05 | "Slow Burn" Burnout and Recovery - Lessons in Leadership with Henk Campher, CMO Deep Origin

In this edition of The Podgress Report, host Jen Phillips is joined by Henk Campher, CMO, Deep Origin. This is one for those of you who wish it were easier to disconnect from work, to work better together…and to do it all in a way that respects the rest of your life. Managers and aspiring managers, you’ll walk away with tactics and frameworks you can bring into your team to improve the culture and the outputs. 

Henk Campher lives by the Ubuntu philosophy: I am because we are. And it is that philosophy that informs his leadership style…in Henk’s eyes, if the team has a clear plan, and accountability to that plan, less meetings are needed, leaving more time for deep work (and the rest of your life to unfold, stress free). 

Henk experienced burnout firsthand. He reports it was a “slow burn”...something that grew over years, eroding his passion for life over time, and almost without him realizing it. Henk’s recovery leaned heavily into reestablishing boundaries for himself, and his team. This reduced not only Henk’s stress, but increased his team’s engagement and wellbeing. 

And wait until you hear the benefits this shift brought to the company. Gallup estimates low employee engagement costs the global economy $8.9 trillion U.S. dollars, or 9% of global GDP. Henk’s team at Hootsuite saw a 30 percentage point improvement in their employee engagement when they incorporated boundaries and deep work into their culture. 

Episode Resources

• Ask Jen Anything! I’m looking for your workplace wellness and burnout recovery questions to be featured on an upcoming episode. 
• Henk Campher is 1000% fascinating on LinkedIn. Follow Henk today. 
• Recommended read | Burnout: The Secret to Unlocking the Stress Cycle [Emily Nagoski PhD (Author, Narrator), Amelia Nagoski DMA (Author, Narrator)]

Please note: resources may include affiliate links. 

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Transcript

Intro

Jen Phillips: Have you ever found yourself wishing things at work made more sense? It's that you could spend less time sitting in meetings, talking about work and more time. Well, more time just doing the work that gives you energy. The research says that most of us have these types of thoughts that our jobs were more clear that the workplace was more civil and that we would at the end of the day, turn our full attention to our personal lives without worrying about missing an email, a call, a text or a work chat.

In Gallup's State of the Global Workplace report, the world's largest annual research initiative of its type, findings revealed that in companies with poor management practices, employees are nearly 60 percent more likely to be stressed than people who work in environments with good management practices.

And it just makes going to work better for all of us. 

Today's guest, a [00:01:00] biotech CMO, is proof that an engaged and respectful leadership style makes for a more healthy work environment, one that pays dividends to the team and the bottom line. So if you're a manager or an aspiring manager, get ready to be inspired.

And for the rest of you that wonder if going to work can feel better, different, here's the proof that it can. I'm Jen Phillips and welcome to the podcast report.

Welcome, Henk Campher, CMO, Deep Origin

Jen Phillips: I have known today's guest for many, many years. in fact, he hired me to do one of my most fun jobs, which was working for what was then called Salesforce. org, or the philanthropic heart of Salesforce, And what I can tell you about this person is, he is just a fantastic person to have discussions like the one we're about to have on burnout because he's a passionate, dedicated leader who is a marketer through and [00:02:00] through, but he is also just a big beating heart and really cares for his employees in a way that is incredibly special.

So I just want to say to you. Henk Campher. Welcome and thank you so much for joining me today on the Podcast Report.

Henk Campher: to be Jen. I mean, it's always been fun when we hang out. So, going to be fun.

Jen Phillips: I agree. Now Henk Campher, you are the CMO for Deep Origin. What is Deep Origin?

Henk Campher: Oh, there's a long explanation because it's biotech or there's a snappy marketing one that I'll go to as simply we unfuck life sciences. It takes way too long to do drug discovery. If you think back like 20 years ago, it took 20, 30, 40 years ago, took us 10 to 20 years from idea to drug. To get it to market. It still takes us that long. We've got all this technology. So what we do is we cut through that bullshit, [00:03:00] get the tools to the scientists who have the actual superpowers to unfucked life sciences so we can all live longer, happier, healthier lives.

Jen Phillips: Well that sounds pretty amazing and it sounds like a Fun way to spend your day. You come to Deep Origin with a very deep and storied marketing past. you are a brand marketer through and through, you also have a background in corporate social responsibility, which I think is where you get that beautiful piece of you that is incredibly dedicated and human.

And you've held executive positions with a lot of incredible brands. That said. You have also had the heartbreak of burnout in your own life at work. And so what we're going to be talking about with Henk today is not a marketing conversation, although he leads marketers.

So let's jump right in.

Henk Campher: Let's dive in.

Henk's Slow Burn(out) 

Jen Phillips: first let's start with you. You, [00:04:00] as I said, have experienced burnout yourself. You have some learnings from that, but before we get into the learnings, I really just want to talk about What was your burnout experience?

Henk Campher: Yeah, it was, it was most people I think you expect burnout to hit you. So it's like you go like, Oh shit, now I'm, I'm burned up and that it hits you like a torch. 10 ton truck me. It didn't work that way. I didn't know that I was burned out because it was a slow burn. was like just almost eating you up from the inside bit by bit by bit until one day I realized, Oh, I'm not as sharp as what I used to be. You know, what I expect from myself, the places where as a marketer, you know, we get the most random ideas at the randomness of places. All of a sudden I realized I'm not having those random thoughts and that's where the triggers came. It's like I was tired. I was, wasn't as motivated and it wasn't just work.

