Episode Transcript
[00:00:06] Speaker A: We're back from our summer break of the Work healthy podcast. I'm John Ryan and I'm really looking forward to discussing today's topic, which is toxic workplaces.
If you've been unlucky enough to work with, or worse for a toxic human, you know the terrible effect that it can have on your energy, your confidence, your performance and overall health. Our guest today is based in Singapore, where he's an adjunct associate professor, management and organization at the National University of Singapore Business School. While he was born in Malaysia, his work has taken him to many parts of the globe, working with Toyota, the University of Bath and Ensead. Named as one of the UK's most influential thinkers in HR by HR magazine and named this year as one of hors top influencer in AIPAC by the Economic Times. Michael Jenkins has authored two books, expert humans, critical leadership skills for a disrupted world, and toxic humans combating poisonous leadership in boards and organizations. And today it's the second one that we want to discuss. In this podcast, you'll discover what a toxic human is and whether you might be one. Could you be a monster, a mouse, or even a moaner? We discuss systematic toxic collusion, fragile masculinity, and also why boards need to meet more regularly and have more direct engagement between their members and employees to better understand the organizational culture. So much to get through. But first, I asked Michael to explain what is a toxic human?
[00:01:38] Speaker B: Well, John, one of the things that I experimented with as part of, I guess, the preamble to writing toxic humans was to create a set of Personas, or archetypes, if you like, of what I called toxic personalities, specifically in boards to begin with, but also then by extension into senior teams. And I had a little bit of fun about it with it because I wanted to try to sort of make sense of some of the behaviors that I've seen over 30 years of being in the rough and tumble of corporate life, but also as an interpreter as well. A japanese English English japanese interpreter, where you have to really observe human behavior. And it struck me that there were certain types of people that tended to crop up with different types of what you might call toxic behaviors.
And just variously, there's what I call the monster who is that archetypal corporate psychopath, if you like, who is often very charming, who can give you the impression that he usually a he, not always, sometimes a she, that they are listening to you, that they're taking on board what your view and opinion is. But of course, they've actually formulated exactly what they want to happen and they're going to drive that through. And such an archetype is often aided and abetted by another archetype, which I call the mouse.
These are the people who typically say very little, but by their silence, they actually collude with this creation of what I call in the book a sort of systemic toxic collusion that enables people to achieve sometimes very nefarious ends in organizational life. So I wanted to try to unpick that and understand it a little bit better and also to sort of just get at that notion of, you know, do toxic humans actually exist? And I wanted to sort of try to explore that a little bit in the book as well.
[00:03:49] Speaker A: So, I mean, like, in terms of writing the book, when you set out to write it, and then when you had it written, was it completely different? What learnings did you have in terms of where you thought you were going with it and where you actually ended up?
[00:04:05] Speaker B: Well, the genesis for writing toxic humours was actually an earlier book which is called Expert Humans, and that was really an exploration of empathy and compassion. It also included quite a detailed look at altruism, the notion of sort of doing things for others without any obvious payback for yourself, doing things because it's the right thing to do. And as I did quite an in depth exploration of empathy and compassion, it occurred to me that there are people walking the corridors of the corporate world who don't really do empathy and compassion. Or else if they do empathy, it's a kind of cognitive empathy rather than what we might call an effective empathy. So it's not about feelings, it's about getting inside the head of others to then be able to manipulate them. And that's why sometimes when people rather, in an offhand way, say that psychopaths, for example, don't really do empathy, I might gently counterargue that. In fact, I think some of them do empathy very well, but they use it for ends that I don't think the likes of us would be particularly supportive of.
[00:05:29] Speaker A: So, I mean, like, that systemic illusion is a little bit scary, because effectively what you're saying is that there's people there and they see what's happening, but they're not willing to call it out. Maybe because they're scared themselves, or maybe they just don't believe it's their job. It's, you know, somebody else is getting the hit this time, so it's not them. How do you actually make it so that it's unacceptable not to step forward?
