The future of an engaging, post-pandemic workplace is a matter of debate right now. Is hybrid-working here to stay? Will remote-first be the norm? Or will we all be back in the office 5 days a week before we know it? Who knows? In all this debate, where is the voice of the employee, and are managers and supervisors emotionally equipped to ask the right questions to hear it and respond effectively?
Well, in episode 17 of the Sticky From The Inside podcast, host, Andy Goram is joined by founder of EI Evolution, Emotional Intelligence Coach and Ted X Talker, Sandra Thompson to work all that through.
Below is a full transcript of the conversation, but you can also listen here.
00:00:00 Andy Goram
Hello, and welcome to sticky from the inside. The Employee Engagement podcast that looks at how to build stickier competition, smashing consistently successful organisations from the inside out. I'm your host Andy Goram and I'm on a mission to help more businesses turn their lights on behind the eyes of their employees, light the fires within them and create tons more success for everyone.
This podcast is for all those who believe that's something worth going after and would like a little help and guidance in achieving that. Each episode we dive into the topics that can help create what I call stickier businesses, the sort of businesses where people thrive and love to work and where more customers stay with you and recommend you to others because they love what you do and why you do it.
So, if you want to take the tricky out of being sticky, listen on.
00:01:10 Andy Goram
OK then, so with what's been happening over the last 18 months or so, leaders find themselves at a point in history where they have a unique opportunity to determine a better way of working for their business and their employees. And there's been lots of talk about remote and hybrid working being the future, but what on Earth does that really mean?
We've had remote first businesses operating for years, so whilst it may be new to the majority, it's not exactly new. But there's equally a lot of talk of just going straight back to normal, which means pulling everybody back into the office. So, what's the right solution? What's the right answer? And importantly, what are the challenges that leaders face in maintaining relationships, culture, and productivity in that go forward working world? And for me, where does the voice of the employee get heard in all this noise.
Well to work all this through with me today, I'm joined by Sandra Thompson, who's the founder of EI Evolution, which is a customer experience consultancy focusing on the adoption of emotional intelligence to create meaningful experiences for employees and customers, and she's also the first Goleman emotional intelligence coach in the UK and delivered her very first Ted X talk back in 2020.
She's also the curator of the EI Evolution Summit, a five-month program of mini events and a two-day summit bringing emotional intelligence to the world of customer experience, employee experience and remote work experience. So, she's bang on message for this podcast.
Hey, how are you doing Sandra?
00:02:57 Sandra Thompson
I really well, I'm a little bit exhausted after that explanation as to what I do if I'm going to be honest! Goodness!
00:03:03 Andy Goram
We can work on that later, but you do so much and there's so much that you need to get out there so people understand what you're up to.
So, I mean, let's start at the beginning for me. So, what is a Goleman emotional intelligence coach? And what do they do?
00:03:18 Sandra Thompson
Great question, so I'm one of a handful of people who have worked through a program that took around 18 months, to become a coach, but using techniques that are understood and used within the field of emotional intelligence. So, you can imagine Daniel Goleman, he wrote this book about 25 years ago about emotional intelligence potentially being more important than IQ. So back in the day he came up with that idea. And so, what I do when I coach, both individuals and also groups, is I try and introduce them to the skill of emotional intelligence and see how that helps them with their professional and their personal lives.
00:04:03 Andy Goram
That's fantastic, I think it's an amazing topic. I'm always wary though, in my career whenever I sat down with someone who sat in front me and said, “By the way, Andy, you need to know I've got a high level of emotional intelligence.” My radar would suggest immediately that they have no emotional intelligence for having to say that to me!
00:04:24 Sandra Thompson
I know, hilarious! I've been exactly in the same situation where I have smiled inwardly and thought, “That just about sums it up, really.”
00:04:36 Andy Goram
What are you currently up to right now, Sandra? What are you working through right now?
