62% Would Decline Management: The Great Promotion Pushback

[00:00:09] Welcome to Frequency, I'm Chuck Gose. And I'm Jenni Field. Frequency is your go-to for real talk about comms, culture and employee experience, beyond the buzzwords and straight to what matters. And this week, we're talking about the risk of a nice organizational culture, the importance of communication during job cuts, what watermarks in AI content means for employees, and why so many workers are turning down promotions. Before we get into that, Jenni, we've got events on events on events coming up here.

[00:00:39] We've wrapped up our flyover festival, sold out, back to back sellout flyover festivals. It was such a great couple days in Sioux Falls. We keep adding to the events. So we had a kickoff party, which was a big hit. Obviously, all the speakers that were there were top notch. I want to say they threw a concert for us. It wasn't just for us, but it felt like it was for us.

[00:01:05] We're out on this grass area near the venue. So it was like late at night. It was that night of the eclipse. We're all sitting in the grass, having some drinks, listening to music, catching up. Just such a great couple days that I'm even more excited for 2027, which we're going to be announcing the date of that coming up. Then later this month, I know we've been talking about it for a while. We've got Unite by Unilead, where we are doing a live episode of our podcast there.

[00:01:31] We'd love to have all of you join us there if you're in the area or just want to go to London. Use the code frequency20 to join us to save 20% off of that. And then shortly after that, Jenni, you have your comms reboot event in London. I do. I do. And I love that you're hanging around for that as well. I did a little post on LinkedIn saying we had some special guests coming. So I'm super excited. It's the Communications Unconference. It's on the 9th of October.

[00:01:58] Tickets are running till the 14th of September if people want to come along. And we've got about 100 people coming. So it's going to be awesome. And I'm excited for you to experience comms reboot this side of the pond. Obviously, you've been with me in Canada for the last few with Contact Monkey, whereas this one is just a bit bigger with 100 plus people in it. So I think it's going to be super cool. But I've already been talking to people that are coming. And I'm really excited about the different topics people are going to want to talk about and our partners who are involved.

[00:02:27] And it's super exciting. So if you want to come along, then you can grab your ticket and I will give you a special frequency discount code if you drop me a message so that you can come along and get some money off as well. Right. Let's get into the articles for this week. We're going to kick off with an article from Harvard Business Review, which is about whether or not your organisational culture is too nice. Ron Ashkenzis and Gali Cooks argued that niceness isn't just an individual leadership trait.

[00:02:54] It can be baked into organisational culture and that culture actively undermines performance. They point to a firm where nearly everyone rated meets or exceeds expectations every year, which let managers avoid hard conversations, but also let the whole company drift into mediocrity while competitors took market share. Similar patterns showed up with a sales team. Nobody would challenge on low margin products and non-profit boards too polite to hold their CEOs accountable.

[00:03:22] Their fix has three parts. First, senior leaders have to model candour themselves using structured peer feedback, where even the CEO admits their own shortcomings first. They describe one leadership offsite where this cracked things open. A 90 minute session turned into three hours once the CEO owned her own conflict avoidance and others followed suit. The second is using small data backed wins to prove the approach works before asking for wider buy-in.

[00:03:49] And the clearest example that they give is a chair where a VP used data showing that only a fraction of 140 million possible configurations were ever ordered to convince marketing to cut customisation options by half. And then their third point is about redesigning meetings themselves. They coined the term fait accompli meetings for reviews where the outcome is decided before anyone walks in the room. They're basically saying things like polished presentations make it really socially awkward for people to push back.

[00:04:18] So their fix is to build meeting agendas around genuinely unresolved questions rather than status updates. Now, I'm a firm believer in that nice cultures are, I would say, dangerous. And I've heard this in my own work as a consultant. But my question for you is that the examples in this piece are sharing some really interesting stats about this meet or exceed expectations. But where is the line between a genuinely supportive culture and one that's quietly protecting underperformance?