It was like, I'm like a, I love life. You know, [00:05:00] I love my job. I love everything about what I have. when I have to go into a meeting and go like, okay, I've got to psych myself up to be the one to bring it, that was the most unnatural thing for me to do to be able to have to think about it to meeting.

And that's where I realized, this is this is burnout. This is how burnout works for me. And I was a surprise because of the way that I've never let work run my life. You know, it's not the center of my existence. I like my job, but I love life more than anything else. It wasn't, I'd never expected to have burnout because Work isn't the center of my meaning. so yeah, but it hit me with this kind of slow burn.

Jen Phillips: And so it was this gradual process But at one moment, you realize Oh, here's all these things that have changed in my life. I'm no longer [00:06:00] having those epiphanies, those random acts of genius that are coming up that helped me be the brand marketer that I am. I'm feeling like, where you never had to think about rallying the troops, you just show up and the fun is there and the excitement is there.

Having worked for you, I know that's true and you weren't able to do that naturally anymore. And, you realize probably in that moment, hey, it's been some time, too. That it's, that it's been that way. Mm hmm.

Henk Campher: it had happened over years we all of a sudden I realized oh, Should this that was still possible back then just isn't possible today. And it filters through all the areas where I would find the moments like, I'm like a random creative.

It's like I have to play my shitty guitar, you know, or play the guitar shitty. Rather, it's a good guitar. You know, it's like, don't blame the guitar, Henk, you know, Go for a run write and it's [00:07:00] reading all those kind of things and and where it hit me was actually two, two years ago is where I realized, Oh, it's burnout.

And it actually came because of book reading of all things. I I picked up a book that Heidi my partner, she's in the great book club and they had a book called Pachinko and I picked up Pachinko to read and I just absolutely fell in love with reading again. and that was one of those moments like, why did I stop reading? Why did I stop running? Why am I at this improving on guitar? Like I don't write a lot anymore. And I have to work for the ideas a lot more than before. And that's like the aha moment, but I didn't act on it even immediately. I still thought it's like, just, just do it and it'll come back. It's like, eventually it's like, no, you've got to change behavior.

it's not just gonna, it's not gonna magically unburn.

Jen Phillips: Yeah, actually now that I'm having these [00:08:00] conversations a lot, what I do notice is one of the through lines that I'm hearing from people and also that I experienced myself is that you keep trying to push through it. To push through it, to rally past it, because that's worked for you in the past, and, and, well, I'll speak for myself, because that worked for me in the past, I'll just keep pushing through it, and then magically I'll find, on one of those pushes, on the other side of it, is the me I recognize, and that, for me did not happen, and it seems like, potentially for you, also didn't magically happen, you had to actually deal with what was happening to you.

Stressor != Stress

 Yeah,

Henk Campher: realize this burnout is we focus more on the area where the burnout feels the most and that's usually at work 

So we double down on work But the way you're going to deal with burnout isn't actually by doubling down on the [00:09:00] work part It's about everything else that actually helps you deal with the normal stresses in life the the guitar playing the reading the writing the Going crazy with the dogs taking walks having a beer whatever You know Gives you meaning and that stimulates you.

It's like actually when you, when you focus more on that is how you're going to deal with a burnout have an impact back on your work, you have to know where are your release valves to recharge a little bit and also just take a step back, you know, what is your priorities? how do you deal with this?

Jen Phillips: Yes, to all of that. And something really important that you said that reminds me of some guidance that's in a great book that I'm going to link in the episode notes,that's called Burnout is, here's the distinction. 

Your stressor (work) is not your [00:10:00] stress. So if you're trying to fix the stressor, the work, it actually isn't addressing or releasing or fixing the stress that you are carrying with you.

So when I heard it put that way, I was like, oh, that makes so much sense because the, the stressor, the work that I kept trying to push through and rally past and keep going on wasn't, wasn't really the problem I had to solve. The problem that you actually have to unlock in yourself, like you said, is.

stress, the burnout, the burn. I like the way you put that Okay. So you experienced this burnout. It was a slow burn. And then you tried what so many of us try, which is to rally past it. And that also didn't work for you.

So then what happened? What, what did you do to actually begin to recover?

Henk's Recovery | It Started with Boundaries

Henk Campher: A few things in a, in a way, I was [00:11:00] lucky during Covid that one of my release valves is Hawaii, you know, so I actually spent time in Kauai working from Kauai. I could still work, but, but changing the environment to where I know my soul feels the most rested and at peace going there and being able to switch off because I've got habits there. That impacts the way I can deal with stress that actually helped. And then going back to some of the roots of, of how I've dealt with stress before. I never had to deal with stress before because I always made sure that I had clear lines on what I do, but I started letting those lines get blurred. And then I went back to those old rules. It's like, it sounds stupid and people go like, it's absolutely impossible. And you're like, no, it's not impossible. Over weekends, I don't check anything work related. if it's really a [00:12:00] crisis. Text me. Guess how many people have texted me because there was an actual real crisis? Zero. 

 in tech, we treat everything that's important, actually everything that isn't nice to have, as a crisis.

So by putting back on those rules, like I don't check emails at weekends, I actually don't check it when I close my laptop at night. I use my my phone as a tool to write not to do work. So the first screen that you actually see on my phone is an app that allows me to write that sings run across everything that I do. 

I just went back to old rules that I knew that always helped me before and that actually helped me get out of that because I spent more time on things that gave me more meaning, even if that thing meant Nothing.

