Building a Psychologically Safe Workplace

In this episode, leadership expert Dr. Nancy Pacivich joins the host to discuss how property managers can become more effective leaders. They explore the importance of self-awareness, psychological safety, and delegation in building high-performing teams. Nancy shares practical strategies for fostering trust, supporting neurodiverse staff, and encouraging accountability. The conversation highlights the value of curiosity, empathy, and open communication in overcoming workplace challenges and preventing burnout. Listeners gain actionable insights on creating supportive environments where both employees and businesses thrive, making this episode essential for new property managers seeking to upskill their leadership abilities.

• Leadership as an inside-out process focused on self-awareness, values, and purpose.
• The importance of psychological safety in the workplace for employee engagement and growth.
• The role of curiosity and empathy in effective leadership and team dynamics.
• The significance of delegation and role clarity in leadership practices.
• The impact of self-awareness on leadership effectiveness and organizational success.
• Strategies for fostering a culture of accountability and continuous improvement.
• The challenges of engaging leaders who lack self-awareness or resist seeking help.
• The need for tailored support for neurodiverse individuals in professional environments.
• The relationship between leadership practices and business outcomes, including productivity and employee satisfaction.
• The evolving definition of leadership in various contexts, emphasizing collaboration and partnership over authority.

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Chapters

• 0:00 Meet Dr Nancy Pasovich
• 3:01 Who Counts As A Leader
• 6:06 Modern Leadership Versus Old Models
• 10:21 When Owners Aren’t People Leaders
• 16:31 Self‑Awareness And Removing Ego
• 21:41 Legal Duty And Productivity Links
• 24:36 What Psychological Safety Looks Like
• 30:41 Mistakes, Voice, And Meeting Norms
• 35:36 Trauma At Work And Trust Building
• 40:21 Can Leadership Be Taught
• 45:16 Curiosity Over Reactivity Framework

Transcript

SPEAKER_01: 0:32

Welcome to another episode. And uh today I have the lovely Dr. Nancy Pasovich joining us. Welcome. Good morning. Now, you, your audience, typically, who are they?

SPEAKER_00: 0:46

Wow, I have a huge audience, and it really the audience is aligned with aspiring, middle, senior executive leaders who are seeking to grow and develop. And that's certainly in the leadership portfolio that I have, but I also have a communication portfolio, and that's everyone. So across all sectors, locally, nationally, and internationally, I'm very lucky to work with some really beautiful people, teams, and organizations. Wonderful.

SPEAKER_01: 1:16

So today we are talking to my audience who is in the real estate industry. We've got a mixture of property managers, BDMs, leaders, business owners around Australia, and actually internationally as well, which is great. And so I'd love to have a little intro from you about who you are and what you do.

SPEAKER_00: 1:34

So I'm a leadership management and communication consultant, and I've been in this space for a significant number of years, certainly in leadership roles, and then up until 2018, I was headhunted by Microsoft to run some digital transformation, and so that's when I started to fortify that leadership perspective. So I work with all sorts of people as I mentioned earlier, but for me the growth is to, or the purpose is to grow individuals in the space that they need to be the best that they can be for the people they serve or who work alongside them. So for me, with the emphasis of leadership and communication, it's about leadership being on the inside out. So where we're guided with self-awareness, we're guided with values and purpose. And so essentially, my goal and my hope is to unlock potential. And whether that is through coaching or mentoring or facilitation and workshops, whatever it is, I do so using neuroscience strategies. So again, if we can help people, the ripple effect of 12 for every person we help, then that's the gift that keeps on giving, right?

SPEAKER_01: 2:47

Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. So leadership is an interesting word. And I was speaking to a friend yesterday, we're organizing some events for next year, and he said that he wanted to organize one for an event for leaders. In his mind, he was referring to business owners. Right. And then I but then he also mentioned, then I mentioned about doing one for business owners, and he we we got this just got into this discussion about hold on, who are leaders and who are the people that are going to book into that? Because he was thinking that the business owners would book into the leaders event. And I was like, well, do you want the business owners or do you want the head of departments? Because I think in his mind, he was thinking head of departments. And I just feel like the word leader can be, it's a very general word. Absolutely. Some people do have in their mind that it's just a business owner or just the head of department. I I think everyone's a leader in their own right, and everyone is leading someone or a community, you know, in the world. So I'd love to hear your interpretation of the word leader.