[00:06:03] Speaker B: I think, first of all, systemic toxic collusion is, if you like, shaped by the leaders of the organization.
And then, if you like, we bring in people in our image who are then, if you like, invited to become part of that collusive system. And that's why I think we talk a lot. I think, about how the culture of an organization is very much dictated, not just by the senior management, but I think, above and beyond that also, boards as well, have to take a responsibility for, if you like, as part of their oversight, the actual culture of an organization. I think what we find is that when people collude, as you said, John, sometimes they do it out of fear because they feel intimidated.
There are, I think, many examples, there are live examples right now, certainly in Western Europe at the moment of terrible collusion that went on in a corporate environment that allowed a lot of extremely reprehensible acts to happen. And the big question, of course, when we look back at these things is, how on earth did that individual, for example, or did that organization allow that to happen?
Why did nobody raise the alarm? Why did nobody whistleblow? And the fact is that there are people who whistleblow, and they're very brave, I think, individuals that go against this sometimes monolithic system to be able to sort of call out what I call in the book toxic behavior. And maybe that's a main point, John, is that although I called the book toxic humans, I think what we're really talking about is the toxic behavior of human beings, to be really precise about it.
[00:08:13] Speaker A: Yeah, I mean, you know, I think everybody listening to this will know exactly, you know, what you're talking about. It's been in the news, and it is absolutely disgusting that it happened. And the, it had on individuals, particularly young girls, 16 years of age, like it just incredible. So give us a little bit of hope here. Michael, is this historic? Is this like, this is the way it was? Are we getting better? Is there more of an opportunity now for people to sort of have a frame with the me too process that went on a number of years ago with more in the news coming out every day about this? And clearly people saying this stuff is unacceptable. Do you think it's a lot better now than it was, or have we just only touched the iceberg?
[00:09:14] Speaker B: Well, I think the first thing to say is that we really must be as optimistic as possible.
I think that's really important to be able to look towards a better future for organizational life. And I think we are making some progress. I think centimeter by centimeter, inch by inch. You know, sometimes people say, well, the system's too big. It's too powerful. There's nothing we can do. But I do believe that there is a very good case to be made for sort of chipping away at the. At the edifice. And eventually, it may take many years, if not decades, to improve the situation. But I do believe we have to. We have to believe we can improve it, because otherwise it means that the toxic humans win.
[00:10:04] Speaker A: So some of the things. I mean, the system. You're talking about a system, right? So with the way business is done, are we designing in the opportunity for people to be toxic?
I'm thinking of quarter. Quarter reporting the pressure for more. More.
It just seems in insatiable.
So is that what's kind of at the back of this, or is it just that a few really weird people get to the heights of the organization and can do this?
[00:10:43] Speaker B: Well, I think that there is this role of those, really, to use your words there, John, the weird people that we can talk about and their upbringing and their background, which I think is a very interesting thing to look at. But I think you're right. There are some systems, systemic, if you like, components of organizational life, that don't help the situation. So I'll give you an example.
It may seem super pragmatic, super practical, but many organizations, for example, use a matrix structure. And in the work that I do, people after we've had a workshop or a classroom session, they'll come up and they'll say, hey, you probably know that we have a matrix structure. And in my case, I have not just two bosses, but three. And I find managing those relationships incredibly challenging. So it's almost as though there are these structural things that don't help the situation. Another example, which I mentioned in the book is that of a belgian museum, for example. And it is very, very hierarchical in its structure in terms of the way that the organization is organized.
What that does is it disenfranchises, particularly the younger generation when they come into the workforce. They're sort of bright eyed, bushy tailed, really want to sort of make a difference. And then they find this almost like this wall of perhaps longstanding indifference towards new ideas and innovation. And that creates, if you like, a kind of soup of toxicity that people find it very, very hard to survive in. And very often people will say, well, you know, I didn't stay very long in that organization, became, because it became very quick, very clear to me very quickly that it was. That it was toxic, and the best thing to do was to leave. And perhaps we can talk about it a bit later. John, but sometimes leaving isn't an option. And that's often people are trapped.
