• Fatimah Abbouchi

00:00

You’re listening to Agile Ideas, the podcast ed by Fatimah Abbouchi. For anyone listening out there not having a good day, please know there is help out there. Hi, everyone, and welcome back to another episode of Agile Ideas. I’m Fatimah, CEO at Agile Management Office, mental Health Ambassador and your  On today’s podcast, a first-time returning guest, Karen Ferris.

00:28

Karen is the director at karenferris.com, a Melbourne-based consultancy focused on organisational change, workforce resilience and leadership capability uplift. She is a self-professed organisational change management rebel with a cause pushing the boundaries of the industry and never accepting the status quo. Acclaimed internationally as an author and a speaker, with industry acknowledgement of her reputation as a thought leader, she provides strategic and practical advice and insights to her audiences. Her ability to share her experience and knowledge ensures that everyone is empowered to make a difference within their organisation. She’s also the author of eight books on leadership, change, remote working and workforce resilience, and this year, she saw the publication of Remarkable, the New Leadership Mindset. Whenever you hear Karen speak or read her writing, you know she will challenge you to change your perspective.

01:24

This episode covers various topics around organisational change, the return to office mandate, leadership and workforce resilience, and many more. So, stay tuned, as Karen will also share a unique discount code on her new book. Please join me in welcoming Karen to the show. Karen, welcome back to the show. Thank you so much. It’s great to be here. Thank you. You are our first return guest, so I’m very excited to have you back here. And I was just about to say I want to talk to you about the elephant in the room, the return to office mandate that I know you’re so passionate about. So, can you share your thoughts on the return to office mandate? You know, for against what are you seeing, hearing? Tell us all about it.

• Karen Ferris

02:14

So, you’re right. I’m very passionate about it because I’m against any mandate to return to the office. The office is just a place we go. I keep saying work is what we do, not where we go. And if I do my best work at home or in a library or in a hotel or a cafe, whatever it might be, then that’s where I should be able to do that work. I should have that flexibility, and I should have the flexibility to decide when it makes sense for me to go into the office when it’s worth the commute because I want to get face-to-face with my team, or I believe that collaboration will be better done in person. But it’s intentional, not because it’s a Tuesday or because these mandates say you either must be in five days a week, regardless of the type of work you’re doing, or you must be in three days a week, and we’ll tell you which days. So, I commute on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday to do precisely what I could have done at home and been far more productive because it was focused work. I’m lucky I have a home office. I could do quiet, focused work and probably far better than I could in an office and all the things that are being cited, as you know. We need you to come back because it’ll impact our culture. Well, I’m sorry, you’ve never had a good culture. If that’s the case in the first place, I challenge anyone listening to look for a definition of culture that talks about a location. It’s about shared values and beliefs, and experiences. It’s nothing to do with the building. And they talk about innovation. You and I could innovate brilliantly from where you are today, and I am, and we might decide it might make sense to get together, and then we would, but it’s not preventing us from collaborating or connecting. And when people say, oh, you know there’s a connectivity issue, I say that’s not a remote issue, that’s a leadership issue. So, I think we’ve moved on. You know, COVID gave us the greatest experiment in how we work, and I think they’ve come out of it with great flexibility and autonomy. I can arrange my personal life around my professional life rather than the other way around. But, yes, we’ve got a group of employers and agree, they tend to be the larger organisations who are going like, no, we want to go back to how it was pre-2020. Well, it’s not going to happen. Those enforcing that, and the research is there now, and the numbers are losing talent. People are just walking, and you know they’ll lose that talent and then the people left behind are the ones that have to pick up the slack. So their eye’s on the door too. So it will have devastating consequences, which we’ve already seen. I mean, Dell is the prime story; if you like what Michael Dell said back in 22, I think it was that organisations enforcing people to go back in the office were misinformed.

05:20

It was totally wrong, and they’d got it wrong and everyone went well done. A year later he says you’ve all got to come back in the office to total black backflip. Then, they started color-coding people based on the number of times that they were in the office. So when you’re in the office full-time, you get a green code. This goes into your performance review. Wow, hardly in the office you get a red code.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

05:46

I mean, it’s just that’s going to improve the culture for sure, oh yeah, absolutely.

• Karen Ferris

05:50

And then now they’ve said, um, that you, you know, must return to the office or you won’t get a pay rise, and you might, in fact, lose your job. And 50 of the dell employees are pushed back and said get off, you know, go away. 50 to push back say I’ll take the pay cut, and I reckon they’re saying I’ll take the pay cut. And Dell employees have pushed back and said get off, go away. 50% have pushed back, saying I’ll take the pay cut, and I reckon they’re saying I’ll take the pay cut, buy my time, and go elsewhere. So it’s backfired. And they’ve just done their annual employee survey. Yeah, it’s gone through the floor.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

06:21

Oh, my God, you know what the challenge is, and I’m playing devil’s advocate here. It’s hard because there’s probably certain companies or managers or team leaders that perhaps have seen, you know, a few of those bad apples that ruin it for the bunch, the those that really do take that piss out of working from home and take advantage. It’s like, how do you, you know, how do you balance being flexible but also dealing with that, because you know you don’t get to see that, and I think that’s maybe what some leaders are fearful of.