SPEAKER_00: 3:57

Absolutely. Well, I share your sentiments. So we all have the capacity to lead, and we are all leaders in our own right. Then what defines that leadership role is the context. So whether I'm a leader in a business space where I choose to step up and not just grow an organization but lead the people in that space, or whether I'm an executive officer working for local government, or I'm a principal of a school, or a matron in terms of leading a hospital unit. So we have leaders as certified roles, but they are defined by context. Otherwise, we all lead. You know, if you if you listen to the work of Professor Amy Edmondson from Harvard, and she's very big on psychological safety, and she will tell you we are all leaders. We all lead in our own way. But essentially for us, it's the context that defines us. So you and I are business leaders in our own right. We manage our own companies, but that's not to say when we step into another portfolio that we don't lead in that space. So if we're helping with a charity, for example. So that notion of leadership is about supporting the people around you, growing them to be the best that they can be. And it really is about unlocking that potential. Leadership is not what it was as of the 1950s. You know, that autocratic dictatorial, you would do as I say. That's not what leadership is. We have a culture of consultation, of supporting people, growing people, helping them feel psychologically safe so that they can grow and develop to be the best people that are that they can be. So leadership now is more of a partnership with people, a committed relationship with people rather than a power differential.

SPEAKER_01: 5:52

Yeah. I think that there's in real estate, there's a lot of business owners who I think there's two types. I think there's the the business owner who recognizes themselves as leading a team. I think there are also a lot of business owners who don't want that role. They want to be the business owner, they want to do their own thing, but they bring someone else to be the leader for their team. And I love that because they've recognized that they're not the person to be leading a team, which is great self-refres. Great awareness. There's a lot of people that don't have that great awareness. Absolutely. Um, but I just think that for the business owners listening, if you recognize that you are not maybe the best person to be a leader, that's okay. Just get somebody in who can, because I think all businesses do need to have some direction, some leadership in there. And if you can't do it, no problems at all. Make sure you supplement that in your team and don't and and have just like a really good think to yourself like, am I really the right person to be doing it? And I have, there's two, there's been two situations in my business career. So I've had my business for 20 years now, and there's been two times where I've recognized that I haven't been the best leader and I've had to employ to do that. One was the time where I was doing our BDM work and I was bringing in a lot of business, and I was, I was throwing that business onto my team's desk. Here's another one, here's another one. And they were like, What's this one? I was like, I don't know, Google it. I just, I wasn't giving them any support because I was so you know overwhelmed. That was when I was like, time to get somebody in to help me because I'm not serving them the best that I can. The second time was by accident, which I didn't recognize I needed someone until someone stepped into that role. And now I don't know how I live without having my operations manager. So she's taken a lot of work off me, but she's also leads the team better because she's got the time to lead the team better. And then what I now do is I lead the business. And so for me, I have separated the roles and separated that she is a great people leader. I'm I think I'm still a good people leader, but she's got the time to be a better people leader. But I'm a great business leader in running all of it holistically and putting the business in its best position it can be. And so for me, in my business journey, that's sort of what's happened to me, yeah, by accident and then intentionally with moving and progressing, I guess, in that role, which I think people should really re you know, reflect on as well.

SPEAKER_00: 8:54

Well, you know, Ashley, the fact that you've done that says that you have amazing self-awareness. And I'm going to be honest with you, the people that I work with often don't. So they're running from an ego space and from what and they genuinely believe that what they're doing is the right thing. I think the challenge with that is that they tend to be more emotionally reactive because it's their business. And so sometimes walking away from the bias aligned with that and dealing with people who, you know, who are coming into the workplace and and serving in the best way that they can, sometimes there's that disconnect. And I think the best decision you've made there is to get an operations person because what they do is they take that leverage, they take that emotion out, and so they can see things in in a very objective way. And and that is core leadership. But you had to have that awareness to do that. Many people don't. You know, um, if I talk about a study on self-awareness, and I I I mention it in my second book, it's done by Harvard, it was a 5,000 people research. It was huge, it was significant. And what they were trying to do was understand leader self-awareness in the workplace. And what they determined, and this is the work of Tara Urich, and what they determined was that only 10 to 15 percent of people were aware, both from an internal perspective and an external perspective. So aware of how they turned up and how other people saw them turn up, but also being very aware of the needs of other people. And so that that's a rare thing. And so even now, you know, one of the biggest contracts that I have on a regular basis is being invited into organizations to say, okay, what am I not doing right in this space? And so the first thing is that notion of self-awareness. And for some people that they take that personally, and I understand that, you know, their business is who they are. But once we get through the process of explaining that, it becomes a real poignant moment.

