E60 Beyond Yoga and Fruit: Revolutionising Mental Health in Creative Workspaces

Episode Transcript
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Chris Hudson (00:05):
Hello and welcome back to the company road
podcast, where we explore whatit takes to change a company and
what it takes for the peoplewithin those companies and
organizations to make thatpossible through work that they
do and through positivity andthrough the impact that they can
create in some way.
So I'm your host, Chris, and I'mgoing to take you today into the
world of Creativity, innovation,and industry transformation.

(00:27):
And I'm really thrilled tointroduce our next guest, Andy
Wright, who is a multi facetedleader in the creative industry,
and he's got a huge, remarkabletrack record of business growth
and innovation, Andy, hugewelcome to the show.
Thank you very much for havingme.
Very exciting.
And Andy, you're the CEO ofStreamtime, which is a project
management software companycatering to the creative
industry, but that's probablyjust the tip of the iceberg

(00:47):
because you do a lot of things.
So your journey has included cofounding the creative agency for
the people and holdingleadership positions at renowned
firms such as Interbrand,Landor, and RGA, which are all
huge giants in the industry.
And CEO Your passion forimproving outcomes for emerging
talent and addressing mentalhealth, which is a huge topic at
the minute in the creativefield, has led you to found
Never Not Creative in 2018.

(01:08):
So that's been going for a fewyears, but there's even more.
Your diverse experiences extendbeyond the creative industry,
and you wear a few differenthats.
So you're a tennis coach, girlsfootball coach, and I think even
a Bollywood actor.
Yeah, we're going to tap intoyour wealth of knowledge about
creativity, leadership, andmaybe some of those other things
too, and driving change in theindustry.
So Andy, you've had a massivejourney in the creative industry
so far and you wear many hats,but let me start with an open

(01:30):
question, which is how do youdecide what to do and where to
focus on and what draws you todo certain things?

Andy Wright (01:37):
Yeah, that's a good question.
How do I decide what to do?
I'd love to say there's like aformula, but it can be quite
sporadic.
At times, and there's definitelytimes when you just kind of go
and get up and go, let's have acrack at this today.
I think I've got to the pointwhere if I see something and I
think I could make a difference,I could probably have a crack at
it.
Through years of experience andprivilege to be able to get to

(01:58):
that point.
One example of that I guess islast year with Never Not
Creative, we launched a freelegal support line for people.
And that was for people who areexperiencing abuse, bullying, or
discrimination at work.
And I'd love to say it was likethis big project was as easy as
contacting a lawyer and say,Hey, can we offer this service

(02:18):
to people in our industry andwe'll pay for the first 30
minutes of advice.
And what we really wanted to dois just stop what was happening
was these situations andincidents would occur and
businesses would do a very goodjob of sweeping them under the
carpet, getting someone to signan NDA and moving on.
And usually it's the victim orthe person who's affected that

(02:39):
ends up moving on and the personwho was the perpetrator ends up
higher up in the business atsome point or even be able to
get a better job somewhere else.
I was getting lots of storieslike that.
We get lots of stuff throughNever Not Creative and I'd heard
rumors of this idea beingpresent in the past, but for
some reason it got squashed andnever quite got up.
And so I thought, well, there'snothing stopping me from doing

(03:00):
it.
And that's what we did.
So unfortunately that can leadto a whole bunch of things.
It's just where you end uptaking on too much, but.
Yeah.
Normally it's a case of, well,if we've got an idea, let's go
and let's go and do it.
And I think that's one way ofgetting stuff done.

Yeah, definitely.
Definitely.
I mean, that's amazing workanyway, but yeah, and I love the
premise of never not becauseyou've set up a few things in
that vein, but it just feelslike why not?
I feel like there's particularlyin the creative industries, I
want to say, but also withinorganizations, there's a sense
of enlightenment having passedand being, and everyone is in a
very happy and harmonious space,but you forget that a lot of
these stories and incidents thatyou were describing actually

(03:37):
happen.
And I think we need toacknowledge that.
And it's a bit like a referendumor anything else that comes up.
You feel like, you know, what'sgoing to happen and the
environment that you're in, butsuddenly the votes go the other
way.
And actually you're surprised bythat.

And I think.
People are tired of talk.
We've just finished the mentallyhealthy research for 2024.
And now there's quite a fewanecdotes in there of like, yes,
things are getting better, butthere's a lot of talk.
And I think if you look at thisas an industry, like quite often
our industry solutions toproblems are awareness and it's
like, Oh, well, we need to makepeople more aware of this and
it'll get better.

(04:11):
And I said, well, no, awarenessdoesn't fix anything.
Okay, great.
It's a nice intro, but action iswhat will fix stuff and actually
changing behavior and changingthe systems that are creating
this stuff in the first place.
And so I think.
That's always been what I'vetried to look at is like, how do
we create change that is notjust driven by more

(04:32):
communication about the issueand more discussion.
So yeah, that's why a lot of theinitiatives that we do exist.

Well, let's get into that.
So let's talk about action,maybe, because I think that.
Saying that we can't, we'retalking too much talking, maybe
a starting point.
It's funny that we're talkingabout this on the podcast as
well.
We'll talk about the action thatyou're doing, but how do you
take an approach of action tosome of these different areas
and ensure that you're actuallyquite swiftly moving into things
that are tangible and can makereal impact?

Let's take mental wellbeing as a topic.
I, and if, and to give a bit ofcontext, so I was diagnosed with
Quite acute anxiety anddepression, probably back in
2015, 2016, and I didn't knowwhat it was.
Back then, not a lot of peoplewere talking about mental
health.
Like the closest you get to itis, I don't know, watching
something on American TV wheresomeone sat on a couch bawling

(05:19):
into a box of tissues andtherapy is what people did, but
they didn't do it over here.
I was like, okay, so what isthis?
I think I really, I approachedit in the best way that I know
how, which is like turning itinto a project.
It's kind of like a brief, whatwould I do?
And around the same time, I gotasked to do a talk for Creative
Mornings.
The way Creative Mornings worksis there's a global theme that

(05:41):
gets set and then in thedifferent chapters around the
world, everyone gives a talk onthat theme.
And the theme that month wasrisk.
And I thought, well, okay,nothing more risky than coming
out and talking about mentalhealth.
illness and diagnosis.
It really did kind of bring upthe fact that so many people
were at that point were unawareof what it really was and how to
handle it.

