September 2, 2025 • 25 mins
We’ve spent the last few years talking about mental health at work like it’s always a crisis—trauma, burnout, damage done. Bryan Power, Head of People at Nextdoor, thinks that framing actually makes the conversation harder. Instead, what if we positioned mental health as something everyone can access, not just people in distress? In this episode, we cut through the jargon and look at resilience, performance, and the everyday practices that actually help people do their best work.
Bryan and I also dig into the cultural pendulum swing from “bring your whole self to work” to “respect my boundaries,” the generational divides shaping expectations around connection, and how AI is reshaping not just jobs, but how leaders set boundaries, communicate, and build culture. Spoiler: the hot takes on AI are everywhere, but the real opportunity isn’t doing more with less—it’s doing more with the same.
Related Links:
- Join the People Managing People community forum
- Subscribe to the newsletter to get our latest articles and podcasts
- Connect with Bryan on LinkedIn
- Check out Nextdoor
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
A lot of the conversation gets framed around
this idea of damage that's beendone or trauma or the cost of
work.
I just believe this topic isreally important for everyone,
and so I think you can frame ita little differently so that
everyone can access it.
That's one of the problems witha lot of the forced back to
(00:21):
office is it's about the comfortlevel of someone with 20 or 30
or 40 years of experience justreally knows how to work
together in person and you'vegot to learn new ways of
communicating.
Ai is wild.
Right now is when everything'sa mess.
It is hot.
Take city on what AI is gonnamean for everybody.
The counter hot takes that it'slike a nothing burger are
(00:42):
starting to happen.
You can get whatever opinionyou want.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to the People Managing People podcast, the
show where we help leaders keepwork human in the age of AI.
I'm your host, David Rice, andon today's episode, I'm happy to
be joined by Brian Power.
He is the head of people atNextdoor.
In this conversation, Brian andI are going to be talking about
the landscape of mental healthat work, why framing it around
(01:12):
trauma may be doing more harmthan good, and how we can shift
the narrative towards resilience, performance and access for all
.
We also talk about the rise andfall of bring your whole self
to work, the growing preferencefor boundary setting and how
generational differences areshaping expectations around
workplace connection.
And, of course, we get into AI,what it means for jobs, those
(01:34):
previously mentioned boundaries,creativity and how Brian is
leading cultural transformationat Nextdoor in the face of this
disruptive moment.
So, without any further delay,let's get right into it, Brian
welcome.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
We had a good conversationbefore this.
I'm going to start it here.
Mental health at work becamethis big conversation during
(01:56):
COVID, right, but it's come along way from that and as we
were chatting before this, youwere pointing out to me that
it's still often framed aroundtrauma or crisis, and I'm
curious what's the risk offraming it that way and what
should we be doing instead?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah.
So I think it's useful to takesome history into account here,
because I've really long been amental health advocate and what
I found prior to COVID was thatit was more of a niche topic and
it was really kind ofstigmatized.
People often associated theterms mental health with mental
illness and it was a topic thatjust wasn't that commonplace in
the modern workforce.
And you know, in my career,particularly in human resources,
(02:34):
I felt like knowledge work inparticular, a lot of the strain
that employers put on theiremployee population hits their
brain and so it creates a lot ofchallenges like stress, which
can lead to anxiety ordepression.
One of the upsides of the COVIDpandemic was that everyone kind
of experienced this spike inmental adversity.
(02:55):
I'm just trying to navigatethis global phenomenon and what
that meant was that theemployers needed to center on
mental health because everyonehad this crisis they were
dealing with.
I think that was positivebecause it really brought
forward this theme that I justbelieve is part of every
employer-employee relationship.
Now you could kind of talk moreopenly about it, I think more
(03:18):
recently, kind of 2025, one ofthe things that I've noticed is
a lot of the conversation getsframed around this idea of
damage that's been done ortrauma or the cost of work and
what it does to you, and so itkind of sets up this one point
can be confrontational alwayswith what the workforce is doing
to its employees, or it kind ofleads you to the severe, like
(03:42):
people who you really need totake serious or dramatic action
to deal with whatever's going on.
I just believe this topic isreally important for everyone,
and so I think you can frame ita little differently so that
everyone can access it.
I have found myself more often,instead of evangelizing that we
need to talk about it, framingit to like, I think you know,
(04:02):
priming your mental health issomething everyone can do to do
the best work of their lives orthe job they're working for, and
I think that's a better way toopen the conversation with your
employee population, becauseit's something everyone that can
relate to.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, absolutely I agree.
Like when we focus in on justthe negative or just the trauma
aspect of it, we sort of createlike a space where it becomes
even more difficult to talkabout in some ways.
You know what?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Like, rather than if it's just like look, we all sort
of experience these things.
It's a natural part of likegoing out into the world right,
like things are going to happento you, Things are going to be
hard at times and how you dealwith it and sort of the mental
resilience you build foryourself is going to be key to
not only how you succeed at workbut how you just function in
society.
(04:49):
But thinking back around toCOVID, we were having a lot of
conversations around this ideaof bringing your whole self to
work and I always kind ofthought that sounded weird.
I didn't want people like.
For me personally, I was like Idon't want everybody at work to
know everything about me, butit was something that leaders
were talking about publicly.
And now there's been a shiftfrom this idea of bringing your
(05:11):
whole self to work to sort ofrespect my boundaries at work.
What do you think triggeredthat change and do you think
that's a good thing?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Again, I think historically in my experience,
that phrase bring your wholeself to work was grounded in
people wanting to be authenticin the workplace, versus you
have like your professionalidentity and no one knows
anything about you.
Or, even worse, you have tokind of respond to someone
else's personality or likes anddislikes without really able to
(05:39):
share whether you agree ordisagree.
You see this a lot with powerdynamics with the boss and the
team and you better like whatthe boss likes and if he doesn't
like what you like, don't bringit up.
