The Leaders’ Ecosystem – Magical Learning Podcast

Magical Learning Podcast – 230424

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Hello everybody and welcome to the Magical Learning Podcast For this week, magical Learning Podcast is a podcast that looks at important life and business issues and topics and breaks them down in a fun and lighthearted way. This week we’re talking to Dr. Paige Williams about the Leader’s Ecosystem. It’s her new book, but it’s also a really interesting concept. We break down some of the interesting chapters in the book, and you can go find that book in the link below. Otherwise, I hope you’re keeping well. And as always, have a magical week.

Speaker 2 (00:30):

[00:00:30] Hello everybody, and welcome to the Magical Learning Podcast for this week. As you can tell by the title, we have a guest and we’ll get to them shortly. But first we’ve got to check in with the regular team, see what’s going on. So I might start with you, Graham. Graham, you’re in a new office today. New environment, new great shirt. What’s happening?

Speaker 3 (00:56):

Hey, Jess. Well, it’s [00:01:00] What day is it? Tuesday, maybe. It’s hard to tell. I am in a borrowed office that I am trusting is reptile free, unlike my normal workspace. Big week in Canberra last week, four days of teaching, but then we got to go to Sydney over the weekend, catch up with some friends, go do a bit of boating, went for a swim and a shark sp free spot. It’s all about danger at the moment. I’m not sure why. And yeah, back home for [00:01:30] a day and a half before we get back up to Canberra. It’s been a fun week.

Speaker 2 (01:36):

That is pretty cool, getting to jump out on a boat and everything. Very exciting. Danette, how’s your week going?

Speaker 4 (01:44):

Well, I didn’t have as much teaching last week, so that was good. I only had two days and the boating and that was awesome. And the chickens are laying again, so very excited. And we just have to collect them before the Goana gets them, so [00:02:00] it’s us or the Goana gets the eggs. So we have a new visitor to the farm.

Speaker 2 (02:07):

How exciting.

Speaker 3 (02:09):

At least this one’s got eggs.

Speaker 2 (02:10):

That’s true. Always. Yeah, always good. That and Dr. Paige, how’s your week going?

Speaker 5 (02:17):

Oh, my week’s been great. I’m in Torquay on the south coast of Victoria. It’s certainly embraced the first day of autumn or the first few days of autumn. We’ve got chilly temperatures overnight, but beautiful, clear, sunny days. So my [00:02:30] week’s been filled with beach walks and work and lots of sunshine and then snuggling in at night because it’s getting chilly.

Speaker 2 (02:39):

It’s true. I’m in Melbourne and we’re starting to feel some of the coldness sneak in now. It’s already jacket weather at night now, so if I go out. So I agree with that and it’s unfortunately sad, but that’s okay. I agree. So Dr. Paige, pleasure to have you on today. You’ve got a new book that we’re going to talk about very, but for people that [00:03:00] might be being introduced to you for the first time, would you like to tell us just a little bit about yourself?

Speaker 5 (03:05):

Yeah, I’d love to Jess, and thanks so much all of you for inviting me on to have a lovely conversation together. So when people say to me, Hey Paige, what do you do? The shortest answer is, I’m an organizational psychologist and that’s where my research and my PhD and the kind of doctor comes from. And what do I do? I work with leaders, [00:03:30] I work with leaders to help them be better leaders. And that can be different depending on where they are, what they do, where they’re at in their own leadership development journey and what the needs are of their team, of their organization, and of the context they’re in. So I’m all about helping leaders lead exceptionally, and I love this word exceptional because I think it’s a lovely, big meaty word that we can shape and form for it to have a real [00:04:00] intimate meaning for the leader or leaders that I’m working with. So that’s what I do. I’m an organizational psychologist who helps leaders lead exceptionally.

Speaker 2 (04:11):

Fantastic. Well, you’re a perfect person to talk to today, and I think that even more than that, we’ve got to talk about the new book. So the new book, the Leaders Ecosystem, very exciting. We got to have a little look at it and some really interesting insights. Even from what I was going through, I was really impressed and we’ve got a lot of questions today. But before we get into the questions, [00:04:30] would you like to tell us a little bit about this book and yeah, tell us a little bit about the book here.

