August 2, 2023 • 42 mins
Hustle culture isn’t just making you unhappy, it’s costing you money. In today’s episode, Founder of BUHappiness College, Declan Edwards talks about why a happy workplace is a profitable workplace and how you can take steps to ensure your agency is attracting the best employees out there.
In this episode you’ll learn:
- How measuring happiness as a core KPI is the key to success
- The pillars of happiness in the workplace
- The ROI on a happy workplace
- How a happiness college markets happiness
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Sarah Spence (00:02):
This could be the content rebels episode that
gives you the highest returnyet, because you and I are about
to find out more about aworkplace shift that could bring
about a 250 to almost 400%return on investment. But it's
not a marketing strategy. It'sgot nothing to do with digital.
It's not organic. And it'sdefinitely not paid. It's
(00:25):
happiness.
Hi, I'm Sarah Spence. I grew aContent Agency from just me to
20 people inside two years. Soyou'd think I'd have my shit
together. And even though I tryto come at everything with a
rebellious curiosity, I've beenso focused on growing this
thing. That I'm a bit behind onthe trends. Join me on this
(00:49):
journey to find out what'sactually happening in the world
of marketing. Welcome to thecontent rebels.
Here's a question for all youmarketers out there. Are you
happy in your workplace? I don'tmean ecstatic or even that you
don't have bad days. I supposeI'm thinking more about being
(01:10):
content, feeling valued, doingwork that's meaningful and
appreciated. Agencies andmarketing teams have long been
seen as places of hustle. Andoften the culture isn't that
healthy. And in the spirit ofdeep diving into our industry,
in this episode, I want to talkabout happiness in the
(01:31):
workplace. To help me with thisis the CEO and founder of BU
Happiness College, DeclanEdwards.
Declan Edwards (01:40):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to do this.
Sarah Spence (01:42):
You could say Declan rebelled a little when he
decided to make happiness hiscareer.
Declan Edwards (01:47):
So my dad's military, his dad's police
force. His dad's military, hisdad's military. And then I run a
happiness college, so little bitleft of centre.
Sarah Spence (01:58):
Declan might be veering from family tradition,
but it seems like he's found histhing. He's wonderfully obsessed
with proving how a happyworkplace is a smart business
move. But before we get into thehard data to prove that to you,
let's find out what a happinesscollege is anyway.
Declan Edwards (02:15):
Yeah, so BU Happiness College is a social
enterprise. We started it backin 2016, after recognising that
a lot of the skills and toolsthat are associated with living
a happy and fulfilling life, aremissing from our curriculum in
traditional education. I don'tknow about you. But I know for
me when I went to school, andeven University, I wasn't
learning much about emotionalintelligence, empathy,
(02:38):
resilience, self awareness, orself esteem. And so I was
starting to find myself sayingto people, if you're one of the
lucky few people who hademotionally intelligent parents
you learnt at home, butotherwise, where are you being
exposed to this? And at the sametime, I was going on my own
personal development journey,working with great coaches and
mentors and falling in love withfields like positive psychology
(02:59):
and mindfulness based stressreduction. And going wow,
there's really great researchand tools out here, people just
don't have a chance to learn it.So decided on a whim that I
wanted to change that and openan online college where people
could learn those skills andtools. And to date, we now have
members and graduates in fivecountries, which is something
I'm very grateful for. And thenin 2019, interesting timing with
(03:21):
the global situation that wasabout to occur, started finding
ourselves doing a lot ofworkplace happiness consulting,
so helping organisationsquantify and measure happiness
as a core KPI to stand out as anemployer of choice and to do
better by their staff and bytheir team. And it's yeah, it's
a beautiful line of work to bein, something I'm very deeply
grateful to do. Because theripple effect we get to see from
(03:44):
individuals and organisationsmore intentionally working on
their happiness is quiteprofound.
Sarah Spence (03:48):
I love that. And I love that you clearly love what
you do. When you think abouthappiness in the workplace. What
does that look like? How do youmeasure it?
Declan Edwards (03:56):
There's this great research by Tony Hsieh,
who was the founder of Zappos,not the lolly company that I
grew up with, but the shoecompany over in the US that was
acquired by Amazon. So hestarted going, "Hey, our
priorities as leaders and asorganisations have been
backwards for decades." And whathe meant by that is he said
(04:17):
these things like, traditionallyin an organisation priority one
is shareholders andstakeholders. It's how well can
we grow the company. Prioritytwo is customers, are we giving
a great customer experience?We're looking after them? Are
they coming back? Are theyreferring? And priority three is
staff. And what Tony and histeam started to find was, hang
on, what if we flip thatentirely on its head? What if we
(04:39):
look after staff happiness andemployee experience and well
being first? Well, chances arehappier staff are going to take
better care of our customers. Sotherefore, our customers are
going to be happier, which meansthey're going to refer more and
come back more and not churn asmuch which means our
shareholders will be happier.And what he realised is the
whole priority list had beenbackwards. And that was
(05:01):
something that I got reallyinvested in and interested in, I
went, Okay, well, if the corefocus here is happy staff lead
to better outcomes across theboard. How do we quantify
workplace happiness and what Ifound through a lot of my work,
and I'm still completing mymaster's thesis specifically on
this research, it's beenpublished later this year, on
how we quantify and measureworkplace happiness was it's
(05:22):
built on five pillars. So thefirst pillar is staff wellbeing.
How healthy and well are ourstaff and we look at seven
different versions of well beingso emotional well, being mental
well being, physical well being,there's a whole range you can
look at, but wellbeing is apillar. Second pillar is how
engaged are our staff? Do theycare about what they're doing?
Do they feel confident andcompetent in their role? Third
(05:44):
pillar is what is our underlyingculture like this is where we
see things like diversity,equity inclusion have a role.
This is where we see things likepsychological safety and trust,
like vision, mission and valuesalignment. Fourth one is, how
great are our leaders. There's agreat saying, which is a cliche
for a reason that people don'tleave workplaces, they leave
leaders. And so we do need tolook at our leaders if we are
(06:04):
going to create a happyworkplace. And then our last
pillar, our fifth one is kind ofa lag measure of the first four,
which is burnout and turnoverresilience. And so that will
tell us if the first four arelow, how long have they been low
for if we see wellbeing is low,and it's been low for a long
time, chances are we seeburnover and turn out. Turn out,
resilience is also going quitelow. And the likelihood of
(06:26):
people leaving or gettingexhausted and burning out is
really high. And so we built atool to start measuring those
five and to go hey let'squantify these pillars. And in
doing so we've got a way toactually track and measure that
most important KPI that mostorganisations don't look at,
which is workplace happiness.
Sarah Spence (06:43):
I just want to sponge your brain into mine
because this is so interesting.Okay, why do you think
workplaces and I'm talking hereabout agencies and internal
marketing teams, specifically asthe primary people who are
listening - Why do you thinkthat they often wear this kind
of hustle culture like a badgeof honour?
Declan Edwards (07:03):
It's funny, when you look at the most commonly
burnt out industries, there arealmost two groups that are burnt
out for completely oppositereasons. So on one side, we see
the education, allied health,social work, very high burnout
careers, they're normally burntout from we call this the
(07:23):
helpers that forget to helpthemselves, very engaged with
their work, massively believe inthe purpose and value of it, but
they give give, give, give,give, forget to put up good
boundaries, forget to look afterthemselves, they burn out in the
process. And on the other sideof the spectrum, we have all
this burnout happening in thesetraditional, let's call it high
performance service based roles.So marketing is one, law and
(07:45):
accounting is another one, likeBusiness Services is a third.
And I think that's more beingdriven by this gap between the
two types of happiness that canexist in an individual. So one
type of happiness is hedonichappiness. That's our sense of
achievement and accomplishmentand output. It's very external,
it's dopamine driven. It'sexciting. It's, you know, fast
(08:07):
paced, but it also goes reallyquickly. You know, the hedonic
form of happiness. You couldalmost call it sex, drugs and
rock and roll, right? It's likewhat's going to give us that big
hit. And then there's eudaimonichappiness, which is a sense of
meaning and purpose andcontentment. What I find in a
lot of those industries, we justspoke about in that second
group, those high performanceindustries is their very hedonic
(08:28):
happiness focussed. It's what'sthe next outcome, what's the
next target? What's the nextgoal? What's the next
accomplishment. And whilstthat's valuable, because of that
spike that happens, and thatdrops off really fast, if they
don't have a cushion there, ofeudaimonic happiness, they don't
have a cushion of connection,contentment, meaning purpose,
the comedown from it, or thegamble that happens if you're
(08:49):
gambling, your happiness on theaccomplishments are going to
make what if you go through aperiod where you're not having
great output, and you're notachieving great accomplishments,
which is very natural inbusiness, right? That gap leads
a lot of people to go, Well, I'mnot getting that hedonic
happiness, therefore, I'm nothappy at work. It's like, well,
really, we could just build abit of a bit of a buffer with
that you eudaimonic happiness.
Sarah Spence (09:12):
Woah, have you just learned a new word? I
certainly have eudaimonic,eudaimonic happiness. Of course,
we're going to naturally havetimes in our business or our
working lives that won't belighting up our brains with
those dopamine rewards. It makessense to have space for
contentment in our everydaywork. But saying all this, and
(09:35):
then actually doing it. That's awhole different ballgame.
Because if I'm honest, I've beenpretty obsessed since day one,
about creating a culture thathonestly, not just says it does,
but honestly values creativity,curiosity, and empathy. And not
to put tickets on myself, but Ifeel like I've done a pretty
(09:55):
good job. I get lots of feedbackfrom the team and feedback from
our clients that things arepretty good on that front. But
if I'm honest, it's so hard towalk that fine line. So I took
my chances and explained mysituation to Declan, I wanted to
see if he might be able toenlighten me on what I can do to
(10:15):
continue to offer a genuinelysupportive workplace that's also
productive, successful andprofitable. Here's me trying to
explain my dilemma.
