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Monica Bourgeau, MS

About Monica Bourgeau, MS

Monica Bourgeau, MS is a future of work consultant & leadership coach and the award-winning author of The Change Code. She is the founder and CEO of New Phase Partners, a consulting firm that helps innovative organizations create thriving workplaces that will take them into the future.

The Exhaustion Gap for Women in the Workplace with Kayla Osterhoff, The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 7

2023-01-20 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

The Exhaustion Gap for Women with Kayla Osterhoff

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

I’m excited to welcome Kayla Osterhoff, MPH, PHDc to today’s show. Kayla is a neuropsychophysiologist and women’s health expert whose research is revolutionizing the field of women’s health. Her scientific discoveries about women’s biology are the basis for the Her Biorhythm program and Her Biorhythm Certification for doctors, practitioners, and coaches. Kayla is a true pioneer in her field whose novel research and innovations are changing the landscape of feminine health. Her knowledge and expertise lend important insights to the workplace and its challenges.

As a woman in a male-dominant field of work, Kayla often found that she had to work in a masculine way that taxed her physical and mental health. Later she discovered that working in this way was not only taxing, but it was unnatural and harmful for her feminine biology.

Through her research, Kayla discovered a blind spot in the understanding of female health and biology – a result of the long-standing gender gap in scientific research. She discovered that women have a very different biological rhythm than men, requiring different support and day-to-day operations in order to thrive. This discovery became the focus of her passion, research, and career.

Kayla has now dedicated her career to empowering women around the world and teaching the science of feminine biology. She believes that women are the greatest untapped resource in modern society and that it is our responsibility as a society to research and support women better.

On today’s show, we talk about the science of feminine biology and how that affects our work performance, as well as how it can actually become a superpower under the right conditions.

Learn more about Kayla’s work at https://www.herbiorhythm.com/ or connect with her on Instagram.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

***

Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:06):

I’m very excited to have a special guest with me here today. Kayla Osterhoff is a neurophysiologist and women’s health expert whose research is revolutionizing the field of women’s health. Her scientific discoveries about women’s biology are the basis for the Her BioRhythm program and her BioRhythm certification for doctors, practitioners and coaches. And Kayla, welcome to the show. I’m so excited to finally get to meet with you. This is really exciting.

Kayla (00:38):

Yeah. Thank you so much for having me on, and I’m really excited to talk about my favorite topic, which is Women <laugh>.

Monica (00:46):

I’m excited too. As I mentioned before we got on the podcast today. I actually was introduced to your work through your interview on Gaia tv, and your interview with Regina Meredith. And one of the reasons I was so excited to talk with you today is because what you were kind of revealing and sharing about women’s biology helped make a lot of things make sense to me about why it was such a challenge to kind of fit into the corporate world, even though I was there for more than 20 years. And so I think this topic is really gonna resonate with my listeners here today. So I’m very excited to have you here. So maybe we can just start off by having you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you do and how you got started.

Kayla (01:41):

Yeah. Well, again, thank you for having me on. This is an exciting topic that I love to dive into. Well, I got into the field of particularly women’s health research because obviously as a woman I had a particular interest in my own biology and physiology. And unfortunately right now in the world, there is very limited information out there about the female biology and how it is different in its operation than the male biology. And this is kind of a roadblock that I kept hitting within my career and also within my personal health. I spent several years as a health scientist working for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. And while I was there, I noticed that our medical protocols and the public health policies that were created at CDC that are supposed to serve, you know, the, the public, not only the national public, but the global public, including men and women was created and derived based on very male-centric data.

Kayla (02:50):

And what I mean by that is that the research that is done to study bodies and human biology and physiology and behavior is primarily done on men and women are not really included in this research. Significantly back in history, they were really not included at all. And the FDA actually had a formal ban that eliminated women from all clinical research for many, many years that wasn’t even overturned until the mid-nineties. But unfortunately, even to this day, women are still not appropriately included in the research, meaning that we have this huge information gap about women, women are very misunderstood, and as a result, women are very misguided. And the experience that you had is the same experience that I had in the corporate space especially, which is that we hit these walls, these roadblocks, and it really impacts our health and our wellbeing and our ability to perform as leaders.

Kayla (03:54):

And then we go to our doctors and say, oh, you know, I’m having brain fog, or I’m not able to sleep, or, my hormones are all messed up, or I’m really, really burnt out. And there aren’t really good solutions. And the reason being is because the education required in order to understand women and their bodies and their brains and how they operate and their cognitive health and function, all of these things is missing from the education. It’s missing from the kind of corporate and business structures in order to really understand and support women appropriately. So that’s why I switched gears and just went primarily into women’s health research. And now I study exclusively women which is a lot more difficult and a lot more expensive and costly to study women in terms of resources than it is to study men because we are a lot more complex biologically speaking. So really understanding the female biology is my passion and being able to teach people about how the female biology operates and the differences between men and women and how there are different considerations and different requirements in order for women to really thrive and be successful in their careers and their lives, and especially with their health.

Monica (05:17):

Well, that is so exciting. And my background is in healthcare as well. And when I heard your information and had kind of known that, that a lot of the drugs that have been developed are the doses, the recommendations are typically for men. Yes. But they apply that to women. And I didn’t realize it was because women were so hard to study. And yeah, you gave some reasons for that in your last interview. Can you maybe talk a little bit about why women are harder to be part of a scientific study?

Kayla (05:46):

Yeah, yeah. When the FDA banned women from clinical research way back in the seventies, it was for good reason, and it was because of these reasons that people already didn’t study women. And one is because women are risky research subjects in terms of if they are actively cycling, they can potentially become pregnant. And no researcher ethically wants to really deal with the fact that a woman can potentially become pregnant during the study. Right? So that’s one reason it’s more of an ethical reason. But the other reason is what I was mentioning before, which is that women are very difficult research subjects, meaning that it costs a lot more time, energy, money to study women. And the reason why is because women are physiologically shifting all of the time, day to day. They’re little by little changing. And so there is no normalized repeating process every day.

Kayla (06:50):

Like there is in the male biology. In the male biology, the physiology repeats on a 24-hour system, and everything is basically the same from day to day. Then you look at us ladies and things are a lot more complex. And the reason being is because we have this month long hormonal cycle with the ebb and flow of estrogen and progesterone that actually impacts our global physiology. So it’s not just about the reproductive parts, it’s about everything. Our cardiovascular system, our respiratory system, our nervous system, our brain, our immune system, our metabolism, everything is impacted by the ebb and flow of these two key biochemicals. And because of that, women are little by little changing all the time and significantly through four different hormonal signature hormonal phases over the course of a month. And that’s why I say that physiologically speaking, women are actually four different women over the course of a month.

Kayla (07:50):

So now when you translate that to research, now you have to times your participants essentially by four. So now, if you’re studying 30 women, well, 30 women times four, because you actually have to take account four how different they are physiologically in each of the four phases. And then when it comes to the statistical analysis and all of that, it becomes a huge nightmare mess. Which is something that I know intricately because it’s what I do, but I, I get it. I understand why they have been left out because it’s hard. However, it’s not ethical. We cannot just simply ignore half of the population and make assumptions that because we have the same parts, they work the same way. And we know now that that is absolutely not true. And now, you know, the scientific and medical community is trying to backtrack to fix this issue, but the gap is so vast in the information and the data that we need, that it’s gonna take a huge, huge effort and a lot of time and a lot of money to fix the problem.

Monica (08:53):

Wow. This is all just fascinating to me, and I’m so glad that you’re helping to tackle some of that gap. So one of the things that I was really curious about too is how does this affect the workplace? You know, today’s mm-hmm. <Affirmative> workplace, most people work, you know, eight to five, nine to five 40 hours a week. Yeah. You know, maybe two weeks of vacation of the year, and it’s kind of this hustle culture. So how does this difference in biology, physiology, psychology apply to the workplace for women?

Kayla (09:31):

Well, it has huge implications for the workplace, and it’s actually the reason behind these negative statistics that we see in the workplace right now. So, just for instance, in the United States in terms of the statistics around female leadership or female business ownership they’re pretty dismal. Across the board, it’s about 18% of women who are in leadership positions in organizations. So this means business owners founders, c-suite managers and supervisors. And the whole, all rest of the percentage is men. And when you look at, you know, there’s a few things going on. So one of which is there’s this pay gap, right? The pay gap between men and women who do the same jobs. Well, this, this goes back to the same problem. At the same time, we’re also dealing with an exhaustion gap. And this is disproportionately affecting women, which is something I mentioned before, that women experience burnout 200 to 300% more often than their male counterparts.

Kayla (10:45):

So obviously this is going to have a huge impact on the world of business, the corporate world, and the economy at large, if women are burning out at these alarming rates. So, again, a reason being is that we are not understanding how women need to be supported in order to thrive and be healthy and not burn out and be able to operate at their highest level. And to be able to kind of tap into their cognitive gifts as women, they have to be supported in a very specific way, which is determined by how their physiology is operating. Right? And because it’s so different through the four different phases, every woman, right, is four different women over the course of a month. Then of course, she can’t operate in this standardized, repeating environment infrastructure systems. So again, we look back at our male counterparts and what we know is their biology, their physiology is very consistent.

Kayla (11:49):

It repeats 24 hours a day. Every day is just about the same. So working a nine to five every single day, five days a week, all month long, works really well for them because that maps on perfectly with their physiology, and it’s how their biology really operates. Then we look at, for women right now, we’re looking at the same system. This nine to five repeating consistent environment, well, that may work for one version of us. So we’re talking about one week out of the whole month, we might have a infrastructure and systems in place that actually work well for us. And the other three weeks it is working against us because it is, because it is not in alignment with our basic biological needs as they change throughout the month. So for women, we need inconsistency because our biology and our physiology is inconsistent, but if you zoom out it, there is a consistency to it because it can’t just be total chaos all the time, right?

Kayla (12:52):

There is a system to it, but it’s a broader system. It’s a month long view rather than a daily 24 hour view. So for women designing a different environment in infrastructure, workflow, schedule, support systems for each week out of the month as her physiology shifts and changes, that is the key. And that’s a lot of what I do and teach in the corporate space, is I help organizations to understand how to properly support the women within their organization so that they can operate at their highest level, so that they can have more fulfillment, more success, and as a result, the overall company culture typically improves.

Monica (13:41):

Wow. I’m so excited you’re doing this work, and I wanna dive into that aspect a little bit deeper. But before we do that, can we just take a step back and have you talk about those four different stages? Yeah. And how they can actually be a benefit? A Competitive advantage if we’re able to maximize those.

Kayla (14:03):

Yeah. I always say that you know, the female, what I call the female Biorhythm, which are these four physiological phases that we go through that are set to the pace of the female hormone cycle, which is the centerpiece of it, right? So the female biological rhythm is the key to a woman’s health success, happiness, fulfillment, all of that, right? And that’s also, unfortunately, the part of us that has been ignored. And it’s the piece that’s missing from the research, from the data. So when women can understand these four different versions of themself, and they can start to align their operation, their lifestyle, their choices with that, then that’s when the magic happens. So we’ll just do like a very, very brief, super high level overview of the four different versions a woman experiences every month. And again, this is a lot more complex, but I just wanna give everyone kind of a taster of these four different women and how you might be able to start to align your lifestyle with these four different versions of you.

Kayla (15:16):

So that, like you said, you can leverage that competitive advantage that we have operating at our highest level all month long. So phase one is about the first week of the female biological rhythm and hormonally, this is marked by the lowest levels of estrogen and progesterone. So remember, estrogen and progesterone are kind of like the pacemaker of the female biological rhythm in terms of those two key hormones modulate all the other physiological systems from the brain to the musculoskeletal system, everything. So when those two key hormones are at their lowest level some kind of broad strokes of what’s happening physiologically is that there’s kind of a downshift of the metabolic and energetic activities of the female biology. What I mean by that is when those hormones are at their lowest level, it actually starts to downshift or down regulate our metabolism.

Kayla (16:21):

And what happens is the conversion of macros like food, right? Carbs, fats, and proteins through the citric acid cycle ending in ATP, which is energy for the cells, right? That whole process slows down. And so women actually have a little less physical energy during this time, and I’ll get to why that is actually not a bad thing in a moment. But alongside that, when we look at, for instance, neurological behavior and how things also downshift neurologically for women in this low hormonal state, we see that our excitatory and mood boosting neurotransmitters like serotonin, dopamine, epinephrine, norepinephrine, glutamate, all of those neurotransmitters also slow in their activity as well. So not only do we have less physical energy during this phase, but we also have a little less mental energy and a little less outward focus because we have less of those mood related neurochemicals.

Kayla (17:32):

There’s a lot of other things that shift neuro electrically in terms of how the brain areas communicate with each other which is all related to having high densities of receptors in our brain as women for estrogen and progesterone, which is something that a lot of people don’t know, and something that was only discovered a few years ago, actually. So when that happens, the whole brain structure and system kind of shifts in its operation. So when that happens, again, it’s this downshift of energy, this downshift of mood, this downshift of mental energy as well as physical energy. But there’s a benefit here, and each one of the phases has many benefits, but I’ll mention one in each one that is significant and important that women can start to leverage right away. So in phase one, the, the cognitive superpower is what I call it is actually intuitive insight.

Kayla (18:36):

So when we have studied the female brain, and when we have done cognitive skills-based testing through the different hormonal, the four different hormonal phases, what we are just now discovering as neuroscientists is that the female brain has different cognitive strengths in each hormonal phase. And in phase one, what the research or the scientific community calls cognitive empathy is a fancy scientific term for intuition. So a woman’s intuition is not only a real thing, but it’s actually something that we are now able to measure with brain imaging and cognitive skills testing, and we are starting to understand the mechanisms of it, which are related to our female hormones. So, wow, very interesting <laugh>. Yeah, and it’s so beautifully designed. The whole female biology, the female system is so beautifully designed because if you think about it, phase one, our body is literally saying, okay, we need you to go inward in order to tap into this extra cognitive ability that you have of intuitive insight, right?

Kayla (19:45):

The ability to make decisions, assessment, that type of skillset is heightened in this first phase. So what our body does is it takes our outward focused efforts, our outward focused energy, and it points us inward so that we can actually use this skill, right? It is literally slowing us down physically. It is taking that outward mental focus and turning it inward so that we can tap into this intuitive insight. So it’s all happening for us, and it’s all supposed to happen that way. However, the societal expectation is that we have to operate at the same high level all month long in the same exact way. Well, that’s not possible because that’s not how our biology works as women. However, it is possible to operate at a very high level through all four phases, but in different ways. So in phase one, this is when women should be taking a step back doing some more solo type work.

Kayla (20:50):

This is when she should be doing her assessment. This is when she should be doing her planning. This is when she should be doing her forecasting for the month. This is when she should be doing her resource allocation type activity, right? This is that, that phase going from phase one into phase two, this is marked by a steady rise in estrogen to a peak into phase three. But as estrogen rises, so does the metabolic activity. So there is this higher conversion of the ATP, there is more energy for the body, there is also more energy for the brain in terms of the brain energy metabolism, that’s ramped up as well. But also when you look at those neurochemicals, the excitatory, mood-based neurochemicals, those are also rising as estrogen rises. So when that happens, women start to have more and more energy or cognitive kind of energy focus.

Kayla (21:55):

And in addition, they start to feel more and more outward focused, more social, and have more of a higher mood, right? And again, these are just a few examples, but as that happens, when we study the cognitive skills based testing to see what’s going on with a woman’s cognitive ability during this phase, we see that a woman’s navigational ability is heightened as well as strategic thinking, strategic action, which is actually pretty cool because if you go to phase one, you are doing your decision making, you are doing your assessment, you are doing your resource allocation. Now you take that information that you are able to make those decisions with a higher level of intelligence in acuity to really understand how to do that in the most beneficial way. Now you’re taking that information and you’re running with it, you’re able to navigate with that information.

Kayla (22:54):

Not only that, because you have these increase in these neurochemicals, you’re also able to interact and communicate with your teams better. And so your leadership abilities increase. And interestingly, a woman’s level of compassion and emotional intelligence increases as estrogen rises. So this is when we should be interacting with and doing our teamwork, team leadership, these types of things. Then going into phase three, which is more of a phase shift than a phase in and of itself, because it’s really short. So phases one and two, that’s weeks one and two, just about phase three is between one and three days. It’s the ovulatory phase. And this is marked by the peak in estrogen, alongside the peak in luteinizing hormone and follicle stimulating hormone. When we have all of these juicy hormones in our body this, a few really cool things happen, including this peak in those excitatory and mood neurotransmitters, this peak in metabolism, energetic output.

Kayla (24:02):

We also have a peak in our power, strength, and endurance physically and mentally. We can work longer days, we have more stamina, we have more focus and kind of drive and motivation during this time, and the peak in emotional intelligence as well. So the cognitive superpower during this phase is this charismatic quality that women have. Interesting women are more influential during this phase. So this is when we should be doing our strategic partnership, our networking, our pitches, anything where we need to have more influence within our positions. This is the, the fruitful time to do this. Then going from that phase into the final phase, which is the longest, it is called ludial phase hormonally, but in the female biological rhythm, of course, there’s a much broader repercussions for this. And this is the final two weeks. It’s the whole back half of the female biological rhythm.

Kayla (25:07):

And it is marked by a different hormonal shift, because estrogen is now coming down the other side of the peak, right? It peaked at ovulation, and now it’s kind of coming down the other side. There’s a little bit of a boost in the middle there, but what’s significant is that progesterone becomes the star player of the show. Now, progesterone as this important biochemical and neurochemical rises to a peak. It does some really cool things to the female physiology, but especially the female neurology. I actually call this the grow phase because this is a time when women have an increased capacity to grow, to learn and adapt because of these neurological shifts that happen with this rise to a peak and progesterone. So one cool thing that happens is that, you know how I mentioned before, the excitatory, mood based neurotransmitters kind of rise and fall with estrogen.