SPEAKER_01: 11:03

So in bigger businesses, I can see how bringing someone in your like in like yourself would be a benefit because it feels like it would be like a I don't know how to describe, like a group and a team, and it doesn't actually feel isolated, like we're picking it picking, I've got inverted commas picking on one person. And I'm just wondering, like there are so many businesses, real estate officers, with this egotistical business owner, and those that are listening might work for someone like that.

SPEAKER_00: 11:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 11:40

How do you how do they get self-awareness in the first place to even like explore getting some support, some consulting, some training in it? Like if they're not do I mean, do you just have to wait till they've got that self-awareness before they pick up the phone and say, I need someone in like yourself?

SPEAKER_00: 11:58

Usually there's an incident that occurs that triggers that. But I I'm going to say this, you know, if you look at work safe at the moment, there's the psychosocial hazards in the workplace. And and I was explaining this earlier. So anyone in a position of leadership is accountable for not providing or providing a psychological psychologically safe space. So if anything, work with the legislation and say, well, you know, I can potentially lose my business, or as a person in a leadership position, I too can face financial challenge, or I can go to prison just as a CEO of a business. So I think in the first instance, align with legislation to say, hey, I have a huge responsibility to lead effectively. And what that means is I need to have an understanding of who I am, how I turn up, but also how other people see me turn up in that space. The other thing I think if we're talking about business owners, you know, if we're looking at productivity and where we want our business to be, if we think backwards, right? If we have a goal, this is where I want to be at the end of 2026, this is how much money I want to be making, what is it that I need to do to get there? And to do that, you need teams of really, really good people, people who are happy to do the work and have have the appropriate knowledge, skills, and understandings to do so. But if I'm not leading those people, if I'm not guiding those people, or if I'm not providing a psychologically safe space for those people to turn up every day as their best self to do what they've been paid to do, then that goal, that productivity is maybe not going to happen. You know, that level of productivity that I'm hoping for, that outcome that I'm hoping for may not happen. So again, there are two considerations there that people really need to be aware of. If there is, you know, if they're not focused on thinking about themselves, well then think about legislation and think about productivity as the outcome. What do you need to do to get there? What do you need to do to be safe so that you can grow people but also meet your actual individual goals?

SPEAKER_01: 14:11

Yeah. What does a psychological safe workplace look like and feel like?

SPEAKER_00: 14:19

Yeah, let me tell you. So the principles that I'll share with you are those, again, from Professor Amy Edmondson, but there's also Dr. Tim Clark, so all aligned with Harvard. So the first thing in a psychologically safe workplace, people need to feel that they can learn and learn without judgment. I think the biggest challenge in workplaces is if people don't feel comfortable, they're not very open in sharing about the things that they can't do. So sometimes, you know, I work into walking to workplaces and I'm dealing with people who haven't shared that they have dyslexia or dyspraxia or dyscalcula. So dyslexia is, you know, struggling with reading, dyspraxia is not having the fine motor skills to be able to write effectively, dyscalcular maths, understanding mathematics and the like, right? And then of course we have ADD, ADHD, ASD, all of those, you know, neurodiverse individuals who offer have lots to offer, but we need to support them in a particular way. So being comfortable to learn. And the other one is feeling safe to contribute, like to feel valuable, valued enough to say, hey, my voice counts and what I have to say counts, and you've hired me for my skill set and for my knowledge, you know, enable me to use that. The other factor is being able to take appropriate risks, like relevant within the role. So, you know, being able to make quality decisions within the remit of the responsibility. And and the last one you might find is a little tricky, but it really is about having the capacity to challenge the status quo. And that means that challenging your leaders sometimes. The only thing that Professor Amy Edmondson and Tim Clark don't make explicit is this notion of doing it respectfully. But essentially, those types of components are critical to a workplace. But there's also the other bit too of, and I'm not suggesting a vulnerability vomit like Brene Brown does, but you know, people should be able to feel a little bit vulnerable at work. So if they've made a mistake, they can acknowledge it, yep, I've made a mistake, without the fear of someone coming down on them and having a go at them. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01: 16:39