Speaker 5 (04:35):

Yeah, sure. So The Leader’s Ecosystem is my third book. And look, I’m going to just be really honest about this. I don’t find writing easy. So books aren’t something that I go, oh yeah, let’s write another one. If I’m writing a book, it’s really because I feel that there’s something of value to put into the world that will help leaders and systems and teams to thrive in some way. [00:05:00] And when it came to the leaders ecosystem, it’s actually not a traditional kind of non-business book. It’s a series of essays because where I’ve got to, before I did my research and went took a step into academia, and then having been working alongside leaders and teams and organizations for the last 15 years or so, I was a leader. So I’ve been the person with people and profit responsibility and the stretch that it takes to manage and lead those two things [00:05:30] well.

(05:31):

And I know that certainly in my time as a leader, it would be a luxury to take a deep dive into one of the many things and tools and ideas that we need to have at our fingertips supposedly as a leader. And so when I wrote the ecosystem, I thought about what is it that, where is there, I have a phrase that I live by, which is everything you need and nothing you don’t. And that applies to my shoes, to the pantry, to my wardrobe, [00:06:00] to the way I manage my funds and budgeting everything you need and nothing you don’t. And I thought, what would it mean for leaders to have in one book everything they needed and nothing they didn’t? Because the thing that I found, and I’m sure you guys have seen this in your teaching as well, is that often the pathway to leadership is that you are deep in a subject matter expert.

(06:23):

You are deep in leading an aspect of a business or organization, and then you get promoted and [00:06:30] promoted and promoted and all of a sudden you are out of your subject matter expertise and your subject matter expertise is expected to be lead people and dynamics and culture and conflict and creativity. And you’re like, hang on, I was taught how to develop systems or I was taught with this technical expertise and now what’s being asked of me is something fundamentally different. And I haven’t now got the luxury of going back and getting an undergraduate degree and a master’s degree and a PhD [00:07:00] in the field doing the work. And so the ecosystem, I believe is the answer to that. It’s everything you need as a leader. Nothing you don’t, for you to have the tools and strategies at your fingertips to manage exceptionally in what I think we’d agree are extraordinary times.

Speaker 2 (07:18):

Wow. Well, I mean, what a book. They couldn’t have sold it better. I need to read this already. It’s already, it’s amazing. So it’s so good to you on Dr. Page to talk about this. And so usually we a topic that’s just sort [00:07:30] of maybe more a specific thing, but this is about the book because given us so many different things to look at within the book. So for people that are sort of interested in this, you can go check out the actual book to find out a bit more relevance of these questions, but these are all things that are covered within the book. So I might start with Danette. Danette, what was your question and tell us about why you chose it.

Speaker 4 (07:48):

Oh, so there was so many topics in the ecosystem that I was like, oh, how do I pick one? But I went, okay, let’s start with the better together. Because more and more [00:08:00] organizations are asking leaders to bring people together to collaborate, et cetera, and not everyone is really good at that. So my first question was tell us more about Better Together and why does some leaders struggle with this, and then what can they do to improve this?

Speaker 5 (08:18):

For sure, for sure. So each of the essays addresses a different topic, and what Better Together speaks about is how do we create what I call anti-fragile [00:08:30] teams. So these are teams that actually improve through the experience of disruption and uncertainty and change. That is our normal lived experience now and certainly more is asked of teams because of the nature of our environment. And yet how is it that as leaders we can create those teams with intentionality Now that’s why we are better together. The word anti-fragile comes from the original work by an author called Nasim [00:09:00] Nicholas Talib. And he studied markets, he studied, he was a share trader and he noticed that some stocks and shares actually go up and improve through times of great disruption in the market as a whole. And so this idea of anti-fragility is how is it that through what can be quite uncomfortable experiences, we come out of it in some way better, in some way bigger, in some way improved even though it may have been uncomfortable along the way.

(09:29):

Now I think this idea [00:09:30] of Better Together speaks to the idea that collectives are inherently more anti-fragile than an individual. And that makes sense. There’s four of us in this conversation today, and we are going to have richness and experience and diversity of perspective because there’s more of us in the conversation. And that gives an expanded, richer, better experience both for us and for our listeners. The challenge I reckon for leaders in this is [00:10:00] what we’ve been sold good leadership looks like is not that we’ve been sold, that being a good leader means that we have all the answers and we sold all the problems and that we’re one step ahead of our team. And so for leaders to create anti-fragile teams, the first work they almost need to do is put down some of the learned behavior that they’ve been told good leadership looks like and go, do you know what? It’s okay for me not to have all the answers. In fact, it might even be better if I don’t. [00:10:30] Because if I can ask more questions and draw out the collective wisdom of the group and the team that’s with me, then I’m actually going to get a better outcome for everything and everyone involved.

