-- Intro --
Chris Moriarty
Welcome to Workplace Geeks, the podcast that goes seeking and sensemaking through the world of workplace research to talk to the amazing brains behind it. I'm Chris Moriarty, one of your hosts and I'm joined as ever by Ian Ellison. Now Ian you were down in London this week as we were recording some episodes for the show at Clerkenwell Design Week. And that was kindly hosted by architect practice BVN and co-working space, Second Home and whilst you were there, you bumped into some Workplace Geeks. So how was that?
Ian Ellison
It was very nice. As you know, Chris, always coming down from Yorkshire to London is a little adventure for me. And it was really heartwarming to bump into people who were saying, listen to the podcast already, really enjoy it, keep them coming, and some lovely words of positivity. So yeah, that was really nice.
Chris Moriarty
And for those of you who weren't in Clerkenwell, remember, you can get in touch by finding Workplace Geeks on LinkedIn, using the #workplacegeeks or by dropping us an email at hello@workplacegeeks.org. Now, this is probably a good time to ask a huge favor of you guys. We're nine episodes in now. And we're keen to reach more people and you are trailblazing audience can help. You just need to remember the three R's. Rate, review and recommend. So on whatever platform you're listening to this on, please take a few minutes to leave us a rating. Write a few words about us and share the pod with someone who you think will enjoy it. Remember, rate, review, recommend that be lovely. Thank you very much.
So, let's get into today's episode. So last time, we spoke to Sam Conniff is part of our departure from the world of academia to explore how research ideas and techniques can be used in a different context. Now, Sam's was focused on how you use scientific practice to measure impact. Ian tell us a little bit about today's guest.
Ian Ellison
So today, Chris, we are speaking with Rebecca Seal. Now Rebecca is a journalist, a TV presenter and an author. And that's the bit that was really relevant to this. So we're talking to her about her recent book called Solo. And it was recommended to us, actually by listener of the show, so it does prove folks to rate review and recommend if you get in touch with us, we really do listen, when you give us a shout.
So Solo; How to Work Alone and not Lose your Mind. Now it's really readable, it's really accessible, it's really thought provoking in a kind of gentle, reflective way. And the thing that immediately struck me is, you know, despite the title, it's not just for soloists in terms of their work as in how they make a living is also super relevant for many of us as soloist in terms of a significant part of our post pandemic working, basically, you know, in terms of how our work modes and settings now stretch far beyond our organisational workspaces, if they didn't already. So, it's really a book about reflection and a book about kind of learning and words of wisdom and kind of hacks to make stuff better, I guess, in that respect.
Now, Chris, as usual, are you okay, if I offer our listeners a little listening guidance?
Chris Moriarty
Do go ahead.
Ian Ellison
Okay, so this is a conversation, I think in kind of two halves. The first half is about sort of the style of the book, and how Rebecca went about researching and writing it. The second half, slightly shorter half is about some of the content of the book, and especially the impact of the pandemic on solo working and our work settings. If you're using a podcast app that supports chapters, remember, you can use the chapter feature to bounce around and explore the conversation more easily re-listened to bits, fast-forward bits, but we hope you enjoy it as much as we did.
Chris Moriarty
I'm definitely not going to draw any attention to your suggestion that there can be a shorter half of a podcast. So, thank you Ian, you mentioned that this was a recommendation. This interview actually came about after our live episode at the Workplace Event. And it was Brock James, who's co-head at Smart Workplace Consulting, who suggested Rebecca. So thank you, Brock, for making that introduction. So you see, like Ian says recommendations do make it in so keep those coming through.
Anyway, enough of that. Let's get on to the interview.
-- Interview –
Chris Moriarty
Rebecca, welcome to the Workplace Geeks podcast. Before we get into the work that we're going to talk about today, just tell us a little bit about the work you do and the work that we're going to talk about today, which is Solo, which is the book that you wrote, tell us a bit about that.
Rebecca Seal
So I am a journalist and writer. I have been for about 20 years, and I have very weird portfolio career, where on the one hand, I write feature articles for broadsheet newspapers about all sorts of things. Then another strand is that I write about food and drink and have quite a successful career as a cookery book writer. I've written 11 cookbooks now, and I write them for the Lyon Restaurant Group.