Yeah, I am thinking that I've got a very, very psychologically safe office. I'm ticking all those boxes. And and I I always share examples about I think that's the beauty of me is that not only do I do these podcasts and help support the property management industry, but I do it with relevancy because I've still got my office and I am experiencing and doing every single day what my audience does. And we find, I guess, there's a lot of coaches in this space where they're great coaches, but they don't necessarily have that relevancy of being in the office. And so I so I share from experience so that other people can sort of hear what goes on in other workplaces. So one thing for me is the one you mentioned about the vulnerability with mistakes. And um I'm very, very fortunate that I have got a team that come to me and say, Ash, I stuff this up. I love that they come to me though with Ash, I've stuffed this up. Here are three options that I'm thinking we go to the owner with. Which one are you happy with? And then I'll say, okay, let's try option one. If that doesn't work, go to option two. If that doesn't work, come back to me and we'll sort it out. So I I love that. I also give them or not um autonomy to make decisions that they don't need to come to me and ask me. Um some of them really struggle with that though, yes. Even though I say to them, no, you can make that decision. You didn't need actually just the other day, I said to one of my team, you he put on the she put on the email to a client, let me check with Ash to see if I can do that. And the owner had responded to say, well, hold on a second, it was, you know, your agency's mistake. So why do you need to check? Just do it. So I went back to her and I said, Listen, don't you ever say that you need to come back to me. You had permission to do that and make that decision, and that's totally fine. So she's one that gets a little bit nervous about making a decision without me. But the rest of the team are pretty good. And I'm always I I try to speak openly about this because there are a lot of agencies where they they do make a someone feel bad about a mistake. Absolutely. People feel like they're responsible to pay for the mistake. And the example I use is that if you owned a supermarket, there is in the budget, there's an allowance for stolen goods because you're always going to have stolen goods in a supermarket. And that's allowed for. And same with all businesses, there is a budget for damaged stock, stolen stock mistakes. And in real estate, we have mistakes, and you just have a budget. And of course, we don't want it to be a high budget, but we do need to have some buffer there. And we also just want to make sure that if there has been a mistake, what did we learn from it? How do we how do we fix it and how does it not happen again? And I haven't had any mistake happen twice, so it's been good. The other thing that you mentioned was the the, I can't remember the word you use, but sort of, you know, I guess feeling comfortable to question the leader. And that was the incident I mentioned when I was doing the BDM and I was just throwing contracts on people's desk. And it was the team that said to me, Ash, you can't do that. I need you to do this. So very lucky that they were the ones that said, Ash, you are really stressing me out right now. Like I need you to do better. And you know, I was like, fair call, fair call. The and I loved the one that you mentioned about having a voice because I do weekly one percenters for my members, whereas um like it's an email, it's a little five-minute video. What's one percent better you can work on this week in your business or in your personal life? Yes. One of them that I did was actually about paying attention to your staff meetings. And it was, I can't remember the book that I read, and I I want to say it was referencing Google and it was about a team meeting, and it was about making sure that everyone in that team meeting has a voice and that you don't finish the meeting till everyone has said something. And it's not that you would pinpoint someone and say, Sally, you haven't said anything, you know, what do you want to say? But it's about subconsciously just noting, noting what's going on in the room. Has everyone talked or said something? Has there been anyone that's silent? And you don't finish that meeting till you have heard everyone's voice. Uh, and if it means you need to do a soft little prompt, like, you know, you know, are you finding that's the same with you, Sally? Or you know what I mean? It's making sure that that happens, I think, is something that would be a really great little technique for people.