And so this kind ofauthenticity was about hey,
everyone should really learnmore about each other and people
are different, so it's going tobe different things.
That's certainly how Iexperienced it and it's good.
You learn about people fromdifferent walks of life.
(06:00):
You come to appreciatedifferences from how you think
or what you believe.
But somewhere I mean when I talkto peers about this somewhere
(06:20):
that invitation expanded to thepoint where I think employees
start to wonder like, well, whatam I accountable here for?
What invite them in?
Like, hey, who are you?
What's going on?
Without kind of setting theboundary, some people will kind
of take advantage and share morethan people want to hear this
gets into like TMI, you know,like it kind of doesn't matter.
And so I think a current trendis people are trying to kind of
walk back is probably too strongof a word, but reestablish like
(06:42):
, hey, we're here to work onsomething together
professionally, that's ourshared interest is this company
and our collective professionalsuccess and we don't have to
include everything else.
You can leave stuff out thatyou want to do outside of work.
I don't need to know everything.
And I think this voice thatmaybe was silent when people who
are super extroverted and wantto share everything expect
(07:03):
everyone's going to shareeverything, the louder voice for
me right now is people like hey, I'm good, it's not that I want
to get to know you, we'recoworkers, that authenticity and
collegial nature is important,but I like having other parts of
my life that is not part ofwork.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I agree.
Now there's some data out therethat suggests younger employees
they're craving workplaceconnection, right?
Older employees, they'recraving workplace connection,
right, older employees.
I'm starting to put myself intothat bracket now, but maybe not
so much wanting all thatconnection you know really
comfortable in, like the remoteenvironment Now, without adding
to the generational divide.
(07:37):
I'm curious, though how cancompanies balance these sort of
competing needs?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I don't think it falls exclusively on age
differences, but there'scertainly different needs
depending on where you are inyour career.
I think early career people,for obvious reasons, are really
interested in learning andapprenticeship and mentorship my
personal bias.
I think that's easier to dowhen you're together in person.
On the flip side, a lot ofolder employees are parents, and
(08:05):
so what they're leaving behindat home to come into work is a
really different thing.
If you literally put it to aparent of a five-year-old I have
a five-year-old hey, we'drather you just kind of be
around the 22-year-olds versuswith your five-year-old it's a
really stark choice that, again,the norms around working from
home, which really changed inCOVID, have really shifted.
Like people before COVID maybethey didn't totally internalize
(08:27):
the sacrifice they were makingleaving their kids at home.
Once they were home with theirkids full-time, they now know
very differently.
You always kind of know you'remissing your kids, but you
didn't have the experience ofbeing there all the time, and so
I think a lot of the olderthing is really about parents
who are losing time with theirchildren that they are really
valuing really reallydifferently.
(08:47):
The flip side of that, though,is the digital versus in-person
is, I think, a lot of younger.
The early career workforce isjust really comfortable online,
authentically online, whereolder people like me are still
thought of as a second thing.
I'm used to working in personand working and increasing
online, but for a lot of youngerpeople, their life is online
(09:09):
and particularly because of theCOVID area, if you've only got
five years of experience, thefirst two of those was fully
remote and so you don't havethis concept of before COVID or
like back to the office becauseyou never really had that
experience and so you actuallydon't have a reference point.
And the more time that goes by,the bigger population of people
(09:31):
that don't understand what youmean about pre-COVID that's
really like 27, 28-year-olds nowthat don't understand what you
mean and so that's someone withfour or five years of work
experience.
There's a lot of people in thatbucket.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, 10 years from now, that bucket will be big.
You mentioned them being moreauthentic online than in person.
I'm curious how you think thatchanges sort of the way that we
think about leadership, presenceand culture building.
Like you're a leader.
How has your sort of onlinepresence evolved, I guess would
you say you know, over that time?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I've really had to work on it.
I think it's really essentialthat leaders embrace this.
I think that's one of theproblems with a lot of the
forced back to office is it'sabout the comfort level of
someone with 20 or 30 or 40years of experience just really
knows how to work together inperson.
And you've got to learn newways of communicating.
You've got to get comfortablecommunicating through video,
sharing video.
I mean.
I look at people on my teamhere at Nextdoor who have huge
(10:29):
online audiences on theirInstagram or on LinkedIn and
that's going to be more normalthan not now, and so that people
are now the true digitalnatives, the people who are
always the youngest ones.
They're so comfortable throughmediums like TikTok and
Instagram and creating video.
For older people.
I think it still feels weird torecord yourself on video by
(10:50):
yourself and share it.
It's not something you've donefor your whole career.
That's just one example.
But just understanding how toreally manage virtually is
something you need to continueto develop.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, I think it's something a lot of people
haven't quite figured out, likenot I mean managers even in you
know just folks that are a fewyears younger than me, and a lot
of them have been on socialmedia.
They are kind of like used tothat, but it is just an
environment where you have to beso much more intentional and
how you approach peopleDefinitely, so there's a there's
(11:23):
kind of another shift herethat's gone on.
You mentioned there's nopre-COVID reference points for a
lot of people, and folks areworking in remote environments
and so maybe they aren't quitegetting that sort of exposure
that was learned through osmosisin the office.
I'm curious, in your opinion,how do you feel we should be
teaching these youngprofessionals sort of like what
it means to be professional?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So you know, everyone declared they knew where the
world was going in 2020, 2021.
You know, everyone was justkind of figured it out.
I think the only thing I wasreally confident in in 2021 was
like I don't know.
This is all going to change.
The pattern will come moreclear as we move through this
and I think the osmosis thing isone of the key assumptions that
(12:05):
has really been flipped wherepeople really believe.
So some people are like okay,back to the old way.
If we're all together, goodthings are going to happen.
But the loudest voice is likethat's not true.
If I come to an office, I'm onvideo all day.
I'm not working with anybodywho.
I'm sitting around.
The osmosis doesn't happen asmuch as you think.
For leaders it does.