And then having been freelance for 12 or 13 years now, I hit a wall very big, hard, painful wall, about six years into being freelance, where I just was very unhappy, and burned out, really. And at that point, I went looking for a book to help me through it, because that's as a writer, that's what I do. I use words to get through things, and I couldn't find one. And so I wrote one, which isn't necessarily a sensible way to get through a mental health difficulty, but there we go, it worked in the end. Although it did take a long time. It wasn't until 2019, that I actually did the majority of the writing of Solo; How to Work Alone and Not Lose your Mind, which is what it became. And that came out in 2020, which was obviously an unusual moment to publish a book about how to cope with solitary working,
Ian Ellison
Or perhaps the most fortuitous moment of all
Rebecca Seal
Maybe, well, I don't really like saying it's fortuitous, because I'd really rather the pandemic hadn't happened and the book have sold like 12 copies, that would have been better. But yes, it was a useful moment. And it's turned out to be a useful book for a lot of people. And now, I write a lot about solitary work, solitude, mental health in general. And I host a podcast on the topic called the Solo Collective, where we talk about specific issues that are relevant for people who work by themselves, whether that's resilience, or productivity, or creativity, or productivity myths is actually more appropriately
Chris Moriarty
Of which there are many
Rebecca Seal
Of which there are many. Yes, that could be a whole other podcast. Maybe it should be. Yeah, and I talked to organisations and businesses and charities and institutions about how to support their staff, who are now working by themselves to, which is unexpected, but delightful. And I really get a massive kick out of doing that.
Chris Moriarty
So this kind of started off, if I play that back to this almost feels like it started off as a will surely someone has written about this, I will go and find out what they have said to no one has written about this. I should probably, I'm gonna have to do my own research here. Because no one's pull this all together. So did you always know that it was going to end up as a book? Or did it start off as just pure curiosity for yourself? That after a period of time you went, Oh, hold on, I can package this up. And I can I can be I can plug that hole I can I can provide this for the next soloist? Or did you always know that it was going to be a book? Did you approach it with that mindset?
Rebecca Seal
No, actually, it was interesting to reflect on that. My narrative that I tell myself is that's how it happened that I was like, super clever, and thought this should totally be a book, I should immediately start researching stuff. I think actually, what happened was, I was miserable and bookmarking things that I thought might be helpful for me in slight desperation. And therefore, I just had a radar on for information that was the beginnings of something that could be a useful framework. But every time I found something, I was very aware that the lens wasn't the right one. It wasn't being presented as information for people specifically who are working by themselves. So there was stuff about solitude, there was stuff about productivity, there was stuff about side hustles, there was stuff about I mean, the kind of minutia of how to run your own business. But I wasn't really interested in that. Because I've been doing that and even had to do that. It was the mental health side of it, and the well-being side of it, that I just didn't, that it just wasn't being framed in the right way. The information wasn't being framed in the right way for me. And so it took probably a few months, I think, to realiwse that a book would be the way forward.
But I mean, I was really miserable at this point. So it's quite foggy, the memories are quite foggy as exactly how I came to the realisation that I was going to write this, what turned out to be 90,000 word long book, which is quite a lot of work. And I think if I'd known at the time, I would have never done it.
Ian Ellison
Well, the way the way you're articulating how you were feeling at the time, that would have been by the sound of it, incredibly daunting, maybe more than daunting, maybe almost destabilising, or just just, I can't find the word and in the moment, but sort of like sinking, essentially. But sometimes you look backwards and things make more sense, don't they?
Rebecca Seal
Yeah. And that's kind of what I mean by the narrative, I tell is, I don't know how truthful that is. The narrative, I'm going to imagine that given that context, and like 2013/2014 When I was thinking of all this stuff, and the fact that my husband and I were going through infertility and IVF at the time, and I was working six day week, hadn't had a holiday because I was working on a TV show that was 48 weeks of the year. Guess my thinking wasn't as clear and logical as I'd like to now present it as
Chris Moriarty
Just looking at the contents page, you've kind of chunked it up into sections of what you felt were kind of the key themes. So just talk us a little bit about that kind of that that kind of practical process of going. Okay, here's the areas in which we want to investigate and package up this this story.
