Conquering Workplace toxicity: Strategies for Fostering Trust and Kindness in a Competitive Environment

Have you ever been caught in the crossfire of blame culture at work? This episode will immerse you in the harsh reality of workplace toxicity, highlighting a disturbing account from a college student navigating a hospital job. We share a real-life narrative that underscores the emotionally manipulative practices that can permeate a work environment, fostering anxiety, and eroding trust.

As we journey further, we dissect the intertwined concepts of competition and collaboration within a professional setting. Drawing from the 'five wise' approach, we elucidate how holistic thinking can trump blame culture. You'll hear us delve into the fascinating dynamics of dopamine and oxytocin in the workplace, shedding light on how oxytocin can be harnessed to counterbalance the potential toxicity resulting from intense competition. We'll arm you with strategies to foster an environment of trust and kindness amidst the competitive battleground of the workplace.

As we draw to a close, we venture into the realms of trust and the 'sunk cost fallacy' in relation to careers. We explore effective methods to cultivate a supportive work environment while preserving trust among colleagues. The conversation around 'political' dialogue and the 'five wise' approach is poised to equip you with actionable advice. We'll expose the fruitfulness of giving exposure to others, creating a win-win situation. As a parting thought, we address the concept of the 'sunk cost fallacy' and the power of a fresh start in both relationships and careers. Listen in, and let's redefine workplace norms together.

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:08

Hello and welcome to the Needle Movers podcast. On this episode we're talking about blame culture and looking into one what causes it. Two, how you can get out of it and how you can stop it. And finally, we're going to give you a knowledge deck that you'll have to wait until the end to find out.

Speaker 2: 0:22

So, yet again, another story straight from Reddit, and this one is probably less of a funny one, but probably something that resonates with a lot of people. I worked at a hospital and had a manager who was emotionally. I'm just saying, I'm reading it from Reddit.

Speaker 1: 0:40

I know, but still. You said I work and I was like you can tell me about it.

Speaker 2: 0:45

This person wrote that, since you know just in case you're like Mark.

Speaker 1: 0:48

Okay, this person's Val.

Speaker 2: 0:51

I worked at a hospital and had a manager who was emotionally manipulative and abusive. I was a young college kid clearly not me, because this is based in America and I really needed the money. I was scared to jump and quit my job or get fired. I worked a nice shift so if things weren't done for the doctors in the morning, I was frequently the one to be blamed for, as I had the most experience. I would try to tell her it's because we were short-staffed on on third I'm assuming that's third floor we can't do anything. Then she frequently gaslight me and tell the department is the most staffed it's ever been Second shift at 20 people on it. Well, they were fucking lazy and all took breaks at the same time and of course our shift got the worst of the load. She promised me a lead position with raise, when she didn't even have the authority to give me that position. So for the three months I was acting as a lead and I wasn't even being paid for the raise I was supposed to get. So I stopped that the shit real quick, especially after I found out she was also promising the same position to other people. Then, once the lead started who had less experience than me. He accused me of trying to take his position. I ended up in the manager's office and then, when I told her that I wouldn't help out anymore with lead duties since he was offended, she told me that I wasn't being a team player. I had anxiety attacks on the way to work for months. Almost every morning before 7 am I would feel sick. I was pulled into the office every day getting in trouble for something. For weeks I was getting in trouble for things out of my control. There were periods of time where I was highly frowned upon if the people on the shift talked too much, because that was the excuse. All leads was telling the manager on why our work wasn't getting done, when obviously it was because second shift wasn't pulling the weight. But the second shift lead and her little helper frequently went into the manager's office to gossip about others in the department. So they were all buddy buddy. I stopped showing up to work when they started stalking me on my Facebook and got a new job after that. It's been much better after the experience. I never let a manager treat me like this again. I walk out to middle late and tell them to fuck off.