Literally, I drove Heidi nuts. I went into like two years of falling in love with different making cocktails. I would get like a hype is like, [00:13:00] I want to do gin cocktails and then I'll learn and then I'll buy a whole bunch of gin. And then she goes, so you're off the gin now, because now I'm on something else. But actually helped me. It's like all those kind of different kind of, I wouldn't call it distractions because it, it, it isn't a distraction. It is. Part of what makes life that I'll just back to those old rules.

Jen Phillips: What we're talking about here is you set boundaries. And put up those guardrails, those rules or guardrails, right?

That said, I work between this time and this time. I don't work all of the time. So unless it is, and then I want to unpack this, but unless it is important or an urgent or crisis, and you have rules for each of those as well. We'll talk about it when I'm back at work. And then you almost by putting those boundaries up for yourself, you recaptured time.

You reclaimed your [00:14:00] time to live. And then you did another thing that is a recovery step for burnout, which is you took autonomy to Take interest in something and then become expert in it or accomplish it. So yours might have been cocktail making it might have been taking more time to go outside and run it might have been rekindling your love of reading but in those Autonomy moments you're actually then building back up your oh, I remember this guy.

I know who I am I'm actually Henk and these are things that are important to me and that replenished you

Henk Campher: Yeah, absolutely. I'm not naturally the most organized person because I know that my mind is works best when there's slight chaos in it. If you ask me, like, get an idea, I'm like, I'm going to stare at a blank screen and never come up with an idea. I gave every part of my life equal value. And that's important. Like work can not be of more value than my life. [00:15:00] Why would it, it makes an absolute, no sense So by saying work, I'm giving you X amount of hours every day. And when I give it to. You are number one priority. But when I switch off, understand that I don't switch off because I don't like you. I switch off because I also really like playing the guitar and that's another priority. So when I set aside an hour a day to play guitar, that is as valuable as eight hours. If I set aside an hour to write that as valuable. So when I started breaking my day up like that, it's like I get up now, I get up at quarter past five in the morning, take the dogs out. We've got three rescues, take them out. for a run, back, make breakfast, start work, off, make dinner. And, and it's not because I have a regime of doing all those things.

It's just because I value each one of those. I love to make food, even though I suck at [00:16:00] it. I love writing. I love reading. And by allocating time, each one has equal value. So now if I say, Oh, work, that's fine. I'll just do another two hours tonight. I'm stealing from everything else as a value to me. And that's unfair. That's unfair for work to expect that because it's like, and it's got nothing to do with money. It's got to do with life. So there's no work life balance. There's just life. work life, you know, there's life and everything else has to fit into life and has to be of equal value. I'm not saying it works for everyone. It works for me because then it also means I can focus on work and say actually, how do I make work the most efficient way to doing work? And even there, I start breaking things up. 

Henk Campher: oh, hi, it's Jen. For those of you new to the podcast report, a word on our mission. This is a podcast to educate, [00:17:00] inspire, and engage people who know they need to do something different at work, but might not be sure what their healthy next career step is. And now I'm going to ask for you to I want to hear from you.

Do you have a burnout or career development question? Ask me anything. I'm planning upcoming episodes to highlight listener questions, so don't hold back. I've added the link in the episode notes, and thank you for being a part of this community.

Henk Campher: We started this at Hootsuite. Double done at Thinkific and Aorist, and then triple done where I am at Deep Origin. have three days, days, calls and meetings. go, that's

Jen Phillips: Wait, but hold on, hold on. We want, we need to stop here first before we jump right into that and explain this guy has a team, right? So this isn't just Henk saying, I [00:18:00] don't take meetings three days a week. Henk, what do you mean when you say we have three days of no calls or meetings?

What do you mean, less meetings? 

Henk Campher: Actually most of Deep Origin. When you are in a meeting, you are not doing work. You are talking about doing work. You're not actually doing work. You're just talking about doing work.

So when you have meetings, you look very busy, but you're not doing any outputs. You just, that's just more inputs. Work is about achieving outcomes and achieving outcomes has got very little to do.

And we know that for a fact, very little to do with how much you put in, focus more on the outcomes that you need to achieve. 

So by breaking my week up into Mondays is planning. And team days. Monday morning. You know, me and my team, we get together. We talk about what are we planning for the week?

What's the actions that we need to take? What are the things that need to move around, et cetera. We have our leadership [00:19:00] meeting. We have our campaign meetings, everything in a Monday, Thursday company time. Meetings like your monthly company meeting, your training, your admin. That's a Thursday. That means that you can actually do work on a Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday. I do admit =that there are moments when we break those rules because there's an actual crisis or

Jen Phillips: Well,

Henk Campher: middle of execution. So we executing something and it's like, Hey, let's quickly put our heads together.

Do we need to change this and execute or you have an actual client call? That's fine. Clients external. That's fine. Complains, everyone in every department complains about the same thing. I can't allocate enough time because I have a meeting, then I have 30 minutes off and another meeting and that 30 minutes doesn't give me enough time to do actual work, so now I have to do work tonight.

So the reason why you do, do work tonight. It's because of your shitty way of planning meetings internally. 

That's, it's impossible to [00:20:00] get a meeting from me because Google calendar has this beautiful thing. It says out of office. if you try and book a meeting on a Tuesday, Wednesday or Friday with me, you literally have to Slack me Hey, can we, and then that's a barrier for people to overcome.

They have to have a good reason to do that. because we're a small company, I have availability to everyone. I also have this thing. called the digital walkabout. And I introduced this at Hootsuite between 12 and 1230 at every day.