(06:02):
So I thought it was a good ideato come out and talk about it.
And the reaction I got was, I'dsay half the audience, like some
people I've never known, comeup.
Some people that I've workedwith years ago come up
afterwards and go, Hey, thanksso much for sharing.
I've been feeling, Somethingsimilar, which was fantastic,
right?
Like that's quite validating andknowing that you might've helped
people and given them a littlebit more confidence, but then

(06:22):
the other half, and also somepeople who I'm really close with
and would work with every day.
Would never mention it again.
And that was quite hard to take.
And so I think the other part ofthis is like, you think about
the more and more you talk abouta topic, the more and more you
attract people who areinterested in that topic.
And I was like, okay, well, ifthat's what I'm doing now, like

(06:42):
I should probably just check.
Am I just, you know, I meant tosay this, but I, am I just
attracting all the othercrazies?
I thought, well, let's validatethat.
And let's just see how big, isthis a problem or not?
And I think pretty confident itwas, like I've worked in
businesses where people hadburnt out.
I've worked in businesses wherepeople left the business because
they got stomach ulcers, likeliterally they were forced into
hospital because of the stressof work.
And so we sort of got togetherwith a mental health charity

(07:06):
called Batia, at the timeUnlimited, who are a foundation
in the media marketing andcreative industry that help
young people around mentalhealth.
And Everymind, who are like theacademics, so they're the
government sort of researchinstitute that look into mental
health, at the time they justlooked into mental health in
small businesses, and Iapproached their director and
said, Hey, is there any chancewe can borrow your survey and

(07:28):
adapt it for the creativeindustry?
And she said, yes.
And that's what we did.
And so it was this great way ofbeing able to go, well, you got
to understand to be able to takeaction, you have to understand
it well enough first.
You've got to come at it withsome sort of credibility.
And I couldn't just come at itwith having done a poll on
Twitter.
We did quite a significant pieceof research.
More than 2000 peopleparticipated in this survey,

(07:50):
which I think in itself wasenough to say, Hey, this is a
significant issue.
And we found out that twice thenational average of people in
our industry were experiencingsigns of.
Quite moderate to severe anxietyand depression.
Stress was an issue.
The way that businesses werefocusing on this issue, if they
were at all, did not reallymatch any sort of strategy for

(08:12):
effectiveness.
And we began to shine a light onthe problem.
And as a result, we very quicklyfollowed that up with Minimum
standards for businesses.
So we worked with a few experts.
We also worked with industry.
So we had about 20 people in ourchange group at that point from
across the industry.
And we wrote standards that webelieved businesses should live
up to.
And in fact, to be honest, noteven live up to, they were

(08:33):
called minimum standards.
And if you were to actually, noone ever does this, but if you
were to start a business andjust read a handbook around your
responsibilities of owning abusiness.
Most of it was that.
To be honest, right?
Like, you know, most people

wouldn't

start business if they'd read all that, but they
probably wouldn't too hard, butthey were pretty obvious, common
sense things, but things thatweren't happening in businesses.
Then we got businesses to signup to these standards and it was
a stop.
And so I guess it was that wayof coming at a problem from
validating it.
To then going, okay, look, hereare some guidance for you.
Not just more talking anddiscussion.

(09:07):
Let's just run some eventsaround discussing what mental
health is like at work.
It's actually sign up to thisstuff and make it happen.
And then since then we've donewhole heaps of work in this
space, but I think that'svalidation and that's the thread
that keeps going today.
You know, we've just launchedthe 2024 results.
And it gives the credibility togo, okay, and here's what we're
going to do next.

Yeah, I really love that story.
I think there's so much in thatpoint of view of just observing
what's out there and what you'reseeing.
And I think trusting yourintuition a little bit to then
flipping that into a really, notonly credible, but a practical
outcome that people canobviously take part in.
So the testing aspects isobviously factored in from a
research point of view.
You're seeing that it's a provenproblem.

(09:47):
You can align on that problemspace effectively.
And then you're to a positionwhere you're trying to help.
And obviously if you know thatthere's a problem and you're
trying to help and you canprovide solutions that are
relevant, then obviously itgrows from there.
So I think the learning fromthat feels quite clear from an
intrapreneur's point of view.
And that if you see somethingthat's wrong.
There's a chance you canprobably fix it if you stitch
together some of these steps.

(10:07):
So I really like that.
And has that been your modelthrough Never Not into other
areas as well?

Yeah, pretty much.
I think we've done a lot of workrecently with students and
graduates.
So recognizing that it's apretty hard industry to get into
at the moment.
We did a roadshow last yearwhere we invited students and
industry to come together.
And one of the cities down inAdelaide.
And we were told that it was thewrong time of year, students are

(10:33):
too busy, they won't come to anevent, blah, blah, blah.
There were 75 students come toan event down in Adelaide, which
was fantastic, but at the sametime made me think, Jeez, are
there 75 graduate positions openin Adelaide?
I'm not sure there is.
Universities and education arechurning people out into our
industry.
But for what?
And so we were able to kind ofsee that firsthand.

(10:55):
We'd actually did somethingsimilar.
We did some research and then wewrote minimum standards for
internships.
One of the biggest things wewere seeing that there was just
still amazes me that there arestill so many unpaid internships
around in the industry.
One of the people in our changegroup was actually a lawyer for
a union.
And he was one of the lawyersthat helped bring down George
Calombaris when it was found outthat he wasn't paying his

(11:15):
workers correctly.
And we'd show him ads for thatwere on like LinkedIn and Seek
and Indeed and stuff, and about70, 80 percent of them, he'd go,
yeah, they could do thatinternship.
And then if they wanted, theycould go back and sue for loss
of wages.
And so do I think.
Businesses are bad andexploitative.
I don't think most of them are,I think some of them are aware
of what they're doing, butothers are doing it just because

(11:37):
that's what they did when theygrew up and came into the
industry.
So like understanding all ofthat has now led into another
initiative.
Uh, which is called Never NotFinishing School.
And we've got people goingthrough this at the moment,
which is, it's fantastic and ittakes grads who have left
university but haven't been ableto find a job yet and we take

(11:57):
them through a seven weekprogram on the softer skills and
the way to talk about yourselfand stand out from the crowd to
help you get a job and then alsomanage the first sort of 90 days
of expectations of what thatlooks like to prepare them.
Because one of the other.
Biggest things that we werehearing from industry was like,
Oh God, like all the youngpeople coming into industry now,

(12:18):
they're not job ready.
And it's like, geez, we'rewriting off a generation of
people saying that they're notjob ready.
I mean, was I job ready?
Were you job ready when we werecoming into the industry?
I don't think we were.
And also.
Like take this into the backdropof what is going on in the
world.
When I came into the industryand I was lucky we're both
English.
I was the last year of studentgrants.

(12:39):
So she had most of my degreepaid for, for me, whereas people
now are coming out with 30,grand's worth of heck step.
And so add that to anxiety fromtechnology and social media and
mobile phones, add that to poorfinancial situation to the
highest rental that we've everseen and.
I don't know.