Rebecca Seal
I mean, I'd love to say that I kind of really was very scientific and analytical about it. But I just sat down and thought, what bothers me? What's the what are the problems? And essentially, they seem to fall into two areas, though, one was, what are the problems? And why are they problems? You know, what, what are the challenges? Whether that's long hours, culture, our inability to measure success without thinking about money, and status. Versus the solutions effectively. What can I do about this stuff? You know, whether that is a fundamental shift in mindset, or figuring out where the best place for my desk to be, is going to, you know, what's going to be the best way of getting enough light into my eyes, that means that my circadian rhythms are well enough managed that I am not having insomnia anymore, and I'm not desperately dependent on caffeine to get me through the next deadline. You know, so there were it was, it was very, I guess, it was like very macro and very micro stuff. What's wrong with us as a culture that's making my work way very difficult? And what's wrong with the actual setup? So not like, do I have enough spreadsheets? But, you know, it's where I work really dark? Do I see enough other humans? How many humans do I need to see? What else do I need to see? What does my what does my brain need? Is it plants? Is it trees? Is it the fresh air? Is it okay to stare at a white wall with a bright screen and white desk? On an uncomfortable grey and black chair? You know, what did that do to my brain? Or those were all my questions. So that's essentially the way I mean, obviously, I also spoke to a huge number of other freelancers, and I posted in loads of freelancer groups on Facebook and things like that. So, I had a lot of input. But I have to say that there was only one question that I that they brought to me that I hadn't already thought of.
Ian Ellison
And what was that just out of interest?
Rebecca Seal
It was how to eat without losing it completely. So, I being a food writer, I guess the one thing that I hadn't struggled with was feeding myself during the day. I had never, I mean, yes, I've overeaten hobnobs, for sure. And yes, I have panic eaten, you know, hummus straight from the tub with a spoon, because I've got too many deadlines, or whatever. But as a general rule, I take a lunch break, and I eat properly. And I hadn't realised how much of a problem that was for people who weren't by themselves. But they were not eating at all, that they were eating nothing but toast for the entire week, that they were only eating biscuits that they were refusing to allow themselves a lunch break, but then completely crashing, and then eating a whole packet of hobnobs.
Chris Moriarty
Dipped in hummus
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, with cheese on top or whatever. And, but that broadly reflected something that was bigger, which was about not giving yourself the respect and self-care that you are owed as an individual, because you privilege work over everything else. And that's a cultural problem that we have, which is far broader than our individual lunch choices. And that was something that, yeah, that was reflecting a much bigger and much, much bigger issue that we needed to kind of grapple with.
Ian Ellison
It gets me thinking about that sort of iterative kind of literature based research where you're trying to find the, the angle, the narrative, the story to tell. Philip Pullman talks about where you put the camera, where you put the camera on the set, so that you can see what it looks like from there. And so I think what you've been talking about there is kind of following your own hunches and your own, basically, sort of, I don't know, you'd call it autoethnographic if you're going to get really fancy using you as the subject matter from which to basis stuff, and then drawing on your journalistic skills to make credible sense and add value.
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, yeah, definitely. Definitely. And I think the also ethnographic way of telling a story within a within a piece of exploratory research is extremely popular at the moment, and almost couldn't have been I couldn't have done it in another format because people would have been like, wait, what you haven't talked about yourself too.
Ian Ellison
Well, it's funny because one of the questions that Chris and I were wondering about. One of the questions that we normally ask, and Chris and I were sort of questioning his relevance of this discussion was the bit about ethics. Because when you're doing research, whether it's medical research or social scientific research, if there's an implication on people, you have to have thought about that upfront, so we will kind of go in, maybe this isn't one really to talk about. But when Chris and I were kind of prepping for this interview, we kind of went well, as Chris spotted it actually kind of went when you hold the pen, that is, by definition, a very privileged position, and a significant responsibility. Did you sort of think about kind of your responsibility? And how you were going to deal with that during the writing of the book?