Kayla (26:04):

Well, that is the case here as well. Those neurochemicals are slowly kind of declining down the whole back half of the two weeks. So the first week you still have high concentrations, and then the final week, you’re starting to get pretty low with those again, or to the lowest point again as you come back around. But as progesterone rises to a peak, it increases the activity of our down regulatory neurotransmitter, which is GABA. Now, GABA is really important for neurological health and wellbeing. It’s tied in with the down regulation of the nervous system. It’s also tied in with the melatonin process, which is the hormone that is is the regulatory ho hormone for sleep in our circadian rhythm. And so GABA helps to regulate that melatonin sleep circadian rhythm system. It also helps with the health of the brain because it helps us to get more restful sleep and aids in memory consolidation.

Kayla (27:12):

So alongside that, there’s another cool neurological thing that happens that I wanna mention because it’s just so cool. And that is that brain derived neurotrophic factor BDNF also peaks at the same time as progesterone. And so when that happens, women get increased neuroplasticity and increased neurogenesis. So what that means is that the moldability of our brain, right, the neural pathways and how we behave, how we learn, how we grow is enhance during that time with neuroplasticity. But also the turnover rate or the reproduction of new neurons in the brain is also heightened at the same time. So not only is our ability to learn and grow heightened during this time, but our brain is physically growing at a higher rate during this phase. So that’s why I call it the grow phase or the brainy phase. And our cognitive superpower is, is this acuity, this verbal acuity, this mental acuity, but really this heightened ability to learn and grow and adapt.

Monica (28:23):

Wow, very interesting. So that last stage sounds like it would be a good time to learn new information as well as to articulate it.

Kayla (28:32):

Yes,

Monica (28:33):

Absolutely. So how could absolutely tapping into these different phases and kind of the, the benefits of each really be a competitive advantage when we start to look at the workplace?

Kayla (28:46):

Yeah. So as you start to understand how the physiology shifts in each four phases, but also our cognitive capacities and how they are changing, right? So we have certain physical benefits and limitations in each phase, and we have certain cognitive skills or capacities that are heightened in each phase that women really should be leveraging, right? So now you start to apply this, right? You start to align your workflow with these cognitive advantages that women have so that they can get more done in less time, be more effective, be better leaders, have better communication, and also state their needs and set boundaries appropriately, right? So just for instance, in phase one, because of how the physiology has this downshift, you don’t wanna be pushing yourself to the limits in terms of working really long hours. And if you can avoid it, you want to limit your more social based interactions during this time, because that’s gonna take a lot of energy of which you have less of.

Kayla (29:57):

So it’s really about resource allocation, understanding what resources you have in each phase, and then learning how to allocate them very smartly so that you don’t run out so you can keep your steady level of energy, your high level of performance, right? So in phase one, what you really wanna do again, is you want to maybe decrease your working hours. Maybe if you’re like a 10 hour a day person, maybe you wanna scale it back to eight or so, if you usually have 10 meetings a day, maybe you wanna limit those to the ones that you just need to be there for, and then delegate to other pe other people on your team or communicate in more of a more of a solo fashion where you can kind of make the decisions by yourself. You have some time to kind of tune into your own thoughts, your own processes, because remember, you have this enhanced intuitive, inside this enhanced ability to assess and make decisions.

Kayla (31:00):

So that’s the type of work that you really should lean into in phase one. And again, each phase has its own types of benefits in phase two and three, go for it work those long hours, you have the stamina, you have the endurance to do it. You can work with teams, you can take all the meetings, you can do all of that stuff. And then you have to understand that things are gonna shift again when you go into the last phase. And you really wanna align your workflow with your abilities and having an understanding of what are those physical limitations and how do I align with those so that they actually aren’t limitations, so that they are actually benefits superpowers.

Monica (31:44):

Wow. And so it seems like if we don’t make these adjustments, we are also losing some of the benefits. Like I think about phase one, you know, we’re kind of taught what, you know, you’re low energy and you’re not feeling maybe as energetic, but you need to just power through. But if you are just powering through and forcing yourself to work the longer hours and trying to be high energy, it seems like you’re losing out on the benefits of that increased intuition. 100%. Yeah. Yeah,

Kayla (32:14):

Yeah. So that, I mean, you’re spot on. And this is the reason why we are seeing these huge levels of burnout for women because not only are they burning out their adrenals, right, they are also burning out their female hormones, which as we know from this conversation, play a huge role in our overall physiology, health and function. It’s not just about the reproductive parts. So when women don’t understand how, what their, where their resources are, how they’re shifting and changing over the course of the month, and how to utilize them in a smart way, they’re burning through them because they’re just pushing through and they’re forcing the square peg into the round hole. And it’s never gonna work out long term, right? You might be able to do it for a while, but eventually it’s gonna catch up to you because it is just not naturally how your body operates, and it never will be, because you don’t have the same biological rhythm as your male counterparts who are a 24-hour repeating steady system, right?

Kayla (33:17):

So instead of, you know, drinking all the coffee <laugh>, extra cups of coffee in phase one and burning out your adrenals and burning out your hormones, and then dealing with the repercussions later, maybe you allow yourself to have a little less energy during that phase, and you lean into that and you say, actually, this is a good thing because I really need to go inward and I need to do some assessment, and I need to do some better resource allocation, and I need to listen to my body and give myself a little more support during this phase so that I can still do my job, do my work and operate. But things need to shift a little bit.

Monica (33:51):

Very interesting. I wonder if this is one of the reasons that women have been a little bit slower to return to the workforce, and have been more interested in remote work because it gives them more of an ability to regulate their energy levels and their workflows than they have.

Kayla (34:11):

Oh, absolutely. Pandemic, yes. Absolutely. And like, like I said, a woman’s intuition is a real thing, right? It’s in women, even though they don’t know all of this that we’re talking about, they intuitively know that the workflow and the infrastructure and the environment in the corporate space does not work for them. It doesn’t align for them. It makes them feel bad. And what they do know is when they get more flexibility and they can kind of do things on their own terms, they feel way better. Well, that’s because they are actually leaning into and tuning into what’s going on with their body and having an ebb and flow in their workflow, just like the ebb and flow in their physiology.

Monica (34:53):

Oh, that, that makes so much sense to me. So the question I have is like, how do we begin to bring this into the workplace? So my husband manages a team, and so I had him watch the episode on Gaia, and he was very supportive, and he’s open, you know, to the concept, but his question was like, as a manager, how do I implement that? Do I need to have different standards for men and women? You know, are we gonna have different assignments for somebody because she’s ovulating and I don’t wanna know that about my employee? Yes. Like, how do we begin to work through this in the workplace?

Kayla (35:31):

Yes. So the way you start to work through this in the workplace, which is something I am doing with big Fortune 500 companies, who are really opening their minds to the solutions, to some of these big, big societal problems we have around women and women’s leadership and women in the workplace. These are something that everyone is acknowledging these are problems and we’re looking for solutions. Well, now here’s a scientific, a solution that is proven to work once you get an understanding of the female biology and physiology, right? So the way you implement this, there are several ways, and how I do this with each company is very dependent on what their needs are, what their infrastructures look like, what kind of systems they have in place, what kind of processes they use, their company culture. So everything is tailored to the specific needs of the organization.

Kayla (36:28):

But there is one really common, simple, simple step that has to happen as step one, that is giving women permission and flexibility to do things differently. Now, that is fully inclusive of everyone, right? If you start to allow the freedom to develop a schedule and a workflow that is not time-based, but performance based, now you have something that works for everybody. And it doesn’t have to be men versus women. You just have to be inclusive of the female physiology, which right now is not happening. It doesn’t have to say, okay, this is how the women in the company work, and this is how the men in the company work. No, you create systems and structures that actually work for either men or women, but right now what we have in place is something that just works for men.

Monica (37:28):

Interesting. And so I’m excited to hear that you’re working with some Fortune 500 companies and that people are open to making some of these changes. Have you seen any great results or success stories with organizations that have began to move in this direction?

Kayla (37:46):

Oh, absolutely. And t always kind of starts with the information flow opening, the flow of that information that’s missing, right? And people start to feel empowered and people start to feel seen and heard and understood, which has immediate positive repercussions for the entire organization. Even an acknowledgement of, Hey, you know what? We maybe haven’t been doing things that are appropriately supportive for you. And we’re changing that, and we’re learning, we’re trying to understand that immediately has positive impacts. Then when you start to change the infrastructure and the systems to be more inclusive and have more equity for women and men in the company, now you start to see a moving up of the bottom line, which is what everybody wants to see, right? In the end, it’s about how profitable are we and how are we leveraging our resources to their highest level? Well, human resources are the most valuable resources within any organization. And if you have any women within your organization and you are not operating in an inclusive way, and you are not understanding this about women, then you are not utilizing that valuable resource to its highest potential, and that’s the language that everybody speaks.

Monica (39:10):

I agree completely. That makes so much sense as well. And really, when you’re able to tap into these benefits for women one of the things I’ve heard you talk about in the past is that women have a real kind of innate ability to be exceptional leaders. Can you maybe talk a little bit more about that?

Kayla (39:31):

Yeah, sure. So there’s a lot of things that go into this, but one of the major components of what makes women such a great leader is this are these neurological differences, and the fact that the female brain is modulated by the female hormones which makes the female brain this cyclic organism. And because of that and how the neurochemical and neural electrical activity of the female brain changes, it creates these cognitive strengths that are superior versus their male counterparts. And all of those cognitive strengths just so happen to be great leadership qualities like emotional intelligence, like the ability to communicate effectively, like the ability to make decisions like the ability to consider others and have higher compassion for others. All of these are superior leadership qualities that women have that men have as well, but that are more prominent in the, the female cognitive toolkit you could say.

Kayla (40:44):

The other thing is, is a psychological aspect of, of feminine leadership. And that is that, again, one of the great qualities of leadership is the ability to think for the collective meaning about you. When you are a great leader, you are not thinking of yourself first. You are thinking of kind of everyone else first. Now for women, there, women have a psychological predisposition for this because over many, many, many, many generations since the beginning of time women have taken on a caretaker role in society. So over generations pass down epigenetically through all these generations of caretakers is this psychological propensity to think for the collective or kind of put others first. So that can be a limitation in a lot of ways for personal development. You know, climbing the ladder, getting what you need, communicating your needs as a woman, which are challenges that women face.

Kayla (41:52):

But in terms of a leadership quality, it is the most important and most superior leadership quality to be able to think about the collective impact of decisions before the decisions are made. So that’s kind of that other psychological leadership superpower that women have. But it’s also one that women have to be aware of. It’s this subconscious programming that is always operating in the background, that if we’re not aware of it, then it can show up in negative ways in our life in terms of we may harm ourselves, harm our health, use up all our resources trying to do everything for everybody else before we take care of our own selves. And of course that is not necessarily a great leadership quality because you have to be healthy and functioning at your highest level and in order to be a great leader. So there’s a, there’s a fine line that has to be walked in terms of embracing this collective thinking as part of your leadership quality and skillset, and also understanding that you have to take care of yourself first before you can lead others and be a good example for others. So towing that line is pretty difficult, especially when you don’t know it’s there.

Monica (43:19):

That makes sense. So it sounds like having healthy boundaries and really good self-care is also really key here.

Kayla (43:28):

Yeah.

Monica (43:28):

I wonder if you might share an example, you said one of the first things that an organization can do is to move to more of a performance-based system. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>, how do you do that when there are like hard deadlines that need to happen, and then what could that look like?

Kayla (43:48):

Sure. So again, this looks many different ways, and the way that this is implemented in each organization can be very complex depending on how their organization works. So that’s something that I do in consulting with businesses and helping and organizations and helping them to set up these systems and processes. But just at a very high level example of this, for women who, you know, may be the leader of an organization or a leader within their organization is zoom out, right? Don’t be so acutely focused and so daily focused goals and deadlines and all of that have to be met. But if you plan appropriately with enough lead time, then you can absolutely organize all of those things so that everything gets done more effectively, more efficiently than if you are trying to put it into this acute structure that doesn’t work.

Kayla (44:58):

So it’s more of zoom out, allow policies to be put in place that allow for flexibility, put in policies in place that allow for performance, performance-based work. That way the company is protected, right? Because the performance is going to remain at a higher level. And honestly, it’s always a way higher level of performance when these changes are made and the health of, and the, and the performance of the woman is also protected and elevated by creating these new structures. So again, I, I know that was like a really kind of broad watered down example, but that’s really the only way to give an example that could apply to anyone.

Monica (45:44):

Sure, sure. No, that makes sense. So it’s being more intentional and planning out ahead and actually ending up with higher productivity and less burnout overall, which is gonna increase productivity as well of here. People aren’t burned out, it seems like.

Kayla (46:02):

Yeah. Well, and more satisfaction if, if all of your women who have worked so hard to get into those leadership positions, they’re burned out, they’re not gonna stay there, they’re gonna leave. Yeah. And they’re gonna look for opportunities to do something that allows them to feel healthy and satisfied and not burned out. So, you know, if we want to close this exhaustion gap that women are experiencing in the corporate space, if we want to really support women’s health and stop this toxic cycle of burnout, then we have to make these changes. And I’m not saying it’s easy, cuz it’s not simple. Sure. Easy. No, no, not easy, but it’s going to require a systemic level of change in order to see that the results that we want to see, this is going to continue to get worse and worse and worse until we decide, okay, we know it’s not gonna be easy, but it’s time to make a change. So how do we do it? And you have to do it in a evidence-based step-wise, really organized way. Otherwise you kind of, you, you lose, you lose your, you lose your footing.

Monica (47:16):

Sure, sure. That makes a lot of sense in taking that approach. Yeah. And that kind of leads me to my next question. So what is your vision for the future of work? You know, if we can begin to implement these flexible workplaces and adapt the workplace to work for both men and women, what would that look like? And, and maybe what would that feel like?

Kayla (47:38):

Yeah. In my utopian world I would see an equal balance of masculine and feminine leadership because both masculine and feminine leadership have different qualities that are beneficial and very synergistic right now, when we look into the world because of the way that things are structured in the expectations of operating in this really consistent way we only see really good examples of masculine leadership, even from our female leaders. And that’s because it’s that kind of, you know, push through. A lot of times it’s about, you know, dominating winning, get the win and it’s very also dopamine driven, reward, neurochemically driven. And that just doesn’t resonate with the female biology. Because we’re the way that we operate and how we’re rewarded, neurochemically is totally different. But anyway, so masculine leadership that’s absolutely necessary and needed and super duper important in our world.

Kayla (48:43):

And we have really, really excellent strong examples of that. We do not have good examples of healthy feminine leadership in this world, even from our female leaders who are trying to lead from a very masculine way that is out of alignment with their physiology. So if we can have healthy men and women leaders and healthy examples of masculine and feminine leadership that really merge together, the world will change. I always say that women, because right now it’s disproportionately affecting women, right? I always say that women are the greatest untapped resource in modern society that will be able to create massive evolution in our world and in our society. And the reason being is because they are just so misunderstood, so misguided. They are burned out. They are not operating at their highest level. But imagine if they were, then you have the other half of the population really thriving and stepping into those leadership positions that they’re well designed for.

Monica (49:56):

Oh, that’s so great. I love that. So it’s really embracing feminine qualities and feminine leadership style without discounting the male side either this isn’t anti men in any way, but no making it a as valuable for women leadership traits as well as male. So I love that. So Kayla, tell me, what are you most excited about right now?

Kayla (50:22):

Oh, so many things. But I, I’m really excited because there is a, a tide change that is happening societally and not, not even just in the United States but really globally, which is acknowledgement of this issue, this, this gap in the health science research and this gap in the information. And an acknowledgement that you know, we have really misunderstood and misguided women for a long time and we wanna do things differently. And that’s happening across the globe. There’s, there’s publications coming out every day, really highlighting the problem. What I’m excited about is that there is a solution and it is working and people are now open-minded enough to actually embrace these solutions and put them in place. So personally what I’m really excited about right now is being able to work with more and more organizations who have massive impact on so many women and families and communities that can start to put these different structures in place and support, you know, thousands if not millions of women.

Kayla (51:40):

But I’m also really excited about training any professionals who work with women in the science of the female biology or the women’s neuro psychophysiology. And to that end, I have an online certification that I offer for any professionals who work with women, whether they be doctors, coaches, business coaches, health coaches anything like that. If you work with women, you really wanna understand what’s going on with them and how to properly support them and educate them and guide them. And so I offer that, which is kind of like this women’s biology 101 women’s neuro Psychophysiology 101, which is the, just the basic level of understanding that all people really need to have in order to properly understand, support and guide women. So if anybody is interested in that, we are actually starting our next cohort of students for the spring semester on January 30th. And we go for 12 weeks. It’s a 12 week professional training with 30 34 hours of continuing professional development that comes with the certification. And again, it’s like this basic level of understanding about all everything we talked about and the science behind the female biology physiology, and how to really understand and guide and support women. Well, I’m really excited about that. Yeah,

Monica (53:13):

<Laugh>, I see why you’re so excited about that. That sounds like a great opportunity and we’ve covered so much ground today and I really, I could just talk with you all day about this topic because it’s so fascinating for me, me. But what is kind of one key takeaway you want our leave our listeners to leave with?

Kayla (53:32):

Yeah. the biggest key takeaway that I want all people to hear and be able to start to understand and operate from is that women need acknowledgement that they are different, that they need to operate differently, that they have different needs, that they have basic, different basic biological needs. Just acknowledgement of that makes a huge difference. And then if you wanna take it one step further, allow the flexibility for the women in your life, including yourself if you are a woman to do things differently, right. We understand Step one is just the, the self-awareness. It’s understanding, okay, I’m different, I need to do things different. Step two, allow the flexibility so that you can start to actually do things differently.