SPEAKER_00: 21:15

So the Google example is what they call turn turn taking for conversations and ferocious listening. So I use that a lot. But I want to go back to the employee that you were referring to. One of the things I think is just being aware that everyone comes to work with baggage and trauma, and there are varying degrees of those. Often in situations like that, I wonder if that person has had such a negative experience in the past. She has, yeah. So that then is coming through in this role. And again, remember, human behavior takes a while to grow and develop. So she's going to need a lot of loving and support from you to know that, okay, what happened in the past was not acceptable and that this is a new space. And so, again, often that's where I also do my work because people, and not everyone is comfortable to share that trauma. And we've all had uh line managers who haven't been great, but it really does impact us and how we turn up when we go into that next role. And again, she's very blessed to have you because you're very aware in that space. And being able to sit down and share with her, hey, you don't have to do that. Again, lots of small things will create an opportunity for her to grow and develop. But often people come into workplaces quite emotionally and psychologically scarred from people who have really led them quite badly. And again, that's one of the other reasons why I do the work that I do. I've seen firsthand where people have been treated so badly, you know, they applied for a job, they got their job, and then they got into their workplace, and then they couldn't use their knowledge, they couldn't use their skills because they were at the mercy of the ego of the leader, or the ignorance of the leader, or the arrogance of the leader, or the best intention of the leader. And so this is where my work is so pertinent in terms of growing communication in the workplace, growing leadership capacity in the workplace. And unfortunately, in with the challenges that we have at the moment geopolitically, you know, this is the first area that goes out of that budget, and people stop growing because they're too busy getting into that task phase, but people forget the people, the leaders forget the people. And I always say that when we look after the people who we have the privilege to lead or who work alongside us, the tasks will get done, and they'll get done really, really well. And so something to think about because I always, in my first book, I took in the communication book, I always talked about try and understand the behavior of the person without emotionally or psychologically or attacking that person. Think about the behavior, what's the why of that behavior? How does that fit into our workplace? What needs to change? How do I work with that person to bring them on the journey? And that's so important when we honor the dignity of the human person. At core, that's that's what I mean when we respect the person. So well done, you. Celebrating you and the work that you're doing for people.

SPEAKER_01: 24:36

Fantastic. It's interesting though, when I when I reflect on on it, because it's not something that I was taught. It was something, or maybe I have been taught it in classes or uh conferences and books and podcasts, and at a very subconscious level of what I consider normal and not normal behavior. Yes. So it's it's one of those things. Like I don't know whether it's something you can teach or whether you are just, you know, you it's just built in you that you just make, you know, a good leader because of your past and your life experiences, maybe. Like, is it is it actually possible to teach, or is it just a big journey of yeah, reading, researching, listening, and doing?

SPEAKER_00: 25:29

So to me, leadership is a journey of growth and development. Okay. So I I don't think anyone is born to be a leader. They used to call them trait leadership theories in way back when. But I think what happens is if you have a natural curiosity to grow and develop and to want to be the best person yourself, you want that for the people who surround you and who work in the spaces alongside of you. So, and and I will say this an online ticket box course does not do it. I'm going to be honest. What needs to happen is a scoped and sequence program aligned with a leadership professional in that space where you have the opportunity to test and try a couple of concepts or strategies at work, see how they work for you, how they feel, and then you come back and discuss. So it's that going forward, playing, coming back, discussing, reflecting, and gauging the learning from that. Everyone's experience is different. But I think we need to have more concerted efforts with programs, quality leader-based programs with quality professionals. So again, there are lots of people who will tell you they do leadership, but it's about really deducing about what are my needs, what are the needs of the organization, who would best fit in with us to grow us in the space that we need to to move forward. But yes, in terms of you know, I a good book is great, but you're not no one's testing you or applying your knowledge in that space. It's only you telling yourself, okay, I've read that book, so yes, I'm going to try and do this. But, you know, if we look at the the habit formation of the brain in our basal ganglia, it takes a long time to establish a habit, and it equally takes a long time to undo that habit. So it's again having someone walking the journey with you or with the team that you lead or with the organization that you lead.

SPEAKER_01: 27:34

Aaron Powell The word uh curious that you said is my favorite word. I think everyone should be curious at the opportunity, curious at the idea of trying something new. So it's a really important word for people to implement.