Speaker 4 (10:47):

Love that answer. Sorry, I had myself on mute. Beautiful. Thank you. Thanks so much, Paige.

Speaker 2 (10:53):

Yeah, amazing place to start there, Paige. That’s awesome. I might throw to Graham’s question, Graham, what was your question [00:11:00] and tell us about why you chose it.

Speaker 3 (11:02):

I don’t think my question’s relevant anymore. I’m really curious to chat with Paige about everything you need and nothing you don’t in the context of shoes, but people park out for now

Speaker 5 (11:13):

That’s a conversation over a glass of wine. Graham for sure done, sold

Speaker 3 (11:20):

In this weird sort of space that we are operating in at the moment, particularly in, I’m not sure what it’s like on the other side of the world, but certainly in western societies it [00:11:30] seems to be we’ve been struggling with this, I’m trying to remember the phrase I read somewhere. It’s almost like a toxic positivity where we just, everybody is under the pump to achieve more and to be more and do more and all of the mores that go along with that. So my question was acknowledging that a lot of that is still happening, and I love this idea of collective anti-fragility, [00:12:00] but also acknowledging you probably need to start with the leaders, and this is based on your essay around love, which is a topping near and dear to my heart. So from your perspective, your experience, what does leading with love look sound or feel like in teams in particular in collectives?

Speaker 5 (12:18):

Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I agree with you that we’ve also been sold that what good looks like, which is a question I’m pretty obsessed with. I think this [00:12:30] question, what does good look like? And I used it in terms of what does good leadership look like, but it’s such a great guiding heuristic. What does a good podcast conversation look like? What does a good meeting look like? What’s a good outcome from this mentoring, coaching, this feedback conversation, this? And so this idea of what does good look like and making that explicit and making it clear and aligned I think can strip away a lot of confusion when it comes to what does good look [00:13:00] like in terms of love in the workplace. I think first of all, we have to acknowledge, it’s sensible for us to acknowledge that this is pretty shaky territory that we’re stepping into here.

(13:13):

I wrote a blog a little while ago called How to Lead with Love and Not Make It Weird because I reckon you could easily go, well, hang on a minute, what do you mean? What do you mean lead with love? We’ve got [00:13:30] all kinds of very appropriate work case regulations in place. What are you talking to here, Paige? And what I’m talking to is a bigger idea of love. I love the idea that there are multiple words for snow in the language that Eskimo traditions use because they have so much nuance around that. And yet we don’t really have that around the word love. And when we use it, we have this kind of pretty, it’s like a hammer and a nail. We’ve got quite [00:14:00] a gross understanding of what it means. I wrote the essay, I looked into kind of, okay, what’s a Greek understanding of it?

(14:07):

And there are different aspects of that. And what I’m speaking to here is what the Greeks called agape and Agape, if you can kind of book into that as the understanding of love in the workplace, I think it gets you a long way along the track. So Agape is this mature, free, no possessiveness. It’s a universal love [00:14:30] and I like to phrase it as it’s the best in me encouraging the best in you. And if we think about leading with love from that purpose, then I reckon we’ve got to a really critical part of what leadership is all about. Because if the best in me is encouraging the best in you, we are going to do some exceptional work together. And I reckon that’s our purpose.

Speaker 3 (14:55):

Nice. I like that. So it sort of follows on from that page that [00:15:00] showing up as the best version and for me requires that the first thing leaders need to work on is not their team but themselves.

Speaker 5 (15:09):

Absolutely. And so in the structure of the essays in the book, so there are nine essays and the way that they’re structured is what are the essays that relate to me? What are the essays that relate to we a team? And what are the essays that relate to us in terms of a collective, whether that’s a culture or a system. [00:15:30] And in terms of lead with love, lead with love has to start with me because it’s very difficult to be in the world something that you are not for yourself. And so it’s difficult for a leader to show compassion, to show care, kindness, empathy if they are not doing that for themselves. And interestingly, I’ve been involved in research in Australian workplaces for about seven years now, and the most [00:16:00] recent findings in terms of what was the critical factor that differentiated people who were experiencing burnout from those who were not, and it was their level of self-care and self-compassion, were they being gentle with themselves around the struggle they were experiencing? And that’s what lead with love starts with. It starts with leading yourself with love and then extending that out into your team and workplace.