[00:12:53] Speaker A: A lot of people are trapped in roles, I mean, legal frameworks and the like. I'm just interested to know because, you know, reading your book, you know, it seems that, okay, if boards are being really sort of eventually, you know, dealing with the issue, they fire the CEO, and that's it.
So the ultimate is losing your job as a CEO. But in one case, they're like, the person was there for 23 years, so they had 23 years of damaging people, and yet they just walk away.
So are you seeing changes coming that are going to stop people been able to just walk away and they'll actually have to take responsibility for the impact that they've had, the carnage?
[00:13:39] Speaker B: Well, that particular individual, it wasn't covered in the book because it happened subsequent to the book.
Once he walked away from that job, he then actually found another job with a football company, football club in the same country. So to your point, there seems to be very limited repercussions in many cases for people who exit these organizations. They bounce back somewhere else, you see, to sort of continue doing what they're doing, because in many cases, as we find, they fall into the category of aware, don't care. In other words, they're aware of their behavior, but they don't care because they feel that it's got them to the dizzy heights of power that they aspire to, and they see absolutely no reason to change. And it does seem that it's really difficult to get certain types of individual to agree that there might be something wrong in the way that they behave.
[00:14:42] Speaker A: William and at the end of the day, a lot of boards are just interested in the result. And once the CEO is delivering the numbers, they kind of turn a blind eye to those other aspects.
[00:14:54] Speaker B: Yeah, I think one of the variables here, John, will be that with, you know, the advent of communications in a nanosecond, if you like, and the ability for bad news to travel fast, because I think we all know bad news travels fast anyway, but it travels at hypersonic speed now in our world today. And I think that boards are becoming very aware of the fact that when negative stories start to surface about the organization that they are very closely associated with, they can see the knock on effects of that. And it translates at the end of that sort of if you did a root cause analysis of it to a money issue, because if the brand of the organization is compromised in some way, first of all, you may face an attrition issue with people deciding that they don't want to stay anymore. So the talent exits the organization, and then you then get a double whammy, to use a cricketing metaphor, of people deciding that they actually don't want to join your company in the first place because of all, all of the negative press and the negative messages that the organization has seen happening. And so what you're seeing there is, if you like the risk of not being able to attract the best possible talent to your organization, that you're going to need the most innovative, creative people, for example, or even people who are really solid, really good at execution in terms of projects and so forth. Those people are not going to want to come to your organization, and that's going to translate into a loss of competitive edge. You get the loss of competitive edge, loss of market share, loss of revenue, and again, it will not end in a good way.
[00:16:51] Speaker A: Yeah. Just taking you back to the very start when we were talking about defining sort of the toxic human, there's the area of subjectivity.
So, you know, in the book, a couple of people were sort of saying like that, like, that's just how we do business. And I'm thinking, again, about the role models that people are seeing who kind of, I just hate in some of these programs on television where, you know, you have these chefs who are absolutely disgustingly rude to people, but then they're kind of, this is kind of put forward as, isn't this funny? Nearly, yes. And then you have, you know, the sort of the apprentice kind of you're fired, kind of Alan Sugar or when it was Trump or whatever. It's like, how, how dangerous are those role models?
[00:17:53] Speaker B: Well, I think on one level, if we give credit to audiences, they can see that this is made for television stuff on one level.
And it makes for quite exciting television. When you've got rows going on and you've got people shouting, it's on one level fairly exciting, and you are curious to know how the situation will resolve itself. So I think you have that part of the television imperative around making it interesting, because some people would argue that if you don't have those ingredients to mix metaphors, then it might not be the most exciting program. But leaving that aside, I think those role models that people have, and again, in my line of work, people will say to me, do you think Steve Jobs was an exemplary leader? What do you think of Elon Musk, for example?