Anybody can call me. And just have a chat. I don't care what you want to talk about. If you want to run an idea by me, that's work related. If you want to talk to me about the spring bug rugby team winning the 2019 and 2023 rugby world cup, happy to talk about that every single day. But whatever you want to chat about, you have that half an hour.

So anything ad hoc comes up. Boom. Have that chat then. So I am available. It just means that we just have to be a little bit more focused because that that's how you eat your [00:21:00] time.

Jen Phillips: I love the idea of structuring it and getting as many people invested in that practice of on these days we meet and on these days we work. it allows you, The ability to have epiphanies, the ability to put your head down to focus. 

I think that that organization is giving you the opportunity of focus, what you're describing, where everybody says, I can't focus because I have a meeting and then a half an hour. And by the time I've got my head ready to work, I got to get ready for another meeting. And it is, it's very, it's relentless.

It is. And it's jarring to try especially for I think for anyone but especially for a creative that the process like you said if you tell somebody Okay, you have 15 minutes come up with something great. It's difficult. You can't call that on demand

Henk Campher: Yeah.

Jen Phillips: I want to ask this one question before we go on you said important urgent or crisis And you defined that

what is an important, you know, scenario? What is an urgent scenario? [00:22:00] What's a crisis scenario? And does everybody understand that across the organization?

Defining What's Important, Urgent, and a Crisis

Henk Campher: No one will ever understand it across the organization, but that's part of when you start off. It's like you have to teach people and you have to get people to support the idea of like, do you understand the differences between that? But it actually becomes an easy to tool for people to to use in their own way. Jobs as well. 

nice to have a something that is not part of an OKR or, you know, a V2M or whatever you want to call it in your company. If it's not in the plan, it's not important. Be clear. If it is a new idea, somebody has great. I have a whole thing called a parking lot of ideas. can put it in the parking lot of ideas.

Guess what? At the end of each quarter, we'll revisit that all those ideas that people come up because companies don't die because of a lack of ideas. Companies die because of a lack of execution. So anybody has another idea. Yeah, put that in the parking lot. 

What is important is what's in the plan. It's the [00:23:00] activities we agree to as a company and as a team. This is what we're going to focus on. That's important. 

What is urgent? Urgent is if something that is going to drive your biggest single as a, and any company that I've worked at and learned this at Salesforce at every company since I've used this principle, what's the one number that rules them all. It sells was ACV. everything else is vanity if you can hit

Jen Phillips: So, So hold on ACV for the unindoctrinated is think of it as a revenue. Think of it as revenue. 

Henk Campher: Yeah. Like Thinkific, we had new paying customers. but for each company, it's like, what's the one thing that's the most important. Now, if you're in real danger of not hitting that, that becomes urgent. That's urgent. 

So important is everything that's in plan. Nice to have is everything that's not in plan. 

Urgent is if, if something is happening that you're not going to hit that number and have the systems in place, [00:24:00] that'll trigger that for you. Like back at Salesforce, we looked at the funnel every Monday and we will know what's, what's hot and what's not. 

A crisis if you don't deal with it today, the company is going to come to a screeching halt. That's the only time it's a crisis, but we often confuse and urgent with a crisis because A real crisis hardly ever hits a company. That's the reality. It's like a real crisis doesn't actually hit a company. In all of my times I've had maybe one crisis that I can truly go like, yeah, that was a crisis and we had to deal with it at that time. More to do with external more than anything else. So being able to do that makes people go like, Oh shit. Yeah. We all know, know what we need to do. 

What is the importance of daily tasks? And that's what we focus on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Friday to execute against is what's, what's important. deal with a Monday to discuss anything that's urgent because we might not hit the number whenever we review our [00:25:00] numbers, do we need to change our behavior this week to be able to deal with that and a crisis is a crisis.

Jen Phillips: You define then, and you start indoctrinating everybody into the idea of what important is, what urgent is, and what a crisis is.

And when your laptop is down, it's gotta be a crisis. To reach out what an urgent. Is that something where after hours somebody is reaching out to you,

Henk Campher: Put it in slack because it means that I have to deal with it first thing in the morning. It's nothing I can do overnight.

That's going to change that urgency. 

I'm not all of a sudden because it's not, it's not going to come to a screeching halt. We just have early indicators that says that we have to change something to, to be able to deal with it in an urgency. You have a few days to try and fix what you have to do in any case.if you feel like it, you can text me so that it's a reminder, but again, people don't text because they go like, well. it really that urgent that Henk has to deal with it tonight versus tomorrow? been lucky to work with founders whose ego is in [00:26:00] check, that understands the difference between, between those things as well.

So that's text me if it's a crisis me in Slack. If it's urgent, everything else is like report will tell us the important stuff is getting done or not.

Jen Phillips: Yeah, and the reason that I love this so much Henk is You're a you're a man of many philosophies. and one of the philosophies that you employ and I Absolutely bet you've got it going on at Deep Origin is Ubuntu, right? 

And before I go on and kind of tie these two things together, why don't you talk a little bit about that as a life philosophy?

Ubuntu | I am because we are

Henk Campher: So I'm from South Africa and my first part of my life, I was an anti apartheid activist and did development work in Africa. Ubuntu literally just means I am because we are. It, it, it's a slightly different, it's not a right to wrong. It's a slightly different view of the world from a, a [00:27:00] Western view where in a Western view, it is the individual is the center of activity. And that's great, for where I come from. My place and whatever I do is in the community and my role within that community. And, not an expectation. It's not a job. It's not, it's just the way you are. It's just the way I am. 

