Why do people need a law to disconnect? Is it for them... or caused by you?

Welcome to edition 63 of the Leading with Empathy Newsletter. In this edition, I want to discuss a "controversial" new law passed in Australia recently: The right to disconnect. I also share some highlights from a recent podcast episode and a little exert of how to practice empathy instead of just wishing you had more... enjoy!

Who'd of guessed an old white American dude would overreact?!

If you've ever seen the popular US television show, Shark Tank ABC , you will have no doubt seen the Kevin O'Leary . Kevin is undoubtably a successful entrepreneur having founded a successful education software business and now is a strategic advisor, investor and the Chair of a number of boards.

Kevin was asked for his thoughts on the new Right to Disconnect law (thanks Lydia Morgan for this factsheet). It is fair to say, Kevin is not a big fan of this new law, you can see parts of the interview below. But I have a message for "Mr Wonderful".

Kevin O'Leary ... you are overreacting and being a tool... stop it!

See, his view might have seemed pretty clear and certainly would have had a lot of people jumping on his bandwagon for a bunch of reasons, but he tries to use a little trick and I want to call this out.

His key message about these laws was pretty clear:

“This kind of stuff just makes me crazy, it’s so dumb. Who dreams this crap up? Why would anyone propose such a stupid idea?”

Kayleigh McEnany then asked what he would do if one of his employees told him they were “in silent mode”.

“The next moment is I just fire them,” O’Leary said.

Firstly, this is exactly why these laws were brought in Kevin. So people like you who will fire someone just because they can't speak with you right away aren't legally able to do so! You are meant to be a Leader, not an overlord. Your employees are people, not your slaves.

But the thing I really want to call out is how he tried to justify his position. He says:

“If you have an event in the office and it’s closed or you have an emergency somewhere and you have to get a hold of them at two in the morning because it affects the job they’re working on and their mandate in the organisation.”

Guess what Kevin, you can still contact them! Yes, you can call them at 2am and tell them whatever you like. You can send them 35 text messages, send them email... you could even flag them as urgent and add funny cat gif's to the messages if you like. Nothing in this law prevents you from reaching out to them. Nothing in this law prevents them from answering your calls or messages. Nothing in this law will stop you from reaching out... that doesn't mean that they have to answer.

This is really the question you should be asking:

Why would one of my employees take my call at 2am?

There are a few simple answers to this I think:

1. They expect that calls at 2am are a reasonable requirement for their work. This might be the case for emergency services, health professionals or other workers who are working in certain roles requiring them to be available.
2. They are so committed and passionate, they will take the call anytime for emergencies. For any business owner, you will know that when sh*t hits the fan and you need to act, the time of day is irrelevant. Some employees are this committed too, but not all.
3. They are so afraid of losing their job, they feel obligated to take your call. This is the bad case, where people feel used, owned and abused by an employer who is unreasonable and overly demanding of their employees private time without any compensation.

This law was introduced to try and take #3 off the table. If you want to call them at 2am, you should either:

• Make it clear in their expectations when they take the role that it will be a requirement so people can opt in or out early in the process, or
• Build a culture where they are so passionate and committed to the company that they would want you to call them if there was an emergency, regardless of the time.

Maybe both. But you can NOT lure them in under the guise of normal working hours and them bombard them with additional work, or hound them with contact outside of those hours with the threat of 'firing them' if they don't answer at 2am.

Calm down Kevin. It's not that big a deal. You just have to be a leader worth following...

Barbi Clendining on Boundaries

In this podcast interview we touched on "people pleasing", something that a lot of people who talk to me about empathy are either suffering from or worried about. As Barbi Clendining discusses in this exert, it is something that we need to be aware of and monitor as our lives change over time. You can see the full episode here: Episode 24 Barbi Clendining.

It really comes back to Clarity...

The comments from Kevin and Barbi both highlight the importance for leaders to have clarity when forming teams and leading people.

Communication is a very complex process. We do it all the time in so?many ways - from when we are born - and take it for granted, but let’s?break it down. Inside your head, through a complex pattern of neurons?firing in specific timings, you form what you perceive as an idea. This idea?is the distillation of millions of related and tangential, conflicting and even?impossible ideas. Think of all of that swirling like a cloud inside your head - and this specific idea represents that complex cloud in a single thought?that you consciously conceive.?