Rebecca Seal
Yeah. And I think about it in my all my journalism, I mean, it's the thing that I am probably most likely to be found lying awake, wondering about late at night, you know, am I, am I being responsible? Am I presenting information? I don't, I don't pretend I cannot claim any kind of lack of bias. You know, it is I the way that I write and the nature of the publications that I write for means that everything I do, it's impossible for me not to filter it through my political and social lenses, I guess, like I, you know, I am a slightly left wing, well, fairly left wing, liberal individual, and therefore, it's very hard for me as it would be for, as it is for people who are on the opposite end of the spectrum to see the data that they are given through an alternative like, like, it's very, it's very hard for us as individuals as humans to do that we, you know, we can try very hard. But I think from a journalist point of view, especially someone who writes features, you know, and there is there is an important line between straight journalism and opinion writing. But feature writing has a kind of interesting blurring, especially if you're doing it, as you say, from an autoethnographic standpoint. So, it's yeah, it's really, it's really hard. It's a really sticky one. And I'm sure that I fall down on that front sometimes, but I'm hyper aware of it. And I think that's all I can do, in terms of trying to make sure that I don't make terrible errors. But I think it's an interesting conundrum, in the kind of self-help, personal development world as well, which I'm very much on the fringes of I'm not, I'm not kind of massively a part of but I read huge amount of it. And you do have a huge responsibility, because you're essentially telling people what to do. One of the things that I've started doing when I do workshops, is to preface what I'm saying with you, this is not this is mental health, help. This is mental health awareness. But this is not a mental health solution. And if you've got a serious mental health problem, or even not serious mental health problem, you need proper help, you don't need to move your desk closer to the window. I think I can help create a quite solid kind of base level for people who work by themselves to look after their mental health. But I can't, I can't solve a mental health problem with a book. And I hope that I made that clear enough. But if I and if I didn't need to re-issue it.
Ian Ellison
Just to follow on because I sort of said, I've got a bit of a an observation. So I do some charity work. And the charity work that I'm involved with is very pro listening. And it's very pro supporting people. But it's very anti advice. Because who's to say what advice is good or bad advice, because quite often, when you turn to people, you know, and love friends and relatives for support, what you get is what they think packaged as advice. And so I'm very sort of, I'm almost hypersensitive to it. What I noticed your tactic in your book is you, and bearing in mind is based on you and rightly so, you tell little stories all the way through it, which invite the reader to reflect upon their position. So, you don't go, you should do this, folks, what you say is, here's a thing, and it happened to me. And it left me thinking this, and this is how I solved it. And you find yourself as pausing and go, yeah. I mean, what around money, your recognition of how for you money was intrinsically linked to status, and how you are seen in the world versus other people with or without money. And then once you'd recognised that it almost becomes liberating. I just thought that was a lovely narrative technique, which invites self-reflection on the part of the reader, which is actually a very ethical way of writing.
Rebecca Seal
Thanks very much. I'd love to say that that was my plan. But, I mean, I just I just didn't want to be strident. I don't know it’s useful in exactly the same way, as you were just saying, I don't think it's useful to say, here is what you should do. Here are the facts. I just don't think people are going to pick up a book like that and want to read it.
I also think that books with advice in them offer a very particular thing, which is not comparable to the conversations you have with friends and relatives. Because when you pick up a book like Solo, with a title, like very Solo; How to Work Alone and Not Lose your Mind, you are looking for some answers. And therefore, I feel as though that's somewhat of a permission to give advice of a sort. Because you've kind of packaged it in a way as to set you know, you're like this is, this is a book of advice. If you like some advice, you could read this book, if you don't want advice, then you should not read this book, you should put it down, which is easier than escaping from your well-meaning relative who wants to help you through a rough patch. And it's kind of giving you advice, which is driving up a wall.
Chris Moriarty
But I was going to kind of draw that kind of comparison, though, because you would quite reasonably ask a friend for advice. Or if you knew someone who was a freelancer for a few years longer than you were, you would totally listen to them. And you would sort of you would you would there was a credibility built into the fact that you've asked them to say, you are currently doing it, what would you tell me? And you don't have to take all of the advice because it's got to work for you and your set of circumstances, right? Because the question I was going to sort of reflect on off the back of Ian's was, from a writing point of view, and I do a bit of writing, so I kind of look at it and go okay, you know, how have you structured this in a way that's going to be engaging for the reader. And it's something I talk about in this podcast a lot, because with a lot of academic research, the objective of the piece is not for someone to read it and enjoy it.
