Ep. 052 - Linda Jarnhamn - Sustainably human
Performance and productivity. Two important words in today’s work environment. And also, two charged words, because - what do they actually mean? Many of us will have experienced some kind of arbitrary, unfair, strange, administrative process that attempts to evaluate the work that we do.
With Linda, we take a scientific and neurological perspective to human thriving and guides organizations on how to uncover sustainable human potential and performance.
Listen to full episode :
Available now on
Spotify
Apple Podcasts
Google Podcasts
About Linda:
With a passion for brain health and cognitive performance optimisation, Linda strives to inspire positive change at individual, organisational and societal level. She’s on a mission to create a world of work where humans truly thrive, by applying neuroscience to the heart of people and culture practices.
Having worked and lived for over 20 years outside of Sweden, she has solid experience of leading change in complex, multi-cultural fast paced environments. Linda now splits her time between being an
- Entrepreneur and curator of neuroscience-based health tech solutions
- Behavioural transformation leader focused on optimising brain health and performance
- Advisor on well-being research and mental health (''Mind') to the International WELL Building Institute
- Facilitator, host and speaker at events, conferences and awards
Want to connect with Linda:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/linda-jarnhamn/
flow²thrive:
flow2thrive
EP. 052 Transcription
[00:00:00] Shani: Hi, my name is Shani and welcome to the Experience Designers Podcast, where we explore the human experience, what it is, and how we might create better ones for ourselves and for others. Performance and productivity. Two important words in today's work environment. And also, two charged words, because what do they actually mean?
[00:00:27] Many of us will have experienced some kind of arbitrary, unfair, strange, or administrative process that tries to evaluate the work that we do. Or, we will have taken part in some well being initiative that is fun and well
[00:00:44] intended, but still ends up missing the mark on helping us
[00:00:48] sustain health and performance over time.
[00:00:52] In this episode, I'm joined by Linda Linda Jarnhamn, founder of Flow2Thrive. She takes a scientific and neurological perspective to human thriving and guides organizations on how to uncover sustainable human
[00:01:06] potential and performance.
[00:01:09] We take you for a wild ride, discussing everything from what performance actually means in a knowledge based organization, to what metrics actually tell us anything about performance in the workplace, and who is actually responsible for making it all better, and much, much more.
[00:01:30] Enjoy! Welcome,
[00:01:33] Linda: Linda!
[00:01:35] Shani: Thank you. Thank you very much. I'm so excited to, to have you here and to, yeah, just dive into sustainable human potential and performance with you. But before we talk like all the big, big things, I always like to land and, know a little bit more about you. And you've had a long career in consulting and Ended up now working very much with, with focus on well being from a scientific and neurological perspective.
[00:02:12] And so, I'm just very curious to hear in your words. What, what led you to this path? And, uh, yeah, tell us who you are
[00:02:22] Linda: who I am. Should I start with a question about who I am? Yeah, it's a big question.
[00:02:28] Shani: You can interpret it freely.
[00:02:30] Linda: I tend to say I'm a Swede who's lived outside of Sweden for most of my adult life, uh, to start with.
[00:02:37] Um, I, spend my. Literally 20 years abroad working and living in London and in the Middle East before I moved to Sweden, just before the pandemic. As you said, I've worked as a consultant, pretty much my entire career. Um, but I think there are a number of sort of defining moments, if you like, that took me to, to where I am today.
[00:03:03] Both personally and professionally. And I think, you know, professionally work tends to, there's always something in, in what you do that tends to sort of have that trigger point for a change. And for me, the moves to the different countries have definitely been one. Because I think that's where you, you fundamentally start to challenge yourself in very different ways.
[00:03:31] And you get to learn and get to know yourself in a very, very different way. Uh, and, and for me, that's, I think I've become very clear of who I am as a person, which has helped me tremendously, both personally and, and as a consultant, standing quite firm on the ground. I hope, hope the people who know me sort of agree, agree with that.
[00:03:54] And, and the second part is around more personal, uh, where I'd spent, I literally spent 10 years with large consulting firms. And, I think it was 2009 years disappear. I literally, I, I, I crashed. Uh, and I, I'd known for a while that I wasn't quite well, uh, But it just literally hit me and I spent eight months trying to get back.
[00:04:26] And, and it's, it's interesting now when I look at that, cause that was fundamentally the first. Real trigger for me to take me to where I am today. And I spent the first eight months, eight, number one, blaming, uh, the organization that I had worked for or the organizations that I had worked for or what had happened, but I quite quickly realized that a lot of that and what happened actually I brought upon myself in terms of, I didn't eat well, I didn't sleep, I didn't move, you know, and I worked and I worked a lot and consulting is.
[00:05:00] You do work a lot in consulting, but I also think, you know, a large proportion of that I've driven myself. So I've driven myself to work to, to, to that point. But that really took me to the first point of change in terms of really making changes in terms of how I work. And the second there was around a couple of years later when I discovered neuroscience and that's where fundamentally I got into where, where I am today, where I started to study, um, a coaching certification based on neuroscience, which for me, just opened up a completely new world.
[00:05:36] You know, I'd spent a large proportion of my time working with HR on HR transformation and big transformation programs, and I could suddenly see why things. Hadn't really worked out the way we wanted, why people hadn't actually changed the way we would intended or wanted them to do because we work and live in ways that are totally opposite to the way that our brain actually would like us to work.
[00:06:02] That in itself then took me on a real quest to, to discover more and learn more. And what got me to set up Flow to Thrive, uh, which I run today, which is basically focused on helping organizations. Change the way they work collectively and individually and to measure well being risk and performance potential.
[00:06:25] Amazing.
[00:06:25] Shani: And very relatable as well. I mean, I share a lot of the path with you of having worked in, in corporate and in HR and, and I've made some of the very same observations that a lot of what we create in terms of solutions is actually entirely counterproductive, um, in terms of the value that we want to create, for sure.
[00:06:47] Thank you. Yeah. But I would love to dive in with you, because when you talk about, you know, what's a good human experience, you talk about this kind of sustainable piece of human performance and potential. So yeah, let's, let's dig into that a little. What, what does that mean to you? And how do you describe it?
[00:07:07] What's, what's part of it?
[00:07:10] Linda: For me, it's all about individuals being able to. Feel, be and perform at their best without damaging their own health, being, being able to perform. And I think this is the challenge today. You look at organizations and I thought quite a bit about this after we spoke last time is, you know, organizations spend a lot of time on training.