00:04:42 Sandra Thompson
I'm doing a little bit of teaching, so I teach at a Business School in central London. Undergrads which I love, so I'm teaching’ interestingly, customer experience and professional behaviors, which is a code name I think for emotional intelligence. All those poor young people. But the thing that's taking up a lot of my time right now and I'm loving every minute of it is this the Evolution Summit, which is the event that you mentioned earlier? It's two for the price of 1. Bringing in Doctor Daniel Goleman and also Doctor Lisa Feldman-Barrett, who's a massive neuroscientist out in the states, and to introduce people to the concept of what emotion really is and how the time is now to start using emotional intelligence.
I mean, looking at the news headlines, looking at how the workplace is moving around at such a rate, yeah, but the event’s all about that, and it's bringing a whole bunch of people in too, from their perspective, how they use emotional intelligence and empathy for the greater good. It's exciting and I'm learning loads.
00:05:49 Andy Goram
Well, that's great. I mean, I think it's a fascinating topic. We'll put a link to that event in the show notes, right? So, people can find out a bit more about it and hopefully register and come and hear about that stuff. We love a bit of neuroscience on sticky on the inside. So yeah, I think it's cracking stuff. But you're right, there's so much going on right now. Like knowing, we were going to have this conversation I had a quick flip through the digital newspapers, right, to sort of see what is going on, because I am so confused about what people are going to be doing with the work environment going forward, because on any given day, the headline is (different)…
I don't know, something on BBC news the other day from a think tank. A UK think tank said, in two years, everybody will be back five days a week in an office. You've had guys like Apple, who've got into all sorts of trouble recently with Tim Cook, saying, “Oh yeah, I want you all back three days a week, some of you, maybe four days a week”, and there's been a big kind of employee backlash, so, I read on that. Goldman Sachs said, right, “You’re all back into the office come June.” Nationwide have said, “Whatever. Work where you want, we don't mind.” Lloyds are sort of somewhere in the middle. Google have said, “Yep. The future is 3 days a week in the office.” I mean, what is going on? What are you hearing? What are you seeing? And actually, more importantly, what are the questions people should be thinking about, right, with all this going on?
00:07:19 Sandra Thompson
The word that really stood out for me in reading similar types of headlines is the word “revolt”.
00:07:26 Andy Goram
Yeah, that's strong.
00:07:27 Sandra Thompson
Yeah, it is strong. It's really strong. And the fact that people are now putting their foot down and they're saying, “No, I'm not prepared to do that.” And that was the interesting thing. You know, Tim Cook says, “Yeah, you need to come back”, and it has caused a backlash. So, I think, you know, from a questions perspective. There are a whole bunch of different questions from different perspectives, but the biggest question is, “What do you have to do to claim your right to get the balance between work and life and continue to be productive?” And anyone who asks that question will get an answer, probably something along the lines of, “I've adjusted in the last year and a half. I found a new groove. I'm working better than ever. Can you just at least let me continue to work in this way? Because taking me back Is preventing society from moving forward” That's how big this thing is.
00:08:32 Andy Goram
It's interesting as well, isn't it? Because I guess maybe on the other side of it, I mean, and you're talking about the work and the life, one of the challenges of the way we've all been working, I would guess over the last 18 months, is successfully creating that separation between work and life. I am currently housed in the corner of a living room that, you know, I pretty much come here in the morning, sit, work, talk to lovely people like yourself, do my work and walk 3 yards to the sofa later on to catch up with what's going down on Netflix, or whatever it might be later on.
You know, there's not the hugest amount of separation, yet it's cool. What is that challenge. How are people coping with their challenge? And what do we do?
00:09:21 Sandra Thompson
I think we need to remember a few things. We've had, and if you layer it, I think that might be the best way to kind of visualise this thing. We've had a pandemic. We're in the pandemic, still working our way through that and that has meant we've had to follow particular rules about where we can go. So, forget about the work bit for a minute. We have been, in some cases, in lockdown. Housebound. That's one thing. The other scenario is you know, before even the pandemic I would take myself off to co-working spaces, to places, to office spaces. There were four, actually, that I could pick, so in that time I had a choice of where I could be. But I didn't need to be in a cubicle or in a little office space within an office building that took me an hour and a half to get to.