SPEAKER_00: 27:48

Well, in in my first book, in the communication book, I talk about three non-negotiables. Number one, you should always be curious instead of furious. Always. So the amygdala is uh an almond-like organ located in the middle part of our brain, and it's responsible, and you would have heard this for the flight, fright, and freeze response. And so often when we engage in an amygdala hijack, we're not thinking, we're running on emotion because you know it goes back to those ancestorial days. But every time we walk into a setting, we need to be aware about how heightened we are, right? You know, if we're really anxious or if we're really angry or if, you know, if we're really frightened of something, we need to have that awareness. And so when we engage the prefrontal cortex, it means that we become curious. So we use the art of questioning and the art of listening to then switch that off. So the second phrasing I use is be responsive and not reactive. So reactive is rah, amygdala hijack. Responsive is okay, I'm now going to engage the brain. So I've actually gone through the process. I actually have trained myself now to ask a question straight away because that flips me out of that re you know, being reactive. The last mantra piece that I focus on in that first book is be doing instead of stewing. So often when we're already emotionally heightened and angry and frustrated, and we start to stew, and that's when office gossip starts to happen, and that's when we're not our best selves, and we tend to be not very nice in that in that space. What we want to do is be doing. And again, it's flipping into the prefrontal cortex. What can I do in this space? Yep, I'm angry, I get it. But what is in, and if we look at Stephen Covey's work, the circle of influence, what is in my control that I can do? And then if it's beyond my control, the next sphere is well, what can I influence, right? What can I? So I might get a data report together, or I might go have a conversation, a professional conversation, not a gossiping, venting conversation, a professional conversation with someone. And if none of that uh works, then then you look at that third remit, which is, well, you can't control it. And there are some things you have to choose to accept that are beyond your control. And then when you get to that space, you make a choice. Do I stay and say nothing? Do I stay and advocate, or do I walk away? Because ultimately they are the three options that are available to you in that space.

SPEAKER_01: 30:30

Does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. We there's some people that I've been speaking to bringing them into some events for next year. And one of them was actually actually referring to burnout. And burnout, we it's it's it's an overused word in our industry. And this lady said to me, she goes, I call bullshit on burnout. She goes, because Because we get to choose whether we st stay or whether we go. And if we're choosing to stay in it, you you're right, you need to accept that that's the way that it is. On a personal level, when I was married, that was exactly what happened. And there are people that stay in marriages and they go over the same argument all the time. And then it got to a point that I thought, I either need to just accept it and not say another word about it. Correct. Or I leave. Yep. And and you have to have that decision, same in the business place. You can yeah, if you accept it, that means not whinching about it again. Correct. Correct. And so if you are going to stay and whinge and whinge and bitch about something that's happening, and that's going to burn you out. And it will burn you out, but you're choosing that.

SPEAKER_00: 31:40

That's right. So and that's where people often don't take the responsibility. Yeah. They don't. Because we all have voice and choice. Yeah. Right? We choose and then we choose to speak or we choose to not speak. But it's our choice. Yeah. And again, there are lots of reasons behind that. So certainly in a workplace, it might be, especially at the moment, work might be hard to find and mortgages need to be paid, and food's really expensive. We've got cost of living. So I understand that for some people, making that decision is really, really hard. But then you have to take responsibility, and I say this a lot, for how you turn up and how other people see you turn up. So you can have those challenges. But how do you respond? How do you mitigate the noise that's around you? Because that's very telling of the person you are. And then you can, you know, whilst being unhappy in a space, keeping in mind that you should always do your best work as best as you can. And then if you need to look on the side, do so until such time you find something and then you walk away. That's professional, right? Honoring the dignity of everyone. But if you go to the office every day and it's this and it's that, it's interesting when you talk about burnout and disengagement. I often um I follow Gallup, I follow a lot of researchers. But Gallup 2025, they've talked about this notion of 77% of the global community being disengaged at work. And as 62% of that is just disengagement as turning up for work, doing the absolute bare minimum and going home. But then there's then the rest of that is those who are acutely disengaged, who come to work, turn on their computer, surf the net, go have lots of cups of coffee, go chat with different people and not do anything. And so again, this is part of the argument that our Prime Minister, and I've recently returned from Canada, this notion of productivity, like the it's become a critical element on the political agenda to really get people to be more productive. And they've all identified it. The top three, number one, people leave organizations, not because of the organization, but because of the people who are leading them. The second one is this lack of progression planning, like they feel bored, so they're disengaged, and then it's like, oh, this is the job. And their mindset becomes fixed. They're no longer in that open state of um opportunity, we can do this or we can do that. And so engagement has a lot to do and links in terms of research with burnout. Because then you've you're you're feeling psychologically unsafe, you're not feeling competent or confident in the role that you're doing, and you're not comfortable in the workplace. And again, that that affects your workplace identity. Yeah. So there's a big world out there with lots of issues that we need to solve. And hopefully your listeners are able to get an understanding. Certainly, business owners, but also those who aren't business owners are able to get a better understanding of what it looks like from different perspectives and what we all need to do to take responsibility, to foster better engagement, and to foster safety at work, so people want to come to work and do and be their best selves. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 35:12

