[00:00:00] Stephen: Hello and welcome to the wow. At work podcast. I'm delighted to be, uh, have my guest today is Sarah Metcalf. Sarah, delighted to have you here today.

[00:00:07] Sarah: Thank you so much for having me, Steven. This is, uh, a long time coming, but I just can't wait.

[00:00:12] Stephen: Sarah's got a couple of bows to her, her name, uh, Sarah's got Happy Coffee Consulting is one of those bows as well, which is her consultancy, uh, company that helps organizations create workplaces where people feel good. And then she's also involved when a co co-leader of the, uh, the Woohoo academy, which we will delve into a little bit in a moment. And then she's also a co-founder of the Global Happiness at Work Summit, which is brilliant. We're gonna have a look into that as well in a little bit. You're very, very welcome, Sarah.

[00:00:38] Sarah: Thank you.

[00:00:40] Stephen: So Sarah, the two of us are so interested in happiness at work and we've we've met before. So this is not our very first conversation and it's it's, I, I always get really excited meeting somebody who is as invested in creating workplaces where people feel good about themselves. It's almost like when I was younger, my favorite band actually, cuz um, Sarah's actually Canadian. My favorite band are a Canadian band called Rush. Um, and that does make me sound very old or very into music, but I just, I just love Rush. And I remember when I used to meet rush fans by chance at other concerts or just randomly, we would just get so excited and talk for hours about Rush and all the great things that they do. This is a bit like that conversation. We're talking about something that excites us happiness at work.

[00:01:23] And when, when it comes to it like happiness at work, I know what the catalyst was for me pretty much was when I was working as a leader in an organization, I'd read Ricardo Semler's Maverick, and just was inspired by the possibilities, how different work could be. For you, what was that catalyst that got you to this point? 

[00:01:44] Sarah: Okay. So I guess I'll tell, I'll give a bit of a, a very short backstory and then, and then I'll tell you the catalyst, cuz they're, they're both equally relevant. And I agree, it is just kind of, when you meet someone else who gets this, it's like it it's like you've been introduced to the best food in the world and uh, not everyone has tasted it and you can't believe it, but when you meet someone else, who's tasted it. Just, you know, it's so exciting and wonderful and amazing. 

[00:02:10] So my mom was a janitor at the hospital when I was growing up, she was a single mom. Um, you know, she was always working, uh, in a kind of, not particularly glamorous, um, role, shall we say. But she always loved her work and she always told stories and she always knew how she made a difference to the people that she worked with. Um, and obviously I look back on this now and I realize that must have planted seeds for me in terms of understanding that anyone can be happy at work and you can be connected to the purpose of what you're doing. And even if it doesn't look shiny and wonderful, then creating a, a work environment where you make a difference to other people is, is kind of really critical.

[00:03:02] So, so that's kind of the backstory. And then, my catalyst was though I was working in a large charity who does amazing things, did amazing work, amazing science, had amazing people, amazing fundraising. But the team I worked in wasn't a particularly great place to work, um, for, you know, a myriad of reasons. Um, and I was young and, you know, it worked well for me when I was, um, had just had one of my children and I worked part-time. But I left that role and I went and got a job, starting the customer service for a small technology firm in Cambridge that made cat flaps. So cancer, cat flops, you know, one of those has purpose with a big P one of those has everything you could want, uh, with it. And the other one, not so much, you know.

[00:03:54] But what happened was I started going to work every day and having the best time it was incredibly fun. We did incredible things. Um, there was, you know, lots, lots of missing pieces, but good missing pieces. So things like bureaucracy was missing things like, only doing what you're told was missing, uh, things like not being able to speak up or it not being your job to do things was missing.

[00:04:22] So there was all these things missing, which I'd had in sort of these more corporate roles. Um, and it was incredible. I was brought in to do the customer service customer experience. Um, and I was thinking, oh, this is what it is. It's about creating a company where you put the customers first. And then what happened was I happened to see Tony Shay, um, Ex CEO of Zappos give a talk and talk about the book that he was just launching. So I pre-ordered the book Delivering Happiness, and I read that book and I went, oh, it's not customer service. It's happiness at work.

[00:04:58] So I found it before I knew what it was. But this realization that that's what it was. And. There was a term for it. Um, and that people did those things, and I, I came swiftly from that. I found Henry Henry Stewart, our, uh, you know, our, our colleague in this space, uh, read his book. I read, you know, and then I basically read everything I could get my hands on. Um, and because I was part of the, kind of founding four of the, the company, I was able to use the practices I learned and test them out and see do they work? And, you know, we were just insanely successful using those practices and growing the business. And so I've never looked back.