Rebecca Seal
Oh, my God. I know.
Chris Moriarty
Right. It's a tough slog. But what I found with yours is that, that kind of worry that you had to make sure that you weren't being strident. There are moments in the book where you go, and look, and if you don't want to be like, that's totally fine as well, if you know me, it was chapter around meaning and finding meaningful work, it's like, you don't actually have to do a job at the UN as you kind of reflected on your 15 year old self wanted to do. But there is a balance, right? Because if if a reader keeps seeing kind of caveats at the end of a section of advice, they're gonna get to the point and go, are you telling me to do this or what? You know, I do need some answers. So were you sort of conscious of that as you're writing it to make sure that wasn't too apologetic in sort of holding up caveats. But at the same time, it it spoke with some authority, because you had done some good work and found other people that done good work and brought it together. So how did you balance that?
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, that's interesting. Um, so interesting reflecting on this stuff, I've never had a conversation like this where I've had to reflect on the actual on this stuff.
Chris Moriarty
Welcome to Workplace Geeks.
Rebecca Seal
I guess I always wanted to start conversations in people's heads. The problem that I knew that I had, ultimately, probably not I worked out that I had, was that I hadn't thought about any of it, about work. I had just gone freelance sat down at a desk that looked very much like the desk that I'd had when I worked in an office and worked for six years. Without looking up, without thinking, I mean, I would sometimes say my back hurts, I'm gonna get a different chair, or, you know, I'm going to sit on a Swiss ball, or whatever. But I never thought, what hours do I want to do? What work do I want to do? Who do I want to work for? How much money do I need? How much money do I think I need in order to feel good about who I am? You know, I hadn't thought about any of that at all. I just said yes to every bit of work that there was, and, and then did it to the exclusion of absolutely everything else. And that's not going to be everybody's problem. But it is a lot of people's problems.
And so I didn't ever unnecessarily wants to give people answers. I wanted to get people to think in a way that I never had. Because I knew how valuable that thinking had ultimately been for me. So although there are tips in the book and hacks and you know, there are specific things that you can do, the reason why there's a lot of caveating is because in a way, I don't care what your choices are. I just want you to know that their choices, every single thing you do during your working day and so that work is a choice. Whether you feel like it is not it is and the best way of figuring out what works for you is by being aware of those choices and making them consciously
Ian Ellison
Yeah, that phrase you said there I wanted to start conversations in people's heads. I think looking just at the conversation Chris and I were having before you joined us this morning, it did exactly that for both of us. I wonder if that's one of the biggest effects of things like this. Getting you switched on to just observing what's going on, on what is working, what isn't working, and then being, because it gives you the agency to then do something about it. Right.
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, yeah exactly. Choice leads to agency. That's precisely it, and reflection on what feels good, and what doesn't, is so valuable. So yeah, that was exactly it. You know, I can't say I, you know, there are a list of things that we know that for the majority of people are useful, getting out at lunchtime, or going for a walk having screen breaks during the 20/20 rule, looking away for 20 seconds, every 20 minutes, something 20 meters away, that's good for your eyes. Like we know, there are some some specifics, which in general, help the majority of people, but I wasn't talking to the majority necessarily.
Ian Ellison
But then that talks back to the ‘horses for courses’, doesn't it? Just one more bit around you and journalism and your journalistic expertise because fundamentally an academic doing a literature review and sorting the wheat from the chaff, essentially, in terms of what's relevant to their project, is, I think, fundamentally the same tool as an investigative journalist learning about something so that they can write with authority. So, you could have drawn upon an infinite number of resources, but you didn't you chose certain ones, like Sue Ashford’s work when it comes to purpose and stuff like that. So how do you go about sorting the wheat from the chaff? When you've had your radar on when you've been bookmarking? How do you then turn that into something which really allows you to speak with authority?