There's always lots of work tobe done. And exactly as you
said, we are in a continuousenvironment, there's rarely an
end to a project, you know, it'skind of there's always something
(10:37):
there's, you know, an extra bitof feedback that needs to be
incorporated, or, you know, itgoes live, but then it's, it's
months until we see the results.And then you feel disconnected
from those. And sometimes all ofthat does mean that there's very
little, like defined space, forthe creativity and the curiosity
like, it's much harder to say tothe team. Okay, go and have an
(11:00):
afternoon to just do whateveryou fancy to, you know, help
with your creativity. And also,you know, there are some people
who just, well don't necessarilythink they need that, or they
then don't do that. They just goand do something else. So it's
kind of like, I want them to dosomething that's going to
benefit them in their role. Butof course, I don't have control
(11:22):
in that way. And I have triedreally hard to build a continued
practice into everything we do,but it definitely doesn't always
work. So my big question hereis, from your point of view, how
can leaders in this highperformance industry space of
marketing, both in house andagency side, how can we build
and maintain that culture ofcreativity, innovation and
(11:44):
curiosity, which are actuallyfundamental to our roles to what
we do, while also building teamsthat get the work done, and then
layering on top of that, beingable to make space for and I
think this is really importantfor leaders and employees to be
able to have space to safelyprocess trauma from previous
(12:06):
toxic workplaces. Am I askingtoo much? Probably.
Declan Edwards (12:12):
I'm going to have a stab at it, I think we
can get it. So I think somethingthat's really important for
leaders in any high performingindustry to first grasp and
really take home is that thosefactors we spoke about earlier,
associated with workplacehappiness. So wellbeing,
engagement, culture, leadership,burnout risk. A lot of the time
(12:32):
we think of those things andlike staff looking after
themselves, or having breathingroom or space to process or
space to be creative, asopposite to performance. We draw
this weird like dichotomy wherewe go well they're either in
performance mode, or they're inlook after themselves mode. And
really, they're the same thing,right, you're not going to get
great output and great resultsfrom someone who is burnt out
(12:54):
and exhausted. There's a greatsaying that cut straight to the
core of it, which is a stressedbrain is a stupid brain. Right?
If you want your staff to thinklaterally, if you want them to
come up with great ideas, if youwant them to be creative, and to
innovate, and to be visionaries,they're not going to do that
when their brain is stuck infight and flight mode. It's that
simple. And so something Italked to leaders about all the
time is start viewing,happiness, wellbeing, all these
(13:17):
things we're talking about, asthe path to performance, not as
separate to performance. There'sthis great research by a man
called Shawn Achor from HarvardUniversity called The Happiness
Advantage. And he talks abouthow we often think we will be
happy after some form ofaccomplishment, but what we
actually find is by cultivatinghappiness now we perform better
(13:41):
and we're more likely to getthat outcome. So that'd be the
first thing. The second thing Ithink leaders can do is start
measuring what matters, right? Ialluded to it before with this
idea of like, quantify workplacehappiness as a KPI measure well
being if you go, what's reallyimportant to us is creativity
and innovation, find a way totrack that and measure it. The
reason being as much as it's acliche, what we measure gets
(14:04):
managed, right? It's one thingto talk about it. But if we're
not having a way to keepourselves accountable, and to
have reflection points andconversation with the team about
how we're progressing towardsupholding that value, or that
practice whatever it may be. Imean, it's just words on a
whiteboard, right? So Iregularly say to people, the
amount of workplaces now going,Oh, how people are our greatest
(14:24):
asset. And I'm like, Cool. Showme your balance sheet. Where
does all your people metricssit? And it's in the expenses
column. It's not in the assetscolumn. And so I go, Well, hang
on, you're telling me yourpeople are your greatest asset,
but you have no way of provingthat. And they will, what would
we put in our assets column? I'mlike easy, all the stuff we just
spoke about before. How happyand healthy your staff are, how
engaged they are, how aligned tovision, mission, values, how
(14:47):
creative they are, right? Werethier burnout tolerances. These
are all things that we canquantify as an asset in our team
columns when we're tracking ourcompany, so measure it and then
I think the last point on thisone would be co-create it. I
think a lot of leaders make themistake of trying to roll out
initiatives to serve theirstaff, but also get the most out
(15:09):
of staff. And they don't includesome pretty important
stakeholders in thoseconversations. One being the
staff, they're trying to helpand benefit in the first place.
Right. And the second one beinggetting experts and
professionals who've spent theirlife specialising in it. I
remember we've been working witha, we did some work with an
accounting firm. And when wepresented the findings of their
workplace happiness diagnostic,they were like, Oh, Declan,
(15:33):
we'll be honest with you. We'vespent the last two years and a
lot of staff time and hours andmoney building our own internal
version of this. And it pales incomparison to what you guys have
built. And I kinda blurted out,maybe without thinking, Well,
yeah, of course, you guys areaccountants, you don't
specialise in workplacehappiness, like, why did you
spend so much time buildingthis? I didn't build my own
accounting software. Listen to aprofessional, get the leaders on
(15:56):
board, because it doesn't workif the leaders don't backup, and
get the team to have an activerole in shaping it. That is the
sweet spot to creating projectsand initiatives that actually
deliver long term results.
Sarah Spence (16:07):
To your point at the beginning about the, you
know, when we go through schooland university, I mean, it's not
just like, let's not even getinto the subject of being taught
financial resilience andfinancial education, either
just, you know, adult orbusiness. But we just were not
taught this stuff. So when yougo to business school, or when
(16:28):
you work with a business mentor,quite often it's stuff like,
Okay, well, what's the balancesheet looking like? What's the
p&l? You know, what's the cashflow statement? How many more
clients can you get in? How canwe service more of those
clients? You know, it's, it'sall that stuff, because that's
traditionally what was measured.And therefore, that's what
people focus on. Because ofcourse, what you said is
(16:49):
completely right, what ismeasured matters. We have one of
our KPIs is around our tacos,which sounds really weird. But
there's a programme in Slackthat you can add into Slack
called Hey, taco. And if you tagsomeone, and then you, you add a
taco emoji, then it gives them ataco. And so we aligned. It's
(17:09):
our recognition programme,basically. And then it tracks
how many tacos you've given andhow many you've received. So we
as part of our KPIs, we trackand we report on well, how many
tacos did you give? And how manydid you receive? And are you
sitting at about the same level,
Declan Edwards (17:23):
I love that.
Sarah Spence (17:24):
And it's great, because then you also if you
give a certain number of tacos,you'd like get given a virtual
pet rock that you can then giftto someone, and you can do all
sorts of cool things with that.But we then align our tacos to
our values. So we are meant togive tacos it doesn't, I'm the
worst one for it. I'm just like,hey, taco for you. But we're
(17:44):
meant to align it. So it's meantto be like, hey, Declan, I
really wanted to give you a tacotoday, because this is how you
showed up in terms of the valuesof quality or confidence or
trust, etc. So we try and tie itall together in that way. But we
just started reporting on thelast quarter, when we finally
got our stuff together andstarted actually creating KPIs.
(18:05):
And suddenly everyone's veryaware of how many tacos are
giving and how many they'rereceiving. And they are seeking
out more opportunities torecognise their colleagues.
Because they know that it'sgoing to be something that's
tracked. Oh, yeah, and I loveit, too. It's like it's in there
with, you know, along with, youknow, what percentage of clients
(18:26):
renew their retainer, and youknow, all the necessary stuff.
But it's also things likecontributions to our remote work
environment, our digitalworkspace, everybody jumps on in
the morning, and kind of has toanswer a series of questions
about psych today I'm feelingtoday, I'm grateful for the
value I want to live today is,and today, I'm working. So
(18:49):
they're working hours for theday, because we have flexible
hours. And it's, you know, it'sthat that we track as well. It's
like, How often did youcontribute to those
conversations, because that'spart of the connection that we
try and build in the team. Andthis thing goes into that next
question I've got, which is atContent Copywriting, we have
worked remotely since before itwas cool. We've always been
(19:11):
remote workforce. And we try todo that honest catch up every
morning. And we do face to faceretreats, once or twice a year.
And since COVID, obviously,remote working has become a
thing. And agency work does lenditself nicely to that these high
performance industries. Youknow, there's a lot of there's a
lot of synchronous work thatneeds to happen. But there's
(19:31):
also a massive amount ofasynchronous work involved in
what we do. What suggestions doyou have for remote teams or
hybrid teams to help them createthat culture and maintain
connection even when they arephysically apart?
Declan Edwards (19:47):
Yeah, I'll start by answering this by
highlighting something that I'vebeen more and more mindful of
lately as we continue thisconversation around flexible
work and hybrid work becausewe've been doing the same. We've
been, you know, flexible andhybrid work for day dot, I
remember saying to our team, Iwas like I've employed you all
is very capable, functioningadults, I'm going to treat you
like capable functioning adultsI'm not going to give you set
(20:08):
times or expect you to be atcertain places, I just expect
you to do your work well and tobring the best version of
yourself to the workplace. And Iremember we did have an office
space for a little while thebuilding was sold during COVID.
And our whole team was like,Why? Why did we even have that
office space, like we all preferthis, we do monthly catch up
days in person, you know, westill do our retreats and
events. What I want to highlighthere, though, is it is a
(20:31):
privilege to be able to be evenlooking at things like flexible
and hybrid working arrangements,like for a lot of the a lot of
the economic landscape at themoment, a lot of the roles
people just can't do that.Right. Like it's just not a
thing. So first and foremost, Iwould say, treat it like a
privilege and not a expectation.I think that's a risk we're
(20:53):
taking at the moment as wenavigate this is everyone's
going to go oh, well, I expect,you know, full flexibility. It's
like, well, that's not going tobe viable for every single
workplace or for every singlerole. So if you're even having
these conversations, that's abloody cool place to be. Right,
take take an attitude ofgratitude towards that, in terms
of how you do it really well. Ithink more than focusing on
balance or flexibility, allthese terms actually think
(21:14):
autonomy is a lot more valuable.Because what works for one
person, your team might notnecessarily work for another.