[00:07:35] You go into an organization to provide value, right? To add something to, but also to learn and to grow and to add what I tend to say, you put stuff in your bag of experience so you can, you know, either stay and move on within the organization or go somewhere else with that bag.
[00:07:50] But that's what people tend to, you know, that's what we tend to focus on. But what we do, uh, both individually and as organizations, uh, what tends to happen today is... We come into that organization and we add skills, we add knowledge, we add competence, but we come out of it worse than we were before we joined.
[00:08:11] And that's what sustainable human performance for me is about, is that you, you know, you put, you both grow the individual, but you also work on making sure that you do that in ways where the person comes out of, because at some point everyone will leave an organization, they will come out of that. Being better also mentally and physically and feeling better as, as a person overall.
[00:08:38] But that is the challenge we have today that we don't. Hmm. I
[00:08:44] Shani: love that. And that also kind of makes me think, you know, this, this image that you're sharing, it's not something that we don't talk about. We talk about this a lot. A lot of people see it. A lot of people are frustrated with it. And yet we don't change it.
[00:09:05] Why?
[00:09:06] Linda: What do you think?
[00:09:10] I mean, if we look at it from two different perspectives, one is individually and one is, you know, organizationally. And if we look at it individually, I think a lot, a couple of things here. Number one is we can't Well, it's hard and it's sometimes expensive to look into your brain, right? And to look into and understand the health of your brain in the same way as it's hard and it's difficult, it's sometimes expensive to look into the overall health of your body.
[00:09:42] You know, we have health checks, etc. But rarely do we really look at the biomarkers and the things that truly matters from a risk perspective. So individually, I think it's very easy. Plus a lot of the things that we do have been normalized. So we don't even question the fact that they are not right and that they can actually be damaging to our own health.
[00:10:03] And we've got thousands of examples of what that can be, right? But that's fundamentally one and that's, so what happens is that, we continue to work and it's only when it's too late. When we crash, you know, like I did many years ago, it's happened to me again, despite the fact what I do, because you are when you're at your worst, you're also typically the most blind to what's currently going on around you, right?
[00:10:32] And very often also people around you are scared of telling you that something, you know, that maybe you should just stop. We're not good enough at that. And I, I personally promised myself to. Always, always do that. I've had encounters personally with friends, very close friends who've been very ill.
[00:10:51] I've seen it. And I've noticed it, but I haven't felt that I've been able to tell them and I've regretted that afterwards. So for me, I've, you know, personally, that's something I promised myself to always ask much earlier. Because it's much better to ask than not to, right? Hmm. So I think that's one.
[00:11:12] Fundamentally, we don't really see it until it's coming. So we're aware to a large extent of a lot of, you know, what we need to do, what we should do, what's good for us. But until we make the change, that's sufficient enough to have enough impact on how, you know, to make us feel different. We need to sometimes make quite a few changes and that, we don't have patience today to do that.
[00:11:38] And that's the challenge. We want quick changes. And that's where, you know, you've got all the different fads flying around. Um, because we want quick changes and quick changes don't happen. When you've grown something over a lifetime. And establish these habits, throughout a career as your lifetime, you're not going to change that overnight and have any day right now.
[00:12:02] And, you know, as, as, as organizations, why, why are we not changing? I think organizations are changing. Organizations have changed. I started my journey with corporate well being 2017 ish. That's when I started the quest and asked the question, can exercise. Really help reduce stress and improve proper cognitive performance.
[00:12:26] And that's sort of what got me to build what I've got today. And at that point I was out in Dubai, Middle East was very, very different. But I think even looking globally, companies weren't looking at well being strategically. And I think today more companies are, but we're still scratching the surface.
[00:12:46] And, and I think the reason companies are not focusing on it sufficiently enough. is because they're not looking at it from that performance perspective and in terms of actually measuring the impact on performance. So whilst there is a lot of research showing a very, very clear link between people being well, And people performing, and I see it in the index that I have very, very clear, you know, people who are mentally well also rate their cognitive, but companies are not measuring that.
[00:13:23] So leaders, you know, the C-E-O-C-F-O, they want to see the numbers, but there aren't still enough numbers around and therefore it's become, it's become a lot of fads. It's become a lot of bits and pieces, which companies are sort of trying to do. So I think it's great because we're trying, we're trying to make a change and we want to make a change.
[00:13:50] But as you and I discussed the other day, I think sometimes they're putting people in charge of making the change, making the improvements. You're actually part of creating the problem in the first place. So we need to. There's a lack of competence and skill to really truly understand what makes a brain work well and to be well, and we're not many companies are not measuring and baselining to really understand what the challenges are, where the challenges sit and how different they might be between individuals and across the organization to understand what it is that's triggering stress, what's triggering illness.
[00:14:28] To then address that, right? Or they won't address some of the issues we've got. No,
[00:14:39] Shani: I get it. And I think also from where I'm sitting and I recognize a lot of what you're saying, we're kind of feeding these nice campaigns. We're putting in these beautiful initiatives and trainings and free yoga classes on Wednesday.
[00:14:55] And actually it's so much deeper. And I think what you were highlighting in the individual piece in particular is that it's habits and behaviors, and we're not that quick to change those, irrespective of how much we want it. I, I know last year I had a period where I wasn't exercising. Do I know it's good for me to exercise?
[00:15:20] Yes, a hundred percent. I know that. And yet it was really difficult to start making different choices. And. I think what I observe is also that from an organizational perspective, all these initiatives, these, um, yeah, whatever they are, these kind of, it's a little bit like makeup or band aids, and it's not really getting to the root cause of the problem.
[00:15:48] what is driving our stress? So what is driving our choice to work over time or, you know, kill ourselves trying and I've been in your shoes as well. I burnt out really early in my in my career and probably for many of the same reasons of not being able to balance ambition with the demands that were coming externally and from the workplace.
[00:16:17] So I think, yeah, that is probably something that makes it hard because I've worked at this from other angles, and I always find that when you do point out two companies, well, if you're measuring this, you're, encouraging a behavior that you don't want. But there is still so much fear to let go of these metrics or these other things that we're doing, these structures that we've created.
[00:16:47] And so we're kind of sometimes never a little bit stuck, I think. And there is like this leap of faith of courage that you need to take when you start doing or measuring new things.