Speaker 3 (16:28):

Nice. Love it. Thank you.

Speaker 2 (16:30):

[00:16:30] Amazing. Thanks for that. And thanks for the questions. You did great Questions. I wanted to talk quickly. My question was about, there was a concept called Beyond resilience, which we were talking about a little bit before, which is, but I just wanted this quote really stood out to me because it’s a cycle that I certainly have been in and I know we’ve just touched on it a little bit, but I just feel like we can jump into it. So the quote was, we’re making and keeping ourselves fragile. Resilience is no longer enough and bouncing back simply won’t cut [00:17:00] it. It’s exhausting and it’s burning us out. And that is true. Bouncing back is also take so much energy. I know that exact feeling. So this really resonated with me. I said, I know a lot of people feel this way. How do we break out of this cycle?

Speaker 5 (17:14):

So I think the first thing is recognizing the cycle. So when I talk about this, I often talk about out phones, right? So I’m a Gen Z, I grew up in the early 1980s [00:17:30] and I grew up with phones where you stuck your finger in a little kind of button and you pulled it round and then you waited for it to come back and there were seven or nine digit numbers. And so it could take, I don’t know, a minute to dial a number. I mean that was mindfulness activities before we even knew they were a thing. And if you can, trying to use that kind of phone in our digital iPhone world today that’s kind of trying to use resilience to deal with the VUCA environment that we are living and working in now. [00:18:00] So this acronym vuca, I’m just going to talk through it just in case listeners haven’t heard of it.

(18:06):

Vuca something that came out of the military and that it’s an acronym that stands for volatile, uncertain, complex and ambiguous. And just earlier, no end of last year, I heard someone say, yeah, we’ve added another A to it now because it’s also accelerating. So it’s not just wca, it’s wca. And I reckon we are all feeling [00:18:30] that, right? So this idea of resilience no longer being enough is just because it doesn’t have a fit. There’s not a fittedness with the reality that we are living in. Now. Resilience was great when we could encounter something that had an impact on us, we were knocked back by it in some way, perfectly natural normal response. And then we had time to come back and recover to where we were before [00:19:00] the next thing came along and gave us a little bit of a knock back. But that’s not the case.

(19:06):

And this accelerating this additional A to the VUCA speaks to this because it’s no longer episodes of disruption with pauses in between. It is the disruption and uncertainty that we are living with day to day. So when we think about we’re making and keeping ourselves fragile is because we are kind of not using the right tools with which to navigate the reality of our context now. [00:19:30] And so this is where we come to the idea of anti-fragility that I introduced and spoke to earlier, the work of NASS Nicholas Tar as I mentioned, and in relation to stocks and shares. And as I discovered this with my background in systems thinking, psychology leadership, I went, Ooh, what could this look like for human systems, for leaders, for teams, for families, for cultures, for communities? And that was my first book becoming anti-fragile. And so when you say what [00:20:00] do we need to do differently?

(20:01):

How can we break the cycle? Again, it’s a putting down of something that no longer serves us, which is this idea that resilience is enough and unlearning that and in its place, having a fundamentally different relationship with the VUCA environment and approaching it from the perspective of this is natural, this is normal, this is not going to change and stop being in resistance to it and instead [00:20:30] go, I might not enjoy every experience as I navigate this environment, but it is very normal for me to have ups and downs. It’s normal for me to feel and experience struggle doesn’t mean anything’s wrong, doesn’t mean anything’s broken. And the question I reckon helps us through this is to continually ask even in the midst as you are not enjoying what’s going on to hold this question, how can I be better coming out of this [00:21:00] than I was coming into it?

(21:03):

How can we be better coming out of this than we were coming into it? Because if we’re orientating that way towards our uncomfortable experiences, one, we’re not seeing them as being a problem, we’re seeing them as being natural. Two, we’re not seeing ourselves as being wrong because we are uncomfortable and struggling. And three, we are looking for the learning expansion and growth. We are engaging with the reality [00:21:30] of our environment in a fundamentally different way. And it means that rather than just bouncing back and using all that energy as you spoke to Jay and coming back to where we were before, we are continually expanding and moving forward whilst acknowledging it’s not always easy and it’s not always comfortable.

