TLDR;
Hey there! I’m Michael Hunter from Uncommon Teams, and I’m genuinely glad you’re here.
If you’ve found your way to this podcast, it tells me you’re ready to embrace change like an old friend, and I’m here to make that process easy for you—especially if you’re currently feeling like you’re running on empty or sacrificing your well-being just to keep up.
Because in this powerful episode, I sit down with the incredible Evie Brockwell to dive deep into something that I’d like to call the Energy Paradox. Here, we uncover why chasing “more” might actually be holding you back from the outcomes and impact you truly desire.
If you’re ready to break free from the hustle culture, understand your own energy patterns, and cultivate a life where you genuinely thrive, this conversation offers the path forward.
—
Key Takeaways:
- That “always on” feeling? It might be working against you. Don’t mistake busyness for real progress.
- Rest isn’t a reward. It’s a strategic move. Learn why slowing down can actually make you a more impactful leader.
- Understand & learn to use your unique energy rhythms to unlock a whole new level of performance.
- Don’t wait until burnout to change your pace. Start experimenting with what feels sustainable now, not later.
Show Notes:
00:00 – 15:15
The Energy Trap: Why Constant Motion Leads to Burnout
15:15 – 25:45
Find Your Pace: Debunking the “Always On” Myth
25:45- 38:45
Guest Stories: Personal Wake-up Calls and Self-awareness
38:45- End
Beyond Metrics: The True ROI of Solid Company Cultures Well-being
—
Meet the Speakers
Evie Brockwell
Product Tank Organiser @Mind The Product | Product Expert (Consultant + Coach) @Be Optimized | Podcast Host @Product Confidential: The reality of PM life!
Evie is a leading product consultant and coach, trusted by global brands like TUI, Channel 4, Megabus, and Booking.com to drive product maturity, amplify impact, and optimize ways of working. Struck by the alarming statistic that 92% of product managers face burnout, she found her mission: proactively empowering over 300 product professionals through keynotes, workshops, and direct company engagements to reverse this trend.
Michael Hunter
Founder @Uncommon Change | Interlocutor / Curious Host @UncommonLeadership Interview Series | Author | Change & Innovation Partner
Michael Hunter partners with top tech leadership teams across six continents to create extraordinary cultures. With 35 years of experience at companies like Microsoft, Salesforce, and Tableau, he helps leaders sustain meaningful change. Michael believes that only by integrating mind, heart, body, spirit, and intuition can leaders truly navigate change safely and build a lasting legacy of impact + human-centered leadership.
Was this conversation worth your time?
If yes, there’s so much more to explore→
LinkedIn:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/humbugreality/
Website:
https://uncommonteams.com/
Newsletter:
https://uncommonteams.com/newsletter-archive/
Podcast:
https://www.youtube.com/@UncommonLeadershipPodcast
Presented By: Uncommon Change
Transcript:
Michael Hunter
Whether you want more innovation, more easily, you’re feeling burnt out or overwhelmed, or you simply know that something isn’t quite the way you know that it can be. You are not alone. I hear the same from leaders every single day. On Uncommon Leadership, we explore aligning personal fulfillment with business success, creating authentic teams.
And creating the resilience, adaptability, and ease necessary to move beyond simply surviving today’s challenges into thriving. I’m Michael Hunter with Uncommon Teams, and today we’ll uncover fresh insights into what it means to lead today. And joining me today is Evie Brockwell. Evie grew her product career at booking.com before transitioning to fractional product leadership and working with global companies like TUI and Freenow.
Whilst coaching and consulting, she realized that more than half of her clients were struggling with burnout, so she began researching the impacts of burnout in product. She found that this affects up to 92% of product people. So, pretty much everyone, if we’re just gonna round up, and has since been on a mission to bring so much more of a human approach to her work.
Welcome, Evie.
Evie Brockwell
Thank you. And thank you for the intro.
Michael
I am so glad to have you here today. And let’s start out by telling us, when did you first recognize that integrating your whole selves, bringing that into everything that you do, might be a valuable approach?
Evie
Yeah, I think it’s a really good question because it’s something that I always thought I was doing previously, and it’s only when I became a freelance consultant that I realized that I hadn’t 100% been doing this.
And I think that even if we think we’re showing up as our full selves, we have been trained from a business lens over however many years, even starting from when we’re at school, to act a certain way, show up a certain way, this is what gets you recognized, this is what you should do, this is what you shouldn’t do.
And we take all of these patterns and beliefs into all of the work that we do. And even if we are being authentic or if we find those pockets of environments that we can be authentic in, we still have such a work lens over us. And only when I was freelancing and I was running my own business, did I realize how much that was actually holding me back.