Alternatively, I might go to a cafe and sit do a little bit of work, then mix it up. Go for a bit of a walk, do some other thinking, deep thinking, which I really needed to. So, I think, you know, we need to be careful about how we're categorising remote work, because what we've done is survive a whole bunch of rules that have tried to keep us safe. Psychologically, deal with the fear and the threat that this thing has presented to us. So, I'm not surprised that people want something different, but they might not know what that different thing is. If they don't have a room in their house, that means they can lock work away. There's a lot of stuff in there, I hope that's OK with you.
00:11:03 Andy Goram
But of course, but I mean, I think the whole point is different, is that everybody is potentially going to want their own version, right? It's something that's right for you, Sandra, might not be right for me and so on. And that throws up so many difficult questions to sort through. So let's have a go right at trying to sort through some of these things.
I thought your bit at the front here, of claiming you're right. I've done quite a bit of work on employee voice recently and this slams right into the heart of that. So, you're really talking about, I guess the empowerment of employees in these decisions going forward. So, where is the employee voice occurring in these decisions right now? What are you seeing? What are you hearing?
00:11:48 Sandra Thompson
I'm seeing a few examples of HR teams reaching out to people to ask them how they would prefer to work, so this is before they've written their policy documents. This is engaging. It's consulting and it makes great sense because, ultimately, they're thinking about two things, aren’t they? They're thinking about, well, actually, legally, what are we responsible for and how do these individuals need to work to get the best outcome? And secondly, they're thinking about the space of the office and whether they can downsize and save themselves a bunch of cash, lovely. So, they're being really proactive in seeing what people like, because, while we have in some cases tolerated working from home, some people love it, and some people are clambering to get back into the office because of the personalities they are. Because of how they do their work. They love the vibe of being surrounded with their friends very often, and other colleagues. So, the first thing I'm seeing is people asking the question. The maturity and the courage, quite frankly, of organisations reaching out there and finding out what people want.
The other thing that I'm seeing which is the polar opposite, are organisations that are stating the edict of, “You're coming back, and you're coming back on this date.” And what they're ignoring is the panic, the anxiety, the trepidation of what that's going to be like. How can I picture sitting within a meter of someone who I used to sit next to, for years? How is it going to be when I need to make a cup of coffee? Am I going to have to sanitise the kettle? There are so many questions about what returning back to the office is, and most organisations are not addressing those proactively to alleviate those fears.
And then in the middle we have what I can only describe as “a merry dance”. You know you put left foot in, your right foot in. In, out, in, out, shake it all about. When organisations can't make their mind up because they say one thing, their employees react, then they rejig it, then they come... It's just ridiculous.
00:14:10 Andy Goram
“Merry Dance” is a lovely, lovely description of it because I did some survey work for companies over the last 18 months and many of them have been asking these questions. What do you feel comfortable with working, in an ideal world? What's the best split of working from home, working remotely, working in office, working in other environments? And I think fairly universally, you know, understanding that these are different industries at times, different sized organisations, but the similarities were quite stark in that the results that I was seeing was...
There's a very small number of people who wanted to come back to the office full time. Like no question, “I'm coming back.” There was a slightly larger group who were at the other end of the scale that were like, “No, no, no, no! I'm never coming back to the office, right? I'm just not, I'm just not doing it.” And then I think the vast majority were in the blend. They were in in the blend. Maybe two to three days a week in contact in an office environment with other people seems to be, I guess, the largest slug. And then maybe three and four days a week. You know slightly smaller, but that mix was where most people were sitting. Now is that representative of what you're seeing? Because if it is, that throws up some massive challenges for relationships, culture, even continuation, and we'll get into productivity later on. But I mean, how's that sound, matching up to what you what you're seeing?