And so I'm seeing a lot of workplaces make this mistake of
going, Oh, well, we're going tobe flexible, because we're not
going to we're going to workfrom home Fridays. And I'm like,
Well, that could be great forsome people and the rest of the
team could bloody hate it.Right. They're setting the set
in stone rules and trying toapply them to everyone. So the
first thing I would say, whichgoes back to what we mentioned
(21:35):
before about if you're lookingat doing stuff like this,
involve your team, talk to themabout it. But But autonomy and
ownership is huge. Right? Soasking your team to get actively
involved with what that lookslike for them is very powerful.
In that note, as well, I wouldsay talking to them about how to
know whether it's working ornot. Right? So being clear with
each other about like, Hey, howare we going to track whether
(21:56):
this is working and when I sayworking not just in terms of
like hard skills, outputs andoutcomes, but also in those
cultural ones, like we spokeabout earlier. And so being able
to come back to, hey, we'regoing to track whether or not
this is working by Yes, how manyof you, your clients are
renewing and all those things,we're also going to track it by
how connected you feel to yourteammates. That was something we
(22:17):
navigated with as we moved awayfrom the office space, we did
have to go back to fully remoteworking. We actually built that
into our KPIs for a whole 12months after that move, to see
how connection with each otherwent, and we noticed that sales
dropped. So we're like, okay, weneed to have conversation about
how we're going to reconnect,and we'll just open up to the
team. How do we want to do that.So similar to you, we do daily
(22:39):
stand up first thing in themorning. So we say hey, this is
when I'm available. This is whatI'm working on. This is who I
need help from. And this is mytwo word check in for the day.
So if I was to describe how I'mfeeling coming into work today,
in only two words, what mightthose two words be? It cuts out
a lot of the crap and just getstraight to the core. We also do
every Monday we do a team scrumwhere we do a full video, send
it through to each other.There's things in that like Who
(23:01):
do I want to give a shout out tothis week? Who's my recognition
point? Who do I want tocollaborate a little bit more
with this week and touch basewith? What is my core priorities
this week that matter most. Sobuild some questions in there.
And then once a month, we have ateam day where we come together
and do some deep work insomething fun. So whatever it is
for you as an organisation, ifyou go okay, first and foremost,
we want autonomy, we want ourteam to co create these. Second,
(23:24):
we want to be very clear on howwe're going to track whether it
works or not. And third, we wantto build I would say daily,
weekly, and monthly touchpoints, particularly because the
greatest thing you're going tolose if you're not facilitating
that is going to be connectionand collaboration. Right?
There's a lot of beauty thatcomes out as to things and I
(23:45):
highlight this so vocally at themoment when I talk to
organisations because whilstwe're all talking about this
move towards work from home andfour day work weeks, and all
these big shifts and shinyobjects that we want to jump on.
I think what we're missing isthe findings over the last few
years and this was pre pandemic,it's only gotten worse since
(24:06):
2020. We are living through themost lonely time in western
human history. Like we are themost connected we've ever been
as a species technologically.But more people than ever, are
reporting feeling lonely. And soif we're now taking away some of
those connection points andrelationships that can happen in
(24:27):
the workplace, I worry about howthat's going to exacerbate that
loneliness. I'm not saying weneed to all go back to the way
things were with working or bein the office. I'm a huge
believer in flexible andautonomous work. And so we've
done it from 2016. But I thinkwe need to be having
conversations around how do wekeep our team connected and
supported and I would be lookingat daily weekly, monthly as the
Sarah Spence (24:47):
Okay, so as creators, we need connection,
checkpoints for that.
psychological safety andautonomy. This all makes sense
to me. And as I said, I do thinkI'm trying my best to create
that in my agency. But I'd benaive to expect that everything
is always going to be okay in aworkplace, especially in the
(25:09):
current financial environment.But here's the thing. I know
this stuff works, becausewithout knowing exactly what I
was doing, I've been testing itin my team. The pressure has
been on for us lately, as Iknow, it has been for so many.
And it's been our culture thathas seen us through, I'll admit,
(25:30):
it's not been as strong as itcould be, especially at the
minute. But it's been enough, Ithink, to keep us together, that
eudaimonic cushion, we do havethat, at least parts of it
anyway, because I thinkotherwise, without it, I
probably would have lost thewhole team by now. And so I told
(25:53):
Declan this, and then he told meabout the small business myth,
the myth that keeps us smallbusinesses smaller, and why we
just can't afford to believe itany longer.
Declan Edwards (26:04):
I mean, look, small businesses are the
backbone of our economy. But thevast majority of businesses
aren't the big multinationalsthat have massive budgets and
hundreds of staff. And I thinkthere's this myth that leaders
go oh, well, all that stuff willbe good to look at once were a
certain size, or once weresuccessful, or once we can
(26:25):
afford to do it. And what I'mreally trying to bust when we go
out and work with organisationsaround this stuff is you can't
afford to not do it. Right,especially in this market where
talent is more and more focusedon how happy am I going to be at
work and how much does it alignwith my values. They're making
decisions now based on yourculture. So if you want to have
(26:46):
the best staff, if you want tokeep the best staff, if you want
people to perform their best atwork, you need to be looking at
this stuff not as anafterthought, but as a priority.
To put it in raw numbers,because I get it too. I'm a
business owner, I know how toput it in ways that people will
listen, all of the evidence andresearch in this space for the
last 20 years, the numberthey're looking at, depending on
the specific research, you lookat says for every dollar you
(27:07):
intentionally invest into stuffto improve workplace happiness,
your expected return oninvestment in 12 months is
anywhere from $2.63 to $3.70.Now, if I told you that there
was a stock that you could put$1 into, and we give you $2.63
to $3.70, back, what wouldeveryone be doing, it'd be a
rush to buy it. If I told youthere was a horse that was
basically guaranteed to win andgive you $3 back, people would
(27:28):
rush to bet on it. Why is itthat people still make the
mistake, right? I'll get to thatlater. Right. You're cutting
yourself and your business andyour team. So short by doing so.
Sarah Spence (27:38):
So what do you say then to either the CMO or the
senior marketing manager or thesmall business agency owner or
the freelancer who is justgetting the most inordinate
amount of pressure, either fromyou know, their bosses or they
know that budget cuts arecoming, for instance, or there's
(27:59):
just been a really tight fewmonths in the business? Like you
want your team to still feelpsychologically safe? And
obviously the threat of any ofthose things, is going to stifle
that. Should? Should we alllike, what's the trade off?
Should we all just be keepingthat, that stress completely to
(28:19):
ourselves, obviously, reachingout to other people outside the
business to whom we can get helpfor ourselves But is that going
to be the best way to getthrough it to, to not share that
things - not that they're toxic,that that things may be too
tight. And therefore stifle thecreativity?
Declan Edwards (28:37):
I think there's two things here. One is part of
the price of leadership and thereason you get paid more to be
in leadership position is youtake an inordinate amount of the
responsibility. Socongratulations, this is part of
your role. Stop complainingabout it, stomach it, right. The
amount of leaders I see that,they're like Oh, it's so much
more stress. I'm like, Yeah,that's why you're paid more,
(28:58):
right? That's why it's on yourplate, you are in a leadership
role. And I think as a leader,it's reminding ourselves, it may
not be my fault, but it is myresponsibility. Right? What
happens in our team is not myfault, but it is my
responsibility to address it andto help the team move through
it. The second thing I'd say isI'm a huge believer in radical
transparency in thesesituations, if we go back to the
analogy of treating us like anelite sporting team, right, we
(29:19):
don't need to cushion it and go,you know, oh, we've won no games
this season, but everything'slooking fine. Like, we'll we'll
be good. Let's just try some newplays. Like if a leader does
that, what actually happensironically, if a leader is too
cushiony and positive indifficult times, what we've
noticed is that the team's trustin their leader and how
(29:40):
competent they rate their leaderactually declines. Right? Your
team isn't stupid, that if yousugarcoat things too much in a
difficult time in a difficultchapter, your team actually
starts to go, they're obviouslyeither oblivious or they're an
incompetent leader. Right? Andso facing it head on going "Hey
guys, the reality is we are in atough climate at the moment."
And I think a lot oforganisations and he'd be having
these conversations now. Becauseeconomically, we're going
(30:02):
through one of the mostchallenging times of the last 20
years in Australia, cost ofliving, interest rates, you
know, potential recession, allthese things that are happening.
Realistically, if a lot of yourteam is under the age of 40,
they have never worked throughan economic downturn in
Australia, we didn't have one in2008. And we will lead through
the Global Financial Crisispretty well. And so this is an
(30:24):
uncertain time, right for a lotof people. And so being bold
enough and brave enough as aleader to go, "Hey, things are
challenging right now. Thingsare uncertain right now, things
are a bit tight." Now, thatmeans that we need to identify,
there's this thing called thePareto Principle, which is like
80% of your results will comefrom 20% of your actions, we
need to get really strategicright now with what are the 20%
(30:47):
that are going to deliver the80% that's focused on those
first and then that still havethis room for risk taking, you
know, try new things, testingthe waters still being
innovative. But let's make sureour foundations are solid first,
it would be like, again, if Iuse the example of a sporting
team, let's look back and findwhat plays got us the best
results, let's lean on thosemore often. And then let's top
(31:09):
it up with a few new things thatwe're going to test.
