Bad Work Stories Made Good
We hear too many stories of suffering at work and want to help you get some ideas and relief to make your life healthier and happier. In each episode, we will take a bad work story from our client work, the media, or even your own bad work story and make it good.
Bad Work Stories Made Good
When Leaders Fake Care and Connection
Use Left/Right to seek, Home/End to jump to start or end. Hold shift to jump forward or backward.
We are on a mission to end suffering at work.
Bad work stories are everywhere - they are stressful - sucking our time, attention and precious energy and for a lot of us, we take the stress home.
A great leader once said - “Be the change you want to see in the world “ and that's what we do here.
Each week, we take ONE Bad work story - and we share with you
- A Perspective for everyone.
- A perspective / One insight for Leaders specifically
- One practical tool that you can apply today.
Take one or all 3 and you can then change your Bad Work story for the good.
We must do something different if we want more joy and healthy collaboration in our teams and organisations. Take what resonates with you, and let us know how you get on.
This week, we explore a situation where a team member comes away from an informal catch up with his team leader feeling uninspired and disappointed. Despite the leader saying they value care and connection, the one way focus of this conversation gave a very different experience. Fake or fallen… let's discuss.
Points covered
- Before we judge - look in the mirror. Remember we are all human
- Leaders need to work harder and align with our culture, care for our people and stem the resignations and people loss in our organisations. All eyes, ears and hearts are on you.
- Be clear on the purpose of your meeting and get present with each other.
Thank you for joining us today.
If you want to increase your skills and confidence in working with these situations in one or a team environment, check out our next course this July - https://zenergyglobal.com.au/the-art-of-facilitation-online-european-and-american-time-zones/
It is online and will last four hours a week for eight weeks. We have a special discount for BWSMG listeners. We run them regularly throughout the year, so if this resonates with you and you want to serve your team at a higher level and develop your leadership, reach out to Corina for a chat.
Reach out to us if -
- You have a bad work story driving you up the wall and you would like our help to resolve it.
- You enjoyed our energy and perspectives; your workplace would benefit.
- You would love to join us live on the podcast.
You can contact us at help@badworkstoriesmadegood.com or head on over to
Welcome to Bad Work Stories Made Good podcast. Woohoo, thanks for tuning in to this week's episode. We are on a crucial mission to end suffering at work. Bad work stories are everywhere. They are stressful, sucking our time, attention and precious energy, and for a lot of us, we also take that stress home. We must do something different if we want more joy and healthy collaboration in our teams and organizations. So every week, karina and I apply our decades of collective consulting experience to a bad work story and unlock practical leadership and facilitation strategies. These strategies are not just theoretical but practical and actionable, empowering you to turn your work stories into good ones or learn the lessons to prevent them in the first place.
Speaker 2Take what resonates with you and let us know how you get on. If you're new to the channel, we have an extensive back catalogue of work, so check it out. Please subscribe and push the notification icon to ensure you get all the episodes. If you found an episode helpful, please share it with others. Your experiences and insights are valuable to us and to the community we're building. Your support enables us to move forward on our mission and we thank you from the bottom of our collective Kiwi hearts. So, with that all said let's dive in and take just so you know the format, guys, we've just changed it a little bit. We take one bad story and share three perspectives one for all, one for one specifically for leaders and a practical tool you can apply to make the bad work story good. And you know, sometimes we do get a bit carried away and add some more.
Speaker 2So let's see Welcome, Corina. How are you?
Speaker 1Hello, hello, hello, hi, Emma, I am very well.
Speaker 2How are you? I'm great, I'm great. What have you been up to?
Speaker 1Well, today, I have just got in from earlier, a couple of hours ago, from a kid's school camp. It's school holiday time here in the Northern Hemisphere in Europe and I was teaching 44 kids how to play pickleball and it was fun. It was full-on. They aged and rained, the age range I should say was five to about eleven and um, we were you had, you know, the 44 were broken up into three groups and it was kind of like half an hour they were rotating to different activities. It was super fun. It was super full-on chaos and and the kids just loved it, right, you know, balls flying everywhere and lots of energy. So, yeah, it was really cool.
Speaker 2Oh, that sounds like a lot of fun. Yeah, a lot of fun.
Speaker 1It was good. It was the highlight of my day. It was great.
Speaker 2Well, I've completed my Tour de France via coverage. Yes, the winners reached Nice on Monday night our time, so it was stage 21,. But a bit of difference for the Tour de France because of the Olympics they completed the first Tour de France in Nice, so that was pretty exciting and, yeah, a clear winner, a clear team win as well. So, yeah, very exciting. I'm missing my Tour de France, but it's been two evenings now, so I'm starting to break my habit. I'll have to find. Well, actually, I don't have to wait too long, because the Olympics are starting soon.
Speaker 1Exactly exactly. Well, if you're listening to this, we will publish this for Friday. Right Friday, New Zealand time, it goes out and the Olympics starts. I think. The opening ceremony is Friday evening here in Europe, so in Paris. So it's going to be exciting, yeah.
Speaker 2Looking forward to it. So, Let's do a bad work stories.
