Blog

Join Rich Anderson as he talks to Chris Herron, Chartered Occupational Psychologist at Sten10.

Together they discuss all things Imposter Syndrome, including the causes and thought process behind it, who is likely to experience it, the signs and symptoms, personal experiences with imposter syndrome, and most importantly, how you can tackle it.

Transcript:

Voiceover 0:00
Welcome to psyched for business, helping business leaders understand and apply cutting edge business psychology principles in the workplace.

Speaker 0:13
Hi and welcome to psyched for business. I’m Richard Anderson, and today I’m joined by my friend and colleague, Chris Herron. Chris is a chartered occupational psychologist and works for our sister company, Sten 10, who are also part of the unseen group. In today’s episode, we’re going to dig into imposter syndrome, what it is, why it shows up at work, and practical ways to handle it. So if you’ve ever thought, I’m not sure I belong here, then this one is definitely for you. Thanks again for listening. I hope you enjoy the episode. Hi and Welcome to Psych for business. I’m delighted this afternoon, on this lovely autumnal day, to be joined by my good friend Chris Heron from Sten 10. How are you doing?

Speaker 1:00
Chris, hi rich, yeah. Thanks for having me. Very good, very good. Happy to join you and your millions of listeners, no doubt.

Speaker 1:07
Well, I mean, if we, you know, forget half that we’re doing. All right, Chris, you know, forget half that. But No, in all seriousness, it is an absolute pleasure to speak to you in this type of environment, because I think you and I, Chris, we’ve gone back a few years now, we’ve had the pleasure of working to what’s been my pleasure. I can’t, of course, speak for you, but I’ve had the great pleasure of having worked with you for the last five years or so, or whatever. It’s been maybe a little bit less than that, but quite some time, we’re now part of the same group in unseen so we get to work even closer together. And I’ve been doing this podcast now, Chris, for about, I don’t know, maybe two and a half years. And over the last year or so, it hasn’t been as regular. And we were chatting, and I said, You know what, Chris, it’d be great to have you an occupational psychologist, join psych for business. I know that you’re very keen to do. So I’ve got a very interesting topic that we’re going to speak about today, Chris, which is all about poster syndrome, and we’re going to get into the weeds with that, what it is, how it affects people, and maybe any experiences that we’ve both had with that. But for the listeners, would you mind, firstly, just introducing yourself, Chris, who you are, what you do and why you want to talk about this topic?

Speaker 2:19
Yeah, of course. And just add on what you said first, my I believe my response to you asking me was, you must be pretty desperate for listeners, which may have been my own imposter syndrome kicking in at the time, but I am a chartered psychologist for stent 10. So yeah, we are a consultancy that specialises in bespoke assessment design, whether that’s for selection or development, and there’s a host of other things we do in there, coaching, training, to name but a couple. And yeah, I’ve been with Stenton, yeah, going on four or five years. So yeah, you’re right. That’s how long I’ve known each other. And yeah, excited to talk about this subject today, because it’s something that has piqued my interest over the past probably 12 months, given some of the coaching I’ve done and just how common it seems to be coming up. So I thought, yeah, this would be a good one to talk about. So this is something you’re hearing about wards, yeah, yeah, especially a couple of clients we’ve done that’s required more coaching after the intervention. So for example, a leadership identifying potential in future leaders, and then we often see it, especially in that kind of transition period where people are moving into more senior roles or have more responsibilities, where this does kick in, but a lot of these individuals have been experiencing it years prior to, yeah, the coaching and the development programme.

Speaker 3:36
It’s really interesting, because I think with imposter syndrome, and it was, it was a term that I hadn’t heard I knew all about when I got into the definitions of what it actually was, which will obviously cover the day I hadn’t heard about it, probably until about three years ago, and then I felt like I was seen everywhere, like everywhere LinkedIn and podcasts people were talking about it, imposter syndrome. So I think we’ll start Chris right at the beginning, if that’s all right with you. What do you mean by imposter syndrome? What is it?

Speaker 4:04
Well, I think it was first defined in like the 1970s was the first kind of initial academic paper done on it. It’s essentially then it was defined as an inability to internalise any kind of achievement, and then a tendency to attribute any successes you’ve had to external factors. So I was lucky. I was in the right place at the right time. It all just fell together, that kind of thing. So in a mild sense, it might just present in a lack of confidence or in your own abilities or self doubt, but more significantly, those who experience it quite severely, it can lead to more distress, anxiety, impacts on mental well being, and often burnout, because people are trying to overcompensate for their self perceptions that are incorrect. And then that can lead to all sorts of things, obviously, lower job satisfaction, for instance. So.

Speaker 5:00
Yeah, I would imagine as well. It’s, it’s one of those things that, if it affects to the degree where you are really struggling with stress and anxiety, it probably prevent, prevents you from fulfilling your potential, because you might be more reluctant to go for that promotion or go for that leap on the leadership journey, or whatever it

Speaker 5:21
might be I see. And so it’s a vicious circle, and a lot of people who do experience it are spending so much time and energy, often overworking, you know, to and often they’re really high achievers as well. I said that no one I’ve coached or worked with, even who’s had imposter syndrome, has ever been bad at their job, have been really, really good. You know, it’s just so sometimes it’s, it’s a symptom of just overwork, but then a lack of taking opportunities because you think you’re not there or not or not good enough.

Speaker 5:54
Yeah, it’s really interesting. I mean, when we were chatting about this, one of the things that you mentioned was that, apparently it’s not called imposter syndrome anymore. And you know, we’re going to call this podcast imposter syndrome, because I think that probably relates in terms of people’s knowledge of the definition. But apparently it’s known as imposter phenomenon.

Speaker 6:13
Actually, I looked into it and that first initial paper that I mentioned, they did call it imposter phenomena. But then syndrome became more common in the vernacular, presumably because it kind of emphasises the individual and it being almost like a dysfunction, but in most of the research now, because syndrome indicates a recognised illness, which imposter syndrome is not. As of yet, phenomenon is becoming, yeah, the more preferred term, again, and what you’re right, imposter syndrome is the thing that’s out there on LinkedIn, social media, so it’s more recognisable. But the key word is imposter anyway, you know that feeling of fraudulence, especially at work, but yeah, feelings that You’ve fooled others into overestimating your knowledge or your capabilities, and then really, subsequent fear of being exposed

Speaker 7:05
after that. Yeah, it’s, I mean, it’s definitely something that I’ve that I’ve suffered, suffered with, suffered from, and probably still do, to a degree. And we can get into that if it’s useful at some point. But it’s, you know, I wonder how much of it relates to confidence. I wonder how much of it relates to personality as well. I don’t know whether there’s been any research done or anything like that. Or anecdotally, you know, people who seem to suffer more from this. Is it? Is it a personality thing? Is it an innate trait that they have? Is people who are higher on what we would say, neuroticism in the Big Five and all of that sort of stuff. I wonder how much of that actually impacts people’s suffering.

Speaker 7:45
You’re bang on. There’s been research that has indicated just a positive correlation. Higher scores in imposter syndrome, higher neuroticism, which is very contextual, like state trait. So there will be certain contexts or situations that will bring that out of you more so depending on the context you find yourself in. So I mean, lots of people experience it, and the research indicate most people will experience it at some point in their lives. I think the last statistic error is about 70% that increases if in neurodivergent groups, I think it was more over 80% where neurodivergent participants rated themselves significantly higher in imposter phenomenon syndrome than neurotypicals. But I think that was a paper I read quite recently, probably this year. It was published, so I don’t think there’s an awful lot on that, but that is one finding gender. It’s funny, I read a meta analysis, and the very first, I should say, the very, very first paper that I referred to was on women in academia. So it does have quite a focus on women. People identify as female, but I read a meta analysis where it said, I think there’s like 16 studies found that imposter syndrome is higher in women. It also said 17 studies found there’s no difference between men or women. So the jury is still out on that one really, as to, yeah, what gender differences. Some find it decreases with age. Some find no age difference. So again, it’s very it’s very contextual, and ethnicity would be another one where it’s also common and been found in African, Asian, Latino cultures, but it’s just experienced differently. If you’re from like a Western, individualistic culture, compared to a collectivist one, where you may experience more shame or or you feel like it reflects more in your family, than the Western world, where we internalise it a bit more and it’s on us interesting.