[00:17:00] Linda: It's interesting is that I'm doing a presentation in Dubai on, on measuring wellbeing in, in about a month's time.
[00:17:05] And, uh, and one of the things that I spoke to one of the co presenters about the other day is, you know, you're measuring, most organizations measure absentees, right? And that's good. It's good to have an idea around what that is. But if you look at presentees, and that's what I call well being risk and, you know, performance potential, it, the cost of presentees is, depending on what study you look at, it's four times, it's 10 times, it's much more significant.
[00:17:37] in terms of its impact on productivity. So, you know, if there is something we should look at is to understand that and what's driving that, because again, then if we're not well, we will be present, but not, actively present and delivering to our best. I think it's very simple. I think another reason for companies not genuinely not caring or not doing enough is the fact that they know that an employee is only going to be with them for a certain period of time.
[00:18:09] So let's face it, unless you can see and measure and track the immediate impact that certain changes can have behavioral changes on your productivity performance. You're not going to care. And I think if you look at, you brought up yoga and it tends to come up, you know, all of these little initiatives, they are going to have a little tiny piece of impact at a certain point of time, and maybe a little bit over a longer period of time.
[00:18:37] But if you look at something like, you know, removing interruptions, and I work with one of the large Swedish companies around this, and they had tremendous result in, in terms of productivity. By just. Making some changes around removing interruptions during the day, both in terms of how they interrupt themselves and how they're interrupting each other.
[00:19:01] So, you know, again, if we look at what should we measure? Well, starting to measure how often we actually get interrupted. Interruptions is 90 percent of productivity waste. In knowledge based organizations today, 90%. Right. So if we measure that, and if we reduce that, we'll start to see immediate impact. And that's where, organizations are starting to get, suddenly you're ready to, to invest.
[00:19:27] Money making those changes because the return is, is immediate and quite significant, whereas for some of the other things you might be investing today, but let's face it, the person you're investing in might be somewhere else at the point you're, you're, you're leveraging that result. And not many leaders, whatever they say, are prepared to make that investment.
[00:19:51] Shani: No, I love that you're bringing this up also because this is one of the things I wrote down while I was listening to you that we're, I mean, a lot of us are in, in the knowledge type of work where It's very hard to measure productivity, some, some of the things that we contribute with is showing up and asking a question or having an idea and probably we're going to have 10 before there's a good one.
[00:20:18] So how do you even approach this idea of performance and productivity? in a way that isn't dismissive of what it takes to actually do these kinds of jobs. And that's not to say in any way diminish manual work, because I really don't, I have a lot of respect for that too. But it is more complex to measure productivity in a knowledge based organization then.
[00:20:46] Than in, in any type of manufacturing
[00:20:48] Linda: It is, and I think that's, that's another area where we need to do some work because productivity in, in an innovation driven world. Means something very, very different to what most people associate productivity with, right? And, you know, that's why my favorite topic around the four day work week, if we look at some of that, they haven't even tried to define productivity, which is a flaw in itself in the studies, right?
[00:21:23] Um, but having said that, the way we think about productivity today is based on, old industrial era... That type of thinking that sort of come in, we're still stuck in that mindset of producing more in less time with less human effort, right? Produce, but again, in an innovation driven world, it's not about producing.
[00:21:55] It's, it's very, very different. Again with AI, chat, GPT, you know, all of these types of technologies that are just having tremendous impact on organizations and the way we do things. Some of that productivity question almost becomes irrelevant from a human productivity perspective. I, I believe that we need to really challenge the whole idea around productivity because it means something different.
[00:22:25] I haven't got the answer yet.
[00:22:28] Shani: That was going to be my next question. What have you discovered? Because I totally agree with you. We need to challenge this idea. And to my ears also sometimes we need to challenge even the idea of performance in the mental realm. Of course we can have stamina and physical performance but what does it even mean?
[00:22:49] When we, when we put it into this context that we're talking about.
[00:22:54] Linda: But I think what we need to do is to look at, which is really interesting. We're also, because of this mindset, we're using our brains incorrectly. And this is, I find incredibly interesting when we talk about working from home and working from the office.
[00:23:08] People say they're more productive. Again, it's because I think a lot of people think that they're productive because they can sit down. You know, peace and quiet and focus and, and I think incorrectly, we've become obsessed with focus and focus is important. And we'd actually, we also do it really poorly, but not being able to focus, to disconnect, to open up your mind, you know, you need a very, very different space.
[00:23:37] And this is where I believe that we fundamentally need to change You know, the dialogue around how, how and where we work today, because we're obsessed about where we work, whether we work in the office, whether we're working from home, and the brain itself doesn't care whether you're working at home or in the office.
[00:24:01] Your mind might, because you might have made your mind up, but the brain doesn't. It cares about the elements in the environment. And again, this is where, from a, what are we going to invest in and spend money on, companies are spending a lot of money, some, at least, many, on doing up the corporate office, to get people back into the office, right?
[00:24:25] And millions, fundamental changes to get people back into the office, creating healthy environments. And that's fantastic. But the challenge is then, if you've got thousand people working three days a week from home, With no change to the environment there, over time, we're going to start to see that impact,
[00:24:53] right? Because people will be sitting in a, not everyone has the luxury of having their own office, right? So the light will be poor, temperature, you know, energy, energy prices as they were last year. It'll be interesting to see what happens this year.
[00:25:07] Shani: Yeah, I know some people were sitting in their goose down jackets at home, yeah.
[00:25:12] Linda: I'll tell you, the light, temperature, air quality, I'm measuring air quality in our house. We live in an old house and we've had some really interesting insights around that, uh, and um, particularly around, you know, how you burn candles in Sweden during the dark months, uh, and things like that that have a significant impact.
[00:25:34] So people will be sitting working from home in. sometimes quite poor in, climates and environments, but companies are spending money in the office. Right? I'm not sure how we ended up here, but here
[00:25:49] Shani: we are. Here we are. Yeah.
[00:25:51] Linda: No,
[00:25:57] Shani: but I, I, you know, I think we, we started in the idea of challenging a thought of productivity and I think it's really relevant to, and I love what you brought up around this obsession with focus.
[00:26:09] And, and what you also put on the table around the ability to disconnect and equally to connect, because I also find that a lot of those environments, they're very haphazardous. It's kind of, it doesn't really make for necessarily depth or deeper connection or more like detailed observation or just, yeah.