Speaker 1You know this is our 73rd bad work story. Wow, you know, just if anyone's rocking along, aren't we? 73 bad work stories, all right. So this the 73rd bad work story is from. Building up the build up's big All right. So, if you noticed, the title of this one was when Leaders Fake Care and Connection and that is the basis of the client story.
Speaker 1So working with a client and just doing a download and what was on his attention was really interesting and I thought, yeah, let's pick it up as part of our bad work story for this week.
Speaker 1And he wanted to work through a conversation that he had had with his boss and you know the boss has said, hey, you know, I want to catch up. This is really important. And what had happened is that the boss turned up late and what transcribed in the conversation was that it was all about the boss and not about, in this case, the client, and the client left, you know, sorry, yeah, the client, our client left feeling really uninspired and disappointed at this boss's behavior, and what was the piece for him was the disconnect between this individual you know, promoting himself as valuing care and connection and team, and yet the outcome of this experience for the client was none of those things, and so it was kind of it was interesting. I thought, well, let's bring it here and see what. What would we say and what would we do, because I'm sure that's not an isolated case, unfortunately for our listeners.
Speaker 2Yeah, well, an interesting one for sure. So well, yeah, let me look at a perspective for all of us. You know it's frustrating, you know as it sounds, you know we might want to move into judgment. Exactly, For sure, For sure. Right, that was our first kind of moment reaction. But, you know, let's think about it.
Speaker 2So do we always act? You know, on what we value and when. We're thinking about you saying that this leader values care and connection. But, you know, are we always in alignment with our values? Sometimes we're not, but, yeah, basically, hopefully, most of the time we do. When we are acting in alignment with our values, you know we keep integrity and happiness and you know we're feeling the flow and everything is better for us. But as humans, sometimes, for whatever the reason, we don't have the energy or we're just tracked by problems. Maybe these problems can't be shared, Maybe something personal or deep that was going on for this leader and they weren't able to be as connected as they want to do. So, beware the mirror, Do what you say and value rather than that. So you know, how would you feel? I wonder, how would you feel about calling out the leader on this behavior? Yeah, you know, if it was affecting, affecting you. How would you feel about that?
Speaker 2yeah and then asking them you know what was going on for them. I mean, you know? This is again mirroring the care and connection, saying, hey, you seem a bit, you know, distracted and and is there anything I you know? Are you okay? Is there anything I can help with or anything you want to share? Um, so, yeah, so use that curiosity first and and take the take the lead on the care can sometimes be difficult when you are in a, in a power dynamic.
Speaker 1Uh, but yeah, could be, could be a way forward, could be, yeah and yeah, and to add to that I would say, um, be be aware of time frames you know, like you know the um, that and and purpose, and I think I think we're going to talk about that a little bit later on, but it's it's kind of like, um, yeah, I would just go around, you know what, can you take responsibility for this?
Speaker 1And that's not in any way, you know, saying that, hey, whatever this leader was doing, it's not okay too right, because if they were definitely, if they definitely, you know, if this person, you know the client noticed that there was a disconnect between what was said was important and what was happening here, then you know, as you've said, emma, get really curious about what is focusing on that disconnect and, yeah, I would say, call it off Like, hey, you don't seem to be yourself. Everything's about you. We're going to run out of time for me. Potentially, what was going on to talk about me? So, what are our options here? Be curious about options, right, because it could be hey, look, I don't really want to be here at this meeting. Or hey, I don't really have the time and attention, or, hey, let's reschedule.
Speaker 2You know, there could have been a number of other options that could have totally, and I mean even a simple sort of check-in right, because you know, I think we are going to talk a bit about that. But also, you know, having been in a in a leader position where you know you are running from, you've got some big problem that's come up and you're now suddenly with you one of your team. You really haven't got the attention particles to actually give to them.
Speaker 2So you know, so being honest about that and so saying, look honestly, it's probably not the best time. Um, what do you want out of this meeting? Um so, but yeah yeah, exactly cool, cool.
Speaker 1So that's something for all of us to consider. Um, you know, and when we talk about all we're talking about, you know, whatever role that you're in, you know, on the team listening to this the, the client, the leader, whatever it is now a perspective deliberately for leaders um, is that, you know, basically it's a double time for you on what we've just said. Everybody is watching you and you know that comes with the role, right? So if you are promoting care and connection and teamwork and things like that, you better blimmin step up to that. And that might sound quite harsh, but hey, if you're not up to it or that's not your default, then learn it fast, because the the ripple effect of that is is is important.
Speaker 1Right, because You know people talk about one thing, but we know that their behavior or how it feels is different, and it was really interesting and the Gallop work for 2023, talks about 42 percent of the reasons that people quit right are tied to the behavior of the boss and the company culture. Y ou can just see it in this, in this situation, right here we have someone who is connected to care, connection and teamwork and has a boss that was in this situation is in this particular one, was not communicating those values to the person they were talking to, you know. So it's kind of like wake up people. If you're in a leadership role, then you know, be cognizant of what you're doing. Like, don't go into those situations, right, if you are distracted, you are tired, you need to.