Leaders you walk around, yousee everybody, you get
(12:26):
information, you can check in ona million people.
It's much harder to do online.
That's the smaller subset ofthe employee base.
But I think what really is clearis when you're really
intentional, when you're inperson, when you want to shake
someone's hand and look them inthe eye and build commitment,
you're going to do somethingtogether.
That is more meaningful inperson than like a Slack emoji,
I believe Again, I'm biased onhow I do it.
(12:47):
When you want to reallyrecognize someone, say thank you
, cheer for them, like thevolume of an out loud applause
you know when the whole team'stogether, versus just like the
balloons going up on the videoyou feel it more viscerally and
so people understand.
When you get together to dothose types of things it's
better.
But just aggregating people inperson doesn't treat that,
(13:09):
particularly when they're beingasked to do all these other
things when they're sitting inan office.
And that's been the most clearthing is the intentionality of
being in person, and I thinkwhat people do crave is those
benefits.
How often do you come together?
Weekly, monthly, quarterly,annually?
They want that when they gettogether and I think it's hard
to disagree with that.
One thing I've noticed is, aswe've seen, that shift, when we
(13:31):
do bring people together andeveryone really makes the
commitment, invariably like someperson's like, oh, I couldn't
come because of something, andthe group is almost like I mean,
if it's something serious,that's understood.
But sometimes it's like come on, we're all getting together.
We don't do this very often.
You could have overcome thisand it's more about the group.
Is sad that the intentionalityportion now is going to be
(13:53):
missing someone and we're notgoing to do it again for a while
.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That's very different from a top-down person saying
like hey, everybody, you need toget in here, when the group
itself was like we want to betogether and this is now a loss
that we couldn't all do it yeahno, I agree, I think we're
hearing it more, like I've donesome discussions with people who
organize off sites, for example, and it's talked about how,
like about 30% of the time islike a really ideal sort of like
(14:17):
close to ideal amount, if youcan get people together that
much because it gives them whatthey're looking for, like you
mentioned there, but also thatlike flexibility and freedom,
still there most of the time.
So, like one of the things Iit's interesting to me is sort
of like, what are we wantingflexibility for?
It's really just like protectcertain things that matter to us
that are outside of work, and Ithink to do that that well,
(14:41):
we've got to get managers tounderstand their people.
You don't have to be up ineverybody's business, but you
got to understand the people andwhat matters to them and help
build that into the sort of waythat they work right.
You got to operationalize it.
So I'm curious what advice doyou have for doing that without
maybe getting too personal?
You know, like, how do you helppeople protect their time and
(15:05):
make the most of it?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, so I learned this from Marissa Meyer, who was
my boss.
She was the CEO of Yahoo andearly employee at Google and I
just love this tactic because Ithink it's the right balance of
authenticity and showing youcare about someone who works for
you without being too invasive.
And I think you asked someonewho works for you without being
too invasive.
And I think you asked someonewho works for you like what's
(15:28):
one thing that is reallyimportant to you that you're
gonna resent the company.
You're gonna resent me, yourboss, if I interfere with this.
What's one specific thing?
And that's like such an easyinvitation and you can say hey,
I really like to be home fordinner with my kids.
I'm happy to get online afterif you need me, but when I miss
dinner I can't work well thenext day because I miss that
thing.
Or I have this one spin classor yoga class that's at 8am and
(15:51):
I love the teacher and if I cango to that as a manager, you're
nuts to not protect this onething or to bother them in that,
and when you actually helpprotect it, they feel like
you're now balancing.
Okay, I know you're my boss andyou got to get me to do all
this stuff, but you're alsousing your energy to kind of
help me get what I need outsideof work, and I don't have to
tell you my whole life story.
(16:11):
It's just like this one thing.
So the employee can be verycomfortable with how much they
share and why.
But it does get through the.
It gets past a little bit ofthe shell of we're just doing
work together.
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
From a personal story perspective, I had a manager
who understood how intoLiverpool FC I am and there was
games that would be on work daysand they'd be right around 3
o'clock and I used to go in at 7am and he'd look at me if I was
still there at 3, like what areyou still doing here?
I said go on, get out of here.
He knew I was getting my workdone, but this one thing really
(16:47):
meant a lot to me and I wantedto go be with my friends or at
least be in a space where Icould watch it.
I'll tell you, it meant a lotto me at the time.
I still think he's one of thebest managers I've ever had.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Those simple things, because it generates a
reciprocity.
You're willing to meet the callif your manager is showing
their desire to let you do whatyou want to do outside of work.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Absolutely.
I feel like I can't have anyconversation without talking
about AI at some point.
Right, I did want to ask youbecause you're leading
Nextdoor's sort of culturaltransformation around AI
adoption.
I'm curious how does AIintersect with mental health and
sort of boundary setting inyour view?
Ai?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
is wild Like.
I've been in tech now foralmost 30 years and I've seen
lots of waves of disruption andthis is, without question, a big
one.
Is it the biggest one ever, Idon't know, but it's really
changing the way work gets done,and right now is when
everything's a mess.
It is hot take city on what AIis going to mean for everybody.
(17:46):
The counter hot takes that it'slike a nothing burger.
They're starting to happen.
You can get whatever opinionyou want.
It actually reminds me of theearly days of the work from home
disruption because again youget work from home is going to
end in two years.
Whatever, go back to the office.
That's the range of what AI isreally going to do.
I think, on the one hand and I'mstill kind of finding our way
(18:09):
as we talk about this atNextdoor is there's a huge fear
factor from a lot of people thatmaybe we all do lose our jobs,
or maybe all the junior peopleor mid-level people lose their
jobs.
I think it's wrong forcompanies to be really
dismissive of that fear.
When you talk about people'scareer and their livelihoods to
earn money, that's verystressful, particularly when a
(18:30):
lot of the headlines are like ohyeah, we're just going to get
rid of these jobs so the smallercompany can make more money.