[00:05:40] Stephen: So you went into what, what was it pet? Uh, sure. Was it 

[00:05:45] Sarah: was called sure. Flap in those days. It's now called sure. Pet care.

[00:05:49] Stephen: Sure pet care. So when you came into the company and you had read the books and that the books I'm gonna quote are, um, he Henry Stewart and Happy Manifesto, and also then Tony Shay's Delivering Happiness, which are two great books. If anybody gets a chance, not to be able to look at how organizations big and small can actually transform the world of work,

[00:06:09] So you came into the organization, you saw some of the stuff was working well within that organization, but you brought it up to a different level. What, what did you do to do that? What did you do to enable this to happen?

[00:06:20] Sarah: So I guess I, you know, like I don't wanna take all the credit for it. It was already there. And then it was, this was became about, um, I guess codifying it, like, understand what, okay. We have this pretty magical thing going on here. What is it? What are the components that make it up? So it was almost like we had created this as an antithesis. So all of us came from different backgrounds. I think, um, those early people and all with things of, here's things we're not gonna do, because this was horrible in our old workplace.

[00:06:53] So my first one was we never used the word stakeholder. Cuz they're people, that's stakeholder is one of my, like, uh, I have since had to use it occasionally, but it's still my least favorite word. Um, and, uh, funny aside as I had, when I moved to England, people kept talking about stakeholders and I had no idea what that word meant. No idea. I was like, stakeholder, is that like a butcher? Uh, or is it like, is it like a vampire hunter? You know, so again, I'm like, I D understand why are we talking about this? And I'm like, oh, you just mean the people who are involved.

[00:07:32] So that was, you know, that was one of them. The other was we weren't gonna have steering groups. We did the right thing. So it was all about kind of feeling ownership in our work. Doing what was right. Not being wasteful. Autonomy, resources, you know, we always, if we needed people, we hired them. So there wasn't this cult of overwork. It was obviously about making money. It was a commercial organization. We were incredibly successful, but it wasn't about making money at the expense of doing the right thing, or only focusing on the money. It was, you know, also we wanted people to feel to come to work and feel good, as you said, when, when you started talking about this, right?

[00:08:15] And what happens when you do that is that you have almost no turnover. You attract amazing people. You have crazy success. You know, we were in double and triple digit growth. We started delivering some of the best customer service in the world, which is kind of how I got into this space. People started to go, what are they doing? That's really interesting. But we also had like good technology. So we invested in, in the tools to support the people. So there's all sorts of different places. Um, and then I guess for me, the reading the books and, and learning about it was you know, codifying it like, okay, we have this special thing. How do we make sure we keep it as we grow? What are the parts that make it up? What are the good things? What are the bad things? What are the, you know, what do we get wrong? What do we get? Right. You know?

[00:09:06] And that was just, yeah. Very open conversation. Total psychological safety, you know, um, we had the, you know, the founder and CEO used to answer the phone, speak to customers. We used to go to people's houses and fix their products. So. It just, it just feels right. We all know what it feels like to have a great day at work, to work with amazing people. And it just felt like that every single day. 

[00:09:29] Stephen: I always talk about this, about the fact that when we create workplaces, where people feel good about themselves, it filters out into so many different other areas of our lives. So relationships are better at home. Stress is lessons. There's less burnout. Society benefits, community benefits. All of those things are

[00:09:45] Sarah: So I I've just kicked off, um, a survey. Uh, maybe your listeners would like to fill it out. We're gonna, we're gonna launch the global one, but we just had a, um, a survey in the UK, uh, primarily the top three positive effects of having a great day at work were happier after work, more relaxed and less stressed and more energy and more productivity. And that's like, self-report people self-reporting, what were the, what were the benefits of, of having a great day at work? And I guess, I'll use this as like my, kind of my bit to do my like crazy soapbox moment about happiness at work. If I may, Steven.