00:15:46 Sandra Thompson
Yeah, it's spot on. It's absolutely spot on. I mean, as human beings we do like social interaction. We worry a little bit about missing out. We like to feel that we're connected in some way and often when organisations perhaps haven't invested in doing remote work properly, people are missing that. So, let's make sure that we understand that people who are remote... People, who work for organisations that are remote-first, they have far more effective communication. They probably meet up as a whole organisation twice a year. So, it's not that they don't have any contact, they just do it with far more intention because we haven't been trained in this remote-first work. We've been doing emergency work from home. I think a lot of people will want to return to the office a little bit more, to get that, you know, to refill, as it were, on some of those social interactions. So yeah, what you said, I think is a really great summary of what's happening right now.
People don't want to lose presence. And what I mean by that is, you know that that old adage, that if you're not seen much, then you're not seen. There's a kind of agenda going on where people feel like they need to be in the office space, so people remember who they are. Ah, which actually isn't funny, because ultimately if you feel that way, then that's the organisation perhaps not serving you in the first place. So yeah, I think people want to either be in the work partially on their terms. And the other one, just quickly, to highlight those people who have actually moved out of London. The rental prices on Property’s gone down in central London, because people have moved out. And some people who were thinking, you know, I'm just going to fly to Bali. I'm going to do a few months there because, in fact, I can do my work with an Internet connection anywhere in the world. And they're not going to be popping back once a week, because they want a completely different life for themselves.
00:17:53 Andy Goram
And these are the extremes that businesses are going to deal with, right? I think this is where the challenge goes. I think it's very difficult to make edicts now without having a large recruitment job to try and do. How many people are going to be voting for a job that is office-based all the time? I just don't know. I cannot get a proper sense of where people are. I think muscle memory is really hard to change, so, it's a bit like, for me all this emotion and humanity coming back into business. Which I think is an amazing great, great thing. I don't know how long it's going to last. And the same thing with the office and hybrid stuff. Yes, whilst there might be a movement right now, to say hybrid’s the way forward, you know, two or three days remote, two or three days in the office, depending which way you go. How long is that going to stick before people start to creep back into, “Well, we're gonna have a meeting on Thursday in the office next week. If you could just do that...” and then it goes on before we know it, we're back in five days a week?
I don't know if that's a good or a bad thing. I genuinely am confused at this moment in time.
00:19:02 Sandra Thompson
My perception on this is that we're faced with a unique window of time where people can refuse.
00:19:13 Andy Goram
Yeah.
00:19:14 Sandra Thompson
And it is brave. You have to be brave. You have to be courageous, because there's more at stake now. We're talking more about mental health and well-being. People are more open, they feel more comfortable to talk about it. An organisation's responsibility, of course, is to their people, but the conversation about mental health and well-being is right up there. And that is one of the good things I think that has come from their pandemic. So, I think people having the, as I've said before, the right and the opportunity to say, “I'm not coming in for that Friday, because I will join you online, and that works really well for me. And of course, you do have your best intention for all of us, I'm sure. I'm not doing it.”
00:20:06 Andy Goram
And that's such a change, right? There is such a change in, well, maybe the word “power” is a bit over the top, but it's such a swing for power. I love the way you use the word courageous from an employee perspective, but I guess there's a piece here about businesses being brave and bold and courageous. So how bold are they going to be? Do you think, from what I see?
00:20:31 Sandra Thompson
It's a great question. Ummm, it's a great question and I'm gonna call upon a theorist here, the growth mindset. Having a growth mindset rather than a fixed mindset, which means that the fixed mindset is, you know, it's always been this way, so we're always going to do this. And I can't do it like that and I'm never going to be able to do it, versus the growth mindset, which is all about learning and curiosity and trying something and wanting to grow and prosper and thrive.