Monica (54:27):

Wow, that seems like a real game changer. I love that takeaway. So if people are interested in learning more about the program that you just mentioned or mm-hmm. <Affirmative> connecting with you and your consulting services or just following you on social media, where are the best places to connect with you?

Kayla (54:45):

Sure. the best place to connect with me find more information get free resources is Herbiorhythm.com. And then from there you can navigate to you can put in a request for consulting or booking for an event or anything like that. But also the certification program is there and there’s also an individual women’s program for any woman who just wants to learn about her own unique female biology and physiology that’s there as well. And then on social media my handle is @BioCurious_Kayla. And I’m always posting fun things there about female neuroscience and physiology and health optimization and biohacking and all of those fun things. So I would love to connect with all of you there as well.

Monica (55:43):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today. I learned so much just from today’s conversation and look forward to learning more about your work. So I appreciate you being here. Thank

Kayla (55:55):

You. Yeah. Thank you so much for having me. This was super fun.

Monica (55:59):

Thank you.

Filed Under: Future of Work, The New Future of Work Podcast Tagged With: burnout, exhaustion gap, future of work, healthcare, mothers, podcast, The New Future of Work, women, work, workplace

Creating Meaningful Connections with a Hybrid Workforce with Jan Keck – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 6

2023-01-12 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

Creating Meaningful Connections with a Hybrid Workforce

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

I’m excited to welcome Jan Keck to today’s show. Jan is an Experience Designer, Facilitator, Trainer, TEDx Speaker, Video Creator, Entrepreneur and Dad of a 3-year old. He has been running public events and online experiences that build trust, empower people to share vulnerable stories and turn strangers into friends.

Jan’s mission is to help people feel less alone, so by creating experiences, workshops and programs he is fueling the movement for deeper human connection.

His “Connection Cards” have been used on every continent around the globe and helped turn over 70,000 shallow conversations into deep connections.

In the past few years, he ran over 30 workshops and trainings with over 700 trainers, facilitators, educators, team leaders learning the skills to create engaging, purposeful, inclusive and connecting experiences on Zoom. I have participated in several of Jan’s programs in recent years and they have helped me become a better Zoom meeting facilitator, as well as feel more comfortable creating meaningful engagements with meeting participants.

Recently, Jan relocated from Canada to Germany to be closer to family and is continuing to build a community of trainers, facilitators and creators that create MAGICAL HUMAN MOMENTS online.

His work has been featured on TEDx, CBC News, Breakfast TV, Cityline and HuffPost.

On today’s show we talk about how to create more connection in the workplace, especially for those who are working remotely or in a hybrid workplace.

Learn more about Jan’s work on his website which is www.jankeck.com, or on social media.

  • Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mrjankeck
  • Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mrjankeck
  • YouTube: https://youtube.com/c/mrjankeck
  • LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jankeck

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

***

Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:06):

Well, welcome to the show, Jan. It’s so good to see you. So I have a very special guest today. His name is Jan Keck and he’s an experienced designer, a facilitator, a trainer, a TEDx speaker, video creator, entrepreneur, and dad to a three year old. So and so much more. So, Jan, welcome to the show. Thank you for being here today.

Jan (00:28):

Thank you so much for having me. You now reminded me that I need to update that bio because my son just turned four three days, four days ago.

Monica Bourgeau (00:37):

Oh, wow. <Laugh>. So just barely four, but that counts.

Jan Keck (00:42):

Yes, exactly.

Monica Bourgeau (00:45):

Well, maybe we could just start by you telling us a little bit about your story and your background, and I know, I know you’re living in Germany at the moment, so maybe you can tell us a little bit about that as well.

Jan Keck (00:57):

Sure. So I am in Germany right now. I’m actually sitting in my parents’ apartment. But this is also my home office kind of away from home. I now live with my wife and my son five minutes away from here. But I spent the last 14 years living in Canada. So my life is kind of moving. There’s been big changes happening in the last little bit and I’m still struggling a bit with the whole idea of moving back home versus what I like to say. I’m moving forward to like a new place cuz so many things have changed here. And sometimes I think for anybody that has moved away to a different place, they can maybe relate when you move away and then you move back, it sometimes feels like you’ve failed and you’re moving back because it didn’t work out. And I think for us, the decision to move literally closer to family, like really close to my parents is because we have a little kid that you might even hear in the background running up and down the hallway.

Jan Keck (02:05):

And the pandemic kind of made that all possible because my wife sold her Columbian street food restaurant and my work has moved from in person to all virtual. And maybe that’s a good time to talk a bit about what I actually do for work. But when somebody asks me, what do you do? I usually like to tell them just I help people feel less alone because I do a lot of different things. The one thing they all have in common is helping people connect in a more meaningful way. So by the end they feel a bigger sense of belonging if that is at work, if that is at a networking event, if that is just because they arrive to a new city and they don’t know anyone or maybe even at a dinner party. So yeah, I’m wondering should I, like how far back should I go with my story?

Monica Bourgeau (02:57):

I think that’s a great Starting point. And I might just mention too that you and I met a number of years ago at the World Domination Summit here in Portland when you were talking about your Ask Deep Questions cards and facilitating a lot of meetups and groups for people to connect and get to know each other better.

Jan Keck (03:32):

<Laugh> Yes, World Domination Summit and Ask Deep Questions. I think both of those things have a lot in common because when I first attended the conference, I didn’t know anyone who was going there. I just heard about it from other friends who basically said, you have to go there to experience it. But what I learned is that when you get people in the same room or in the same place who, who share similar values, then you’re gonna have a much easier time connecting with them. And I’m sure you’ve experienced that too. There almost every single person, you don’t do a lot of small talk. You kind of go to the deeper meaningful things much quicker. And I’ve realized that that’s actually the thing that has been missing in my life. Like the first year that I attended the World Domination Summit, I also attended another weekend retreat near Toronto that I now say I have made 30 new friends in 48 hours.

Jan Keck (04:33):

Wow. Because at that point I lived in Toronto for eight years, or six years, a long time. And I did go to lots of networking events and social events and I made a lot of connections and was very proud when I got to like the 500 connections on LinkedIn where it just does 500 plus. Yeah. And like, yes, I’ve made it, I’ve built my network. Yet I did not have a lot of like really close friends. And it wasn’t until that weekend retreat where I realized, oh my God, these conversations I’m having with people, like where we share like really personal things and we share what we’re working on and our goals and our challenges in relationships and in business and in life, that I needed to find more ways to have experiences like that. And for me that was not only attending these experiences, but figuring out how can I create that for myself and for others as well.

Monica Bourgeau (05:36):

I love that so much. And that kind of just mindset is part of why I wanted to have you on the show today. Because one of the challenges that a lot of employers are facing right now are working with employees who are either remote or they’re hybrid. And just in general, I think that there’s a real struggle to find connection in the workplace. You probably heard about the term quiet quitting that’s become popular on TikTok and employees are disengaged and just feeling really disconnected at work. So what are your thoughts on what might be happening there and how could we start to bring some of these concepts into the workplace to create a more meaningful connection?

Jan Keck (06:27):

Yes. I actually was talking about the loneliness epidemic before the C pandemic started happening, knowing that there’s a lot of people who don’t feel like they have anyone to talk to. I think there was a statistic that only one in four Americans has somebody that can confide in. There are statistics about how loneliness can have a big impact on our physical health where some scientists have compared it to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And I already knew, okay, this is gonna be a big issue if you’re in the workplace if you’re not. For myself, when I was in Toronto, as I shared earlier, I felt like I was really well connected. Like I had a lot of connections. I wouldn’t say that I was lonely yet. I did still feel that impact of I don’t have anyone to talk to.

Jan Keck (07:21):

I didn’t have anyone that I could call in the middle of the night or like show up at front of their door with let’s say a bottle of wine and say like, Hey, I, I dunno, there’s something going on. Can we chat? And they would like, welcome me in. And I think there’s this thing happening where there’s a lot of people who feel disconnected, but number one, they might not even be aware of it because we distract ourselves by, I dunno, picking up the phone, going on social media and like scrolling through like different social media app feeds. And you just kind of numb that feeling. You’re not really pausing to pay attention to it. And I think that’s the bigger problem that a lot of people feel disconnected, yet they don’t notice it and therefore they’re not looking for a solution for that either.

Monica Bourgeau (08:11):

Oh, interesting point. Well, and it’s challenging when you talk about disconnection at the workplace too, because up until now it’s just been known that you leave your personal life at the door. Right? You don’t bring your personal life into the workplace. But I think as a result, we’re not bringing our whole selves to the work environment and we’re not forming those deeper connections.

Jan Keck (08:38):

Yeah. I mean I’m sure you’ve heard about the, the Google study where they figure out how what makes a highly successful high performing team. They found out that psychological safety and trust are actually the foundation that teams need to have, which means team members need to be able to feel safe to speak up and like share things that are hard or be vulnerable in front of each other. And I think most teams don’t have that. Like, you might have an idea, but you’re like, Oh, but what if people don’t like it and you don’t share it? Or maybe you make a mistake. And rather than telling everyone right away, you kind of try to cover your tracks. You try to hide it and hope that it doesn’t come out because you’re afraid of what people will say or do once they do find out that you made a mistake.

Jan Keck (09:28):

I think the best teams are open to sharing these things and I feel like there’s so many parallels that I’m realizing now as I’m even sharing that with parenting. Like all of the things I’m learning of how to talk to my son or how to be a better parent can be applied to leading a team. And yeah, it’s definitely in a challenging place that we’re in with teams not even being in the same room often. Right. because of the pandemic or people have moved online. So it’s, it’s just getting more complicated.

Monica Bourgeau (10:10):

It sure is. And during the pandemic, I really enjoyed taking your Zoom facilitator class and I feel like I learned so many things that I didn’t know. And I’ve been using Zoom a long time before the pandemic, but there’s so many things that you can do to create more engagement using virtual communication as well. So maybe we could talk about a few of those suggestions.

Jan Keck (10:39):

Sure. The very first thing that I have noticed, especially when it comes to creating trust is creating psychological safety, creating those connections with teams. I like to think of new teams, strangers. Like that’s maybe the hardest part. It might be easier if people know each other already a little bit. But if you get a group of strangers together, there’s this moment that happens often where you ask a question and all you get is crickets.

Monica Bourgeau (11:11):

Nobody wants to speak.

Jan Keck (11:13):

Right? Yeah. Or what has happened more frequently recently that I’ve heard from a few people, they wanna send everyone to breakout rooms and suddenly they drop off and they leave the meeting.

Monica Bourgeau (11:25):

Yeah.

Jan Keck (11:26):

And to me, both of those are signs that the people, the participants don’t feel safe yet. Like we haven’t built that psychological safety yet. So we’re trying to do something that is a little bit too early, a little bit too risky, too vulnerable for people to do, which is unmuting and sharing something in front of a group of people that they don’t know. So when I design a meeting, when I design a workshop, I always try to build it the same way I would build a campfire. That’s why for the people who would be able to see me, I have a campfire standing behind me. When you hold up a lighter to a big log, what would happen? It probably would not catch fire. Right. Because the flame is way too small for that big log. Yep.

Jan Keck (12:15):

And that’s what we’re trying to do when we ask participants to unmute right in the beginning, share something or send them to breakout rooms too quickly. It’s too uncomfortable for them to participate. So when we do the fire analogy, if we light our paper first and then add the little sticks and then the kindling and at the end put the big log on the fire, once it’s burning already quite well, then this is gonna work and create this nice fire that we can sit around and provide warmth and we can cook food on it. So when we’re designing a virtual experience, what are those first few things that we can do to get people to open up to kind of get settled to get to know each other, but on a slow speed?

Jan Keck (13:07):

So for me, some of the easiest things to do at the very beginning is asking people to just give you a thumbs up or typing a yes in the chat. Like those actions are much easier to do, or like voting in a poll than anything else after. And in my opinion, if you want people to unmute, if you give them a moment to maybe think about the answer to your question, maybe write down the answer to the question. Share it in a breakout room, then come back, they’re much more likely to engage because now they’ve had time to think about it, they’ve had time to process it, maybe they had time to practice sharing and getting feedback from a small group before they try that in the large room.

Monica Bourgeau (13:52):

That’s a great suggestion. And many times we don’t do that, especially in work meetings, there isn’t a warmup, it’s just jump right into business.

Jan Keck (14:04):

Yeah. I think it’s different if you have the same people in the meeting every, like if it’s an ongoing, let’s say a weekly standup meeting or something like that mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, then of course you don’t have to build that psychological safety that’s slowly every single time. Sure. But if you work with new people, if you have like a new employee joining or if you have like whole group of people that are working on a new project together, I think we really need to spend the time in building those connections very slowly in the beginning. And maybe having a session just focused on people getting to know each other is, is worth the investment up front.

Monica Bourgeau (14:41):

That’s a great suggestion. And what do you recommend, I know some workplaces now have some people that are coming to the office and then some people are remote and, you know, coming and going and kind of hybrid. How do you structure something when you have some people physically in the office and some people that are remote?

Jan Keck (15:04):

I’m very glad that we’ll talk about this because I’m actually designing a workshop on exactly that topic right now.

Monica Bourgeau (15:10):

Oh, good.

Jan Keck (15:11):

And it’s one that I might have a little bit of a controversial opinion on as well. I actually believe that a hybrid meeting should not exist. I think it either is a remote, like virtual meeting or it is an in person meeting. There is no real use case where I think hybrid will be better than let’s say all going virtual, all going in person with the risk of losing some people that can’t attend one or the other. Yep. And here’s the reason why. I think if we look at the meetings that we wanna do and start by what’s the purpose of why we’re bringing people together, Like what do we actually want to have accomplished by the end? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, very rarely would the answer be, Oh I think this should be half of the people online and half of the people in person or some kind of mix of that.

Jan Keck (16:02):

Because the risk of ignoring and missing like communication from half of the group or part of the group that is in the other space right is way too high. And just the fact of making everyone feel included and making everybody’s voice feel heard is so much harder. As it is in my opinion, a hybrid meeting is actually three meetings. Like you’re designing an in-person experience. Yeah. You’re designing a remote experience, but then you also have this overlap of where both of them connect. And to me those are the hybrid moments. And hybrid moments can exist, but I don’t think the whole meeting should be designed as hybrid because you’re running two things. You can’t do just it by doing something in person and expecting the virtual participants to feel as included as the people who are there in the room.

Monica Bourgeau (16:59):

I agree with that so much, even if it is controversial. But I’ve facilitated a meeting where we had many people virtual and then we had some people together kind of around a phone with the Zoom participants on a screen. And like you’re saying, there’s multiple meetings happening because there’s discussion happening there in the room that the people on the Zoom call can’t hear. And it was very difficult to connect. I totally see what you’re saying, but with having kind of these mixed teams that that could be a little bit challenging.

Jan Keck (17:40):

Hybrid meetings shouldn’t exist, but the hybrid workforce definitely does exist. Like it has existed for a long time. So I think having people meet virtually and meet in person is definitely what is happening. And I think there’s a lot of opportunities in there because we can do asynchronous communication as well, Right. Like we don’t always need to be there at the same time. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>, I think that’s what a lot of workplaces are right now, trying to figure out how can we find that right mix of when is it necessary to bring everyone in and when is it not necessary and maybe we can just do a virtual meeting instead. I think those decisions hopefully are gonna be made with more intention than just saying it’s gonna be, it doesn’t matter where you are, you just call in this number or you’re in this room and we’re gonna do it hybrid. That’s kind of where I’m hoping we’ll get to

Monica Bourgeau (18:41):

I hope so too. So essentially even if people are in the office, they could still take the Zoom call in their own private office on Zoom. They don’t necessarily have to convene in person if a large number of the participants are gonna be on Zoom already, just make it a Zoom meeting.

Jan Keck (18:59):

Yeah. Like that would be one solution where everybody feels at the end probably more connected and more visible. Because even if you think of having one camera that shows a whole group to the people who are on Zoom, they will never see the facial expressions of each individual speaker. Because they’re sitting so far away from the camera. But if everybody was in front of their own laptop and once you solve them more like the audio issues, even if they weren’t in the same room. I mean, we all have the devices. I think everybody or most workplaces people have like a personal device that they could log in from, that they then could access the chat they could access different engagement tools or reaction buttons in Zoom. They could share their screen and I think that would make for a much more inclusive experience if not everybody can be there in person.

Monica Bourgeau (19:53):

Yeah. Great suggestions. What other kind of challenges are you hearing about in the workplace with regard to remote work and zoom and video and all of those factors?

Jan Keck (20:07):

Yeah. there’s one big issue that I knew was gonna be a big, big challenge that actually was, that almost helped me back from doing anything online at all. Oh. Because I’ll show it to you, but the people who are listening to this can’t see it. But this is basically a padded envelope. And on this envelope I wrote down Sleep Well and it has a picture of a phone in a sleeping bag. It basically is a cell phone sleeping bag. I’m doing an in-person workshop at the end of this week. And I’m gonna have participants create their own cell phone sleeping bag, bringing a bunch of padded envelopes. I’m gonna bring some stickers and some markers so they can customize it. And that’s where we’re gonna put our phones at the beginning of the workshop so they’re sealed off. Yeah. And they’re not a distraction for when we’re focusing on connection.

Jan Keck (20:58):

Like, I’m running a workshop on building deeply connected teams and to me the phones are one of the biggest obstacles when it comes to connecting with each other because I’m sure you’ve been in the situation where you’re with a friend at a coffee shopping or you’re telling a story and why you’re mid story, like they get a message or the phone rings and it’s on the table, You see that it’s ringing, they pick it up, they reply, you’re still talking. They haven’t even acknowledged you at that this point. Like it just makes you feel

Monica Bourgeau (21:33):

<Laugh>. Yeah. It’s so annoying.