I have to say that you have to, I think, unpick the package that forms those people and make a sort of as objective a judgment, as you can around this part is, of course, absolutely fantastic. This part here. No, I don't think that that's fantastic. And I don't think that you want to be trying to emulate that. So I think we've got to be very clear about the behavior and the person as well, trying to understand a little bit where they came from. And that's why in the book, John, I started off with just looking at a few historical figures who have got their reputation goes before them.
Frick, for example, he was often called a robber baron in the United States. What was going on for him in his private life. You have to wonder in terms of his pretty beastly behavior to his people, what was driving that? And he was going through a lot of pain.
I'm not trying to excuse his actions, but what I am trying to say in the book is that sometimes even with the most tyrannical leaders, even with the most toxic individuals, perhaps our response initially needs to be one of compassion and empathy to try to understand where they're coming from.
[00:20:16] Speaker A: Yeah, the abuser has often been the abused.
It is, I guess what you're saying, but you're definitely not excusing the behavior because I think that's what I've seen from organizations that question, what is the worst behavior that you're willing to accept? Where is that line? Do you know where that line is? Have you had a discussion about that line?
And I just think it's really interesting, you know, psychological safety, obviously, Amy Edmondson, who we would have interviewed on work healthy podcast, again, it's trying to get people to understand what is a psychologically safe environment. And I think the idea of actually, before you finish a meeting, actually turning around and saying, okay, let's put on our process hat Dubanos and sort of say, how did that meeting go?
Did everybody feel that they were able to say what they wanted to say? Did they think they were treated with respect and giving people the opportunity to go, well, actually, now that you mention it, I didn't feel particularly good at the way I was attacked by such a body. Do you think that's something that's worthwhile doing?
[00:21:35] Speaker B: I think it's certainly worthwhile trying to do it. The thing that strikes me as perhaps a challenge is translating that kind of approach into certain country cultures around the world.
Being based here in Asia, for example, if I could call them very tough owners of family businesses, for example, are well known for in many cases being a take no prisoners type of person. And what's really interesting is that for some of these family owned businesses across, for example, Southeast Asia, they have become hugely successful and now they're hitting a bit of a brick wall because as a family business, they've grown so big that they find that they're almost morphing into what we might recognize more as a multinational corporation. And the realization comes that you're not going to be able to control everything yourself, as if you like the founder CEO of that organization. You're going to have to create some kind of culture within which people can work and function, something that's consistent.
And I might sort of mention a lecture I did in China years ago where I was talking about the importance of articulating your purpose as distinct from your mission and your vision.
Also to be very clear on what your values are as well. I think these are very important antidotes, part of the antidote perhaps to toxic systems. And I had one young gentleman in the audience, it was an MBA group of about 200 people. And he said all of this talk, professor, he called me about empathy and compassion and being, you know, being good to people and so forth. I think it's a load of rubbish. He said to me and I said well you know, let me, let me, let me just ask you a couple of questions if you're okay with it. And he said yeah, sure, go ahead. And I said I'm guessing that you're an entrepreneur. And he said, looking around the room, he said actually I am. And I said, and let me guess how many people you have working with you at the moment. I'd say it's probably about eight. And he looked surprised and he said actually yeah, it is eight.
Later some people ask me, why did you pick on the number eight? And I picked on the number eight because it's an auspicious number in our part of the world. Here in Asia, eight is a good number. So I thought I'll choose eight of. And I said, and Im guessing that you give them instructions more or less on a daily basis, you micromanage them to make sure that they do what you want them to do. And he said absolutely, absolutely, I do that. And so I said to him, well heres the thing, its just my hypothesis and youre very welcome to disagree if you wish, if you want to grow your business and Im assuming you do, you are an entrepreneur. He said yeah, yeah, yeah, were going to be big. He said I don't doubt that you will be, but I can tell you that when you get to 18 people, let alone eight, you're going to find it difficult to manage and lead in the way that you're attempting to do right now. When you get to 8800, 8000, 80,000, it is not going to work. So at some point, you're going to have to decide, what do I stand for as a leader in this organization? What is the culture going to be? What's going to attract people to me and to my business, and what's actually going to keep them as well. So I said it's something that you're going to have to address sooner or later, so I suggest you start tomorrow, because everybody started laughing. But I would stand by that today.