• Karen Ferris

06:55

I mean, I think one of the big things for a lot of leaders is that they just still haven’t got their head around managing remote people. Now, the person who’s shirking work, working remotely, were probably shirking work when they were in the office. Yeah, very true, we’re not working. This is about performance management. And all because they’re remote doesn’t mean that we, you, don’t manage them anymore. You do. You should know if they’re not. And this isn’t talking about surveillance software. That’s not. You go there. This is about agreeing outcomes and deliverables and timeframes and expectations with an employee and then checking in on a regular basis how they’re going. Then that’s a conversation the leader and the employee should have, and then, if that keeps repeating itself, then it’s, you know, a performance management situation that’s no different remotely than it was in the office, I think you’re 100% right.

07:53

It’s easy for your leaders to blame. Oh well, they’re remote and that’s the problem.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

07:57

Yeah, exactly, you know, I really like that your comment around they don’t know how to manage remote people. That’s not something. Prior to COVID we’ve really had a book for or a course or something, and I know there’s you know some people out there that probably are experts in this space, but there’s not enough leadership, you know training and whatnot for that, and then we were thrust into it with COVID. And then, when it comes back to you know those bad apples, you right, they’re probably the ones that weren’t really working anyway, or, as my husband likes to say, chatting around the water cooler all day and didn’t actually get any work done. So probably those people.

08:33

But it comes back to character. So I’m guessing, like those that are honest, that’s their character and they’re going to be honest and giving them the flexibility I know for me and for my team made us happier because the time that you spend at home with your family, you’re saving the commute. Not only is saving money a bonus, but it is just being able to have that, and for me like going back a few years and remembering having to call a boss and having to drive in two and a half hours one way to get to an office and the anxiety behind having to, you know, feel bad because just all these things. It just alleviates that by giving them the flexibility and the choice of being adults.

• Karen Ferris

09:16

Yes, I mean, it’s like you know. I mean, I mentioned employees surveillance software and this is you know, I’ve quoted these numbers time and time again surveillance software and this is you know, I’ve quoted these numbers time and time again in march 2020 and the company’s called top 10 bpn and they started to monitor the global demand for employee surveillance software and it’s around about it went up in march 2020 by 80 percent compared to the same time the previous year. So that was so. We all thought that was an eject reaction or managers going, oh my god, I can’t see them, I need to monitor keyboard strokes. The fact is it hasn’t dropped, it’s maintained that level of surveillance. And you know, when you talk about character, it’s like if you are monitoring employees’ keyboard strokes, you’re saying I do not trust you. Exactly, exactly, what’s that doing to culture?

• Fatimah Abbouchi

10:05

you know 100, like you said, the culture probably wasn’t there in these places to begin with. My question, being the you know person who cares about process, would be what systems and processes do they have in place to ensure that the goals are clear, the objectives, the results that we’re trying to attain and then having a rough idea as a leader of you know what take, what time it takes to complete these activities and then monitoring the progress towards them? And if you don’t have those systems and processes in place, then you’ve got to use you know malicious software to track keyboard strokes, which we now know that people can manipulate the keyboard and the mouse with the flying fans and that’s the crazy thing.

• Karen Ferris

10:45

everyone’s talked about, oh, productivity, productivity. And the fact is that we are, rightly or wrongly, driving employee behaviour that says I must keep wiggling that mouse, exactly because my boss believes that the green light means I’m busy, even though I could be, you know, deep in documentation and blah, blah. God help me if it goes yellow, because he’ll be on the phone saying what you’re doing, exactly, you know, and people are coming up with very ingenious ways. Yes, exactly, green lights on oh my god, it’s horrible.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

11:17

But look, thanks for you sharing your thoughts. I just thought I’ve got to get that one out of the way because it’s a never-ending debate. Another one I wanted to touch base on. So, obviously, being the change management expert that you are, I’m seeing I’m not sure if you’re seeing, I’m curious. At the moment I’m seeing a bit of a trend where, like a few years ago, with the rise of Agile Ways of Working, I saw the PMO landscape disintegrate and dissolve. Now it’s coming back up because organizations are realizing they need that governance. I’m seeing the same pattern with change management, it seems like in a really unusual place. What trends are you seeing in the change management space in terms of organizations and their you know, I guess appreciation for that role and that function?

• Karen Ferris

12:01

I think it has reached a point where I’m seeing more recognition.

12:06

I think there was a lot of lip service, um, and then then it’d be oh yeah, we need change management, but you know the project manager can do it or we’ll give someone in the project management office that that role.