Speaker 9:56
So you obviously, you’ve talked about ethnicity and background and you’ve talked. About neurodivergence And these people potentially suffering more with this. Do you see that it comes up more? Is it typically in leadership roles? Is it when people get to a certain level? Or I’m just thinking, how loud here I remember the beginning of my career, when I was working as a I think the correct term is individual contributing. Terms that people use, individual contributor, a sales person. And to be honest with you, Chris, looking back, I probably had imposter syndrome. Then I worked with some very experienced and really good or really well and highly regarded sales people. I thought, well, Craig, yeah, am I going to keep up, keep up with with this lot here, and that wasn’t even in a sales Well, that’s just a quick, you know, example off the top of my head. But are you seeing it more in leaders, or is it just across the

Speaker 10:51
board? Across the board, in my experience, I think the research would say that as well. It is definitely seen in periods of transition. So for those moving into more senior roles as well, but not only, you know, I don’t think it’s necessarily more prevalent, as you just said, you experienced it when you weren’t in a leadership role. So I don’t think we can say conclusively when it strikes, when it where it comes from, because, you know, different contexts will be probably more or less triggering for different people. And yeah, obviously, if we knew what, when and where it struck and what the actual causes were, probably do more to prevent it. But there are a range of different contexts that I think give rise to it. Some of it like, for example, I saw socio economic factors sometimes. So if you’re the first generation of your family going to be a student at University, so something like that. And there’s, there’s, there’s all sorts of theories, as well as around was it a familial pressure, or your parents putting too much pressure on you, or over criticism growing up or or sometimes over prayers as well as being so what, I suppose, what that would mean is, once you get to a certain point and you you don’t fall particularly well, but you’ve been used to praise all your life. It can, it can rock you a little bit, but, yeah, it has been found in those you’re quite right, those who attain success quite quickly it has been found in those circles. And, yeah, new roles, more responsibility as well, not just confined to that. Yeah,

Speaker 12:29
what you just talked about there when, you know, thinking about reasons that this sort of thing comes up. But I do get interested, I’ve got to say, and I’m not an expert by any more froggy insight going, you know, analytical side of things. You know what, what happened in childhood that makes you who you are. Ultimately, all of that, I guess, is immaterial. When you’re immersed in the situation that you’re immersed. It doesn’t really matter how, you know, how I came to be like this. It’s obviously interesting stuff. But one of the things that we’ve talked about as well is it’s not just this. Is you for life. You can change. You can’t overcome this. You can make it easier. But I guess, probably the first part to it, I’m guessing here, and I’m sure you’ll correct me if I’m wrong, is people’s awareness and knowledge of the fact that they have something like this, which is completely irrational, but nonetheless, still debilitating in many cases, yeah, I guess it’s the awareness piece. Like, you know, if I came to you, Chris, and you were my coach, and I was telling you about how, you know, I don’t feel like I’m good enough, who am I to sit at the top table, or who might have been the management team, or who all of these things that regularly go through my head, I’m guessing you’ll likely say, well, these are the reasons. And it’s not, you know, you’re very welcome here, and you should be here and all that sort of stuff. But it’s, I would imagine, the awareness piece probably, apart from, apart from anything else, before you can then start to coach people out of this.

Speaker 13:54
Yeah. And as I said earlier in in the call, there’s a few, you know, there’s a few people who have coached where I’ve said to them, Well, I’ve just known, obviously, your high potential, so you’re not bad at your job position, yet you’re experiencing these, these, these feelings, these emotions. So a lot of time you might resonate with this. Obviously, I don’t want to over generalise, but a lot of the time you’ll find that these people are perfectionists. They over prepare. They’re over thinkers. All these, all these kind of things that usually are just little telltale signs, that symptoms, if you like, of someone who does have a slightly skewed self perception. And that’s effectively what it is. It’s, we call it Attribution Error. They attribute their successors to something incorrect, and they don’t give give themselves the credit. So a lot of time as well. I find that people really struggle to take compliments if they’ve got imposter syndrome as well. So yeah, and when it comes to, like, the coaching, like you were mentioning, there. And so and I suppose in terms of getting people to realise there is an education piece, and that has in the research, been identified as one of the most successful interventions, really literally spelling out what it is, what the experiences are, and how it impacts people,

Speaker 15:20
yeah, no. I mean, I quite agree. There’s, there’s tonnes of stuff on the coaching side, of things that we can, we can probably get, probably will get into. And one of the, you know, the next talking points I had was, you know, what can, what can people do about this? And I guess there’s, yeah, there’s probably a few, a few ways which this can be improved, if you like. So I, you know, I wonder if you wouldn’t mind just going into a few of the things that you know you might do or Sten 10 might do, not in terms of a sales pitch for Sten 10, but do in terms of, you know, working with individuals on a coaching basis, or whatever it might be, you know, what are the plans that you typically put in place?

Speaker 16:00
Well, there are lots of different, I suppose, coping mechanisms or strategies, because a lot of the time, what the research indicates is the interventions don’t necessarily have a permanent effect. So it’s not like do this, this and this, and there you go. You’re cured. It’s gone, something you probably gonna have to wrestle with for most of your life, really. So some of the research would indicate these interventions are temporary, but the most effective ones being what they call external coping mechanisms. So there’s internal ones which don’t get me wrong, still can be somewhat effective. They’ll be the ones where, literally, you’re doing it yourself. So you’ll reflect on what you’ve accomplished in the in the past, which sometimes, again, can looking at that through an imposter lens, can serve to reinforce your negative sessions. So but other things, like recording, prayers, mindfulness, you know, these can be effective, but a lot of the time, the internal sort of coping strategies turn into people just trying to crack on, persevere and avoid it, avoidance, basically, so that kind of fake it till you make it, which can lead to emotional exhaustion. But there is some, suppose, weight behind things like recording, prayers, mindfulness, but what we’d be more recommending is them external coping mechanisms, which are looking externally for help and support. So coaching is literally one of them, as you mentioned there, sometimes it just needs someone to like a sounding board you’re holding up the mirror. Amount of times I’ve been coaching people and they’ve they’ve heard the words that have come out their mouth and immediately recognised it is irrational, you know, and then oftentimes, just having a mentor or a role model there who, like, literally does that role, the role model, the positive behaviours, and they can kind of course correct you and steer you and sort of push, yeah, I think a lot of people experience imposter syndrome when they are stretching themselves. So it’s not necessarily a bad thing, you know, it’s when they’re on, like reaching you sort of levels, I guess. But sometimes just having that emotional support there can can help with that and but I guess what also you need is work we do with with with leaders, is recognising indicative behaviours of people who might have So again, going back to that education piece, what does it look like in your employees? Not just you have an education, is what it might look like to you. But then there’ll be a psychological safety piece there as well. Because those who, yeah, afraid of being exposed or making mistakes. You know, that just links perfectly with psychological safety. So there might be greater interventions there to look at for for leadership teams, rather than just one to one coaching interventions. Yeah.

Speaker 18:57
I mean, there’s tonnes to unpack there, and a couple of different directions we could take this. Maybe we’ll go down both. But I wonder, you know, you talked about the education piece, and we’re talking about leadership. I wonder how beneficial it would be to certain organisations, and it depends on their eagerness to spend and budgets available, but how much of an education piece could be done on, you know, within early careers, or people just starting their career, because I would imagine that people who suffer with this, it might only, you know, might only reach the surface when they’re in a leadership role, but innately it exists in them, probably from whenever, from when they were younger, going Back to the whole brilliant I was thinking, let’s say, for argument’s sake, hypothetically, somebody gets to their early 30s and starts getting promoted in their career, and then they start experiencing pretty significant imposter syndrome. But maybe if that education piece was done earlier and exposures and all that sort of stuff at. An earlier point in their career. It might make it a little bit easier, rather than having, you know, a load of leaders going through imposter syndrome coaching, maybe that coaching could be done earlier in the process and that education piece. So, yeah, I was just thinking out loud, like, because money seems to become a problem when people are leaders. Yes, we’ve talked about, probably affects loads of people, but that’s where a lot of organisations will invest in their leaders.

Speaker 20:26
Yeah, it’s true. You know, leadership development is such a hot topic right now with, I think it was a World Economic Forum, leadership is one of the future, which could argue it’s have always been a skill of the future and a minus go the present in the past. But anyway, what I’m trying to get at there is, yeah, preventative measures are always better than reactive measures, aren’t they? So there are a few scales out there. I think they’re just, I don’t think they’re even necessarily commercial tools. I think they’re just out there in the public domain that researchers have used to do their research on imposter syndrome. So, you know, those kinds of scales could be used in I couldn’t even build it like, like you indicated, there of early careers, like onboarding, things like that, just just having that awareness in the leadership, yeah, that the managers and leaders having an awareness as well, if someone is struggling with this. But oftentimes the problem is, because you’re trying to mask and because you feel like an imposter, you find it harder to share that. Oh, well, if I say that, then I am an imposter. I am. I am literally telling you that I do not, I do not feel competent enough for this role, which obviously isn’t the case, and goes back to psychological safety of being free to make mistakes or and you know, like you’re not going to be judged, or fear of failure as best as possible should be, should be removed.

Speaker 21:49
Yeah, because it’s almost like you’re admitting, if you really struggle with this, it’s almost like you’re admitting to your peers, to your boss, whatever that I struggle with this, therefore I must have this. And it’s, it’s, it’s really difficult, and to be honest, because it’s a subject that I find very, very interesting, not just the imposter syndrome piece, but that whole kind of, I suppose, subconscious mind taking over, silly thoughts going through your head that aren’t actually true. And you know, a lot of this imposter syndrome is a very big one in a work context. There’s tonnes out of a work context. But, you know, I wonder how much of this, and, you know, this is the, well, I find this very interesting, you will, but not everybody will, of course, but, but I put a post out on LinkedIn. It must have been a couple of years ago, and I got some decent traction on it. And I was, I was saying, you know, where the blurred lines between coaching and therapy. So coaching with a with a business hat on, but where does it get into that area actually, where we’re looking at therapy here, and we’re looking at things like anxiety or stress management or whatever it might whatever it might be, and maybe, maybe there’s something, and I’m not suggesting for a second that a business coach does therapy or a therapist does business coaching, but there has to be some sort of work, presumably, that go hand in hand. The business coach would do a hell of a lot of it, no question. But I feel like there’s a little on that side as well.