It's like, I know I am best surrounded by people who are not like me. it's, we, we teaming. Would always put money on that. So if you look after your team and you look after each other, that's how you're going to be best. So, so it doesn't help. I have behavior that isn't reflected in the team, that the team doesn't have the ability to have that same behavior. So when I have these kind of rules of like, Hey, You know, don't contact me. Don't text me. I don't, I don't want to see it from them.the idea of Ubuntu is like, you accept the [00:28:00] responsibility of your I'm not going to micromanage you Tom Kaiser that I had at Hootsuite CEO, they had this great saying of like, he's very comfortable hiring and managing people way smarter than him.

And we're like, yes, just always tell people like what saved my ass at Salesforce, Jen Phillips, you know, it's like, you know, she, she was like the, the. The yin and yang. But you know, like I try and tell my teams as well. I don't even want to see you email at night. 

Don't, don't do that because then all of a sudden you expect people going to get an email at 10 o'clock, even if they see it the next morning, they're like, shit, maybe Jen wanted me to check it last night. And then all of a sudden they change their behavior. And now they putting in hours that they shouldn't be putting in and they. They're not focusing on the other things of value that makes him a complete person and that complete person brings the value to the business.

Jen Phillips: you have this philosophy [00:29:00] and you live it. And I've experienced working with you, so I know that you actually live it. 

You have this framework now of not important, important, urgent, and crisis that you've put into play at three, now this is your third time actually putting it into play.

 And you expect, it's not just how you work with me, Henk, it's also, this is how we work together as a team. This is what I expect. And then when you are off, you are off. My team are off and as a result not just here, but in other organizations where you've done this what has been the resultfor the team?

Henk's Favorite Number 

Henk Campher: Yeah, there was probably the number that I'm the proudest of in my, of ACV and stuff like that.

Jen Phillips: Right

Henk Campher: including that the number that I'm the proudest of in everything that I've, I've worked on the number at at Hootsuite is the engagement number, team engagement. When I joined the team was leaderless for a year at the lowest engagement score across the company, 67%, [00:30:00] which wasn't, isn't horrible, but it's pretty low. two years later, when I left, we were at 97%. It's because those rules that we have. We know the plan. We all agree on what we have to do. I'm going to give you the responsibility to fail your plan. I hate somebody telling me something to do. And I go like, say, if I fail, it's your fault, right? It's not my fault because it was your plan. It wasn't mine. And that's why I often don't like leaders who look down at their people and go like, well, did you give them the freedom to fail?

Or did you just force them to do your job? You know? So give people the freedom to fail within the plan. And by the way, failing is also a good thing. We learn new things and new muscles. But have they back? And then put the rules down hard. And we actually tested this with HR. We didn't just introduce deep work. At Hootsuite, we didn't just introduce it, we actually ran two teams on it.

My team and another team, we tested with HR, blinded surveys behind it. And people were [00:31:00] skeptical in the beginning who participated. When we were done after our first six months, everybody loved it. Productivity went up, engagement went up, outputs went up, people's stress levels went down, because we measure that.

It's like, Do you have more time? All of those kinds of things just changed. So because of that, that's why my engagement score went up. But at that same time, when the engagement score went up is every single other output went up. Every single measurement we used in marketing went up. And if you say like, what's the science, is it correlation or is it not? But we had greater share of voice, greater brand awareness. All of a sudden our engagement and our leads went up, our revenue growth went up. When we introduced this, Hootsuite went from flat growth to 20 percent growth. within 12 months. Is that all because of one thing?

No, but we know from the numbers, engagement went up and everything else went up at the same time that that [00:32:00] engagement score went up. And it's not actually rocket science. Think about especially from a, not just marketing, anywhere in a company, in tech especially, when you burned out, when you too much time on work, when you're not recharging can't deliver the quality of work that you should be. So the reason why you should have those times set aside to do everything else is because business benefits from it. I am a better creative when I do that. I, my team created the best content ever at Hootsuite when I literally told them, you're not gonna make it. Have any meetings on a Wednesday you're just not going to be in meetings and emails. Be creative, do whatever recharges you. If you want to try and solve a problem, do that. 

Jen Phillips: The most important thing I think that you said was you Measured all of this And you saw that when we co create a plan, we give people the accountability to work within their strengths and their skills [00:33:00] to, to do the work, and then we give them time to For focus, and we also release from them this stress which is that always on feeling, I always have to be on. Oh shit, I went to sleep at night, and then three slacks came in. That's okay. That's okay. And you said, you, you can go and live your life. This is one part of your life, it is not your life.

But the things that make your job meaningful are these one, two, three, four, five things This is what you have and you're accountable to in our plan And every week we're going to inspect it and make sure that people are working the plan And if there's things that we need to adjust we adjust them but in the meantime Please go recharge yourself and live the rest of your life your whole life

Henk Campher: exactly. And as leaders, we just have to make sure that we're available. So that if we give teams and individuals the freedom to do, I want people to, to love what they [00:34:00] do. So I have to remind them, why did you get involved in this part of the business or marketing in the first place? Go do that. Go, go do that. we give people that kind of freedom, it, it, it flows out into everything else they do, but you have to lead by example. by example as well. You know this maybe from my Salesforce days. When I go on vacation, You cannot get hold of me.

I don't take my work laptop with me. I delete all phone, all work related apps off my phone. The only way you can get hold of me is texting me. And by the way, even if you text me, I likely don't have my phone on me. So I'll check it tonight. 