12:18

It’s like no um. But now I think those companies that have, you know, dedicated resources to that function and are embedding it in ways of working and embedding it in leadership, and it’s not just it’s the move now, I think, which is good, it’s, rather than just it’s those three people there it’s becoming more embedded into the organization. More people are talking about it. You know, we need organizational change, and unfortunately, we should never have called it that because when I say I do organizational change, people think I’m moving chairs and, you know, building offices and things. But, um, it’s managing people side of change and helping people and the organization transition from current to future as smoothly as possible, as successfully as possible. And I’m hearing more people having those conversations now who are not part of change management. So it’s becoming, you know, more embedded into the organisation as a way of working, as opposed to a dedicated function of people.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

13:24

And a lot of people think that organisational change means it’s transformation time, which probably scares a few people. But one analogy I heard today that someone actually I read on LinkedIn was they tried to say that change management itself isn’t as important anymore. Just talk to your marketing department, who would be experts at change, and they’ll be able to help you manage the change. It’s just as bad as saying the project manager can do it, which look, don’t get me wrong, there’s some project managers out there that probably have exceptional people skills, but it’s a different skill set.

• Karen Ferris

13:53

Yeah, yeah, it is and it’s. You know it’s how many hats do you want to wear, and which one gets priority? And I’ll tell you which one gets priority. It’s not organizational change. No, you know, it’s like you know, training, always it’s the people stuff. The training drops to the bottom of the priority list. And organisational change? Because it’s easy to you know, to sit back and say, oh, come on, of course they’ll get it. There’s a good reason for doing it and you know, unless you’ve got your messaging, communication, and engagement right with these people and they feel that the change is being done with them, you will get that resistance. And that’s a lot of work to do that, depending on the size of your change. But even small changes can have a major impact on people.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

14:39

A hundred percent, and I think that’s the key right now. If anything, the change management world, just like the PMO world, has to deal with those incremental, small changes that are becoming the norm, as opposed to your large, big programs of work, which you know still exist, but just not as many.

• Karen Ferris

14:54

Yeah, but even just the mention of AI now you know sending people.

14:59

I mean, I think there’s a lot of hype and that’s a whole of the conversation, but you know it is sending a lot of hype and that’s a whole other conversation, but you know it is sending many people scared. And one of the things I think organisational change managers or change managers should be doing is, regardless of whether it’s being adopted now or not, we know it’s coming in some form, so start having those conversations. Yeah, the chances are. You know it depends on what your job is. But if your job is going to be partially or fully automated or taken over by ai, what else can these people do now? Is that an hr conversation?

15:31

yeah, of course it is, but ocm can be part of that as well oh absolutely that through people, through that change, that the moment it’s just this black cloud that’s hanging over a lot of people that you know they go. Well it’s. You know I’m gonna lose my job you know is a robot going to be doing it next.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

15:47

And I think people, to your point, need to take the time to actually just understand it, even if it’s not their role today, so they can be better prepared. One of the things I tend to say a lot is AI doesn’t have the context, it can just provide the content. So you’re still dealing with people. You the context. It can just provide the content, so you’re still dealing with people. You need that context of the environment, the maturity, the capabilities, the ways of work, all of that sort of stuff. So I think people are maybe getting a bit ahead of themselves, being fearful that AI is going to take their job the way that maybe you know the cars took the job of the horse riders and you know the tractors and all that sort of stuff. So I think just take the time to look into it and you’re right, change management as a whole can really help the organisation in that capacity.

• Karen Ferris

16:32

It’s just delaying the fear and having those conversations about what AI is and, like you say, what it can do and what it can’t do Exactly. You know it’s not going to take the world over tomorrow.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

16:42

No, no, but there’s plenty of warning signs letting you know it’s coming. So pay attention. What um? What other um? You know I know you’re a change management rebel um what other status quo, practices or concepts or insight in the industry are you challenging? Or or do you hear that’s a really big misconceptions, like anything else you can share.

• Karen Ferris

17:03

So the yeah, the return to the office thing is one big one that I’m really fighting that because I just think it’s the things I hear is just nonsensical. It just really is and I’m like where are these people coming from? So that’s a real passion, um, of a change. Obviously, I want to make change management everyone’s business in the organisation and not the role of a few people. So making it deeper into the organisation Leadership capability uplift is also a massive one, because I really believe we have a leadership crisis. We’ve probably had it before 2020, but I think we’re really having it now because we’ve got leaders and we’ve touched on this you know earlier about. You know performance management and measuring hours rather than outcomes. We have so many I’ll call them bosses still trying to do that.

17:54

It’s like, come on, the world’s moved on you need to move on, you need to do things in a different way. And they’re not grasping the idea that what got them to where they were yesterday is going to stand them in good stead for today. And it’s a whole new mindset shift. And in the book that I’ve just written, I talk about learn, unlearn and relearn. And it was a guy when I say guy, a futurist, back in 1970, alvin Topper. He wrote a book called Future Shock and he talked about learn, unlearn, relearn. And it’s really saying, yes, you learn, but then you have to recognize that you have to unlearn, so things that you knew yesterday may be no longer relevant. And it’s not just about learning something additional, it’s saying that is no longer valid. Get rid of it. Now that’s tough. Oh, you know, I’ve spent five years learning this skill and whatever. Well, sorry, the world’s changed and it’s no longer relevant. So you have to unlearn and then prepare to relearn something different.