(13:00):
How do you survive against thatbackdrop?
That's pretty hard.
And so being able to understandthat better and then realize
that actually we've got to workharder to give these people a
chance is a really kind ofimportant insight.
And so we've been presenting thementally healthy research
recently, and there's this realgenerational gap between

(13:20):
believing that the youngstersdon't have it as hard as we did,
but actually it's just adifferent kind of stress.
Yes.
It may look like they work lesshours, but they're, what's going
on for them is equivalent, ifnot harder.

Yeah, yeah.
I think a lot, listening to you,I think I put a lot of that down
to the rate of change from whatyou were saying.
So the fact that choice andoptionality is there, and
expectation is obviously therebecause you've got the choice
and you're exposed to so manydifferent possibilities that
everything sounds amazing, canmake a million off two hours a
week worth of work and all thethings that are popping up into
our social feeds right now.
So it's a hard thing to ignore.

(13:55):
And obviously some people aregoing into that.
The sense of also over servingindustries.
I don't know what the rightanalogy is, production line kind
of sprung to mind, but it'sprobably not the right one, but
it's basically you're thinkingabout what's the education
system outputting and what's thebridge then into the world of
work.
And then through the differentstages, particularly if career

(14:15):
transitioning is happening evermore frequently than every, it
used to be every two years,probably in the marketing sense,
but probably even faster thanthat now.
And then with side hustles andother things going on, that
contact switch and that sense ofpreparedness is, is going to put
quite a lot of strain on thebrain and obviously your mental
health is going to be sufferingas a result of all of that.
So it's going to be very hard tonavigate unless there's some

(14:37):
sort of infrastructure andsupport.
Service probably through thosestages.
And like you say, it's adifferent challenge than the
kind of lifetime career peoplethat did exist 20, 30 years ago.
What are you thinking in termsof maybe some of the solution
space?
I mean, maybe you're just inthat research phase, but are you
thinking that there are credibleoptions for people to be able to
access and in support and thatsort of thing at the minute?

There's support for people who are experiencing this
at the moment.
And that's necessary, right?
Like never not creative offerscircles, which are mental health
support groups.
Like you don't have to bementally ill to be in them, but
it's a chance to chat aboutmental health with people in
your industry who know whatyou're going through.
Like for creatives or designers,for example, like often if
you're chatting to mates thatdon't, Work in the industry, you

(15:20):
don't get much further than I'veheard colouring in the internet,
putting an ad up on thatbillboard up there.
It doesn't really quite captureeverything that you guys do in
your day to day.
To be honest, the biggest thingsthat we can do, don't instantly
or immediately kind of make youthink of mental health or mental
well being.
They're actually around how wedesign work.
And how we design work so thatwe are stimulated by it, so that

(15:44):
we can find meaning in our work,so that we're challenged to an
extent.
Like we don't want, I thinkpeople come into this industry,
they've sort of been tarred withthe brush of they want an easy
life and everyone's got a tiptoearound them and all this mental
health stuff.
It's like, It's no, it's notthat, and they'll work hard.
Just got to put the supports inplace and show them why they're
doing something and give them areason for being rather than

(16:05):
just, Hey, here's a task, getthat done.
And then I'll give you your nextone.
We want stuff at work that feelsrewarding and that shows that we
are progressing in our work.
And that to be honest, is justbeing a good manager, being a
professional business, showingpeople their pathways through
your company.
If you can do that.
You'll improve mental healthmuch better than yoga on a

(16:27):
Thursday, meditation Mondaymorning, and some healthy fruit
and snacks in the fridge in anEAP program, right?
Which is, up until recently, Iwould say is the predominant
mental health strategy for mostbusinesses.
We had a really good anecdote inthe research.
I won't get it perfectly right,but it talks about how in
response to trying to create amentally healthier workplace,
they Yes, did have mental healthfirst aid.

(16:49):
I think mental health first aidis fantastic and definitely
worth doing.
It's probably the bestleadership course I've ever
done, to be honest.
But then there's also payequity, making sure that people
are paid fairly across thebusiness.
Like the idea of injustice andthe effect of that on people's
mental health at work is Big,making sure that people felt
included and that there was feltlike you could belong to a

(17:10):
business and you wouldn't bejudged for saying the type of
person you are or certainbeliefs that you have, or even
then a certain idea that youhave are all things that improve
our mental well being at workand allow us to kind of thrive
and not worry about stuff thatsort of ends up holding us back.
And then when you look at sortof psychosocial legislation
that's come in to Australia insince 2023, identify some of the

(17:31):
risks that might stop that fromhappening.
And that might be like.
Poor behavior.
That might be the wayrelationships are not managed
with external clients orsuppliers.
It might be the way that peopletreat each other within meetings
or the cultures, subculturesexist within teams.
So all of those things areactually just how do you help
people get along?

(17:51):
How do you give them the supportthat they need to be brave
enough to do the work that youwant them to do and just make
sure that you've put everythingin place for them not to fail?
That.
Is the best mental healthstrategy you could possibly put
in place in a business.
And the other part of that isgoing, well, you know what,
that's a whole of businesssolution.
It's not HR's job.
I had this great quote in apodcast the other day that if

(18:13):
you want to affect anything inthis area, whether it be mental
wellbeing, whether it bediversity, equity, and
inclusion, belonging, it's thatyou have to think about
solutions here as.
Rows in a spreadsheet and notcolumns, because if you think
about columns, you're justslicing up the business and
you'll get some really goodtraction in some areas, but
you'll miss a whole bunch.
But you start thinking aboutthings in rows, then actually

(18:34):
you're going across a businessand you're thinking about how
much change you can create bygoing, by touching almost every
touch point within the business.
And I kind of really liked thatquote.
It was from a podcast called theAnxious Achiever.
Yeah.
One of the episodes in that wasreally good.

Yeah, good, good.
I think there's a lot from whatyou're saying that kind of falls
to just getting the basics rightrather than getting into very
elaborate kind of schemes andprograms where culture is
examined over a long period oftime, a lot of research and
then, you know, a lot ofinitiatives that then tried out
to varying degrees of successprobably, but just with the
basic stuff and then effectingthat change in one way or

(19:07):
another.
How have you seen that workwell, you know, particularly
maybe within organizations ofdifferent sizes, but where does
that locus for change start and,and how do you see it sort of
spreading into this feeling ofwarm fuzziness and goodwill?