[00:10:23] So.. I have believed this, obviously, you know, and been working in this space for what, 11, 12 years now. And I knew it was the right thing, right? The feeling it was deep inside. But I hadn't quite crystallized why it was so important. And over the last year and a half, and I think you and I have had this conversation in different spaces, I really have crystallized the why of that. And effectively for me, it's, the world of work is breaking people. You know, we've got the mental health epidemic, we've got the burnout epidemic. People are going to work and giving absolutely everything they have to the workplace. So how can they, if they're leaving work, burnt out, broken, mentally unwell, all those things exhausted, how can they make good choices for themselves to take care of their families and their loved ones, their friends to volunteer or give to their communities? And even bigger than that, how can you make decisions to impact global things like climate change if you have nothing left to give? And so the reason that what we do is so important, Steven is because when you have a good day at work, people go to work and they get filled up with that positive energy. And then that spills out over, into all these things. 

[00:11:50] And you know, yourself, you know, at my happiest, at work in this job. And it wasn't always amazing, you know, like it's, it's not about just good things. At my happiest at work, I volunteered. I ran a huge community event as a volunteer, I worked out, I was the healthiest. I've been in a very long time. I had great relationships with my friends, with my family. I was traveling, I had all this extra energy. And so for me, this is the critical piece. We spend a third of our lives at work somewhere around there. What, 83,000 hours or so give or take. And if all it does is drain us and we have nothing left to give for anything else, then until we fix the world of work, we can't take on these big, big things that are coming in our future, the climate change, the wars, whatever else is to come for us. Until we fix this part of it, we, we won't be able to create a world that is better for our children and for those that come after us,

[00:12:53] Stephen: I love the way you, you voice that, because that is so true because as we know how the brain works, if you're in a stress state, you can't be in a creative state and a stress state at the same time, the two don't go together. And I love, um, that we spoken before about the, what Adam Grant has talked about languishing and how we have been langu for the last couple of years. If you know a little bit about that, do you wanna share that with our listeners?

[00:13:13] Sarah: So, in 2018 I went and, uh, trained with, um, Alexander Kjerulf who was the founder of Woohoo, um, from Denmark and he's one of the, I would say one of the founding voices of the happiness at work movement, wrote the book happy hours, nine to five, uh, international keynote speaker in 2020. He decided to, um, step back from that. Um, and, uh, and we had a global partnership, which is, um, somewhere between 120 hundred and 40 individuals from about 30 different countries, um, at any given time who are. Committed and focused to this movement of creating happiness at work. And we train chief happiness officer training through our academy, and then we have a, this global partnership where we are all working to kind of raise this bar together.

[00:13:57] one of the things that we have identified through one of our other co-leads Shona who's, uh, mental health trained in Canada. They have, um, a, a framework for mental health in the workplace, and what she found is she was studying that was that the practices that support positive mental health in the workplace are the same practices that we teach and happiness at work. So we've brought those together. So essentially, mental health is like physical health. You can have poor mental health, which is what we kind of think about, you know, stress and depression and anxiety and burnout and all those things. And then you have. What Adam Grant referred to as languishing, and and that's when, you know, you're not in poor mental health, but you're just okay. You know, you're not great, but you're just, okay. And that's also part of your mental health. And then you have thriving or positive mental health. Um, and so when we're talking happiness at work, the real critical piece is that organizations should absolutely have support programs, um, and flags and all those kinds of things for people who are experiencing poor mental health.

[00:15:01] But most of the time, what we see is that those mental health provisions are helping people from poor mental health into okay or languishing. But the practices that you and I teach and the things that we work with organizations on are the building blocks to take people from languishing to thriving. And that is all, you know, creating psychological safety and connection and resilience. And what it does is if you create this framework and this culture of happiness at work, then your people are thriving at work. This positive mental health is positive energy we just spoke about. And then when bad things happen, then when we have challenges, then when your business struggles, uh, or then when those people experience challenges or there's global pandemics or however you want to, you know, however it falls, if you are thriving, you don't fall as far down, so you might fall into okay, um, but if you're just okay and bad things happen, you often it knocks you below the line and into mental illness.

[00:16:01] So it's, we need to be thinking about mental. As like physical health, you can have negative or positive mental health. And one of the other reasons that this is so important, what you and I talk about is that this supports growth into positive mental health

[00:16:17] Stephen: And we talk about the languishing too, as well as being that state of meh, how you feeling today?

[00:16:21] me, Uh, and we sort of, and we sort of felt that over the last two and a bit years, In that period of COVID where everything was a bit stunted still didn't we, we couldn't be ourselves. And I certainly felt that too, that feeling of mess. So

[00:16:36] Sarah: I read something like 80% of the, the population was, uh, was in that space, you know, we're, we're not suffering, but we're just okay. 