19:07

And I don’t believe the leaders, the majority of leaders we have today and I use leaders loosely everyone can be a leader. You don’t have to have the title on the door and we have to accept that the world changes and we have to do the same. Um, and I’ve had to do that in. You know, in in my industry I had an IT background, but that changed it so rapidly I had to give up stuff I knew you know, just get rid of it and learn totally new, new skill sets and new values and new ways of behavior. Um, and until people grasp that, I think we’re really going to struggle because we are seeing um leaders hanging desperately, hanging on to the way things used to be and trying to manage a new workforce of five generations, possibly in the workforce with a cookie cutter and I’m sorry it’s not going to work do you think?

• Fatimah Abbouchi

19:58

think it’s because there are organisations that are, you know, helping people get into leadership positions but they’re not giving them any training support, like I know, when I first became a manager many years ago, I didn’t get any training. Like I had to figure it out and look, I probably did a lot of things wrong, but maybe there needs to be more done to support absolutely, absolutely.

• Karen Ferris

20:24

I think we. I think there’s a number of issues in this space where people get promoted into a and I’ll use the air quotes into a leadership position, and usually a people leadership position, because there’s nowhere else for them to go. They’ve got an expert in the field and they’re stuck, so we go. Oh, you have to be able to be a people leader and a. They just may not ever want to do it, yes, which is bad, but we also don’t equip them to do it.

20:50

And I think it was Jacob morgan that did some research in one of his books and he said um, most people get into a people leadership role in the late 20s yeah, generalizing late 20s and his, his research said the first development or coaching or training they get is in the late 30s or 40s.

21:11

So they could have been in that role for over a decade without nothing, and I, the only thing they’ve had is the boss that went before them, who was probably a bad boss, and they go. Well, that’s all I know, all I can, all I can mirror is the person that was doing this job before me, who did it badly. So and then we get a decade later and they go. You’re telling me I need to do something very different now and they might not have the growth mindset they need. So that’s the first thing we need to teach everybody about being you know, having a growth mindset and being prepared to say what I knew yesterday is no longer valid. But we do need to help um people in those, those leadership roles, absolutely, and we do far too little. We seem to make an assumption that they’ll get on with it and yeah, do it everyone’s too busy.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

21:59

Everyone’s too busy to make the assumption that they’ll get on with it and do it. Everyone’s too busy. Everyone’s too busy to make the time. But then you’re putting people, as you said that, then perpetuating the cycle of having people in these roles that probably they’re not very good to their subordinates, and then there’s this cycle and then it goes back to the culture and there’s this whole never-ending.

• Karen Ferris

22:16

Yeah, and it’s not fair on the person who’s trying to be a good because not? Yeah, and it’s not fair on the person who’s trying to be a good, because every not every.

22:26

Everybody generally gets out of bed in the morning and says I want to do a good job. Yes, most of us yes, most of these bad leaders, if you like want to do better. Yeah, but they don’t know where to go because they’ve been left on their own and they’re sort of, you know, doggy paddling in this sea of waves. You know what’s next, and no one’s throwing them a you know a life um vest or something to help them. You know, on the on the journey, and it’s not only is it bad on them and causing them lack of sleep and anxiety and stress, it’s bad for the people that they’re trying to lead and it’s just, you know, a really sad situation.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

22:57

So here’s an idea, and I don’t know if I’ve never been a permanent employee so I’ve never come across this. If you have, let me know. But we see performance reviews done on the on subordinates, as you know mentioned earlier. But I wonder whether those subordinates can do a performance review on their leaders.

• Karen Ferris

23:13

I don’t know if you’ve seen that or if that’s just an idea, absolutely 360, 360 degree feedback, yes, um, and performance reviews another thing we could have a whole other session on. But when I do performance views well, when I do one-on-ones with, I don’t call performance view one of my meetings. On a regular basis with each of my employees, you know, at least fortnightly, we talk about, you know, what they done well, where they can improve, what they think, and also so where could I do better, how could I support you better? What could I have done better over the last couple of weeks? What have I done well?

23:51

And you create a safe environment where they feel safe to say to you well, actually, fatima, you know you could have communicated that that better, or I reached out and you were too busy to, whatever it might be, and you have to welcome that feedback and take it on board, because that’s that person’s reality, and act upon it. So you can’t expect, you know, if feedback shouldn’t be one way, it has to be a two-way street, it has to be two-way conversation and that should be on a regular basis. And you might have a formal performance review every six months, but that’s the only time you sit down with an employee to tell them how they performed.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

24:32

They’ve got no chance of fixing it because you’re telling them something they did six months ago a hundred, if you could remember, I, I, I loathe and maybe that’s why I’ve never been permanent, but I loathe those annual performance reviews. There’s the only time of the year like why you can’t just give feedback like as you said, maybe for some people it’s monthly or whatever it might be but incremental feedback throughout the year that’s more fair and unbiased than just waiting to the end of the year and, depending your mood, that week, the feedback you give to your employees your memory, memory.