Rebecca Seal
Well, I mean, I think specifically with solo working, I had an advantage in that it's a really small field. And it's a small field of people who tend to recommend each other because they, they work quite closely together, and they know each other. So once I found one, I found like 10. I think talking to people, rather than just reading their texts is really important and really valuable, I usually do quite a lot of background checking in terms of who they're funded by, particularly when I'm talking to people in the food industry. I thought I found somebody quite interesting to talk about dairy nutrition, and then discovered that they were funded by the large dairy organisations.
So, yeah, I think a lot of Solo was, there was a sort of a chain of connections. So people would recommend somebody, you know, I also went back to the institutions that I studied at which at the London School of Economics and King's College, both of who happens to have people who were specialist in the topic or surrounding topics, and interview people there. And, and then it kind of spills on, I think. But also, I think, with journalism, in general, there's also this interesting thing of, you know, you've got a point, I'm out of time, and if the expert on something is on holiday, you're gonna have to find another expert. And that means that that can change the research quite profoundly.
Chris Moriarty
I'm gonna be I'm gonna give you a, we're going to play it have a little thought exercise here, because I'm thinking about people, people at home, listening to this, wherever they listened to our podcast, and they are going to be set a challenge to go and write about something. So their boss has said, I need I need an update at the next board meeting for this. And it's something, and let's take something like remote working, which people in our field may be very used to managing working environments, within, in the confines of a corporate building, suddenly are having to think about it, by extension to people's bedrooms, and spare rooms and sheds and things. So, they've been set this task, if you were talking to these people where is sopt number one, if it is a topic that you are completely naive to, you've got no idea where to even start. And they rang you up and said Rebecca I've just been asked to write this, I need to find some really good evidence and, and really good background research. Where do I go? What do I do first, and they haven't studied at LSE and King's College so they can ring up their alumni and, and get fast track through. So where would you go?
Rebecca Seal
And I mean, I think probably the first thing I do is look at what's been written before in in the popular press. So, who else has talked about this? Who else has been considered worthy of discussion? Which is not necessarily to say that I will make the same choice of air worthiness enough, but who is who is out there who's been in the public domain as part of the conversation, and then I would probably go to more specialist publications. So for example, I would use Harvard Business Review to get your help, I love the publication very much find it incredibly useful. So who there is writing about? And then I would probably start looking at specific journals and thinking about who have been published in peer reviewed.
Ian Ellison
Yeah, you didn't you didn't mention Google. And you didn't mention LinkedIn. Which is really interesting. Because when a lot of the world is under pressure, or trying to learn about something quickly, or maybe just passively learning about something without realising the degree to which it's having an influence upon their opinions, it is the stuff that they're surrounded with day in day out, rather than what I heard there is something about credible sources, and different degrees of credibility, but also consciously seeking something you have the choice of where you're going, as opposed to you're immersed in it.
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, yeah. And I would say as well, it would be disingenuous for me to say that I don't use Google. I definitely do. But I think the problem with I mean, one of the problems that I find with Google, I guess this has something to do with cookies and caches, or whatever is that it feeds me very American answers. And sometimes I'll get to the point where I'm like, alright, I've set up for interviews. And I'm like, wait, they're all in like Michigan,
Chris Moriarty
You said at the beginning that you wrote this, just as we were going into pandemic, it did make me chuckle, I was reading the sort of the opening bit, the first chapter but when you get into it says that, you know, this is during this period of time, and we could be doing this for months, which I did a kind of ‘ha ha ha’, little did we know that it was gonna be a bit more than that. But that's where we were, I guess, early 2020, was this kind of nebulous kind of idea of where it was going to end up. But what has emerged is this idea that people are going to want to work in a different way, which is great, because I think, going back to what you said before, a conscious review of how we work was probably long overdue. But what I wonder is with, with what you've found through your work, and the fact that this book didn't exist before you wrote it, right, just by that definition, is that, you know, are organisation's going to hit a lot of the challenges as a risk as a responsible entity for their employees. And equally, there might be employees, who said, look, I, I like the benefits of working in this way, I can go and pick the kids up on well rested, but I'm really struggling with some bits. And so I'm kind of torn between work mode. So just sort of reflect on the pandemic context that that kind of inadvertently landed on top of this as you were starting on this journey, and how you think that's going to play out going forward for organisations who are wrestling with this very kind of idea at the moment.