[00:26:37] Just creating this. These meetings that we really need to do because the environment is about being productive. So as soon as you feel like, oh, this isn't a productive discussion, then maybe you kind of put a lid on it. No, I'll move on. I'll go to my desk. Whereas I've always been very much a fan of always making space for the human piece.
[00:27:07] And if you want to tie that to an idea of productivity, then yeah, I do believe that when we, when we know each other. Once we do have to create something together, it's so much easier to get there and it's so much easier to do it without too much misunderstandings, without too much friction. So yeah, there's so many aspects to this of challenging it, both on this relational level, but also as you're pointing out.
[00:27:35] You know, we're obsessed. We have all these like, trendy ideas of working here or working there or setting up an office in this way and everyone should come and collaborate and instead we're, we're totally ignoring this thing of a as you're pointing out like, Yeah. looking at the data that we have inside of us, like how are we even reacting to our environment on a, on a physiological and neurological level?
[00:28:05] Um, and also a lot of what we work with in EX is also Are we even talking to people about, their lives, their challenges, how an office or how work fits into that life? How are we even using that knowledge to actually create these different environments to make sure that we can sustain our ability to contribute?
[00:28:31] And I think it's, I mean, I say what you say, I don't have the answers. I have a lot of questions.
[00:28:38] Linda: I want to come back to, to, to innovation in a bit, but just to sort of continue your conversation around relationships. I think meaningful social connections is one of the fundamentally. least well understood, uh, really important aspects of, you know, human cognitive and cognitive performance.
[00:29:02] Because we fundamentally, meaningful human connections is the most basic fundamental need we have as human beings. before food. I need air. You know, it really, it's massively important. And, and, and this, we're not taking serious because it was really interesting because I've, I've been working with the large consulting firm in the Middle East where we measured stress through various monitors and wearables.
[00:29:29] And, One of the really major insights that came out of the two projects that we did was the power of relationships and the power of being close to people you, you trust and, and, you know, and, and like, and really the, the importance of both the family, but also the trust. In, in the teams and how that we could see because we're measuring stress, you know, on a minute by second by second basis, basically, um, through a heart rate monitor and, and you can see how this changes as, as they interact with different, you know, in different settings.
[00:30:12] And interestingly, quite a large number of the measured higher levels of stress in meetings in virtual meetings. than if they were to meet their teams. Face to face. Hmm.
[00:30:27] Shani: That is interesting.
[00:30:28] Linda: It is interesting. And I think something definitely worth thinking about in terms of what that means around how we interact, as people together. Um, so that was just one, but coming back to, to, to productivity and innovation. Yeah,
[00:30:44] Shani: let's go back to it.
[00:30:47] Linda: Because I think there's something very, very simple that we can do here.
[00:30:52] Um, both individually and collectively. And it is to think about the fact that the brain has a lot of different networks, but in essence, if we stay on two, the attention and executive network, and that's the one that we tend to try to use when we focus, but we don't always use very well. And, and then we have the default mode network.
[00:31:16] And this is what we're not using enough today. And that's where we're sort of just. We stop focusing, we're floating, and we're letting our mind wander, right? And, and this is why we tend to come up with ideas when we're in the shower, cycling, whatever it is, because we're not focusing. But again, it's in a, in a world where we need to be creative, where we need to be innovative and come up with new ideas and think differently.
[00:31:49] Sitting like you and I are doing now, you know, the executive network will be. Switched on. And so if you're then sitting like this. trying to come up with new ideas. You're not going to do that because this network, one of the key features of it is to try to minimize how much energy you're spending. So whatever you do, it will go down the path of least resistance.
[00:32:19] back to the things that you already know. So I tend to say if you try to innovate and create new things by using that network, by sitting like this, by actively brainstorming, you will create more of the things you already have that's slightly different. You very rarely come up with true, genuine ideas in that moment.
[00:32:43] You might come up with something related to what you've discussed or something totally different outside of that space. Yeah. It's where your brain is disconnected. And, and this is important from a how we work perspective. Again, to change the conversation around where we work, right? From home or from the office being more productive.
[00:33:06] Well, again, if productivity means coming up with new ideas, you should be spending more time outside. Go
[00:33:11] Shani: on a walk. Yeah.
[00:33:13] Linda: Go for walks. And this is another thing that one of my clients have done. They fundamentally challenged and changed how they just go for walks, not walk and talks. They just do walk, no talks.
[00:33:26] And it's become culturally accepted to just literally leave the office and go for a long walk in the middle of the day and everyone will know what's going on. But it's actively not activating your brain to let it, let it see where it goes.
[00:33:48] Shani: I love that. And yet that type of action is exactly something that within a lot of frameworks at work, we frown upon it.
[00:33:57] And people struggle to do it. Yeah, and we feel lazy. I know. I mean, I know these things. And yet, when I... Even when I make the choice to do it, the first moments of it is like guilt,
[00:34:14] but it's hard.
[00:34:15] Linda: I think you wrote something the other day, right, on LinkedIn, and I think it's that, you know, you just have to let go, you have to trust the process and see what happens. And I tend to... I still struggle with some of this, right? I've made it very, very strategic and I think you can make it very strategic.
[00:34:36] You can go for walks, you know, go outside and you can go for, you can do a walk and talk. You can do a walk just to recharge, right? Or you can do a walk where you actually You just plant something in your mind that this is what's going to be the theme, but I'm not going to think about it. No. No? And just see what happens.
[00:35:02] Hmm. But the, if there's one thing we need to do more of to help our brain to sort and reflect, to sort of reconnect in this world now, is to do less. more often. And that's not a four week holiday. It's every day we need to do less. more often, and strategically during the day, and actually plan that time.
[00:35:35] Shani: I love that.
[00:35:35] And it makes a lot of sense on an individual basis. And then I know you work with this at scale. So I'm also curious, then, if we look at this, then on a collective or an organizational level, do we then track or measure? Instead of maybe the more traditional measurements that we use, and you've mentioned some things before, but I'd love to, to dig into it a
[00:36:01] Linda: little more.
[00:36:02] So I've, I've developed a whole model around it. So I do it very structurally. And, and I have literally you've got, so it's all elements and factors that can impact. How you perform and how your brain performs and the health of your brain in terms of how you work. We have one bucket on place of work and we have another one on way of living.