Jen Phillips: That was nerve wracking for me. But, I mean, just quite honestly, that's a toughie. I don't know if that's a, I don't know, I don't know if I even like that even now. yes, I can dear listener, I can confirm that is actually the truth.

Henk Campher: but think, think back and every single person that's worked with me. Well, well, I hope have the same answer that [00:35:00] time. Did you ever really need me? No

Jen Phillips: there was no decision that you were going to make that I was going to so fundamentally disagree with that we needed to change course. The only reason why you would want, me is to confirm that, by the way, Jen, you're going to make the smartest decision in any case.

Yeah, and that's why I think Henk like, like just totally understand your, again, you're a man of many philosophies, totally understand, but it really, I think depends on the team. You had pretty capable, mature senior people who reported to you. So yeah, they, they had it. I wasn't probably going to be the one that needed to call you.

But or text you or whatever just slack you or any other channel, but Yeah, I think it really does depend on whether or not you have those people on your team There are people out there that maybe only have one other person on their team and that person may be junior So they they need that security blanket.

You're lucky. [00:36:00] You're you're a lucky person to have had such great people working for you Okay, wait, I got to talk to you about something here you so you talked about You The framework, not important, important, urgent, and crisis, and living that not just for what works for Henk, but what works for us as a team.

And then benefit to the team which is, hey Everybody's going to be happier. Everyone's going to be more engaged. Everyone's going to be, have time to actually focus and do that inspired work. And everybody is really, really clear on what they're committed to in the plan. And we're measuring that every week.

I love all of that. And you said, you talked about what the actual business benefits were at HootSuite and having a 30 percentage point increase. in your team's engagement over a period of, what'd you say, three years?

Henk Campher: yeah, it was more closer to a year and a half.

Jen Phillips: Year and a half. I mean that's even more remarkable, honestly, is, is stunning.

And why it's [00:37:00] stunning, I want to really make sure I get to this, Global Gallup Indicators of Workplace Performance and Social Health. So Gallup does this, the largest global study on workplace health. And they have a bunch of factors which they call indicators. One of the largest reasons for attrition as a whole within a company is the engagement and culture and work life balance and wellbeing groups. The two top reasons that people leave a, any organization are those two groups. The, the third one is money. So I'm saying over money is culture and engagement and work life balance and well being, those two groups. What you did then is you not only increased your team's engagement, but you also decreased likely attrition or the reason that people, most [00:38:00] people leave a company.

Why that matters. is because companies are more profitable and have better growth indicators. We can talk about some of those when people are engaged. So you set a culture of health that it's not just good for the people on your team or the people that you work for and with and, and I know that's why you're likely starting to do it, but it actually is incredibly beneficial to the business.

And that's not me saying that, that's Gallup doing the world's largest study on workplace engagement and the implications of an engaged workforce. So I want to talk now about with you. Boundaries being important for people, you already touched on how boundaries are important for the business, what are the OKRs that you're watching that would be proving that what you're doing with the operations of how you work [00:39:00] together is actually benefiting Deep Origin?

Henk Campher: yeah. So it's still around engagement, you know, but we're lucky. We're a small, a small company, 

Jen Phillips: Right.

Henk Campher: but it's also engagement of people. Cross the company. So how aligned are we? So in Okaos, we have three. One is. You know, launching products because we in the product making business two, it is generate revenue, sustainable revenue.

And the third leg of the stool is a high performing team and organization. And that is all about how we are in sync. There's a kind of startup mentality is the idea of there's this constant change that constantly happened in a company, but only by knowing what the plan is, can you allow that constant change to happen? And as long as you have great engagement. So we've hyper, hyper focus on that. honest, until I joined Hootsuite, I never worried about the measurement of it. It's like, I was going like, yeah, yeah, I'm just going I'm going to have [00:40:00] a team that. Believes in the principle of Ubuntu we're going to have fun and we're not going to be arseholes and we'll do the crazy stuff, and at they measured it and I was like, 

now we know that it's actually the right stuff. 

 what we realize is when we have these, these definitions of what people can or cannot do, the freedom, the, the days where they can deep focus, a lot more time to do things out of plan.

Jen Phillips: Mm hmm.

Accountability + deep focus = way more

Henk Campher: =people were actually way more productive in generating the outputs for the outcomes we want to achieve. And that was just, well, compare the plan before same amount of people compare the plan today. Why are we all of a sudden executing at a much higher level than before? Well, it's because we actually focusing on execution. We're actually making sure that people, when they work, they focus on execution instead of I've got to do it tonight because I've got a thousand different meetings, remove the obstacles [00:41:00] gets you to execution.

 So, that philosophy of deep work again, if you're as long as you focus on what's the outcomes, what's the things you have to do to get there are the things you can remove from that, why do people work more longer hours is not because they're adding more work is because they're adding more things that doesn't actually translate into work.

Jen Phillips: I'm starting to think of that as low value time. So you're spending time and it's at work, but it's not high value. And I, I guess what I would say value is, is Is it in the plan? Does it materially add to that number? 

What you've just talked about is you gave people time back to do their actual job and because they had so much time back they can do more of their actual job while still respecting the rest of their life. if I would think about [00:42:00] what would make me feel kind of fired up to be in a place, it's like what I said I was going to do when I came here, I'm able to do and I can do more of it than I expected because I spend less time locked into a room talking about something that we don't need to be talking about.

Henk Campher: Yeah.

Jen Phillips: for

go on.

Henk Campher: That's our role. Our

Jen Phillips: So,

Henk Campher: is to get everything out the way of people that gets in the way of people doing their work. Just remove all of that. 