Speaker 23:17
Definitely is and it’s it’s be in most of the coaching research papers, you’ll see that kind of where is the line? Where’s the line between what coach can do, even if you know it could be cognitive behavioural coaching, not therapy coaching, but it stems from therapy. And, yeah, where? Where are those lines? Where does it get to the point where you think, okay, ethically, I now need to refer you to someone who’s more specialising in mental health or mental well being someone who used to work at Sten 10. Shout out to Rachel. She had this great kind of like an analogy of where occupational psychologists sort of fit in when it comes to workplace performance or well being. And it was like imagining it on a scale of A minus three to plus three. A business psychologist can anything between minus one to plus three, anything minus two minus three that needs to go into someone like clinical okay? And I thought was a really, really really good way of looking at it. I’ve not botched her analogy there and got the numbers wrong. I’m pretty sure

Speaker 24:26
that was about, it sounds right, yeah, it sounds sounds good,

Speaker 24:30
yeah, yeah. I thought that was a good, good way of looking at it. And what about yourself? Do you think you said you’ve had experiences of it? Do you think it’s you’ve used it to drive, like, has it ever been a driver for you? Because I don’t know if I said that earlier, that’s how I see cause I’ve experienced it too, and I see it as because I get quite mildly, in comparison to some people who will suffer emotionally with it. It can sometimes drive. Me to push me a little bit like, I don’t know if you’d know about that. What’s it called Yerkes Dodson graph. It’s an old study about stress. A little bit of stress makes you perform better to a point, and that point is different for everyone, but past that point, your performance plummets. So it gives, it does give me that little bit of edge when I think, you know, my confidence and I do have that kind of self doubt. Should I be doing this? But I’m quite good at catching myself. I don’t know if it spurs you or drives you in the same way.

Speaker 25:29
It’s a really good point. I think it’s the awareness piece. And one of the reasons I was asking about the awareness piece is because for such a long time, I didn’t know that’s what was happening with me. To be perfectly honest, it was like, I just thought, Okay, this is the way I’m wired up. Yeah, this is true. I accept that, you know, I’m not as good as these other people, or, you know, whatever the case may have been, but I think you get to a point, and, you know, for me, it was only maybe three or four years ago, probably where you start realising you learn about and, you know, go off on a tangent here, but you start learning about how the subconscious mind works and how it’s there to protect you. And it sounds completely irrational and illogical, but that is the, you know, the purpose of this, and that’s why this is happening. It’s a it’s a defence mechanism, and for me, it was exactly what you just said there. It’s about recognising when that sort of thing comes up, and it’s about putting it down to just being a stupid thought. It’s like this whole adage, and it’s a little bit cringy, maybe, but you are not your thoughts. You can have them. You know, 70 every one of us gets 70,000 thoughts, apparently, on average, every single day. Imagine how much, or how many of those thoughts are complete BS, and, I mean, you’ve got it, you know, if someone’s going through my head like, you know, I’m I, I’m nowhere near as good as these people. Or a good example, when, previously, when, when we had evolved as an independent business, I suffered from it then thinking like, I didn’t, it’s funny, and I’ve never really thought about this, but I didn’t. There you go, there’s a great example. I didn’t have managing director or CEO as my job title on LinkedIn or on my emails. I call myself commercial director. There you go. There’s a good example for you. Yeah, I was, I was a, you know, you know, a fairly average sales guy in it, in a job previously, you know, we’d taken a plunger with evolve, and then all of a sudden, I become managing director. But I don’t want to say that I’m managing director, maybe because people will think, Well, cranky, he’s not a managing director. And there was, yeah, so there you go, there’s, there’s one example. And then, you know, after that, when we became part of unseen group, I get invited to be part of the leadership team. Thinking, Who am I to sit at this table, and I haven’t got the same skill sets, experience, knowledge, you know, panache, that these other people have. And it all goes through, all goes out and gets, gets a bit easier with time. But sorry, it’s a bit of a long winded answer, but yes, I’ve definitely suffered with it. But I think it’s about catching yourself and now knowing, okay, well that was, that was silly to change me job title, and that was a tough thought in my head that my actions then perpetuated. And that’s

Speaker 28:08
interesting, though, isn’t it? That kind of self deprecation, I think it’s a northern thing, because friends are self deprecating and actually speaking, I’ve spoken a lot about different research papers that I’ve read on this, and one of them brilliantly started with was a comedian. I can’t remember his name, but the one who said I’d not be a part of any club that have me as a member. So that kind of self deprecation that’s interlinked really, of imposter, imposter far, is really interesting there that you, you yourself, have gone started your own business, growing it up, been so successful that you’ve joined the unseen group, they’ve acquired you, and you still sat there at the table thinking, what am I doing here? I don’t deserve my

Speaker 28:49
secret force, isn’t it? It’s completely irrational thoughts and it’s nonsensical. And I know that if you take yourself out your own head for a second and you’re looking down on how you think and how you act, then, yes, absolutely, it’s it’s completely irrational, I think, when you’re immersed in it, and despite the fact that even now, despite the fact that I know that the thoughts are irrational, sometimes they’ll still come up. And I would imagine that’s where people who get this Don’t get me wrong, Chris, I haven’t had it where it’s enveloped my life and spoiled me, me work or whatever. But there will be people out there that are like that, because probably the more they buy into those thoughts and the more they associate with them and identify with them, that’s when they’re going to keep coming. And that’s when it’s like, okay, well, I’m not going to go for any more jobs. I’m going to resign, I’m going to go and get a job a level down, or whatever, and that is a real problem.

Speaker 29:44
Yeah, definitely, it really is. And, yeah, I mean, a lot of the time, like when you asked earlier about coaching, if we’re speaking to someone who’s suffering with this all the time, it’s just, it’s perspective, isn’t it? We get them to think, Okay, have you got any. Prior examples, or any, you know, any evidence to make this a rational fear of yours, because, like you say, the defence mechanism, evolutionary defence mechanism, is there to protect us. It’s but when it’s just so invasive that it just affects every thought, then you’ve got to put that mental resource into picking them up, identifying them. Nope, you go away. But that’s far better than it just curtailing any success or opportunities from that point onwards, or you being successful but not seeing it exactly.

Speaker 30:38
And I think one of the things that business can do, and I’m very careful as well, Chris, for any listeners, I don’t want to segue this into anything to do with evolve or Sten 10, but one of the things that I would imagine will be hugely useful for businesses is to foster, well, or to create some sort of environment in Which feedback and and and dialogue with colleagues, or whatever is is promoted can only be a good thing. And I’m thinking, you know, like, because it’s one thing, because we’re talking about having all of these thoughts in our head all the time. But if, you know, if I spoke to my colleagues, or if colleagues who may suffer with this spoke to me and got the feedback, actually, it’s that validation that you’re getting from other people, that this is actually just BS and only exists in your head, that will be that will be massively useful, I would

Speaker 31:27
imagine, yeah, that links back to those external interventions. Why actually looking outwards and getting input from from externally is has been found to be more effective because, like I said, it recalibrates those attribution errors. So if you are gathering feedback in whichever way you do it, from your your colleagues or your managers, whether it’s performance review, 360, you name it, you’re going to get those little course corrections, hopefully, where you know, my success is down to look and all that kind of stuff will hopefully be reframed and and then, yeah, you it makes it harder than to dismiss your own success, I guess, and you can start trying to internalise it a bit more, but it has to be consistent, and has to be Not cyclical, rather than just a one

Speaker 32:20
off intervention. And there’s a moral duty for organisations, but it’s up to organisations to put these things in place to enable that, that sort of communication, dialogue, feedback, all of that sort of stuff. So just, just, just to go back a little bit. Then Chris and you, you obviously asked me about kind of my experience with it. You said you suffered, or have suffered in the past a little bit from it, but you could have catching yourself. Was that still happening, or is it something that used to happen, or kind of, what’s your experience with it? Genuinely

Speaker 32:52
only half ingest at the start of the podcast, when I said, You must be desperate for guests, because it is almost like it can be like a default to, oh, like, first on the defensive, and then almost catch yourself. And I think, oh no, that’d be great, you know, rather being self deprecating off the bat. But yeah, I think it just goes back to what I said earlier, with with myself. It’s to the point where it will give me that kind of adrenaline, and then I will over prepare, which is, again, is a, usually a key, key giveaway of someone who does have impostor syndrome, and it will usually go really, really well, but, yeah, I probably over prepared because of that. But then often people, instead of getting a feeling of success, get a feeling of relief. I did it, it’s over. I get a bit of both. So that’s why it’s quite mild for myself, I think,

Speaker 33:54
yeah, and but at the same time, I mean, like, you see, I mean, you said it right at the top of the top of the call. You must have been desperate, which, of course, we both know. I was not desperate. I mean, I was inundated with guests, but, but, you know, like I said, I got in touch with you. I was really keen. I’ve wanted to do this with you for quite some time. Apart from anything else, we get on well together, but you’ve got a hell of a lot to offer and a lot of expertise. But it’s, it’s funny that you say that, you say that, and it’s almost automatic, you must be desperate. Why would you want to speak to me? But I think the difference is and just again, give another example to go back to what we talked about before. The fact that you’re here means that even if you were to think, oh, Craig, you must be, must be desperate. I know that you said it in jest, but even if there was a tiny bit of that you have turned up, whereas I think, excuse me for people who might suffer significantly with this, they would have just turned on the opportunity, or they would have turned down even coming here, and even though they would have inevitably had a lot to offer and a lot to contribute and a lot of good information to give, that almost like that. It’s like. Chimp Paradox. I don’t know whether you’ve ever, ever read that Steve Peters, but it’s like the chimp is almost no you can’t do that. You need to protect yourself, because you don’t. You know, everybody’s gonna think I’m crap or nobody’s gonna listen. I was like that when I started this podcast. Funny enough. Was like, Well, I mean, you know, I’ve got all these psychologists, people with letters after the name that I’m having discussions with an interview, and what the hell have I got to say about and there was a lot of that, and I kind of one of the things I thought, well, I’m going to do it anyway. I think that’s one of the things I’m better at now. Rather than avoiding stuff, I’ll just do I’ll just do it. And if it goes badly, it goes badly, choking off to experience. But nine times out of 10, as you said, it normally goes quite well.