Sarah Spence (31:13):
Okay, okay. Okay. Here's one thing you need to
know if you haven't worked itout already. Declan isn't some
kind of wishy washy happinessguru, he's managed to create a
way to measure this somewhatintangible and often elusive
thing called happiness. And he'sgot the hard data to back it up.
(31:34):
And when he talks about thereturn on investment like that,
it's obvious that workplacehappiness should be front and
centre as a key indicator ofyour business success. So given
Declan is a data kind of guy, Iwas curious about how a
happiness college actuallymarkets itself. And so I asked
Declan if he markets, the actualfeeling of happiness? And if so,
(32:00):
how does he get that messagethrough that it's more than just
a feeling, that it's actuallyand can be, a core KPI.
Declan Edwards (32:07):
What we realised pretty early on was, happiness
is a pretty core human desire.Everyone shares the desire to be
happier in life. But if you justmarket it like, Hey, this is a
college to teach you the rightskills and tools and strategies
to live a happier life. It'scompelling, but there's no
(32:28):
incentive to prioritise it now.Right. And I'm very clear with
people I'm like, Look, we'redoing this work is very
important. And people working onthemselves and learning their
skills is, I believe, cruciallyimportant to creating a happy
life for themselves, and thenspreading the ripple effect that
makes it a happier world. But Ialso know they're gonna
prioritise things that have beenvery painful to them in the
moment. And so we recognise thecommon threads amongst people
(32:51):
who came to the college, werethese things like burnout,
emotional overwhelm, andexhaustion, anxiety, stress,
right? And we're going well,hey, the solution to those
things is ironically, the exactsame tools and strategies that
help you move up the laddertowards a happier life. And so
there's almost this push pullpain, pleasure sort of cycle
that we found resonated morewith people. And then on the
(33:14):
workplace side, yeah, it's goinghow do we quantify it and kind
of turning what I mentionedbefore, I think a big part of
our marketing message is goingthese previously considered
wishy washy, or conceptualframeworks, like culture and
wellbeing at work, and theysound really nice to talk about
what are we doing with them?They were viewed as intangible
(33:35):
and were viewed as opposite toperformance. And I think what's
helped us get a lot of tractionand breakthrough is like, No,
these are the one in the same.Like, I, when I meet with like,
teams and organisations talkingabout doing their workplace
Happiness Report, there's oftena CFO in the room, and I'm like,
buddy, I can talk your language.Let me show you with evidence
and data, right? How much of animpact this is going to make on
(33:55):
your bottom line and you take itor leave it, Right? It's that
simple. And so I think that'shelped on both sides, getting
clarity and specificity intowhat our message is, and how we
actually help people and servepeople. And to be honest with
you, it took us four years toget to that point, the first
four years of running happinessCollege because it's, it is a
new industry, right? Like, it's,I would say about saying Bloody
hell, if we were a carpenter orsomething and people just
(34:15):
automatically knew what we didby our title. We, it would have
been so much easier in so manyways, right? So to be able to
come out and create a new sectorand a new space took a lot of
market education. And it took alot of self reflection for
ourselves for four years, wedidn't even know what happiness
college did really, we didn'tknow how to communicate it. And
so we've been on a journey forourselves with that I'm very
(34:36):
thankful that we've always lentinto content marketing as a big
part of it and to I guess,thought leadership marketing as
well and positioning ourselvesas like, Hey, we are actually
leading experts in the field ofhappiness and and what it looks
like and what it means to live ahappier, more fulfilling life as
an individual and as aworkplace. And yeah, it's been
it's been a long ride, but it'ssomething that I'm still very
(34:57):
grateful to play an active partin. Like, I I genuinely enjoy
getting involved with ourmarketing guys and with our
marketing team to create goodcontent and to have good
conversations like this.
Sarah Spence (35:06):
Yeah, awesome. And so yeah, tell me what's what's
been working for you guys latelyin terms of content, digital,
all of that what's what's beenyour best plays?
Declan Edwards (35:16):
Yeah, on the individual side. We've always
found live events workexceptionally well for us be
that guest speaking for anotherorganisation, we found very
early that partnering up withthe fitness industry works
really well, because there'speople in there who are already
intentionally working on theirwell being, but they're only
doing it from one lens. And youwould be perhaps surprised to
(35:38):
find out how much mental healthand emotional well being
challenges run rampant in thefitness industry where
comparison and expectation andperfectionism are so high,
right? So you get people inthere who want to work
themselves that it's not doingit holistically. So speaking of
gyms has always been fantasticfor us. We do live talks and
events around Australia, we usedto do it geez, I'll never do it
this way again, speaking ofburnout, in 2019 I did seven
(36:01):
cities in 11 days and then flewoverseas and did a speaking tour
of Texas. Never again, will I doit that way. Now we do we do one
talk every couple of months in adifferent city. But it's been
interesting to notice thatthere's almost this appetite
again, for like live webinars.So we do a lot of content on
social media, talking about whatwe're doing. And they go, Hey,
by the way, I'm going to do apop up event on stress or a pop
(36:22):
up event on burnout, it's 10bucks, we're going to donate a
meal to somebody in need forevery ticket we sell. You know,
jump on for us it's a lossleader, we didn't really make
any money on the event. But itgives us a chance to talk about
stuff and to introduce people tothe idea of a happiness College
and a happiness coach. And thensome of them will go through and
join the college and enrol. Andwith workplaces. Honestly, the
biggest one has been LinkedIn,I've been blown away by how
(36:45):
powerful LinkedIn is. Fordriving the workplace happiness
consulting side of ourorganisation. I, it's quickly
become my favourite platform toput content out on I think it
lends itself really well tothought leadership and
positioning yourself as anauthority in your space. And so
yeah, even when we're launchingthe workplace happiness
diagnostic tool and the happyworkplace accreditation, I was
(37:06):
just putting posts up like, hey,tag the happiest workplaces in
the Hunter region, I want totalk to their leaders, I want to
find out what they're doingwell, and people would tag away
I'd just contact them and go,hey, we've built this,
apparently, you're doing greatthings, we've got a test that
can prove it or show you whereyour gaps are. And if you are
doing great things, we'll giveyou an accreditation as a like
recognised happy workplace. Andyou can put that in your job ads
(37:27):
and in your EVP and in yourbranding. And none of that would
have happened, had it not beenfor having a bit of an audience
on LinkedIn.
Sarah Spence (37:34):
I'm interested in your perspective on the world of
AI and Chat GPT. And perhaps howit plays out in what you do. But
do you feel like chat GPT,particularly is a friend or foe
or a flash in the pan?
Declan Edwards (37:47):
I think it's a friend. And I say that because
I'm assuming it's listening. Andone day they'll take over and I
wanted to know that I'mfriendly. But no, I say it
because we got on it prettyearly. We integrated it into our
team a couple months ago nowprobably earlier this year,
literally when I say integrated,we've given it a name. So our
Chat GPT up is called "Happy"which I took a day off Africa
(38:09):
with the name HAP dash e likeWall-e, but for a happy robot,
definitely took a break aftercoming up with that one. I was
like I deserve an afternoon off.I named it so well. So our team
were like, hey, Hap-e, can youhelp me with this, we gave it a
full role description and likeexpectations of its role, like
we onboarded it like a staffmember. And our team has loved
(38:30):
it. And I think what excites meabout it. Over the last, I'm
gonna say 100 years or so, rightfrom the industrial revolution
to now, if you go back to theIndustrial Revolution days,
probably even to the 1950s themajority of work was focused on
what we could do with our hands.It was manufacturing, it was,
(38:50):
you know, agriculture, it was itwas manual output, that then
became increasingly automatedand became increasingly assisted
by machines. And so we moved toan economy of what could we do
with our heads? Right? And sowe're moving more towards
knowledge base and like, youknow, what can we come up with
as ideas. I think this is thestart of the next chapter of
(39:11):
human development, whereincreasingly, our work is going
to be less about what we can dowith our hands and with our
head, but more what we can dowith our hearts. That humanistic
side that emotionalintelligence, that empathy, that
connection to others, thatservice of something greater
than ourselves, I think is goingto be an ever growing market.
And more and more in everyindustry. In every industry, I
(39:34):
predict, it's what's going tomake you stand out is how well
you've dealt those soft skillsor those human skills, those
heartled skills, and it's what'sgoing to future proof your job.
Because at the end of the day,like with the way AI is growing
and developing, it is going toreach a point where it's as
smart as this, if not smarter,but I think it's gonna take a
while. And maybe this is just metrying to vehemently protect my
(39:57):
own job, but it's going to takea while before it has those
emotional intelligence, softskills, and before it can do the
human heart centred work. I'mexcited for this next chapter of
human development and what itmeans for our careers.
Sarah Spence (40:11):
I love that. And I'm gonna say it again, because
it's so worth repeating. Ourwork will be less what we can do
with our hands and our heads,and more what we can do with our
hearts. I have had so manyconversations about AI this
year, and nobody has framed itin that way. And I absolutely
(40:32):
love that as a concept and a wayto look at it. I agree that
we're at the start of this nextphase. But I just picture it
differently to Declan. I pictureit more about what we can do
with our ideas, and creativity.It's been about manual output
from the brain for such a longtime that we're speeding up so
(40:54):
many of those processes now.Now, it's more about those
creative human ideas that comefrom both heart and the head.
That's what we're at the startof. For me, it's that combo of
the approach both head andheart. But what a beautiful way
to look at the changing natureof work. And this whole
(41:15):
conversation with Declan reallyties into the future of our
workplaces. Because the futureis here. It's now and it's not
just about AI, it's about ourvery human hearts. Here's to
more workplaces adding happinessas a core KPI and embracing
their greatest asset, theirpeople. Thanks for joining me on
(41:36):
this journey. If you want tostay rebellious in how you
practice marketing, how you showup in your workplace and how you
live your life. Please subscribeto the Content Rebels wherever
you listen to your podcasts.This podcast was recorded on
Awabakal and Darkinjung countryproduced by Pod and Pen Productions.