Speaker 2 (21:49):

Wow. Well, very helpful there and it’s a great model. I’ve written it down definitely, and I’m going to have to think about this more, but that’s a great lesson. So thank you so much for that pleasure. I [00:22:00] might jump into Alan’s question here. So Alan has said, my question is, how do we connect and lead to millennial generations? Any thoughts you have on that one?

Speaker 5 (22:11):

Yeah, I reckon this is a really hot potato and as I’ve come to the end of writing the book and putting it out into the world, it’s been really interesting to see how this has been quite a live topic to come out of the different, how the [00:22:30] topics in the book are woven together. So I reckon we need to put some context around millennials. I reckon they get a pretty hard run of it. So let’s define our terms. I’m a researcher, I like to define our terms. So these are people born in the mid eighties to mid nineties, so they’re currently 25 to 39 years. Now that time, mid eighties to nineties in Australia particularly was a time of prosperity. These people had baby boomer parents. Baby boomers [00:23:00] are fabulous with their encouragement. So here’s a context where they grew up in prosperity with parents that were very encouraging.

(23:08):

And so one of the key traits of millennials or Gen Y is that they are optimistic. They reckon everything’s going to go really well and they’re sometimes labeled as being unrealistic. Now the challenge for them is they are sandwiched between Gen X, [00:23:30] I’m a Gen X who grew up in recession and are hard realist. They’re like, do not even try to pretend that everything’s going to turn out okay because it didn’t for me, and I’m not going there. And the children of Gen X, gen Z who go, we saw our parents suffer, don’t think that we are going to solve these complex problems that you’re passing down to us as easy as pie. So what you’ve got is a millennial generation in a sandwich of realists, right? [00:24:00] And in a workplace, understandable, that can cause some kind of different perspectives on the same thing. Let’s just put it that way.

(24:08):

Different ways of thinking of what good looks like in terms of solving the challenges and meeting the opportunities when you’ve got X, Y, and Z in the same meeting, in the same conversation. So that’s just a bit of context to the millennial generation and they are struggling right now. There was a Deloitte survey, they’ve been doing a survey now for about, I think it’s 12 [00:24:30] or 13 years on millennials and Gen Zs, and I was reading the one that was published middle of last year, 2023. It’s the most recent one. And they are struggling right now. Millennials are in the midst of burnout and they’re also in those big years, like 25 to 39. What are we doing at that age and stage J? You are in the middle of that now, I reckon. Yeah, right. We’re completing study, we’re getting into our groove work-wise or moving ourselves up the career ladder.

(25:00):

[00:25:00] We are in the midst of big relationship stuff. We might be settling down, we might be getting married, we might be having kids. And the research suggests that this generation more than Gen Z, who are the younger, the next generation younger are feeling stressed, are feeling anxious, and are feeling burnt out. So that’s the context of millennials. And when we hear they’re really hard to manage or to lead, it’s about, well, [00:25:30] that’s because they have a different set of expectations and a different idea of what good looks like than the generations either side of them. I reckon there’s one thing that will help align generations and lead the millennials well, whether you are a zda who’s younger or aner who’s older, and that is clarity of expectations. So I’ve done a big body of work around accountability and my second book was [00:26:00] called Own It Honoring and Amplifying Accountability.

(26:03):

And I’m passionate about accountability given such a bad rap. It’s like, ooh, no one wants to talk about accountability. And sometimes when I talk to clients, they go, can we use a different word? No, we don’t need to use a different word. We just need to reframe and re-understand how we do accountability. Clarity of expectations means that if there is unrealistic optimism from millennials, we’re able [00:26:30] to create a bigger space around what are the expectations that we have of you, of us as a team of this project, of this program, and actually get that clear and aligned and above the surface. We know that millennials prefer to work collectively than individually. So once those expectations are aligned and in the room, it’s then about how do we make clear the support that will be provided for them as they are expected to meet [00:27:00] those expectations. And then the third thing is they grew up in a family full of encouragement. So how is it that as they walk along this path towards the expectations that we’ve set and with the support that we’ve put in place, we are encouraging of the steps and the progress that they make. So I reckon it’s clarity of expectations, clear support and active encouragement. And I reckon those three things help us meet the context [00:27:30] and the reality of their lived experience, the context of then and the reality of their now.

Speaker 2 (27:37):

Amazing. Thanks for that. That was a great explanation. I think it covered a lot of things, talking about different generations as well, how they can interact. I think that’s a great way to kind of encompass it all. So thanks for that. I might jump into Allegra’s question, which was what was something surprising you learned while researching this book?