That's not a good lane forsociety at large.
If you kind of play it out thatway, there's other lanes where
it's like, hey, you get to notdo the work you hate anymore and
it's give you time to do thestuff you really like.
That starts to marryeverybody's desires Again, while
(18:51):
it's all really unclear.
I think you have to be reallyas open as you can about what
you're learning and how peoplecan participate in the learning
of what you're going to takeadvantage of.
I just personally think what Itry to do at Nextdoor is the
goal is not to get rid of people.
It's really not.
So we're about 500 employeesright now.
I would rather operate a2,000-person company with only
(19:13):
500 people than stay.
Oh, we're going to operate likea 500 person company, but we
just don't need as many people.
So how can you get more out ofeverybody?
By doing the more creative,impactful work is, I think, how
people can kind of get peopleincluded in what you're trying
to figure out, because all thethings that are being figured
out are happening by people onthe front lines.
That's really what you need toactivate the innovation that's
(19:35):
going to happen.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, I agree, I think people are missing the big
opportunity, which is to domore, not to do as much with
less right.
It's interesting you mentionedthe range there of opinions
because I was saying to somebodyrecently it's the only
technology I've ever seen wherethe range of possibility goes
from could solve all of ourproblems to be the end of
(19:59):
humanity.
I've never imagined that therewould be anything in my lifetime
that would create that range ofemotion, but here we are.
That's right.
This has been really good.
I've enjoyed talking to you.
Before we go, there's always acouple things I like to do with
every guest.
The first thing is I want togive you a chance to tell people
more about where they canconnect with you and find out
more about what you have goingon.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I appreciate it, not a big content creator, so I love
people like you fill in thespace.
I'm really happy One.
I think that's happened in thelast couple of years is the
people community in general hasbecome much more about sharing
and collaboration and talkingwith one another, so I really
appreciate what you're doing.
I think the best one would beto follow me on LinkedIn.
My name is Brian Power,b-r-y-a-n-p-o-w-e-r.
(20:39):
I'm old enough that a lot ofthe original tech properties I
have my actual name, so that'swhere you can find me, share
ideas here and there and findout where I'm speaking stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Excellent.
And the second thing is we havea little tradition here on the
podcast where you get to ask mea question.
Can be related to the topic ornot.
Anything you want I'm going toturn it over to you.
Ask me anything.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah.
So I think you're in a greatvantage point.
You talk to so many interestingpeople.
You have great conversations.
What's one thing you're reallylearning right now?
Like you're in the mix of goingdeeper on to try to understand
better.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I'll tell you, it's this vibe coding thing, like it
allows me to like do stuff.
I mean I would never even comeclose.
I wouldn't even know who to payin a lot of cases to try and
build this.
You know what I mean I've beenworking on.
Well, first, it was a quiz that, if you took it, would
(21:30):
recommend personalityassessments based on the roles
and the skills that you want tohire for, which I thought was
like you know, because a lot ofpeople complain about
personality assessments, and myquestion was well, maybe you're
just using the wrong one becausethere's like 500 of them.
So, but then, like that wasable, I was able to like create
(21:52):
that with it and then doing alayoff impact analyzer, and it
was able to visualize things Icouldn't even.
I wouldn't even know where tobegin otherwise.
And I'm just thinking now of allthese potential tools or
rethinking what does theperformance management setup
look like?
Or even, how can you possiblymap skills to future roles that
(22:14):
we think are going to become athing, or, as they develop, how
can you kind of map the skillsthat people have?
Because one of the things Ithink it drives me a little
crazy and I think it drives alot of people crazy about the AI
conversation is people alwayssay, well, it's somebody using
AI that's going to take your job, and we kind of see that maybe
that's not totally true, butthen it's like you got people
(22:36):
like the World Economic Forumsaying it's going to create 11
million jobs but replace 9million jobs.
Okay, well, what do these newjobs look like?
Well, nobody knows.
There's no specifics.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I think that's awesome that you're doing that
and I, as an optimist a futurewhere people can just make their
own apps and tools andtechnology without needing their
own engineering team is amassive unlock for creativity
around the world, so I thinkthat's awesome.
The second thing is I forgetwhere I saw this, but Excel was
a massive unlock for financialproductivity.
(23:06):
It didn't kill all the financejobs at all.
So AI is probably better thanExcel, but it actually doesn't
mean that now everybody thatdoesn't go away.
It just means you spend yourtime doing new things, ideally.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It unlocks your creativity of how am I going to
use this, the same way that yourcreativity was how am I going
to use a pencil or a guitar?
And I understand people'sreservations about it and I have
them too but it's here and it'snot really going anywhere, so
we have to sort of figure outhow we're going to live in it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, I hope my urgency for our employees and
everybody is just apply it, tryit, learn An instrument's a
great example.
You can't play an instrument ifyou don't practice and make
mistakes, and I think that thisis something everybody can find
value in.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, learning how to prompt it and get what you want
out of it is interesting.
I mean, it's a journey I'vebeen on for a couple of years
now and I'm like it's amazing tosee how it's advanced.
But it's also interesting tosee how I've advanced in some
ways and how I understand how totalk to it.
So I think that we need to notlean into catastrophizing so
much.
Well, brian, I reallyappreciate this conversation and
(24:13):
you giving me some of your timetoday.
Thanks for having me.
David, absolutely Listeners.
If you haven't done so already,head on over to
peoplemanagingpeoplecom.
Forward slash subscribe.
Get subscribed for thenewsletter.
You'll get all our latestcontent.
We've got a lot of cool eventscoming up this year, so be sure
to check that out.
And until next time, stopcatastrophizing.
A lot of the conversation gets framed around
this idea of damage that's beendone or trauma or the cost of
work.
I just believe this topic isreally important for everyone,
and so I think you can frame ita little differently so that
everyone can access it.