And I wasn’t saying the things that I wanted to say or sharing the opinions that I had because I was scared as to how other people might perceive me. And only by going through that journey and uncovering it and realizing what was holding me back, did I manage to make the changes.
And I would say since then, my work has been so much more impactful and so much more aligned, and that’s what I think the most important thing is for people to realize is that yeah, there will be some spots that when you are your full, authentic self that you no longer fit into, but the ones that you do and the tribe that you want to attract will find you.
Michael
They will indeed. And what has helped you continue to integrate your whole selves? Because I find at least it’s not a do and done, it’s an ever ongoing journey.
Evie
It really is, and I think there are a bunch of the things that help people. It’s how do you keep reflecting on those kind of questions? And I don’t think I ever sit and say, Oh, am I being my full self this week?
But I did set a bunch of values that I created around freedom. Having growth, having impact in my role and things that I cared about, and I reflect on those kind of things on a regular basis. I also reflect on how I felt over the last week, and did I feel like I was the best version of myself? If so, great, what can I keep doing?
If not, what was it that stopped me from feeling that way and being that way. So I think when you ask that question about being your whole self, it can feel quite overwhelming, where people don’t know where to start. But it really is breaking it down into those small sections of, well, what does it mean to be yourself?
When do you feel you’re most confident? When do you feel at your best? And how can you continuously dial up more of those things and dial down the things where you feel frustrated, where you don’t feel aligned, and understand why that’s the case and what you can change in that space.
Michael
When you do feel your whole self, what is present there that’s helping you do that, and when you’re not feeling your whole self, what’s present there that’s holding you back? And then once you have those, look for counterexamples. So all those things you think are always present when you’re feeling your whole selves. Go find times where those are present and you’re not feeling your whole self. And times where you’re feeling your whole self, and those maybe aren’t present, and the same sort of thing for what’s holding you back And all of this can really help us dial in to understand these are the critical factors that really help me show up as who I am and the things that really make it hard to do that. So we can, as you said, do way more, encourage the former to be there with us more, and click go of the latter more and more.
Evie
Yeah, and this is a conversation that I have with quite a lot of people, is that I feel like as human beings, even when we reach adulthood, we don’t actually know ourselves very well. And people don’t realize that until they start doing some of this work and answering those questions that you just asked, where you might think it’s one thing, but actually we’re even more intricate than that.
And maybe it depends on this scenario and that scenario. And if these two things come into play together, and only by spending that time to try to get to know yourself, can you even know who your full self is, to be able to show up that way.
Michael
And it’s not necessary to get it all figured out to do great.
Evie
No, like you said at the beginning, it’s a journey. It’s never a one and done. We are constantly evolving, so you just have to enjoy that ride.
Michael
And I find it really, doing just a little bit makes it so much easier to do the next little bit, which makes it so much easier to do the next little bit.
So if we are holding back from heading down this road of being our whole selves because we feel we don’t have the time to do the work, it doesn’t have to take any time at all. Even just a minute a day reflecting, as you said, on where did I feel whole today and where did I not, and what might have been involved that makes the next day way more likely to do a minute and a couple seconds.
Evie
Exactly, and you can do it in nice environments. You can take yourself for a five-minute walk. You can sit down on a park bench. It doesn’t have to feel like work. You can make it feel nice. And the more that you start doing that, the more that you realize that it’s kind of nourishing, it’s self-care, and you start to feel even better.
So, yeah. I’ve definitely been that person at the beginning of the journey where it does feel like it’s work. It does feel hard, but 100%, like the minute and two seconds end up being 10 minutes because you enjoy that time, and you want to do more of it.
Michael
Yes. And the more we sit in our whole selves, the more energy we have to do all the other stuff, ’cause we’re not stretched so far out, which takes so much energy.
Evie
I was literally having this conversation with someone today because I’ve just finished four weeks of burnout coaching with a bunch of product people, and one of the things that we were speaking about in that space was that you spend your day in back to back meetings or going from meetings to decision to this task that needs to be done.
You don’t carve out time to do any of that thinking or to go and have that head space for everything to settle. And if you do create that time, you feel guilty. And there’s so many reasons that I could talk about in this space, but one thing is that people are addicted to stress. They’re addicted to that adrenaline of feeling like they’re on the go all of the time.
So you have that element where you have to get comfortable slowing down. And then you have the other side of things, where we feel like we have this external pressure where it’s frowned upon or it doesn’t make any sense or it’s not productive. And only by practicing that and seeing the value that it adds, can you change that narrative and counter that argument to know that actually this is way better for you.
Michael
Yes. And let’s separate people who do really well, are happiest when they’re going all the time, from everyone else, ’cause we’re not saying you have to take five-minute breaks every 10 minutes, or you have to be going turtle slow. If you are a sprinter who can sprint all day long, and that’s a happy place, that’s what recharges you, then do that.