Jan Keck (21:35):

Ignored. Right. It’s so annoying. And to me that’s what’s happening a lot since we had to move online. Like we couldn’t put the technology away anymore. Now we had to find a way on how do we still make sure that we’re present with each other? Cuz I don’t know if you’re looking at me or if you’re checking emails or if you’re scrolling on social media or if you’re doing something else. Right, Right. And I think a lot of people are actually doing something else when they’re attending a meeting. Yeah. Virtually they’re not really present with the person who is talking. So to me that’s maybe the biggest challenge. Like how do we solve this that we don’t make each other feel invisible and unimportant.

Monica Bourgeau (22:19):

Yeah. It is such a challenge. I’ve been to restaurants where I see a group of like three or four people and they’re not engaging with each other. They’re all looking at their phones. And I think you’re missing this huge opportunity to actually have a conversation with the people that are in front of you by looking at your phone. So I love the idea of the sleeping bag <laugh>.

Jan Keck (22:41):

Yeah. But of course that doesn’t really work if we’re all virtual. Unless I’m now thinking if you were an organization, you sent everyone a cell phone sleeping bag and like at the beginning of the virtual meeting they’re like putting it in there and they’re putting it away. Yeah. But still, we’re using our computers and there’s lots of other distractions that are on there, so we can’t, we can’t really turn that off. Right. And I think the, the most important thing we can do or the leaders can do who run meetings and run workshops is set the intention, like put it out there as like I call it a community agreement. Something that we agree on that during this call, especially if it’s focused on let’s say something that helps people connect with each other, where it’s not just a, like somebody’s doing a presentation and you’re there to listen, but is it, it’s a truly interactive experience. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> when we use breakout rooms, nobody wants to be talking to the other person that is not really there. Right. Absolutely. So I usually talk about giving each other the gift of presence and Yeah. Once I actually share what I just told you, Hey, I’m not sure if you’re looking at me or if you’re checking emails right now. Yeah. I know who’s been checking emails because of their facial expression mm-hmm. <Affirmative>. and just mentioning that they will be more hesitant to go back to that after that.

Monica Bourgeau (24:07):

Yeah, absolutely. So one of the things I’m hearing a lot is people are tired of zoom and tired of being on the camera. In fact, I’m in a, a writer’s group that used to be on Zoom and we would work virtually, like it was a co-working and so we would turn our cameras off when we were co-working, but we had that moment of seeing each other first and it has just moved to no cameras, which I thought was kind of interesting because we’re just seeing basically the person’s box on the screen. So are you starting to hear kind of that almost backlash to zoom and video? And are there any suggestions that you have to help people kind of cope with that?

Jan Keck (24:51):

Yeah, for sure. I think this, this summer I felt the impact the most because this summer a lot of people went back to in person, people went back to the office. Even myself, I felt a little bit zoomed out because yeah. I spent most of my day sitting in the same spot where I’m at right now at my desk looking at a screen. Sure. And especially when it came to socializing with my connections, which are in North America, most of them different time zone. It was the late afternoons that they were like, Hey, we should hang out. We should do a video call. Yeah. And I just was exhausted by a full day sitting in front of the screen that I said, I don’t actually wanna do this anymore. I actually did kind of lose out on connecting with a few people because I didn’t have the energy.

Jan Keck (25:40):

Sure. And I tried to figure out, is that just me said a thing that lots of other people experience as well. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> and I did share kind of an email and on my social media how I’m kind of reconsidering this whole career that I’ve built of teaching people how to connect virtually. Is this like, should we even be doing that? Is this still a problem or should we just go back to in person? That was also right after I attended the World Domination Summit again in person. Yeah. And I came back having given and received so many hugs and high fives and hang out with people in person that I felt the energy of being around people again, that I questioned everything. And out of that moment came kind of two insights and one experiment. First I realized, okay, not everybody has the opportunity to turn technology off and go back to in person.

Jan Keck (26:39):

Right. Like we just talked about hybrid remote teams that don’t work in the same city, same country. And giving our employees the option to stay at home or go to the office. Yep. All of those companies don’t have a choice but to figure out how to do the virtual and hybrid mm-hmm. <Affirmative> type of work workforce. And so I knew, okay, in terms of my business, this is definitely something I need to be investing more in. Like, I’m not gonna stop serving those people because they actually need it more than the people who do have the option to go in person or remote. The second thing I realized for myself personally, I haven’t since I moved to Germany, invested into finding my local community yet. So I just spent more time making connections with people here in my city.

Jan Keck (27:30):

I joined an improv meetup that I’m actually going to after this call today. And I think that helped me get back a little bit more of that energy. Yeah. and then the third thing that happened is I tried this experiment. I’m like, Okay, are we tired of being on a Zoom call or are we tired of looking at a screen and sitting at a desk? Oh, and I actually think it was the latter. So I said, Okay, what if we could still do a Zoom call, but we’re not gonna be at our desks. Yeah. And we’re not gonna be looking at the screen. So I created this series of remote adventure walks. I called them

Monica Bourgeau (28:11):

Oh fun.

Jan Keck (28:13):

Where I invited everyone to join on Zoom, but through their cell phone. Yeah. Grab earbuds and plug those in. Nobody’s turning on their camera, it’s just audio only. And I’m sharing different music and different activities that help people connect. And I can still do breakout rooms so people can do like smaller group conversations. And we did lots of like visualizing and I sent them on different adventures, basically saying, Okay, face the sun and walk that direction for the next few minutes. Yeah. They face or find the a natural object and describe that to each other in a breaker room. So there were a lot of activities that we could do that maybe not surprisingly. Yeah. Help people feel more energized. Ah. So I did this check in and check out at every session where I ask people how, how much energy do we have right now on a scale from one to 10.

Jan Keck (29:11):

<Affirmative> knowing that after a Zoom call, especially now in 2022, people usually feel drained. They feel like they have less energy of looking at a screen for like an hour. With the audio only experience, it was the complete opposite. Like people would check in at maybe like a five or six and almost everyone checked out at like a eight, nine, or 10. Wow. And people said I could have gone on for like another half hour, so I realized I can do much longer events because people are moving around. Like, your scenery is changing. Yeah. You only have sound, so you’re focusing on just that sense. And somehow it also made people feel more connected to each other. It was almost a little bit more intimate experience than looking at a screen and, and hearing somebody that way.

Monica Bourgeau (30:02):

Very interesting. I would love to participate in one of those calls. That sounds like a lot of fun. And I remember when you sent that email out that you were a little bit burned out on Zoom and I remember feeling a little panicky because I feel like you’re kind of the only person that I know of in the world really doing this kind of work of creating this deeper connection and doing the Zoom facilitation training. And I thought, if Jan steps away, what are we gonna do? <Laugh>? So I’m glad you found some solutions.

Jan Keck (30:36):

Yeah. It was a bit of an identity crisis that I had there, but like I said, it was more, more the personal need for connection that I felt For in person that I haven’t actually looked into yet mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and realizing like when I send out that email, I got, half of the people responded, I’m, I feel the same way. I don’t want to be on Zoom anymore, I don’t wanna look at a screen anymore. Right. and the other half said, I’m so grateful that this exists because of all of these opportunities and all of these friendships that I’ve made with people and all of these communities that I’ve found. So I knew that for some people it was really important to continue and for other people like me mm-hmm. <Affirmative>, maybe they needed to invest into their own kind of finding a new social circle, going back to in person, like going back to in person after the pandemic is challenging too.

Jan Keck (31:28):

It is. Right? Like there is, Yeah. It just feels different. I remember attending my very first in person event that I attended in the summer of 2021 with a community where I usually would hug everyone. Yeah. But when I approach people, I was not sure if I’m ready to hug or if they’re ready to hug. And it was just this weird thing, like kind of like when, when you’re trying to shake somebody’s hand and they want to give you a fist bump and you’re like, they change to the hand and you change to the fist. Right. Like it was just this awkward dance that kind of overtook those, but usually should be, Hey, it’s so great to see you again after like, being locked in for like a year and a half.

Monica Bourgeau (32:12):

Yeah. It’s been an interesting kind of dynamic to go back to some in-person meetings, you kind of have to just gauge the other person and what they’re kind of expecting as well. It’s not as easy as it used to be, but I think that’s a great suggestion though, is if people are, are feeling burned out on Zoom to try to find ways to get that in-person connection, even if it’s outside of your work. Or I know I find that I work from home all the time and I have for about 15 years and sometimes at the end of the day my husband will be coming home and I’ll say, Can we eat out? I just need to get out of the house and like be around other people. So that makes a lot of sense to me.

Jan Keck (32:57):

Yeah. It’s been, it’s been a good thing, even for myself with the remote adventure walks, I realized that with a lot of things I created it for myself because I’m like, I need this. Yeah. But then I was the one who was sitting in front of the computer doing breakout rooms and sending people off into adventures and I could not leave my computer because

Monica Bourgeau (33:19):

Right. I couldn’t. You’re

Jan Keck (33:20):

Facilitating, facilitated. And I think for a lot of people that are like running those meetings, it sometimes can feel like you’re left out of the connections that you’re creating all of those sparks for campfires that you’re igniting.

Monica Bourgeau (33:37):

Yeah. That’s so true. You also mentioned, you know, on the adventure walks that you have the cameras off. Do you think that kind of rotating between maybe camera on and camera off, do you think that’s helpful? Do you think the camera on is necessary? I’ve, I’ve heard some employers now are requiring cameras on during staff meetings and there’s a little bit of backlash to that. Like what, what do you see as far as the cameras concerned?

Jan Keck (34:04):

Yeah, I think the people who require cameras to be on, they don’t really trust their employees. Yeah. And, and I think it’s the same thing of the people who require employees to come back to the office and don’t want them to working at home, even though they might be more efficient there. It’s, I think a matter of trust there, because for me, I don’t require cameras on yet. I would say 90% of the time people have cameras. Almost everyone has cameras on when I, when I run sessions because I set those expectations from the beginning and I tell them why I want cameras to be on. Yeah. But there’s also times where I ask them to do, to actually turn it off. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So whenever we do anything that is like a reflection exercise or a journaling activity, I tell everyone. Or if we’re watching a video, I tell everyone, Turn off your cameras because I’m not actually looking at you. We’re not looking at each other. Sure. We don’t need that. And I think it’s a good break from that feeling of being watched. And I think that’s the Yeah. The part that also gets tiring, right? Mm-Hmm. <affirmative>. So of course when we do breakout rooms and you want to connect with each other, that’s where you wanna have your cameras on. If you’re one person’s doing a presentation that is not interactive, which I hope is also not happening as much anymore,

Monica Bourgeau (35:27):

Right.

Jan Keck (35:28):

Maybe not necessary, but I like to ask people for a thumbs up or head nods or at least some engagement in the chat or using the reaction button so I can get some feedback. Because for a presenter or if you’re a speaker, getting that feedback back from the audience is also really important to get your energy up.

Monica Bourgeau (35:50):

It is so important. I agree. Otherwise it feels like you’re just talking into space. And that’s a great observation about the whole camera aspect with regard to work that and the employee can feel that too. Like if your employer doesn’t trust you, you know. That doesn’t create a very good working relationship. I know that there’s a study that came out recently that something like only one in four employees feel like their employer cares about their wellbeing. And that’s just shocking to me. You know, if we feel like our employers don’t care about us, they don’t trust us you know, it doesn’t create a lot of loyalty on the other side, which kind of makes quiet quitting and some of these other things that we’re seeing difficulty in recruiting more understandable, I think.

Jan Keck (36:39):

Yeah. That’s a pretty crazy statistic. I haven’t heard that before, but I can see it. Yeah. From the conversations that I have with people and like when I work with organizations that have this tradition of like, we have our cameras off, we have to work way harder to get them to turn it on, but once they’re on, they usually stay on cuz people feel the impact of it. But yeah, it’s like once you start not caring about it, then mm-hmm. <Affirmative> enforcing it is just like that in my mind will backfire.

Monica Bourgeau (37:18):

Yeah. Yeah. I agree. Well, good suggestions. I’m just curious, so what is your kind of vision for the future of work? Like if you could wave a magic wand and create, you know, work environments where people can actually thrive and enjoy going to work and really a better future for work, what would that look like?

Jan Keck (37:43):

Hmm. That’s a very good question. I think that where some organizations are probably already doing this, what I’m imagining good, which is in a way a hybrid workforce. Like yeah, employees can choose if they want to go to the office or work at home. But of course if you’re working in the office, there should be enough people there that you also feel a little bit more of that connection, that energy there, rather than everybody working kind of individually in their own space mm-hmm. <Affirmative> because then we could also just be all virtual. Right. But I think that there is gonna be a mix of giving people the flexibility and finding the reason why people need to come at least once a year. Like even for remote teams, I think if at least once a year they bring everyone together in the same place Yeah. For a short retreat, for example then they will build such stronger connections and like trust and psychological safety. Like it’s not impossible online, but it’s definitely easier in person. Yeah. And I think that will make an impact once people go back and working at home. And if you’re ever worried about employees doing their work, getting them in person connected and getting to know them a little bit better, just beyond the name that they have on the bottom of their zoom call <laugh> is I think a good thing.

Monica Bourgeau (39:11):

Yeah. Great suggestion. I worked for a company, one of my first jobs out of college actually that did a camp and they did it every two years or something, but they brought together all the employees from different states and locations and I just remember it as being like one of the most impactful things that I attended in business because we got to meet all of these people from other offices and we played basketball and we walked along the lake and, you know, we left with these amazing connections, but we also had all this great training in between. They did a good job of making it fun. But I love that suggestion and I don’t think companies kind of do that enough, you know. I know it’s expensive, but like our organization saved all of their training budget for that time period and invested it all in one place rather than everyone going to different conferences or that sort of thing. So

Jan Keck (40:10):

Yeah. I think it’s not possible for every organization. Yeah. And I think the, the matter of investing into that, like building those deeply connected teams will pay off if you do it virtually or in person. Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. But most, I think again, thinking of like ideal future of work. The other thing I would love to see if there is weekly meetings with the same people. Yeah. Investing at least 10 to 15 minutes in connecting people to each other before we even get into the content. Cause I think 10 to 15 minutes from a whole week of work, that is not a lot of time, but I think it will make a huge impact if you kind of accumulate that on like in every, every week. That’s a lot of hours in the end that yeah. That will be added up.

Monica Bourgeau (41:04):

Great suggestions. So are you thinking just like a quick check in or something at the beginning before you jump into the business?

Jan Keck (41:12):

Yeah. I like to call them ice melters because ice breakers is definitely the word that makes people cringe a little bit too much. Yeah. But something that just warms up the people in the room, gets them to arrive, share something with each other, maybe do a quick breakout room depending on how big the group is. I have one client of mine, she works for a big bank in Canada and she has several teams that she runs. And they all have a weekly meeting and she started implementing some of the activities that I shared with her and by now has gone so far that she actually stopped being responsible for it. And every week a different team member is responsible to bring any activity that helps them connect. Like the only things are they need to prepare it. So if they need slides, they need to set up the slides if they need to bring anything they need to bring it. And it cannot be longer than 10 minutes. Nice. And at the beginning, every session they know who’s leading it, they run the activity and then they get on with the rest of the meeting. And she’s been doing that for a couple of years now and I can only guess how well it’s going because she’s still doing it.

Monica Bourgeau (42:22):

Wow. That’s awesome. I love that. Good example. So what are you most excited about right now?

Jan Keck (42:33):

I think, let me actually look at my calendar because I have a few things coming up. I think one thing I’m excited about is the remote adventure walks starting up again after the winter because I’m not sure how many people want to be spending time outside when it gets really cold.

Jan Keck (42:53):

I feel like we’re just at the point where it starts to get a little bit too cool to go on long walks outside. So I am excited to bring that also to organizations in the spring. And offer that as like, Hey, I can organize this once a month for your team. And again, it’s a great way to get off the screen but still have that kind of social interaction. So that’s one thing I’m excited about. And the other thing is my virtual facilitator training that you’ve been part of.

Monica Bourgeau (43:21):

Yeah. It was amazing

Jan Keck (43:22): Coming up to the ninth cohort.

Monica Bourgeau (43:25):

Wow.

Jan Keck (43:26):

And I’m not sure, I think were you part of the first one or the second one?

Monica Bourgeau (43:30):

It was one of those either the first or the second. I know it was pretty early on, but it’s still so helpful. I still use those techniques when I lead virtual meetings.

Jan Keck (43:40):

Yeah. So it’s evolved a lot since then. Wow. Every time it’s a little bit different mm-hmm. <Affirmative> and of course tools change. Zoom has changed a lot in the last two years. Yeah. I just had the graduation of the last cohort yesterday and I’m really excited about seeing them applying the things that they’re learning. I think that’s like more so the seeing the impact it can create for the people who take my training. Yeah. where I know okay, they can do a much bigger impact than me running every team building session. If they go out and they work with teams and they work with organizations and communities, then my impact of creating more inclusive and engaging experiences online can be much bigger.

Monica Bourgeau (44:27):

Yeah. Oh, I love that. And I’m excited that you’re still offering that as well as I really enjoyed it and we’ll make sure to put a link in the show notes to your website where people can learn more about that as well. So what is kind of one key takeaway that you wanna make sure our listeners today take with them after, after the show?