Speaker 35:40
Absolutely it doesn’t, you know, sometimes it’s like exposure, isn’t it? You’ve exposed yourself to it, you know. And a lot of people are scared what other people are going to think, and can’t remember the somewhat. Can’t remember where already, but we severely overestimate how much people think are thinking of us. So we, you know, like I wasn’t coming today to speak on BBC Breakfast. No offence to the podcast. I’m sure you got millions, millions of views. Jordy. Joe Rogan, oh no, I should call you Jordy. Show that. Jody Rogan, but yes, it is. It’s a lot of people may just get to a certain point and then think I’m not good enough to then try and go further in their career. But then on the flip side of that, lots of people who are highly, highly, highly successful have it because they’re consistently feeling that they have to prove themselves so they gain lots and lots and lots of certifications, qualifications, you know, extremely bright, but don’t see it in themselves. Interesting.

Speaker 36:53
Yeah, I wouldn’t, it’s weird, because in my head, I would have thought, I must just be people that are, you know, early in the career, or, you know, just in the leadership roles or whatever. But the fact that it’s probably happens with with with very, very senior people, it’s incredibly interesting. So before you go and we wrap up, before you kind of talk about a little bit more about Sten 10 and how people get in touch, is there anything else that I’ve missed out that would be useful to go into on this, on this particular

Speaker 37:21
topic, I suppose one thing I could read out which I thought no one wants to listen to, and read a paragraph out on feel free to edit it out this. You and I mentioned that initial study about, yeah, there was on with women in academia, the initial imposter phenomenon syndrome study. So essentially, I thought this just hit the nail on the head with what a lot of people experience, and it just resonates so women in academia who, despite their attainment of degrees, publications, academic honours and a host of other indicators of their competency, were unable to internalise their success rather than acknowledging their effort and competency, these women attributed their success to a host of external factors. Some saw themselves as being lucky, while others suspected a mistake was made during the admission or hiring process. These women thought of themselves as impostors, who were not qualified for their positions, concluding that they had fooled others, interviewing them as more intelligent and competent than was actually the case. So essentially, when I read that out to people that I’ve worked with before, they just say, I have impostor No, to some degree, you know.

Speaker 38:35
But resonate with so many people. Yeah, yeah. Resonate with so many people. So Well, Chris, I really, really enjoyed that topic, and I would like to think this will be the first of a few that we can do together. There no pressure. I’ve asked you now before you answer that, but before you go for anybody that might be interested in having a discussion with you or stentan, whether it’s about coaching, whether it’s about imposter syndrome or any of the other brilliant things that you do as a company. How do people get in touch with you and and talk a little bit about, you know, yeah, how people get in touch and the types of things that you can support

Speaker 39:14
with? Yeah, absolutely. There’s a few ways. So you can contact me directly on LinkedIn. Chris heron, Sten 10, obviously, through our website, there’s an inquiry page on there, or the unseen Group website that we’re now a part of, or my email address, which I can maybe you can attach to this podcast

Speaker 39:31
as part of the transcript. Yeah, fantastic. Well, Chris heron, thank you very much for joining me on psych for business.

Unknown Speaker 39:41
Bit, thanks very much. Cheers, Rich.

Voiceover 39:44
Thanks for listening to psych for business, for show notes, resources and more. Visit evolve, assess.com

Voiceover 39:57
thanks for listening to psych for business. Us For show notes, resources and more. Visit, evolve, assess.com you.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai

After a long hiatus and returning with a brand new look, Episode 21 of Psyched for Business sees Evolve MD Richard joined by Leadership Thinker, Consultant and Author, Robert Bolton.

Join them in exploring how you can unlock new perspectives by combining left and right brain thinking, how leaders can best tackle dilemmas, and how to make the most of two-by-two grids.

Plus, you’ll get to hear all about Robert’s new book ‘Breaking Open The Boxes: 100 Quadrants For Wisdom and Success in Life’, co-written by friend of the podcast, Andrew Munro.

Episode Transcript:

Voiceover 0:00
Welcome to psyched for business, helping business leaders understand and apply cutting edge business psychology principles in the workplace.

Richard Anderson 0:13
Hi and Welcome to Psyched for Business. It’s been a long hiatus since we recorded our last episode, but I’m delighted to be back. My name is Richard Anderson. Thank you so so much for joining me in today’s episode, I’m joined by leadership thinker, consultant and author Robert Bolton. Robert and I talk about his latest book, breaking open the boxes, which was co written with Andrew Munro, who I’ve also recorded a couple of podcasts with in the past. In this episode, we go through how leaders can tackle dilemmas, the strengths and the pitfalls of two by two grids, and how left brain and right brain thinking can combine and unlock new perspectives. Robert, in this podcast, also shares some fascinating real world examples, from organisational culture and leadership. Candour to the challenges of hybrid working. I did genuinely enjoy this conversation, and I think and really hope you’ll find it both practical and thought provoking. I hope you enjoy listening to it as much as I did recording it. Thanks again. So Robert Bolton, welcome to Psyched for Business. Thanks ever so much for joining me. Thank you, Richard. Yeah, really delighted. I’ve been really looking forward to this one, Robert. And I think I’ve said you previously, it’s been a bit of a hiatus for psyched for business for some time, through a number of different reasons, we’ve had a big change to our business, but it’s one of my passion projects. I love having these types of discussions. So, and I can’t think of anybody better to be kind of bringing, bringing this discussion to the table after some months off, Robert, we’re going to go through introductions in a second, but just to briefly introduce you. So we were connected by a mutual friend, acquaintance, colleague of ours, Andrew Munro, who I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing a couple of times on Psyched for Business, who brought to my attention breaking open the boxes, which is, of course, a book that you’ve written together. I know Robert, you’re a leadership thinker. I know that you’ve been a long term consultant in the space of human capital, in organisational transformation, and now you’re an author, and you’ve fairly recently authored this book, breaking the boxes. I’ve read it. It really struck a chord with me. I’ve got to say, It resonated so much, and I’m looking forward to dissecting it and going through it in detail with you. There’s loads to cover on this session, but before we get stuck in Robert, perhaps for the audience, would you mind just introducing yourself a bit of your background and perhaps why you decided to write this book?

Robert Bolton 2:45
Yeah, of course. Of course. Well, my background is the people, space, people, management, people and organisation. And after a kind of a bit of a dodgy start to my career, which we won’t need to go into, because there was no pattern. I landed up doing Employee Relations at Nationwide Building Society, and that’s where my career took off, quite frankly. And I was at nationwide for about 10 years, and through that time, worked through a number of roles, but led the corporate HR function, as it was termed then. And during that period, I worked with Andrew, Andrew Munro, the co author, and we really, I really enjoyed working with him, because I he was clearly a thinker, yeah, and not only that, a thinker in the context of applying the thoughts and the ideas. So I realised that he was someone that was good to work with, and I enjoyed working with him. So I also realised that in my heart, really, I was a management consultant, and I knew that at the point at which I started, it was like painting the fourth bridge. When I was I was, you know, going around doing doing things nationwide. It might have been management, development, training, performance, reward, organisation, those kinds of things. And I was undoing what I did four years ago just to redo something. Okay, yeah, kind of it’s my mind is such that I like to design, design, fix, solve. So I went into management consulting. And when. Into KPMG and did Management Consulting at KPMG for many, many years, I finished up as partner and global lead for what was termed people and change consulting. Okay, by that time, Andrew had set up his own business and I continued to involve Andrew in some projects, you know, the design of tools and assessment and stuff like that. So our collaboration continued. But then a couple of years ago, I retired, you know, I just felt ready for for a new chapter. And I also felt, gosh, I need to get this book out of me. And we got Andrew and I got talking, and he and I decided that, actually, yeah, it’d be really interesting to collaborate on this book. He’d already started it, but was interested in some of the chapters that he felt that I would be perhaps more suited to write than him, and some of the grids that I might be more suited to write as well. So we had a really interesting collaboration and and breaking open the boxes is all about. How do you resolve dilemmas? How do you reconcile the fact that you know you might have one thing on the one hand but another competing thing on the other hand, and therefore, what do you do? Do you Is it a case of either or, and that’s what a lot of people and leaders and managers fall into, that trap. Well, it’s either going to be one thing or the other, or is it and both? And the trick with resolving dilemmas, I think fixing organisational challenges, yes, is to ask yourself, where’s the and both solution, okay? And that’s, that’s kind of what almost my passion, because that informed a lot of what I did in management consulting.