This could be the content rebels episode that
gives you the highest returnyet, because you and I are about
to find out more about aworkplace shift that could bring
about a 250 to almost 400%return on investment. But it's
not a marketing strategy. It'sgot nothing to do with digital.
It's not organic. And it'sdefinitely not paid. It's
(00:25):
happiness.
Hi, I'm Sarah Spence. I grew aContent Agency from just me to
20 people inside two years. Soyou'd think I'd have my shit
together. And even though I tryto come at everything with a
rebellious curiosity, I've beenso focused on growing this
thing. That I'm a bit behind onthe trends. Join me on this
(00:49):
journey to find out what'sactually happening in the world
of marketing. Welcome to thecontent rebels.
Here's a question for all youmarketers out there. Are you
happy in your workplace? I don'tmean ecstatic or even that you
don't have bad days. I supposeI'm thinking more about being
(01:10):
content, feeling valued, doingwork that's meaningful and
appreciated. Agencies andmarketing teams have long been
seen as places of hustle. Andoften the culture isn't that
healthy. And in the spirit ofdeep diving into our industry,
in this episode, I want to talkabout happiness in the
(01:31):
workplace. To help me with thisis the CEO and founder of BU
Happiness College, DeclanEdwards.
Declan Edwards (01:40):
Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited
to do this.
Sarah Spence (01:42):
You could say Declan rebelled a little when he
decided to make happiness hiscareer.
Declan Edwards (01:47):
So my dad's military, his dad's police
force. His dad's military, hisdad's military. And then I run a
happiness college, so little bitleft of centre.
Sarah Spence (01:58):
Declan might be veering from family tradition,
but it seems like he's found histhing. He's wonderfully obsessed
with proving how a happyworkplace is a smart business
move. But before we get into thehard data to prove that to you,
let's find out what a happinesscollege is anyway.
Declan Edwards (02:15):
Yeah, so BU Happiness College is a social
enterprise. We started it backin 2016, after recognising that
a lot of the skills and toolsthat are associated with living
a happy and fulfilling life, aremissing from our curriculum in
traditional education. I don'tknow about you. But I know for
me when I went to school, andeven University, I wasn't
learning much about emotionalintelligence, empathy,
(02:38):
resilience, self awareness, orself esteem. And so I was
starting to find myself sayingto people, if you're one of the
lucky few people who hademotionally intelligent parents
you learnt at home, butotherwise, where are you being
exposed to this? And at the sametime, I was going on my own
personal development journey,working with great coaches and
mentors and falling in love withfields like positive psychology
(02:59):
and mindfulness based stressreduction. And going wow,
there's really great researchand tools out here, people just
don't have a chance to learn it.So decided on a whim that I
wanted to change that and openan online college where people
could learn those skills andtools. And to date, we now have
members and graduates in fivecountries, which is something
I'm very grateful for. And thenin 2019, interesting timing with
(03:21):
the global situation that wasabout to occur, started finding
ourselves doing a lot ofworkplace happiness consulting,
so helping organisationsquantify and measure happiness
as a core KPI to stand out as anemployer of choice and to do
better by their staff and bytheir team. And it's yeah, it's
a beautiful line of work to bein, something I'm very deeply
grateful to do. Because theripple effect we get to see from
(03:44):
individuals and organisationsmore intentionally working on
their happiness is quiteprofound.
Sarah Spence (03:48):
I love that. And I love that you clearly love what
you do. When you think abouthappiness in the workplace. What
does that look like? How do youmeasure it?
Declan Edwards (03:56):
There's this great research by Tony Hsieh,
who was the founder of Zappos,not the lolly company that I
grew up with, but the shoecompany over in the US that was
acquired by Amazon. So hestarted going, "Hey, our
priorities as leaders and asorganisations have been
backwards for decades." And whathe meant by that is he said
(04:17):
these things like, traditionallyin an organisation priority one
is shareholders andstakeholders. It's how well can
we grow the company. Prioritytwo is customers, are we giving
a great customer experience?We're looking after them? Are
they coming back? Are theyreferring? And priority three is
staff. And what Tony and histeam started to find was, hang
on, what if we flip thatentirely on its head? What if we
(04:39):
look after staff happiness andemployee experience and well
being first? Well, chances arehappier staff are going to take
better care of our customers. Sotherefore, our customers are
going to be happier, which meansthey're going to refer more and
come back more and not churn asmuch which means our
shareholders will be happier.And what he realised is the
whole priority list had beenbackwards. And that was
(05:01):
something that I got reallyinvested in and interested in, I
went, Okay, well, if the corefocus here is happy staff lead
to better outcomes across theboard. How do we quantify
workplace happiness and what Ifound through a lot of my work,
and I'm still completing mymaster's thesis specifically on
this research, it's beenpublished later this year, on
how we quantify and measureworkplace happiness was it's
(05:22):
built on five pillars. So thefirst pillar is staff wellbeing.
How healthy and well are ourstaff and we look at seven
different versions of well beingso emotional well, being mental
well being, physical well being,there's a whole range you can
look at, but wellbeing is apillar. Second pillar is how
engaged are our staff? Do theycare about what they're doing?
Do they feel confident andcompetent in their role? Third
(05:44):
pillar is what is our underlyingculture like this is where we
see things like diversity,equity inclusion have a role.
This is where we see things likepsychological safety and trust,
like vision, mission and valuesalignment. Fourth one is, how
great are our leaders. There's agreat saying, which is a cliche
for a reason that people don'tleave workplaces, they leave
leaders. And so we do need tolook at our leaders if we are
(06:04):
going to create a happyworkplace. And then our last
pillar, our fifth one is kind ofa lag measure of the first four,
which is burnout and turnoverresilience. And so that will
tell us if the first four arelow, how long have they been low
for if we see wellbeing is low,and it's been low for a long
time, chances are we seeburnover and turn out. Turn out,
resilience is also going quitelow. And the likelihood of
(06:26):
people leaving or gettingexhausted and burning out is
really high. And so we built atool to start measuring those
five and to go hey let'squantify these pillars. And in
doing so we've got a way toactually track and measure that
most important KPI that mostorganisations don't look at,
which is workplace happiness.
Sarah Spence (06:43):
I just want to sponge your brain into mine
because this is so interesting.Okay, why do you think
workplaces and I'm talking hereabout agencies and internal
marketing teams, specifically asthe primary people who are
listening - Why do you thinkthat they often wear this kind
of hustle culture like a badgeof honour?
Declan Edwards (07:03):
It's funny, when you look at the most commonly
burnt out industries, there arealmost two groups that are burnt
out for completely oppositereasons. So on one side, we see
the education, allied health,social work, very high burnout
careers, they're normally burntout from we call this the
(07:23):
helpers that forget to helpthemselves, very engaged with
their work, massively believe inthe purpose and value of it, but
they give give, give, give,give, forget to put up good
boundaries, forget to look afterthemselves, they burn out in the
process. And on the other sideof the spectrum, we have all
this burnout happening in thesetraditional, let's call it high
performance service based roles.So marketing is one, law and
(07:45):
accounting is another one, likeBusiness Services is a third.
And I think that's more beingdriven by this gap between the
two types of happiness that canexist in an individual. So one
type of happiness is hedonichappiness. That's our sense of
achievement and accomplishmentand output. It's very external,
it's dopamine driven. It'sexciting. It's, you know, fast
(08:07):
paced, but it also goes reallyquickly. You know, the hedonic
form of happiness. You couldalmost call it sex, drugs and
rock and roll, right? It's likewhat's going to give us that big
hit. And then there's eudaimonichappiness, which is a sense of
meaning and purpose andcontentment. What I find in a
lot of those industries, we justspoke about in that second
group, those high performanceindustries is their very hedonic
(08:28):
happiness focussed. It's what'sthe next outcome, what's the
next target? What's the nextgoal? What's the next
accomplishment. And whilstthat's valuable, because of that
spike that happens, and thatdrops off really fast, if they
don't have a cushion there, ofeudaimonic happiness, they don't
have a cushion of connection,contentment, meaning purpose,
the comedown from it, or thegamble that happens if you're
(08:49):
gambling, your happiness on theaccomplishments are going to
make what if you go through aperiod where you're not having
great output, and you're notachieving great accomplishments,
which is very natural inbusiness, right? That gap leads
a lot of people to go, Well, I'mnot getting that hedonic
happiness, therefore, I'm nothappy at work. It's like, well,
really, we could just build abit of a bit of a buffer with
that you eudaimonic happiness.
Sarah Spence (09:12):
Woah, have you just learned a new word? I
certainly have eudaimonic,eudaimonic happiness. Of course,
we're going to naturally havetimes in our business or our
working lives that won't belighting up our brains with
those dopamine rewards. It makessense to have space for
contentment in our everydaywork. But saying all this, and
(09:35):
then actually doing it. That's awhole different ballgame.
Because if I'm honest, I've beenpretty obsessed since day one,
about creating a culture thathonestly, not just says it does,
but honestly values creativity,curiosity, and empathy. And not
to put tickets on myself, but Ifeel like I've done a pretty
(09:55):
good job. I get lots of feedbackfrom the team and feedback from
our clients that things arepretty good on that front. But
if I'm honest, it's so hard towalk that fine line. So I took
my chances and explained mysituation to Declan, I wanted to
see if he might be able toenlighten me on what I can do to
(10:15):
continue to offer a genuinelysupportive workplace that's also
productive, successful andprofitable. Here's me trying to
explain my dilemma.