Now you search for words and language to represent this complex cloud, and find a collection of words that seem to describe it best. You transmit these words and associated bodily movements in a display we call?communication to a person who actually observes only part of this.?

They have to interpret what you mean based on their observations, which?they feed into a thunderous storm of ideas in their own mind. You hope that the ideas in your head are replicated in theirs, and that your communication has been accurately interpreted and understood. Simple, right??

Hardly! Add to this transaction millions of other bits of information?bombarding both brains. Your brain receives around 11 million bits of data a?second, and these noises and body movements are only a tiny percentage. When you put together random noises, distractions, internal factors of?mood, hunger, temperature and, of course, existing ideas, beliefs and assumptions, it’s a wonder we ever agree about anything.?

This is why clarity is such a simple term with such a profound impact on?alignment and performance. When you develop an intricate strategy?requiring large groups of people to coordinate in specific ways within a?complex, volatile and ever-changing environment, not much needs to go wrong for this to fall short of your expectations, so that clarity on the strategy is of the utmost importance.?

Similarly, when setting out guiding principles you need to be clear about?what they mean. Integrity is a value cited by many organisations, but does this mean we should all make ethical judgements and only act?in accordance with them? Or does it mean we comply with the legal?regulations and obligations that apply to our organisation? There’s a saying “just because it’s legal doesn’t mean it’s ethical”, but perhaps it does in some organisations. Both definitions of integrity have very different implications for behaviours and outcomes.?

If half your team makes an ethical decision never to invest in projects that could have a subjectively assessed environmental impact, whereas the other half is happily investing in perfectly legal but environmentally flawed projects in the coal mining or fast fashion industries, what does?your organisation really stand for? Both teams could argue they are acting?with integrity, but which is correct? Which aligns with the intention of the leadership team when it was chosen as your organisational value??

Without clarity, your people are likely to become misaligned - either strategically or culturally - and this will weaken your organisation. Inconsistency frustrates customers - fingers point and trust is eroded. Then?it becomes harder to attract talent, and people are asked to do more with less. A downward spiral misalignment can be fatal.?

Here are three tips to help increase the clarity of both your strategy and guiding principles:?

1) Share Stories?

Teams often spend countless hours debating, discussing and exploring?scenarios before building a strategy. Analysts may be engaged to create elaborate databases of information; post-it notes cover the walls; heated discussions overwhelm the boardroom table; and consultants are commissioned to construct a huge PowerPoint pack full of graphs and chevrons detailing the plan.?

After all these attempts to create a grand plan, what cascades down to the people who actually have to deliver this strategy is often far less comprehensive. In fact the strategy is often broken down into factual?instructions, processes and KPIs/OKRs that, in isolation, leave employees?scratching their heads and wondering what all the fuss was about.?

Professor Jennifer Aaker of Stanford’s research has shown that stories are remembered up to 22 times more than facts alone. If I say Three Little Pigs, not only do you probably know the story, but also the meaning behind it – and that’s in just three words.?

Human brains love stories, so make sure your strategy and guiding principles are expressed in living stories, and give real life examples of how your strategy will affect the lives of customers and stakeholders. Share?stories of the expectations you have in terms of guiding principles and behaviours, and describe your strategy and guiding principles in narrative form as much as possible, rich with emotions and human experiences that your people can relate to. We know that makes them clearer, and easier to?share and far more memorable than facts alone.?

2) Ask Questions?

Every day people are bombarded with thousands of messages, and?between phone calls, social media, meetings, employee discussions,?external news and hundreds of emails, everyone needs to constantly sort through this flood of daily information to work out what’s important and?what isn’t, what should be remembered and what can be ignored. This is?no easy task.?

Sometimes leaders assume that anything they say will cut through this?noise and be heard and listened to. Leaders are in a position of authority after all, and people are supposed to hang on their every word, but this is?both na?ve and dangerously wrong. With so many competing priorities, it is easy for busy people to feel swamped, so a long email describing your strategy may just be scanned and filed into a ‘read later’ folder, never to be seen again.?