Richard Anderson 7:18
Brilliant. Okay, that’s, that’s really, really interesting, Robert. And yeah, Andrew. Andrew is a good guy, and I can, I can very much see the two of you working very, very well on this project, having got to know you a little bit from the discussions that we’ve had previously, and obviously the same with Andrew. So let’s, maybe we’ll start right at the beginning from the grid thinking. So, you know, let’s go. Obviously, I’d heard a little bit about the quadrants the grids. I’ve not had the pleasure. I’ve very much enjoyed working in small business, but I haven’t really undertaken many two by two grids. And I know that there’s a huge amount of people that have particularly in larger or corporate type organisations, but I don’t want to make any assumptions for the audience. So maybe if you could start by explaining a little round the two by two grids, and how what you’ve written and what you’ve created with breaking open the boxes kind of builds upon those, those two by two grids, yeah, just, we’ll start right at the beginning, if that’s okay with you,

Robert Bolton 8:24
yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I’m glad we are, quite honestly, because, you know, there are a lot of two by two grids around they they exist. One of the Sunday papers that that, the Sunday paper that I read, there’s a section always at the front of it where it’s the observer. They summarise what’s happened in the world each week with with a full a two by two, a four box grid. So these things exist all over the place, and of course, in management consulting, I you know you often, perhaps at the front of a PowerPoint deck, you might start to frame the question or the issues for the client, yes, in a way that’s accessible, and that’s where the strength of the two by two comes from, but there’s also traps. So let’s go right to the beginning. And we cover this briefly in the book 1954 the Eisenhower matrix. And that looks at things that on one axis, it’s an axis about urgency and and then there’s another axis, which is about importance. Of course, if something is important and urgent, that’s really where you ought to devote your attention, but you mustn’t forget things that are important and not urgent. Yeah. Yeah, and that’s where some some traps are, and it’s an example of a good matrix. You know, come comes from a speech that President iden Eisenhower gave, who’s in 1954 and he he’s actually referring to some work from a professor, a US professor who, I haven’t been able to track down the name, but I want to, but he the Eisenhower matrix. It’s well known. And of course, there’s the Boston grid from the Boston Consulting firm, which has things like, if you remember, it has things like cash cows for

Richard Anderson 10:43
it

Robert Bolton 10:46
has, in fact, because I’ve, I’ve got it here, it has cash cows stars. The star is where there’s big market growth, and the market share is relatively big, but it also has, I don’t like this phrasing dogs, and it has question marks, which is where there’s low relative market share, and in the case of dogs, low market growth as well, right? Okay, you know it’s a it’s a grid that, and Gartner has a magic quadrant. So the clues in the name, there’s these things exist, but there are also, you know, I don’t want to make it sound as if, so it’s easy. It is not easy. Yeah, you have to think about what that x and y axis is, yes, and a classic example, and you will have come across this, Richard, and I’m sure some of the people listening to this, it’s that classic performance and potential grid. Now you know the research, and again, we quoted in the book, I think it was from Roffey Park. The ability of people to distinguish performance, pure performance, from potential, is nigh on impossible, and what you end up doing with a performance and potential grid, and these things are used sometimes in performance management. Is a manager who will say, Yeah, well, this person has high potential because he or she is high performance, and vice versa, yes. So the two concepts are not separated, they’re not made distinct, and you end up with, effectively, a grid that’s only tracking one concept. Do I like this person almost, right? So there’s, there are dangers with these grids. And I’d like to think that someone getting breaking open the boxes will at least recognise, if they dip into it and work through it, how to do a good grid. Yes, and we talk about grid 101, because there’s 100 grids in 10 chapters in the book. But then we want to encourage people to go and do grid 101

Richard Anderson 13:30
what’s your grid? Of course, we it needs to be applicable for the person themselves, doesn’t it? But you obviously chose 100 grids between yourself and Andrew when you were creating the book, Robert, was there any, what was the thought behind the 100 that you chose? Was it, did you try and do different settings, different scenarios, different applications? What was, what was the thinking behind that? Because you’ve got a tonne in there, some really relevant examples that I’ve been able to draw a huge amount of value on from the ones that I’ve looked through. But, yeah, just out of interest, what, what were you know, what? How did you come up with 100 Yeah,

Robert Bolton 14:05
so we, we basically looked at those things that are that are quite personal and interpersonal, yeah, and we have some chapters that explores that. And then we looked at things that are about organisation and and career and and management, yes. And then we also have some chapters that’s, you know, it’s more big picture, like technology in the future of work? Yes, so those 10 chapters work through those, those three kind of areas, and each of those areas I get, I guess it gets bigger in terms of scope and more potentially far reaching. Yeah.

Richard Anderson 15:00
Brilliant, and you talk,

Robert Bolton 15:02
oh, and sorry, Richard, of course I can whiz through what those chapters are. Yes, I think that really helpful. Yeah, please, I’m gonna have to open the book to make sure I get them right, but the 10 chapters are so under personal mastery, that was the that first grouping. Yeah, there’s self management and life success, okay, there’s problem solving and decision making, and there’s implementation project management and doing stuff. Your next group is working through others. So that’s where we bring that organisational component. Yeah, that’s interpersonal relationships and skills, leadership and management, communication, influence, negotiation and conflict and culture and change management. Interesting. Then finally, there’s managing the business, and that is strategic analysis and planning, financial analysis and risk management. And the one that I mentioned technology in the future of

Richard Anderson 16:12
work, yeah, which is, of course, a hugely interesting chapter, and I have to say that’s probably the one that I spent the most time going going through the technology side of things. Obviously, having started and run a software business, who would you say? Robert is the book for Who do you have in mind when you were creating it? Was a consultant to leaders. Was a business people.

Robert Bolton 16:34
The Clip answer, you know, I’m going to say this so, you know, I mentioned, you know, to you, the person that leads the Watch Company, yes, he ended up giving it as Christmas presents to some people. Oh, brilliant, because he thought it had, you know, pretty broad relevance. Yeah, it’s now on the reading list of a master’s programme at one of the, you know, the country’s red brick universities. Yeah, and it may well end up on a couple of other reading lists, because I’m in conversation. So there you’ve got, if you will, students of management and organisation. My brother loves it. He’s a he’s a psychotherapist. So there’s, there’s, there’s, it doesn’t matter whether he loves it or not. He may it might just be because, you know, we got on well, and he thinks he ought to like it. But no, no, he he runs training in in some pretty, you know, heavy technical word, heavy areas of psychotherapy, and he recognises that you know what, what to help people through what they’re dealing with. Often, it’s a dilemma. Well, it is. You wouldn’t necessarily draw a grid, but it’s a dilemma to think through the competing forces the horns of the dilemma dilemma. So I think anyone who is interested in, let me put it this way, anyone who’s interested in thinking better, yeah, this

Richard Anderson 18:42
is an interest, and dilemmas come up in every context in life, very, very regularly, don’t they? So it can be applied Absolutely. I know that you draw a lot, and we’ve talked about this before, and it’s mentioned in the book on the work of Ian McGill Christ, yeah, and, and I think it’d be really interesting for the listeners to find out a little bit more on Ian McGilchrist work, and what you know inspired you about that and how that ties in to what you’ve created here, the whole left brain, right brain.

Robert Bolton 19:16
So let me do a plug for Ian McGilchrist. I Gilchrist, he has he has written some of the most important books and has conducted some of the most important research, full stop, right? He So, what is his work all about? It’s about the divided brain, as in, how we approach the world, how we attend to the world and and and attend. Into the world, either through a left brain perspective and or a right brain perspective. And there’s a great book, and it’s in my bookshelf behind me here. Okay, there’s a great little book that you can read in two hours, and it’s called Ways of attending how our divided brain constructs the world. And this is Ian McGill Crispin. This is Iain McGilchrist, and it will open a door for anyone who hasn’t come across his, his work, because his his thesis, if you will, is that. And there’s a deeper book, a more full book called The master and his Emissary. Now, the master, he argues, is the right brain. So that’s the the the part of the brain that sees holes as in whole things, yeah, relationships, connections, yes. And then there’s the left brain, which sees parts, which is more logical, which is kind of, if you will, organised around the facts and and, of course, his argument is, if we’re to function completely, we have to kind of integrate left and right brain. But the reason why he calls his, you know, one of his books, the master and his emissary, the master is right brain, but the emissary, which is left brain, has taken over it. It structures our world. You know, the way we see organisation, as in organisations, yeah, way we approach problems, challenges, the way that politics is constructed, the way that journalism works. It’s all left brain. Yes, you know it’s seeking that. Well, it’s either this or it’s this. Which side do you want? You know that’s that’s all left brain, yeah, and McGilchrist, that there’s a, if you, if you look at nothing else, get this ways of attending. It’s, it’s fundamental, I think,

Richard Anderson 22:55
ways of attending, yeah, ways of attending, of attending. We’ll leave that as part of the podcast, yeah, and how

Robert Bolton 23:02
our divided brain constructs the world. It’s such an you know, it’s a thin book. It’s quick to read, certainly quicker to read than breaking open the boxes. But for those, particularly the people on this call, that might come from a psychology persuasion. And if they haven’t come across in McGilchrist, then the master in his emissary and his his most recent book, which I think came out in 2023 it’s two volumes, and they’re both door stops. So I’ve got them, and I haven’t gone into them yet, but it’s, it’s called the matter with things okay, and all of which explores. And he, he is a, I think is Cambridge, is his academic host, if you will. But he’s both psychology, psychiatry, neuroscience, and he draws on all of these disciplines, as you might expect from someone that’s advocating a holistic view. He draws on all of those things and his arguments, I think, are hugely persuasive about how we’ve created a world driven by the emissary, not the master.