Jan Keck (44:51):

I think we’ll go back to the campfire that I mentioned earlier. And if the people are listening can just think of what’s one question, one activity, like one small thing you can ask your team members to do during the next team meeting to just open up the conversations. Mm-Hmm. <affirmative> open up them for connecting with each other that isn’t too scary. So we don’t wanna ask them, Hey, when was the last time you felt vulnerable or when was the last time you cried? Like yeah, those are maybe great questions when we get to know people really well. Right. But not as like a first interaction. And I’ll actually share one question that I love asking people even at networking events. Oh. And I usually have people imagine that we’re meeting again one year from today. Yeah. we’re meeting at a restaurant and we have this bottle of champagne and two glasses and we’re cheering on something that we both have accomplished. Yeah. what is the one thing that you want to have accomplished in one year?

Monica Bourgeau (45:58):

I love that question.

Jan Keck (45:59):

Conversations are much better when we go to networking events than, Hey, so what do you do and how’s your week been and what are you gonna do on the weekend? I feel like gets more to the core of what people value as well.

Monica Bourgeau (46:17):

That’s a great question. I think we all get tired of the same old small talk at networking events, so I love that. Thank you. So Jan, what where can our listeners find you? What’s your website or social media or preferred place that people reach out to you?

Jan Keck (46:35):

Yeah. my hub of all the places, all the things that I do is my website. So if you go to www.JanKeck.com that’s where you’ll find out everything. And out of the other platforms, I’m mostly active on YouTube and LinkedIn these days. So anyways, listening to this, you can just send me a connection request, just make sure to mention that you’ve listened to this podcast so I know you’re not just a person trying to sell me something because I’m very picky with the connection request that I usually accept.

Monica Bourgeau (47:08):

There’s a lot of those these days. So. Wonderful. Well thank you so much for being on this show. I really appreciate it. And I’ll put links to those in the show notes as well then. Great to see you.

Jan Keck (47:22):

Yes, same. Thank you so much for having me.

Monica Bourgeau (47:24):

Thank you.

Filed Under: Future of Work, The New Future of Work Podcast Tagged With: burnout, connection, culture, future of work, hybrid work, leadership, remote work, virtual, workplace, Zoom

Why Work with Peter Merry – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 5

2022-12-20 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

Why Work with Peter Merry

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

I’m excited to welcome Dr. Peter Merry to today’s show.

Peter is a co-founder of Ubiquity University, the Center for Human Emergence in the Netherlands, and other social enterprises. He also supporting other leaders and their organizations, developing new philosophies, trying to communicate what he sees through books, talks and courses, applying some of the latest consciousness and energetics practices, to attempting to live as balanced a life as possible with his family and friends – it’s an unfolding story of trying to be fully human at this time.

Join us for this episode for our lively discussion about Peter’s book, Why Work? We dive into why people are experiencing higher rates of burnout and dissatisfaction today. He also shares how we can begin to transition to a more fulfilling workplace.

We also discuss Peter’s work with Ubiquity University, the Center for Human Emergence, Volution Theory, and the Wyrd initiative at Broughton Hall Estate.

You can contact Peter and learn more through his website: Peter Merry, on LinkedIn, Facebook, and on YouTube. His book Why Work? is available on Bookshop.org (preferred), as well as Amazon and other retailers.

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

***

Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:05):

Okay, I’m so excited to have a very special guest here with me today. I have Dr. Peter Merry, who leads social enterprises. He’s the author of several books. He’s also a speaker and well-known teacher. And in his description he said he’s applying some of the latest consciousness and energetic practices to attempt to live as balanced a life as possible with my family and friends. He said it’s an unfolding story of trying to be fully human at this time. So thank you for joining us here today, Peter. I really appreciate it.

Peter Merry (00:42):

You’re welcome. Thanks for the invitation, Monica.

Monica (00:45):

So maybe just to get us started, we could start by having you tell us your story. What do you do and why?

Peter Merry (00:53):

Oh, wow. Well I guess as the son of a Quaker Children’s nurse on the one hand and a Royal Naval mechanical engineer on the other have always been a combination of the kind of visionary social change thing, but I quick get fairly irritated fairly quickly if we can’t actually do something about it. So that’s the engineering side. So I’m always yeah, looking for, you know, the social innovations and the possibilities, but fairly quickly want to actually operationalize it and not just hang around too long in the vision. So that’s kind of, I guess, you know, led my life a bit. I actually was in the arts originally; languages and theater. Spent a lot of time in theater improvisational theater as well, which I found very useful for life. And moved through being a kind of activist in the green movement, getting into green politics, which is where I got interested in economics actually in this whole work theme.

Peter Merry (02:00):

And, and then I wanted to understand the corporate sector because I felt they needed to be part of the solution somewhere. So I started doing consulting in an organizational change and things. I wrote a book called Evolutionary Leadership back in 2003 that then kind of, I guess, led me to be doing public speaking and that kind of thing. You know, for a few years I worked in the corporate sector doing consulting and basically proved if you took an integral approach that includes the human being, you can affect change fairly effectively and fairly quickly. So having kind of understood that went back to looking at some of these more complex problems that we’re facing, multi-stakeholder issues, and how do you actually work collaboratively with people from many different backgrounds, organizations from different backgrounds and to try to solve some of the major challenges we’re facing together.

Peter Merry (02:57):

That was together with the Center for Human Emergence, which was an organization I set up over here, particularly with people who were informed by an integral approach, like Ken Wilber’s work and the developmental psychology, such as the spiral dynamics model and things. And then I got a PhD focused on understanding why energy work seems to work. Having done a vocational training myself in not so much one-on-one energy stuff. So I’ve never been into the one-on-one coaching or one-on-one healing, but how you use energy work to affect large-scale systems like organizations and large pieces of land. And then I did a PhD looking at how our understanding of reality needs to evolve to be able to explain how these kind of approaches and why these approaches work. I ended up calling Volution Theory.

Peter Merry (03:52):

And then around that time where, this was around 2012, just when I completed that, I was doing my PhD at what was then Wisdom University. And at some point, the conversation started about how we might scale what we were doing there with a new online technologies. And that’s what gave birth to Ubiquity University which I co-founded and I’m still in the leadership team, which was really focused on how do we equip people with the mindset tools and skillset to make a positive difference in the world given the challenges we’re facing. And then as part of that, more recently, I’ve been doing more leadership work at the international level. So through the World Bank’s global financing facility, working with ministers of health and the top civil servants in developing countries and their stakeholders to look at what we call transformative leadership. So how do you lead and organize differently to deal with highly complex and rapidly changing environments, Which means of course, you’ve gotta do a lot of the inner work as well. So that kind of brings in a whole integral approach. And then applying some of the energetic work now to states in the UK. Wow. Yeah.

Monica (05:12):

That’s quite the journey. Yeah. <Laugh>, we should also tell our listeners where you were located.

Peter Merry (05:19):

Well, I live in the Netherlands actually in an ecological neighborhood of a town called Kubo. The town is about 25,000, and the neighborhood’s about 400 households just designed using common sense really, you know, where all the cars have to park on the perimeter. There’s a big car sharing scheme. You have your own garden, but there’s a shared garden and pizza ovens and stuff like this. So lots of edible trees around, water catchments, solar panels, you know, solar heating of the water and things. So it’s what you would do if you just stopped and thought for a minute, you know, how should we really design our communities and neighborhoods? So <laugh>, wow, it’s a great place to live. Great for the kids to grow up in as well.

Monica (06:04):

Yeah, that sounds amazing. Is that fairly common in the Netherlands, or is this kind of an emerging concept that you’re seeing?

Peter Merry (06:12):

This was I guess this was 20 years ago when this was built and there have been more since then. We actually get international groups coming around and looking at it. So it is one of the international best practices here. But it’s still not the standard and, you know, whereas it obviously should be <laugh>. But there are increasing experiments of these kinds of neighborhoods being developed more in this way. Yeah.

Monica (06:38):

Yeah. Wonderful. It’s amazing. Well, quite the journey and I’ve been following your work recently with Ubiquity University. It sounds like a necessary and very timely organization bringing a lot of transformational leadership skills to people, so very exciting.

Peter Merry (07:00):

Yeah.

Monica (07:00):

I actually became familiar with your work through the Center for Human Emergence. Initially when I was writing my book, the Change Code, your name came up a lot with regard to that center and your work with Spiral Dynamics and taking that to the next level. Peter actually reviewed my book in the early days, which I really appreciated as well. So that’s kind of how that connection formed. And then I’ve been following your career since and just continued to be amazed. One of the reasons that I reached out as well is because you also wrote a book called Why Work. So maybe tell us a little bit about that and what do you see the purpose of work being?

Peter Merry (07:50):

Yeah, so that actually came out of my master’s research that I did while back now in 2000, No, and we think 1994 and five or something. It was back at Edinburgh University at the Center for Human Ecology. Then, and at that point I was also thinking for myself, So what am I going to do for work? Like, how am I going to make money and earn a living and didn’t like this idea of going into an organization, you know, where somebody else was telling me to do things that I didn’t believe in. And so that fueled this inquiry that became my master’s thesis and eventually turned into the book.  There are two parts to it, really. One is, so how would we need to change policy at national, potentially international level to create meaningful work?

Peter Merry (08:46):

And I’ll say a bit more about what I mean by that. And then what can we actually do ourselves in our local communities to put in place the conditions at the local economic level that would enable people to do work that’s meaningful for them and useful for the community and earn whatever currency they need to be able to meet their basic needs, essentially. So when I stop to think about, you know, what work did I want to do when I was back there as a master’s student, it was, well, it obviously needs to be something that’s useful for the world at the moment. And of course, you need to have an insight into what’s actually going on to, too <laugh> to have a picture of what that useful is. But by then I was pretty awake in terms of an understanding of both the ecological social challenges and things we were facing and the need to do something that was contributing positively.

Peter Merry (09:49):

So obviously that’s the kind of work that needs to be done, but then how do I know what my piece is that connects to that? And it was an Aristotle quote, I think I came across that I use a lot in talks now, which is, “Where your purpose meets a need in the world, therein lies your vocation.” So your vocation or your calling, you know, when there’s this match between what you feel your call to do and a need in the world, that’s the place, that’s the kind of interface. That’s the sweet spot. I love that. Yeah. So it’s really about how you know, and then when I look around, I see one, there’s so much destructive work going on and, you know, things that aren’t really useful that could be done much more better.

Peter Merry (10:39):

I mean, you sometimes get so depressed just walking into the supermarket and you see this massive waste of stuff that’s really not good for anybody or <laugh> anywhere and all the packaging and everything else. And you’re kind of, how have we come so far that we, that we’re doing all these things that are actually not healthy for us and not healthy for the world around us. So the question, and a lot of individuals I think feel that they know whether we’re doing something that’s really useful for the world or whether we’re just doing it because it’s paying our way and we don’t actually really believe in it. So the Why Work book was an attempt to say, Well, what do we need to do to put in place the conditions where people can do things that are meaningful and help them to be fully human and are good for the planet as a whole, really. And then both at the policy level as well as the kind of hands on local level,

Monica (11:37):

Such an interesting discussion. And I think it goes right along with some of the things that we’re seeing here in the US. There’s discontent and we’re starting to see a lot of burnout with jobs. And this thing that we’re hearing a lot about here right now is called “quiet quitting”, where people are not actually quitting their jobs, but they’re doing the bare minimum so that they can keep their jobs while they’re starting to pursue outside interests and create some boundaries around work. So how do you feel like some of those kind of emerging trends here in the US fit in with some of the concepts you were just discussing?

Peter Merry (12:20):

That’s really interesting. Cause you also mentioned spiral dynamics and this understanding of human development over time. And the key concept behind that is about how our coping mechanisms as humans fit the life conditions around us, Right? So a value system that emerges is an attempt for the human mind and heart to find a way to deal with the world that we’re experiencing around us. So it’s that match between life conditions and coping mechanisms. And the point that you get stress and burnout is when you get a misfit between the value systems and the life conditions and the world around us. So what I think we’re seeing with the burnout and the quiet quitting that you were talking about is people realizing that there’s a misalignment between who they are and what they want to be doing and what the world is asking of them.

Peter Merry (13:17):

And either you kind of quit quietly, which is a way to cope, I guess, and start to develop other things maybe on the side a bit. Or if you don’t either have that insight yourself or the conditions you’re in don’t allow you to do it, that builds up stress in your system. And that’s what will leads to burnout. I mean, biologically every organism needs to feel that it’s contributing somehow to the ecology that it’s a part of. And if we feel even subconsciously that we’re in a work environment or in a situation where one, not only not contributing positively, but we may be even contributing negatively to our ecology, then our body literally biologically winds us down because we are not a useful element of the ecology that we’re a part of. And so that’s what is burnout is when we, when it basically kind of drains the battery so that we can’t be any more destructive to our environment and forces us to evolve ourselves to find a next level of thickness with the environment that we’re in.

Peter Merry (14:33):

So to find a way to be able to contribute positively. And that’s when we start to get energy again. And our biological system starts to kind of wake us up again and feed us again, as it were with energy. So I think the fact that we’re in a time where our societies are structured in such a way that they’re very ill-equipped to deal with the real challenges of the world, and that most of the jobs are therefore still in that old system, that it’s no wonder that people are either burning out or quietly quitting because they, they have a feeling that it’s just, you know it just doesn’t fit anymore that the system is dead. I often say that the current system, the current mainstream system is dead but not buried, and it is dead, which means it’s no life force in it anymore.

Peter Merry (15:23):

There’s no joy, there’s no life force, there’s no energy. And it, which means when you are in that system, it drains your energy from you like a vampire. It’s like an energy vampire. But we haven’t collectively consciously recognized that or made the conscious decision to move to something else, which means we haven’t had the ritual burial of the old system and put it to sleep, which means it’s haunting. It’s still around, right? It’s dead. Yeah. But it’s trapped between worlds, right? And so, like a vampire, it’s kind of hanging around and sucking energy out of us and the world until we actually consciously go, Guys, this is old and it’s finished and it’s past, its sell by date. We need to bury it collectively and consciously decide we’re gonna move to something else. So I think that’s why we’re seeing a lot of the kind of trends that you described because that’s going on and people’s biology is literally telling them that they’re not contributing anymore to the ecology around them. And by ecology, I mean in the broadest sense, right? The human ecology as well as the natural ecology,

Monica (16:26):

Right? Yeah. Oh, I love your description of what’s happening and agree completely. And I also agree that people know there’s something wrong, but it’s hard to put words to it. There’s just kind of this unspoken feeling that, you know, things aren’t working right with our systems. I’ve done a lot of work in the healthcare system and we see that right now we see, you know, high burnout rates and physicians leaving the the field of medicine and staffing shortages. And, you know, people want change, but they’re not really sure what to do because they have to fit within the current system. And so what do you see as some ways to make the workplace better? Because it, at this point, it’s more than just doing some small tweaks.

Peter Merry (17:18):

I think there’s, there’s maybe three parts to the strategy. One is that we have to help the old system to die gracefully. So in the current workplaces of the old system, we have to help them to let go of the things that everybody knows aren’t working anymore, and make those explicit and have those conversations. Because the moment that you name the truth that everybody knows, there’s a big sigh of relief and everybody goes, Well, yeah, that’s actually true. And then to accept that they don’t necessarily know therefore what they have to do next. But that not knowing is okay, <laugh>, the first thing is the recognition of, okay, if we can just recognize together it’s not working and agree on that and kind of close down and stop doing the stuff we know is not working, it will create space for new things to emerge and come in.

Peter Merry (18:21):

But that’s very hard to do when you’re tired and kind of burned out by the old system. So it does require, I think in the old systems at the moment, really honest conversations, the shutting down of the stuff that we know doesn’t work and the creating space and the asking questions and the not knowing for what might emerge next. Now at the same time, and these suit different personality types, I believe you know, Buckminster Fuller’s quote is very inspirational, which is, “Don’t try to change the old system but build a new system that makes the old one obsolete.”

Monica (19:01):

I have that on my wall right here, in fact, Oh, there you go. You can’t see it. But

Peter Merry (19:05):

As well as helping to curate to what I would say hospice, the old systems, right? We have to help them die in such a way that the best of them is carried forward that they’re acknowledged for the contribution they have made. That we don’t chop their heads off in an unfeeling way because then they’ll toxify the soil rather than fertilize it moving forward. So we have to help hospice the old systems gracefully, but at the same time we need to be prototyping new ways of doing things like radical R and D in all different sectors. And so if that’s more your personality type, cause obviously it’s a more entrepreneurial innovative thing and risk taking cuz none of us really know exactly what the right solutions are moving forward. And we’ll only find out by testing things out and experimenting and failing and learning and trying.

Peter Merry (20:08):

Again. That’s the nature of these non-linear change moments because we can’t see what the future’s gonna look like from our old mindset. It will emerge and reveal itself to us. That means that we can’t know where we have to go and predict and control our way towards it. You know, we have to put in place the conditions for that new system to emerge, which means radical experimentation and learning and fast iteration cycles in a kind of entrepreneurial way in all sectors. And then to be learning from each other as we go along. It’s like the imaginal cells in the butterfly scenario where the caterpillar hangs itself up in its cocoon, you know, after it’s bloated and over eaten stuff. And in the body of the caterpillar, these new cells start to emerge, right?

Peter Merry (21:04):

The biologists call imaginal cells, right? Because they are imagining the future form of the caterpillar, which is the butterfly. Now the caterpillar first sees them as alien bodies and so attacks them, their immune system attacks these new cells. And what happens is it’s only when the cells start to connect up that the caterpillar’s immune system surrenders and the caterpillar literally dissolves. And the fuel and that kind of mush that’s left feeds the imaginal cells for the butterfly. The butterfly’s formed and the butterfly passed the first bang its wings against the shell of the old system, as it were to build its strength and then yeah, break through and get out. So I think that’s in this kind of experimenting and prototyping, we’ve got lots of people who are trying out new things at the moment, the cultural creatives, but a lot of them feel alone. Yeah. We have to do is, is connect them so that they can learn from each other and accelerate and amplify the impact that they’re having.