Understand that you’re doing that because it’s how you work best, not because it’s what some external pressure might require. And be sure to frame it that way so that you know you’re doing this to take care of you, not because someone else is forcing you to.
Evie
Yeah, and like you were saying, it comes back to knowing yourself and knowing how you work best and what your full self, whole self is. And the more that you can dial that up, the better.
Michael
An easy way to dial it up is just do a bunch of fixed room. If you think you’re a person who sprints all day long, that works great.
Then try breaking that up with some pauses. Take a day where, or even a five-minute block, where you just go as slow as you possibly can. Take away more breaks or way more time where you’re not going fast, and see how you feel. The more you can do this, letting yourself know what you’re actually feeling, not what someone else or some other voices might be telling you should feel, then the more you’ll be able to dial into what that perfect place really is.
Evie
Yeah, and I also think that it can be circumstantial. So, for example, I used to be the sprinter. I like, still do enjoy sprinting from time to time, but maybe I’m just older now, but I found that these breaks are so helpful and I didn’t realize, like going back to the first point you made until I started experimenting with this, I thought that like rest is for the weak and like these people are crazy.
And now that I have more of that in my life, I want more of it. And I had this battle for a while where I’m always like, Oh. Well, that’s a bad thing. Like I can’t do what I used to be able to do until I saw the positives and realized that actually in a lot of ways, this is complimentary now and I can sprint when I need to, when I choose to, when I desire to, but I can also bring in this other element of being slower and allowing myself to rest when I need to.
And as opposed to seeing these like opposites, sometimes it’s like these are all of the different flavors, and you just need to know what to dial up for you and when as well.
Michael
That’s a really deep awareness, Evie. What helped you work through that battle that you mentioned and understand what would lead you out of that and back into calm?
And then what helps you, what helps you stay there? For so many of us, it’s so easy to get pulled back into those battles.
Evie
Yeah, this is a really good question. So I’ve always had, not always, but I’ve had the awareness for quite a while. When I was in my early twenties, I remember having a conversation with my dad when I was like.
When are you ever just satisfied? When do you know you can take the foot, your foot off the gas and just enjoy where you are in life? And he was like, Oh, well, for me, it happened when my priorities changed when I had children. And I was like, okay. Left that thought, continued on with my life for a few years, and two major-ish life events happened to me.
One was that I broke my hip when I was 26. The reason why I broke my hip was because I trained really hard. I was running my seventh marathon. I was going to the gym and running most days. And as much as everyone said to me, this is still a freak accident. Your hip should never have broken. I think I was really pushing myself and burning the candle at every single end, and it was working for me.
I was performing really well. I was getting promoted at work. I was going to break my PB in a half-marathon until I pushed myself too far, and that was a huge realization piece for me that actually, being on that treadmill all of the time isn’t actually going to lead to the longest term success over the whole course of my life.
But I still kept pushing at work, and I was still on this treadmill, and about a year later, I became burnt out, and I was like, oh, I still didn’t learn my lesson from when I broke my hip. I still didn’t learn to slow down. Then maybe the universe is really trying to tell me something here, and I need to learn my lesson this time.
So what I ended up doing was making a bunch of changes at work and overcoming things in that space, but about nine months later, I left my job and took a break and started traveling the world, and I think I needed that. I think I needed to go from the extreme of being so far into my career to taking a complete step back to then be able to find the middle ground and what that balance looked like.
So I’m not saying that everyone needs to turn around and quit their jobs and make drastic changes, but just having that awareness where you feel like, actually, like maybe pushing myself all of the time isn’t serving me in the same way that I thought it was, and therefore, what could I start to change or experiment with to do something about that I think can be really helpful.
So yeah, the awareness came by some forced signs in my position and in my opinion, but the awareness to be able to see those and learn from those was also aided by things like, having therapy and I started different practices like making sure I journaled on a regular basis and I’d started meditating and had these other activities in my life that helped me create that self-awareness.
So e, sometimes even when things are staring you in the face, if you don’t have the right tools to understand yourself and be able to reflect, you still might not live those. So I do recommend some practical things, as well as not wait until your hip breaks.
Michael
For people who want to not hit the brakes and don’t feel they have the tools to get started, how would you recommend they start?
Evie
I’m like, oh, this is a really good question. I think you need to start with cultivating that self-awareness. And I think starting in that space very much comes from having that space to do some reflection. And that could be the hardest thing for someone to implement in the first place, because it can be really uncomfortable to start to sit with yourself and get to know yourself.
Often, we are looking for that external validation and that external stimulus, and we are not used to getting these things internally. So I would recommend starting, like we said at the beginning, with that one minute, five minutes. But you also need to be able to push through the discomfort. And the easiest way that I find to push through the discomfort when people start these things is to have something else around you that supports you.