Speaker 5 (27:57):

Yeah, so I think I’ve already alluded [00:28:00] to that this book was a bit of a different way for me to write and are different than the books I’ve written before. And the other way in which it was different is I am a researcher, I have a big academic background, and yet I have always had a sense that evidence informed or evidence-based only gets us so far. And [00:28:30] because evidence, we can only provide evidence for the questions we know how to ask and answer through scientific method. And that in itself is a huge constraint. So what I loved about writing this book is that as I talked about me, we and us as being three levels, the three themes in it are feeling well about thriving, doing well about high performance and leading well about [00:29:00] how do we lead ourselves, others, and out into the world.

(29:04):

And as I got into the upper, the third level of leading well, I found that I was less and less using kind of, and I was speaking much more and writing much more from my lived experience and my deep knowing and kind of a truth. And that for me was a new experience. So it was very interesting to start with [00:29:30] the themes around doing well, which is anti-fragile at the me we and us level, and being so anchored in my background in positive psychology and wellbeing science. And then as I wrote the chapters seven, eight, and nine or essay seven, eight and nine, moving away from that and writing from a very different space that I really hadn’t before. And so that was a very different experience for me and I enjoyed the different tonality that it gives to the essays, [00:30:00] and that was something new and something I enjoyed and something I’m kind of going to see if I continue to play with.

Speaker 2 (30:11):

Amazing. Well, that’s really exciting. I also think that there’s so much you can sort of learn outside of science. I’m also, I feel like going on this journey where you can see the limitations of it. So I think that’s amazing. It’s very exciting stuff. We’ve got a final question here. We did touch on this before with Graham’s question, but if there’s any extra info you want to jump in with Dr. Page, [00:30:30] this would be great. You talk about the leverage of love. When people typically think of working in office, they don’t think of the word love, typically. How can officers use love more and why is it important? So any additional info you got there?

Speaker 5 (30:42):

Yeah, of course, of course. The chapter is called, or the essay is called Leveraging Love. And I think we can think of it in at the three different levels. So we’ve talked about lead with love, self love [00:31:00] in teams. There are ways that we can show what’s called companionate love. So there’s a beautiful researcher called Dr. Amanda O’Neill and she’s looked into companionate love and how leaders can create companionate love culture. And it’s things like, it’s really simple things that don’t cost any money. It’s things like seeking to understand. So being understood has such a [00:31:30] powerful impact on us because it helps us feel that we are known, that we are seen, that we are valid and valued. And so this idea of holding space for others and taking the time to understand their perspective rather than jumping in with our own, that’s a very simple way to lead with love.

(31:55):

Something as easy. And this was directly Mandy’s research, particularly [00:32:00] as you have a more senior role in any hierarchy, the importance of making eye contact and saying hello and acknowledging someone gets more important, the higher up the hierarchy you are because of the power involved and the power imbalance that may be involved, you just might be in your head. And it’s not that you are ignoring someone, you’re just deep in your own thought and yet actually walking past a colleague or a team member and not acknowledging them actually fundamentally impacts [00:32:30] and helps makes them feel under threat and less safe in that team. So something as simple as intentionally and actively hello and acknowledging people as you’re moving around the workplace. Very easy way to lead with love. And I reckon if I have one mega strategy, it’s this, I have something. So I talked about everything you need and nothing you don’t.

(32:53):

Another one of my little life isms is assume positive intent. And so as [00:33:00] I engage with anyone, yeah, anyone over anything, I assume that they are showing up in good faith, that they are acting in good faith and that what they are showing up with is the best they have available right now to do whatever it is we need to do together. So whether that’s a piece of work, whether it’s a creative endeavor, whether it’s a fitness class, whether it’s a conversation over the dinner table with my teenage daughter, I assume that they are doing [00:33:30] everything they can to show up as best they can. And that helps me stay out of drama. It helps me not be second guessing. What’s that about? Why is that? Why is that? Why is that? And I do this with what I call ridiculous naivety. And the word ridiculous is significant here because I know that that’s not true all the time, but I’m choosing to be ridiculously naive until it’s shown that I need to put that down. [00:34:00] And then I move into my clarity of expectations. What are we working to do here? Are we on the same page? And the conversation or the nature of the interaction changes. So approaching every interaction, assuming positive intent means that we are letting go of anything that’s come before and going into good faith with what is showing up in this moment here and now. And I reckon just doing that moment to moment interaction to interaction is a really simple way [00:34:30] to apply Mandy’s work around companionate love.