Richard Anderson 24:31
Interesting, yeah, and that’s the thing with breaking open the boxes, isn’t it? It’s not necessarily this simple two by two Eisenhower matrix that you’ve you’ve outlined already. There’s a much deeper level to this, bringing in the right brain. So

Robert Bolton 24:49
yes, you’re sorry. You’re getting me excited now

Richard Anderson 24:53
you go for another

Robert Bolton 24:56
in the conclusion, as you know, we. Talk about grid 101, this, that’s where we reference in McGilchrist, and we say, look, doing a quadrant is not about getting it right first time. It’s not, it’s, it’s not about, you know, having necessarily two left brain axes. Imagine, if you will, some of the creativity that might come if you reflect on the topic that you’re seeking to address, the issue that you’re seeking to address, the dilemma that you’re seeking to address. And you said to yourself, Okay, well, what would be a right brain perspective, either on one of the axes or both of the axes? How might that give you new insight, give you a breakthrough even? And that’s what we spend time on in the conclusions. And we we use this simple, think, talk, do framework, and we say, Look, if you seek to build your your new your grid, the grid to explore your topic, it may take a few grits to explore the topic, but if you, if you go through this think talk, do framework we give advice on, okay, well, you can think about your challenge through a left brain perspective. But also, here’s some prompts about thinking about it through a right brain perspective, and then set similarly talk and do left brain, right brain, yeah. And, I, you know, we, we firmly believe that this is a way of to use the phrase breaking open boxes. Yeah,

Richard Anderson 26:58
yeah. Love it fantastic and And presumably, you know, we can come on to this, because I know that we talked part of this session that I might have a little go at the grid, 101, for a challenge or a dilemma in my life or working life specifically. But if you had two people, let’s say, with the same challenge, quandary, dilemma that they’re going through in work or life. Could you have two completely different boxes depending depending on the person themselves? I thought that would be the case, but it’s really interesting. It’s all about what’s personal to the individual who’s going through

Robert Bolton 27:35
it exactly. And one of the things that we advocate in the book, and I have a conversation coming up in a couple of weeks with with a professor at another university, and I’ve said to him in correspondence, and I’ll be saying to him in person when we meet up, this approach that Particularly the grid 101, approach will work really well in small groups. I’ve done it with some small groups. So imagine a group of people that might be confronted with the same issue. Yeah, you know, the first thing we talk about is, well, frame it. What? Describe it as a question? You’ll know from the book that all of our greats start with a question, of course, but then as a group, go through the steps the think, talk do, and think about the left brain and the right brain. And if you do that as a group, you might end up with a really solid grid that the group buys into, or you may end up with a couple because people may disagree. It doesn’t matter. Work through two grids or one grid and then see where that gets you, because one of the powers of this stuff is also thinking about, what are you going to label the boxes? Of course, genuine dilemmas can’t be neatly framed as four boxes, but if you think of a creative approach, perhaps it might be regarded as a right brain approach, but doesn’t have to be, because you could have a left brain approach to to labelling the boxes that too, sometimes can give you some insight, some, some, some sense of a breakthrough. Yeah,

Richard Anderson 29:33
yeah. It really, really nice way of doing it. Brilliant. I can’t wait to get stuck into that. Shall we? Robert? Have a little look at maybe an example or two from the book, so we can explain some of the things that have been written in there. We talked about a couple of, a couple of options that we could talk through. And I very much like on page 377, of the book, Robert, are we covered? Ring up being the question of that, and it’s it’s particularly nice this one because it’s focused around the theme of talking heads, who you and I both very much enjoy. We’ve talked about that previously, but it’s not focused specifically around the theme of talking heads that forms part of it. But would you be happy to talk the listeners through what this section of the book, or what this box, one of the 100 that you’ve written in the book is all about, are we covering up? Yeah. And

Robert Bolton 30:30
of course, that question is couched from the perspective of the leadership team, yes. So it’s is the leadership team covering up? And seems to me to be almost, if not daily, then of weekly relevance. Yeah, just, just today I saw in the paper about the Countess of Chester hospital and some of now the leaders. This is where, of course, Lucy let be has been convicted of murdering babies, and that’s that’s an issue of some debate, of course, if anyone’s been following that, yes, three of three of the leaders managers were questioned by police yesterday and bailed for corporate manslaughter charges, right? And it’s a classic example of of, you know, were they, I’m not going to pre judge it. The question, though, is, were they covering up? And you just have to think about the long list of topics, Windrush, Hillsborough, Grenfell, Tower, post office, Horizon scandal. You know, these are all examples where someone should have perhaps asked the question, are we covering up? Yeah, yeah. And of course, you know, there’s, there’s another grid in here, by the way, around group think. So, you know, sometimes one grid isn’t enough to explore the spectrum. This grid is, are we covering up the axes? Are the vertical axes duty of candour. And of course, the Hillsborough law that has been talked about is about, you know, well, perhaps if we’d had a duty of candour, you know, with police opening up and saying, Yeah, actually, we made some judgments in the moment that that led to the the be the subsequent tragedies. Yes, then perhaps Hillsborough wouldn’t have happened, or perhaps we would have got to the answer around what happened at Hillsborough much quicker. So duty of candour. But of course, the competing angle is reputational concern. Yeah, you know, we can, we could, I guess, you know, the cold light of day, we can understand why a leadership team might refrain from being completely open, because they’re concerned about what this mean for our organisation. You know that we could certainly see elements of that with the horizon scandal. But as and we quote, by the way, one of the thing as an aside, one of the things about breaking open the boxes, you’ll know this. We furnish it with so many quotes from people, yes, and I love a good quote. And Howard Baker said it is almost always the cover up rather than the event causes trouble. And that’s one of the quotes. And then you mentioned the talking heads, yeah, one of the greatest bands of all time. We sometimes, Andrew and I, you know, we looked for, you’re not, you’re not seeking sometimes, to label these boxes in a, you know, with dictionary definitions. Yeah, you’re seeking to label them from the Spirit, if you will, yes, of what you’re seeking to to define, to discuss, to address, yeah, and I think it works really well here, low reputational concern, low duty of candour the brilliant stopped making sense, which

Richard Anderson 34:47
is, of course, an album of talking

Robert Bolton 34:50
heads, which is an album of talking heads, a brilliant live album. Yeah, highly recommend it. Yes. What about high. Reputational concerns you, you, you’re concerned about your reputation, but your duty of candour is really low, and you often find politicians getting into a mess because they, they, they, they talk nonsense, yes, speaking in tongues, they’re not being authentically honest. Yeah, the duty of candour isn’t there? Yes, they end up speaking in tongues. It’s almost like the brain is in a state of

Richard Anderson 35:37
confusion, because for those individuals, their reputational concern is paramount and trumps everything else, including that duty of Canada, which they’re not bothered about. Yeah,

Robert Bolton 35:51
but what about high duty of candour? You’re going to tell the truth come what may, but you don’t really care about reputation. Well, that’s true stories. Yeah, that’s being brutally honest. You don’t care. You know what people are going to say and think about you. You’re just going to tell the truth. Yeah. But then, of course, what’s the high? High, high reputational concern? High duty of candour. Another brilliant Talking Heads album. These are all talking heads albums. People haven’t clocked that remain in light, yeah, remain in light. And then we, we continue to quote throughout this this chapter, talk, not only talking heads, but a number of talking heads lyrics and yeah lyrics, basically Yes, but we also quote Michael O’Leary, CEO of Ryanair. One of the weaknesses of the company now is it is a bit cheap and cheerful and overly nasty, and that reflects my personality. That was a quote from Michael O’Leary.

Richard Anderson 37:13
So based on that quote, then, so where’s Michael sitting there, if we if he’s representing Ryanair? So he’s, well, that’s true stories. That’s true stories very, very low, reputational concerns, very high and and this might be a silly question, but I’m happy to ask you, like I said, I don’t mind asking the daft questions, are we looking to be in in the way that you put it the top right hand box, which is high on the y axis and high on the x axis, is that where we’re looking to be at all times, or is it? Does it depend? No,

Robert Bolton 37:46
a lot of our grids that that probably is the right place, yeah, because it’s where the reconciliation yes is. But not all of them, yeah, some of them, you’ll see them, and that’s deliberately, you know, we throw the reader a little bit because, actually, it turns out might be, usually it might be bottom right or top left. Yes, rarely is it the low low the bottom left. But even there may be one grid where that’s the case. Yeah. So No, it’s not always top right, but from that perspective of, you know, if you want to resolve a dilemma, yes, and if you that, what that means is you’re not going either or you’re going and both, yeah, then top right is the end both, yes, position,

Richard Anderson 38:44
yeah, following, brilliant. Well, that’s, I mean, that’s, it’s a wonderful example as and, you know, the quotations and the fact that there’s a bit of fun there with the albums as well, and it resonates. I love that one. So that’s a, are we covering up? A problem that we often see, unfortunately, in some big organisations, and as the quote by Howard Baker says, it’s almost always the cover up, rather than the event that causes trouble. As you mentioned before, Robert, I thought, if it’s all right with you, can we? Can we do another what maybe one more is that, is that, all right, the hybrid working, which is on one line, very, very topical, and seems to continue to be topical. So, yes. So the question on this one is, and is this from an employer perspective, but does hybrid working work? Yes, yeah. Again, if you’d be happy to talk through this one, please,