So that might be some sort of therapy, that might be going to a group yoga class, that might be finding a book club. Just finding something that works for you, that allows you to take a step out of your normal environment and see things from a slightly different perspective, and be in a group of people that might have a slightly different mindset, that might allow you to feel supported in seeing things slightly differently, I think that can really help some people get started when they don’t feel like they know where to start,
Michael
And it just might give them community to help them through that discomfort.
Evie
Yeah, that’s what we need most of the time.
Michael
So this is the journey that you’re on and what has helped you through. Now, how do you take that into all the people that you’re working with, and how do you help them build cultures where they and their people feel safe and empowered to bring their unique talents and everything that they do?
Evie
I love this question because I’ve seen it done really well, and I’ve also seen it done really poorly.
And the thing that most people get wrong about this is that, especially if you’re a leader, you have your own preconceptions as to what good looks like, and we need that to a certain extent for a business culture to work a certain way, et cetera, et cetera, et cetera. You have to already be able to see the benefits of different people’s approaches and how they work.
So as a leader, you really need to be able to cultivate that awareness and that empathy and that understanding, and know that different people might work in different ways. So people need to practice that skill in the first place. And if you have these things in place, the way that I work with people is to create that environment where they can come to you and they can speak to you and tell you genuinely.
What is on their mind, and how they feel, and they can be listened to. And instead of reacting, that person that hears it as the leader can take a pause and can respond. So really, as a leader, it’s learning a lot of those human skills. To help you to craft and create that safe space for other people to thrive and to feel confident asking for what they need and talking about how they might like to do things differently and try things, and trusting people to give these things a go and see what the impact might be.
So yeah, some practical examples in that space might just be the way that people choose to work. So I worked with a team where they didn’t feel like they had a safe space around giving and receiving feedback. We actually worked on feedback as more of a hard skill about ways that you could give feedback in a way that would be well received, and how you could practice receiving that feedback in a positive way.
So there are some things that you can do like that with teams to actually help create the environment where they feel like they can have these conversations. And then on an individual basis, you might have some specific things. So maybe you want to go to the gym at 2:00 PM because you feel like you’re lacking energy at that time, and you think you’ll do a better job.
Maybe you can have that conversation with your manager to say, Hey, could I try going to the gym at 2:00 PM every Monday for the next month and see what happens, and see if I feel like I’m more productive, and if you feel like you’re seeing better work for me on a Monday afternoon. And if you run that as an experiment and you can have that conversation and see what the positives and negatives are in making some practical changes in your workday, you are able to then see if that’s the right thing to keep doing going forward. So yeah, I think I’ve alluded to quite a few different areas there, but if there are any that you’d like to dive into more, let’s do so.
Michael
If I don’t feel comfortable going to my boss and saying even the simple things like, I’d like to start going to lunch half an hour earlier than what everyone else does.
How do you help, which I’m sure you run into situations like this all the time, how do you help teams get over that gap? Because if they can’t get over that, then everything else we’ve talked about is so much harder.
Evie
I agree, and this is the juicy question because everyone’s scenario is different, so it depends on the reason why that person doesn’t feel safe.
There are often people I work with, and I carried out some research on burnout and found that 63% of product people actually experienced toxic environments, and 59% of them said that their boss was unsupportive. So this isn’t uncommon, this is more than half of the people that I work with, and sometimes you can’t change this.
Sometimes you can try your best, but you are just using energy on a scenario that kind of doesn’t warrant it. So I recommend trying a few things, but ultimately, if you can’t make any progress in this space, then that’s when it’s about trying to find a culture that fits you better, whether that’s internal transfers, finding a different manager, working in a different team, or finding a new job.
If you don’t feel safe, especially, it’s so important to reflect on the fact that sometimes that isn’t you and that you need to look elsewhere. If you can try some things, the biggest things that I recommend to people are, you need to know what your manager cares about. Why is he not he or she not acting in a way that makes you feel safe?
Do they not trust you? Have they got lots of pressure and stress on themselves? And how can you cultivate that empathy towards the way they might be responding? If you can do that, you can think about alternative ways that you might be able to approach them that might actually work better than you have been doing.
If you need to, sometimes I recommend having that frank and honest conversation with that manager and saying to them, Hey, I really don’t feel like he can come to you and share certain things. These are the reasons why. This is what’s happened before. This isn’t a blame conversation, but I’d love to know what I could do to support this conversation so that we can have a more open and honest relationship that adds more value for both of us.