[00:04:47] So is niceness sometimes just a comfortable cover story for leaders who don't want to do the hard work of accountability? Yeah, I think this is not to condemn anyone who's ever been called nice. But I'm going to bring a little American culture into this, Jenny. People often say, like, if you're in New York City, all people there aren't very nice. That might be true. But they are very kind. So if you're a tourist in New York and you ask, oh, my gosh, where is this?

[00:05:17] Or you get turned around on the subway or whatever. A local New Yorker will help you. Like, they are very kind in that. But it may not come across as nice. Whereas if you're in the South, this is against stereotyping, people are often accused of being very nice, very sweet, very Southern. There's a little bit of unkindness buried underneath it. And I think that's what we see in a lot of company cultures where it's easy being nice.

[00:05:46] It's cheap being nice. Kind takes effort. Kind takes empathy. Kind takes involvement. And so I think I'd much rather be accused of being a kind manager than a nice manager. Because being kind, you have to sometimes have some difficult conversations with people. And there are stories of Netflix who talked about having this radical culture, radical candor, all of these things.

[00:06:12] But then also then firing people for being critical of what's happening at the business. So I think this is a tricky situation. We have to look at the meaning of the words. You know, I love getting into the semantics of things. And I think it's much more important to focus on, is our culture kind than is our culture nice? Because nice isn't going to confront. Nice isn't going to have to say, hey, you're not performing well. Kind of saying, hey, we need to improve your performance here. Let's come up with some ways to do it.

[00:06:39] I think that's the approach here that companies need to focus on. I totally agree. And I always find it interesting whenever I'm doing sort of leadership sessions where people say to me, you know, we have a really nice culture here. We're like a family. And I immediately start going, oh, my God, we've got some work to do. Because it genuinely means that in this article where it says everyone meets or exceeds expectations. It's all of that stuff. And my question is always, how do you have difficult conversations?

[00:07:08] Where's the space for people to sort of challenge something or ask some questions? And I remember having this sort of sea of blank faces look at me because that just didn't happen here. And I was like, oh, OK, well, it should be because that's what's part of a high functioning team. But I like your distinction of the kind and the nice. And I think that's really important. I also would hate to be described as nice. Like, I feel like it's really bland. Well, I think that nice feels very temporary.

[00:07:37] And kind feels more permanent. And so I think that's the difference when you look at a cultural standpoint. You could go to a colleague and maybe ask for help and them say no. And it feel like, oh, they're just being nice in the way they did it. Kind is taking the time to step back and help that colleague achieve their goal. So it's not tricky, but I can see why people might think that it is. Yeah. And I also just want to come back to your distinction about kind takes effort. Nice is easy.

[00:08:05] And I think that's a really important piece to remember for people. Well, I look at it even from a social construct where if you're out and you see someone who, let's say, is experiencing homelessness, you might be nice to that person, meaning like you're not going to confront them and yell at them and just be like, oh, sorry, I don't have money if they ask for money, if they ask for help. You can be nice. Kind has come up with a way to help them in that moment. Yeah. Yeah. Nice. Right. Or not nice.

[00:08:35] Is it nice? You just said it was nice. What are we doing here? I'm never going to say nice again, am I? This whole episode, you're going to pick up on it every time. Let's move on to the next article, which is from Fast Company, which is why so many workers are turning down promotions. Now, this piece pulls together several recent surveys to make the case that turning down a promotion has gone mainstream. A hint app survey of nearly 14,000 workers across the US, UK, Canada, Australia and Europe

[00:09:02] found that 58% would reject a promotion requiring after hours availability, rising to 59% in the US, where 62% would decline a move into management specifically to protect their work life boundaries. Two thirds of American workers believe promotions carry unspoken expectations about their personal time. And 56% have watched colleagues become visibly less happy after stepping into management. The reasons split generationally.