 I want to remind everybody, you really doubling down on this, started when you realized something was wrong with you.

Exactly.

Jen Phillips: you started putting up these guardrails for you, and then because you have this philosophy of we are all essentially a single culture.

So if it's going to work for me, it needs to work for all of us.You made that in the DNA of the culture was we're going to all work in a way that respects the rest of our life. And as [00:43:00] such, people, I'm sure, I can almost sense people probably, like you said, freaked out at the beginning because they're like, How am I actually going to fit that in now?

And you succeeded because people started feeling the benefit of it. I'm Only meeting on things that are actually important. And, and or urgent and or a crisis.

I'm not meeting on things that are not important. Hey, you had a great idea, terrific, add it to the parking lot.

Henk Campher: Yeah. And I have to say, I'm also lucky where I am today because I'm surrounded by engineers and scientists. So it's a case of like, yeah, data tells us this works, you know, you know, a scientist doesn't want to spend time talking about science. They want to do science. It's the same with engineers. They want to code.

They want to, they want to talk about coding. So you have those standups and those kinds of things to, to move quickly. But I'm lucky that we're in a culture that questions the norm because our team isn't [00:44:00] a team of managers, it's a team of scientists and engineers they don't try and control what they can't control. You know, that's one other thing I have to, I have to say is like, I've also learned two things. One is what you were saying earlier. I can only implement what I want to implement for the changes for me to handle stress if everybody does it. else I'm constantly going to fight these other things being thrown at me.

Jen Phillips: Right.

Henk Campher: the other thing that that's been part of my philosophy that help that helps me deal with it as well as like understand the difference in what I control versus what I only influence. Because the things that's going to drive you nuts are the things you can only influence. Like most of the discussions that I've ever had in businesses where there are conflicts is when people Try and control things that they can actually only influence guess what those things are other people's jobs other departments It's like that's [00:45:00] going to drive you nuts if you're hyper focused on that focus on the things you can control What do you where do you start you start with yourself?

What can I control myself? What can I control within the team with different dynamics? Don't worry too much about the stuff that's going to drive you crazy. Put that in the parking lot. We'll deal with that later.

Jen Phillips: but I do need to bring up. That depends. On the person's health in the moment the person's stress health because part of burnout is that There's a dimension which is all around professional efficacy, right? So do you feel like you're doing a good job? and if your job is dependent on other people and You are feeling like without those people doing what they're accountable to You I'm not able to do my job well, it does reduce your professional efficacy.

So this is where strong leadership does what you just said and says, don't worry about that today. Today's not the day to worry about [00:46:00] it. Or if today is you get involved, but on our Monday meeting, we'll drive that accountable discussion to say, what are we going to do about this thing? This important thing that is in our plan that is now with you.

Sitting in your court that we need you to produce on so I I think that that is the role of a manager as well as to keep scrutinizing along those dimensions the professional efficacy the mindset And the ability to have energy to do the job you have homed very very hard in on the energy and the efficacy But also the mindset making sure you're you're seeing is somebody still You Able to have a positive mindset about what, where they are, what they're doing and whether or not they're excited about it.

And I think you've done a really good job on that too by giving them the freedom to do their job with autonomy.

Leaders leading by example actually make it better

Henk Campher: You experienced burnout and to help yourself live your full life, you 

Jen Phillips: employed these boundaries, which were I think incredibly [00:47:00] effective at driving engagement for your entire team. 

And not only were they effective at driving engagement, but you saw business benefits that seemed to at least be. Correlated with those changes. 

What I also think you gave back to people is that when you said we're going to work this way with this framework and respect your time, people were spending less time in low value work and more time doing high value work.

And as such, then they were more productive. Which is very exciting for anybody , including the company who benefits from that higher productivity. 

You're living this really important example I talked about it in Episode one where we just broke down the componentry of burnout, and it is this, 40 percent of workers believe that burnout is a requirement of [00:48:00] success. And you here are setting an example, and it's all leaders responsibilities, I believe, to set the example that, that is not true, and prove it by having the entire team show that when we respect ourselves and don't burn out, we're actually more productive.

Henk Campher: Oh, yeah, it is for me. It's like it's, it's the weirdest thing when I know that you only get paid for your brain. And when you burned out, your brain is not as smart. It's not as fast. So it's like, so if you believe that, then you believe in delivering second, tier level work. that what you're saying?

 Because I've every single person that's been the highest performing in my teams has always been the people who are the happiest, the most engaged and have a life the people that that's driven the business that inspires businesses that leads businesses.

So, yeah, it's [00:49:00] I think it's still a hangover from a lot of the eighties and nineties mentality. You know that I'm hoping that. But we've seen with Gen Zers go like, yeah, no, I'm not going to do that. There's life. There's only life.

Jen Phillips: Yes. And that's another great takeaway, is that there is no work life, there is only life. You have to take ownership of the amount of time you're willing to give to your work And then just bring it a hundred percent when you're in that time and Recharge yourself live the rest of it not recharge yourself for work live the rest of your life and in so doing you come to work a whole person ready to be productive and clear and And like super effective because you're engaged.

Henk Campher: Yeah.

Jen Phillips: And that is the biggest, the biggest proof point. The engagement increase of [00:50:00] 30 points that you saw at Hootsuite. Here's what I know about engagement. This is from a Gallup, the global workplace report. When managers are engaged as you are, employees are five times more likely to be engaged.