Monica (22:08):

That’s kind of what you’re doing with Ubiquity University.

Peter Merry (22:11):

Yeah. And that’s exactly what I’m trying to do, facilitate that as well as reconnect people to the deeper kind of trauma inside of what we have done <laugh>, you know, to each other and to the earth because if we run off trying to create new things without having reconnected to the earth fundamentally, then it’ll all be out of our rational mind and not guided by a more natural intelligence that I think is present when we when remember that we are actually the earth rather than something separate from it <laugh>, which is a kind of crazy thing to think, but <laugh>,

Monica (22:49):

Absolutely. I wanna come back to your next points about what needs to happen, but I wanna dive into this one just a little bit more because I think that that is so true and a lot of my kind of colleagues and acquaintance acquaintances here in the US are experiencing that same thing where they’re trying to create change and they’re trying to make systems better, but they’re feeling really alone and frustrated and like you know, trying to move this behemoth elephant somewhere. It’s just very frustrating. Do you have any advice for people who are trying to create change? Yeah. You know, just in the world in general and specifically within the workplace?

Peter Merry (23:31):

It may sound counterintuitive, but my main advice would be stop trying so hard <laugh>. And the reason is like when we remember that we are the earth, right? So we’re something Yeah. You know, really you and I at the moment are the earth talking to itself, right? Right. We’re the earth trying to work out how do we continue this experiment of self-awareness, which is the human being that the earth has created. Right now, most people don’t live from that perspective, right? We still live in our heads and moving around as if everything is separate from everything else. The moment that we remember that and to properly remember, that means also facing the pain of the split that we’ve created in ourselves between us and the rest of life and all the pain that we’ve caused to the rest of life and other people, which is not a small thing, even though I say it quite glibly in a way.

Peter Merry (24:36):

Once we reconnect to that, we reconnect to the source of life and then we find that it reveals to us what we need to do next. So we don’t need to think it up rationally because there’s a natural intelligence of life as a whole that knows what needs to happen next. When we understand that we are part of a dynamic system that’s evolving as a whole, that, you know, if we try to think it up on our own, we’re creating it out of a place of separation. Whereas from the moment that we literally remember that, it means to put back together to remember something, when we put all the members back together again, <laugh>. Yeah. Then we get guided for what’s next and all we need to know.

Peter Merry (25:35):

We need to feel that intuitive impulse to act next, act fully and then stop and sense again what that action has led to and therefore what the next action needs to be. So it’s much less of a linear process than most of us have been educated to work and you know, we think we’re gonna change the world, you know, even if it’s a positive thing. Right? Right. Okay. This is the plan. We need to achieve this. How are we gonna get there? Okay, we’re gonna start, we’re gonna take these steps and we’re gonna get there. The problem is you take the first step and the world has changed, particularly at the moment. So your plan is out of date. So you spend the rest of time of your time stressing, trying to force your plan to fit reality, whereas reality’s changed <laugh>. So what you have to do is keep yourself as close as possible to the present moment with your intention.

Peter Merry (26:22):

Clear, but let life inform you about what the next step is and your role in that next step. So for a lot of activists today, I think the trick is literally to try less hard. Cuz when we are trying, we’re attached to something. Right? And whether you’re attached to a vision of the future, that’s the same effect as being attached to something in the past. You know, we’re all talking about, Oh, we should let go and not be so attached to stuff in the past. Sure. You shouldn’t be attached to something in the future either because it means you’re not present. Right? Yeah. It’s only now in the present that the information is there that will guide us to the next step. And it’s much more of an intuitive knowing than it is a rational understanding. So when we are led by the intuitive knowing, that’s more of a heart knowing than a head knowing, then we can bring all the head skills and the cognitive capacities to help, you know, start to execute that.

Peter Merry (27:22):

But the head shouldn’t be in the lead cause it’s by definition connected to the past because all we have, all the thoughts we have, are all thoughts that have been defined by our past experiences. Whereas it’s the right brain or and the heart that are sensing the future. More so, and it’s when I realize that, and you know, I was for a long time in this kind of actor change, Well how are we gonna do it? Big plans then it was a big relief. Yeah. Because suddenly you realize you don’t need to know it all. You don’t need to have worked it all out <laugh>. Yeah. You don’t need to have a plan. You just need to have a clear intention and open heart and be present to, you know, what’s wanting to happen next and just take that next step and that’s it.

Monica (28:10):

I love that. That’s such a great way to look at life and I couldn’t be more in agreement. I try to live that way myself, but I also find that sometimes I slip back into the let’s do this, let’s, you know, push. And that’s usually when I get frustrated and I get stuck. And so it’s kind of constantly coming back to that place. I’m still working on it. <Laugh>.

Peter Merry (28:37):

Oh, I think we all are and I think we always will be. Know just that. I always remind myself of that saying that you can’t push the river.

Monica (28:47):

I love that <laugh>

Peter Merry (28:48):

Don’t push. You can surf the river, right? Yeah. And you can navigate and white raft it and stuff, but you can’t push it. Yeah.

Monica (28:54):

Yeah. That’s good advice. And so I wanted to come back too, cuz you mentioned that there were kind of three things that we needed to do and you covered the first one. Or should we move on?

Peter Merry (29:05):

Well, no one was hospicing the old system. Yeah. And helping you die if you’re in the system. The second was to create the new. Through this radical innovation and experimentation. Yeah. And the third is to become a storytelling role, which is to show the bridge from the old to the new. Okay. So to basically say, Look, somebody has tried doing this, it works. You know, you now have a conscious choice as to whether do you wanna do things the old way or do things the new way. So to provide that bridge and to make people aware of the new things that have been discovered and seem to be working so that they realize that we can channel energy and resources into the new things. So those are the kind of three classic roles in these non-linear transitions, helping the old system die gracefully, experimenting to create the new, and telling the story to help people make a conscious choice.

Monica (30:00):

Wonderful. I love that. Yeah. Helping people see that there are other options and other ways of being and doing wonderful. Are you starting to see some emerging practices out there or kind of ways of working?

Peter Merry (30:16):

Yeah, absolutely. I mean, you know, I think it was a friend of mine who said recently, things are getting worse and worse, better and better, faster and faster <laugh>, which I thought was a really good summary. That is great. And that’s the nature, right, of these times, of these kind of chaos points as it were, where the old is breaking down and the new is emerging. So yeah, I mean, I’m seeing an acceleration of both. And there’s lots of examples in all the different sectors. One in education here in the Netherlands, there’s a whole new school system emerging called Argo. They’ve got no lessons, no teachers, no grades, no homework. It’s all coaching based. So the students have coaches, they have a permanent working place that they’re allowed to decorate, like bridge the home school gap. And they work on projects and challenges and they learn about the topics as they go along. So if the learner is put at the center of the process, and rather than everybody having to move through the same sausage factory like educational process. The kids take responsibility themselves for that learning journey. And the coaches help them see things that they might otherwise not be aware of. So those, you know, there’s now 15 of those schools. We brought the second one I helped to set up here where I live so that my sons got a decent education <laugh>. Wow.

Peter Merry (31:40):

And the now there’s 15 in the Netherlands. So I think the healthcare, you know, we’re seeing a lot more understanding of a holistic healthcare approach and the integration and people are choosing consciously for a more holistic approach. The problem is that our healthcare systems and the insurance companies and everything don’t always recognize that, but that’s part of the transition. There’s lots of new modalities. And I think one of the most interesting things that’s emerging really fast right now is the whole world of psychedelics and the impact that that’s having on people. Because what it’s ultimately doing is it’s fast tracking, you know, a meditation experience. So it’s helping you shift your state of consciousness to be able to see a level of interconnectedness that is there and that, you know, sages have always talked about.

Peter Merry (32:34):

And in seeing that, it does that remembering for us. So it helps put things back together again and help us see a bigger context. Now, it does mean then that, you know, we then need to go back and do our work to our stage development as it were to reflect what we’ve seen in that peak state experience. But that, but that is taking off so much at the moment and all the plant medicines and things that are teaching people reminding us of, you know, of our place on the earth basically. And our place embedded in the bigger ecology. So, and it won’t, can’t be long before that becomes more integrated into the healthcare system because they’re finding it helps with addiction helps with all sorts of things. Yeah. And then I think we’re seeing a lot more impact focused businesses.

Peter Merry (33:30):

So the impact hub network, for example, which is in over a hundred countries around the world of social hubs, of social entrepreneurs developing new products and things, products and services, all that are sustainability based. So there’s an enormous amount I think going on. And the question is, you know, what do we choose to see? Or what do our media choose to see and show the world? And normally the media is full of gloom and doom and the breaking down of the system, Right. It’s very little profiling of the breaking through, which is actually going on just at the same intensity as the breakdown. I mean, it’s like the light and the shadow going hand in hand. Yeah. So, yeah, enormous. Then this whole blockchain for example, it’s creating the conditions for a lot more decentralization where we’re less dependent on central government. It enables, for example, more local community economies to develop and be more sustainable with their own currencies. And those currencies could potentially be exchangeable with other currencies. So, you know, it’s a very rich time in terms of innovation at the moment that I’m seeing. And at the same time, there’s a lot of pain and suffering as the old system breaks down. So it’s kind of hand in hand.

Monica (34:48):

Yeah. It’s definitely an interesting time to be alive. Yeah. One of the books I just read recently is by Jane McGonigal, who’s a futurist. And one of the concepts she was discussing in the book that I found fascinating was that Covid might actually increase the speed of change because we all across the world essentially shared this collective trauma. And that apparently the 10 years following some type of trauma, you see an increased rate of change. And so I’m wondering what your thoughts are, Do you feel like that actually kind of sped up the rate of change or set us back a little bit?

Peter Merry (35:33):

No, no. I mean, I think it will ultimately speed things up. It’s like Dr. Don Beck, who was one of my mentors used to talk about <laugh> a tear in the fabric of reality. As being a tear in the fabric of reality that enables you to see down through to some of the underlying dynamics and patterns. And I think that’s what something like Covid does. You know, it forced us a lot of people to slow down to stop and think about things more. And through that process, I think will feed an acceleration of the breakthrough. Yeah. Yeah. Definitely. I expect that.

Monica (36:11):

So do you feel like you’re optimistic about the future still, even though it is a challenging time?

Peter Merry (36:18):

You know, I’m kind of optimistic or pessimistic as a framing tends not to work for me somehow because ultimately we don’t know what’s gonna happen. Right? We don’t know if humanity will still be here in a few hundred years. We’ve no idea. We don’t know whether we’re going to evolve and learn quickly enough to be able to keep this experiment of the earth going. And once I think we accept that, then again, that releases any attachment to a future outcome. Yeah. So, optimism or the moment that you’re one is optimistic, there’s some, it’s very hard to be optimistic without some kind of sense of attachment or something into the future. And then pessimistic of the same really. So it’s more the way I see it myself as it’s more a trust in that life will somehow work it out.

Peter Merry (37:23):

Yeah. And to remember that one humanity as a whole is just one small part of life and should the human experiment not succeed, then life on earth will, will start again exploring for another way to kind of express self-awareness and self-consciousness. So it would be a shame, I think, because millions and millions of years have gone into, you know, this experiment. And I somehow, I know that humans have the capacity to get through this and to actually change really fast if we want to. Cause at least I can see it in people. The question is where collectively we get to that critical mass on time and that we just don’t know, and we’ll never know. That’s also the nature of these nonlinear change moments. You don’t know when the tipping point is going to come but suddenly one day it’s there and everybody’s kind of saying, Yeah, I always thought like that actually, but I never never told you. And suddenly everything moves fast. Right. So, so we’ll see. But I kind of encourage people, It’s interesting, you know, do you know Margaret Wheatley’s work? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative> Well once we were in a circle with Meg one day, and she made us go around this circle and start every sentence with “without hope” or “having no hope or something”. And the first couple of rounds we were a bit depressing.

Monica (38:54):

Yeah.

Peter Merry (38:55):

And then actually it became very empowering because we realized that hope was an attachment to something.

Monica (39:05):

Ah,

Peter Merry (39:05):

And to her it was to actually taking us out of the present. So we realized that actually living without hope, I think was how she made us start each center. That living without hope brought you back to the present and made us a lot more grounded. And that’s where I moved from hope to trust actually.

Monica (39:23):

Yeah. I love that term.

Peter Merry (39:24):

This is an important shift. So yeah. I dunno why, where that bit came from, but

Monica (39:31):

No,  that was a great example and I love the term trust too.

Peter Merry (39:36):

Yeah.

Monica (39:38):

So tell us, what are you most excited about right now?

Peter Merry (39:44):

The project that I’m most excited about is a you know, if we take this, my fundamental assumption as well, that what’s at the cause of our challenges at the moment is this forgetting of our interconnectedness, Right? Fundamentally, that if we were aware of the nature of our interconnectedness, there’s no way we could do the things that we’re doing that are damaging the world around us and damaging other people. So there’s no way we could consume, go and buy things and consume things that we knew were damaging the whole that we are a part of, right? Mm-Hmm. <Affirmative>. So things would very quickly switch around. And that we’ve had that experience of interconnectedness in a pre-cognitive stage when we were more in a kind of tribal environment. We didn’t sit around talking about it as interconnectedness, but we had this kind of instinctive feeling of being part of a bigger whole. And then for some reason, when the sense of separate self-emerged the ego as it were, we’ve forgot, so we kind of separated, like Ken Wilbur would say, when you move from one stage to another stage, the differentiation is important, like to differentiate between the old and the new. But if you disassociate

Monica (40:59):

Right,

Peter Merry (41:00):

Then you cut yourself off from that pathway that you’ve walked. So some are aware along the line humanity disassociated from its Prego sense of just being in an interconnected world. So we need to reawaken and reconnect to that. So this project that I’m involved in is based on 28 years of research at Princeton University, at their engineering school where they were doing research into how the human mind affects the world around them. Because they were building on some Stanford research, but they also picked up that that pilots in the cockpits of fighter aircraft, when they got stressed, seemed to be influencing the instruments on the dashboard. Wow. So this was obviously a serious problem, but it was also an engineering challenge. So it was the school of engineering set up this thing called the Princeton Engineering Anomalies Research, which was things that don’t fit our current understanding, things we have no explanation for in our current world of physics and science.

Peter Merry (42:04):

Yeah. And they researched for 28 years how the inner state of the human affects the world around us using mechanical devices, but then also digital random event generators. And essentially to cut a long story short, they prove beyond statistical doubt that our mind influences the world around us in a small but consistent way. And it was one in a billion as the statistical chance of what they found was chance. So basically they’d proven it beyond statistical doubt. Now the lab closed in 2007. I got to know Brenda Dunn, who was the woman who ran the lab together with the engineering as the dean of the School of engineering, Bob Allen. And I was talking to Brenda a few years ago, and she was telling me that all this equipment that they’d had and all the books and the research papers and everything at Princeton was stuck into in storage and costing them a fortune.

Peter Merry (43:00):

And she said, Can you do anything with it <laugh>? Wow. So I said, Well, actually, I’ve just got to know this guy on an estate in England with 3000 acres who’s wanting to turn it into a place of transformation. Maybe we could create a public experience space where people could walk in and just immediately experience their mind influencing these different machines. Wow. Because it would have this psychoactive effect on people of reminding them of the nature of their interconnectedness that actually their being extends beyond the physical boundaries of their body. And so she thought that was a great idea. Luckily, this guy Roger Tempus, who’s the 32nd generation on this estate, thought it would be a great idea. And so we shipped all of this equipment from Princeton to Yorkshire in the UK and set up what we called the Wyrd Experience. Yeah.

Peter Merry (43:50):

W Y R D because weird was the Anglo-Saxon term for interconnectedness, the interconnected web of everything that generated all life, which we buried very deeply in our North European culture. And instead we imported chi and everything from the east. Right. But we actually have an indigenous concept for this interconnected energy, which was weird, the weird <laugh>. And so one thing is setting up this space, which we are nearly complete with the first version of, and we’ll be opening at the Science and Consciousness Conference in the UK and the 31st of October this year. But we’re also part of what they did at Princeton. A little spinoff they created was a company that built these mind lamps, which were lamps you could influence the color of through your intention. Wow. And anyway, that business never really took off, but we’re starting a new business that will use the technology developed at Princeton to create artifacts that people can influence with their minds without any physical connection, including one that will sit in the middle of groups and as the group becomes more coherent and aligned the lamp will glow more.

Peter Merry (45:03):

Wow. And that they become less coherent. It’ll kind of dim down more. So it’ll provide what I call socio feedback instead of biofeedback on our individual self. It’ll be feedback on collective. So that’s the thing I’m most excited about because I think it could spread Yeah. As a little meme. Yeah. And it’ll constantly remind people of the nature of our interconnectedness, which I think is the most important thing. Wow.

Peter Merry (45:31):

That’s what I’m most excited about

Monica (45:32):

<Laugh>. That is exciting. What a great opportunity. And you mentioned that people could enroll to participate at Wyrd.

Peter Merry (45:40):

Yeah. If they get a Wyrdexperience.org, there is a sign-up form where we keep people posted on the developments and information on the conference as well.

Monica (45:55):

Awesome. I’ll sign up for that as well. And I’ll put an a link to that in the show notes.

Peter Merry (46:00):

Great. We’ve got some really cool merch actually coming out. Some t-shirts we’ve had created. Do you know a Rupert Sheldrake and his work on?

Monica (46:07):

Yes. I love Rupurt.