I want to backtrack on something that I think is relevant, and that is around people in the workplace with that are neuro neurodiverse, so with ADHD. It's a big thing. Big thing at the moment. I I I share a personal opinion, which people will either love or hate, and that personal opinion is again, I I do think it's a little bit overused at the moment with diagnosis. I do think that it detracts from people that genuinely have, you know, that need support in that area. That's my my main concern. We don't want to deflect from the people that genuinely have it. However, there is so many conversations around me at the moment regarding ADHD, but also linked with menopause, and I mean, that's a whole medical thing. You know, I question whether people just need to go get their hormones checked. You know what I mean? But I don't know. But I'm not a doctor when you're a doctor, I'm I'm not a doctor, but I that's just what I'm seeing in my because I'm 44. So, you know, my friends were all at the same age. It's funny, I've got these terrible aches at the moment. Yes. I can't get rid of these aches. And I went again to the doctor, she's prescribed me something a little bit left of centre to try for it. So I've just started on it last night. We'll see if it works because it's just random. I've had all the blood tests. And I said to the doctor, listen, if I'm just old and perimenopausal, it's fine as long as there's nothing like an autoimmune disease or anything like that. I can if you just tell me Ash, you're gonna have aches as you get older, I'll live with it. So when I talk to people about this, they're like, oh, Ash, that's just menopause. You know, that's what happened when I was going through it and all of that. So but sorry, backtracking back to the ADHD. So I I would love to hear your thoughts. And and I have to disclose this. I don't know what the legal HR opinion is on it. So please, those that are listening, don't quote me on any of this. But I don't know if for me I would ask the question in an interview. I don't even know if it's possible that you're allowed to. So I just am throwing that blanket disclaimer over that. I don't think that's appropriate. However, I think for me and how I manage it in the workplace is that I need to trust that people will come to me and tell me which they have in the past. Yeah. Ash, just so you know, this is you know what I've got. Um, so I might just need extra support with, you know, A and B. And I love that. And so for me, for someone who maybe does need that extra support, to go to your, you know, to your um manager or your boss and say, just so you're aware, is going to maybe answer a lot of questions that they might have. So I know that when someone approached me and my team, I was like, oh my gosh, thank you so much for telling me because that allows me to help you more. But there's a lot of people that don't have that conversation. And I would, I'm, I feel like it's a conversation that needs to be had really early on in employment because I feel like that it really affects the training that you give that person. Yes. And I've had to jump in in the past with some training and support. And I do have a pretty good idea. Even if someone doesn't tell me, I can recognize, okay, this is how I'm going to have to train you. It's a little bit different. But I do recognize that there are people that don't, and then they get frustrated. Why are you not picking up on it? Why are you not understanding it? So I guess the the roundabout question I would love to know is of course we have to hope that people come to us and disclose it. As a leader, what can we do if we are struggling with someone from a training or a learning point of view, and we have an inkling that they might, you know, how does that conversation look?