[00:09:29] Younger workers, 18 to 34, are the most resistant, with 71% saying they decline management for the sake of boundaries and 65% preferring career growth that skips people management entirely. So that's not a rejection of the ambition, according to hint app, but a rejection of management as the automatic next level. Gen X has a different driver. A Zayti survey found one in 10 have turned down a promotion or accepted slower growth because

[00:09:56] of caregiving responsibilities, with over half saying caregiving is spilling into their work and contributing to burnout. CareerMinds data adds that a third of workers turned down a promotion last year with work-life balance, the top reason, followed closely by pay, not justifying the added stress or responsibility. Now, the article also points to the state of middle management itself as a deterrent, which is these layoffs, AI adoption pressure and the political polarisation have made that role much harder. And there's a striking credibility gap.

[00:10:25] 97% of HR professionals believe their organisation trains managers adequately for these challenges, but only 41% of managers agree. I feel like we could do a whole piece on the gap between what HR think and what everyone else gets, given what we talk about on this podcast. The piece closes with practical advice from a CareerMinds career coach. Negotiate the terms of a promotion, so clear expectations, boundaries, rather than just declining it outright because people being offered promotions are usually in a strong negotiating position.

[00:10:56] So question. If a third of workers are turning down promotions and the top reason is protecting work-life balance, what does that mean for the pipeline of future leaders? Are organisations actually listening and redesigning what management looks like, or are they just going to keep promoting the people willing to say yes and end up with leaders who just never really wanted the job? It's clear they aren't listening. Just look at that gap you talked about with the HR stuff.

[00:11:22] It's crystal clear they aren't listening to this. I see this as, some people might see this as a signal. To me, this is a symptom. This is now a generation of people seeing how managers get treated. They are now seeing the impact. This is not like, this is observed behavior. They are seeing what is happening to the people above them. They don't want any part of that.

[00:11:50] A promotion, maybe we've all been wrong on this, but it used to feel, a promotion used to feel like a reward. Why is it now feeling like a punishment to an entire generation? That's what companies need to investigate. And I think this wanting to step into management but not manage people is definitely something I'm seeing from clients I'm talking to where we've been looking at team designs and structures

[00:12:19] and all those sorts of things which I help teams with. And quite a lot of people in the teams are saying, I want to do this work, but I don't want to manage a person. And I think that's A, because that is hard. And I think it's harder now. And we've talked before on the podcast about the role of kind of therapist, counsellor, manager, and how that's all kind of blending and the risks of that. But I also think it's interesting that traditionally that promotion is about going up and managing people.

[00:12:47] So if people want to grow in their roles in the future of work, what does a promotion look like? What does that next one look like? Is it less about managing people and more about, I don't know, more responsibility? I don't know. But it feels like there is a shift there around what that needs to look like. Even thinking about my own experience, when I managed my first person, I had zero support from HR in terms of this is what you need, like nothing in terms of how you manage somebody and what that needs to look like.

[00:13:17] And I remember recruiting somebody. They did a paid internship for a while. Then we got them the role. And I remember after about six months or a year, they were like, oh, I've been here a year now. So I'd like some more money. And I was like, that's not how this works. But that is what people believe. And that happens all the time. But if you don't know how to deal with that, because HR haven't trained you, which they're clearly not, it just opens up such a world of pain for everybody in that situation, which I think is just rubbish. So why would you want to do that job?

[00:13:45] Because it's just going to be uncomfortable and painful for everybody, which is what's probably contributing to the trust gap and all the other things that are going on. Well, I think what's happened, in my opinion, we're going to go back in our time machine here a little bit, Jenny, and go back several decades. There used to be a role as a people manager, meaning your job was to simply manage people and the work they are doing. That then got merged with, oh, you have a full-time job.

[00:14:12] And now you're also managing people and the work they are doing. It is thankless. I remember, though, early in my career, that being something I wanted to lead a team. I wanted to have people. That was like this natural growth that you expected. And then I found this data point. Now, only 6% name reaching a leadership position as their primary career goal. There's other goals out there. Only 6% say, I want to be in a leadership position. That is my primary goal.

