them. It really is worth starting that conversation and, and discovering for yourself the impact that you can have by focusing on just those three areas. You know, there's, there's other areas that I, that I talk about as well. But if you want to focus to begin with definitely, um, start with those.

[00:56:26] Stephen: And I think now more than ever specifically over the last two years where there's been lots of isolation, those one to ones should be more frequent now than ever before. And I say to anybody who is working in a leadership role, you need to be checking in with your people now more frequently than you ever did before. Because if they are working remotely, there is a sense of isolation. There is a sense that they might be on their own. You need to touch base and you need to have a conversation with them, not just based on, um, how their work, uh, is going, but also how they are as a human, how their life is going, and have a conversation just based on that. It doesn't need to be every conversation, but they need to know that you're connecting with them on a human level.

[00:57:02] Aoife: This is it? Yeah. And I I've heard so many people say my boss is great because they just leave me alone to get on with it. Like, for me, that's not, that's not a great boss at all. You need to be checking in with people. You need to provide them with that development opportunity with that guidance about how they're performing, not just leave people alone to their own devices, you know?

[00:57:21] Stephen: Aoife, this has been wonderful. What a lovely way to spend the, uh, the morning. 

[00:57:25] Aoife: Yeah. Absolutely loved it.

[00:57:27] Stephen: how can people get in contact with you?

[00:57:28] Aoife: I'm most active on LinkedIn so they can connect with me there, Aoife O'Brien and I'll spell the, the, the name out for anyone who is not a native Irish speaker. It's A O I F E, O apostrophe B R I E N. So that's on LinkedIn. They can find me through my website as well. happieratwork.ie, or search for the happier at work podcast, wherever you get your podcast.

[00:57:53] Stephen: Brilliant. Listen, EFFA keep doing what you're doing. I love meeting people like you and yeah. Fantastic. Have a great day. Thank you very

[00:58:00] Aoife: Thanks you too, Steven. Bye-bye.

[00:58:02] Stephen: 

[00:58:03] Well, this is it. This is the end of season. One of the wow work podcast. I've loved every minute of it, but I couldn't advocate for a less stressful working experience if I didn't practice what I preach. So I'm gonna take a few weeks off just to recharge those batteries. I'm gonna return in the autumn with re-energized Wow at Work podcast. It's really exciting as we've already got some really, really interesting guests in the pipeline, you're gonna love the next chapter. Rate us a five wherever you get your podcasts. Have a wonderful rest of summer, and see you in the autumn take care until then.