SPEAKER_00: 39:07

Oh my goodness, this is my favorite toffee. I tell you why. I run heaps of workshops. And so the first thing I say to leaders is onboarding is absolutely critical, right? So I get we have to do the OC Health and Safety thing. I get the whole government, I get all of that. But I say to them, part of that onboarding, you need to be spending at least half a day with that person getting to know them. So help me understand. You know, if we're getting in, you know, if I need to have a courageous conversation with you, what might that look like, feel like, and sound like for you? Tell me more about how you like to receive feedback. Tell me more about how you like to work. These are the types of questions that employers need to actually have with people when they first arrive. I love those questions. Oh my gosh, I do it all the time because I'm like, this will save you, this will save you. Because essentially, you know, we talk about the first thing is about fostering that relationship. So what we want to do is is really establish trust. If people can't trust the people they work with or their respective line managers, again, you're not going to get the best out of them. So the best way to do that in the first instance is where you're both really vulnerable with one another, saying, you know, you know, you might say, Ash, you know, Nancy, I I like it, I like to be given information that's really direct, and I might say, Oh, I'm hearing that you say that, Ash. So for me, I I I might be take, I might take things a little personally, and you know, I've got a story with that, and then they may wish to give you that story, but they also may not. But what that does is it gives you an inkling to say, hey, hey, there's some work I have to do in this space. So it's not simply, oh, look, you've, you know, you've you've onboarded someone. It's about the conversation that you have. Then when you are in a situation and you find yourself, and again, I get called in for these types of situations, you know, again, I can't underestimate the art of right asking the right question and the way in which you ask it. And again, I go back to my mantra. Be curious and not furious, be responsive and not reactive, and be doing instead of stewing. So it might be, Ash, can you help me understand what went wrong with this particular report? And, you know, you might say, Oh, I did this and I wasn't sure about how to interpret this. And I said, So tell me more about that. What do you feel you need to know in that space? So just spot just be curious. In the past, I've walked into workplaces where line managers and colleagues have made fun of people, almost to the point of humiliating them, you know, or that sarcastic comment or totally unnecessary, totally uncalled for, and it is a psychosocial hazard. So I always say, just be curious, sit down with them. So tell me more about this. And then you might say, so I noticed that when I explain this to you, this little bit doesn't make sense. Can you tell me how I can explain it better? And, you know, Ash, I say this to people, you need to teach people how to treat you, but you also have to invite them to teach you how to treat them. And then what you've done is you've created this really good relationship where there is a mutual reciprocity of understanding, right? For some people who've experienced really severe trauma, you might have to have a few of those conversations, right? But for the most part, people want to trust you. You know, they come into a workplace, and I I, you know, I honestly, from the bottom of my heart, believe, you know, people are not malicious. I don't believe that people are cruel and come in to purposely do things. Yes, there's that odd person that might. But essentially, people are good. So let's grow them and develop them, but in the way that they need. Right? In the way that they need. You know, I can give you an example of someone who had who I know has delayed processing disorder and for a long time has withheld that from employers and then keeps coming back going, but they they don't keep me on. And I'm like, but have you shared with them? I'm really scared that they that they won't, you know, let me stay on. I said, but they're not letting you stay on anyway. So, you know, sometimes it's it's the voice, it's the the voice of reason in in a space that is quite scary. So again, it's be curious, not furious, be responsive, not reactive, and be doing instead of stewing. I love that.

SPEAKER_01: 43:54

So cool, right? I love that. And I just love the idea. It it sounds like so obvious, but I guess there's a lot of people that don't do it, is that spending time with that person and that will probably allow you to work out what they need and what that training looks like anyway. Like that's all you sort of need to do at the start.

SPEAKER_00: 44:13

Correct.

SPEAKER_01: 44:14

Which is great. Now, in true Ash style, I haven't gone through any of the questions that I've given you. Oh, don't worry. We've had a lot of fun. This happened last time. I had someone who had sort of their notes and their questions, and I always say to them, listen, I might not get to them all. I just, you know, I've got them there in case, but generally I love the conversation because I find that it's easier to listen to, and yeah, and it's an absolute pleasure to have you on today. So thank you for sharing all your the professional side of it for us. And to finish off, can you just let everyone know about I think you said that there was, is there a new book that's coming out?

SPEAKER_00: 44:51

Okay, so I I have two books. So one is called It's All About It, where we focus on the behavior and not the person engaging in the action. There's the other one is called Show Up and Lead. So it's about helping leaders to answer two questions. How do I turn up and how do other people see me turn up? The third book is called Leadership, How to Lift Others. And that is about how do people, how do the people I work with come to me as their best selves? How do I make them feel as a result of having had a conversation with me? How comfortable are they to connect with me? So that comes back to you know the experience of the employee or the person working with you. And that's about well, how do I lift people in that space? That's coming out in February, March next year. So I'm really excited. It's an amazing time of my life. I've really enjoyed this period. I've got two more books that need to come out after that. I've got this page. I don't know, I got myself into this five books in five years, and I'm like, oh, you know, at the time I thought it was a good idea. And then it's like, okay, so I I'm thinking that there are people I'm now going to interview in subsequent books to um tell the story. But thank you for the opportunity of connecting with you today. Yeah, absolutely. Thank you.