The highest performing companies with the highest employee engagement have 23 percent higher profitability, 17 percent higher sales productivity, And 10 percent higher customer loyalty, like you were, you were seeing you had that market share increase and lower absenteeism turnover and theft.

Henk Campher: Yeah. And it makes

The Numbers are With Us so Why Can't we Live This Example? 

Jen Phillips: I mean, it's like the numbers are with us. Why can't we live this example? The numbers and the data, as you say, are with us.

Henk Campher: Yeah, and I, I, we often have to go look for data for things that's so obvious. I was at the office last week, when I walk out of meetings there, I am [00:51:00] so ready for the next thing because we spend time together in meetings, we do it deliberately. We do it for problem solving.

We are highly engaged and you walk out of there and you're like. I feel ready for the next thing versus, Oh man, this is another meeting. Another meeting. It's like, of course, when you psyched about those moments, when you enjoy the time you spend together, it actually inspires you for other things. 

I know when I'm good at work, I'm actually good at writing. I'm actually good at running. I'm actually good at everything else. It's all tied together. It's not that running helps work. Work helps running. 

We, we have to remember our privilege. Most of us are, especially in the world of LinkedIn. you are on LinkedIn, you are highly likely to be one of the privileged few in this world and don't deny that privilege. It's like, I live an extremely privileged life for where I am. And most of us, if we have access to the internet, we can listen to podcasts, if we can engage on social, especially on LinkedIn, [00:52:00] we are privileged. that privilege work for you. deny it because the alternative, you don't want to go there. the alternative is really dark place. So remember that. So that's why it's important to break everything into all the different parts, because you have a rare opportunity in this world to actually live a balanced Life to live a life versus most people in this world can't

Jen Phillips: Right.

Henk Campher: don't let it drag you down it. That'd be the to go do all those things that fit into the puzzle.

That's called your life.

Jen Phillips: Wow. here you are, leading by example, improving your company's engagement, and what I'm really proud of, really, for having worked with you and also having heard these stories of the continuation of you and your role is, that you are setting an example that breaks the belief that to be successful, you must burn out.

And I think [00:53:00] that, to me, is probably legacy, maybe that you wouldn't necessarily think of as your legacy, but to be setting that in a world where 40 percent of us believe it's true is huge and really strong leadership and I appreciate you for that and I appreciate you for being here today to talk about it.

And one, one last ask of you, Henk, what are you thinking is your next? big facet or change in your philosophy to help you continue down the exciting road you're on.

Henk Campher: You know what's happened in the last, I would say, year or two is increasingly things like You know, what's important, urgent crisis, the boundaries, different just philosophies that I have, people are gonna like, you know, have you written this down? Like, no, why would I write it down? So I'm actually [00:54:00] writing it down.

I'm actually writing a book about, Ways that I feel like you can thrive in life, in work, you know, how to not just survive work, but how you can actually thrive in work because you can thrive in life. So these kind of different philosophies and stories from my background, I'm just it together in a book.

But that's what I'm busy doing right now. And it's, it's been, it's been a fun exercise to put it all down into words. And hopefully by there sometime later this year, I'll have it together in a book that I feel proud enough of to share.

Jen Phillips: Well, I'm excited to see where that takes you. I think a lot of people could benefit from reading that book. I really do. So, I can't wait. I'm first in line. I tHenk you so much, Henk Kempfer, for being here. With me to talk about this and really appreciate the leadership example that you're setting by living with intentional boundaries within your team and also driving it across the rest of [00:55:00] the company.

So the team has a benefit of everybody speaking the same language in a way that helps them feel better about themselves and also make being more productive at work.

Henk Campher: THenk you. I always love hanging out with you. So

Jen Phillips: Me too.

Henk Campher: great time. THenk you very much.

Jen Phillips: Today you heard from a passionate, dedicated leader that there is no work life, there is only life. And that to be our most effective at work, we need to live our full life and release stress rather than pushing through our stressors.

Hank's reacquainting himself with boundaries after experiencing his own slow burn, burnout, actually inspired him to lean into the power of boundaries, clear definitions of not important, not important, important, urgent, and crisis, having accountability to an aligned plan, and as a leader, pushing ambiguity and obstacles out of the way.

Those things have proven in Hank's last three executive stints. To be good for the people on his team and [00:56:00] great for the bottom line and healthy for Hank. You know, I love a win, win, win. And I hope you heard something today that sparked your optimism or for you leaders out there, gave you food for thought on changes you can bring in to your organization, to your team, to make the workplace a better place.

I promise you that following Hank on LinkedIn is not boring. He's taking the summer hiatus, but we'll be back in full force later this year. I've added his profile link to the notes as well as the book burnout, the secret to unlocking the stress cycle, which I've referenced earlier in the episode. if you like what you're hearing on the podcast report, subscribe, wherever you listen to podcasts so you don't miss any of our upcoming reports.

Your reviews help us as well. So if you're loving this content, please give us a review. 

Thank you so much for being here together with me and with Hank Campfer. We really can help each other and help make the workplace a better place as we grow until next [00:57:00] time.

Here's to your progress. 

Hi, it's Jen with some very important, fine print. This podcast and its associated properties does not provide medical or mental health advice, the information including, but not limited to recorded in live episodes, text graphics, images, and any other material contained on the property or the podcast are for your informational purposes only. Nothing on The Podgress Report is intended to substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. , and please, if you're under duress or considering suicide, please reach out right this very minute to the suicide and cRisis lifeline by dialing 9, 8, 8 in the U S. Or searching for the helplines available to you in your country.