Speaker 1: 3:31

Did you say that after after they started stalking their Facebook? I'm so confused. You know what with these? The more we read these, the more I'm like what's going on? The time frame in which people choose to quit is just fairies. Without them, we probably wouldn't have these stories. So let me try and recap. The manager not only lied to them about position that wasn't available, and then lied to everyone else, and it sounds like they recruited an entirely external recruiter team lead right.

Speaker 2: 4:04

Yeah, it sounds like it and, to be fair, I know this is quite extreme, right, but it rings bells. There's elements that ring bell from things that I've experienced or things that I've seen, and I know this is all one story, you know, like the manipulation, there is the, the blame, there is the gas lighting all in one. But I can't help but think, like I've seen elements of this, I've definitely a hundred percent seen elements of this. It's really messed up when it happened, especially when you get promised a position and then they don't even had the authority to give it to you.

Speaker 1: 4:37

So in this circumstance I know the team lead was blaming them, saying that they were trying to come after their job, even though they were like one of X people that had been promised to, and then they happened to get it and then the manager seemed like they were. Were they blaming the support, the, the, the OP, the original poster, or was who was blaming him? I'm trying to figure it out.

Speaker 2: 5:02

I think what. What has happened is that like it's almost like a series of very messed up situations, right like it started off, with the the poster being originally promised, but also the poster being pulled into the office for for not pulling his weight or being told that not enough work was being done.

Speaker 1: 5:21

Yeah, they can make it seem like it was his fault that the things are going wrong, right?

Speaker 2: 5:26

Yeah, it seems as if have you ever heard of the, of the phrase don't blame people, blame the process. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, this guy was on the opposite, the manager, or however we want to call this person. She seems like that she was definitely blaming people and not looking at the more holistic picture and seeing what was happening, which is messed up right, because it seems like, again, this person has been on the receiving end of it, and not only they were being told off, but it seems like this person also was being promised things. This person was also like being misled. This person was was on the receiving end of being pulled into office. So it's, it's. He adds up. He adds up a lot, I think, over the period of time.

Speaker 1: 6:13

It's it's manipulative is the word that comes to my mind. Right, it was because even don't blame processes, don't blame people, blame processes. It didn't even sound like they weren't aware of it. The way, brothers. Of course we're taking it from the OP's perspective, but it's it sounds like they're aware of what it is and ignoring it entirely and just blaming other things so that they have an excuse like hey, we are, we have already have too many people to just do this. Hey, don't take away the additional things you're doing on top of your job. Take more wrong like, because it's outside of this control that it seems like it's the way to try and force them to. I guess, engage I can't call having an experience, because there's so many, like, like you say, different elements involved in this one where I've had like something like this happen. This is outrageous, I don't know, and I'm still confused by the fact that what took it was a. They're still on my Facebook now. I guess it's bled into his personal life and they all their personal life and that's what was the show that broke the camel's back.

Speaker 2: 7:18

Yeah, and I think what stands out for me is that usually those behaviors do happen not necessarily because of one particular for right. So here the bad person is being portrayed as the manager. But I think what's potentially happening is that if you go one step beyond, if you look at senior management, the problem that is probably happening is a senior management is probably not close enough to the process and they're praising people when they're actually doing bad things. And I've seen this around my, my, my career in in operations whereby you've got multiple shifts that work and the shifts that blaming one another shift A blame shifts B and the reason why this happening is because shift A is being praised, although perhaps they're cutting corners or you know something like that is happening, and it's almost like establishing the culture whereby the the price is not being given at the right space and, as a consequence of that, it's actually creating frictions in between shifts. But it's not a shift fault, right. It's just that they're being praised or reprimanded for the wrong written and, as a consequence of that, they're getting defensive, and I think that is potentially what is happening here in a way.