And then the last thing that I also recommend is like, how can you frame these things in a way that would benefit your boss? So, going for lunch, half an hour early, the boss is like, Why would I want you to do that? That’s not gonna benefit me at all. But if you can say to them, Hey, if I go to lunch half an hour early on this day, I’ll be able to start prepping these slides at this point in time to have them ready to send you at 2:00 PM. That already gives them an advantage for your request.
So try and frame things from that point of view, and you’re more likely to get what you desire.
Michael
There’s several really important things there. First is, which you came at from a couple different directions, understanding what your boss cares about and often what their boss and maybe a level or two beyond that also care about, so that you can frame what you’re asking for in terms of that.
So that your boss and their management chain understands why this is valuable to them. And it also is showing them that you care about helping them be successful, which is almost always gonna help them be more open to whatever you’re suggesting. And the second is, as you said, having that frank conversation is oftentimes, if we’re afraid to have a conversation with our manager, they’re afraid to have that same conversation or another conversation with us, and if we can show up and open that door, then that helps them step into that and turn what could be super uncomfortable into at least a little more comfortable. It’s not easy to.
Evie
Yeah, and I think a lot of people. Struggle with this concept because it still feels like the onus is on them, but that’s how the world works. We can only make progress for what we can control and what we can try ourselves. So it’s like, I’d love it to be a space where no leaders were like this and everyone worked in these positive environments.
We spoke to the leaders about how to change their approach, but it often just isn’t the case. So it is a case of trying these different techniques and seeing what does work in your scenario.
Michael
And for many managers or other people with authority over us, it can be as simple as saying, Hey, boss. I wanna make sure I’m doing everything I can to help you out.
What do you most care about?
Evie
Yeah, the only danger of that is that they care about everything, and then they want to put more on your plate. So you still have to be able to set those boundaries to say, I can do one of these things. Which one would you like it to be? I really want to add the most impact, for example. So yeah, that can really help.
Michael
Absolutely. Yeah. I hear you, boss. Everything is priority number zero. This is what I hear from everyone else, too.
Even if I was here and never went home, that would still only give me half a many hours a week. That is 162 hours a week. All of that work seems like it’s gonna be about 1,232 hours. Where would you like me to start, and because they probably don’t know for themselves if they’re saying everything’s important, how to prioritize down or, and their manager is probably saying everything is important and not letting them prioritize, so it we can help them sort out what their priorities are. That can let them turn around and help them help their boss sort out what their priorities are.
And eventually, even if we’re brand new developer, just hired, we’re helping the CEO of the board of directors understand what their priorities are.
Evie
Yeah, I agree. And one of the biggest things that I find with so many teams is that people know they can’t achieve things, but the leaders are like, Do it anyway.
And then they only find out like, well, they, the ultimate thing is that six months later, when they expected something to be delivered and it hasn’t been delivered, ’cause everyone told them it wouldn’t be. Then they’re frustrated, and it’s like, we have to be able to, it works from both sides. I think sometimes that having a bit of pressure and coming up with creative ways to actually make something happen earlier can be beneficial. So it’s not saying, oh, take a total step back and just let teams do what they want. You can still set those expectations as a leader, and you can still ask for deadlines to be moved forwards and stretch teams a little bit, but it’s finding that balance between that empathy and that understanding and receiving the feedback and trying to get the most out of the teams that you work with.
Michael
I agree. Constraints are super important and even helpful, as you said, ’cause it gives us, it reduces the search space we have to work with. I remember architect telling me the worst clients are the people who say, Got all the money you want because they don’t know where to start. And they prefer clients who would come in and say, This is my maximum budget. This is the rough square footage of space I want. I want kind of, this number of floors and these kind of rooms things, ’cause then they have something to work in the foundation that they can improvise from.
Evie
Yeah, exactly. And it’s the space to actually have the conversation around to say, well, we could do this or we could approach it this way.
We can’t do that. Is that okay? And it’s more of a negotiation than just a free space that feels super overwhelming.
Michael
This is often possible, even when leadership is telling us you have to have perfect quality in two weeks for this brand new, starting from scratch thing that we’re betting the company on, so, no pressure. That we can still lead them in through that exploration of, okay, I get the vision, I see where we’re going.
How about we start with a small piece of that so that we can reduce the risk of all of this going crazy, building something that should end, maybe isn’t gonna end up the way that we all want it to be. How about we do it in a shorter way, where we can get quicker feedback and, on a very regular basis, validate that we’re going in the right direction?
Evie
Exactly, and it’s that perfect framing again, where you’re selling the advantages of that to make people be like, Oh, that seems like a smart idea. That’s hard to say no to.
Michael
So we’re starting to get into this building, these cultures where people are safe and empowered, is great for the people. What’s the business value of doing this?