[00:36:26] But if we're staying on way of working for the moment, where I have three groups and we measure this. We ask questions very, very specifically around these. So I have what I call grounders. And those are the things that really makes us stand firm, whatever goes on around us. It's things around purpose, meaning, trust, psychological safety, and belonging.
[00:36:51] And if we have that, we, you know, we, MPs tend to stay, this is really interesting because they can have an incredibly stressful and disruptive environment ever, you know, in terms of what they do, but if, if they feel safe and trusted, they will stay. which can be incredibly dangerous to some extent if you've got, you know, a lot of very, you know, engaged, uh, high achievers in your organization, because they will run towards war.
[00:37:18] You know, they will crash at some point because they won't see it. So having only strength in your grounders. isn't good, but it's a very, very good foundation. And the second part is about energizers. And these are the things that really generate energy in your brain. And this is, these are factors like how you move.
[00:37:41] And this is both in terms of natural movement during the day and how you move whilst you're working. I mean, we talked about it, um, just, just before. How you rest and recharge your own perception around control and autonomy and clarity around plans for the future and what needs to get done. And, and the latter two are really quite interesting because we tend not to think about them as energy, you know, as energy giving or taking, but they.
[00:38:15] They really are, because, and also these are factors that are very, very individual. We all need to move, and we all need to have breaks, but we all have very, very different... Needs when it comes to an understanding and perception around what a clear plan means, right? So for you, what being, having a clear plan might be something very, very different to what it means to me.
[00:38:40] And this I think is incredibly important to understand within teams. And the same with control and autonomy, right? But if we haven't got that, that tends to be energy draining, yeah? And then we have the drainers. And they said, this is why we've got the 90%. So this is around, right, how we interrupt ourselves, how we interrupt each other and multitasking and, uh, and mind wandering overall.
[00:39:12] So how we're letting it again, mind wandering can be good. If it's positive, that's brilliant for, you know, coming up with new ideas, but negative mind wandering, sitting there thinking about, you know, a colleague that's annoyed you or whatever it might be. That's not good. That's stressful. That's draining you.
[00:39:27] So we measure these factors. I think there's, I can't remember now, 13 or 15 in total. And, uh, together with what I call key well being indicators. So indicators around stress. brain energy, your own perception of productivity and cognitive performance. So what we can do is to have a baseline on, on those measures and the key, what I call KWIs, and then see exactly where the organization is across these factors.
[00:40:01] And then start to make changes. And if we then go into that with a collective understanding how these factors can impact our brain,
[00:40:13] it's also much easier to start making the changes, right? If someone interrupts you and you've agreed that you're going to stop sending chat messages, late in the evening or, you know, when someone has got a red flag on it, whatever it might be, it's very easy to challenge that person and say, Hey, we agreed to, not do this.
[00:40:31] Or, you know, whatever it might be, where you fundamentally understand, uh, have the same level of understanding of what actually is good for your brain. So it's not about what we want anymore, to some extent, we need that too. But it's about Fundamentally understanding what it is that makes the brain be well and work well.
[00:40:55] Because what we want isn't necessarily what's good for us.
[00:40:57] Shani: No, I think, you know, it becomes increasingly clear the more I explore these things that our desires and our needs are two very separate family of things. And we don't always desire the things that are actually good for us. Quite to the contrary.
[00:41:16] I have so many different directions I could go with this in terms of questions. Um, I think there are two, two like things I would like to explore with you based on this one is
[00:41:28] Who is responsible for this in an organizational context? When you get all this data, like, who actually takes responsibility? Who owns this? Because I found working with people questions, and I'm sure you share some of that experience, that you can sit on all the data in the world and then nobody picks it up and actually can or uses their mandate to act on it in a way that that produces something different in the end.
[00:41:56] But the other piece is also that I'm curious about, yeah, a little bit more in detail. Like you talk about metrics that are quite specific neurologically, and I know we spoke before and you said you measure everything. And so I'm also curious about Do you do that for all the people in organizations then?
[00:42:17] Do you like strap something on and measure for everyone? Or is it more of a survey base? Two big questions, different directions. Where do you want
[00:42:26] Linda: to go first? Let me address the last question first and then remind
[00:42:30] Shani: me of the first. We'll come back to the second one.
[00:42:33] Linda: So do we strap people up? Um, no. I would love, if there is an organization out there where we measure everything, I'd love to do it.
[00:42:43] Right. Um, But I think that's quite hard to do what what I've done on what I think really is is incredibly impactful and insightful is is to combine a data from a wearable and data from, uh, I've used my index right? The float thrive index to do this where, you know, structured in the same way as we just talked about.
[00:43:09] So when you combine the objective data of a wearable and, and the subjective, you do two things, right? One, you start to get insights about things you had no idea what's going on, you know, what's actually triggering stress within yourself. And I'll come back to that. And secondly, you start to increase and improve your interoceptive awareness, right?
[00:43:34] Around who you. are and what's truly impacting you. So over time, I've had a wearable for four years, the same one. And I become incredibly aware of what impacts me. I don't need it anymore, but I still, I love it. So I still use it, but I can wake up in the morning and I know roughly what my scores are.
[00:43:58] And that's where you want to get to, to truly learn to understand yourself. Um, because then you become very sensitive to it. So. So that's what we, that's what I do with, uh, have done with, with a couple of organizations. And it's phenomenal to see the impact that, that it has. And, and the interesting bit with Wearable is one of the major conclusions we drew with, uh, with a consultant firm in the Middle East is what they realized is that what they thought was stressing them out wasn't at all what was stressing them out.
[00:44:30] And this was a top, top leaders of the organization. So, you know, they suddenly realized that all the things that could impact or impacted themselves emotionally had a much greater stress trigger than things maybe related to their client that they thought could be, you know, going out and have a presentation, you know, challenging pitch, whatever it might be, but because that's not related to them or their team members, Specifically, potentially their team members personally, it didn't trigger the same level of stress, but when we really truly care about something, and we think that can have a negative feel, it has a negative effect, that's what physiologically really triggers, right?
[00:45:22] Um, and then we found some really interesting bits around. You know, that we eat, if you eat late, what happens then to your sleep and to your stress levels during the night? You know, when you fly, you tend to think, Oh, I love flying. And I think, you know, I'm really good at focusing when I fly.
[00:45:39] But when you see the physiological reaction and the stress levels that that actually can cause, you know, maybe you start thinking about when you should fly as much as you do as some people do. Because it really has a, you know, quite significant impact on stress. I also measure stress, not stress, but I also measure, uh, neurologically.