[00:14:41] If you'd have asked me 25 years ago, I probably would have said that. Now, only 6% of people are saying they want a leadership position. That is mind-boggling. And again, that is a signal and a symptom of what's going on at work. Yeah, that's a massive flag, I think, to start thinking about how we treat managers and leaders and how we invest in that. Well, and we see time and time again when those layouts, we've talked about this on half a dozen

[00:15:08] to a dozen episodes, manager the one being let go, which then puts even more pressure on the managers that are sticking around. Yeah, yeah. No good comes of this. The next piece I want to talk about is from HR Executive. And it's about Anthropics' trust reckoning to do with an AI policy. So just to take a direct quote from there, Anthropics CEO Dario Amodi recently published a social media description of ongoing AI backlash as a crisis of trust.

[00:15:37] In the quote, he says, I think that ordinary people don't trust companies, governments or the tech industry and always suspect that we are cooking up some new way to screw them over. Oh, I wonder why they think that. Where does that come from? The causes of this go back decades and AI is just the latest iteration of it. Now, that quote opens up the theme of this whole article, which is around trust. But the bit I want to bring here for this conversation is where it specifically goes into this new

[00:16:06] watermark feature, which Claude are rolling out, because I think this is the bit that's important for our listeners. So Anthropic announced that future Claude models will embed a watermark in generated text, indicating the likelihood that Claude produced it. And it's been done to comply with the EU AI Act Transparency Code, which is a commitment that's also been made by OpenAI, Google, Meta, Microsoft, though each provider's technical approach is a bit different.

[00:16:34] TechCrunch reported this announcement sparked frustration among some Claude users who worry that it could expose them for using AI at work or in school. But the watermark doesn't change what the text looks like and it reads to a reader. So it just allows someone to check after the fact whether Claude was likely involved. But my question here, and the reason I wanted to bring it here, is because if employers could

[00:17:02] check that watermark today, what would they actually do with that information? Because it's retrospect. So knowing someone's used AI to write something and its likelihood, right, does that matter if the work is good? Or are we just building ways to police effort rather than output? But also, what do we think Microsoft are going to do? Because that's Copilot, which a lot of our listeners will be using. How are they going to follow suit? Because that's going to have an even bigger impact on workplace AI policy.

[00:17:30] Yeah, I'm so bored by this topic, Jenny. And here's why. I'm glad you brought it in. I love when you say that when I bring stuff. No, I'm glad you brought it in. I'm glad you brought it in. I just don't know why it matters. Here's where the logic just breaks down for me. Companies want employees to use AI, but then employees are worried that the company is going to find out that they're using AI, but the companies want them to. Why does that break?

[00:17:56] Of course, if you're telling employees to use AI, they're going to use AI. So the watermarking isn't. Is that what companies are actually looking for? And I went back at some history on this because one, thank you, EU, for bringing this into all of us, because it's not just Anthropic, OpenAI, Gemini, or Google, Microsoft. Everybody's going to play a part in this. So the watermarking is, it's fine.

[00:18:25] Like Photoshop watermarks images so that people know that Photoshop was used. There's no, it's all in the, is it EXIF data, metadata? I forget what it's called with imagery. So it's, I want people to be clear though, we all know that we're all using it, but we don't want people to know that we're using it, but yet we know everybody is.

[00:18:49] So I, I, I like this transparency of it because what, what it's not saying is that it was only AI. It was only written by AI. It's not, it's not saying that, but that's what people are going to take it as because we're still very immature in this process. I guess it's just the, we'll now know. And I know there's already kind of, I've seen like on, on TikTok and Instagram, people like, oh, use this skill to remove the watermark, which again, it's not a watermark, like an

[00:19:18] image where you kind of see it on there. It's apparently in the way that words are written in certain styles. And again, if you're a company and you're wanting your employees to use it, why would you condemn them then for using it? Or is this just now how companies are behaving? The logic just fails on this for me. Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm with you on that. But to your point of this isn't something companies are choosing to do. It's something that the tools have to do to fall in line with the law, which is the transparency.