• Karen Ferris

24:59

You remember what they did last week, what they did three months ago, exactly, which is exceptional Exactly. And you know. If you tell me if it’s fortnightly or monthly that there’s an area I can improve, I have an opportunity to do something about it. Not, you know six months and I’ve forgotten what the hell you’re talking about.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

25:16

Anyway, 100%, 100%, talking about anyway, 100, 100. They’ve got to make some changes there. So so I want to go back to um. You talked about um, your new book remarkable, so you. You mentioned leadership crisis early in the conversation, so what, what? You’ve written many books, um, and I know you’ve been writing books for many years now, but what inspired this specific book and why now?

• Karen Ferris

25:37

yeah.

25:38

I think, um, well, I think I know what inspired it was, that leadership crisis of me observing leaders trying to do the best they can. You know, we can all talk about bad bosses, but leaders trying to do the best they can, but not being enabled to do that and not being enabled to have that mindset to say, yes, what I knew yesterday won’t stand me. Instead, I can accept that they’re not on their own and some people will help them unlearn and learn new skills that will take them forward in this new way of working that we currently have. Now, that was always the case pre-COVID, but I think it’s really emphasised the situation when we’re now looking at people trying to lead a distributed team or a remote team and just absolutely no idea what to do. They’re still trying to lead people as they led them when they were all in the office, all co-located, and they’re now faced with, you know, biases like proximity bias and recency bias. Um, they’re struggling when they can’t see the person, um, that they think they’re not working, and I’m like, well, you could see them when they were in the office and they still weren’t working.

26:53

But you know, all this stuff is going on and I’m like, oh my god. And then you’re hearing these crazy statements that people are making, like I’m like, oh my god. And then you’re hearing these crazy statements that people are making, like I said about, you know, culture and connectivity, and all people will be isolated if they work remotely. They must come back and I’m sorry I could walk into a very busy office and feel lonely and isolated. It’s not a location. You know so and, like we’ve said, watching leaders trying to measure performance based on the number of keystrokes and the hours someone’s at a desk breaks my heart. It really does, because it’s not good for them and it’s not good for the employee. And the thing is, we all, when I say that, everyone nods. We all know, yeah, 100, you know eight hours of keystrokes doesn’t mean you’ve delivered anything.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

27:44

Exactly what they’re doing imagine the time they’re spending on that.

• Karen Ferris

27:49

What they could achieve if they were focusing on their goals, yeah, and then the employee, like we just already said, working out covert ways of keeping the mouse moving Exactly. They should be doing better things than that.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

28:02

A hundred percent, and so the book Remarkable. Obviously, you love your acronyms. What’s the acronym behind Remarkable?

• Karen Ferris

28:11

Tell me a little bit about that, yeah so I looked at all the aspects that I believe that leaders need to adapt. So it’s like a bit of a toolkit. I suppose the book that you know. I might say that. Oh, the R stands for resilient. You know that leaders and employees have to be resilient in the face of constant change. They have to see failure not failure, but setbacks as an opportunity. I talk about you, you know, don’t bounce back from a setback, bounce forward, be better for it, um so, and be able to reframe things and having open and on-list conversations, etc. So I identified all of those, those character facets, if you like, or character traits that I believe leaders today really need to look at, and these are things that will take them forward as well. So adaptive, for example, is one of the facets being able to change direction and adapt and adopt as you go and not being of a fixed mindset. So I picked all the things I believed and then looked at the list I had and it just came up with remarkable and funny enough.

29:25

So we talk about resilience, empathy, being able to empathize. I think that’s really lacking. We talk about it, yes, how many times do we talk? We come across people who’ve got absolutely no bone of empathy in their bodies. No bone of empathy in their bodies. You know, um easy said that mindful being able to you know, know your own emotions and understand the emotions of others. We’ve talked about mindfulness for donkey’s years, but we’re still not good at it. Adaptive mentioned being resourceful. You know what’s really important. We’re all asked to do more with less um, and resourceful comes like well, what can I prioritize? What do I need to do? What don’t I need to do? We all get swamped with so much going on and you know what can I delegate? So, when I’m talking about being resourceful and talk about the art of delegation because again there’s a lot of people who just got no idea- no, you don’t get taught that that.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

30:22

That’s not something you get taught when you get put into these leaders leadership positions.

• Karen Ferris

30:27

Yeah. So people just go. You know, hey, john, you need to go and do that. Hello, that’s not delegation, no, and you say that to a leader and they go oh well, what is it then tell me? They want to know, but no one’s helping.

30:41

Um, being known the k is for known, that’s having a brand as a leader. What are your values and do you espouse those values? Is what people see, what they get. So what, what do you? What do you want your legacy to be?

30:56

You know, when you walk out the door, and accountable is the a. So being accountable, doing what you say you’re going to do. When you do that, it starts to build trust. And if you can say, if you say I said I’d do this but I haven’t been able to, because that that has a major impact on your relationship with with the team and holding other people accountable as well, act on your relationship with the team and holding other people accountable as well for doing the right thing, being brave. So probably probably channelling a bit of Brené Brown and but having the courage to say I don’t know the answer to that. And that’s a big one for so many leaders, because again they think, oh, I have to have all the answers. People think less of me if I don’t. No, they don’t expect you. No one said now you’re a leader, you have the answer to everything you know. No one ever said that.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

31:51

No.