Often people will talk about change has to come
from the top and it's a leader'srole.
I'd say it's leader'sresponsibility.
They have to take accountabilityfor the well being of their
people in their business.
And also, maybe we need to pointit out, but it goes without
saying that performance inbusiness improves when people
are healthier.
It's not a nice to have to havehealthy people.
It's like your business would bebetter.
But I do think that one of thebest things that leaders can do

(19:42):
is recognize the problem,listen, and then get out of the
way.
So I've seen examples of this,and we've actually, I did work
with one business and it's, thistook a lot, a long time, but
they, Look to creating and Iguess again, it's that kind of
row idea across a business, abunch of people who are really
interested in proving the mentalwellbeing outcomes for the whole

(20:02):
business, but they were spreadacross and they were given the
resources and the time to goaway and look at the problem and
to come back to leadership witha solution and it just got more
traction.
The fact that.
People being affected by theproblem went off and got the
chance to look at solving theproblem.
I think said more to otherpeople in the business than you

(20:25):
could possibly do from aleadership mandate, right?
Because leaders, me included,we're not aware of everything
that's going on for people.
And if you've been doing thisjob for a while, you're probably
not even aware of what it's liketo do that job.
Could you still do that job thatyou did 10, 15 years ago?
It's different.
And so I think if leaders cangive the permission and the
resources and the time forpeople to go off and create

(20:47):
solutions and then validatethat.
And so if something comes backand it's a bit tricky, it's
like, no, back it.
If you want the outcome, thenyou have to deal with the way
that people have come up withthe solution.
That will be the most effectiveway.
I've seen that.
And I believe that I think.
That is how you can get moreengagement, more effectiveness,
uh, answering a, a problem.

So pretty much the same as what we were saying
before with your research,right?
Look at the problem, establishthat it's a shared problem, get
those voices together, presentwhat you found out, and show
what you can do about it.

But as a leader, don't think that you have to fix
it.
I think that's the biggest thingI've probably learned over the
years is like, we love fixingstuff.
That's what we do.
And if you look at like whitemen in leadership of which we
are the majority, white men lovefixing stuff, right?
Like that's.
It's part of, I watched thisreally good video just last
night, actually, on how we canbe more aware of our culture.

(21:38):
Cause a lot of people talk aboutDEI and I as like understanding
other people's cultures.
Like, well, you need tounderstand your culture first.
And this guy talks about itfantastically.
Maybe we can put it in thelinks.
Made you just think of like, Ohyeah, that is me.
And that is how I kind of dothings.
And so, you know what, if youwant to get a solution in this
space or any solutions, like getout of the way, let the people
who are affected by it do thework, cause they're going to
come up with a much bettersolution.

(21:59):
And.
You know, like you said, ifyou're an intrapreneur, if
you're doing human centereddesign or whatever it is, if
you're innovation in a company,that's exactly what you would
do.
So why don't we do it forourselves?

Yeah, all true.
All true.
We've had a lot of talk aroundhuman centered design and design
thinking on the podcast.
So it's widely practiced, itfeels like now, but it's also
turned into a bit of a process,right?
So you kind of push everythingthrough it to see what it will
come up with.
But then a lot of people arekind of fighting it because
there's gut instincts andintuition and there are various
people Traditional leadershipmodels as I know, it's going to

(22:28):
be this and you just do whatwe've told you to do and there's
friction points, right?
And it feels like this, like, Imean, even what you're saying,
an understanding or anexpectation around leadership
going into an organization orknowing where you stand in
relation to, to a particularculture that you're walking
into, some would expect it torun more conventionally, and
that would be a kind of safe andan understood space.

(22:50):
But others would be quite happyto try out different things.
And no, I feel like even thatdifference in belief or maybe
outlook might also causeconfusion, right?
It might cause a friction pointbecause some people are in that
camp and some people are not inthat camp.
So in terms of alignment, if wetalk about that and visioning
and, you know, getting peopleonto the same page, how do we

(23:10):
best approach that?
Because sometimes it's a quick,sharp reset in the Dan Andrews
style.
You know, we're going to justlock down everything and it's
all going to be different as ofMonday.
In other cases, it's rolled outover.
maybe three years, five years.
So things are changing all thetime.
The ground's moving beneath me.
How do you navigate some ofthat?
Do you think?

Yeah, it's, it is hard and it is tempting, right?
To just go, Oh, can we just ripit all up and start again?
Like let's just fire everyoneand just start again.
I'd be lying if I hadn't thoughtabout that at many times,
probably throughout my career.
But again, like it's thisjourney of I've changed my
Opinion and view on what's mostsuccessful for being able to

(23:47):
create change.
I did used to believe that itwas strong leadership, set the
vision, get everyone aligned,make sure it happens.
If they don't understand it,make sure they understand it and
it works for some.
Um, but it's not the only way.
And I also think now more andmore that if you want to get the
best out of people, becauseactually it's not down to the
one person or the smallleadership team at the top, it's

(24:10):
around everyone to deliver it.
And so in that you kind of needmuch more consensus and that can
be frustrating because you feellike you're constantly having to
sell your dream or, you know,whatever it is your vision is.
It's irrelevant if you can'tachieve it because people didn't
get on board.
And so it takes longer.
It takes more discussion.
It may look different to whatyou originally envisioned it as,

(24:32):
but it will be a much moreeffective and sustainable
solution in the long term.
There's a really good model, Ithink it's called integrative
decision making, which talksabout how you can bring people
on a journey like that, and alsohow you can keep it moving.
It's not necessarily that peoplecan just say, no, we're not
doing that, but it's actuallyallowing them to slightly shape

(24:53):
or slightly modify, and then beable to kind of give consent to
continue knowing that, you know,they won't stand in the way and
they'll get behind it.
And I think that's a nice way oflooking at lots of different
decisions in businesses, youdon't.
Necessarily have to have likethe idea and meeting, even if
you've got an idea and you wantto bring it to fruition, you've
got to think about how you takeit around the houses and it's

(25:13):
like, it's one of those things Iremember working in a business
where people like knew, nevertake a new idea to this boss on
like a, a Thursday afternoon.
Cause we just have probably justcome back from a boozy lunch and
it's probably just not going tobe in the mood for anything or
like tired or whatever it mightbe, but you know, there's, there
was always those things of like,Oh, always go Monday morning or

(25:33):
always do it Friday afternoonand just slip it into
conversation.
Or like, how do you getsomething through?
There's like, there'smethodologies to that, to
getting, to winning people over.
And I think at that time it wasvery much a tactic and not
necessarily like a biggerstrategy for how do you create
change.

Yeah.
Well, how badly could this go?
Right.
Cause yeah, I reckon I've beenin the camp of trying everything
out at the wrong time for many,many years.
I was doing that.
And then you just sort of learnfrom it, don't you?
But I think what you'redescribing is gold.
You can't walk in and know thatstuff unless you get a tip off
from somebody who's on theinside, right?
It's like redemption.