Evie
Yeah, I mean, this one’s hard to quantify, but you can look at it from a few different lenses and angles. So if businesses care about the money side of things, then this stuff has been proven to reduce turnover, which makes hiring cheaper, and you get to keep high-quality staff.
So there are benefits, tangible benefits from that point of view. And then, as we spoke about earlier, you can actually then create better results because you can have these conversations, and we’ve all seen the stats that say that diverse and empowered teams actually can produce better results. And that only works if they can have conversations.
If you have diversity, but no one’s being listened to, that doesn’t help. So you need to be able to foster these environments to encourage everyone to be able to bring their best and complement each other in these ways, even if it’s with healthy tension. So I think there’s some real tangible business benefits.
But then, even if you just look at the overall culture and how people feel when they go to work, I know that we live in a capitalist society, so I know people don’t like talking about those kind of things or using them in a positive way. But I am pretty sure that even the most hardcore leaders want to enjoy what they do.
They still want to enjoy work. So creating these kind of environments where everyone can feel good about what they’ve achieved at the end of the day and about the way they’ve shown up and about the way they’ve worked with people, and they can switch off from work and feel really positive about this, I think that’s the one benefit that people just don’t talk about enough because we can’t necessarily quantify it, but it’s the most valuable thing whenever I think like, well, why are we on this planet as human beings? Like some people might feel like they’ve got this huge mission, like sending people to Mars, but for most of us, we just want to actually enjoy our lives and have a good time and feel like we’re being impactful.
So being able to have those environments that allow people to do that, I think, is more powerful than anything else.
Michael
And that’s maybe another conversation that can help our managers, our leadership explore of, at the end of the day, when you leave us, how are you feeling? How are you feeling about feeling that way? How would you like to feel?
Evie
Yeah, and like you say, I think, there’s two things on that. One, we mirror each other’s nervous systems as people. So even if you feel like that person is your leader, you can still kind of upwards manage people, or you could still do this with peers, where you can just open up those kinds of conversations and showcase how people can think like this and have that kind of calm demeanor around this space, that can really start to transform that culture and spread the way that other people might talk about these things. So yeah, I think opening up that kind of conversation can be so powerful.
Michael
You’re right that it doesn’t always have to be with our managers. Could be with peers, it could be with people that report up through us, and every person, every time we show up as ourselves, a little bit more, inhabiting a culture like this, whether it exists yet or not, we infect everyone else and the environment. So it’s gonna be a little easier for everyone else to be this way as well. And since, as you say, Oh really? With us be having a lot of fun at work. Deep down inside, even if we have layers of things on top of us, seeing that work can’t be fun.
That, the more we help people, the more we infect people with that, even a little bit, the more it’s gonna grow and grow and grow.
Evie
Yeah, I agree. And some people might be tougher to crack than others, but you’ll find some people that are like, yes, this is what I needed and what I wanted, and this is so refreshing.
And then before you know it, you’ve got that community again, where it feels more powerful to have these conversations, and more and more people can come on that journey with you.
Michael
It becomes the classic technology change curve, of some people are just like, Oh my gosh, Evie, you just seem like way more engaged and happy and productive at work.
What are you doing? Because I want that, and they’ll be all in right away. Others will take longer, maybe require more people to be engaging in this and to be showing these same outcomes before they’re like, okay, I don’t understand what’s going on. I’m not certain. I’m really excited about what it’s gonna mean for the changes I have to make. This is where this seems something that is gonna be useful for the team.
So I’ll do it. And then there’ll be others who may kick and scream and never want to participate in this. And that’s fine. Either it’s a way to help them and the team, or together well enough that everyone is content, or it’s time to help them find a different environment that’s gonna work better for them.
Evie
Yeah, I agree. And I think this comes back to the point we were making at the beginning as well, about being your whole self at work. Some people might not want to be, they might not feel comfortable being their whole selves. They might want to reserve that and have a work persona, and I think that’s also totally fine.
It’s not that everyone needs to change or everyone will necessarily benefit from being more authentic. It might feel too vulnerable to be that way. So just knowing where you sit on that and being like, no, do you know what, actually, like I still want to come to work as this person. I don’t want to get involved in these kind of conversations.
That’s okay. But I think the more we can just support each individual to do what’s best for them and what works for them and what makes them thrive, and the we are conscious as to how we’re showing up, then to me that’s like the icing on the cake. That’s when everyone’s happy.
Michael
Yes. And it can be as simple as we encourage everyone to have these conversations and engage in this dialogue, without requiring anyone to participate. Maybe you have to come to the meeting ’cause it’s a team meeting and we want everyone to be aware of what’s going on and ensure that you have opportunities to engage, even if you’re confident that it’s not what you want, but you don’t have to do more.
Evie
Yeah, exactly.