That's one of the problems witha lot of the forced back to
(00:21):
office is it's about the comfortlevel of someone with 20 or 30
or 40 years of experience justreally knows how to work
together in person and you'vegot to learn new ways of
communicating.
Ai is wild.
Right now is when everything'sa mess.
It is hot.
Take city on what AI is gonnamean for everybody.
The counter hot takes that it'slike a nothing burger are
(00:42):
starting to happen.
You can get whatever opinionyou want.
Speaker 2 (00:51):
Welcome to the People Managing People podcast, the
show where we help leaders keepwork human in the age of AI.
I'm your host, David Rice, andon today's episode, I'm happy to
be joined by Brian Power.
He is the head of people atNextdoor.
In this conversation, Brian andI are going to be talking about
the landscape of mental healthat work, why framing it around
(01:12):
trauma may be doing more harmthan good, and how we can shift
the narrative towards resilience, performance and access for all
.
We also talk about the rise andfall of bring your whole self
to work, the growing preferencefor boundary setting and how
generational differences areshaping expectations around
workplace connection.
And, of course, we get into AI,what it means for jobs, those
(01:34):
previously mentioned boundaries,creativity and how Brian is
leading cultural transformationat Nextdoor in the face of this
disruptive moment.
So, without any further delay,let's get right into it, Brian
welcome.
Thanks for having me.
I appreciate it.
We had a good conversationbefore this.
I'm going to start it here.
Mental health at work becamethis big conversation during
(01:56):
COVID, right, but it's come along way from that and as we
were chatting before this, youwere pointing out to me that
it's still often framed aroundtrauma or crisis, and I'm
curious what's the risk offraming it that way and what
should we be doing instead?
Speaker 1 (02:10):
Yeah.
So I think it's useful to takesome history into account here,
because I've really long been amental health advocate and what
I found prior to COVID was thatit was more of a niche topic and
it was really kind ofstigmatized.
People often associated theterms mental health with mental
illness and it was a topic thatjust wasn't that commonplace in
the modern workforce.
And you know, in my career,particularly in human resources,
(02:34):
I felt like knowledge work inparticular, a lot of the strain
that employers put on theiremployee population hits their
brain and so it creates a lot ofchallenges like stress, which
can lead to anxiety ordepression.
One of the upsides of the COVIDpandemic was that everyone kind
of experienced this spike inmental adversity.
(02:55):
I'm just trying to navigatethis global phenomenon and what
that meant was that theemployers needed to center on
mental health because everyonehad this crisis they were
dealing with.
I think that was positivebecause it really brought
forward this theme that I justbelieve is part of every
employer-employee relationship.
Now you could kind of talk moreopenly about it, I think more
(03:18):
recently, kind of 2025, one ofthe things that I've noticed is
a lot of the conversation getsframed around this idea of
damage that's been done ortrauma or the cost of work and
what it does to you, and so itkind of sets up this one point
can be confrontational alwayswith what the workforce is doing
to its employees, or it kind ofleads you to the severe, like
(03:42):
people who you really need totake serious or dramatic action
to deal with whatever's going on.
I just believe this topic isreally important for everyone,
and so I think you can frame ita little differently so that
everyone can access it.
I have found myself more often,instead of evangelizing that we
need to talk about it, framingit to like, I think you know,
(04:02):
priming your mental health issomething everyone can do to do
the best work of their lives orthe job they're working for, and
I think that's a better way toopen the conversation with your
employee population, becauseit's something everyone that can
relate to.
Speaker 2 (04:15):
Yeah, absolutely I agree.
Like when we focus in on justthe negative or just the trauma
aspect of it, we sort of createlike a space where it becomes
even more difficult to talkabout in some ways.
You know what?
Speaker 1 (04:29):
I mean.
Speaker 2 (04:29):
Like, rather than if it's just like look, we all sort
of experience these things.
It's a natural part of likegoing out into the world right,
like things are going to happento you, Things are going to be
hard at times and how you dealwith it and sort of the mental
resilience you build foryourself is going to be key to
not only how you succeed at workbut how you just function in
society.
(04:49):
But thinking back around toCOVID, we were having a lot of
conversations around this ideaof bringing your whole self to
work and I always kind ofthought that sounded weird.
I didn't want people like.
For me personally, I was like Idon't want everybody at work to
know everything about me, butit was something that leaders
were talking about publicly.
And now there's been a shiftfrom this idea of bringing your
(05:11):
whole self to work to sort ofrespect my boundaries at work.
What do you think triggeredthat change and do you think
that's a good thing?
Speaker 1 (05:19):
Again, I think historically in my experience,
that phrase bring your wholeself to work was grounded in
people wanting to be authenticin the workplace, versus you
have like your professionalidentity and no one knows
anything about you.
Or, even worse, you have tokind of respond to someone
else's personality or likes anddislikes without really able to
(05:39):
share whether you agree ordisagree.
You see this a lot with powerdynamics with the boss and the
team and you better like whatthe boss likes and if he doesn't
like what you like, don't bringit up.
And so this kind ofauthenticity was about hey,
everyone should really learnmore about each other and people
are different, so it's going tobe different things.
That's certainly how Iexperienced it and it's good.
You learn about people fromdifferent walks of life.
(06:00):
You come to appreciatedifferences from how you think
or what you believe.
But somewhere I mean when I talkto peers about this somewhere
(06:20):
that invitation expanded to thepoint where I think employees
start to wonder like, well, whatam I accountable here for?
What invite them in?
Like, hey, who are you?
What's going on?
Without kind of setting theboundary, some people will kind
of take advantage and share morethan people want to hear this
gets into like TMI, you know,like it kind of doesn't matter.
And so I think a current trendis people are trying to kind of
walk back is probably too strongof a word, but reestablish like
(06:42):
, hey, we're here to work onsomething together
professionally, that's ourshared interest is this company
and our collective professionalsuccess and we don't have to
include everything else.
You can leave stuff out thatyou want to do outside of work.
I don't need to know everything.