• Karen Ferris

31:52

But we tend to take the leadership role on and think that’s what we have to do. We have to look good in front of the team.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

31:57

Yes.

• Karen Ferris

32:01

They know you’re not being authentic. Yes, they know you don’t have the answer, and if you start hiding behind a facade, you know, um, the trust goes. They want someone who says I don’t know the answer, but I’m not the expert you are. What do you think? Just those conversations go such a long way, um, and having the humility to say, yeah, you know, I’m not the expert, and it’s about being vulnerable. You know, it’s not a sign of courage, sorry, it’s a sign of courage being vulnerable, definitely.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

32:36

Definitely a sign of courage and not a sign of weakness, which some people seem to think.

• Karen Ferris

32:41

Yeah, yeah, I’m being authentic. Um, the l is for listening, and I see I when I say that, I see eyes roll. Oh, here we go. You know communication and listening skills. But I tell you now, you know, so many people have got no idea how to listen. They really don’t. They think, well, I’ve heard what you’ve said. I say no, you haven’t. Play back to me what they just said and it will be totally different.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

33:06

Oh, 100%, that’s if they’re not on your phone at the same time and in the meeting and distracted and all that sort of stuff. You know, as your grandma says, you’ve got two ears and one mouth. That’s right, that’s right.

• Karen Ferris

33:16

Yeah, and about active listening, removing those distractions, being in the moment Exactly and really listening and validating what you’ve heard. And they’re easy things for me to say, but they’re just lacking. And, again, we don’t take leaders aside and help them. Do you want to be let’s? Let’s help you be an active listener, let’s do some scenarios and role playing, and it’s, and I can tell you, the light bulb goes on, it doesn’t take long, but oh, that that really worked, you know, um, and then empowering is the last, the last letter, so and true empowerment to say you know, here’s something I want you to do. This is the outcome. I think we should deliver. What do you think? It think it’s co-design the outcome and agree.

34:02

So this is the goal, this is the deadline, these are resources you have available to you, and empowering someone is not abdication of leadership. No, some people think it is. I’ve empowered them to do it there. You still need to be there to support them, anyone, when they need help, and they know that, that they can reach out anytime and say, karen, I’m struggling with this, or I think I’ve misunderstood what we’ve talked about. But once they’re empowered, they go away and they have the autonomy to get on with the job the way they see best. They can ask for help if they need it. You check in on a regular basis, a basis you’ve agreed with them, so you’re not micromanaging and the outcomes, the results are amazing.

34:48

You know, I’ve seen it play out. I’ve seen leaders you know from workshops with leaders on empowerment and giving employees autonomy and I can see they’re like the rabbits in the headlights like, oh, because these are micromanagers, that’s all they’ve known. You know they don’t know else. So I said, okay, let’s take one member of your team and something of low risk, smallish task. Let’s start small. You’ll feel safe and so will they. And let’s go through these steps of agreeing the goals and the check-ins and everything else and then get out of the way and they come back a week later they say, oh, my god, that was amazing. You know, that person is so inspired and motivated and they’re asking me for the next piece of work I can give them and I had so much time back on my hands amazing yeah, it’s, it’s.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

35:40

it seems so simple, but as you, as you sort of narrated those um acronym, the analogy, and and mentioning all of those, I was trying to think is there anything else I would add to that? And, and you’ve nailed it, I actually think that everything that you’ve listed and that word overall summarizes, you know, leadership, leadership in a really, really good way, and I think it makes it easy. And then to pair that with the mindset behind it, when you think about who you’ve written this book for, is it for those that you know been working in the industry for a long time, like us? Is it for up and coming leaders? Is it who is the right audience for this book?

• Karen Ferris

36:18

Yeah, it’s for both. It’s for both of those audiences, it’s for, like I said earlier, you know, you don’t have to have the title of leader bestowed on you. We can all lead. Um, there’s a lot in there for up and coming leaders, whether they’re people leaders or leaders in a different perspective, or just want to develop leadership skills. And for those so for the novices and for the veterans that lead need to unlearn, the ones that need to unlearn.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

36:47

I was going to say need to, you know, teach your dog new tricks. Probably need to exactly be adaptive and take some lessons. Exactly exactly one thing, um, one thing that I wanted to circle back on that I’m I’m keen on understanding a bit more about is workforce resilience and the role that it plays and and so what? What leaders can do to foster more of that in their teams, because I think that’s one of the ones you know. Going back to the comment around adaptiveness is something that people really struggle with.

• Karen Ferris

37:14

Yeah, yeah, and it’s.

37:16

I was writing about resilience, um, before COVID and, just to give you an idea, I have an aggregator which tells me all the articles and things have been written about a certain keyword and resilience had come up with like a page or so. Covid hit and it was pages and pages and pages of resilience and the word just got became like a dirty word. Everyone was being resilient and resilient and whatever, and you know, in the workplace it was the same. It’s like resilience. And then talking about, you know, mental well-being and everything else.