What's going to happen, I think, is that the type of people who make up your organisation, the type of people who were recruited under the old framework, of “Well actually you come to this place and you work these number of hours approximately and you need to do these types of tasks.” It's all going to come out in the wash. And what I mean by that is, the courageous organisations, the bold organisations, will make their mark. They will put ..., they'll put a note down. They will decide exactly how they want to be in the next X number of years, and most people who want to do it or stay. And those who don't want to do it, will go.
And I think it takes a courageous organisation to be decisive. To make that decision based on what they've seen and what they've heard, and what has happened to them over the last 18 months. And if it's not in response to what is of best service to their employees when they make potentially the wrong decision, they're going to see attrition. They're going to see people leave, or they'll see productivity go down. Because there's nothing worse, is there, than having a scenario which works really well and then being told it won't work that way anymore? We're not wired for that; we're not told, we're not prepared anymore to be told what to do. You know, the industrial revolution still has a legacy on us, but as far as choice and free speech, it could never be a worse time to tell people. As you said earlier, look what happened to Apple. Tim Cook says “this”, the people say “no, I'm sorry we've got other places we can go.” Off goes the talent and all of a sudden, you've got an organisation in crisis.
00:23:04 Andy Goram
And that's an organisation that on the outside has a perception, or in the public, of an amazing place to work, where people are looked after and everything's cool and hunky-dory, and yet, you've still got a fairly visceral reaction from its employee base. And I also worry there's a bit of complacency. You know when you're networking and you're doing webinars and various bits and pieces and listening to people speak. And I'm asking questions around “What are you seeing in your workforce?” And occasionally you get the " Well, people are just grateful to have a job. So, when it's time to come back they just come back because they'll need a job.” And I may be a little out of touch, being an independent consultant, running around doing my own things, but I think that is wholly naive and a touch arrogant. Because if they think employees aren't looking around at the moment and seeing how businesses are treating their people and have treated their people over the last 18 months, and not making mental decisions of, “OK. Well, I might see out this furlough period and I might see what happens. But you know what? If it's not the way I want it, I'm going to find somewhere else”, and I think there's going to be a bit of a rude awakening for some businesses, who just may be complacently thinking, “Yeah, everybody’s going to come back. It's been tough. People need work, they'll just do what we want.” And I get the sense that that is not going to be the case. Certainly not everywhere.
00:24:31 Sandra Thompson
I completely agree with you. I really do. I think while for some people networking has been tougher in this environment, I've had more conversations with people across the globe more frequently than ever before. More opportunities to collaborate on things I would never have thought of. So, it is going to be that, I think. It will be a rude awakening. And the interesting thing which I think organisations are forgetting is that an individual who is not engaged, is really not a good option. So, while they might retain their staff, their levels of happiness and don't forget their responsibility for health and well-being. It causes it all into question, doesn't it? Because you know, you're forcing something on a bunch of people. It's fear and threat that could keep them in those roles, if some of the internal communications is around, “You know it's great that you're still working, isn't it great you’ve got a job?”, or you know not about those words, but that kind of stuff, is only going to last so long, and people will resent them for it. They will. And resentment leads to a whole bunch of other emotions that actually cause physical pain, so it's not going to last. Thank goodness for that.
00:25:57 Andy Goram
It's not, but you're gonna... I think you're going to get that slug of presenteeism just bigger. Just bigger. The more employees that are just “there” not “there” and participating, is going to be huge. It's only going to lead to more attrition, less productivity. All of those quite horrible things that disengaged businesses have to kind of deal with.
If I can just sort of like, dive into one particular area on this and move into things like productivity. And my major concern here is how businesses can maintain culture effectively, in a sort of hybrid environment, where you know some people are in on some days, some people in another day, you know it's rare that it brings, kind of, coming back together and you only have to, sort of, see it recently like actually, finally getting outside and doing workshops with real people. Real live up close. You know, I thought I could sense empathy through a screen. Nah! It's Technicolor, when you're back out and you remember just how different it feels. So how are businesses successfully maintaining culture during this different way of working?