And I think this voice thatmaybe was silent when people who
are super extroverted and wantto share everything expect
(07:03):
everyone's going to shareeverything, the louder voice for
me right now is people like hey, I'm good, it's not that I want
to get to know you, we'recoworkers, that authenticity and
collegial nature is important,but I like having other parts of
my life that is not part ofwork.
Speaker 2 (07:16):
I agree.
Now there's some data out therethat suggests younger employees
they're craving workplaceconnection, right?
Older employees, they'recraving workplace connection,
right, older employees.
I'm starting to put myself intothat bracket now, but maybe not
so much wanting all thatconnection you know really
comfortable in, like the remoteenvironment Now, without adding
to the generational divide.
(07:37):
I'm curious, though how cancompanies balance these sort of
competing needs?
Speaker 1 (07:41):
I don't think it falls exclusively on age
differences, but there'scertainly different needs
depending on where you are inyour career.
I think early career people,for obvious reasons, are really
interested in learning andapprenticeship and mentorship my
personal bias.
I think that's easier to dowhen you're together in person.
On the flip side, a lot ofolder employees are parents, and
(08:05):
so what they're leaving behindat home to come into work is a
really different thing.
If you literally put it to aparent of a five-year-old I have
a five-year-old hey, we'drather you just kind of be
around the 22-year-olds versuswith your five-year-old it's a
really stark choice that, again,the norms around working from
home, which really changed inCOVID, have really shifted.
Like people before COVID maybethey didn't totally internalize
(08:27):
the sacrifice they were makingleaving their kids at home.
Once they were home with theirkids full-time, they now know
very differently.
You always kind of know you'remissing your kids, but you
didn't have the experience ofbeing there all the time, and so
I think a lot of the olderthing is really about parents
who are losing time with theirchildren that they are really
valuing really reallydifferently.
(08:47):
The flip side of that, though,is the digital versus in-person
is, I think, a lot of younger.
The early career workforce isjust really comfortable online,
authentically online, whereolder people like me are still
thought of as a second thing.
I'm used to working in personand working and increasing
online, but for a lot of youngerpeople, their life is online
(09:09):
and particularly because of theCOVID area, if you've only got
five years of experience, thefirst two of those was fully
remote and so you don't havethis concept of before COVID or
like back to the office becauseyou never really had that
experience and so you actuallydon't have a reference point.
And the more time that goes by,the bigger population of people
(09:31):
that don't understand what youmean about pre-COVID that's
really like 27, 28-year-olds nowthat don't understand what you
mean and so that's someone withfour or five years of work
experience.
There's a lot of people in thatbucket.
Speaker 2 (09:43):
Yeah, 10 years from now, that bucket will be big.
You mentioned them being moreauthentic online than in person.
I'm curious how you think thatchanges sort of the way that we
think about leadership, presenceand culture building.
Like you're a leader.
How has your sort of onlinepresence evolved, I guess would
you say you know, over that time?
Speaker 1 (10:05):
I've really had to work on it.
I think it's really essentialthat leaders embrace this.
I think that's one of theproblems with a lot of the
forced back to office is it'sabout the comfort level of
someone with 20 or 30 or 40years of experience just really
knows how to work together inperson.
And you've got to learn newways of communicating.
You've got to get comfortablecommunicating through video,
sharing video.
I mean.
I look at people on my teamhere at Nextdoor who have huge
(10:29):
online audiences on theirInstagram or on LinkedIn and
that's going to be more normalthan not now, and so that people
are now the true digitalnatives, the people who are
always the youngest ones.
They're so comfortable throughmediums like TikTok and
Instagram and creating video.
For older people.
I think it still feels weird torecord yourself on video by
(10:50):
yourself and share it.
It's not something you've donefor your whole career.
That's just one example.
But just understanding how toreally manage virtually is
something you need to continueto develop.
Speaker 2 (11:00):
Yeah, I think it's something a lot of people
haven't quite figured out, likenot I mean managers even in you
know just folks that are a fewyears younger than me, and a lot
of them have been on socialmedia.
They are kind of like used tothat, but it is just an
environment where you have to beso much more intentional and
how you approach peopleDefinitely, so there's a there's
(11:23):
kind of another shift herethat's gone on.
You mentioned there's nopre-COVID reference points for a
lot of people, and folks areworking in remote environments
and so maybe they aren't quitegetting that sort of exposure
that was learned through osmosisin the office.
I'm curious, in your opinion,how do you feel we should be
teaching these youngprofessionals sort of like what
it means to be professional?
Speaker 1 (11:44):
So you know, everyone declared they knew where the
world was going in 2020, 2021.
You know, everyone was justkind of figured it out.
I think the only thing I wasreally confident in in 2021 was
like I don't know.
This is all going to change.
The pattern will come moreclear as we move through this
and I think the osmosis thing isone of the key assumptions that
(12:05):
has really been flipped wherepeople really believe.
So some people are like okay,back to the old way.
If we're all together, goodthings are going to happen.
But the loudest voice is likethat's not true.
If I come to an office, I'm onvideo all day.
I'm not working with anybodywho.
I'm sitting around.
The osmosis doesn't happen asmuch as you think.
For leaders it does.
Leaders you walk around, yousee everybody, you get
(12:26):
information, you can check in ona million people.
It's much harder to do online.
That's the smaller subset ofthe employee base.
But I think what really is clearis when you're really
intentional, when you're inperson, when you want to shake
someone's hand and look them inthe eye and build commitment,
you're going to do somethingtogether.
That is more meaningful inperson than like a Slack emoji,
I believe Again, I'm biased onhow I do it.
(12:47):
When you want to reallyrecognize someone, say thank you
, cheer for them, like thevolume of an out loud applause
you know when the whole team'stogether, versus just like the
balloons going up on the videoyou feel it more viscerally and
so people understand.
When you get together to dothose types of things it's
better.