[00:16:47] Stephen: So with organizations now, today, the ones that are looking at creating workplaces where people feel good about themselves, what are the key things that we should put in place to be able to enable that.

[00:16:58] Sarah: So at happy coffee, we have a framework, uh, which is results, relationships, purpose, and play. Essentially workplaces need to be focusing on the wellbeing and happiness of their employees. And by that, I mean, not just taking care of them in a, you know, Maslow's hierarchy of needs kind of, you know, basics, obviously we need to meet the basics. We need to pay people well and make sure they've got access to things they're not bullied and they're safe and all those things, but you need to, for me create connection.

[00:17:36] But results are quite easy to measure. Um, and we are reasonably good at celebrating financial and goal oriented results in the workplace. So we are better set up to do that than we are for relationships. And for me, relationships among coworkers, that's teamwork, that's community resilience. It helps us in so many ways, right? Humans are tribal and, and human, the need for human connection is, is, you know, integral to ourselves as humans. So for me, the biggest thing for organizations to be working on is creating time for connection. Cause especially in this either hybrid or remote work, we are booking time in people's calendars, and so we feel like we don't wanna waste that time cuz that's work time and so all we do is talk about work. And we don't have serendipitous moments. We don't have time for connection. And you know, in the online space, if you're in online meetings all day long, the last thing you probably wanna do is have an online cocktail hour after work.

[00:18:43] So even, you know, organizations are trying to do this, but it is more hard. It is more difficult. You have to be more intentional. You have to set time aside for personal connection, you have to make that time. You have to give that time more importantly to people. So that's

[00:18:59] So seeing what you do matters, um, and again, visibility in a remote and hybrid world people aren't seeing your work as often. So. It's more difficult, especially for managers or leaders to catch people doing something right. And let them know about it. So again, helping people to see how, what they do matters, like my mom, the story I told about my mom, you know, the, the janitor, how do you help them see that what they're doing helps other people in their organization, helps the mission of the organization, how are they connected to it, and that's all fed in with the purpose that I talked about. 

[00:19:32] And then play, you know, having some fun. And having fun at work is incredibly important. Like you said, fun is, is kind of the thing that tells your brain that everything is okay. You can't have fun if you're scared, if you're stressed, if you're worried, right? So, and not having fun all the time, not just, you know, goofing off and playing around, but 5% fun, I think Nick Mark said has a huge impact on ability to be productive and creative and innovative all things we really need. 

[00:19:59] So I think for me, organizations need to focus on small, easy to do. None of this is rocket science. None of it actually takes money even, but it does take time, which is our most precious resource. And the other thing that I wanna add into that, that I have seen, and I dunno if this is your experience in our work, Steven is doing less with more. It's the name of my book that I'm writing. And you it's great. You talked about Ricardo similar, cuz I saw him at a conference in Antwerp a couple weeks ago and he really, uh, as usual, you know, very inspirational, great stories. And he talked about this mentality we have at work, you know, if we have decided or budgeted that we're gonna sell 57 widgets in a week and that's what, that's what our organization is set up for, what happens when someone sells 57 widgets by Wednesday, Steven?

[00:20:55] Stephen: Well, yeah, the there's all sorts of problems of supply chain sales, all those different things fall

[00:21:00] Sarah: Exactly. Exactly because what do we do? We get them to sell 57 wages by Wednesday, and then we go awesome. Sell a hundred by Friday, which no one is prepared for, right? And as you said, the knock on effects. And so he describes this, uh, he said old problems in business are coming from that. He said, if you sell 57 wages by Wednesday, take the rest of the week off. 

[00:21:19] Stephen: I love it. 

[00:21:20] Sarah: I love it too. And so we have this problem. Pushing for it to sales for sales sake. And like I said, I'm not against commercial organizations. I am one myself. I think making money is a great thing and it helps us and all those things. But making money for making more money's sake is not a good thing for business or for people.

[00:21:38] The second thing I see is a incredible lack of organizational prioritization, which leads to burnout. If the leaders of an organization are not. Crystal clear about the priorities of the organization and then assigning resources, time, and people, most importantly, to those priorities that they have set, then you have overwork, you have workload issues. You have confusion, you have lack of clarity, you have lack of psychological safety, nobody knows what they should be working on, nobody knows what they can say no to, uh, the, the trickle down effect of that. 