That aspect of micromanaging in the interviews I had with people was probably one of the consistent things that I saw in terms of those toxic behaviors of managers, of people, that inability to let go, and that absolute fixation with wanting to control everything.
[00:26:02] Speaker A: William, it's interesting because one of the psychometrics you mentioned in your book is fire Ob, and I'd be a fan of that. And one of the aspects of that is about control, and it's just this need for control versus am I willing to be controlled? And there's an awful lot of people who just don't want to be controlled, but they want to control everybody.
[00:26:20] Speaker B: That's right.
[00:26:21] Speaker A: It just seems to be a big, big factor at play here. What are the other personality types that you find are prevalent in toxic behaviors?
[00:26:32] Speaker B: Well, with some of those archetypes I mentioned earlier, you've got your, I would add, micromanager. Funnily enough, they all started with an M, I think the one that everybody can identify with. And that's the M for Mona.
That's the person who, if you're a CEO reporting to the board and you've got ten things to report on, and you've done eight of them really well, or the organization has done eight of them really well, but two of them are kind of still outstanding, or they're pending. The Mona will always zero in on those and will not give credit where credit is due because they mistakenly think that their duty as a board member is to almost exclusively go for the jugular and to try to, if you like, point out what isn't right. That is part of it, of course. And I say in the book that board dynamics is not about creating a feel good club. It's about achieving something that's really difficult for most groups, which is a really healthy balance of challenge and also support.
Those are the things that we're going to be looking for.
And also, I guess, maybe to make a little bit more sense of it as well. I try to explore by asking myself the question, if toxicity shows up in different ways, it probably shows up in different intensities as well. And I was really struck by some of the work that was done by Simon Baron Cohen. He wrote a book called the Science of Evil. And he was trying to get at that. You know, when we hear about a terrible crime in the news and we turn to our partner, we say, whoa, that person must be really evil. He was trying to get at this notion of, what do you mean by evil?
How would you define that? And I thought to myself, you could probably apply the same question to toxicity as well. How can you define that? And so I tried then to use empathy almost as a prisme to try to then figure out where on a spectrum of toxicity, different individuals might, might land. And that's why, John, I think in that particular spectrum, there are people who have toxic behaviors, and they don't know that they have toxic behaviors. They don't appreciate the negative impact they have on people. And I think those people are helpable, if I could put it that way. You know, we can work with those, with those individuals to sort of help them, because it's going to be helpful for everybody around them. But I think it's also very helpful for them as well. It's going to help their careers. I think it's going to help their mental health as well, if we can address those particular individuals. And then I think we do have then way over towards the left hand side of the toxicity spectrum, that area inhabited by narcissists and then psychopaths, clinically certifiable psychopaths. And I think earlier, John, you were referring to a gentleman who probably would not. Well, I think he didn't pass the very famous psychopath test that I mentioned in the book. But when he was challenged by the journalist John Ronson about that, the famous story of when he went to Alabama, to one of his factories there, and the factory manager was asked, what kind of day are you having? And the manager said, really good day, because I've just taken receipt of this beautiful red sports car that I've been saving up and coveting for many, many years, months. And it's just sitting out there, and I'm looking forward to driving it home today. And this particular gentleman said, well, I'm really glad that you're happy about your car, so you've got a nice car, but here's the thing. You don't have a job anymore. And he fired him on the spot. And when the journalist said, don't you think that was a little bit sort of abrupt? You know, you might have wanted to consider things a little bit? And he said, no, it didn't take me any time at all. I cannot have such someone who's in charge of my factory thinking about the nice red sports car that he's going to be buying shortly. I need him to be completely focused on the job. So I have no problem with that. And I would fire him on the spot again.