But just aggregating people inperson doesn't treat that,
(13:09):
particularly when they're beingasked to do all these other
things when they're sitting inan office.
And that's been the most clearthing is the intentionality of
being in person, and I thinkwhat people do crave is those
benefits.
How often do you come together?
Weekly, monthly, quarterly,annually?
They want that when they gettogether and I think it's hard
to disagree with that.
One thing I've noticed is, aswe've seen, that shift, when we
(13:31):
do bring people together andeveryone really makes the
commitment, invariably like someperson's like, oh, I couldn't
come because of something, andthe group is almost like I mean,
if it's something serious,that's understood.
But sometimes it's like come on, we're all getting together.
We don't do this very often.
You could have overcome thisand it's more about the group.
Is sad that the intentionalityportion now is going to be
(13:53):
missing someone and we're notgoing to do it again for a while
.
Speaker 2 (13:55):
That's very different from a top-down person saying
like hey, everybody, you need toget in here, when the group
itself was like we want to betogether and this is now a loss
that we couldn't all do it yeahno, I agree, I think we're
hearing it more, like I've donesome discussions with people who
organize off sites, for example, and it's talked about how,
like about 30% of the time islike a really ideal sort of like
(14:17):
close to ideal amount, if youcan get people together that
much because it gives them whatthey're looking for, like you
mentioned there, but also thatlike flexibility and freedom,
still there most of the time.
So, like one of the things Iit's interesting to me is sort
of like, what are we wantingflexibility for?
It's really just like protectcertain things that matter to us
that are outside of work, and Ithink to do that that well,
(14:41):
we've got to get managers tounderstand their people.
You don't have to be up ineverybody's business, but you
got to understand the people andwhat matters to them and help
build that into the sort of waythat they work right.
You got to operationalize it.
So I'm curious what advice doyou have for doing that without
maybe getting too personal?
You know, like, how do you helppeople protect their time and
(15:05):
make the most of it?
Speaker 1 (15:06):
Yeah, so I learned this from Marissa Meyer, who was
my boss.
She was the CEO of Yahoo andearly employee at Google and I
just love this tactic because Ithink it's the right balance of
authenticity and showing youcare about someone who works for
you without being too invasive.
And I think you asked someonewho works for you without being
too invasive.
And I think you asked someonewho works for you like what's
(15:28):
one thing that is reallyimportant to you that you're
gonna resent the company.
You're gonna resent me, yourboss, if I interfere with this.
What's one specific thing?
And that's like such an easyinvitation and you can say hey,
I really like to be home fordinner with my kids.
I'm happy to get online afterif you need me, but when I miss
dinner I can't work well thenext day because I miss that
thing.
Or I have this one spin classor yoga class that's at 8am and
(15:51):
I love the teacher and if I cango to that as a manager, you're
nuts to not protect this onething or to bother them in that,
and when you actually helpprotect it, they feel like
you're now balancing.
Okay, I know you're my boss andyou got to get me to do all
this stuff, but you're alsousing your energy to kind of
help me get what I need outsideof work, and I don't have to
tell you my whole life story.
(16:11):
It's just like this one thing.
So the employee can be verycomfortable with how much they
share and why.
But it does get through the.
It gets past a little bit ofthe shell of we're just doing
work together.
Yeah, I agree.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
From a personal story perspective, I had a manager
who understood how intoLiverpool FC I am and there was
games that would be on work daysand they'd be right around 3
o'clock and I used to go in at 7am and he'd look at me if I was
still there at 3, like what areyou still doing here?
I said go on, get out of here.
He knew I was getting my workdone, but this one thing really
(16:47):
meant a lot to me and I wantedto go be with my friends or at
least be in a space where Icould watch it.
I'll tell you, it meant a lotto me at the time.
I still think he's one of thebest managers I've ever had.
Speaker 1 (16:58):
Those simple things, because it generates a
reciprocity.
You're willing to meet the callif your manager is showing
their desire to let you do whatyou want to do outside of work.
Speaker 2 (17:07):
Absolutely.
I feel like I can't have anyconversation without talking
about AI at some point.
Right, I did want to ask youbecause you're leading
Nextdoor's sort of culturaltransformation around AI
adoption.
I'm curious how does AIintersect with mental health and
sort of boundary setting inyour view?
Ai?
Speaker 1 (17:26):
is wild Like.
I've been in tech now foralmost 30 years and I've seen
lots of waves of disruption andthis is, without question, a big
one.
Is it the biggest one ever, Idon't know, but it's really
changing the way work gets done,and right now is when
everything's a mess.
It is hot take city on what AIis going to mean for everybody.
(17:46):
The counter hot takes that it'slike a nothing burger.
They're starting to happen.
You can get whatever opinionyou want.
It actually reminds me of theearly days of the work from home
disruption because again youget work from home is going to
end in two years.
Whatever, go back to the office.
That's the range of what AI isreally going to do.
I think, on the one hand and I'mstill kind of finding our way
(18:09):
as we talk about this atNextdoor is there's a huge fear
factor from a lot of people thatmaybe we all do lose our jobs,
or maybe all the junior peopleor mid-level people lose their
jobs.
I think it's wrong forcompanies to be really
dismissive of that fear.
When you talk about people'scareer and their livelihoods to
earn money, that's verystressful, particularly when a
(18:30):
lot of the headlines are like ohyeah, we're just going to get
rid of these jobs so the smallercompany can make more money.
That's not a good lane forsociety at large.
If you kind of play it out thatway, there's other lanes where
it's like, hey, you get to notdo the work you hate anymore and
it's give you time to do thestuff you really like.
That starts to marryeverybody's desires Again, while
(18:51):
it's all really unclear.
I think you have to be reallyas open as you can about what
you're learning and how peoplecan participate in the learning
of what you're going to takeadvantage of.
I just personally think what Itry to do at Nextdoor is the
goal is not to get rid of people.
It's really not.
So we're about 500 employeesright now.