Peter Merry (46:09):

Yeah. So Rupert was one of the first to visit the lab and we’ve got a T-shirt that says on the back,  Make me look, Stare here, <laugh>. Now he has this book and research he did called the feeling of being stared at. So we’re kind of playing with this whole idea, because everybody knows that you get this feeling when somebody’s looking at me and you,

Monica (46:35):

Oh yeah, I just had that happen last night, <laugh>,

Peter Merry (46:38):

There you go. Yeah.

Monica (46:40):

Oh, that’s fascinating.

Peter Merry (46:41):

So it’s things like that to try to get this, the Wyrd meme as it were out there and people kind of proud to be Wyrd, you know, or proud to weirdo or

Monica (46:52):

How exciting.

Peter Merry (46:54):

Yeah. So that’s that

Monica (46:56):

I see why you’re excited about that. That’s what an amazing opportunity to benefit from all of that great research as well. Yeah.

Peter Merry (47:02):

Yeah. Exactly. Yeah. Yeah.

Monica (47:05):

So, Peter, what is one kind of key takeaway? We’ve had a wonderful conversation and you’ve shared some great concepts with us, but what’s one key takeaway that you’d like our listeners to go away with today?

Peter Merry (47:21):

I’d go back to the Aristotle quote, I think, which is, “Find where your passion meets a need in the world.” Yeah. And like, follow your heart into that because even if we don’t know how on earth we’re going to make a living doing this thing we’re passionate about that we feel there’s a need for. Right. If we, if we take that step and make that commitment, the world will start to move around us and we’ll be shown how to do that. It’s like a leap of faith. I often show people this clip from an Indiana Jones video where he has to cross this chasm and apparently there’s a bridge. Yeah. Remember, it’s like there’s an invisible bridge. Yeah. Yeah. But it only crystallized, he only sees it once his foot actually lands. He has to step into the chasm and trusts the bridges there. Right. That’s the kind of trust we have to have when we have this feeling that this is what I have to contribute to the world and I really feels like the world needs it, but I don’t know how on earth I’m gonna make it happen. Don’t worry about how it’s gonna happen. If you’ve got that clear intention and you make that step, it’ll show itself to you. You need to just pay attention then to how life will support you to manifest it.

Monica (48:33):

Such good advice. I hope people take that to heart.

Peter Merry (48:37):

Yeah. Me too. <Laugh>.

Monica (48:39):

So what is the best way for people to connect with you and kind of learn more about your work after?

Peter Merry (48:45):

The easiest thing is just to go to the website, www.PeterMerry.org.

Monica (48:49):

Okay.

Peter Merry (48:50):

It’s like I try to share as much as I can of what I’m experiencing through the blog and there’s the info about the books and a number of online courses that I’ve done that are up there as well. And just free content to explore and a newsletter if they want to make sure that they can keep finding out about what’s going on without it being filtered by social media filters.

Monica (49:15):

Wonderful. And they can also order the book Why Work from your website?

Peter Merry (49:20):

Sure, Sure. They can do that through the site. Yeah. And I’d encourage people, certainly if they’re in in the states to use www.Bookshop.com rather than Amazon. Cause they give money to the local bookstores. But yeah.

Monica (49:34):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much. It was a pleasure to have you on the show.

Peter Merry (49:40):

Thank you for asking all those great questions. Monica <laugh>.

Monica (49:44):

Thank you all.

Filed Under: The New Future of Work Podcast Tagged With: burnout, Center for Human Emergence, future of work, Peter Merry, podcast, The New Future of Work, Ubiquity University, Volution Theory, Why Work, work, workplace

The Great Rethink with Erik Korsvik Ostergaard – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 4

2022-12-02 By Monica Bourgeau, MS Leave a Comment

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

The Great Rethink

I’m delighted to feature the work of Erik Korsvik Ostergaard on today’s episode. Erik is a co-founder of Good Morning April, a consulting firm in Denmark. He focuses on futures thinking and the future of work.

Erik is often engaged in complex corporate challenges, typically in the regulated industries. He is an engineer with an acumen in business leadership. Erik is a seasoned podcast host, keynote speaker, and author of two books about the future of work.

We had a lively discussion on a broad range of workplace future-related topics including how jazz music is similar to working in complex work situations, the new phenomenon of quiet quitting (or The Great Rethink in Denmark), and new ways of managing, experimentation, and leading change.

Referenced During the Show:

  • Management 3.0 Delegation Poker Cards
  • Holocracy
  • Sociocracy
  • Many Voices One Song
  • Who Decides Who Decides
  • Corporate Rebels’ Video on Haier Group in China

Erik’s Books:

  • The Responsive Leader: How to Be a Fantastic Leader in a Constantly Changing World
  • Teal Dots in an Orange World: How to Organize the Workplace of the Future

Connect with Erik:

  • On LinkedIn
  • Good Morning April

Listen and subscribe on Apple Podcasts, Spotify and wherever you usually find your podcasts.

Listen on: APPLE PODCASTS | SPOTIFY

Show Transcript (via AI – please excuse any errors):

Monica (00:07):

Okay. I’m very excited today that we have a special guest on this show. We have Erik Korsvik Ostergaard who is the co-founder of Good Morning April a consulting firm in Denmark. He focuses on futures thinking and the future of work. Erik is often engaged in complex corporate challenges. Typically in the regulated industries, he’s an engineer with an acumen in business leadership. Erik is a seasoned podcast, host keynote speaker and author of two books about the future of work. So thank you so much for being here today, Erik, it’s great to see you again, excited for our discussion. So maybe before we get started, you can just kind of start by telling us a little bit about yourself and how you got started and what you do.

Erik (00:58):

Mm. Thanks for having me. It’s a, it’s a real pleasure. Yeah, but I was actually in my young days, I had a split way. I was actually having, I had to choose between becoming a professional jazz pianist or becoming an engineer. And I chose at that point of time to become an engineer. And that was absolutely right. I love technology. I love solving problems. And over time I actually more and more fell in love with the problem rather than the products that we were solving and understand how we can understand the problems and how we can also handle all the people part of business. So more and more, I was engaged in change management, in leading people, leading projects and handing all the tough questions. And over time I started challenging how we did stuff, and that led me into the area of new ways of working and the future of work, and that eventually led into the world of futures thinking. And what I do right now is to help leaders and organizations try to understand how they can, how they can explore and evaluate the possible ways forward, the possible futures that they are looking into so that they can understand how they themselves can shape their organization, their leadership, that processes, so they can stay relevant to the people around them. That’s what I do.

Monica (02:35):

That’s an amazing story. Do you feel like your experience as a jazz musician helped prepare you for the work that you do today?

Erik (02:43):

Very much. That, and my experience as a mathematician, I studied math at university. So the combination of chaos, mathematics, and jazz, and working in very complex areas, it’s all about two things. It all about spotting patterns, and also understanding when you have an anomaly, like when you play jazz, you might play something that is a strange something that is improvised. And, and maybe it’s a mistake, or maybe it’s a good idea that we can build on the same comes. When we look at, at, at businesses, when we experiment with it could be a new process, a new way of discussing things or making decisions. It could be a mistake, or it could be something that we really want to explore and how we can take that kind of implementation of that anomaly and make it into a thing that we do. So, yeah, I think it combines very well. <Laugh>

Monica (03:47):

I love that response and I agree completely, and it really probably helped you to be able to kind of think out of the box and notice those anomalies and realize that sometimes those are even better than what you were trying to do.

Erik (04:05):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative> yeah, absolutely. At work, we really try to scout for the signals that are coming, the anomalies, and they say, okay, is this interesting to us, how likely that is that this signal is gonna affect us? And do we like the effect that it has on us? So it’s both the likelihood and the likability that we investigate when we work with like a life science organization or an engineering organization to try to understand what kind of improvisation they should embrace, what kind of experience they should embrace in order to shape their own world. So, yeah, I think it fits together

Monica (04:49):

What a great approach. I love that. And I also really liked something else. You said that you fell in love with the problem. So are you meaning just kind of understanding the root cause and the complex system that it’s part of, or tell us more about that?

Erik (05:07):

Yeah, totally. You’re absolutely right. Well, in school, we are trained in providing answers in university, as an engineer. We are trained in providing answers, but sometimes we need to stop providing answers and keep asking questions, keep understanding the problem, the stakeholders, the ecosystem, the complexity, the lateral thinking, the horizontal thinking all the thinking about what if and I really like that. It shapes the way that we understand each other’s approach to the question, to the challenge that we are in, because we have this alter reaction here. Aha. I know that I know how to solve that problem underlying, I know how to solve that problem, but maybe I didn’t ask you or your colleague or a stakeholder, somebody else who has a totally diverse view into it, maybe I didn’t consider adding more time or adding more technology or less time or less technology, or all, all these things about what will happen if we stay in touch with the problem, rather than just going for solving it at the right way. That’s my thinking of it

Monica (06:28):

Such a good point, because we do have such a tendency to just wanna solve the problem and move on. But sometimes that really gets us into a lot of trouble because we’re assuming we know the solution, but we’re missing so much other information and other perspectives that could help us develop even more creative solutions.

Erik (06:49):

And, but <laugh>, the sad part is sticking with the problem also creates a lot of problems. People really, really like to move forward. Stakeholders who are investing their time and maybe paying for you to show up at work. They would like things to move forward. And for the <laugh>, it’s really a tough stance to say, could you please give us like two months or six months to fall in love with a problem to properly understand what we are doing and then to experiment our way forward prior to solving it. I find hard. And from time to time, I also go into mode and just provide an answer to get going. So it’s a balance of understanding how we take care of the problem, take care of the stakeholders, take care of the surroundings that we are in. It’s not just black and white and RO all the time. <Laugh>, it’s messy. It’s messy.

Monica (07:50):

It is absolutely. Yeah. Great point. So, so how do you apply these concepts in the work that you do with Good Morning April and the clients that you work with?

Erik (08:01):

Mm, so the, the typical questions that people have for us is, “how can we rethink the way that we do stuff so that we, as an organization stay relevant to the people or stay relevant to the market or both?” And then we try to, first of all, make some kind of rudimentary and overall business case to what do you wanna obtain? Like really let’s before we answer the question on what to do, I would really like to understand what you wanna gain from it. What gains do you wanna happen? What pains do you wanna go away? And from that, we start saying, okay, do we have some ideas? Do we have some experiments? Do we have some hypothesis that we can have around, for example, how we organize our people, how we organize our work, how we invest our time, how we make decisions, could we get inspired by some of the new ways of working to say, okay, is it interesting to look at sociocracy?

Erik (09:06):

Is it <inaudible> to look at the flat hierarchy? Is it to look at the agile way of working lean startup to get inspired? Is it interesting to try some of that? And then for some weeks and months to experiment and say, let’s try and work out what happens. And then we might find out that, okay, this is really stupid, and we are not gonna do that again. Or we might say, okay, there’s really something to this. What will happen if we take what we just learned and scale it upwards? So we go into experimentation mode inspired thoroughly by new ways of working and by all the acumen that’s in there. And very important, we translate it into context of the organizations that we are working with, or the sub organizations that we are working with. And that translation to me is the fundamental idea of what we do. We get inspired. And then we translate agile, lean, new ways of working, whatever it is into context, because it’s always gonna be translated. That’s how we do it.

Monica (10:17):

So many good points in there. Do you find that organizations are open to that kind of experimentation? Because I find a lot of time as a consultant, that organizations come to me and expect like a process to follow or protocol, and they may or may not be open to experimentation. So how has that been working for you and how have you been able to work with employers to get them to be more open to experimentation?

Erik (10:48):

Hmm. I think the people who <laugh> call us, they are prone to experimentation because they know that’s what we do. <Laugh> so, oh, good. If they’re not ready for that, they might call up somebody else. They might call McKinsey or, or Deloitte, or who else who have proven ways of doing it. But when people contact us, they know that we not necessarily come with a thorough plan, but we have intentions of experimentation, some of the stakeholders, they really like that. Cuz to them, it’s like taking the yolk of having to provide G charts and all sorts of plans and budgeting and put that aside and then staying in that kind of experimentation, jazzy improvisation world for a period of time, until we have learned enough and then switching gears into predictability. So to have an amount of time, a period of adaptability before we go into predict, I think that’s a way forward. But as to your point, there are some stakeholders who really are in discomfort when we do this. And there are somebody who really like it, but getting people in the loop to try to try to involve them in what we are doing to keep them informed about what we do. I think that’s a very classical way of approaching that.

Monica (12:18):

I love that. So it sounds like you work really hard to get some clarity about where that organization is trying to go so that then you can determine what are the right questions to ask and what are the areas that would be most suitable for experimentation? Can you give us like a few examples of what an experiment might look like? What types of things you might try within an organization?

Erik (12:42):

Yeah, a classic experimentation is to what will happen if the leader in an organization – could be a vice president or a team leader or a CEO – what if that leader stops making all the decisions? What will happen if we discuss where to put the mandate? And there are some very nice way of doing it. Management 3.0 has made a very nice deck of card called business value, PGA, sorry. <Laugh> that’s no, it’s called Delegation PGA Business Value. PGA is another game that we play also. Okay. Where we put prioritization to our work. What I intended to say was Delegation PGA. So we play this kind of poker game to understand how we can rethink our mandate, how we can navigate, how we can negotiate the different decisions that we make and how we actually nuanced take them away from the hands of a leader and distribute it in the arms of people. So that’s a very classical experiment to do that.

Monica (13:58):

That’s great because I think a lot of leaders are feeling a little bit overwhelmed right now, too, because they have so much responsibility for making the decisions and sometimes they can actually end up being the bottleneck. And then at the same time that their staff and teams are not feeling very empowered. Have you had a lot of success in implementing that type of experiment or what types of kind of outcomes have you seen?

Erik (14:24):

I actually think that people really, really like working with that, that kind of card games or that kind of nuanced and very open and transparent approach to something as complex as decision making. I think the reason for that is, is that it becomes documented. What do we do? We have a thorough discussion about the nuances of whatever it is that we work with. And then we have a time-boxed approach to it. So we said, we make these agreements on anything. It could be our structure, our decision making our roles, whatever, but we do that for a period of time. It could be from now on until Christmas, we do X, Y, Z, and then we do that as an experiment. And then we promised each other when we reach Christmas or whatever deadline that we said, then we stop and reflect and change what we did. And that kind of number one, the transparency, number two, the open discussion and number three, that all of the things that we do have a hard stop where we reflect and change. I think that makes it easier. <Laugh> easier, not easier, but easier for people to actually lean forward in.

Monica (15:45):

That’s great. I love that approach because it allows you to kind of learn, but then people don’t feel like it’s permanent. If something’s not working, you can tweak it and adjust it as needed at the end of the time period.

Erik (15:58):

Yeah. And, and also normally I’ve seen people when we try to solve this kind of conflicts problem, they really wanna nail it. They really wanna nail every little detail, every caveat, every everything that is like, what if this happens and what is that? Every scenario they need to take that into consideration and create this complex and very gold-plated blueprint before they do stuff where we go in and, and say together with them, we, we do kind of the opposite to say, okay, we do something that is good enough for now and safe enough to try. So it’s not the full picture. We sold one thing to a state where it is good enough for now, so that we can stop and reflect and it’s safe enough for people to lean forward and start experimenting with. That’s also the motto of sociocracy and holocracy. So I boldly stole that from that area of that domain.

Monica (17:02):

That’s great. I feel like some of those concepts are just emerging in the us. I feel like you may have been applying some of those concepts in Denmark for a little bit longer than we have here, or at least a lot of American companies. Do you have any kind of resources that you would recommend if someone wanted to learn more about those topics?

Erik (17:24):

Oh yeah. If you wanna learn more about sociocracy and Holocracy, there are a lot of the tons of online resources on it. There’s also a book called Many Voices, One Song, which is a really good segue into understanding how that kind of role based and, and flat organization circle-based organizations work. There’s also a very nice book called Who Decides, Who Decides, who also lets you into the realm of distributed decision making based on consent and not consensus. So there are a number of, of resources, books, and podcasts and online learnings and whatever that, that you can lean forward to. So there tons of resources on that.

Monica (18:10):

I appreciate you sharing those resources. I’ll put ’em in the show notes and also I have to mention your books as well, are, are great resources in this area.

Erik (18:18):

Oh, thank you. <Laugh>

Monica (18:20):

Yeah. I’ll have to put those in the show notes as well. So one of the things I wanted to ask you about is in the US right now, we are facing a lot of challenges with regard to workforce. We have a huge amount of the workforce are currently disengaged, and there’s been a lot of media around the topic of quiet quitting. They’re calling it where employees are just basically still punching the clock, but they’re doing just the bare minimum to get by. And then we also have the great resignation where we’ve had a lot of people leaving the workforce and have been slow to return after COVID. And so right now there’s two to three times more jobs than there are applicants. Are you seen similar things in Denmark and the rest of the world? And then what do you see as some potential solutions?

Erik (19:17):

Yeah, I think that quiet quitting and the great resignation, I think I would label that in Denmark as the great rethink, but I think it actually hits the nail better. And I do see that trend very strong right after COVID, especially where people are honestly rethinking their life, their approach to work, their approach to where they live, how they live, where they work, how they work. So that melting part of stopping, reflecting, and rethinking our approach to nearly everything that I see as a massive trend. And I do believe that the organizations who actually catch that moment together with our people to say, okay, we know that this great rethink is going on. I think we should do that. I think we together should rethink why we are together, how we create belonging, how we together understand how to create workplaces, where you really would like to show up. So I think people instead of resisting that and creating engagement programs and whatnot should go the other way. And, and, and say that maybe you answer something, maybe we really need to rethink how we do this. That would be my, yeah. That’s how I see it.

Monica (20:50):

I love that. And I love that term. It just sounds so much more positive than some of the other terms that are being put out there right now. And one of the things that I’m hearing in the US is employers are feeling kind of forced to rethink work because that’s the only way they’re able to keep employees. One hospital that I know has a front desk staff. They’ve had to allow them to kind of self-organize a little bit. And the CEO actually said that he felt like he had to do that. Are you hearing that more and more from employers or do you feel like it’s more the opposite that they’re open to that?