37:49

And back in 2020, I wrote two books and I’ve done a summary of them in this book, which talks about like a leader has 20 superpowers to be resilient in the face of constant change, and the individual has 20 superpowers, and be resilient in the face of constant change, and the individual has 20 superpowers, and superpowers probably outdated word now, but what I find a lot of organizations are doing in regard to helping people be resilient and I by that I mean helping them with their mental well-being in the face of constant change is is point solutions. And well, two things. One, they’re treating the result, not the source of the problem. Is it workload? Is it poor leadership is, whatever it is, what’s causing mental health issues in the workplace. Let’s fix that. Let’s get to the root cause. But they’re trying to fix also, um, after, when it’s too late, when people are burnt out. Now here’s the resources to help you. Now you’ve burnt out. Oh, thanks very much. You know why didn’t you get to me before that?

38:51

Um, but the superpowers I talk about are contextual, so they’re like tools that you can pull on. So, for example, if you know, I’m getting really stressed at work because I’ve got a problem that needs to be solved. I’ve got a deadline and I just I’m losing all self-belief that I can achieve it and I’m I’m really spiraling. Ok, so Yoga on a Friday isn’t probably going to help me, even if it’s free, even if it’s free, even if it’s free, even if it’s free.

39:28

But if I go and look at the resilient superpowers, there’s one called the problem solver ah, let me pull on that one. The collaborator let me pull on that one. And the believer self-efficacy. So there are tools that I can pull on to try and help me in that situation. There might be others that you pick and choose, but you choose the ones that are going to work for you in that situation at that point in time. So they have to be contextual, they have to be liked by the person, they have to be personalized. You know, not everyone wants to go to the gym, not everyone likes mindfulness lessons, not everyone wants yoga or whatever. Everyone wants to go to the gym, not everyone likes mindfulness lessons, Not everyone wants yoga or whatever.

40:19

But real things that people can, can, can, grab on and say, yeah, here’s, here’s a tool that will help me overcome the situation that I’m currently in and and grow through from the experience. So, yeah, there’s individual superpowers and leaders need to enable these individuals to be resilient. So, like for leaders, there’s a superpower called, you know, the caretaker, which is looking after, um, the mental health of people, having the conversation, open and honest conversations, putting it on the table, it, removing the stigma. There’s, the removal is remove the stigma of mental health in the workplace, um, so there’s two sides of the coin. There’s one for me to be resilient as an individual and one for my leader to create the environment to allow me to be resilient as well.

40:57

Um, and I think it’s something we get so much lip service, um, and we’re getting better. We’re getting better, um, but again, we’re not enabling, we’re not teaching not just leaders but everyone in the organization to have the right conversation. And, with all respect and I have a lot of respect for the are you okay? Organization, but it’s a closed question. Yes, yes, yes, when you’re in Australia especially, yep, are you okay?

• Fatimah Abbouchi

41:26

Yep, yep 100%, it doesn’t go far enough.

• Karen Ferris

1:31

No and then you can say are you really okay? Yes, but you can. There’s better ways of asking. We need to teach people to ask better questions and identify when someone’s behaviour slightly changed yes, their mood or their language, or enabling them to recognise and then enabling them to have the conversation and not fear having the conversation and not fearing that when you say are you okay, they go no and then the leader goes oh shit, now what do I?

• Fatimah Abbouchi

41:59

do Exactly, and you’re spot on. There actually isn’t that much work being done around mental wellness training. There is things like the mental health first aid courses which there are out there and they’re they’re really great. But even even you know, with the work um, I volunteer with beyond blue and beyond blue used to do corporate training on mental well-being and they don’t do that anymore either because now they’re focused on academic research. But there’s not that much out there. And to really know what to say and what to do when someone is bordering the burnout having been there myself once upon a time it’s very, very difficult because you may open up to someone that isn’t empathetic or doesn’t give you the trust that you need, or doesn’t listen actively or maybe opens the conversation and then goes nowhere with it. So then you let everything out. You’ve spoken about what’s on your mind and then nothing happens. You don’t feel like you can come back to that person. So there’s some real gaps there for leaders.

• Karen Ferris

42:58

And I don’t know why they take it. I think a lot of organisations and I’ve worked with some go. Oh, we have mental health first aiders. And I’m like great not knocking that initiative, but have you removed the stigma of mental health in the workplace? Because if you haven’t, no one’s going to use them. A hundred percent. A hundred percent, yep, a hundred percent. So they sit there proudly and hold their arms. Oh, we’ve got mental health first aiders, exactly.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

43:30

But who are they and are any of them actually leaders? In all of the all of the um speaking, uh, um work with beyond blue, there was only, I think from memory, one organization out of 50, that it was the chief um human resource officer. Basically that was the vocal, most vocal and open about his personal mental health challenges. That meant the people in that company were very open about it, but in almost every other instance, none of the leaders spoke up about their own personal challenges or just admitting that they have anxiety or any of that stuff. So I think there’s definitely, like you said, leadership crisis. There’s definitely a crisis in that space as well.