Robert Bolton 39:42
yeah, and this is where any Star Wars fans enjoy this grid, because we see again. It’s one of these topics where almost every other week we see some organ. Organisation saying, No, we insist people come in the office two days a week, when perhaps previously there was there was greater freedom. Yes, and and that sometimes, you know, means that some people are actually voting with their feet. So no, up with this. I will not put even though pre covid, perhaps they were expected to be in the office, if not two days a week, then five days a week. But, you know, I think the world has changed, and technology has enabled that change. So what? What is the dilemma? What? What is this grid about? Well, we, we looked at this, Andrew and I, and it seemed to me and to us, that on one axis, yes, it’s about results. It’s about is there certainty about the results we’re seeking to achieve. Is there control over the results that we’re seeking to achieve? It’s about results. It’s about the bottom line. It’s about productivity. Perhaps the other axis, horizontal axis in this grid. Do I have a say? Do I have a say? And that’s kind of from this perspective of an employee, yes. And what jumped out at me with this grid and and I’m not the only commentator on organisational life that’s that’s made this comment, Linda Gratton, who you may know London Business School professor, she made she’s the one that has written on things like the 100 year life and what, what is the changing demographics going to do to our world of work, which is, of course, relevant, in a way, to this, this topic, But the one of the descriptions that she had, and we reflect on in here is that, if you think of good old transactional analysis, yeah, and parent, adult and child as if you will, the three, I don’t know technically, what you’d call them, the three perspectives that you could be interacting with someone else through. Yeah, I could either be your parent, or I can be adults to adult, or I could be child. Yeah, the this two days a week come in two days a week or three days a week. And of course, I know, let’s just be absolutely clear. I know that we’re talking about the 40% of the workforce that can work, yes, from locations, other base offers. We’re not talking about, I don’t know, a retail shop assistant. Yeah, there’s 40% of workers now with the technology that’s available for which there ought to be choice, and we’re treating them as children. Yeah, I’ll say that again. We’re treating them as children. Yes, it’s parent child, and you’re the child, yeah. And let’s not fall into some fiction, some baseless fiction that they know what the productivity was in their in their office before covid. Yeah, or that they know what the productivity is now, yes, utter nonsense.

Richard Anderson 44:07
They do not know. They just want you. They don’t measure

Robert Bolton 44:11
it in any they could measure it, but they don’t. It’s simply, it’ll, they’ll come up with some, some specious nonsense that is, oh well, it’s to do with the culture. You know, we need to maintain that like they know where culture comes from. Yeah, right. So it’s about parent child. It’s about do as I say, Yeah, often do as I say, not as I do, with no understanding of where results come from. So it’s, it’s, it’s a muddle, yes, and what we what I’m thinking organisations that have thought about this a little more deeply. Is, yeah, let’s make it adult to adult. So yeah, we might, because of what this project team is working on over the next couple of weeks. We need you in

Robert Bolton 45:12
every, every day of the week, and that’s a conversation, yeah, equally, you might say, yeah, you have a say. You choose. You know, if there’s, there’s no need to be here, don’t be here.

Richard Anderson 45:30
Do I have a say?

Robert Bolton 45:33
Yes, high on, do I have a say? So this is where you, you, you, you’ve pointed to the four boxes, which we quite like. So hopefully this makes sense to a Star Wars fan. Low, do I have a say? And low on, on results. It’s the storm trooper. Yeah, you just go over there and you, you know, you, you don’t have a say, and you just have to stand there and look menacing. High Do I have a say? And low on results? Well, those of you who are well into the Star Wars universe, that’s Jar Jar Binks, who became, I believe, a senator at one stage, and in amongst his his nonsense pronouncements, and we quote Jar Jar Binks here, count me out at this one better dead here than dead in the care the core ye gods. What am is saying? Thanks, freedom for employees to do it their way. The downside, less focus on outcomes and more on look at me, potentially

Richard Anderson 47:02
right. Interesting, interesting.

Robert Bolton 47:05
What about high on results? But you don’t really have a say, and this is largely dictated by the work that you do. The Mandalorian, of course, the Mandalorian, he was a bounty hunter, yeah, so he has to go and chase the targets. Yeah, he doesn’t have a he can’t chase them remotely. The Mandalorian and of course, high, high Yoda, high levels of employee involvement, meeting attention on outcomes. Team members might come into the office for specific meetings or collaborative sessions, but they work remotely. Most of the time. It can be difficult to coordinate, which might be why managers, you know, I can’t be doing with that headache, yeah, but it requires imaginative communication for a smooth workflow for both remote and on site team members across different work groups and partnerships. Yes, we believe that exemplifies the adult to adult stance, yeah, which is a shift from parent, child, yeah, and we quote Yoda, do or do not. There is no try, yeah.

Richard Anderson 48:27
I love it. So is this something then, on this particular example that you just walked us through, the hybrid working, work? Is this something that an organisation might, you know, the leadership team might use when they’re considering implementing a hybrid or a remote strategy for their organisation?

Robert Bolton 48:45
Yeah, yeah. And I would suggest a leadership team needs to consider this grid before asserting you’ve got to come in two days a week because my deep, deep suspicion is that a leadership team that asserts that neither knows where their culture currently comes from, nor do they not really know where performance and productivity and their outcomes come from Yes, beyond a hugely unsystemic and superficial level, yeah. And betrays a parent child mentality, yeah. So if you want to run an organisation like that, go ahead. But yes,

Richard Anderson 49:35
yeah, probably not conducive to success. And I think yeah. So a lot of this is, it’s kind of prerequisite work before you start mandating or implementing new policies with relation to these things. I mean, fantastic. Couple of examples, and we’ve used different ones, I think. And and, like I said, I love the way that, you know, talking heads on the first one, you’ve got Star Wars on on the second one. But obviously the series. This theme that underpins the entire thing. Robert, we mentioned, excuse me, we mentioned, you know, in advance and preparation for this, that you might talk me through what or, you know, you can help me talk through a dilemma or a challenge, perhaps in my work, in life. So if it’s still alright with you, I thought we might, we might go through, we might go through that because there’s one that that’s that’s often there in the background, and it’s something that I revisit quite often, but I haven’t applied any process or strategy or anything like it. I’ve just kind of accepted the fact that this is a challenge that I just have to deal with. But but for me, it’s been this whole change. So in my kind of personal and working life, we’ve had a big change to the business. As I’ve mentioned previously, we became part of a wider group about a year ago, just under a year ago. But regardless of that, despite the fact that that’s been the case, and you know, since the beginning of our business, I founded evolve, assess. So I started the business. It was originally just me. Then we had two employees, and we grew about seven or eight employees. And the challenge I have is this kind of mindset or dilemma around entrepreneurship versus being a managing director of a business. I mean, for me, it’s been two very different things. I started the business. I was quite entrepreneurial. I was quite creative, all of that sort of stuff. And then all of a sudden, when the business gets to a certain point, you need to be managing director and start thinking strategically about the business and how it moves forward, rather than fly by the seat of your pants getting involved in every single job, wearing far too many hats. I’ve still done a lot of the founder led sales partnership work, face of the business, all of that sort of stuff. But it’s now time, probably, and I’ve done this to an extent, but maybe to delegate more and spend my time on doing more productive things for the future of the business, not just the here and now and the survival kind of mindset. So I thought, you know, we might talk through that, and how I might approach that particular challenge, using, using the grids.

Robert Bolton 52:15
Yeah, it’s, it’s a great one. I I’m well before, many years ago, before, before breaking open the boxes was, was even an idea. I I did some. I was a visiting lecturer at the University of Bristol, yeah, and it was on their Master of Science in Management. And I did. I led a couple of modules as part part time programme, and I was certainly part time because I was at Nationwide at this point. But I loved it because I was it kept me fresh. It kept me needing to stay up to date, yeah, and one of the students I, I tutored a student who through their dissertation, and their dissertation was exactly this topic, right? Okay, a small enterprise that was the the boundary point of becoming a medium sized enterprise with more employees, but the the leader was also at this transition point, This boundary point between there’s clearly this new role beckoning. Well, that’s how I hear you talk, yeah, you’re, you know, there’s this broader strategic role, absolutely, and but also that that has implications for the people that work with you and support you, yeah, because their role has to be in transition as well. It’s not just you Yes. So, you know, at its simplest, it was the way that I think you expressed. It was, you know, winning business, entrepreneurship, you know, continuing to go and get work and control, yes, so there’s a kind of growth versus control?

Richard Anderson 54:28
Yeah, great.

Robert Bolton 54:32
Control sometimes dressed up as being the MD. So what I would be exploring in a grid, 101 sense is, first of all, is the strategic direction, the thing that you believe you has. Have to be custodian for how much of that is actually shared by the people that work for you. One of the classic pieces of work I was involved in for an organisation who should remain nameless, is is sometimes this difference between the person that leads the organisation and how they see the world, what is their strategic vision, and the people that are diligently working for them, you know, achieving objectives, working to meet deadlines and things like that. But to what extent do they share the same strategic picture? Okay? And there is some research that says, well, and this might be the top right, you know, yeah, and both perspective, well, if they shared that strategic picture in the same way that you see the strategic picture? There’s a lot of pictures going on here that might allow a conversation. That is, it’s not either or it’s not, well, you have to be the MD and they have to be the minions. And being deliberately, yeah, of course, provocative here. Where’s the and both, okay, where’s the and both, yes, and that you could be uber and both as MD, as in, yeah, you still will have to be involved in winning some work. And you will have to be involved in, you know, plans, strategic direction, etc, but can they also engage in and both, that would be one of the questions. Well,

Richard Anderson 56:56
yeah, yes, I would, I would, I would say that the team absolutely, you know, it’s funny. It’s not something I’ve given much consideration to. But now that you say that, and you talk it through, it makes, it makes a lot of sense, I would think, yes, absolutely, you know, we’ve got, we’ve got a great team at the business. We’ve got very loyal staff who’ve been there for a long time and always kind of been behind, behind that, that vision. But yeah, absolutely, did

Robert Bolton 57:22
you find yourself? Oh, it may be that that everything is just swimmingly hunky dory, but do you find also find yourself? You know, there’s certain things that worry you, and you shield them from that

Richard Anderson 57:41
definitely. I mean, candidly, the things that used to worry me don’t worry me quite as much anymore, now that we’re part of a bigger group. But there was, you know, times in the past where I would get horrendously concerned and ruminate over weekends, about the bank balance, and, you know, when was the next client coming in, and all that, although you pay the wages, and ultimately that was the concern, you know, I’m going to pay the wages. Are we going to, you know, have a business that that continues, and all of that sort of stuff that, of course, I would have shielded, because, you know, I’ve always been big on transparency, but I think there’s a difference between transparency and worry in the founder’s head. Because, you know, there’s 345, months worth of wages in the bank. You know, that’s that’s fine. You know, you’re working on a couple of months sales cycle, and that will be topped up. But for me, it was the catastrophizing and all of that sort of stuff that I would keep to me selfish.