[00:46:03] So I've got a number of different wearables to measure how your thought processes go, which I think is really interesting. That's the next level. I personally, I measure it, as I said, I measure air quality. within the house. Um, I've mentioned, uh, ketosis and ketones. Yeah, you can, you can measure everything you want.
[00:46:28] I've had one of these, what do you call them for diabetes, glucose, glucose. Yeah, that's incredibly insightful in terms of real, just. Recognizing and understanding what actually triggers, your blood sugar, so you can use a lot, but as a conversation I had with a client the other day, and as you just said, you know, more data doesn't necessarily mean more changes or better changes.
[00:46:52] It's these small, really meaningful changes, uh, that really matters to us that can have compound impact on. on our health that we want to know. And that's, I think, when you have a simple wearable that measures HRV, sleep and movement, for example, particularly HRV, heart rate, heart rate variability, uh, and you do that and have that conversation in a structured way around Factors that can impact, you can really start to pinpoint the little factors that can, that you can make changes to, right?
[00:47:31] So I had one, when I ran this coaching program, I had a couple of people who literally just actually decided to back to, to social to, to have a number of non negotiable evenings where, because they were, some of them worked really late, um, have non negotiable evenings where there was no work. They just spent time with their, with their children and with their families.
[00:47:55] And, and that had phenomenal effect on their stress levels. Overall, others, you know, massively ramped up their movement, uh, change when they exercise from the evening to the morning, where you can really narrow in on exactly the things that you need to change.
[00:48:18] Shani: I love that and, and I think it really resonates also in terms of working with, with EX more realistically, like we do, um, where you of course can have both. Subjective and objective data, but it does become as you're pointing out, really relevant to have the data of the actual behavior. So whether it is the actual behavior collectively of people or the behavior of our body in response to something, then Those two in relation to one another, then it becomes powerful, but if it's only you guesstimating things and you're not actually tying it to some kind of physical response, then then it can be pretty Empty, empty data.
[00:49:08] But then that actually leads me quite nicely into the next question, because then you have all this data, all these people who know all these things. And then you, we want to use that to create a more structured change in an organization, say so. Yeah. Who owns that? What does that look like?
[00:49:31] Linda: That was the first question.
[00:49:32] Who owns that? You know,
[00:49:40] I fundamentally, it's not the answer you want, but I'll get to it.
[00:49:43] Shani: I want your answer. I'll get to it in
[00:49:46] Linda: a bit. I think fundamentally, right, we all have a responsibility. for how we're impacting the people around us. So what we need to really think about in respect to this, and I think this is where the whole hybrid conversation has just lost, lost the point a little bit.
[00:50:11] We've become very selfish and looking at a lot of things from my perspective, what I want, what I need, uh, what I think we need to do is start looking. outside of and think about how do I impact the rest of, people around me, the organization I work with, and even broader than that, right? But if we stay within the organization, we need to understand that everything that we do, every habit that we have, every behavior will impact someone else.
[00:50:42] Their life, their day, their stress levels, and how they feel and therefore also how they perform. I think we all have a real responsibility here and now to fundamentally think about how do I, how do small acts that I do impact others maybe significantly by changing a meeting, by sending a request late at night.
[00:51:11] Um, because not everyone switches off their emails and there's a different conversation around who's responsible for receiving and sending, but, think it took a request for something to be responded to by the morning. How can actually help a small request can multiply. across an organization and have impact.
[00:51:29] So I think we all have a real genuine responsibility to think about all the little things that we do, how they impact others. Fundamentally, from an organizational change perspective, this needs to, it needs to be role modeled at a senior level, but I think it needs to be owned at team Level.
[00:52:01] Shani: Yeah. But then I wonder, how do you move past the, the shallow, like Band Aid initiatives?
[00:52:11] Because, I mean, I've seen tons of these. This needs to be owned at the team level. And then you throw out just like all these. PowerPoint decks for people to discuss in the team, but there's actually no mandate to actually change anything because the the framing metrics are still the same. So how does it become possible for the team to really have the autonomy here?
[00:52:38] Maybe back to this one of the words in your in your energizers here that how do how do you then give them that autonomy? Well, I
[00:52:46] Linda: think, let me pull that back a bit, because I think we've got things need to change at. individual at team and at organizational level. Yeah. And, and that's where, or, you know, divisional business, whatever it is, where you, whatever you put the change, uh, agenda in place.
[00:53:06] And we need to be clear on what the individual can influence and impact, what the team can do and what the group can do. And, and you've got to move way beyond. You know, um, a PowerPoint as you, you refer to, and this is where, you know, I worked with, with, uh, some clients here in Sweden, and we're going to do the same in the Middle East in the autumn, is to, to run a series of sessions and events where you measure, you inform, and you go through the things that I talked about, but you really go into depth around it.
[00:53:39] So again, you know, if you've got a hundred people, you've got a hundred people with the same level of understanding and awareness of. what a structured way of working could look like, what good look like. Let the group actually work this through together in terms of what they're currently doing. Because we need to separate, and I think this is a mistake we make.
[00:54:02] We tend to blend into one session. This is sort of neurologically. what we do wrong and what we need to do right. You need space in between those two. Cognitively, our brains can't do that, uh, very well. So I think you spend a session around learning and understanding what really is a good way of working and talking about, realistically, and pulling out really what it is that's triggering.
[00:54:30] The interruptions, what, why we're not going, you know, why we're not moving enough, why we're not taking enough breaks. And then that's where we've, from that, brought it into team level. So for the teams to create their agendas, to then bring it back up again to maybe organizationally unit level and say, This is what we collectively, because typically if you do this, there are little changes or differences between the teams, but very often are the things they come up with quite similar.
[00:55:06] And it, you know, you create an overall agenda for the, for the organization, but the teams are still in charge, whatever you call them, whatever you structure, right? They are the teams themselves are responsible for how they interact and collaborate and make these changes. But the trick is then to come back and measure it and to have the conversation again and to build and to reflect on, you know, what worked, what didn't work, what were the things that we thought was going to work really well.
[00:55:41] And have this very honest, open conversation. And it's interesting because when, when I've done this, we're also asked a question around level of effort. And people always rate themself and their own level of effort much higher than the team. Of course. Yeah, it's quite interesting in itself to reflect.