• Karen Ferris

44:04

Absolutely. You can put on all the first aiders and everything else you want, but people will not use it because they fear if people know they’re utilizing it, they will be looked upon negatively or not capable of doing the job or underperforming. Until you get rid of that, no one’s going to take advantage of all the things you’ve invested money in a hundred percent.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

44:30

I felt for a very long time I would be overlooked for promotions and things like. So I kept it quiet for most of my adult life. But then you get to a point where you realize if someone doesn’t want to work with you because you have a mental health challenge that you’re open about, then you don’t really want to work there or with them anyway. So you just you just move on anyway.

44:50

So so um, I just want to kind of um round out as, as we sort of move forward, you’ve shared a lot about um, the remarkable book and and I just before I move on, you mentioned that you will have a special offer for Agile Ideas listeners some sort of book discount Can you tell us?

• Karen Ferris

45:07

about that? Yes, absolutely. So If you go on to any of the online bookstores like Amazon, the e-book is going to retail now at 99 US cents instead of $8, so 99 us cents. And if you want to order the paperback, the hard copy, um, you can go to amazon.com, us, amazon.co.uk, and if you go to amazon.com.au, you’re going to pay a lot more because amazon au have this strange thing where you tell them what price you want to charge the book house up, and they just put any price on it. So if you’re in Australia, go to karenferris.com, okay, um, at the checkout, and you can buy any of the books in my store and put in the code word mindset at checkout. You’ll get 15% off amazing.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

46:08

We’ll include that in the show notes. That sounds amazing, and I know you’ve got plenty of quality books that I’ve seen and written. And, and to go back, you um became an accidental author. That wasn’t your intention back in 2011,. Is that right?

• Karen Ferris

6:25

Yes, something around there, yeah, yeah. How did that come about? So I was in IT service management at the time. I’ll try to make the long story very short. I came across a framework that was about embedding sustainability into an organisation and when I looked at it, I thought this is about embedding change. So this before I even stepped into the organizational change space, I was already doing it, but I didn’t know I was doing it yeah because it was a framework and it had 50 different practices that you could use to embed change.

46:58

I thought the IT people will love this because they like a framework. So I reached out to the university, simon Fraser University, to Dr Stephanie Bertels and her team, and said can I write a white paper or use this as a presentation? And she said, absolutely OK. So it was a long weekend and I started to write and eventually the paper got this thick and I thought I’ve got a book on my hand because I love writing. So I was in my element. I was, you know, um, taking her freight, the activities in the framework and making them relevant to service management and putting in examples of how it could be used. So I went back to her and said you know, I think I’ve got a book. And she said that’s fine, just acknowledge my team. Off you go. So yeah, I was.

47:44

I didn’t mean to write the book, um, but that that was the time that I I don’t like the word pivot, but moved into the organizational change space, because people then started tapping me on the oh, you’ve written a book on organizational change, blah, blah, blah. Can we talk to you about this, um? And it’s. You know, that’s the area, that’s what I’m passionate about. So, yeah, that started the book journey and yeah, we’re eight books later now, so we’ll pull 70.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

48:09

I need to get. We’ll probably have to have a whole other conversation. I need some tips. I’ve been writing a book for years and I’m not anywhere close to finish and you’re just listening to you today. I’m like motivated, I’m like I’m going to block out next week and I’m going to try to finish this bloody book. So keep your eyes filled. But you know, um well, we’re almost out of time today, but our um tradition of our last question is if there’s anything else that you’d like to share with our listeners a call to action, a piece of advice or a question to ponder before we wrap up today um, oh, I think, embrace having a growth mindset I think that’s where it really really starts from and and be prepared to challenge the status quo.

• Karen Ferris

48:48

Keep asking why you know, for example, if the boss is saying you need to be in the office on a Wednesday, why I keep challenging the answer, because I’ll tell you they won’t have the correct answer because it’s a Wednesday. Um, but yeah, reach out to me. I live on LinkedIn, as you know, fatimah, so connect with me on LinkedIn um subscribe to my. I do a fortnightly newsletter on LinkedIn. Um, I do videos every fortnight too, daily. Or um look at the resources on karenferris.com amazing.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

49:22

I will make sure I link all of that in the show notes and make sure that everyone listening gets to your website and gets that 15% discount. Karen, thank you. It’s been a pleasure having you back, and I’m sure you’ll be back again. Thank you so much for your time. It’s been an absolute pleasure.

• Karen Ferris

49:38

Thank you so much for the opportunity. I appreciate it.

• Fatimah Abbouchi

49:44

Thank you so much for listening to this podcast. Please share this with someone or rate it if you enjoyed it. Don’t forget to follow us on social media and to stay up to date with all things Agile Ideas, go to our website, www.agilemanagementoffice.com. I hope you’ve been able to learn, feel or be inspired today. Until next time, what’s your agile idea?