Speaker 1: 8:28

It's a valid point about looking at the overview of the system that made it because, like you're saying, where it's like shift A and shift B, even if shift A or B is doing worse than the other shift, that is a process and they're supposed to be someone managing that so it is seamless. So it doesn't isn't the case, right? And also the blame shouldn't be on the individual, should be making sure the process is robust enough to make sure that there isn't that difference. And I know there's different circumstances for each shift. I recall this reminds me of when I worked in Buckingham Palace and me and my friend we worked there and we were like, say, front of the house and we'd have to do a number of things that was always activities and then we were the second link and by being the second link we'd come and we were so tired of like, how did it always fall into anarchy, which is hilarious, because we both went to a consultant later down the line because we'd seen them failing and we're like what is going on? So then there was a time where we were like let's get it even earlier. And we'd get in earlier than everyone and set everything up, because then we were like, if we set ourselves up, we'll go in the front of house and then that way we'd be able to work, and it was still crumble. So then we were like, forget it, fuck it, we're going to go in the back of house and just be the ones who push things out. Took always away, and that meant I worked in a fridge for a long time, but we were making sure that at least that bone X wasn't there and we got a system in place by becoming the root of it. However, when I look back on that and seeing what we had to do to, like, make it so, it was at least much more fluent, much more flowy Well, was, where was the management in this? Why did the staff have to take the initiative, do something? And I don't remember getting kudos, for it was literally. We did it to make our lives easier. We knew we were going to be there for like 11 hour days, and if you're there for 11 hours, you want to make sure that your life is easier. So you find loopholes and things to do about it, and the other people, the people who should be assessing and checking ways to make it better, are just watching, not including. And it's funny because when I think of that, I also think about the people in the process. I'm not gonna lie, I felt like blaming the people, but when I think of it, I never think of a specific person, I just think of there's something that's disrupting it, there's something in this place that is not like a different team has ownership of that and they're not gonna have the same control. We took control and made it happen. Now, if they has, if we'd taken someone and showed them what we were doing, which we tried to do, I think with time we would like sort them out like someone else can see the process that needs to be in place, then that would have been more long lasting, because then we become the bottleneck, like we saw when we came and started the day. It would still fall in the front. So that means okay, we can't have this person everywhere. How do you make it so? Regardless of who's in that position, the process still sustains.

Speaker 2: 11:25

And I think you hit the nail on the hand, in a sense, the nail on the head, not on the hand.

Speaker 1: 11:31

I mean, you can hit the nail on the hand if you want. If you don't nail it on the hand, you're beating up people and you just hit them.

Speaker 2: 11:39

But you're absolutely right, because when you are sitting there in your particular team and, like you know, stuff is happening that you're not happy with, the first thing that I do, the first thing that certainly, like my first instinct, is to think, oh my god, that person is an absolute twat Like I can't believe that that's what they do, I can't believe that they don't care, I can't believe that they can't realize that they're making our job harder because of that. But if we stood back and look at things a little bit more holistically, looking at the bigger picture, maybe, like putting ourselves in their shoes and looking at the challenges that they're having, suddenly you get a little bit of a different perspective. It's almost like the paradigm shift whereby you've got a different point of view that comes in and you realize, oh, that's the reason why they're doing that and that's the role the management is going to take or that's supposed to take. But they don't always do. And I feel that when management is not strong enough to do that, that's when you end up with very unhappy places, where people end up blaming one another because they don't step in and they don't say let's look at the process, let's look at where things are going wrong. Instead, they're just sitting back, potentially putting out other fires, not realizing that actually we need to intervene and we need to make sure that we don't have this friction happening, because when friction does happen, then you've got cortisol being released because people don't trust each other, and the release of cortisol is what causes stress to happen. It's what, in the context of negative team environment, is what takes place and what causes anxiety, what causes the decrease in immunity, what causes the physical health to deteriorate, and then you end up with team members that end up taking more sick days, and what happens is that people in management will then concentrate on the sick days, not realizing that they need to fix the root cause, which is what happens upstream.