Speaker 1You know, take care of yourself and we've talked a lot on this channel about taking care of yourself and your attention and your energy and all of that. And you know, and the integrity of hey, look, I'm not in a great place right now. Look, I'm really sorry. Can we postpone this to another time? Or actually you own this to another time? Or actually, as we talk about in facilitation, get your attention off yourself, if you can, on to the other person and for that x period of time. They are the center of your world and that's the most important thing, because you are in service to, not to yourself, but to the person on the team. So that coherence, that congruency whatever word, that alignment, all those words are super, super important.
Speaker 1And the other little thing to remember if you're a leader is again on a Gallup meta-analysis. This is really interesting when I found this. The meta-analysis was done over a hundred thousand different business units wow! it's huge, it's freaking huge! The research was really clear that the more connected and invested a team is with each other, the higher the performance. You could say no surprise Sherlock. On that one interaction, know you can just say what a frigging wasted opportunity this was.
Speaker 1You know one of your team walks away with this kind of outcome. What a waste.
Speaker 2Totally, and then it's on this person's attention right.
Speaker 1This person brings it into their coaching session.
Speaker 2Yeah, absolutely agree, you are the leader you do have to have a higher level of attention on this behavior. You know you do have bigger impact, so you must have better attention on it. Also, be honest if you aren't on and you know it, bring that, bring that honesty and openness into your, your conversation and your relationship with your team, because we know you're human and I think I and take everything I say with love and compassion and then we come to the tools. The first one we want to offer you is the tool, and I think we've got two tools here.
Speaker 1We're overachieving tonight.
Speaker 2Oh yeah, two for us.
Speaker 1All right, we've got purpose and presence. Which one do you want to talk about?
Speaker 2Oh, shall I do get present thing? So be clear on getting present. it's a tool we use even at the beginning of our podcast. It's a part of working with each other. Taking the time to check in, how are you? what you've been doing? And just land where you are and in the space you are with the person you are with, rather than having that distracted. You know other, I'm in another place. I mean, we all know it. We can all see when someone's actually thinking about someone else, when they're listening or doing something else, when they're actually with us. So, get present, take it on as a practice.
Speaker 1Presence - it's just so, so, so important. Another little bonus would be you notice the difference particularly at home too when you're with your dear ones, and holiday time, families are together or you're planning vacation spots. Notice particularly with your children and your significant other. The other tool to offer is what is the purpose? Getting know, getting really clear about what is the purpose of this time that we are In, and in this know had, uh, the purpose was to catch and um, so you The Know, the catch-up not Is it it um?
Speaker 2, like specifics of work lists we need to get through? Yeah?
Speaker 1Exactly! Is it an update? Is it just a chit-chat, personal kind of reconnection? Who knows? I don't know, but get very clear. So the purpose of our time together is .. I find it really useful just to T that at the beginning of something. The purpose of Emma and I getting together before we get on a call and record this podcast is to check in, get connected, get present and then we are ready to go. What is the purpose of this podcast? We talk about that at the beginning of every single episode - to stop the suffering at work. We want to equip you with tools that will allow you to do that. So getting really, really clear on that. Is there anything else you would like to add to that? Em?
Speaker 2That's the powerful, powerful, place to start any meeting, any connection point with anyone. We're busy, right? We're all busy, so honour your time as well and create a purpose. Have a purpose, a reason for being together.
Speaker 1Cool yeah, exactly.
Speaker 1And then at the end of that you can say - did we achieve our purpose? It's either, yes or no, or is there more to go? So what's the purpose of the next catch-up? Again, and if you've seen any of our episodes on completion and in the last few weeks the pain of incompletion . You don't want to walk away from meetings with a client who, or one of your team members who, has this going on in their mind. That is not helpful. If you're a leader, it's not helpful. What's our wrap up?
Speaker 2In summary, firstly know and act from your values and remember that we are all human. When you come together, be in alignment on your own values and remember the human side. Secondly, for leaders, you know you need to work harder and you need to align with your values and live your culture, and you do need to care for your people. Stem the resignations and the people loss in our organizations that you know the Gallup research is showing us you make a big effect, so s take it seriously. Thirdly, be clear on the purpose for your meeting and then get present with each other before you dive in to the content.
Speaker 1This is a kindness for both parties, absolutely. There we go, thank you everybody.
Positive Farewell and Good Wishes
Speaker 1So we we appreciate that this is a pretty generalized, look through and you might be facing something that has some specifics and some urgency attached to stuff. So if you would like some support from us, you can always reach out. The details are in our show notes and we are happy to have a confidential and free chat with you to help. We also acknowledge that dealing with this kind of the group dynamics and things that we talk a lot about on our podcast also has a skill base level to that. And if you're interested in upgrading your facilitation skills of yourself or your team, please reach out and let us know as well, because I run Zenergy facilitation courses, so let us know how we can help you there. With all of that said, I bid you all a good day, a good night whenever you're listening to this and, Emma, anything from you.
Speaker 2No, goodbye. May all your bad work stories be made good.
Speaker 1Awesome. All right, good night from here.