I would rather operate a2,000-person company with only
(19:13):
500 people than stay.
Oh, we're going to operate likea 500 person company, but we
just don't need as many people.
So how can you get more out ofeverybody?
By doing the more creative,impactful work is, I think, how
people can kind of get peopleincluded in what you're trying
to figure out, because all thethings that are being figured
out are happening by people onthe front lines.
That's really what you need toactivate the innovation that's
(19:35):
going to happen.
Speaker 2 (19:36):
Yeah, I agree, I think people are missing the big
opportunity, which is to domore, not to do as much with
less right.
It's interesting you mentionedthe range there of opinions
because I was saying to somebodyrecently it's the only
technology I've ever seen wherethe range of possibility goes
from could solve all of ourproblems to be the end of
(19:59):
humanity.
I've never imagined that therewould be anything in my lifetime
that would create that range ofemotion, but here we are.
That's right.
This has been really good.
I've enjoyed talking to you.
Before we go, there's always acouple things I like to do with
every guest.
The first thing is I want togive you a chance to tell people
more about where they canconnect with you and find out
more about what you have goingon.
Speaker 1 (20:18):
I appreciate it, not a big content creator, so I love
people like you fill in thespace.
I'm really happy One.
I think that's happened in thelast couple of years is the
people community in general hasbecome much more about sharing
and collaboration and talkingwith one another, so I really
appreciate what you're doing.
I think the best one would beto follow me on LinkedIn.
My name is Brian Power,b-r-y-a-n-p-o-w-e-r.
(20:39):
I'm old enough that a lot ofthe original tech properties I
have my actual name, so that'swhere you can find me, share
ideas here and there and findout where I'm speaking stuff
like that.
Speaker 2 (20:48):
Excellent.
And the second thing is we havea little tradition here on the
podcast where you get to ask mea question.
Can be related to the topic ornot.
Anything you want I'm going toturn it over to you.
Ask me anything.
Speaker 1 (20:57):
Yeah.
So I think you're in a greatvantage point.
You talk to so many interestingpeople.
You have great conversations.
What's one thing you're reallylearning right now?
Like you're in the mix of goingdeeper on to try to understand
better.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
I'll tell you, it's this vibe coding thing, like it
allows me to like do stuff.
I mean I would never even comeclose.
I wouldn't even know who to payin a lot of cases to try and
build this.
You know what I mean I've beenworking on.
Well, first, it was a quiz that, if you took it, would
(21:30):
recommend personalityassessments based on the roles
and the skills that you want tohire for, which I thought was
like you know, because a lot ofpeople complain about
personality assessments, and myquestion was well, maybe you're
just using the wrong one becausethere's like 500 of them.
So, but then, like that wasable, I was able to like create
(21:52):
that with it and then doing alayoff impact analyzer, and it
was able to visualize things Icouldn't even.
I wouldn't even know where tobegin otherwise.
And I'm just thinking now of allthese potential tools or
rethinking what does theperformance management setup
look like?
Or even, how can you possiblymap skills to future roles that
(22:14):
we think are going to become athing, or, as they develop, how
can you kind of map the skillsthat people have?
Because one of the things Ithink it drives me a little
crazy and I think it drives alot of people crazy about the AI
conversation is people alwayssay, well, it's somebody using
AI that's going to take your job, and we kind of see that maybe
that's not totally true, butthen it's like you got people
(22:36):
like the World Economic Forumsaying it's going to create 11
million jobs but replace 9million jobs.
Okay, well, what do these newjobs look like?
Well, nobody knows.
There's no specifics.
Speaker 1 (22:45):
I think that's awesome that you're doing that
and I, as an optimist a futurewhere people can just make their
own apps and tools andtechnology without needing their
own engineering team is amassive unlock for creativity
around the world, so I thinkthat's awesome.
The second thing is I forgetwhere I saw this, but Excel was
a massive unlock for financialproductivity.
(23:06):
It didn't kill all the financejobs at all.
So AI is probably better thanExcel, but it actually doesn't
mean that now everybody thatdoesn't go away.
It just means you spend yourtime doing new things, ideally.
Speaker 2 (23:20):
It unlocks your creativity of how am I going to
use this, the same way that yourcreativity was how am I going
to use a pencil or a guitar?
And I understand people'sreservations about it and I have
them too but it's here and it'snot really going anywhere, so
we have to sort of figure outhow we're going to live in it.
Speaker 1 (23:38):
Yeah, I hope my urgency for our employees and
everybody is just apply it, tryit, learn An instrument's a
great example.
You can't play an instrument ifyou don't practice and make
mistakes, and I think that thisis something everybody can find
value in.
Speaker 2 (23:51):
Yeah, learning how to prompt it and get what you want
out of it is interesting.
I mean, it's a journey I'vebeen on for a couple of years
now and I'm like it's amazing tosee how it's advanced.
But it's also interesting tosee how I've advanced in some
ways and how I understand how totalk to it.
So I think that we need to notlean into catastrophizing so
much.
Well, brian, I reallyappreciate this conversation and
(24:13):
you giving me some of your timetoday.
Thanks for having me.
David, absolutely Listeners.
If you haven't done so already,head on over to
peoplemanagingpeoplecom.
Forward slash subscribe.
Get subscribed for thenewsletter.
You'll get all our latestcontent.
We've got a lot of cool eventscoming up this year, so be sure
to check that out.
And until next time, stopcatastrophizing.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist
It’s 1996 in rural North Carolina, and an oddball crew makes history when they pull off America’s third largest cash heist. But it’s all downhill from there. Join host Johnny Knoxville as he unspools a wild and woolly tale about a group of regular ‘ol folks who risked it all for a chance at a better life. CrimeLess: Hillbilly Heist answers the question: what would you do with 17.3 million dollars? The answer includes diamond rings, mansions, velvet Elvis paintings, plus a run for the border, murder-for-hire-plots, and FBI busts.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com