[00:22:19] So for me, if your organization is not crystal clear on its priorities and then not resourcing those priorities appropriately, then you will struggle to create happiness at work, because part of the results. Part of, uh, results, relationships, purpose and play is having the autonomy and the resources to do the job that you have been asked to do. and this is a critical piece. So if you are given a job to do and you wanna do a great job, but you've been told you have to do it in an unrealistic timeframe, or there's not enough people to do the work that there is to do, that's what's leading us to the burnout epidemic.

[00:23:03] Stephen: That whole idea, when we talk about what, what Ricardo Semler spoke about a few weeks ago, and I know he said this before, and that whole idea that if you produce the, whatever, the 57 widgets by Wednesday, suddenly you find that the guys in the warehouse have to go get more supplies to get it brings, phone calls are made, then suddenly the sales team. Is working double time to try and sell more widgets. And everybody's under pressure. And cause I worked in manufacturing for years. And when I read that book, I had the idea of what he spoke about. He had self-managed production teams that would decide when they came into work and when they went home from work. And if they were told that it was a hundred of whatever widgets needed to be made a week, they could actually direct themselves to be able to find a way to make that a hundred widgets. And if that a hundred widgets was made by Thursday afternoon at three o'clock, well that's their week. They've done it. They've done exactly what we've asked. It's become profitable. Everybody gets paid.

[00:23:53] I suppose we've entered a world now where we're, we're talking about endless growth all the time as well, which is a real issue. So if I'm a CEO that comes into an organization to work at the moment, the first thing I'm gonna do is slash costs and try and raise growth in the next quarter. So it makes me look pretty good. So the first easiest thing to do is to slash jobs and the easiest thing then is to try and, um, you know, manipulate sort of the figures to make it look like things are working in my favor. And I suppose what we've done in the work, uh, the workplace is we've somehow gone down the opposite. And I'm listening to a podcast this morning. I was and reading some of the, um, the Uber files there on, uh, in the Guardian. And why I'm touching on this is because, you know, I run the Happy Workplace Conference in Ireland and one of the, one of the, one of the, one year, I think it was about three years ago, I got a particular multi-billion dollar company came to me and said that they would like to speak at the organiz. I'm not gonna mention who they were, but they'd like to speak at the conference. And I said, that'd be great, but just send us some details of what you've done to create workplace happiness, and then we, we can work from there. And then I heard nothing and nothing came back. And what they'd actually said was they said, just, just throw our hat into the ring. We'd love to be there, whatever, you know, just let me know what you do. And that's it a lovely email. And I never heard anything back.

[00:25:11] So is it that some organiza is, uh, we've gotta be really careful cause the work that you and I do when we think about how we wanna create workplaces, where people feel good with that sense of purpose, whether it's a big P or whether it's got that small P, now sort of been masked in this other way that we're, we're offering flexibility to people and it's been shadowed in, in different ways, or it's been, when I talk about Uber, the idea of that you become your own boss, you can decide when you work. And then we can see within this organization, then there was lots of, sort of very nefarious practices going on, uh, where there, they were trying to, um, you know, work alongside governments in shady ways to try and get their product. They found a gap there because taxi drivers were not the most loved, um, industry in the world, taxi drivers are necessary. And they saw that gap in there.

[00:25:58] And I've seen this happen quite a lot, where we've had a race to a weird space and it's, it's kind of a weird low space where people are sort of, we can talk about other organizations like Amazon and all that kind of stuff, that duke, that like provide a fantastic service. They've hit a button they've made life easy, you press a button, you get a product. It turns up to your daughter's a smile on your face and you've got this, but behind it as well, you've gotta think about the people who work for the organization. Are are we, are they paying a price?

[00:26:27] Sarah: mm-hmm, 

[00:26:28] Stephen: And that's important.

[00:26:29] Sarah: So important and it's it it is this race to having more and more, and that's why the book is gonna be called Do Less With More, um, it doesn't mean you get less. You know? Um, and this is, I know you've been talking about the four day work week and all these kinds of things on productivity and, and stuff like that. But we're doing this weird kind of race to the bottom to make the most amount of money and for what? And for why? And it's something that the generations that are coming up are gonna be asking. Me and you and our generation and the one above us and maybe the one below us slightly. What were you doing? Why were you doing that? What are you making those decisions, right? And again, it's not about, you know, it's not about being socialist or, you know, communist or everyone gets everything or shares, you know, like I think there's companies like say Innocent smoothies who do it really well. They talk about one of their values is commercial.