There's always lots of work tobe done. And exactly as you
said, we are in a continuousenvironment, there's rarely an
end to a project, you know, it'skind of there's always something
(10:37):
there's, you know, an extra bitof feedback that needs to be
incorporated, or, you know, itgoes live, but then it's, it's
months until we see the results.And then you feel disconnected
from those. And sometimes all ofthat does mean that there's very
little, like defined space, forthe creativity and the curiosity
like, it's much harder to say tothe team. Okay, go and have an
(11:00):
afternoon to just do whateveryou fancy to, you know, help
with your creativity. And also,you know, there are some people
who just, well don't necessarilythink they need that, or they
then don't do that. They just goand do something else. So it's
kind of like, I want them to dosomething that's going to
benefit them in their role. Butof course, I don't have control
(11:22):
in that way. And I have triedreally hard to build a continued
practice into everything we do,but it definitely doesn't always
work. So my big question hereis, from your point of view, how
can leaders in this highperformance industry space of
marketing, both in house andagency side, how can we build
and maintain that culture ofcreativity, innovation and
(11:44):
curiosity, which are actuallyfundamental to our roles to what
we do, while also building teamsthat get the work done, and then
layering on top of that, beingable to make space for and I
think this is really importantfor leaders and employees to be
able to have space to safelyprocess trauma from previous
(12:06):
toxic workplaces. Am I askingtoo much? Probably.
Declan Edwards (12:12):
I'm going to have a stab at it, I think we
can get it. So I think somethingthat's really important for
leaders in any high performingindustry to first grasp and
really take home is that thosefactors we spoke about earlier,
associated with workplacehappiness. So wellbeing,
engagement, culture, leadership,burnout risk. A lot of the time
(12:32):
we think of those things andlike staff looking after
themselves, or having breathingroom or space to process or
space to be creative, asopposite to performance. We draw
this weird like dichotomy wherewe go well they're either in
performance mode, or they're inlook after themselves mode. And
really, they're the same thing,right, you're not going to get
great output and great resultsfrom someone who is burnt out
(12:54):
and exhausted. There's a greatsaying that cut straight to the
core of it, which is a stressedbrain is a stupid brain. Right?
If you want your staff to thinklaterally, if you want them to
come up with great ideas, if youwant them to be creative, and to
innovate, and to be visionaries,they're not going to do that
when their brain is stuck infight and flight mode. It's that
simple. And so something Italked to leaders about all the
time is start viewing,happiness, wellbeing, all these
(13:17):
things we're talking about, asthe path to performance, not as
separate to performance. There'sthis great research by a man
called Shawn Achor from HarvardUniversity called The Happiness
Advantage. And he talks abouthow we often think we will be
happy after some form ofaccomplishment, but what we
actually find is by cultivatinghappiness now we perform better
(13:41):
and we're more likely to getthat outcome. So that'd be the
first thing. The second thing Ithink leaders can do is start
measuring what matters, right? Ialluded to it before with this
idea of like, quantify workplacehappiness as a KPI measure well
being if you go, what's reallyimportant to us is creativity
and innovation, find a way totrack that and measure it. The
reason being as much as it's acliche, what we measure gets
(14:04):
managed, right? It's one thingto talk about it. But if we're
not having a way to keepourselves accountable, and to
have reflection points andconversation with the team about
how we're progressing towardsupholding that value, or that
practice whatever it may be. Imean, it's just words on a
whiteboard, right? So Iregularly say to people, the
amount of workplaces now going,Oh, how people are our greatest
(14:24):
asset. And I'm like, Cool. Showme your balance sheet. Where
does all your people metricssit? And it's in the expenses
column. It's not in the assetscolumn. And so I go, Well, hang
on, you're telling me yourpeople are your greatest asset,
but you have no way of provingthat. And they will, what would
we put in our assets column? I'mlike easy, all the stuff we just
spoke about before. How happyand healthy your staff are, how
engaged they are, how aligned tovision, mission, values, how
(14:47):
creative they are, right? Werethier burnout tolerances. These
are all things that we canquantify as an asset in our team
columns when we're tracking ourcompany, so measure it and then
I think the last point on thisone would be co-create it. I
think a lot of leaders make themistake of trying to roll out
initiatives to serve theirstaff, but also get the most out
(15:09):
of staff. And they don't includesome pretty important
stakeholders in thoseconversations. One being the
staff, they're trying to helpand benefit in the first place.
Right. And the second one beinggetting experts and
professionals who've spent theirlife specialising in it. I
remember we've been working witha, we did some work with an
accounting firm. And when wepresented the findings of their
workplace happiness diagnostic,they were like, Oh, Declan,
(15:33):
we'll be honest with you. We'vespent the last two years and a
lot of staff time and hours andmoney building our own internal
version of this. And it pales incomparison to what you guys have
built. And I kinda blurted out,maybe without thinking, Well,
yeah, of course, you guys areaccountants, you don't
specialise in workplacehappiness, like, why did you
spend so much time buildingthis? I didn't build my own
accounting software. Listen to aprofessional, get the leaders on
(15:56):
board, because it doesn't workif the leaders don't backup, and
get the team to have an activerole in shaping it. That is the
sweet spot to creating projectsand initiatives that actually
deliver long term results.
Sarah Spence (16:07):
To your point at the beginning about the, you
know, when we go through schooland university, I mean, it's not
just like, let's not even getinto the subject of being taught
financial resilience andfinancial education, either
just, you know, adult orbusiness. But we just were not
taught this stuff. So when yougo to business school, or when
(16:28):
you work with a business mentor,quite often it's stuff like,
Okay, well, what's the balancesheet looking like? What's the
p&l? You know, what's the cashflow statement? How many more
clients can you get in? How canwe service more of those
clients? You know, it's, it'sall that stuff, because that's
traditionally what was measured.And therefore, that's what
people focus on. Because ofcourse, what you said is
(16:49):
completely right, what ismeasured matters. We have one of
our KPIs is around our tacos,which sounds really weird. But
there's a programme in Slackthat you can add into Slack
called Hey, taco. And if you tagsomeone, and then you, you add a
taco emoji, then it gives them ataco. And so we aligned. It's
(17:09):
our recognition programme,basically. And then it tracks
how many tacos you've given andhow many you've received. So we
as part of our KPIs, we trackand we report on well, how many
tacos did you give? And how manydid you receive? And are you
sitting at about the same level,
Declan Edwards (17:23):
I love that.
Sarah Spence (17:24):
And it's great, because then you also if you
give a certain number of tacos,you'd like get given a virtual
pet rock that you can then giftto someone, and you can do all
sorts of cool things with that.But we then align our tacos to
our values. So we are meant togive tacos it doesn't, I'm the
worst one for it. I'm just like,hey, taco for you. But we're
(17:44):
meant to align it. So it's meantto be like, hey, Declan, I
really wanted to give you a tacotoday, because this is how you
showed up in terms of the valuesof quality or confidence or
trust, etc. So we try and tie itall together in that way. But we
just started reporting on thelast quarter, when we finally
got our stuff together andstarted actually creating KPIs.
(18:05):
And suddenly everyone's veryaware of how many tacos are
giving and how many they'rereceiving. And they are seeking
out more opportunities torecognise their colleagues.
Because they know that it'sgoing to be something that's
tracked. Oh, yeah, and I loveit, too. It's like it's in there
with, you know, along with, youknow, what percentage of clients
(18:26):
renew their retainer, and youknow, all the necessary stuff.
But it's also things likecontributions to our remote work
environment, our digitalworkspace, everybody jumps on in
the morning, and kind of has toanswer a series of questions
about psych today I'm feelingtoday, I'm grateful for the
value I want to live today is,and today, I'm working. So
(18:49):
they're working hours for theday, because we have flexible
hours. And it's, you know, it'sthat that we track as well. It's
like, How often did youcontribute to those
conversations, because that'spart of the connection that we
try and build in the team. Andthis thing goes into that next
question I've got, which is atContent Copywriting, we have
worked remotely since before itwas cool. We've always been
(19:11):
remote workforce. And we try todo that honest catch up every
morning. And we do face to faceretreats, once or twice a year.
And since COVID, obviously,remote working has become a
thing. And agency work does lenditself nicely to that these high
performance industries. Youknow, there's a lot of there's a
lot of synchronous work thatneeds to happen. But there's
(19:31):
also a massive amount ofasynchronous work involved in
what we do. What suggestions doyou have for remote teams or
hybrid teams to help them createthat culture and maintain
connection even when they arephysically apart?
Declan Edwards (19:47):
Yeah, I'll start by answering this by
highlighting something that I'vebeen more and more mindful of
lately as we continue thisconversation around flexible
work and hybrid work becausewe've been doing the same. We've
been, you know, flexible andhybrid work for day dot, I
remember saying to our team, Iwas like I've employed you all
is very capable, functioningadults, I'm going to treat you
like capable functioning adultsI'm not going to give you set
(20:08):
times or expect you to be atcertain places, I just expect
you to do your work well and tobring the best version of
yourself to the workplace. And Iremember we did have an office
space for a little while thebuilding was sold during COVID.
And our whole team was like,Why? Why did we even have that
office space, like we all preferthis, we do monthly catch up
days in person, you know, westill do our retreats and
events. What I want to highlighthere, though, is it is a
(20:31):
privilege to be able to be evenlooking at things like flexible
and hybrid working arrangements,like for a lot of the a lot of
the economic landscape at themoment, a lot of the roles
people just can't do that.Right. Like it's just not a
thing. So first and foremost, Iwould say, treat it like a
privilege and not a expectation.I think that's a risk we're
(20:53):
taking at the moment as wenavigate this is everyone's
going to go oh, well, I expect,you know, full flexibility. It's
like, well, that's not going tobe viable for every single
workplace or for every singlerole. So if you're even having
these conversations, that's abloody cool place to be. Right,
take take an attitude ofgratitude towards that, in terms
of how you do it really well. Ithink more than focusing on
balance or flexibility, allthese terms actually think
(21:14):
autonomy is a lot more valuable.Because what works for one
person, your team might notnecessarily work for another.