Even in a meeting - any meeting - devices beep and vibrate with requests?diverting people’s attention from what they are doing to the mountain of work they will need to climb as soon as they leave. You may get a nod?of agreement when you ask if people understand, despite their not really?grasping much of what was said, let alone applying it to their work.??

I’m not suggesting people intentionally ignore what their leaders are saying;?they’re often just too busy. So one of the simplest yet most effective ways?to ensure they have understood your plans is to ask them questions:?

? What do you think this will mean for your team??

? What changes do you think we will need to make for this to work? ? What challenges do you see this presenting??

? What do you need from me to make this work??

Simple questions like these are a great way to confirm comprehension, deepen understanding and help move from ideas into action plans ready?to implement.?

3) Repeat Often?

If your school was anything like mine, then reciting your times tables was?common practice. As boring as that was, now if someone asks me what seven times eight is, in my mind a little voice from a distant classroom chants “seven eights are fifty-six”.?

Repetition is one of the fundamental ways the brain creates and stores?memory. While it doesn’t necessarily build understanding, the constant?firing of certain neural clusters in specific patterns strengthens connections and supports information retention. From times tables to song lyrics, and?from old passwords to advertising slogans, the things we hear and say often stick in our heads long after their utility has faded.?

Why then do many organisations spend a lot of time, money and effort in rolling out a strategic vision, but fail to repeat it? Sometimes you feel like a broken record if you have to repeat the same thing at every meeting - like?one of those annoying late-night television adverts that seems to be on a?loop.?

In fact you feel like this because the connections and memories are already?strong in your mind - but that doesn’t mean other people have retained them. There’s a good chance that the first few times they’ve heard you say?something, they were so busy thinking about everything else going on that?they weren’t actually listening.?

When you develop and disseminate a new strategy and set of guiding?principles, you are trying to align the ideas people have on a range of?different topics in a single direction. Imagine each person believing the?company is heading in a certain direction, and every action and decision they have made in the past has reinforced their belief.?

Now you come along and talk about a new direction. Even if they listen the?first time, it won’t be enough to change those embedded neural pathways.?

You need to repeat, repeat, repeat. Build a consistent set of messages that people hear all the time until they become a mantra in their minds. This is critical to planting your strategy and guiding principles, because, in the?hustle and bustle of ‘busywork’, our brains fall back on deeply embedded?ideas to make decisions - not some document or webpage we saw once a few months ago.?

To add variety and deepen understanding, each time you repeat your?mantra, add different stories. Share stories that are as relevant to the?specific audience as possible, and add thoughts from different perspectives?to help bring more colour to the ideas. But don’t forget to repeat.?

You will know when you have repeated your strategy and guiding principles enough, because you’ll hear other people using the same words. This is?when you really start to create a strong sense of “The way we do things?around here.”?

A Final Thought On Clarity...?

If you’re in a middle management role and feel that, while all the above?makes sense, you don’t really understand the strategy or guiding principles?well enough, then you have to ask questions. It’s your responsibility as a?people leader to create clarity for your people. It’s also your responsibility?as a member of the organisation to seek clarity where you don’t feel it?exists. If your people are seeking clarity from you, it’s vital you seek clarity upwards too. It is not the people who ask questions who create problems;?it’s the passive, misaligned majority who cause the most pain.?

Go West

In Western Australia and looking to drive performance with feedback, empathy and understanding... reach out!

Thanks to my wonderful network!

Thank you for being a subscriber and supporter.

Big thanks to Carly Adler and the Saxton Group for booking me into wonderful events. I recently had the pleasure to travel to Hamilton Island with the amazing people from Mortgage Choice . Next week I am in the almost as beautiful Canberra to run a series of sessions for The Hatchery (Hub) and members of the Australian Public Service . After that, I'm back in Sydney for the HR + L&D Innovation & Tech Fest which will be awesome! (Thanks again Carly from Saxton's, you rock!)

If you are looking for dates when I might be able to support your next event, conference or team session, please reach out before the year is over: Check Daniel's Availability.

Regards

Daniel

[email protected]