And he argued that that was good leadership.
[00:31:31] Speaker A: Yeah, yeah. It takes all sorts, doesn't it?
And the psychopath, I mean, how do you describe what a psychopath is? It just so that if somebody's interested to know who are listening to this, whether they're psychopaths themselves?
[00:31:46] Speaker B: Well, I mean, there's, as you can imagine, quite a lot of data around about psychopaths and certainly the correlation between psychopathy and narcissism as well. Sometimes people will put a wraparound term and talk about sociopaths. But I've made the point in my book that there is a distinction to be made between these different types of individuals. For my money, I think in corporate life, I think narcissists are possibly more dangerous because they're more prevalent.
[00:32:20] Speaker A: And just to the audience here, just so they understand the difference there between those two.
[00:32:26] Speaker B: Yeah. A narcissist is somebody who's singularly interested in themselves. Their universe revolves around themselves. It doesn't necessarily mean that they're not very good at interacting with people. In fact, sometimes they're very good at interacting with people, whereas sociopaths have a very difficult time interacting with people.
So that's quite a big difference because we see, and I'm sure we've all bumped into these people, a really fine sense of how to manage upwards and a very good sense of timing in terms of when to take credit for something that was probably not just your thing, but it was actually a team thing. Very clever use of words, for example, really very adept at communication. And this is where we find really successful narcissists able to sort of hang on for years and years. And it partially answers the question, why did they manage to stay on for so long? Because they're able to manage the situation very well with psychopaths, John, I think, again, variously, numbers are sort of shared. That suggests that in a general population, and when I read the number four, 4% of a general population will have some degree of psychopathic trait or traits, I thought to myself for one moment, oh, that doesn't seem like a very big number. And then when I thought to myself, well, actually, if you're talking about general population, you know, you're there in Ireland, it's a lot of people walking around with potentially psychopathic behavior. But of course it doesn't mean that we can, you know, we need to be on, on our guard to, to see axe wielding murderers running up and down, you know, the corporation. That's not quite how it is.
[00:34:28] Speaker A: Just from when we were chatting just before we started to record, you mentioned that some stories aren't in the book because people were ready to tell them, and then all of a sudden they decided that they didn't feel comfortable because it was unearthing something that was just too difficult for them.
That's the impact, isn't it?
[00:34:53] Speaker B: Yeah. And John, I'm glad you brought that up because that's probably the single most impactful event, I suppose, in terms of writing the book. That really brought it home to me and made me think that this is something that we need to do a lot more work on. The. A colleague said to me, former colleague, I'd like to talk about these things, but having now revisited them, I'd rather not talk about them. So we just called the interview off and I thought to myself, that's a terrible state of affairs, that the shadow of what happened is still there. And I think that's the thing that, you know, we're seeing a lot, a lot now with the recollections of things that have happened in organizational life across the world, actually, that it affects people forever.
[00:35:56] Speaker A: Yeah. And, you know, I see that in one area that I think is very hopeful that the lid has been raised and, and people are coming forward, and that's fantastic. I think there's another area where the dirty tricks brigade operate in. I don't think that's actually recognized what's going on there. And I think that in time will be just as big because, you know, when you see suicide rates and in particular roles and the like, people oftentimes will put it down to all money issues or whatever. But I wonder, I really wonder.
[00:36:41] Speaker B: I think the other thing is that the kind of times that we're going through at the moment, the epoch that we're living through at the moment, it's a very violent, complex world at the moment. I think the world has always been violent.
Many people would argue. I think we see it, we can hear about it instantaneously. And I think I kind of tried to gently make the point in the book that when very toxic political leaders come to the fore. It's precisely because they can offer an alternative future to people that does away with the complexities of how difficult the world is. And people want someone like that to say, I will sort it out for you.