And so I'm seeing a lot of workplaces make this mistake of
going, Oh, well, we're going tobe flexible, because we're not
going to we're going to workfrom home Fridays. And I'm like,
Well, that could be great forsome people and the rest of the
team could bloody hate it.Right. They're setting the set
in stone rules and trying toapply them to everyone. So the
first thing I would say, whichgoes back to what we mentioned
(21:35):
before about if you're lookingat doing stuff like this,
involve your team, talk to themabout it. But But autonomy and
ownership is huge. Right? Soasking your team to get actively
involved with what that lookslike for them is very powerful.
In that note, as well, I wouldsay talking to them about how to
know whether it's working ornot. Right? So being clear with
each other about like, Hey, howare we going to track whether
(21:56):
this is working and when I sayworking not just in terms of
like hard skills, outputs andoutcomes, but also in those
cultural ones, like we spokeabout earlier. And so being able
to come back to, hey, we'regoing to track whether or not
this is working by Yes, how manyof you, your clients are
renewing and all those things,we're also going to track it by
how connected you feel to yourteammates. That was something we
(22:17):
navigated with as we moved awayfrom the office space, we did
have to go back to fully remoteworking. We actually built that
into our KPIs for a whole 12months after that move, to see
how connection with each otherwent, and we noticed that sales
dropped. So we're like, okay, weneed to have conversation about
how we're going to reconnect,and we'll just open up to the
team. How do we want to do that.So similar to you, we do daily
(22:39):
stand up first thing in themorning. So we say hey, this is
when I'm available. This is whatI'm working on. This is who I
need help from. And this is mytwo word check in for the day.
So if I was to describe how I'mfeeling coming into work today,
in only two words, what mightthose two words be? It cuts out
a lot of the crap and just getstraight to the core. We also do
every Monday we do a team scrumwhere we do a full video, send
it through to each other.There's things in that like Who
(23:01):
do I want to give a shout out tothis week? Who's my recognition
point? Who do I want tocollaborate a little bit more
with this week and touch basewith? What is my core priorities
this week that matter most. Sobuild some questions in there.
And then once a month, we have ateam day where we come together
and do some deep work insomething fun. So whatever it is
for you as an organisation, ifyou go okay, first and foremost,
we want autonomy, we want ourteam to co create these. Second,
(23:24):
we want to be very clear on howwe're going to track whether it
works or not. And third, we wantto build I would say daily,
weekly, and monthly touchpoints, particularly because the
greatest thing you're going tolose if you're not facilitating
that is going to be connectionand collaboration. Right?
There's a lot of beauty thatcomes out as to things and I
(23:45):
highlight this so vocally at themoment when I talk to
organisations because whilstwe're all talking about this
move towards work from home andfour day work weeks, and all
these big shifts and shinyobjects that we want to jump on.
I think what we're missing isthe findings over the last few
years and this was pre pandemic,it's only gotten worse since
(24:06):
2020. We are living through themost lonely time in western
human history. Like we are themost connected we've ever been
as a species technologically.But more people than ever, are
reporting feeling lonely. And soif we're now taking away some of
those connection points andrelationships that can happen in
(24:27):
the workplace, I worry about howthat's going to exacerbate that
loneliness. I'm not saying weneed to all go back to the way
things were with working or bein the office. I'm a huge
believer in flexible andautonomous work. And so we've
done it from 2016. But I thinkwe need to be having
conversations around how do wekeep our team connected and
supported and I would be lookingat daily weekly, monthly as the
Sarah Spence (24:47):
Okay, so as creators, we need connection,
checkpoints for that.
psychological safety andautonomy. This all makes sense
to me. And as I said, I do thinkI'm trying my best to create
that in my agency. But I'd benaive to expect that everything
is always going to be okay in aworkplace, especially in the
(25:09):
current financial environment.But here's the thing. I know
this stuff works, becausewithout knowing exactly what I
was doing, I've been testing itin my team. The pressure has
been on for us lately, as Iknow, it has been for so many.
And it's been our culture thathas seen us through, I'll admit,
(25:30):
it's not been as strong as itcould be, especially at the
minute. But it's been enough, Ithink, to keep us together, that
eudaimonic cushion, we do havethat, at least parts of it
anyway, because I thinkotherwise, without it, I
probably would have lost thewhole team by now. And so I told
(25:53):
Declan this, and then he told meabout the small business myth,
the myth that keeps us smallbusinesses smaller, and why we
just can't afford to believe itany longer.
Declan Edwards (26:04):
I mean, look, small businesses are the
backbone of our economy. But thevast majority of businesses
aren't the big multinationalsthat have massive budgets and
hundreds of staff. And I thinkthere's this myth that leaders
go oh, well, all that stuff willbe good to look at once were a
certain size, or once weresuccessful, or once we can
(26:25):
afford to do it. And what I'mreally trying to bust when we go
out and work with organisationsaround this stuff is you can't
afford to not do it. Right,especially in this market where
talent is more and more focusedon how happy am I going to be at
work and how much does it alignwith my values. They're making
decisions now based on yourculture. So if you want to have
(26:46):
the best staff, if you want tokeep the best staff, if you want
people to perform their best atwork, you need to be looking at
this stuff not as anafterthought, but as a priority.
To put it in raw numbers,because I get it too. I'm a
business owner, I know how toput it in ways that people will
listen, all of the evidence andresearch in this space for the
last 20 years, the numberthey're looking at, depending on
the specific research, you lookat says for every dollar you
(27:07):
intentionally invest into stuffto improve workplace happiness,
your expected return oninvestment in 12 months is
anywhere from $2.63 to $3.70.Now, if I told you that there
was a stock that you could put$1 into, and we give you $2.63
to $3.70, back, what wouldeveryone be doing, it'd be a
rush to buy it. If I told youthere was a horse that was
basically guaranteed to win andgive you $3 back, people would
(27:28):
rush to bet on it. Why is itthat people still make the
mistake, right? I'll get to thatlater. Right. You're cutting
yourself and your business andyour team. So short by doing so.
Sarah Spence (27:38):
So what do you say then to either the CMO or the
senior marketing manager or thesmall business agency owner or
the freelancer who is justgetting the most inordinate
amount of pressure, either fromyou know, their bosses or they
know that budget cuts arecoming, for instance, or there's
(27:59):
just been a really tight fewmonths in the business? Like you
want your team to still feelpsychologically safe? And
obviously the threat of any ofthose things, is going to stifle
that. Should? Should we alllike, what's the trade off?
Should we all just be keepingthat, that stress completely to
(28:19):
ourselves, obviously, reachingout to other people outside the
business to whom we can get helpfor ourselves But is that going
to be the best way to getthrough it to, to not share that
things - not that they're toxic,that that things may be too
tight. And therefore stifle thecreativity?
Declan Edwards (28:37):
I think there's two things here. One is part of
the price of leadership and thereason you get paid more to be
in leadership position is youtake an inordinate amount of the
responsibility. Socongratulations, this is part of
your role. Stop complainingabout it, stomach it, right. The
amount of leaders I see that,they're like Oh, it's so much
more stress. I'm like, Yeah,that's why you're paid more,
(28:58):
right? That's why it's on yourplate, you are in a leadership
role. And I think as a leader,it's reminding ourselves, it may
not be my fault, but it is myresponsibility. Right? What
happens in our team is not myfault, but it is my
responsibility to address it andto help the team move through
it. The second thing I'd say isI'm a huge believer in radical
transparency in thesesituations, if we go back to the
analogy of treating us like anelite sporting team, right, we
(29:19):
don't need to cushion it and go,you know, oh, we've won no games
this season, but everything'slooking fine. Like, we'll we'll
be good. Let's just try some newplays. Like if a leader does
that, what actually happensironically, if a leader is too
cushiony and positive indifficult times, what we've
noticed is that the team's trustin their leader and how
(29:40):
competent they rate their leaderactually declines. Right? Your
team isn't stupid, that if yousugarcoat things too much in a
difficult time in a difficultchapter, your team actually
starts to go, they're obviouslyeither oblivious or they're an
incompetent leader. Right? Andso facing it head on going "Hey
guys, the reality is we are in atough climate at the moment."
And I think a lot oforganisations and he'd be having
these conversations now. Becauseeconomically, we're going
(30:02):
through one of the mostchallenging times of the last 20
years in Australia, cost ofliving, interest rates, you
know, potential recession, allthese things that are happening.
Realistically, if a lot of yourteam is under the age of 40,
they have never worked throughan economic downturn in
Australia, we didn't have one in2008. And we will lead through
the Global Financial Crisispretty well. And so this is an
(30:24):
uncertain time, right for a lotof people. And so being bold
enough and brave enough as aleader to go, "Hey, things are
challenging right now. Thingsare uncertain right now, things
are a bit tight." Now, thatmeans that we need to identify,
there's this thing called thePareto Principle, which is like
80% of your results will comefrom 20% of your actions, we
need to get really strategicright now with what are the 20%
(30:47):
that are going to deliver the80% that's focused on those
first and then that still havethis room for risk taking, you
know, try new things, testingthe waters still being
innovative. But let's make sureour foundations are solid first,
it would be like, again, if Iuse the example of a sporting
team, let's look back and findwhat plays got us the best
results, let's lean on thosemore often. And then let's top
(31:09):
it up with a few new things thatwe're going to test.
Sarah Spence (31:13):
Okay, okay. Okay. Here's one thing you need to
know if you haven't worked itout already. Declan isn't some
kind of wishy washy happinessguru, he's managed to create a
way to measure this somewhatintangible and often elusive
thing called happiness. And he'sgot the hard data to back it up.