It's who do you go to?
Mom or dad?
That's right.
Like co, uh, single parenting atthe moment versus co parenting.
Oh my god, that's easy, yeah?
They got no one to go to.
It's, oh yeah, okay,

so single lines of reporting.
Yeah, yes, yeah.
Oh, that's good, that's good.
It strikes me that in the last100 years, that sort of switch
from, Current state to futurestate has changed in that a lot
of people in the past, if youthink about politicians all the
way through to company leaders,teachers and everyone else that
we've experienced in our sphereof influence.

(26:38):
But if we were growing up duringthat time, you'd expect a big
visionary and a big speech and akeynote to come along and you'd
be told what to do and thenwho's with me and you put your
hands up and it was JerryMaguire all over again.
Now you're saying, okay, wellactually we need to work through
it.
We all need to understand theproblem, decide it's the right
problem, and then actually movetowards the solution together
and the outcome will be what youdecide is rather the more.
Either leader say it's gonna beSo is that what you're seeing?

(27:01):
To an extent.

I also always believe that I have to have an
answer just in case.

Okay, so you're a starting point.
So I won't

walk into something going, oh, hey everyone, what
could it be?

Yeah.

It's like I have to have an answer.
I have to have my answer right.
And I expect other people tobring answers as well.

Mm-Hmm.

But it would be very blind to not have a point
of view on what, where we shouldbe going.
And people look for that fromleadership.
And then you've got that.
The dance, right?
Of not giving people the answer,but trying to help them get
there.
But if they go off in adifferent path and uncover
something else, then be open toit.
You can't just suddenly go, Oh,well then actually I don't need

(27:41):
to do anything.
And here you go.
And I think even like throughoutyour career, you notice that,
right?
Like you don't want to walk intoa meeting and not know what
you're supposed to be saying.
I learned this the hard way veryearly on in my career.
I got invited, I was mentored bythe CEO, here's one for the
archives, Ask Jeeves.
Oh yeah, yeah.
Uh, so you'd, you'd know.
I remember it.
Yeah, yeah.

(28:01):
Yeah.
Remember the, remember thelaunch.
Still around, still around, ask.
com.
The CEO took me to a marketingsociety dinner at like the
Grosvenor Hotel.
Everyone else in the room is amarketing director or CEO.
And Rory Sutherland wasspeaking.
And I was like, oh, you know,Rory Sutherland, amazing,
fantastic.
Adrian goes to me, he goes, sohave you got a question for
Rory?
And I'm like, Oh, yeah, right.

(28:22):
Okay.
Yeah.
And he goes, well, no, becausethere'll be a chance to answer
questions after he's done histalk.
I was like, uh, yeah, I didn'tthink anything of it, right?
Like, Why would anyone listen tome?
And also I'm not about to put myhand up in a big room of people
like that.
And then we get there, dinnerfinishes, Roy gives his speech.
They go, okay, let's go to thefloor for questions.
Anyone got any questions?
And Adrian grabs my hand, shovesit up in the air.

(28:44):
And I'm like, And no, I didn'thave a question.
I always thought he was justjoking.
And it was just like the mind ofthose embarrassing moments, when
like you get that, the rednessin your neck comes up and then
just your whole face.
And at that time, it tooknothing for me to go red.
Like for embarrassment.
Takes a lot more these days.
And what felt like probably twominutes, it was probably 10 or

(29:04):
20 seconds of me just beingsilent and then getting
something out, but never againhave I ever put myself in a
situation where I don't have ananswer for something if somebody
was to ask.
And that's in a meeting, like ifyou're going to a meeting and
someone else is doing apresentation, I have to know the
presentation.
I have to know how to give it ifthey suddenly just threw up

(29:25):
beforehand and couldn't come inthe room or just anything like
that.
So I hate that idea now, and itwas brutal, of being, I mean
there are probably more brutalways of doing it, of being
underprepared and not having anopinion.
I know It might mean that myopinion isn't right, whatever it
might be, but at least I'm notgoing to be stuck there going,
Oh, I can't add any value, whichis different to.

(29:45):
What I got taught then later inmy career, or mid, I guess,
career, which was you have to bethe smartest person in the room,
which is dangerous.
Do not think that was goodadvice anymore.
That's assuming that you'rebetter than people.
That's assuming that you alwayshave to have the answer.
It's not that I think you haveto have the answer.
I just think you have to havethe answer.
An opinion, I know where you'reat.

(30:06):
And so I think, yeah, that'squite dangerous to be honest.
And I've spent years unlearningthat understanding that, Hey,
there's a lot of smart peopleout there, much smarter than me,
are going to contribute to asolution better than me as well.

It's about self worth and obviously knowing what
your lane is and when to driftover and when to allow other
people to shine as well, thenyou're serving leadership and
followership and big topics ofconversation as well.
That just feels like as, as aleader.
Or as an emerging leader, you'vegot to know how much of
yourself, smartest person in theroom type, type ideology, like
how much of that to give and howmuch to just keep, keep back.

(30:39):
People are often biting theirtongues and then other people
just don't talk at all.
And obviously there's a blend ofpeople in terms of preferences
for communication andcollaboration out there in the
workplace.
And not everyone is equal inthat sense.
So in navigating that sense ofour best to self represent
without it being, well, no, nothim again.
How do you do that?

It's just listen a lot more.
I read a lot more stuff now thatis about things I don't know.
Like I don't read to back up myown point of view.
I read to try and learn somebodyelse's.
And I think that's the biggestthing you can do.
I've read some great booksrecently, podcasts, whatever it
might be, or just talk to peopleand understand that everyone's
lived experiences are sodifferent to yours, especially.

(31:22):
Me and you, right?
Like we're, we're white bread.
We've got so much to learn fromother people.
And I think the more we start tounderstand that and listen and
listening is the biggest thingyou can possibly do and get out
of the way sometimes, then thebetter you're going to do as a
result as well.
We've been running recently aprogram called allies and never
not creative, which is workingwith people like us, white men

(31:45):
to understand their privilegesand their biases.
And to think about how they canhelp people who don't look like
them at work.
And that has been quiteenlightening for a lot of
people, but also it's a safespace for them to kind of
understand and get a few thingswrong along the way.
And to be able to go and nottake themselves too seriously,

(32:07):
right.
To understand that there's otheropinions and other things out
there and that anyone's toughlife.
is valid, others have had atough life too.
And so it's not to say that oneis tougher or more valid than
another.
And I think starting tounderstand that, whether that's
by speaking to people, learningabout their experiences,
recognizing things we take forgranted are not what others get

(32:29):
to take for granted.
It's probably the biggest wayyou can start to overcome that.