[00:19:47] And I feel like it's being done for broader societal reasons, right? Like there's so much AI stuff now on Instagram and other places that's not real content. Like even if we think about things in the news and the horrendous floods that have been happening over in Nepal, there's, there was a huge article over here on the BBC about the fact that people were doing AI generated videos that were just not.

[00:20:11] And I think, so that's where I feel like I can see the need for it in some of these other uses. I suppose my thought process on this is what's this going to, like, how does this apply to the workplace? And we don't know yet. So maybe I'm a bit too soon in bringing it here, but there was just a lot of stories about this watermark, what it's going to mean. And I wonder whether there'll be something that will shift about how it's used inside workplaces. And this is more how it's used in kind of marketing and other stuff like that.

[00:20:40] And maybe, maybe that's going to be the distinction. And maybe the, the transparency act is going to address that. I would love to see a company come out and say, we're, we hope there's a watermark to this. We hope we've paid for these tools for you to use them. We want to see this in place, but also from this data point, this is from Slack, half of US DEX workers are uncomfortable telling their manager they use AI for something as boring as an email draft or meeting summary. What does that say about your culture?

[00:21:10] That that's exactly what it should be used for. Yeah. Like a meeting summary is the perfect use of AI, yet half of workers are ashamed to tell their manager. I would be shouting that out that I used it for that because that's a, that's not a great use of your time. Writing up a meeting summary. That's not a good use of anybody's time. That's a great use of AI. So what does it say about the culture at a company where you don't feel like you can say, Hey, I use this amazing tool to get me started down. So I'm not wasting time over here.

[00:21:40] I'm investing time over here. That's, that's the weird part. That's where there's some disconnect going on here that I haven't quite figured out. I wonder if it's linked to the whole productivity thing as well. Like if they know I'm using AI for all this stuff, they're going to wonder what I'm doing. And then, do you know what I mean? I think we're still figuring out some of that stuff. So let's, let's see. Let's see. The final story today is about Volkswagen, which was in Euronews. It was covered in a few different outlets, but I managed to find it in Euronews, not behind a paywall.

[00:22:05] And this is about Volkswagen and doing some job cuts. So their works council ran an employee morale survey and communication from the board came out as workers' single biggest grievance, ranking above even job security or the threat of factory closures. Employees said that they and their families were left uncertain and frightened, according to a German press agency. The consultation was launched ahead of nine extraordinary works meetings between the CEO and staff across German sides.

[00:22:35] Now, the backdrop to this is some big financial pressure to do with Volkswagen's first half operating result fell 11.6%, with operating margins dropping from 4.2% to 3.8%. So they're facing some really tough challenges with Chinese competition, weaker demand, US tariffs, all of those things. So the CEO has described the situation as more than critical in an internal post, warning that the company isn't generating enough to fund new technology products and its existing sites over the long term.

[00:23:04] Around 50,000 job cuts have already been agreed across Volkswagen, Aldi and Porsche. And the CEO has confirmed a further 50,000 could be effective, though he says that figure was leaked to media without his approval, which unions point to as exactly the kind of communication breakdown which is driving this frustration. So my question is that workers ranked bad communication as a bigger grievance than the job cuts themselves. What does that tell us about what employees actually need from leadership in a crisis?

[00:23:31] Yeah, this is like a walk down memory lane going through this between my experiences at General Motors and then Rolls-Royce where we had a works council. I loved working with the works council at Rolls-Royce in the structure. That was my first exposure to something like that because that doesn't exist in the US. And it got me thinking more and more. I would love it if there were works councils at US companies just to get stuff like this surface because all employees want to be told is the truth.

[00:24:01] Yeah, that's all they want. They just want to be told the truth. And I didn't go down the full historical aspect of this, but some of the reasoning behind Volkswagen stuff sounded very similar to what happened with American manufacturers in the 80s and 90s when they were competing with manufacturers in Japan and other Asian countries where they were struggling with productivity and costs and all these things. Whereas the German manufacturing was always put up on a pedestal as being worth that investment.