[00:27:31] And I think this is something that's really interesting to me is organizations who set values or visions. Um, they, they sound really wonderful and they're very aspirational, but they don't talk about the commercial aspect of their business. And so what happens there is what people hear is our vision is to improve the state of the world or whatever it is. So then when an organization makes a commercial decision, people go, you're going against your values. So it's really important. I think for organizations to balance doing good and an understanding of commercial value, and, and that it's okay to say that you wanna be commercial and make money cuz that's your business. And that's how you employ people and do better for the world in front of you. Um, and then you have wonderful things like B Corp, which help people do that. Cuz the, the goal with B Corp is to leave the world better than you found it, right? 

[00:28:24] But it doesn't mean you can't be commercial. And so I think it's important for people in our space to talk about. It's not, we're not talking about not being commercially successful. Uh, we're not talking about not doing as well as you can, but we're talking about doing as well as you can. Without negatively harming any of the, the people. Um, dare I say, stakeholders in, uh, still don't like it, who are, you know, impacted by your organization. And there's a great book called Grow the Pie by Alex Edmonds, um, who originally was one of the, you know, kind of people who did the, the studies on, Hey, happy workplaces, make more money. And he talks about when your business is successful as instead of taking from shareholders to give to employees or taking from employees to give to shareholders, actually, if you look at your pie as your community, your suppliers, your shareholders, your employees, their families, all those different pieces, if your business is more successful and you share that in an equitable way, then everybody win. So that mentality for me is what we're talking about when we're, we're talking about creating these workplaces.

[00:29:37] Stephen: Absolutely. I remember reading a book, uh, that Anita Roddick had, had written about the Body Shop and how she created it. And she said the saddest day in the company's history was the day she decided to go public and have shareholders and lost control of the company there and realized that's it's something she shouldn't have done. Nothing wrong with shareholders. There's nothing wrong with profit. We're all about all. of this. But it's about the impact that companies have on everybody within their supply chain. We had Ynzo van Zanten, uh, at the conference a couple years ago from Tony's Chocolonely and they're a great example of an organization that creates wonderful chocolate, uh, in the Netherlands, and they have decided that the supply chain, um, are everybody who supplies the chocolate in the organization, not just the people who make the chocolate, the farmers that grow the cocoa beans, their families, they all matter. So they actually pay, I think it's about 249, uh, dollars a ton extra for their chocolate to the cocoa farmers than they would get from any other form format. And then their employees have all these other benefits. It's a great organization to work.

[00:30:37] And, and then there's the other thing that comes into play within organizations is, and you've touched on it a couple of times is psychological safety.

[00:30:43] Sarah: I, I was, um, hosting a conference last week and actually someone did a great thing, which is, can you think of a time where you were sat in a meeting or sat in the workplace and you did not speak up? You did not say that something was wrong, or you felt ashamed. And I think everyone in that room put up their hand or they didn't put up their hand cuz we said, can you, you know, did anyone, was anyone able to not think of a time and everyone could. And so that feeling, if you're in a workplace and you don't feel able to say what you wanna say, what you would normally say, that is an absence of psychological safety. 

[00:31:20] And so psychological safety was the phrase coined by Amy Edmondson, uh, with her research, I think out of Harvard. Basically I think she was looking at doctors, um, and that she was looking at the, the best performing teams, and she found that they made way more mistakes than the other teams. So she decided to dig a little bit deeper into that. And what she found was, um, no, they don't make more mistakes, but they reported more mistakes cuz they felt safe and able to do so. And so when you report mistakes and you're able to talk about making mistakes, then you can fix those things. And everybody else learns from them and all that kinda stuff.

[00:32:02] So that's psychological safety. And that is created, it's why I said kind of relationships. So that is created by being vulnerable by growth mindset, by feeling safe. Um, by being connected to people on a human level. and It's not about ignoring mistakes, you know, it's not about people not doing the right thing, but it's about it's okay, it's okay to hold your hand up and say, actually, I made this mistake or I broke this thing, or, conversely, I think that's a terrible idea. inviting those conversations and creating a space where people can. Share what they're thinking, share what they're feeling, share who they are. And that's one of the bedrocks and the, those basic needs we talked about earlier to creating a happy workplace. If you don't have that, if people don't feel safe, then you can, you can do all of the work on other stuff that you want. Um, but you, you won't hit the mark.