Speaker 2 (34:35):

That is really nice and I love that. That’s lovely to hear. And I think it’s something I’ve got to walk away with assuming positive intent. I’ve got that jotted down. I love it. Alright, well let’s grab some final thoughts from everybody. So I might start with Graham. Graham, any final thoughts on today’s conversation and yeah,

Speaker 3 (34:54):

So many notes and just the ridiculous naivety at the end. [00:35:00] Paige reminds me sadly of my attitude towards a certain rugby lead team actually winning a game. Yeah, it still hurts. I love the idea of burnout as a cycle and just becoming aware that it is that. And then the questions like, how do I come out of this better than I went into it? Phenomenal. We need to have you back. I think [00:35:30] we could definitely extend and deepen the conversation across so many areas, but it’s been fantastic listening to having you share your experience and your knowledge and wisdom with us. So thank you.

Speaker 5 (35:42):

Thank you, Graham.

Speaker 2 (35:45):

Awesome. Thank you Graham. Thanks for the questions. Thanks for that. Danette, any final thoughts on today’s conversation?

Speaker 4 (35:51):

Oh, I love the entire conversation. Can’t wait to get ahold of your book. So that’s what I’m doing straight after this. And I really liked the whole [00:36:00] thing about collectives are inherently stronger than the individual. So for organizations to actually recognize that and think about how do we make this better? I’ve been reading a book and it talks about how when we are trying to bring people together, we think everyone thinks the same, but we absolutely don’t. And a lot of people aren’t aware of that. So I love that whole idea of how do we ensure that those collectives are stronger too? And I really liked that bit about assume positive intent. [00:36:30] Yeah, that’s a massive one. Gorgeous, thank you. Thank you so much Paige. And yeah, can’t wait, have you back.

Speaker 5 (36:35):

Oh, pleasure, pleasure. I’d love to come back. Lots to talk about.

Speaker 2 (36:39):

Awesome. Absolutely. Yeah, and I mean what you just said Danette was, it’s so interesting how you don’t know that other people think differently. Sometimes you forget. When I was just watching something about the behind the scenes of Myth Busters, if people remember the show Myth Busters, and with all their production meetings, apparently what would happen is they’d pitch the myth and they would all [00:37:00] think, well, the obvious first thing to do is this. And they would all have totally different answers as to what the obvious first thing is. So that definitely highlights that Dr. Page. Any final thoughts you have on today’s conversation?

Speaker 5 (37:13):

Just love chatting about all of these things and really it’s how is it that we can take big ideas and make them digestible and useful for people every day? I call it grating the broccoli into bolognese, [00:37:30] which is what I used to do with my kids to get the greens into something that they didn’t know was there. And I reckon it’s the same. Leaders are busy enough, they’re getting stretched in all kinds of directions. Burnout is just as real for leaders as it is for their teams. And so how is it we can grate the leadership broccoli into the bolognese of life and really help them have the tools at their fingertips that they need in the moment that they need them and not overwhelm them with too much data and information [00:38:00] so that they’re exhausted before they’ve even had a chance to apply them. So thank you for the opportunity to talk some of those through. It’s been amazing,

Speaker 2 (38:08):

Amazing. Now I’m sure there will be a lot of people like ourselves that want to A, reach out and grab the book, and B, just reach out and find out, have a chat with you. So Dr. Paige, where are the best places for those two things?

Speaker 5 (38:20):

So if you head over to my website, which is Dr. Paige au, all of my books are there, including this one and Links to buy it. It’s available [00:38:30] end of March. So we are a little bit ahead of the game here, which is fabulous, and we’ll be available in ebook and paperback. And I have plans to audiobook, but I haven’t quite done the recording yet. So that will be later this year.

Speaker 2 (38:44):

Well, that’s extremely exciting. Well, those links will be available right here, so you can go check those out, get ready and purchase this book because it’s going to be an absolutely amazing one from what we’ve already read. It was awesome. We had all these questions and a lot more. So anyway, I want to thank you so much, Dr. Paige. I want to thank you Danette and Graham, great questions, great insights [00:39:00] as always. And to everybody that’s been listening and sharing, I want to say thank you. And as always, have a magical week.