Michael
For people who aren’t feeling safe and empowered to say all these changes going on aren’t feeling so safe and empowering to me, how can they bring that up with their leadership, with their peers, with their people?
Evie
I mean, based on the point you just made, I don’t know if people need to, if people aren’t being forced to be a certain way, do they need to change? I mean, the argument that I would make against that point I’ve just made myself is that if you are a leader, you should change, you should be more flexible. You can’t just assume that because you don’t want to be more vulnerable at work or because you don’t want to shape these conversations, that other people wouldn’t benefit from that.
So as a leader, you might only have to be; it might not be about showing everything. It might just be opening up five to 10% to empower other people to do so. But I really believe that if you are a people leader, it is your responsibility to support people in the best way. And I think that, in the past, leadership styles were quite different to what they are now, and expectations were different.
And in some industries, that’s still really true. I had some friends that worked in recruitment, for example, and it was still very much, A, I am your manager, I tell you what to do. I don’t care about your mental health. We are done here. Like, just make money. And there are still a lot of environments that are very much like that.
And as I was saying before, I don’t believe that should be the case. But if that is the case and that doesn’t work for you, then you should look somewhere else because that might be a perfect environment for some people that don’t want to change. So I really feel like everyone has a responsibility to a certain extent on leaders more than others.
But if you don’t want to, fine, that’s okay. Just find the right spots for you.
Michael
If I’m a leader who sees my people going in this direction, or they’re coming to me saying we’d like to experiment with going in this direction. And that just doesn’t feel comfortable to me. It’s something that I am not certain about, I wanna engage in, and maybe it isn’t gonna work for me at all, might be pretty sure.
Is it okay for me to say, Okay, team. I don’t get this. I don’t think it’s gonna work for me, and I support you, so let me know how I can help, and I may not engage very deeply. I support you a hundred percent.
Evie
Yeah, I think that is okay. You just have to really show in your actions that you support people. Using this kind of example, I don’t find that would be very common. I feel like, actually, in reality, mostly it is if they don’t buy into this, they won’t support the teams to do so. So yes, that would be an ideal scenario.
If you’re saying, I don’t feel that way, but being able to try and assess yourself, like, well, why do I not feel like this is comfortable for me? Why do I not feel like I want to go on this journey? I think is a really powerful thing to do if you are in that position, and actually, five of you that report in to a person want to work this way.
You want to be more open. You want to make some changes. You want to have more flexibility. You want to be able to be your full self at work, but your leader isn’t buying that. Then maybe as a collective, you can do some small things to try and drive that change or to have that conversation to understand why they might not be buying that.
The more we can understand each other, the better we’re likely to make progress in some of these spaces.
Michael
This is all about helping people find their way through all the change, uncertainty, overwhelm that these types of changes bring, and that pretty much everything in life these days seems to be. What else do you do to help people find their way through all of this?
Evie
As in the work that I do with the teams?
Michael
Or any other way, I, for me, I find this all swirls together, and it’s harder to differentiate one from the other if you do things differently when you’re explicitly working with teams versus when you’re with friends and family or random strangers that, yeah, let’s hear all of those.
Evie
Yeah, that’s a really good reflection point for me because I’m like, do I do things differently?
And I do to a certain extent. So, for example, I’m like, I’m sure my boyfriend won’t mind me saying this, but we watched Inside Out 2 last weekend, and from watching that, he had a real realization about some core beliefs that he held in himself and things that he actually wanted to work on to change and how it had influenced a bunch of his decisions.
And if I was working with teams, I go a lot more into the, let me coach you through this. Let me talk about a toolbox and some different solutions. Whereas I think often in relationships, it can be harder to do that because the person doesn’t want the professional version of you. They just want you to listen and to be supportive, and they want to come on that journey in their own time because they’ve not signed up to listen to you. Does that make sense? Where is it in? Go on.
Michael
Yeah, that does make sense. It’s, I always try to wanna offer help, not inflict it. And as you say, when someone’s paid us to come in and help them do a thing, then they’re asking us to help. And so this is what we’re there to do. And with everyone else, they haven’t, that request to help them through a change may not have occurred.
Evie
Exactly. And I think, yeah, regardless as to whether that’s with teams or friends or family, that’s the biggest distinguisher is has that person asked for help, or do they just want to be supported? And if you can ask people that question in the first place of, do you want solutions? How can I support you with this?
What would you like from me right now? Then that already creates that safe space to give people what they need. And then sometimes, from that position of working with teams, sometimes people do need a bit of support and a bit more of a push along the journey because each time we step through some discomfort, we kind of freeze and take a step back.