(31:34):
And when he talks about thereturn on investment like that,
it's obvious that workplacehappiness should be front and
centre as a key indicator ofyour business success. So given
Declan is a data kind of guy, Iwas curious about how a
happiness college actuallymarkets itself. And so I asked
Declan if he markets, the actualfeeling of happiness? And if so,
(32:00):
how does he get that messagethrough that it's more than just
a feeling, that it's actuallyand can be, a core KPI.
Declan Edwards (32:07):
What we realised pretty early on was, happiness
is a pretty core human desire.Everyone shares the desire to be
happier in life. But if you justmarket it like, Hey, this is a
college to teach you the rightskills and tools and strategies
to live a happier life. It'scompelling, but there's no
(32:28):
incentive to prioritise it now.Right. And I'm very clear with
people I'm like, Look, we'redoing this work is very
important. And people working onthemselves and learning their
skills is, I believe, cruciallyimportant to creating a happy
life for themselves, and thenspreading the ripple effect that
makes it a happier world. But Ialso know they're gonna
prioritise things that have beenvery painful to them in the
moment. And so we recognise thecommon threads amongst people
(32:51):
who came to the college, werethese things like burnout,
emotional overwhelm, andexhaustion, anxiety, stress,
right? And we're going well,hey, the solution to those
things is ironically, the exactsame tools and strategies that
help you move up the laddertowards a happier life. And so
there's almost this push pullpain, pleasure sort of cycle
that we found resonated morewith people. And then on the
(33:14):
workplace side, yeah, it's goinghow do we quantify it and kind
of turning what I mentionedbefore, I think a big part of
our marketing message is goingthese previously considered
wishy washy, or conceptualframeworks, like culture and
wellbeing at work, and theysound really nice to talk about
what are we doing with them?They were viewed as intangible
(33:35):
and were viewed as opposite toperformance. And I think what's
helped us get a lot of tractionand breakthrough is like, No,
these are the one in the same.Like, I, when I meet with like,
teams and organisations talkingabout doing their workplace
Happiness Report, there's oftena CFO in the room, and I'm like,
buddy, I can talk your language.Let me show you with evidence
and data, right? How much of animpact this is going to make on
(33:55):
your bottom line and you take itor leave it, Right? It's that
simple. And so I think that'shelped on both sides, getting
clarity and specificity intowhat our message is, and how we
actually help people and servepeople. And to be honest with
you, it took us four years toget to that point, the first
four years of running happinessCollege because it's, it is a
new industry, right? Like, it's,I would say about saying Bloody
hell, if we were a carpenter orsomething and people just
(34:15):
automatically knew what we didby our title. We, it would have
been so much easier in so manyways, right? So to be able to
come out and create a new sectorand a new space took a lot of
market education. And it took alot of self reflection for
ourselves for four years, wedidn't even know what happiness
college did really, we didn'tknow how to communicate it. And
so we've been on a journey forourselves with that I'm very
(34:36):
thankful that we've always lentinto content marketing as a big
part of it and to I guess,thought leadership marketing as
well and positioning ourselvesas like, Hey, we are actually
leading experts in the field ofhappiness and and what it looks
like and what it means to live ahappier, more fulfilling life as
an individual and as aworkplace. And yeah, it's been
it's been a long ride, but it'ssomething that I'm still very
(34:57):
grateful to play an active partin. Like, I I genuinely enjoy
getting involved with ourmarketing guys and with our
marketing team to create goodcontent and to have good
conversations like this.
Sarah Spence (35:06):
Yeah, awesome. And so yeah, tell me what's what's
been working for you guys latelyin terms of content, digital,
all of that what's what's beenyour best plays?
Declan Edwards (35:16):
Yeah, on the individual side. We've always
found live events workexceptionally well for us be
that guest speaking for anotherorganisation, we found very
early that partnering up withthe fitness industry works
really well, because there'speople in there who are already
intentionally working on theirwell being, but they're only
doing it from one lens. And youwould be perhaps surprised to
(35:38):
find out how much mental healthand emotional well being
challenges run rampant in thefitness industry where
comparison and expectation andperfectionism are so high,
right? So you get people inthere who want to work
themselves that it's not doingit holistically. So speaking of
gyms has always been fantasticfor us. We do live talks and
events around Australia, we usedto do it geez, I'll never do it
this way again, speaking ofburnout, in 2019 I did seven
(36:01):
cities in 11 days and then flewoverseas and did a speaking tour
of Texas. Never again, will I doit that way. Now we do we do one
talk every couple of months in adifferent city. But it's been
interesting to notice thatthere's almost this appetite
again, for like live webinars.So we do a lot of content on
social media, talking about whatwe're doing. And they go, Hey,
by the way, I'm going to do apop up event on stress or a pop
(36:22):
up event on burnout, it's 10bucks, we're going to donate a
meal to somebody in need forevery ticket we sell. You know,
jump on for us it's a lossleader, we didn't really make
any money on the event. But itgives us a chance to talk about
stuff and to introduce people tothe idea of a happiness College
and a happiness coach. And thensome of them will go through and
join the college and enrol. Andwith workplaces. Honestly, the
biggest one has been LinkedIn,I've been blown away by how
(36:45):
powerful LinkedIn is. Fordriving the workplace happiness
consulting side of ourorganisation. I, it's quickly
become my favourite platform toput content out on I think it
lends itself really well tothought leadership and
positioning yourself as anauthority in your space. And so
yeah, even when we're launchingthe workplace happiness
diagnostic tool and the happyworkplace accreditation, I was
(37:06):
just putting posts up like, hey,tag the happiest workplaces in
the Hunter region, I want totalk to their leaders, I want to
find out what they're doingwell, and people would tag away
I'd just contact them and go,hey, we've built this,
apparently, you're doing greatthings, we've got a test that
can prove it or show you whereyour gaps are. And if you are
doing great things, we'll giveyou an accreditation as a like
recognised happy workplace. Andyou can put that in your job ads
(37:27):
and in your EVP and in yourbranding. And none of that would
have happened, had it not beenfor having a bit of an audience
on LinkedIn.
Sarah Spence (37:34):
I'm interested in your perspective on the world of
AI and Chat GPT. And perhaps howit plays out in what you do. But
do you feel like chat GPT,particularly is a friend or foe
or a flash in the pan?
Declan Edwards (37:47):
I think it's a friend. And I say that because
I'm assuming it's listening. Andone day they'll take over and I
wanted to know that I'mfriendly. But no, I say it
because we got on it prettyearly. We integrated it into our
team a couple months ago nowprobably earlier this year,
literally when I say integrated,we've given it a name. So our
Chat GPT up is called "Happy"which I took a day off Africa
(38:09):
with the name HAP dash e likeWall-e, but for a happy robot,
definitely took a break aftercoming up with that one. I was
like I deserve an afternoon off.I named it so well. So our team
were like, hey, Hap-e, can youhelp me with this, we gave it a
full role description and likeexpectations of its role, like
we onboarded it like a staffmember. And our team has loved
(38:30):
it. And I think what excites meabout it. Over the last, I'm
gonna say 100 years or so, rightfrom the industrial revolution
to now, if you go back to theIndustrial Revolution days,
probably even to the 1950s themajority of work was focused on
what we could do with our hands.It was manufacturing, it was,
(38:50):
you know, agriculture, it was itwas manual output, that then
became increasingly automatedand became increasingly assisted
by machines. And so we moved toan economy of what could we do
with our heads? Right? And sowe're moving more towards
knowledge base and like, youknow, what can we come up with
as ideas. I think this is thestart of the next chapter of
(39:11):
human development, whereincreasingly, our work is going
to be less about what we can dowith our hands and with our
head, but more what we can dowith our hearts. That humanistic
side that emotionalintelligence, that empathy, that
connection to others, thatservice of something greater
than ourselves, I think is goingto be an ever growing market.
And more and more in everyindustry. In every industry, I
(39:34):
predict, it's what's going tomake you stand out is how well
you've dealt those soft skillsor those human skills, those
heartled skills, and it's what'sgoing to future proof your job.
Because at the end of the day,like with the way AI is growing
and developing, it is going toreach a point where it's as
smart as this, if not smarter,but I think it's gonna take a
while. And maybe this is just metrying to vehemently protect my
(39:57):
own job, but it's going to takea while before it has those
emotional intelligence, softskills, and before it can do the
human heart centred work. I'mexcited for this next chapter of
human development and what itmeans for our careers.
Sarah Spence (40:11):
I love that. And I'm gonna say it again, because
it's so worth repeating. Ourwork will be less what we can do
with our hands and our heads,and more what we can do with our
hearts. I have had so manyconversations about AI this
year, and nobody has framed itin that way. And I absolutely
(40:32):
love that as a concept and a wayto look at it. I agree that
we're at the start of this nextphase. But I just picture it
differently to Declan. I pictureit more about what we can do
with our ideas, and creativity.It's been about manual output
from the brain for such a longtime that we're speeding up so
(40:54):
many of those processes now.Now, it's more about those
creative human ideas that comefrom both heart and the head.
That's what we're at the startof. For me, it's that combo of
the approach both head andheart. But what a beautiful way
to look at the changing natureof work. And this whole
(41:15):
conversation with Declan reallyties into the future of our
workplaces. Because the futureis here. It's now and it's not
just about AI, it's about ourvery human hearts. Here's to
more workplaces adding happinessas a core KPI and embracing
their greatest asset, theirpeople. Thanks for joining me on
(41:36):
this journey. If you want tostay rebellious in how you
practice marketing, how you showup in your workplace and how you
live your life. Please subscribeto the Content Rebels wherever
you listen to your podcasts.This podcast was recorded on
Awabakal and Darkinjung countryproduced by Pod and Pen Productions.
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