00:27:10 Sandra Thompson
So remote-first organisations will bring their organisation together at least a couple of times a year, which is when they celebrate the culture of their organisation. So, it's really important that people understand that remote does not mean cut off. It really doesn't, you know. There are so many activities that they kind of put into, like a three-day conference or a three-day summit, that kind of thing, where people are invited, of course, to communicate in different ways. There’s workshops and seminars and opportunities to get to know one another better. So, I think it's the conscious, intentional, purposeful effort from the organisation to create those moments that sustain the culture. And even if they're not meeting once every quarter, it's only a couple of times a year, there will be things that you can do. You know I read something about a company where they sent out recipes for the same dish, I think it was paella, but from every different country in the world where they had staff had their different twist on it.
Now I know that's culture, not corporate culture, but what that did is, when everyone then tried to make this paella the conversation about what it meant and getting into people's lives, understanding far more than the work part. That's where culture is. It's the people and their stories, what they're bringing their whole selves that creates the culture, I think. So there are things that people can do if they're not physically present. I think that's what I'm really trying to get across.
00:29:00 Andy Goram
Yeah no, I agree. I think it's a combination. I think, yes, the headline events are good, but it's the tiny rituals, gestures, ways people can connect. And at some time over last 18 months, some of those things can start to feel a bit contrived and a bit forced. But I think from what I see, there's successful companies who have managed to maintain some assemblance of a culture, or reinvigorated their culture in a really positive sense, have just found other ways to do things a little differently to inspire connection.
00:29:34 Sandra Thompson
I think it's very interesting that one of the things that comes up repeatedly is this panic about corporate culture. What are we going to do about it now that we're not all physically present? And I think that in itself is the question you should be asking yourself really, which is, why is it suddenly become an issue? If your culture is that strong and people understand it, it shouldn't matter whether people are not physically together all of the time. Because ultimately, it's about the community of people that work for you that represents your culture. So, I think organisations that are panicking about it need to probably have a good old look at what their corporate culture, or their culture represents in the first place and again use this window of time, as you said to reinvigorate, to refocus, to re-launch, whatever it might be, so everyone’s clear 'cause it is the glue that brings people together.
00:30:37 Andy Goram
No, I love the... I like the word “renovate” in this point, because I think the scary thing is “reset” and “redo”. And is there anymore “Re-words” we can whack in here? I don't know, but they all feel like huge, monumental efforts to kind of start from scratch. Whereas renovation for me, is polishing up the bits that are brilliant already, so people could see them, and making some kind of tidy-ups around the edges and maybe putting in some new stuff around that too. So properly renovating it. I desperately feel this is the opportunity for people to do a bit of renovation.
Sandra, before we completely run out of time right, we must touch on productivity, because this is the thing that scares the bejesus out of most people when (talking) about hybrid working, if you’ve got a disconnected workforce. What on Earth is going to happen with productivity? You know, even at the start of the pandemic and lockdown we had, I don't know, spyware being downloaded onto people PC's to kind of keep track of what they were doing. What's going on in this space that you see and where are some of the answers here?
00:31:43 Sandra Thompson
Your point around spyware and software for managers is true. Their sales numbers have gone through the roof. And that obviously calls to question the amount of trust that people have with one another. The interesting thing about real remote work is that people are highly productive when you look at remote-first organisations. But that's because they're catering for how the brain really works and what I mean by that is, “Here's the deadline. Please get the work done before that time.” Imagine that.
00:32:21 Andy Goram
A bit of trust and empowerment? How crazy.