[00:56:02] upon, but it's also been very clear that the teams where they made real effort, they've had, they've seen real impact on productivity and performance on the energy levels that they have. But what's important here, the really interesting insight that I looked at today is if you look at people who feel less stressed and feel well, feel, they rate Psychological safety, trust and belonging, for example, much higher than the ones who are stressed.
[00:56:39] Much like 40 percent mass massive difference, but they still work very often in a very unproductive. So they still multitask, they still interrupt themselves, they're still getting interrupted. But because they are, because of how they're feeling safe, and they tend to be stronger physiologically, they can sort of deal with that, but they don't feel that they're performing better.
[00:57:11] So to perform better here and now, you've got to address the interruption.
[00:57:23] Shani: But then I, I'm still curious how, because when we talk about the individual performance and we can measure, of course, like how much we're being interrupted or not, or interrupting ourselves, how much we're multitasking, all these feelings. Is there not still this need on the, on an organizational level to somehow.
[00:57:47] understand the output of that, like the, the, the performance that we try to measure in our performance reviews, that's the kind of need we have to satiate as well with these things. So what is it that we get that we give on that end? What, what do they measure? Uh, whoever is overlooking that kind of process, what can they look
[00:58:11] Linda: at?
[00:58:12] So in an ideal world, right, we would link all of that together. I'd love to do that. And I've got a separate project running.
[00:58:23] Shani: Yeah, you will continue this. I'm, I'm, I'm on the discovery with you. And let's see.
[00:58:29] Linda: I've got something cooking. Um, but you know, in an ideal world, that's what you would, would do. And, and that's something you could easily link individual.
[00:58:40] If we're collecting the data, you know, if we're collecting personal data, quite often I don't because I, you know, we, we, we don't
[00:58:48] Shani: ask
[00:58:48] Linda: for personal identifiers, but you can write and that's an easy process to get through if you really, if you want to. And I could easily map that for an organization in a, if I were given the performance ratings.
[00:59:04] for the individuals that, that taken part and you can really, but again, that's subjective performance, right? But it's one step, because again, what's performance? Who's getting
[00:59:19] Shani: it? Right? I mean, and the thing is, I'm also quite often in the camp of saying, you know, there is also a level of trust that needs to be had in these.
[00:59:30] In these situations where you, you need to fundamentally believe that when a single individual is actually feeling better and doing better, that is automatically going to contribute to a better result for the company. But then I think sometimes I also want to invert it because I've, you know, I've, I've led teams as well and I've seen people work so hard.
[00:59:56] And use all their competence and produce something of massive value only for somebody from somewhere further up in an organization come and say, 10 weeks or six months later, actually, we don't need this. And then all of a sudden this person is suffering because we're rating their performance as less than because they spent time on the wrong thing that was actually the right thing to begin with.
[01:00:19] And so I also think that sometimes. For me, this discussion is like two way one is of course, we help people in some way, find the right way to like sustain their own well being, but on the other hand, I also think that sometimes organizations are not turning the light enough to themselves and actually be looking at measuring, you know, what are we doing, how well are we actually leveraging this person who's feeling really well, doing really well?
[01:00:51] Are we? Thank you. using what their potential are we creating a ground for that? And so yeah, sometimes I think that, we're so focused on measuring the individual. And sometimes I think the organization should be measuring itself. And on the other hand, I totally agree with what you're saying in the beginning that, you know, there is always a measure of individual responsibility.
[01:01:22] And they're in parallel with one another. And I think when we get kind of snowed in on, yeah, but I need and I want and we don't have this question in front of us of what does the work need? Like, what is needed for us to achieve these things that we do? And what do I need to be able to contribute with that?
[01:01:42] When there's no discussion like that, then yes, of course, the individual track becomes Sometimes even destructive. So yeah, I agree with you. There needs to be a balance, but then I think I want to translate that also to the organization, um, and see, what are, how are we as an organization looking ourselves in the mirror and going, Are we actually doing the work?
[01:02:05] The right things? How many times have we interrupted somebody's work, trashed a project that somebody spent time on, said no on a hunch instead based on data? You know, there are lots of things and behaviors like that happen on an organizational level. I'd be really curious to see, where we end up and understanding where that balance lies.
[01:02:27] Linda: No, I think you're absolutely right. And I think it's just scribbling in the same way as we're obsessed with focus. We're obsessed with skills and time. So and we tend to associate skills and competency with being able to perform. Right. Experience, skills and competency to be able to perform. And I think to your point, we need to also look at what are we actually.
[01:02:55] You know, what do we address it? Pointing our attention towards. What are we doing? What are we spending our time on? So, you know, as you just rightly said, you can have someone with brilliant skills for the purpose of whatever person is coming in to do. But their time and attention is directed towards something that's totally misdirected and, and in the, in the end will be disregarded.
[01:03:21] So therefore the skills are wasted, right? And, and you can do, you can have the right skills and competency, but you're not strong physiologically and mentally. So therefore, again, it doesn't matter what you know and what experience level of experience you've got, you're still not going to be able to perform.
[01:03:39] And that's why I tend to measure. Potential, because if you can understand, and if you as an investor, as a leader, whatever it is, you know, who's, who's got an interest in the organization, if you can understand that an organization is only, cause this is really, this is one of the triggers that got me into what I'm doing is, if you can understand the potential that's being leveraged within the organization at any point in time.
[01:04:08] You can understand the potential future value of that organization being able to continue to create or deliver value for whatever they're doing, right? And most organizations today, with the stress levels we've got, with the mental illness, Illnesses challenges that we've got very, very few organizations are operating at full potential.
[01:04:33] And this is back to the old machine that, you know, if you'd had a bunch of machines operating at half their capacity, you'd do something about it. You'd really do something about it to make them well, we've got to do the same with the human brain.
[01:04:50] Shani: Yeah. And I think the tricky pieces that we Even we ourselves, when we come to work, we treat ourselves and we relate to ourselves as machines.
[01:05:02] We don't, the things that you talk about here, the things that we need to take into regard, the breaks, the space, the, the interruptions, those things, those we frown upon, but those are actually the things that, that make us better. And we would like it to be an even, an even performance. And that's not, we're not even built for it.
[01:05:26] Um, so it makes it hard, but I love. I love that the question that you're raising here around, you know, how well are we leveraging our potential as organizations, because that's the inverted question to ask ourselves as as a collective structure as well. And there's, there's so much ground to cover here.