[00:32:53] Stephen: I love that because when I'm thinking about even what I was listening to with the Uber, uh, files where Mark McGann is one of the, uh, uh, uh, the, the whistleblowers in this couldn't speak out at the time, or tried to speak out at the time about the practices that were going on in the organization, but it was going nowhere and he was being pushed, uh, pushed back. And psychological safety is that ability to be able to speak without any fear of retribution for what you say. And I think the best organizations in this day and age are allowing that to be able to happen people, to be able to speak everybody gets a voice. I think that's really, really important. And I think the great thing about all of this stuff that we talk about is that when it goes into the future, because the world of work is very transparent now, and people are looking at organizations that do the right thing, and they're seeing organizations that are not doing anything in this 

[00:33:39] Sarah: And you hear about it all the time, right? And people leave. People are no longer stuck at work in the way that maybe our parents or our grandparents would've been where, you know, that was your job. And you stayed there until you retired, because that was security. That was ability. That was, you know, all those things for your family. The world has moved on. We don't have to do that.

[00:34:02] Stephen: And it's not like years ago when we would've had, um, say, when you think about the, uh, the officers or the, the generals in the first war that told the privates to go over the trenches and the privates went well, if I go over there, we're all gonna be shot. Just go. And if you actually. Dissent it against that you court marshal and shot for doing that. So that was the way we used to approach leadership years ago, you just didn't speak up. You didn't say anything, cause there was a fear that there was gonna be some sort of retribution for you doing that. Now it's different and now it's much, much different. So you need to earn your trust as a, as a leader. And I think what people are beginning to see and look around and see the organizations that have those leaders that make people feel good about themselves. And they're deciding I'm gonna work for them rather than work for these 

[00:34:47] other companies. 

[00:34:48] Sarah: and that's what keeps people. You know, when we were part of this company, we had, we were acquired twice, which is, you know, anyone who's been through mergers and acquisitions really challenging, and I'll never forget one leader coming in and he sat down and he talked with us for two hours, every single one of the, the senior leadership team. And let me tell you, after that two hours, I would've done anything for that person. Two hours. That's all it took. And conversely, I have worked places where you never get that connection from the leader. And so you're there, you'll do a good job, you'll do your, your work, but you're not connected, you're not gonna stay if something else comes along, you are not, you do not feel part of something bigger than yourself. Um, and you know, leaders are so incredibly important. And again, time right, that, that what that leader showed me was I have time for you.

[00:35:53] Stephen: I love that there's a vulnerability too with that as well, but there's great leadership in there too. Two great books. Daniel Coyle's The Culture Code is a great book, cuz it talks about the importance of connection, uh, uh, between people. And the second book that I absolutely adore, I I'd ask, and I'm gonna put it down in the show notes down below is Roker Bregman's Humankind. Ah. And it shows the importance of us as humans over millennia, how connection really, really matters and understanding that these, these are people that work for your organization. We need to treat our people as people. And specifically over what we've talked about over the last two years, how difficult it is and that this connection, now more than ever, we need to touch base with our people, not just ask them questions about, you know, how is your work going, Stephen? It's about, you know, how are you Stephen? How are you? Sarah? Yeah, what's going on. And all the best leaders are asking those, those simple questions. 

[00:36:43] Sarah: I'd even add to that. I'd add one word to that, uh, which I heard a really great Descript of to change that. How are you feeling? Steven? Adding feeling makes all the difference.

[00:36:54] Stephen: So what, what companies are, do you think are leading this trend?

[00:36:57] Sarah: It's really interesting right now to kind of, to see and to hear who's doing great stuff. So I think I like, you know, like big companies, visible companies, Deloitte, and obviously Jen Fisher and their kind of chief wellbeing officer being pushed, that's a, that's a big thing they're doing. Um, you know, really recognizing this being like critical. Um, Salesforce for me have always done a really good job on a, on a big scale. I mean, I always love, um, the CEO who took the, the pay cut so all of his company could have a Dan, um, Dan Price. Thank you. Yeah. Gravity payments. You know, I really like that story.