Yeah.
It's interesting.
I mean, the things that youlearn from can be the hardest of
lessons as well.
I mean, that example of yourhand being forced into, you may
not have enjoyed it at the time,but you probably then, as you
said, after that took away fromit, that you were able to self
prepare and obviously you didn'twant to be caught out again.
And those sorts of situationscan throw that in.
So I think some people wouldbelieve anyway, that there's an
element of softness in the wayin which things are managed

(32:54):
these days, the treatment thatyou got there would have been.
Kind of expected or applauded orat least support it back in the
day, but now it feels likeyou've just got to be really
careful about that from ananxiety point of view, from a
mental health point of view.
And obviously there'sneurodivergence and these
conversations are much morefrequent now.
So it just feels harder, right?
But maybe it's not, if it's justmore transparent.

(33:15):
I don't know.
Do you have a point of view onthat?

Yeah, I think that the challenge with anything well
being, mental health, likewhatever it is related, there's
a jump to the assumption thatyou have to tread on eggshells
around people and, oh, you can'tsay that, oh, you can't do this,
like, oh, you have to let them.
It's not necessarily the case.
You can still demandperformance.
Right?
Like you can still go, Hey, werun a business and we've got to

(33:37):
maintain productivity and we'vegot to make sure it's like, you
just might have to adjust someof your methods.
But one of the biggest thingswould be, and you mentioned it,
that was just be transparent andclear.
Like the more you dance aroundsomething, the more it will end
up hurting somebody else in thelongterm than it will about
having a very clear andtransparent conversation.
And.
Those conversations are hard,but ultimately, for long term,

(34:01):
other people will be better off.
Didn't you have a episode onradical candor or brutal honesty
or something like that?
But it's really hard toreconcile that for yourself,
right?
Like, I know this person's got achallenge with this, and I don't
wanna, like, I could triggersomething there, but there is
this balance, and ultimately, atwork, your job is to just not
make people any worse.
If you had to take it down to alevel, right, don't make people

(34:24):
worse in terms of how theythink.
But if ultimately they're aboutthe same and you can give them
some feedback which means thatthey can move on, and in some
cases that means moving them on,and I've had to do that, and
it's not nice, but you can do itin the most human way possible
and it may not feel it at thetime, but people will be better
off for it.

Yeah.
And obviously there's the schoolof thought around, you should be
out of your comfort zone quiteregularly, every week, every
month or whatever, whatever youhold yourself to, but there's
that sort of thing as well.
So we're, we're trying toencourage people at work to be
progressing in one way oranother by probably getting
into, in and out of comfortzones a bit more fluidly, I
don't

know.
Yeah, no, it's true.
And you've got to welcome thatfor yourself as well, which is
really hard.
I remember for the people weused to do, we introduced retros
into every project, but not evenevery project, but like after
every sprint, there was a properretro.
And I'm like, this is a greatidea, blah, blah.
It was a great idea until it gotaround to me.
Like, well, what could you havedone better in this project?

(35:23):
You know?
Well, actually, Andy, you couldhave done this, this, and I'm
like, Oh, I wasn't expectingthat.
I thought, I thought I'dcontributed quite well.
You know, you have to openyourself up to it as well, and
it is, that's good to do.
It's uncomfortable at thebeginning, but you get used to
it and you recognize there'sstuff that you can do to help
the team, and there's stuff thatyou can stop doing that will
help the team as well.

Some of the systems, I mean, we're talking
in the green room just beforethe show, some of the
methodologies.
So, you know, if you're thinkingabout crazy aids and post its
and sticky notes and creativityas it's now made within 25
minutes before lunch in aboardroom somewhere, but how do
you get the best out of peoplein those situations?
Because not everyone's geared upfor that, right?

So true.
I hired.
A fantastic creative directorfrom a very good studio in
London.
And almost as soon as he landedin the country, we put him into
a workshop situation and it'slike, Oh, this is great.
We've got a new creativedirector.
Like crazy eights.
Let's just come up with someideas.
Nothing.
Nothing on his paper at the endof this four or five minute
session.

(36:21):
I'm like, oh, what have we done?
And you know what?
It just works differently.
It just, that's not how hisbrain works.
Like he needs to go for a walkor just sit and ruminate on
something or be at his computerfor a day, just like
experimenting and throwingthings around the screen, like
whatever it might be, but puthim into the pressure situation,
which also, by the way, it wasin front of a client and, you

(36:43):
know, Nothing came out.
And at the time I thought, well,that's the way you do things.
Like if we want a quick result,this is the process.
Trust the process, follow itthrough.
No, no.
Now we just did a piece of workrecently with a kind of team
within Streamtime and I reallywanted to kind of get.
An understanding of what wasgoing on for everyone to be able
to help them get to a solutionfor how to work in the future.

(37:05):
And one of the key things I wasvery wary of was how to engage
them.
And so we engaged in threedifferent ways.
We did an anonymous survey, wedid a one on one and we did a
group online workshop to getevery possible way of.
Allowing people to be heardduring that process, it took

(37:25):
longer as a result.
I think everyone did feel heardand was able to contribute and
talk and to be able to get theirpoints across.
And that comes from just betterunderstanding that people like
to communicate and contributeand listen and give feedback in
different ways.
And if we'd have only done itone way, which would have been
everyone on Zoom, FigJam board.

(37:47):
Get your stuff up and talk aboutit.
Some people wouldn't have gotout what they really wanted to,
and they'd have just been leftthere.
And then what happens?
They get disillusioned.
They see things happening thatthey feel like they didn't get
heard.
Resentment grows, stuff happens,weird shit happens in the team.
People leave, you can see howquickly it spirals down if you
haven't really taken intoaccount.

(38:08):
How you can let everybody havetheir voice.

Yeah, there's definitely an underlying theme
here of being heard.
And if you feel like you're notheard, then obviously it's going
to spark a thought.
And then beyond a thought,there's obviously an action.
So I'm wondering like what thekind of trajectory of that looks
like, because obviously westarted with sort of one to one
meetings and coffees, and thenyou had like your periodical
catch up fortnightly with yourboss or whatever.
Some of that still goes on.
Then obviously the social sideof things is ramped up.

(38:31):
And then engagement surveys havestarted creeping in where
they're starting to quantify howpeople are feeling.
And it just feels like in termsof being heard, like, where's it
going?
Like, how can we be more heard?
And what do we need to listenmore about essentially?