All you need to do is vote for me and I'll take care of it. And a lot of people thinking, well, I can go for that. Yeah. People want simplicity in many respects.
[00:37:51] Speaker A: I always remember that quote. You know, they say to every really complex issue, there's a really simple solution, but it's normally wrong because complex issues generally need complex solutions.
And it's. Yeah, it is. One of the things in the book that you mentioned that just scared me was that women are more likely to experience a toxic workplace culture than men.
[00:38:14] Speaker B: Yes.
[00:38:15] Speaker A: Why is that?
[00:38:15] Speaker B: Yes.
Well, I think the why part of it is very interesting.
I think we can look, first of all, at the power dynamics in organizations generally in terms of the gender split in organizations generally. I think that some of the research that's been done by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and specifically. Bye.
The Soul Brothers has really shone a light on this. I think 40% of women have reported some degree of some kind of toxicity in their organizational life. This is looking at american organizational life primarily. And I think that, I think there's definitely a power dynamic there.
And Im choosing my words carefully because I want to sort of pay tribute to those people that I did talk to about this.
It takes a huge amount of bravery on the part of women to go against this enormous tide of male dominated power in organizations. Some women have been successful, and it's been a really, really long haul for those that were successful. And when I asked them what made the difference, they said it was because I had powerful female support networks, people that I could go to, and that I could say to them, look, this is happening to me.
Am I imagining this or this is not right? And they would say, you're absolutely right. It's not right.
[00:40:14] Speaker A: Yeah.
[00:40:15] Speaker B: And this is where I think that kind of support can come in. I think men, and I think we. John, you know this very well. I think with, with the work that you're involved in, men don't often have those kinds of networks readily available to help support them through difficult times. So it may be also a question of, I guess, suffering in silence on the part of many, many people.
[00:40:45] Speaker A: Yeah, because I hadn't heard the term that you mentioned, fragile masculinity.
Talk a little bit about that.
[00:40:55] Speaker B: Well, fragile masculinity. And I literally just touched on it in the book. I think it's a topic that's absolutely huge and multifaceted. I think it's a challenge today for many men to have a good role model of how to be a good man.
And we're seeing, and I think without naming names, individuals who, again, trying to make sense of all of the difficulties and complexities in the world. They're trying to reduce things to simple solutions, such as men need to behave in this kind of way. Suggestions that men have a right to own women, and that is appealing to a certain demographic, again, facilitated by the Internet, people who are finding it difficult to have relationships of any kind with anyone who are feeling very disgruntled with the world. And so there's this notion that presenting an alternative view of masculinity, I think, is something that we still have to work very hard on. I'll give you an example. I was doing a panel discussion a few years ago here in Singapore, and again, I won't particularly name individuals, but there was one senior female leader who said to the audience, one of the things we have to remember is that women are much better at empathy and compassion than men are. And so we then have to just focus on that. And I find that kind of comet incredibly unhelpful because it actually lets men off the hook.
So coming back to that notion of fragile masculinity, if you're saying to young men and boys that this is the kind of masculine prototype, archetype or icon that you should be following, and being compassionate and empathetic is not manly, for example, it's not how men should behave. I think this is doing a tremendous disservice to humanity, and we really need to fight back against that. To not have this notion that being empathetic or being compassionate is in any way compromising to one's own masculinity, what.
[00:43:40] Speaker A: Part does the education system have to play here to try and change the narrative and equip people who are entering the workplace with a set of norms to sort of say, actually, this is how you should operate and not like this?
[00:43:59] Speaker B: Yeah, I think it's such a good point. And the point that you're making there is that I think it does have to start early, and school is a great place to actually be talking about these things. I believe that, in fact, there are many ways to be a man or a woman or whoever you want to be.
But I guess the common denominator across all of these definitions of who you want to be is it's about learning to respect other people and allow people other people to be who they want to be.