[00:24:31] And now it seemed like the math isn't mapping on that from a cost standpoint. And so these manufacturers are struggling. But that's not the problem here. The problem is that employees just want to know what the hell is going on. That exists across everywhere. And they feel like they don't have anybody looking out for them. They don't feel like they're being told what is really happening. I think that's, from my experience, that's what the role of the Works Council is. Yeah. Is to get the truth out and get it out in a structured way. Yeah.

[00:25:01] And I think there's a difference between Works Councils, unions. Like, I think there is a difference between all of those things. So, and I think that people have some good relationships and some not so good relationships. And in my experience with unions, when I worked in the travel industry in the UK was really hard because I remember reading something in the press and I was like, that's just a lie. So that was quite challenging. But in the round, I love your point around employees just want to know the truth. And I think we have to come back to this every single time.

[00:25:29] When there is a big change program, when there is a crisis, when there is job cuts, tell the truth. Like, just talk about it. You're talking to grownups. You're talking to people who want to know the truth. But that involves doing some preparation, considering your messaging, being intentional, making time for people, all things that are part of being a leader that somehow are an inconvenience in organizations. And I think they're becoming an inconvenience because you're getting rid of all the managers and all the layers and you're not training them.

[00:25:57] So all of that has to play a role in here in terms of if you invest the time in the people, in the messaging, then this becomes a lot easier. And I think shying away from that in a leadership position and just being frustrated that things are leaking is not addressing the root cause of this situation at all. It's just trying to paper over the cracks. And no good comes of that ever. Well, because employees feel it. They just want to be told. They want those two things to match up.

[00:26:23] Because if they feel one thing and are told something else, that's when the confusion begins. They are feeling this. So just tell them the truth of what is happening. Again, no one wants to be cut from a job. That's not the goal. But they at least want to know what is happening versus it being glossed over. Oh, no, no. Everything's going to be just fine. We just have to tweak some few things. No, no, no. That's not the case. Yeah, totally. So that brings us to the end of our articles this week. What are you freaking out about?

[00:26:52] I'm going to highlight a couple of leaders that came across my view here recently, Jenny. One is a wonderful gentleman named John Morgan, who I don't know why he did this. He is the head of Morgan & Morgan, which is some kind of massive law office. It felt very ambulance chasing. I don't want to put that label on them, but it felt like that. Where he is one of these leaders that we've talked about who does not believe people actually work from home. Does not think it's possible.

[00:27:21] So in this interview, he talked about how they put cameras on everybody's computer. Oh, well, one. I don't know a lot of companies that are giving people desktops anymore and all that. Like, I think it's pretty laptop-y focused. So there's a camera on there. But he's talked about how they're going to watch employees and bubble because he doesn't think they're working. In fact, I got to clean this up because we said we weren't going to swear on the podcast. He's going to put a camera up their butt. Oh, okay.

[00:27:51] Except he didn't say butt. Okay. And I'm thinking, one, this isn't about colonoscopies. They should be supporting employees getting colonoscopies. But that's how he doesn't even trust his own employees. These are the people you're paying to do a job. And you're saying, oh, we have to put a camera up their butt to make sure they're doing the work. You're either hiring the wrong people or there's something horribly wrong going on at your company. And it could be both. It could absolutely be both. But I'm thinking, can you imagine working for this guy?

[00:28:20] And there's a lot of listeners who are working for this guy. Not John Morgan, but somebody out there who doesn't truly believe people are working. I just, it was so disappointing to hear, but also kind of good to hear that there's someone so brash and so short-sighted that they're saying this out loud as if there's not going to be any kind of pushback on them. I might send him my book. You should. You should. Please do.

[00:28:50] So he's one. And then there's another winner of the week. I believe his name is Shailesh Jajurikar, who's the CEO of Procter & Gamble. Massive company. I grew up in the Cincinnati area. Procter & Gamble is put up on a pedestal in that area. They announced his pay package is being doubled. Meanwhile, they are laying off 7,000 people. Oh, for goodness sake. CEO pay package doubles. Yeah.