I think it's the listening part, right?
We've created every opportunityfor people to be heard, but it's
irrelevant if you didn't listen.
And I think that's what happenstoo often, right?
Like, yes, people have got avoice more than ever before
probably, but if the businessdoesn't, or a leader or, you
know, whatever it might be, itdoesn't act on.
That voice, then people feellike they're just shouting into
a black hole and they'll startto resent the fact that they

(39:06):
were asked and nothing happened.
There's so much opportunity nowbecause there are so many
different ways of listening topeople or hearing people.
If anything, it highlights morewhen you haven't taken that
step.
And also it's got to be tied tothings that make a difference.
We are working on a strategy atthe moment at Streamtime, which
is sort of termed productivewellbeing.

(39:27):
So yes, you kind of mentionedthere's a lot of wellbeing or
staff feedback surveys andstuff, but they're all like.
extra things.
They're like bolt ons to what Iwas talking about before.
They're columns.
They're not rows, right?
Like they just sit outside ofsomething.
And what we're not doing withthose things is tying them back
to what we spend 95 percent ofour day doing, which is working.

(39:48):
And so what we're trying to doat the moment is link the
productivity side with the wellbeing side.
If we know how happy you are orwhat's stressing you out at any
point, can we connect that backto what you were doing?
Can we connect that back to thework that you're doing, or the
people that you're working with,or the type of work that you've
been asked to do, or the clientthat you're working on?
We can start to make bettersuggestions on how to improve

(40:12):
project output and outcomes, andalso have that not be
detrimental to people'shappiness.
And so bringing those two thingstogether, I think is actually
the magic formula, becauseagain, back to what we said,
what's the solution?
Well, it's better design ofwork, which essentially is what
this is to be able to go, well,yes, we can make healthy profits
for a business.
But we can do that with happypeople at the same time.

I think that's also to do with the art of
facilitation to some extent.
I mean, it can happen in thatformat, but it can also happen
in a meeting context.
And the art of managing ameeting is a little bit nebulous
for a lot of people anyway,unless it's, they'll go off the
five agenda points, but in termsof actually Running it and
getting the best and making surepeople are listening.
Actually at the end of it, don'tget all throughout, you're
playing back some of the thingsto show that you've listened and

(40:55):
you're probably like weaving ina sense of what you're going to
do about it through that ifyou're a good listener and you
could lead us, all of that issometimes left behind, right?
And people just feel likethey've said a lot, but they
walk out and then they'reexpecting some change.
Nothing results, just inertia orthe feeling of that.
Anyway, is

it a good time to talk about your Bollywood career
or, so obviously I'm English.
Not, maybe not, obviously,actually, not everyone picks
that up, but we moved toAustralia in 2005, we went
through India on the way wearrived at Leopold's cafe in
Mumbai, which I think is whereeveryone arrives at.
And then they just come and pickthe tourists out and go, Hey, do
you want to be in a Bollywoodmovie?
This was literally day one ofour travels.

(41:33):
I went, Oh yeah, yeah.
And we were.
And so, funnily enough, only, Ithink it was like earlier this
year, we were sat around thedinner table, and Vanessa and I
were talking about it to mywife, we were talking about it
to the kids, and the kids go,oh, can we watch it, can we
watch it?
And I'm like, oh, you know what,I've never been able to find it.
And then all of a sudden, Idon't know, I kind of
remembered, it was called YesPrime Minister, or Yes Minister,

(41:54):
or something like that.
Found it on YouTube.
There's a trailer for it.
What's funny is, Vanessa wasactually, like, pulled up behind
one of the main dancers, andthere was, like, always, in the
scenes we were shooting, therewas always just three dancers.
There was, like, the mainperson, the other person was
getting paid, and then my wife,my wife or girlfriend at the
time.
And so she was always, like,front and center, and I was

(42:14):
just, like, white English guy ina bar.
Just at the back dancing away.
I get at least three seconds inthe trailer and I think she got
like half a second.
That was my Bollywood moviecareer.
So you can, it is possible tosee it and, and find it on
YouTube.
No credits, no I, no IMDBprofile.

No, that all good, all good.
Early days.
Maybe could be something elsearound the corner, but Yeah.
I mean, even your business,never not, it feels like there's
always this perpetual nature tothe things that you're doing.
So have you got other things inthe pipeline that, that you
wanna mention?
What else is never not.

Never Not Creative is the non profit that I set up
to kind of affect mental healthin the creative industry.
Came from coming out of agenciesand then not having to run an
agency and having a bit moreheadspace.
A software company has recurringrevenue, which I think most
agencies would bite your arm offfor.
Much more headspace, a chance tolook at it, and you know, that's
where the research came from andall of that kind of stuff.

(43:09):
And yeah, Never Not Creative isalways kind of ready to do
something.
New, the newest thing currentlyis this never not finishing
school, which is happening rightnow.
And there'll be more of that tocome.
We've got never not thinkingdifferently, which is like
groups of people going throughlike six or seven sessions to
understand their neurodivergenceand to then go, how do I,

(43:30):
divulge that and communicate itaway to people I work with or to
jobs that I'm going for thatmean they can see it as a
superpower and not as somethingto avoid like the plague.
And so that's quite a big thingthat we'll hopefully launch by
the end of the year.
Never Not Creative is a nonprofit at the moment and is
actually, we just heard backfrom the Charities Association

(43:51):
to respond to our charityapplication.
So the hope is, is that it'll bea full blown charity as well by
the end of the year, which willbe good.
And then it means that we canstart to just do a little bit
more, but it's still very muchon the kind of mental wellbeing
related that we'd like to takethe research further.
The research we just did, it'smainly in Australia and New

(44:11):
Zealand, but we actually had anorganization called ICAD reach
out halfway through and they'rethe Irish creativity.
Advertising and designInstitute.
And so we partnered with themand we were able to get a good
sample of people from theirorganization to do the survey.
And so the next steps is to kindof write that up for them.
And their director, I think ison the board of a few other

(44:32):
organizations over in the U Sand the UK.
And so we're hoping we can takethat research and it'd be the
standard for starting to look atthe challenge of mental
wellbeing in creativebusinesses.
That's pretty big.
Yeah, that's, that's exciting.
Yeah.
I guess the challenge is alwaysit's really, it's an evening
job, evening and weekends.
And so trying to find the timeto keep, keep doing it is
important, but yeah, can be abit of a challenge

on a personal note.
I mean, how do you, do youmanage that?
Do you find what, you know,you've got any kind of secret
recipes there?

I think I'm just realistic.
I think there's days when youjust go, you know what I can't,
I think in my head, I wanted toget this research report out a
couple of weeks ago, and I wasjust.
I think you've just got to bekind to yourself.
Like I'm very good at givingthat advice to other people.
So can you take it yourself?
I think most of us know what isright to do for other people,
but we aren't very good attaking our own advice.