Speaker 1: 13:30

Okay, that brings me into the fact. So I did look into blame culture. So are you aware of blame culture, like what it actually means, or do you want the let's call it the bar definition? Just for Give me the bar definition. Okay, so blame culture is a workplace environment in which employees are frequently blamed for mistakes, often regardless of whether the mistakes were under their control. Blame cultures are often characterized by a lack of trust and psychological safety, which can lead to a number of negative consequences, including decreased innovation, increased turnover and reduced productivity. So, like you're saying, it can just have multiple levels of effects that can, in the end, actually negatively impact the workplace as well as the individual. So that includes the decreased error reporting. So that will ruin the data in the workplace reduced innovation, increased turnover, reduced productivity just a number of factors that will just impact both the business, the individual and the team they're in just by having blame culture. I know there's a few studies that have been done on it. There was a 2015 study published in Journal Chess that found that workplace blame can lead to a number of negative consequences. This is where they've got their reporting, and there's two other studies, one in 2017, another in 2022, all both just pushing the narrative that if you go into a work culture that consists of that and that Now this part, I'd say, veering away from just the studies and what the culture is can be led by. You know, when it's like they make it very competitive but it's not like I win or you win, I can't win a specific. And that is a lot of when I liken it back to work, a lot of the times where I do not understand a person's motivations, they can be pushing back a lot, they can just be very difficult to work with. And I'm like, why and the funny thing is what it will make my life feel easier just thinking, oh, maybe they're trying to get a promotion. It's terrible, right, they'll be doing things that are just so non cohesive, non team like, just for their own agenda or just trying to share responsibility. So it's like are they trying to get a promotion? Are they scared? Are they about to get put on an improvement plan? What is their incentives? To want to blame others than to work together. And I think about my, the teams I've worked on, the things I'm doing and the projects I've worked on, and I remember trends where there are teams who just do not want to own anything. They're like it's not me. And luckily or unlawfully, I'm put in a position that, no matter which team wants to go, act like crazy or well, I'm the one who has to write the overarching like document that justifies that reaction or the response or the thing that they missed or need to do from it. And so, by being in that position, I have to sustain relationships with these people in a way, and I have to make it seem like this isn't about you, it's about a system. This isn't about this result, it's how we're going to work from it. We do have to get to the five wise, and it's funny because I've had some things where say it's even mine and I will own up and say, hey, this is my mistake. However, inside of my mistake, I have found, by going into the five wise, there's a systematic error which includes your team, like why was I able to do that? And they get nervous and I'm like it's not about you, it's really about I'm just trying to say holistically and there's a lot of them I have to forward, facing Lee Pull, the fact that, hey, this isn't you, this isn't me, this is a system. I can justify the say I did X and it might have led to why I can also understand that inside of X there was us, yeah, yeah. So I have people in teams who don't talk to, who don't play well with each other, but we're still play well with me because I've had to like parlay it, negotiate it, make it so they all feel heard, make it feel like they're not in trouble, and do the most I can go around it, because no one wants an escalation, no one's to be like the and I'm like I'll give them all the benefits of the doubt and be like, hey, I'll come up, come up like okay, and even when I, if I have to, I'm very like kind in the way I'm doing like, hey, it seems like they need support, can they get this in there? But I think it's it's. It's a key contributor in workplaces in terms of how you feel and how you navigate.

Speaker 2: 18:10

I guess yeah, and I like to pick up on something that you said a bit earlier. You know you mentioned the fact that the workplace will have competition. So that could be competition of individuals as well, competition across teams, wanting thing that the better than other, and I think, picking up from the book from someone's in a cold that leaders in last, one of the one of the things that he talks about this that you know dopamine is good and sometimes you get a dope. I hate to dopamine in your in your brain when, for example, you've got this competing environment and whereby you can achieve goal, you've got a positive reinforcement that comes in and that creates that environment where, for example, you might get a recognition, you might get bonus, you may get a promotion, etc. Etc. Etc. And the dopamine can motivate employees to work harder and strive for success, success which is great for a company. But the flip side of that, like you know, when that feels, when there is too much dopamine that you end up with with individuals that can end up being too selfish or that can end up being In competition like beyond what's good for for a work environment, so you end up in a place which can be quite toxic and that's when it has to be counteracted with with having enough of an element of oxytocin being introduced in the workplace. So that's, that's the, the hormone which is known as the love hormone, of the trust hormone, which plays a crucial role in ensuring that there is social bond and trust across the team. So that's the stuff whereby you need to have the kindness, you need to have the empathy, you need to have the trust across the team members and the leadership team to make sure that this oxytocin gets released and people feel that they can trust one another. And having that fine balance between dopamine and oxytocin is what allows you to have a work environment whereby it is striving to be the best, but also people feel that they can trust one another and they don't have to watch the backs and make sure that they're not being stabbed in the back. How do you keep that yourself?