Erik (21:31):

That’s a good question. I do see increasingly that the power or the influence on how work is designed is flipping from the employer to the employee. There’s a tendency to that. There’s a tendency to, for example, hybrid work. Let’s just take that as an example that the rules or the guidelines for how you engage, where, and when you work are not those rules set by the employer, but by the employee. And that is lurking into all other areas. For example, how we organize, how we provide salaries, how we make sure that work is meaningful, that is purposeful even that we bring the whole person to work. So the understanding of the human parts of work is part of driving that shift towards that. It is increasingly the employee who’s part of designing how work is gonna play out. Yes, I see that not everywhere by all means. That’s so many tons of nuances and classical ways of approaching this. And there are progressive  pockets where this is really, really going on. I see both actually

Monica (23:00):

Interesting and it’s so discouraging kind of the current situation with a lot of employees being disengaged and not really feeling kind of connected to their purpose and, you know, bringing their whole selves to work. What do you think is possible if we’re able to rethink work and begin to engage these employees more fully so that they do, you know, bring their full selves to work?

Erik (23:28):

If you had asked me five or 10 years ago, I would have the reflex answer to say, you need to create a purposeful organization. But I must say that I have changed my stance on that and changed the word “purposeful” to “meaningful”. And I think there’s way more closeness to meaningfulness. The meaningful interaction, the meaningful task, the meaningful, whatever that you’re doing and linking that to the overall massive purpose is really, really tough. I think it’s one sided, one eyed. If we only talk about the purposeful organization, but creating meaningful relationships, creating a sense of belonging, I think that’s the way to approach that. And then combining that with the intelligent approach to local solutions. And that’s one of the things that I have been studying over the past, maybe two or three years, ISED to understand or to see the, the pattern of that things are getting very, very local, very local solutions to organizational structure, to decision making, to culture, to mechanisms, to interfaces, to roles.

Erik (24:50):

Some if you look inside an organization, some of the areas might like to be organized in a hierarchy where they find comfort in the structure, in the decision making, that’s there the culture and in the escalation routes and whatnot. And our other areas might like a variant of a flat organization with equality and all kinds of things that are in between. And I find it really interesting, in order to make sure that we have meaningful work, where we have a sense of belonging, that the leaders, that everybody encourages people to shape their own tiny part of the universe, to make sure that we have this tiny, tiny micro community in the organization that has their own traditions, their own jokes, their own Friday pictures that they send around, their own things that makes them them. And then understanding that over in finance, over in HR, over in product supply, over in primary care, whatever you do, they might do things differently, but we encourage people actually to make sure that they have a local solution to what they do. I think that is the approach to create places where people will like to show up it’s local, it’s fragmented and it’s a mess, but that’s the way forward. I honestly believe that.

Monica (26:31):

How do you kind of see that working? I I’m with you. I see that as, as where we’re moving as a workplace as well, but I know organizations that currently have a very hierarchical structure and are very worried about, you know, connecting everyone to the same goals and mission. And how do you see that type of workplace working if you move to more of a flat organization or something in between where there’s not such a strong hierarchy?

Erik (27:00):

Mm-Hmm <affirmative> first of all, I do believe that the idea of the flat organization has a scalability issue in it. I don’t think it scales upwards to very much more than 50, maybe 100 employees. The reason for that is when you work in a flat organization with very few leaders and maybe zero leaders where you make decisions together, the amount of time you invest in governance in consent, in change management, in social capital, in relationship building, is pretty immense, and it does not scale outwards. So when in these kind of organizations, where maybe we are 1000 employees, or maybe 10,000 employees there, I think you need some kind of modern bureaucracy to be the glue between pockets of progressive flat organizations, flat departments. So let’s say you have one department that is progressive up until 50 employees, and then you have some modern bureaucracy. That’s the glue to the next part. That’s then also maybe flat. So that is, you can call that a network of teams on network of flat structures. I very much believe that’s the way forward. So it’s a combination of the rigid, predictable structure and pockets of progressive the belonging. That’s how I see it.

Monica (28:49):

Interesting. So it almost sounds like the administration and leadership are more of a service to support the individual teams than actually kind of dictating what they do on a day to day basis. Would that be accurate?

Erik (29:04):

Very much so. Yeah those leaders who lean forward, they increasingly see themselves as either team coaches or ecosystem gardeners, where they take care of the interfaces between teams or they, they clean up if something breaks or they go to wizards for complex questions. So servants to the ecosystem one.

Monica (29:34):

I love that.

Erik (29:35):

Yeah. One of the leaders that I worked with, he actually said that going into this area where you have teams that are self-led, or that in the flat hierarchy, he saw his own role change from being from having a full calendar, going to meetings, actually having his calendar cleared up and having time to be present for his teams, for his employees in the ecosystem, being that gardener of the ecosystem. That was really amazing.

Monica (30:06):

Wow. That sounds amazing. And it seems like it gives the opportunity for the staff and the teams to take on bigger roles and more responsibilities if they don’t have as big of a management structure over them that are taking care of all that

Erik (30:24):

Yes. If they want to. Right. <Laugh> because there’s the trap of going into the area of self-leadership and just saying, Hey, I empower you. You can do everything you do. Here’s the money, here’s the time you just go do thing. And people might just be a deer in the headlights and say, oh, what the heck just happened there? I have not tried engaging with a vendor. I have not tried purchasing software for 100,000 us dollars. I have not tried whatever it is. So they might feel left out and untrained unskilled and not prepared for that kind of empowerment and understanding. How we can have the nuances, how we can support each other into going into that area is extremely vital. It’s a mistake. If you just empower people and then run away, you need to stay with them and have the nuances and the training to do so. It is uncomfortable to some people to have that full empowerment. <Laugh> I have seen it happen.

Monica (31:32):

<Laugh> yeah, that’s a great point. And at some point you’re almost, you know, relegating your responsibilities as well, and not really supporting your team. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>. The model that you’re referencing reminds me a lot of the model that is used by Buurtzorg, which we’ve referenced a few times in previous episodes, which is in the Netherlands, and they provide home healthcare through a series of locally managed teams, and then they have a central kind of support network. And it infrastructure, are you familiar with Buurtzorg and then are there other organizations that you would also kind of reference that are showing some success in this area?

Erik (32:14):

Yeah, there’s a, there’s a number of high-quality cases that always keeps popping up Morningstar the, the tomato company and so, and Haier in China where they also work with micro enterprises in the big companies. So there are a number of well-documented cases. I actually believe that if I remember correctly that the very nice two gentlemen creating the organization, that’s called, ah, what’s the name? Corporate Rebels. They have made some nice videos on board on Haier group. And if you, if you put them in nice videos on YouTube where they explain how it actually works, great resources, highly, highly recommendable.

Monica (33:06):

Great. Yeah. I love those resources as well. I’ll put some links in the show notes to some of those. So where do you see kind of the futures of work moving, Erik? What, what do you see maybe 10 years from now?

Erik (33:21):

Hmm. Oh, first of all, kudos to you for using futures in plural futures of work <laugh> because that is actually what I see as a futurist. I have stopped making predictions because that’s actually not what we do as futurists. We have scenarios with likelihoods and working with them. I think one of the approaches is that we will see a multitude of different approaches to what work is. We are gonna see many futures, both as organization structures and insight businesses. I think that

Erik (34:14):

A bit back to what we talked about, the great rethink, the great reshuffle, the great re whatever that is gonna pave the way forward for a multitude of differences. So what I see is that our local solutions inside the organizations are gonna have tremendous amount of diversity. And the approaches to work on a grander scale is gonna have a lot of diversity. I think that people who have a lot of feminine traits, a lot of feminine virtues, they’re gonna thrive because I have a sense that the likelihood of that kind of organization, where communication and collaboration, and generally understanding people and collaborating with people is gonna be of high value. And that is to some extent, tied into the feminine virtues. So that’s kind of the things that I see going forward. I also see, of course, a lot of technology paving their way forward. There’s been some talk about, for example, metaverse how that is gonna affect work. I’m bit on the fence on that one. I rather believe that augmented reality is gonna play a massive, massive role in what we do now. I don’t think you understand Danish. I’m a Dane.

Monica (35:47):

No

Erik (35:48):

<Laugh>, but you could have one of these sets of, of Google glasses where I could speak Danish and the Google classes could blitz to what I say, translate it directly and provide subtitles on the inside of the glasses. So you can read what I’m speaking, even if I’m speaking Arab or Farsi or whatever Indian language that I’m speaking. That’s an example of augmented reality. So technology’s gonna play a big role in augmenting our work, when it comes to collaboration and communication. That’s gonna be interesting.

Monica (36:27):

I love that it could really be used to remove a lot of barriers.

Erik (36:31):

Yeah.

Monica (36:32):

If used properly.

Erik (36:34):

Yeah. If used properly.

Monica (36:36):

Yes. <Laugh>. How do you see these changes that are happening in the workplace kind of apply to the bigger changes and challenges we’re seeing in the world, you know global warming and we’re seeing a lot of inflation in the us right now, and just a lot of, kind of big interrelated, systemic issues that I feel like we need to address.

Erik (37:00):

Yeah. I hope that the, these shifts and shocks that we are looking at right now encourage us to lean forward and move to organizations that try to solve these big problems. It could be green tech or clean tech companies. It could be healthcare. It could be organizations who only strive to save the planets. That is what I, that’s what I hope. I think there are tiny signals of this happening where people honestly start talk about sustainability in Denmark the university just launched a masters in sustainability leadership. Mm-Hmm <affirmative>, and that is a signal of something that is changing. I do believe that this is all of these shocks that we have had with the financial crisis in 2000 and was 18, 19 20 with the C with the climate change, with the inflation, with the one, Ukraine is gonna be a kick in the butt to us to really get going, to really get ourselves together and solve these problems. I actually think I saw Bill Gates last week talking about, okay, this might hit us, or this is actually hurting right now, but this is this is the ignition that we need to get together to solve these big problems. That’s what I hope for.

Monica (38:50):

I sure hope so. One of the things that I read recently from another futurist was she was talking about that COVID was essentially this shared trauma worldwide that we all went through and that the research shows like the 10 years following some type of trauma is a time of major change and shift. And I think that’s part of what we’re looking at with the, the great rethink and kind of revisiting how we work and how we operate in the world. What are your thoughts on that?

Erik (39:25):

Hmm. I’m fully with her on that. All the things that we have been maybe discussing for 10 years, like self-leadership and the meaningful organization and the great rethink, it has been lurking. And that has not really been that you could say forced opportunity <laugh> to get it going where working from home and understanding how hybrid work and micromanagement need to be rethought. And all of that, that was, I think that’s the movement that that is starting to tip that this is actually going to happen. I hope so. That’s yeah, hope.

Monica (40:13):

I hope so too. What are some practical things that employers who might be listening to this right now, CEOs and leaders, what are some practical things they can do to begin improving employee engagement and reducing some of the burnout that they’re seeing in the workplace and, and begin to kind of create a better work environment?

Erik (40:36):

Hmm. So I, I think first of all to acknowledge that we might have a problem is number one, number two is to understand, do we actually wanna solve this? Do we actually wanna change what we do? Because the habitual we are used to doing stuff we need to change that. And then thirdly, to engage people, to talk to them, to say, oh, okay, what can we jointly do to make this a place where you wanna show up? What will it take to make, to create this kind of belonging, what kind of experiments should we have? What kind of things do you see? What kind of obvious experiments should we try out to make to create a shared learning of how we can do this and doing that forward? So the understanding of, or the acceptance that we might have a problem and engaging people to, to jointly solve that with them. I think that’s the way forward.

Monica (41:46):

I love that. So not just trying to solve all the problems themselves, but by having those conversations with the people who work for them and engaging them in the, in the process. And you’ve mentioned a lot about creating belonging and connection in the workplace. And I do think that’s one area that’s really challenging right now. There’s a statistic out there that if people have a best friend at work, that they’re far more likely to stay with a company, and they’re also more likely to be engaged. So I think we need to find ways to increase that, especially with some people maybe doing the hybrid, you know, work from home, and we’re not always face to face. How do you see us being able to kind of increase that sense of belonging and connection within the workplace?

Erik (42:37):

Oh, that’s a complex question. And I own first thing is a question with answers that are very different from Europe to UK, to US, to Canada, to Arab, to wherever we are. I think it boils down to, can we create relationships with each other? Can we be open? Can we be honest? Can we be ourselves? Can we invest in our mutual connection with each other? Do we, can we, and do we want to try doing that? Do we wanna be vulnerable and open? Can we create psychological safety amongst us? I think it is that willingness to understand each other, to understand who you are yourself and what you need us to also to learn, to be vocal about your own needs. What do I need when I go to work? How, what kind of, what kind of group thing or connection do I wanna have with you, Monica? What do we create together to make sure that we have that kind of culture, that conversation is needed? And that conversation is gonna be diverse and different from culture to culture. We need to think about that.

Monica (44:09):

Yeah. That’s a great point. I like that you mentioned kind of vulnerability and creating that safety in, in the discussions, because that can be a pretty big shift for a lot of workplaces where it’s very competitive and almost cutthroat, and you’re not really allowed to bring your personal life and personal issues into the workplace. So for some of us, that could be a pretty major shift

Erik (44:36):

Mm-Hmm yeah. One, one tiny trick that we try to use when we, when we work with people, instead of the very classical check-in question, when we start either on a scale from one to six, how are you right now? Or an open question. Like if you were to change jobs with somebody in here, whose job do you wanna have, or what’s your favorite band? That opens up to something that is not business, like not work connected, but the check-in question on scale from one to six has proven to be pretty powerful that people increasingly dare to say I’m not a five today. I’m only a two I’m low on energy, or I’m sad. So that is a tiny trick to get that conversation going.

Monica (45:36):

I love that, cuz I feel like by answering those types of questions, we can begin to see the similarities between us and that we’re not so different and we can relate to others that we’re working with at a much deeper level than we might be if we just have real baseline conversations.

Erik (45:55):

Mm, totally. Totally.

Monica (45:57):

So where would you suggest that an organization kind of begin because this can seem a little bit overwhelming for leaders and CEOs. Who’ve kind of grown up in this traditional hierarchical model and they know they need to change, but they also don’t wanna create so much change that they disrupt their business and their finances and you know, they still need to operate. So how can they begin to kind of move into this space without too much disruption to the bottom line?

Erik (46:31):

Yeah, that’s a very good point. And again, one that’s complex, so thank you.

Monica (46:37):

<Laugh>.

Erik (46:39):

I think that start solving one problem. Just one problem at a time one tension, one friction, one thing that is, that is nagging you solve that. And then once you’ve done that, take the next and the next and the next one thing at a time start where you are and then solve one, one problem at a time. I think that’s the, the best answer we can give. I think it’s getting inspired by other people by other organizations by hearsay and rumors getting a lot of inspiration and then trying to translate that into your own organization and say, oh, okay, that was odd. Can, can we do that? Where in our organization will that fit staying in that kind of imaginative area to say, okay, that self-led thing, could we do that in customer service? Could we do that in global finance?

Erik (47:42):

Could we do that in with the GPS? Could we, could we, could we, and, and then say, okay, maybe, maybe we could do that in customer service. Let’s try, let’s try this one thing to make it well, to investigate if it works or not. So be bold when you dream and her around a lot of ideas and, and this can happen and be imaginative and then boil it down to one tiny thing that you try solve one problem and then learn and then start learning and learning and learning and learning and learning.

Monica (48:22):

Great advice. I love that. Try to solve everything at once. So we had great conversation today. I’ve really enjoyed visiting with you again, what is one kind of key takeaway? You wanna make sure that our listeners take with them from our conversation?

Erik (48:41):

Hmm. Play some more jazz.

Monica (48:49):

That’s always the win <laugh>.

Erik (48:51):

Yeah. But like, if we take that, not that literal, but move into business, play around with things. Try to improvise a bit, try to make a mistake and see what happens. Try to learn from the other people’s improvisation. Try to let loose of your strict predictability and go into the area of experimentation so that you learn stuff. The whole idea of improvisation is to discover new solutions. And we can only do that if we go into that area of, okay, we need to spot the anomalies, the things that are art, the things that makes us go Hmm. That was art. And see, can we play around with that? I think the improvisation part, I think that’s really, really important.

Monica (49:44):

Good advice. Thank you. And if people want to connect with you kind of outside of the show there websites or social media, where should people look to learn more about you or connect with you?

Erik (50:00):

I am the only one in the world called Erik Korsvik Ostergaard so I’m very easy to Google. <Laugh>. That’s great. The second one is LinkedIn. I’m active there and you can find me on a daily basis, either writing or commenting or chatting with people or on our website. GoodMorningApril.com, where you can find who we are and what we do, and maybe can inspire from what we write. So, yeah.

Monica (50:29):

Wonderful. Well, thank you so much for joining us here today. I really appreciate it.

Erik (50:34):

It was a pleasure. Thank you.

Filed Under: Future of Work, The New Future of Work Podcast

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The New Future of Work Podcast

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The Exhaustion Gap for Women in the Workplace with Kayla Osterhoff, The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 7

Creating Meaningful Connections with a Hybrid Workforce with Jan Keck – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 6

Why Work with Peter Merry – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 5

The Great Rethink with Erik Korsvik Ostergaard – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 4

Creating a More Compassionate Workplace with Kami Norland, MA, ATR – The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 2

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The New Future of Work Podcast

Latest Podcast Episodes:

The Exhaustion Gap for Women in the Workplace with Kayla Osterhoff, The New Future of Work Podcast, Episode 7

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