[00:29:19] 7,000 employees being laid off. Are they really that ignorant? Like, we see there's some data that came out this week that showed that company profits are rising exponentially compared to employee growth. No different than what is happening at the government. The same thing that's happening in companies. All the money is being kept at the top. So I forget what the data point was that it was.

[00:29:45] It used to be that a CEO made like 10 times the average employee made. Now it is like a thousand times. Like, it's just so it's just skyrocketing. When you're the one approving your own pay, how many? Well, I should make more money. I did a really good job. But we're going to let these 7,000 people go. I'm trying to imagine like the PR and comms department at Procter & Gamble trying to make sense of this. How do you rationalize spending over here and cutting here? It's my two winners of the week right there.

[00:30:15] Yeah. Well, and also that's shareholder return, right? That's the only way you justify it is it's greed from shareholders. And that's it. That's the only reason that that is happening is to keep them. And it makes me feel sick. I don't know how ethically and morally we've created a society at large that feels that that is acceptable. And I think that that is terrifying. And it won't change. Do you know what I mean? This has been going on for years where people are having their salaries.

[00:30:43] Imagine if Shalash had come to work and said, hey, I'm only going to get paid the increase that my employees get paid. So you get your 2% pat on the back. He only gets 2%. Now, what's sad about it, his 2%, a lot more than your 2%. But let's just say he went on. Or again, going back, I remember we talked about this in a previous episode. It used to be such a black eye to companies when they would lay people off.

[00:31:09] I watched this TikTok where they said, can we go back to when layoffs were an embarrassment to companies? Like that they failed as a business because you're laying people off. You're taking jobs away from people. And now it's being oddly correlated to a CEO doubling their pay while laying off 7,000 people, a small town. Like it just, the disconnect is wild to me. And I know we see it every day, but it was just seeing these two gentlemen and their approaches to business.

[00:31:38] One, doubling their pay while laying people off. And two, wanting to shove a camera up his employees' butts because he doesn't believe they're working. Like there's leadership for you in 2026. Yeah. Well, my freak out is about my new office, which feels very mundane now after that mic drop moment. For anyone that is a regular watcher on YouTube, you will notice that I'm standing in a different part of my office. Or maybe you didn't.

[00:32:07] But I've managed to sort out my entire office speaking setup. And I've spent, we've had a holiday here in the UK, so I spent the long weekend building desks, putting new things on my shelves, throwing things out, decluttering, sorting out. A bit like the new term, like everyone's going back to school. I feel like people go and get a new notebook. I throw away a load of stuff and sort out my office. And so I'm quite excited. I'm really enjoying it. I've got a few more bits to do. But I'm now at my new standing desk that's got little preset buttons.

[00:32:37] And I'm very excited. I would say, I never saw until today, I had not seen the behind the scenes of your previous setup. And I'm kind of frightened by what you were doing before. I'm impressed that we made 70 plus episodes with that background. So I'm relieved now going forward. Yes. In my defense, my original setup was set up for the occasional online speaking podcasting. So it was very, it was designed to be put away. So it was just a lot of cables and stuff.

[00:33:07] And then since we've been doing this, which I agree has been now quite a long time, I've been like, I need to do something different here because this doesn't ever go away. And it just feels messy. So yes, it's all nice around me now, which is good. It's good. It's nice. Nice and tidy for the start of term. Well, thank you for joining us this week. We hope that the articles and insights will help you think about how to improve comms, leadership and culture in your organization. If you don't yet subscribe or follow, please do as it helps make sure that you won't miss an episode.

[00:33:34] All the links to all the articles we've mentioned today are in the show notes. So you can grab those to read if you want to explore things further. We'll be back with you on Monday with more news, insights and opinions about everything comms and leadership in workplaces today. Appreciate you being here with us.