[00:44:44] Speaker A: And we're just coming to the, I don't know where the time has gone, but it feels like if we only started.
But I'm just sort of the key role then of boards in terms of really trying to make sure that the organization is operating effectively. What's the key point there? Is there a duty of care that they have, that they have to exercise?
[00:45:12] Speaker B: I think there is, John, and I think what's really encouraging is that this whole notion of a board's primary role, which is about oversight, it's about governance, it's about making sure that the organization is on track. I think it was very well articulated by a Yale professor many years ago where he said, you know, if we follow the corporate guidelines handbook and we do everything that we're supposed to do in terms of oversight, and yet things still don't work out the way that we want them to be, why is that? And the answer that he put to that was, it's actually a human thing. It's not a rules and regulations thing.
In other words, it's so important to have effective human dynamics within the board so that they can be, if you like, an exemplar to the rest of the organization in one way, shape or form or form. In other words, not just helping to set the direction, but actually to standardize what is normal and what people should be aspiring to do. I think that's probably one of the most important things that I kind of discovered in my research for the book was that some simple things can often go a very, very long way to improving the situation. Now, some people may say that's not possible, Michael, but I mentioned it anyway. And that is something as simple as increasing the, what you might call the cadence of board meetings and opening up the possibility for board members to actually meet the members of the organization. In other words, not just parachuting in for, you know, a three hour meeting and then getting, getting on a jet and flying off again, but actually engaging with the people.
In Brazil, there's an amazing writer on board matters who's called Sandra Guerra, and she's written a book called Inside the Black Box, which is about board functioning. And she says in Brazil it's very normal for boards to meet about twelve times a year. Can you imagine?
That's something that we generally see or hear of in other parts of the world, but it literally increases the frequency with which you could have human interaction with the people in the organization and improves the ability for the board to get, you know, really get under the skin of the culture of the organization.
[00:48:00] Speaker A: I also think, you know, we're seeing increasingly now where the boards are looking for the healthy place to work results because they want to read the data and they want to read the open ended comments and there's no hiding place because suddenly, you know, that's independent information that they're getting, that nobody is kind of putting it in a little brief or report.
It's kind of saying, this is it, warts and all. Well, so I think that's a fantastic opportunity for boards who are progressive to step forward.
[00:48:33] Speaker B: Absolutely spot on, John. Absolutely spot on. And the other thing they can do, and this may sound like a contradiction in terms, is actually harness the power of AIH to enable us to have more human organizations to really be able to pinpoint in a very large organization. Where are the hotspots, where are the teams that quite clearly have a dysfunctional leader leading them or a leader who's for whatever reason, having real difficulties holding that team together? AI can help to spot that through organizational network analysis.
[00:49:10] Speaker A: Yeah, I love that, you know, that those tools can actually be used for good because there's a lot of people sort of talking about the negative effects, but if you get it right, hopefully it'll make a difference to people's lives. Michael, it's been a joy to talk to you and continued success because I'm sure you'll have many other books. This will be part of a series. It's a really enjoyable read. But more than that, the fact that you've opened sort of a box that I think needs to be opened, a discussion needs to be had, because to me, I think it's really, really important that we just have those conversations in organizations and just give people the space to kind of consider their own behaviors. And I'm including myself in that. You know, everybody, all of us, we need to stop and not just do, we need to reflect and sort of say, actually, how am I coming across?
How am I as a role model?
And let other people tell you the answer to that.
I think it's really, really powerful. So I think you've done a great service by publishing this book, and thank you so much for your time today in discussing it.
[00:50:23] Speaker B: It was a pleasure, John. Thank you very much.
[00:50:28] Speaker A: What a fascinating topic. My thanks to Michael for writing about this crucial subject and calling out really bad behaviors that make workplaces really unhealthy. Next up on the work healthy podcast, we'll be talking about change and why, according to doctor Alan Watkins. If you're the same person today that you were six months ago. You're failing. See you next time on the work Healthy podcast.