Like your comfort zone is a real thing, and it’s invisible. But when you get to the edge of it, sometimes we do retreat, and sometimes you need that support, and you need that person to just help you step through that so you can create a new comfort zone. So there is a fine balance, I think, when it comes down to working with teams, or even if you’ve been told you’re allowed to support people, about just pushing people enough. There’s a really good elastic band analogy, which is make sure you stretch it, but just don’t stretch it too far so it snaps. And I like to apply those same kind of principles when I work with people. And I think anyone can do this, whether it’s with peers, with their manager, with people they’re reporting to, is how can you stretch them just enough in terms of how much they open up, how vulnerable they are, how much they express what they need, and just encourage that a little bit. And then the next time it gets easier, and it gets easier. And you also need to do this if you’re trying to cultivate a sense of trust with people. So, for example, I’ve worked in some teams where the trust levels aren’t very high.
They’ve been through a bunch of restructures, they’ve had toxic leadership. They’ve constantly pivoted and changed priorities, and that’s been stressful for them. And there is an element of this kind of association or trauma association with that sense of the organization, and to rebuild that takes time.
And people aren’t just going to trust people straight away because they say, Oh, we’re doing things differently now. People need to see that, and they need to be able to feel like they can do it bit by bit. So if someone tells you something, and then they can see that you’ve respected that, and you respond to it well.
They’re more likely to tell you something else the next time. And you build these layers of trust that allow you to make more progress. So really consciously thinking about how you can do that with the people around you, I think, can be really powerful.
Michael
Yes. And this history, even when we’ve been brought in to help or our leadership has asked us to help teams make this change, the team still hasn’t necessarily signed up for doing this. Someone has brought us in or asked us to help the teams make the change. If we just march in and start off providing tools and introducing transformations, this is still inflicting hope, and just as much as it is with our friends and family.
We really have to start by seeing, understanding where they are? Do they want any help in this change? Understanding that this is where a company is going, and then working from where they are, versus forcing everyone to go through the same recipe of change. And on the other side of that, even with friends and family, sometimes pushing, to help them recognize what’s going on and that staying where they are is really just gonna be miserable for them sometimes. That really is the best way to support them.
Evie
Yeah, I agree. Like from the team side of things, one of the first things that I do when I go in to work with teams is to speak to each person individually. And even when I worked internally, if we had a new team member join, or if I joined a new team myself, or we had a, like a reformation of teams, I would make sure I had an individual chat with every single person to understand what it was that they cared about.
What their goals were like, where they felt frustrated with things at work at the moment, and what they wanted to improve. And just by having those simple chats that already showed people that they could trust me, and I wanted to listen, and I wanted to get to know them and to understand them. So no matter what environment you’re in, really doing that can be so impactful.
And it means that you have this base to then go from where you can have conversations, you have to be genuine with it. You need to really care about the people you work with to make that happen. And then the second point you were making about sometimes you needing to push even friends and family, I think that’s so powerful, and I think that unless people come to realizations themselves, they’re unlikely to make change. But you can plant those seeds, you can plant those breadcrumbs. You can show them the door a little bit, but they have to be the ones to take themselves through it. But you can help guide that path. So thinking strategically about how you can do that as opposed to just being like, oh, I’m just gonna leave them to it, can be so much more powerful than, yeah, being passive.
Michael
Yes. For people who would like to follow up with you on making these changes, or maybe feeling burnt out or see that their teams are and would like your help in transforming that, what’s the best way for them to get in touch with you?
Evie
Yeah, so a lot of the work that I do is with teams around overcoming burnout.
All with individuals in that space as well. And I also work with organizations to become more effective and more productive by streamlining things like their strategy and how they align across different teams and how they show up as leaders and set those priorities so that they can add more impact without adding more overwhelm.
So I work with teams both from that psychological point of view, but also from the real practical point of view. So if that is something that anyone’s interested in, then the best way to find me is on LinkedIn, which is just Evie Brockwell. Very simple, very easy to find, and people can find about, I find out about all of the work I’m doing in there.
Michael
That’s great. And I’ll have that link in the show notes. Thank you. What, Evie, would you like to leave your audience with today?
Evie
I feel like we’ve covered so many things, and I think for people, the biggest thing should always be what’s the one clear takeaway that you want to take from this? And there is that one small change that you want to make next week.
So, whether that is more reflection, whether that is starting some of these conversations, or implementing something like journaling or meditation to craft more self-awareness. Just choose that one thing that you’re going to implement, and don’t overwhelm yourself with more than that.
Michael
That’s great. Thank you, Evie, for joining us today.
Evie
Thank you. It’s been a really insightful conversation, and it’s been really good to hear your opinions too.
Michael
Thank you. This is, I’ve had a lot of fun today, and thank you, audience, for joining Evie and me today. We are dying to know, what is the one thing you’re experimenting with after listening to this episode?
Please let us know. Thanks, and have a great day.