00:32:23 Sandra Thompson
Oh my gosh! It isn't it? But here's the great thing, I personally work at my best between 4:30 and 7:00 AM in the morning. That is, when I am on rocket fuel. If I have to go to an office, I'm done. By 9:00 o'clock, that's it. I'm going to be present, but I'm not going to get anything else out of the time. When we look at productivity, we need to change the lens completely and we need to give individuals the opportunity to be productive on their terms because they know. They know biologically, they know chemically when they are in a good zone and it's tortuous to try and get a piece of work done that will take you 4 hours when you're not in the zone, versus 20 minutes when you are in the zone. And the quality of the work is outstanding. So, managers, middle managers, leaders need to just hold the mirror up to themselves and say, do I trust my staff, number 1, and number 2 having the self-awareness to know, “actually I'm panicking about this because of a bunch of perceptions I have. Are they true or not?” And giving people the opportunity to prove they can do phenomenal work. Just give me the deadline and let me work how I need to work and that is when you have people productive. You know this. I know this. When people have the opportunity to be more, have more autonomy, to have more control over their time. When you give them a framework and let them be creative, and you know some people need more instruction than others, but if you also tell them about the purpose of the work, you're going to have a highly engaged workforce. Why would you not want that?
00:34:11 Andy Goram
You are singing to the choir on this stuff, Sandra. This is pretty much my reason for being. When you find an environment that really allows you to learn and gives you the opportunity to work at your best in whatever way that maybe, you're going to stick around. You're going to give great effort. You're going to be there. You're going to be an advocate for that for that business, and things will take a bit of more of a virtuous cycle, I think, getting after that. But making the change is the tough stuff.
00:34:42 Sandra Thompson
Organisations need to be bold and they need to really think about what work is. And when they realise that for most people, work is a balance of life and work, then perhaps they will step up, make some tough decisions, listen and then give people what they need to help them be of service to the organisation.
00:35:06 Andy Goram
No, you’re absolutely right, mate, absolutely right. Right so look, let's try and help the listeners, right. This is the bit we call sticky notes, Sandra, right. This is 3 simple bits of advice people can take back to work to start improving the stuff we're talking about here that can fit on a sticky note. So, what are your three sticky notes for us to take away?
00:35:27 Sandra Thompson
Ok. Number 1. Pause and consider what really works for you.
00:35:36 Andy Goram
Is that from an employee perspective? That’s the employee?
00:35:38 Sandra Thompson
That's employee, that's a great point. That's from an employee perspective. I'm inviting people to make a note, maybe on a sticky, around the conditions that enable them to do great work.
The second one is, Ask. It's as simple as that. It's inviting employees to ask their leaders, to ask their HR department, how they can do their best work. Don't wait. Don't wait for the policy to be written. Don't wait for your boss to ask you. Be proactive to take control. Let's ask the question.
And the final sticky note is, revolt. If you don't like the conditions that have been put upon you for how you need to work, my practical advice is to make your voice heard at that moment in time. Explain, calmly, in a few paragraphs, how it will be a better service to the organisation, to the shareholders. If you can work on your terms not following the policy that has been written, in the absence of the people that make the organisation.
00:37:02 Andy Goram
Fantastic, the spirit of professional revolution flows through all of those sticky notes and I think gives people some very, very helpful advice on how to tackle what is going to be an increasingly important thing for people as we progress out of this horrible last 18 months.
Sandra, it's been lovely to talk to you. Thank you so much for your time. The very best of luck with your summit. We will put a link in the show notes, so people kind of check that out, but thanks so much for your time. Really appreciate you talking to you. And yeah, see you again soon.
00:37:28 Sandra Thompson
Thank you, take care of yourself.
00:37:39 Andy Goram
Will do.
00:37:40 Andy Goram
OK everybody, that was Sandra Thompson. And if you'd like to find out a bit more about her and the EI summit then please check out all the details in the show notes.
00:37:55 Andy Goram
So, that concludes today's episode. I hope you've enjoyed it, found it interesting and heard something, maybe that will help you become a stickier, more successful business from the inside going forwards.
If you have, please like comment and subscribe, it really helps.
I'm Andy Goram and you've been listening to the sticky from the Inside podcast. Until next time, thanks for listening.