Speaker 1: 20:08

so yeah, how was an individual would be like Engage, it's so funny because you know when you're having a response you're like, oh, that's dope for me, I feel trusting that's oxytocin. I never pull out like, I never even considered like doing it and I probably wouldn't, to be very brutally honest.

Speaker 2: 20:29

So then, how Normal people don't do that. How would?

Speaker 1: 20:31

I indirectly do. That Is my kind of what's a good way to.

Speaker 2: 20:39

I think it's difficult, right, because if you're stuck in an environment where everyone is competing and there is not an awful lot of trust there is teams like that, there is companies like that then it can feel difficult to To be able to to get a balance between the two. So there is some probably horror stories that you can read from a management consultancy companies whereby it's all compete, compete, compete very cat throat. On the flip side, you might read about, you know, the family businesses where everyone is like Sitting in a circle singing kumbaya and not a lot is getting done, but you almost like need the halfway house between. And I think if I were to think about kind of like the knowledge that. So you know we got in this knowledge that comes from someone's next book around the balance between the dopamine level and the oxytocin level, and we can start that knowledge together with what we learn from the one minute manager and we don't necessarily need to be managers to apply this. But when we have teams and when we have colleagues, what we can start to think about is certainly what praise can I provide to someone else? What's the redirects can I provide someone else? Because if those are done in such a way where you're looking for the best interest from for a colleague, or you're looking for the best interest of someone else who is new, who's just joined the team recently, then you can start building the relationship that isn't just based on competition but it's based on collaboration, because you don't just want them to be You're subordinates. You don't want them, you don't want to have one leg up over them, but you want to be able to, to bring them along with you in the journey, right. So that means that if you got someone else to join us team was new, or maybe you got a junior colleague, then you can spend a little bit more time with them to try and help them, but also give them the praise when I want to do something good, tell them that you actually observe something that I've done that you admire and that admiration you that it's not just something that you you express by, maybe something that you can take away like something that they shown as like you know what. I like the way that you structured a document and I like the like your strategic thinking around what you shouldn't document. I want to take that away and I want you to know that, because I'm not just shamelessly gonna steal it and make myself look good because that's competition, but I'm actually gonna give you credit and one let you know right now that I'm gonna do it and admire you for that, and I think that's the difference, is the intent around which you do it. You can you can have that competition attitude the whole time, which is not gonna be Productive, or you can have that collaboration attitude whereby you're gonna praise people but also you're gonna redirect them in the best interest so that you can have an environment where you're building trust. What do you think?