(45:20):
And so I think every now andagain, it's a case of you've got
to put yourself first and putlife first.
At Streamtime, that is thebiggest ethos.
Like it's funny, you end upseeing more and more people
taking time off.
And you go, Oh my God, iseveryone sick?
Is everyone?
And it's like, no, they wereable to say they were.
That's the biggest difference.
Like instead of them having topush through or hide it or work

(45:41):
when not well, they've been ableto go, yeah, like I'm not
feeling it today.
I had it last week and I put itinto Slack and I said, look, I'd
had some news about someone I'dworked with dying.
I was really tired from thissingle parenting lock at the
moment and I just couldn't doit.
And so I put it into Slack and Isaid, Hey, I just can't do it
today.
And I think it's important tokind of, to share that with

(46:02):
people and to be realistic.
And I think, you know, that isthe kind of, you know, it
doesn't need any awards oranything, but it's the kind of
role modeling that we're betteroff doing.
And that means other people cando it as well.
And if you can say it as well,for a reason, like I.
There was that kind of movement,isn't there, of like, leaders
leaving loudly?
I get the premise of it, andit's a good idea, but often it's
about leaders leaving loudlybecause they've got to go pick

(46:24):
up their kids.
And so if you haven't got kids,you can't do it, right?
And it's this kind of, oh, I'llget to that stage one day where
I'm allowed to leave a bitearly.
Their reason is kids.
Your reason might be a class.
It might be meeting a friendwho's visiting the city for, you
know, Coffee or drinks orwhatever it might be, but that's
just as important, right?

(46:44):
Like we don't get to judgewhat's important for people,
which means that they get alittle bit back in their life.
And so I think that needs to bevalidated more.
You don't get to say what'simportant for others and you'll
start to see it repaid as well.
And I think that's what it is.
It's like, is there's this fairsense of how much you're giving
to work.
We will always say, no matterwhat happens, you drop work for

(47:05):
life, like a rock straight away.
Anything happens.
That means you leave a customerhanging.
Fine.
It's only business.
They'll be all right.
Your health, your family, yourfriends, whatever it might be
is, is more important than that.

Yeah.
Cause I think with work,obviously there's a feeling of
duty, you know, particularly ifyou've got a client, that's your
duty.
That's like, you know, to walkaway from that would be a big
deal for somebody is what I'msaying.
Yeah.

There's a really good HBR article on that, which
is around the ideal worker.
And it talks about the idealworker being someone as like,
you've given your entire selfworth and life to work.
And so that's what you look likeas the ideal worker.
And if you're working for thosebusinesses, there's different
ways of handling it.
Like you can just kind of goalong with it.

(47:47):
And basically what will happenis, You resent your workplace
and your job, but also you loseyour identity.
If you're constantly doing thatand you're putting off life for
work, what happens when youdon't have that job?
What happens when you're notdoing that work anymore?
You haven't got your other lifeto kind of fall back on.
So you lose your sense ofidentity.
And then there's people thatwill kind of go along with it.

(48:08):
That sort of be passive in it,but they'll like hide the stuff
that they do.
So if they went out.
One evening, or at a really goodweekend, they probably won't
tell people at work just becausesomebody else was working really
hard, or they don't want it tolook like they've got so much
time to have a life.
And then there's the people whowill just go, no, fuck you, I'm
not doing that, and they will,and will rebel, quite rightly.
I saw that article and I wasjust like, oh, that's a really

(48:28):
interesting concept, becausethat's kind of what so many
businesses expect.
It's like, oh, we're paying you,it's a privilege for you to have
a job.
It's like, Nah, sorry, it'sactually a privilege for me to
spend so much of my life doingstuff for you.

Yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah.
And I think there's thatexpectation obviously that some
business leaders would obviouslyexpect all people or employees
to basically turn up ready to goand equal in a fairly in the
meeting room or in the team,like everyone's the same, they
come back from the weekendrefreshed and ready to go.
But actually there are manyother differences and you know,
it's probably where thelistening comes into.
Before we go, I just want to askyou one final question, which is
just about, I mean, youmentioned anxiety earlier in

(49:02):
your career, but for anyone outthere and obviously a lot of the
work that you're doing is in themental.
Health space in terms ofintrapreneurs and like what
people we're working withinorganizations can probably have
as maybe signals or things tolook out for that would be cause
to, to have a conversation or torethink the current work
situation or anything like that.
Is there anything that springsto mind as being something to

(49:23):
watch out for?

Yeah, definitely.
There's a few things you can do.
You can look out for changes inbehavior.
So if someone's slightly moreerratic than usual, or if you
find that they're Delivering ondeadlines like they used to, or
their communication is kind ofcurter or shorter or stuff like
that.
If they're withdrawing, theyused to do four days in the
office.
Now they're only doing two.

(49:44):
They used to be at drinks everyThursday.
Now they don't ever come at all.
Those are the types of thingswhere you, you start to see a
difference and then you can, thebest thing to do is, is, is
literally is to ask the questionis like, Hey, is there something
going on for you?
At the moment.
And you know what?
You might not get the answerstraight away.
You might have to ask four orfive times on four or five
different occasions.
Because if you're, if you'relike me, I often don't enjoy

(50:08):
talking about how I'm feeling.
But if you catch me at the righttime, then yeah.
I'll open up and that's why likesometimes you just got to find
the right time.
So don't ambush people, but alsolike let them know that, Hey,
would you like to go for acoffee in a couple of days?
So that they can prepare for aconversation if they wanted to.
You can prepare for theconversation as well.

(50:28):
Got to be okay in yourself to beable to have that conversation
too.
So yeah, those are the things tokind of look out for.
And then.
Just don't stop because youmight be worried that you're
coming across as annoying oryou're just constantly badgering
them.
But the alternative isn't worththinking about.
If it gets so bad that then theythink about doing harm to
themselves, well then you don'tever want to be in that

(50:50):
position.
And it's perfectly okay to asksomeone that just to kind of
rule, you know, to rule it outor to bring it up.
You know, a lot of this istaught in mental health first
aid.
I can't recommend it.
It's definitely worth doing andit helps you notice some of
those signs and how to have someof those, those conversations.

Brilliant.
All right.
Well, thanks so much, Andy.
I've I've really enjoyed thechat today.
I mean, it's just been very openand a warm conversation.
You've been incredibly givingwith a lot of your advice and,
you know, Through tales ofexperience as well.
So thanks so much about comingon shining light on mental
health and other things thatyou're doing in the creative
world.
And as always, it's just reallycool to hear about the things
that you're doing out therebecause you're doing some
amazing work.

(51:29):
So thanks so much.

That was great.
Thanks very much for having me.
It's been brilliant.

Brilliant.
Thank you.

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