[01:05:48] And we might have to pick this up and make it another discussion along the discovery, but maybe let's try to sum it up a little. And, and think just around, you know, if, if we, and I think we need to have these two tracks, right? That, that the collective and the individual, if we really want to enable our own sustainable, you know, wellbeing and performance, what are.
[01:06:16] some of your best, like, low hanging, low hanging bananas, as a manager of mine used to say. What are some of your, top hacks to get started?
[01:06:30] Linda: Individually, um, if we start, uh, should we start with individual? Let's start there. Right. Um,
[01:06:44] well, my challenge is I don't think there are many hacks, , that's the first one, right? To realize that it is a journey, right? It's a journey that's gonna take a bit of time, and you need to have patience. Mm-Hmm. And you need to be consistent. Consistency is key, absolutely key in every type of change that you make.
[01:07:18] If there are two things, I might get to a third, two things, from a, do I, and it's interesting because I work with a functional medicine doctor in Dubai quite a lot and people don't come to her because they're ill, they're worried about their performance and losing their jobs, not to solve their problems.
[01:07:40] So if we think about the fact that most people want to come to work and perform, and we're asking the question from that perspective. There are two things. Three. There are three. No, there are four things. Move more and disconnect your brain more often. Right? So you need to deactivate your brain and you need to reactivate your body more frequently.
[01:08:08] I love that. That's two.
[01:08:13] Interruptions and control what you can control. So I tend to talk a lot about controlling the controllables. So don't try to control the interruptions and the stuff that happens to you, well some of the stuff that happens to you, you can control, right, because you can switch off notifications, but also control how you interrupt yourself.
[01:08:35] I tend to ask in presentations how often people check their phones and it tends to be between 100 and 250 times a day, that's sort of every, less than every five minutes. Um, that's a significant amount of interruption. So if we can control how we're interrupting ourselves, because that will have an impact both on our ability to focus and our ability to be innovative.
[01:09:03] Because the creative and innovative mind can't work with a lot of interruptions either. So that's three. And then the fourth one is sleep.
[01:09:17] I did a study with Crescent Petroleum, uh, in 2017, where we measured stress through monitors and lots, all sorts of cognitive tests. And the whole purpose of the study was movement, to see how movement impacted cognitive performance. But there was one thing, and research shows the same. Had a fundamental impact.
[01:09:41] On the day after, on the immediate performance of the individual, and that was sleep. If you've slept well, you will perform well. If you've got the right skills.
[01:09:52] Shani: And the right skills, yeah. They count too. But
[01:09:57] Linda: if you haven't slept, you simply will not perform as well. And what's interesting is, it's the same with stress.
[01:10:03] The more stressed you are, the more, you know, the... The more poorly you sleep, the less good will you be at picking up and admitting the fact that you're stressed or sleeping. So those are the four things that I would say, you know, that you can immediately, you can impact yourself if you want to. Four great
[01:10:25] Shani: things.
[01:10:27] And hard, probably. Depends. Depends how disciplined you are.
[01:10:34] Linda: Consistency, right? And also understanding the chain of events here. Because if we are, adults are a bit like babies. Babies who don't sleep well during the day will not sleep well during the night. We're actually the same, not sleeping necessarily during the day, even if that can sometimes be good, but if we don't, if we take more breaks and if we move more during the day, we will sleep better at night.
[01:10:59] It's a cycle. It's not one or the other. They will impact each other. Sleep against sleep,
[01:11:07] Shani: as you say, with babies.
[01:11:08] Linda: Yeah, exactly. And organizationally,
[01:11:17] I think fundamentally understanding, knowing why you want to do something, right? Being very clear on that. I tend to ask that question, and very rarely do I get a straightforward answer to why an organization is focusing on well being. Everyone wants their people to perform better, but, but if you, in terms of being well, feeling better, why do we want to do that as an organization?
[01:11:45] And be honest about it. Do we want to do it from an, you know, MV brand experience? Do we want to do it because we've got, we know we have fundamental issues? Uh, to address what, why do we want to do it and then identify and really baseline what the real issues are that you need to focus. I have clients that I've worked with for many, many years and you have sort of stepped in and out of different, initiatives, but one thing keeps coming back and it's ways of working.
[01:12:22] And fundamentally, you know, I think as organization, something that you can control way. The way that you work is something you fundamentally control. I think this is where it's gone wrong because most organizations focus on stuff that's related to way of living and it's great that we're increasing awareness of what to eat, you know, how to move and socially and how we spend time in nature and stuff like that.
[01:12:48] That's great. But ultimately, that's the responsibility of the individual. Yeah. Organizationally, you have a responsibility to create the environment. And create healthy ways of working, which can also help the individual to create healthy ways of living, right? And then back to, I think, somewhere where we started around, you know, place of work and the work environment.
[01:13:15] Recognizing that in, in this world, where we, Yes, we're going to be hybrid, right? Or, you know, whatever model we want to call it. Uh, you know, for a long period of time going forward is that there are three different environments to address. and stop obsessing about getting people back into the office and start obsessing about why people actually come to work, why people work for them and how they add value.
[01:13:46] And there, there are three elements. It's the corporate office. It's your home office and the virtual environment and all three needs to be addressed. In a balanced way. In a balanced
[01:14:01] Shani: way. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we, we do much of the same. We say, you know, don't ask how people can come back, ask, you know, what they need to do a good job.
[01:14:12] And then you can distribute those insights to the different environments that they are in and figure out how you balance your project work and your budgets and all that according to actually understanding the people who are in your organization versus. How you want them to be, which they most likely won't because people do what they want in general.
[01:14:34] Um, this was a great summary and I've learned so much and, have so many new questions to bring with me. So thank you so much, Linda, for, yeah, just being here and being present in this, this moment in this conversation. It was a lot of fun. Thank you so much.
[01:14:54] Linda: Thank you. It's been, it's been great. Thank you for having me.
[01:14:57] Shani: Thank you for listening all this way. There was a lot of ground to cover and still many questions left to explore. Nevertheless, I hope this episode brought you some new insight and please share with us if it did. If you want to support the Experienced Designers Podcast and keep exploring together with us, please make sure you are following us on your preferred platform or even better, rate us.
[01:15:22] Shani: And share this episode with someone who you think could really benefit from it. And if you have any reflections, suggestions, or questions to share with us personally, the easiest way to find us is through LinkedIn. After all, better experiences are born from iterating together. Thank you again for listening.