Speaker 1: 23:32

So it's funny because I A phrase came to my mind and then I got fully like lost, because I was like I feel like it's easier to attract flies with honey. But I was like, but is it easier to attract them with shit or honey? Of the two ones, what is it? But it doesn't really matter what flies. But I mean in terms of when I think of ways to maintain relationships with peers and to make sure that they're comfortable, then yes, giving them credit, be looking out for things they've done well and it like, even if they don't recall you saying it or what you said, that feeling of you know I've been, you know what I mean, I've been justified and I like working with this person for some reason, even if they forget exactly. Exactly that feeling right, really. Yeah, that feeling remains and I think that's super useful to know and also good to impart on people and I think I try and do that where it's like thank you for this or like I'll go back and there's times where people have been unable to help me but they've tried and I'll go back and be like I'm super appreciate the fact that you tried to help, is it? And I'm a message that you can deem is can be left. Okay, right, it can just be left. At that, I show like I'm grateful for the fact that they put in the effort to help. They'll come back and try harder, right, because someone else would have just left it there and I'm there like no, I actually don't need it anymore, but I just wanted to say thank you, you've left that good sense with them and it helps. I was trying to think as well of liking it back to the story that you read at the start from the reddit a poster, and I'm like in this circumstance I really do feel and maybe I'm wrong here but because it's like top down, if you're in an environment when above it's murky unless you can go like collectively as a team up up route that, but it's hard when they've made it. So every person is fighting for themselves. Cause I was like maybe if he done this with the team lead, it might have been beneficial, but then maybe not, because you have a manager who's telling everyone different things. They keep you working in these silos, like they found out after the fact. They're promising them all the same thing. So I'm like you sometimes you just need to know when to get out of this, get out of that environment. But in the environments where it's like you have the ability to Bring people together or you want to be in that company and you want to work in that. And this is where championing things like giving the kudos, where it is making sure you are aware of who is actually cause, even though some people might snake and some people are snakes, I think there's a huge differentiation there, right? So some people might be Likely to, but they won't because they'll be like oh, actually this person's cool, and then some people are just that way. And if you can differentiate the difference between the two, then at least in that, in that circumstance, you can better navigate and then choose. Okay, this is more beneficial if I bring them in than to block myself from it.

Speaker 2: 26:22

So I think, mark, that's any point in your career there's going to be coming on time whereby you're working with with peers and you're going to receive an opportunity to step up, or you're going to be receiving an opportunity whereby you're going to be promoted and you're going to be moving from that position whereby you work with your peers moving to position whereby you're managing them, and that transition is super difficult, right, because you're you're moving from from from that friend, friendly, kind of gossipy maybe relationship to a position where you're going to have to tell someone used to have lunch with what they need to do, and it's awkward, it's difficult and I mean those conversation is a super difficult. However, if you start early and build a trust early whereby you can, you can build that environment where people trust you, where people can understand that you've got good intention, whereby they can understand that that you've got the best interest in their mind because A you're giving them, you're giving them praise, but also you're giving them redirects with good intention, then you may, you will find yourself in a better position, that you can be the manager for that former group of peers and you'll be respected, because ultimately it comes on to respect, right, and if they can see you as someone that can bring them up with you and that they can trust you, then having that transition from peer to manager is going to be so much easier. So it's almost like an investment in the future in some sort of way.

Speaker 1: 27:57

I fully agree with that. I've managed to be promoted while my peers, who I was like literally on the same level as suddenly either subordinates or a level below me, and I could see the disjointedness in the way they communicate. But, however, by curating these strong relationships with them, they already know, I guess it's my values and my character and these two things they're like. Don't get it twisted. People can be wary and they might be wary at the start, but I like that hasn't changed. The foundation is there, like this. So I trust this individual, I tell them this information and they they'll grow with it and they'll understand. When there's like, hey, this part of information I can no longer talk about, but when it comes to the how that person is as a character, that's a huge factor. So then yeah, when it's like I share, that's another thing. In certain teams I'm in where I get information from people that they don't want to share typically with others, because they're aware people want to steal it, but I'd rather just give them the exposure. Then people come to me like Mark will give me the exposure and the funniest thing is for myself. It's beneficial because it's like Mark is the person to go to for information. He has so much of it, but he doesn't just leak it out, because I think you value must know this right. If you tell someone or if you meet someone and the first thing they do is start talking about others, bitching about others, then you're like I'm just a timeline away of being on the receiving end of that. So then if you meet someone and you they, how is that person? You'd have to see how you feel about them and, you know, give them maybe a warning and let them build their own perception of it. They'll remember that to be like they're fair, they'll be very political about how they'll say certain things to make sure it's not throwing people under the bus. And yeah, it's that difference. It's funny because here in the line like oh, that person shit, all that one's great or whatever just tells you a person's bias, and so when you interact with that person, you're expecting what that person said, right, like I mean what the person you told you that said. And if you don't align with it, then you're like what does that mean about them? And so if they're blame them for all their and I'll never forget this, actually getting my promotions One of them they blame the company. They said the structure was flawed, they said there's too many things. They had to do x, y and z, and they'd been at the company I was in like longer than me, maybe a year longer than me, and then I looked at it and was like, okay, well, how can I navigate this? And they kept blaming. I got a promotion a year or no, like maybe six months earlier than that. They were still struggling and I felt bad because I was like I know they've been trying in a direction, but their direction had more I'd call it baggage, more weight on it, like they were just releasing cortisol like crazy, because they never, like it, took what control back from it, if that makes sense.