[00:37:37] Stephen: Dan Dan price for anybody who doesn't know this story, Dan price works for is the CEO of gravity payments. He's the founder of it. And these are a payment company that have, um, uh, where you go into many stores in the us and you make a credit card payments through, uh, various different machines, whatever it might be. And, um, yeah. They help you to be able to do that. So they're the machines that you see in the stores. He was on a million dollars a year. Was his salary. He had seen some research that said that after $70,000 a year, you don't get any happier at work. But if you can get to the point of earning 70,000, that's the peak, that's where it gets to. So when he looked at this, he said, this is quite incredible. So he made a really, really big decision. He decided I'm gonna take a salary cut from 1 million to 70,000 and everybody in the organization is gonna get a raise to $70,000 a year. So everybody's on. Bit of pushback in the organization. Some people left, but he did that. And there's a leader becoming vulnerable. There's a leader, gaining trust. There's a leader coming down to a, to a level. And there's something wonderful about him. Cuz he spoke up in many levels. Even throughout the whole course of the last, um, two years, he has told his workers, they will never need to return back to the office ever again, if they choose not to do that, that is their choice. Uh, stood up in the face of the likes of the Elon Musks who told that everybody needs to be back at the office right now. And, and, and, and Dan did the exact opposite. 

[00:38:54] So I kind of like what he's done as well. I do like what Salesforce have done. Um, the CEO of the organization is also very human and looks at the, uh, the, the employees, which, which are, which how many thousands employees of 

[00:39:08] Sarah: Yep. Oh gosh. Yeah. I don't, I'm not sure if they're a hundred thousand or over a hundred thousand, but yeah, it's huge globally, the number of, of

[00:39:14] Stephen: And I look, and I look at a couple of different other organizations that I'm quite interested. There's a couple of people that I've met, um, that are doing the right thing. Uh, there is, uh, there's a supermarket that's based in the UK called Hisby, and I've come across and they've got, um, supermarket and Brighton and they've got one up in London and HIB is how it should be. And what they're doing is that yes, everything is done as you would. If you were setting up a supermarket now and you cared about people and you cared about suppliers and you cared about the food and you cared about the product, uh, so they're doing all these wonderful things that are the opposite to what some of the bigger chains are doing, which I, which I find is fantastic.

[00:39:51] Sarah: And then I think a lot of smaller companies where you can create that feeling where people have time to be connected. I think it's been challenging for organizations, right? They're they're trying to keep themselves afloat and recover and change with all of the differing things. Um, but I think in smaller companies, it is easier, because you do depend on each other, you know, teamwork is how work gets done. 

[00:40:17] Stephen: I want you to ask, can you share just three practical tips? And we talked about this earlier, so we said it does it doesn't need to be that you have a budget of hundreds, of thousands of euros dollars or pounds to be able to change the organization and create happy workplaces. What are the three practical tips that companies could start today to transform the world of work for the better? 

[00:40:36] Sarah: So the first one I would say is look at what you're already doing. Um, and those are like perks, bonuses, benefits, those kinds of things. Um, those don't impact people's happiness at work, but you probably have a lot of these wonderful initiatives that you're already paying money for, for your organization. So look at what you're already doing. How could you tweak those? To make them enhance a feeling of results, a feeling of relationships, a feeling of purpose, um, or having a bit of fun. Right. So just slight tweaks and it's quite simple to do.

[00:41:09] Second, I would say, positive feedback. Easiest, quickest, cheapest way is to catch people doing something right, tell them about it. It has to be meaningful. It has to be specific. It should be in the moment. You can't just say things like Steven, you're really great at talking into that microphone. That doesn't mean anything, right? So specific measure, you know, kind of meaningful feedback. Um, and there's lots and lots of research in terms of positive leadership, positive feedback, having huge implications on creativity, innovation, that kinda stuff.

[00:41:45] And the third would be, slow down and make time to connect on a human level. So book it, that's the reason my business is called Happy Coffee is cuz the easiest way, uh, you can start making that connection is have a coffee with a member of your team or a colleague or tea. Doesn't have to be coffee can be water it's hot, uh, every day. And just as you said, ask them, how are they, how are they feeling? Talk to them on that personal level.

[00:42:18] Stephen: I love that. So just ask them, ask them how they are on that personal level. And coming back to the human, we are not machines. We are people. We are people that in many organizations have been treated like machines, but we aren't. We are people. So come back to that level. What a perfect note to end on Sarah Metcalf, thank you so much for being with us today.

[00:42:36] Sarah: Thank you, Steven. Thank you so much. And thanks everyone for listening. Um, I look forward to speaking again soon.