Robert Bolton 58:42
Did the other thing I’d be interested in exploring is the this being part of a group. Why did the group want to include your business. What was the thinking behind that?

Richard Anderson 59:05
There’s probably a couple of, a couple of different things, and we were a profitable business. We’ve, we’ve, we’ve had, you know, decent year on year growth since inception. That’s going to be part of it, ultimately, in a business transaction, in the business decision. And I think, you know, the the other, the other sides would be the technology. So we’ve built, I would like to think, some very innovative technology in the space in which we operate. So I think those two things combined, as well as the fact that, you know, we’ve got, as I previously mentioned, a really loyal, knowledgeable team, I think, and it was aligned to their vision and their strategy with the other business units, as we call them, which is obviously the other companies that sit within the group. I think there’s a good strategic alignment to those. So a few different reasons. So

Robert Bolton 59:52
with my grid head on, yeah, not only would I be looking at where the i. And both box applies not only to you, but the people that work for you. You know that mdness, yeah, and entrepreneurship, I’d be wondering, to what extent is the the group, the wider group, providing me with what it could provide me, not only not what it is providing me, but what it could

Richard Anderson 1:00:30
provide me, yeah, of course,

Robert Bolton 1:00:34
and with entrepreneurship as well, to what extent are they providing leads to you, yeah. How well, is that an informal, occasional thing? Is it a disciplined process? Yeah, I don’t need you to answer.

Richard Anderson 1:00:48
Of course. That’s the things that you’d be thinking about when you were going through this. Yeah,

Robert Bolton 1:00:53
yeah, and, and, and then you could, what you could do is, is probably it would take longer than this, this call, but you could then start to look at, okay, well, let’s make it a much different description of of both the x axis and the Y axis. You know. Let’s take a perspective, which is what you know, what if we, I don’t know, outsourced going and getting business. What if we? That’s probably a silly thing, but I’m kind of coming at this from a perspective of really questioning the legitimacy of the x axis and the Y axis. And can you come at it from a hugely right brain perspective, as in left field, yeah, just to confuse the left left field. Right brain

Richard Anderson 1:02:06
got you, yeah? I mean, yeah,

Robert Bolton 1:02:09
that could be a workshop, or it could be, you know, with just a few people that you Yes, yeah, you’d like that conversation with. It doesn’t have to be with

Richard Anderson 1:02:21
everyone. No, of course. I mean, it’s such interesting stuff. I mean, the right brain stuff with these boxes is, I mean, it’s, obviously, it’s really innovative. I love what you’ve you’ve written, and I think, you know, even just talking, talking through, which is there, it gives so much food for thought. On, on, on, on these, on these challenges.

Robert Bolton 1:02:46
There’s another, just a little bit of advice. It’s not the same. It is not the same. But I remember when I became partner at KPMG and that that is a, you know, so kind of crossing the Rubicon. It’s a right of pass, yes. And when I was on what’s called the partner track, you know, one of the things that a partner said to me, he said, Look, you know, be a partner now and then they will confer partnership on you, yeah, don’t, don’t have in your head. Well, I’m, I’m learning to be a partner. I’m a trainee partner. He’s kind of like, you know, you have to live and breathe, yeah, being that partner, yes. And partnership will follow interesting, yeah. And I’m wondering whether there’s a similarity with you in in, in this, be in that top right and both box where the appropriate level of entrepreneurship is coming from you. You’re not doing it all. Yeah, you’re not taking on the problems of the world on your shoulder. But equally also, you’ve, you’ve you’ve scaled up in such a way that you’re not chasing your tail on all of the operational stuff. You might have delegated some of it. You might have automated some of it. You might you might have kicked some of it up into group, yes, and to to imagine what it’s what that world looks like before you’ve achieved it,

Richard Anderson 1:04:44
yeah, yeah. And act, act like that, yeah, yeah, brilliant. Well, that’s honestly Robert really, really useful advice, hugely appreciated. I can’t believe we’ve been. Speaking over an hour. I’ve enjoyed this conversation so, so much. I know it’s, it’s, it’s, honestly, it’s been, it’s been brilliant, I wondered. And you know, we’re going to have listeners, no doubt that are going to be very keen to learn more and potentially buy the book. Hopefully, we we get some people do that. Would you be happy to tell people where they can get it. And of course, if it’s the usual places, we will provide links as part of this podcast upload. But yeah, where, where can they find it? And

Robert Bolton 1:05:30
so it’s on Amazon, and it’s breaking open the boxes, and it’s Monroe and Bolton, and I think you’ve got the link, or

Richard Anderson 1:05:43
you I have I’ve got the link, for sure. My

Robert Bolton 1:05:47
email is also in the introduction to us, Andrew Munro and myself, at the front end of the book. So that sort of people want to email me, they need to buy the book.

Richard Anderson 1:06:04
Sounds good to me. Yeah, I think

Robert Bolton 1:06:07
they don’t. But, you know, I’d like them to No,

Richard Anderson 1:06:10
of course, as we all would, and I, for one, can hugely recommend it. And it’s honestly, it’s really struck a chord with me, and as of the conversations that we’ve had over the last few weeks. What’s next? Robert, you more books on more books on the horizon. Yeah.

Robert Bolton 1:06:25
So, you know, and Andrew and I have a kind of a bit of a quirky view of the world. To some extent, we love, we love our tools, yeah, and we, we, we love to simplify the world. But we also love to and, you know, understand its richness, yes, and that has led us surprise to surprise to Venn diagrams, right? Yeah, yes, we have a series of books in the pipeline, some of which not written yet, where we’re exploring topics I’ve, I’ve written a first draft of a book on politics so very, you Know, very different, yeah, which explores things like truth, lies narrative. Those are three circles of a Venn diagram, yes. And the thing about a Venn diagram, it’s the overlaps. It’s the overlaps that are so critical, of course, yeah. So there’s a book on on on that, but what Andrew and I are working on is, is a book on business and leadership, again, using the vehicle of Venn diagrams, and we’re limiting ourselves to three circle Venn diagrams, but we’re exploring all sorts of topics, like,

Robert Bolton 1:08:12
as a again, we’re starting with questions. In all instances, it’s questions, you know, do trying to remember one of the questions, do we know what strategy is? Is, you know, because one of the things about leadership and management and running organisations is sometimes we confuse strategy for plans, for example. And so we have a three circle Venn diagram about, about that. Yes, we have a three circle Venn diagram about where, where does the performance of this business come from? What, you know, What? What? What drives this business, and there we explore things like causality and purpose and nice, yeah, we’ve got these Venn diagrams. Andrew is working on some. I’m working on some. And we’ve got some really other interesting books. So one of them is about relationships. Andrew is majoring on that, yeah, it so they’re not, they’re not all from a perspective of business and organisation. The first one will be, which is the Business and Leadership one, yeah, some of them branch off in different areas, like politics, etc. And I, since retiring, you know, I’ve filled my time with two things that have become passions, the writing thing, yeah, that’s what we’ve been talking about here. But photography, yes, and particularly. Kind of minimalist outdoor photography, and that’s led me to, you know, I travelled a hell of a lot as a management consultant, but now I travel a hell of a lot as a

Richard Anderson 1:10:13
photographer, another world through two different lenses. Yeah, exactly, exactly. And

Robert Bolton 1:10:20
it, you know, I, I’m not trying to make money out of photography, although some of my images do sell. Yeah, I think if I sought to make money out of photography, it might destroy the passion that I have for it, yeah, but I love it, and you’ve

Richard Anderson 1:10:40
got, you’ve got a webPsyched for you as well, and we will, I’m very happy to link that if you’d like me to as well.

Robert Bolton 1:10:47
Quiet landscapes.net,

Richard Anderson 1:10:50
brilliant. Yeah, we’ll link it as part of the as part of the podcast. So so yes, lots going on and books being written as we speak. I’m looking forward to those being released, giving them a read and perhaps having another conversation as and when the time comes. But Robert, yeah, fantastic. Really, really enjoyed chatting to you. Thanks ever so much for making some time. I know that the audience would have really enjoyed this one. And Robert Boughton, thank you very much for joining Psyched for Business.

Robert Bolton 1:11:24
Thank you. Thank you, Richard and good luck with with how you might have to head.

Voiceover 1:11:32
Thanks for listening to Psyched for Business, for show notes, resources and more. Visit evolveassess.com