Speaker 2: 30:46

Yeah, and I think that's a great point because you know, sometimes it's difficult to get rid of that baggage. I think that baggage will happen to anyone at some point in their career and I know that I've experienced it as well and it's really difficult to navigate and I think sometimes taking control perhaps just means taking a clean sheet, like a clean slate, somewhere. It may mean like living the job, living in a company where you currently work from living the team, but it can help and it doesn't necessarily mean that just because you've invested so much time in the x place, it doesn't mean that you have to stay there. You know that's, that's lost. What was it called? The Sorry, so yeah, soundcost fallacy. Just because you invested so much time there, it doesn't mean that you have to stay there. It's okay to actually move on and sometimes it's better to move on so that you can leave the baggage behind you and you can just start afresh.

Speaker 1: 31:42

I do like the stack for this episode, because when I think of the fact is, you might think one minute manager and be like, okay, redirects, okay phrases, and just doing those as I'd call it, maybe even not military, but you know, just, there's a standard processing order and you're doing this to grow, yeah, and, if you like, link it to the fact that, hey, I can actually give them a boost, to give me a boost. And you know, when you do things for others, you actually feel like better yourself. So then all of those factors can help in terms of like making it well, like we do, like a superpower, whereas it's like, if you're having a bad day and you feel things then be, take the time to try and implement these actions that actually make you feel better. And it's weird to think like that, but it's a good time to pull yourself back in and tie it in and be like, oh, actually, this is a way that I can only make myself feel better by making them feel better, and they'll probably do more for me. There's so many things you can unearth just by changing the environment you give, not even the one you're in, but the environment you give off is what I found.

Speaker 2: 32:49

Yeah, 100%. And I think the one minute manager book the name is almost like comes across as a little bit limiting. I'm not a manager, so you know it's probably not going to be useful for me. Actually, there is a ton in that which is really useful and I mean, as a matter of fact, just yesterday presented a document to a bunch of directors and there was one particular element, two elements in there that were provided by a colleague same level as me. But I thought that the elements were so eloquently presented and so and so well structured that I'm actually going to be going back to this person and like letting them know that that has taught me something. And this is the one minute praising praising coming to life right, because I am praising something that I've seen and, although I'm not the manager or anything, I think it's still good to give that praise because it does earn the trust, it does earn that, that it has created that dopamine effect in myself and them and hopefully it will mean that we will have a better relationship working forward as well. So, yeah, I think I like the stack as well and at first sight I thought not sure, but now, as we talk about it, I think this is a good stack and it's something good that anyone can take away regardless of position or role, and this was really a funnel thought that brings us to the end of the episode. We've read, I think, a fairly heavy story at the beginning, talking about someone that walks in the hospital in America the whole blame culture which we see in every office and corporate environment, but also provided a let's call it like a lovely skill stack that that we can take away away between the book from someone's unit leaders in last and the one minute manager, and hoping that any listeners, as well as ourselves, mark can, can take it away and implement and moving forward. But, as always, I've been one of your hosts today, valerie Tomasso. And I've been Mark Jason's who also happens to be a host.

Speaker 1: 34:45

I'm just Mark Jason's on the episode. I'm the guest on this one. Until next time, adios.