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, I mean, I think the critical thing with all of that is that this is so bloody new. I mean, we had 200 odd years of working in the ways that were created during the Industrial Revolution, which is fundamentally what the nine to five Monday to Friday is. It's something that, you know, in terms of human history, it's not been going on all that long. But from a cultural point of view, we've had quite a lot of…
Ian Ellison
It terms of organisaitons eating people to get get stuff done.
Rebecca Seal
Yeah. We've had quite a long time for that to embed in. And that was ripped up in March 2020, to a greater or lesser extent, and we, you know, we're still figuring out how much of an extent that will be.
And, and so this stuff is just really new. And I would counsel that anybody who says, I know what the answer is, is not something you should listen to. Because this is too soon, the research hasn't been done, it is being done at the moment, you know, the data we have is mainly pre pandemic, which is not to say that it's irrelevant, but it does have a different frame. Like so for example, you know, there's a lot of data about the kind of a versus b team situation where you've got one group of people who are physically present in the office, and they get privileged over people who are absent. Now, that is a very real issue. It's specifically bad for people who are carers, it can be particularly bad for women, there's, there's no sort of doubt about the existence of that. However, the degree to which it is a problem for an individual organisation will vary hugely. And part of that variation will be based on the fact that some of the people or many of the people within an organisation will have experience working from home in a way that they hadn't, and therefore won't have the level of prejudice about productivity and home working, and may even have decided that they want to engage in home working or paper blacking for themselves or for their organisation, and therefore, will be much less likely to have a negative view of the people who work from home in the majority. And if they're clever, we'll figure out ways of making sure that those people are promoted, that they're getting the training and experience that they need, and that therefore that A team, B team situation simply becomes irrelevant, though, that isn't stuff we're necessarily going to know now. Because people are still trying to figure out the answers to the questions of ‘how should my organisation arranges working patterns?’ And it's work life as a whole. But I think that there are possibilities and loads of different areas for things to be better than they were before the pandemic, when it comes to that sort of split between the home people and the office people.
So that's just one small example of where I think we need, we probably need more data. And in order to have more data, they need more time. And we need more companies to experiment with different ways of working as they are now and then to track what the impacts are. So that's one small example of what I think is going to happen. But what I see I think, when I talk to organisations about this stuff, is that there's a huge diversity of response within teams. And that feels very new to organisations. And it actually isn't, because people have always felt that they fitted or not fitted into the working patterns of an organisation to a greater or lesser extent, it's just that those of us that didn't fit very well have had to suck it up. And nobody asked whether it fitted us or not, because we were just going to have to work Monday to Friday, nine to five, because that was the style of job that we were doing. And we didn't have the skills to be a freelance carpenter, or a swim instructor, or whatever might have granted you a different pattern. So that I think, is interesting. It looks as though there's this kind of big, I was gonna say cash, I don't think it is a clash, because I don't think it's as negative as that. But it looks like there's this big diversity of opinion and experience in terms of how work should go. But I think it's just awareness, actually. So one person I spoke to recently was saying, you know, she's got a team member who just really hates coming into the office, he keeps secretly not coming in. He's meant to be in two or three days a week, I can't remember which, but he very rarely is. And she keeps saying to me, you've got to come in, but he's like a new starter, who hasn't been with the organisation for very long, and he hasn't ever worked in an office properly, because he's very young and new to the workforce. And she's like, trying to figure out how to manage this situation, which is great that she's trying to figure that out. But there will have been people having exactly those experiences before, that that's not new, they just either disappeared from the workforce in some fashion, or had a miserable time of it, forcing themselves into a way of working that didn't suit them.
So from that point of view, I see this as a hugely positive moment, right, because we're having conversations they're very hard conversations to have. And then in their very imperfect conversations, because there will of course, be a huge number of people who still don't feel like they can tell the truth about how they feel about work, and their and their, you know, their rhythms of work, you know, just whether they want to start work at nine. And there are organisations who I think making mistakes, because they're just reimposing the patterns that were in existence when everyone was in the office every day, on to homework. And so you have to sign into Slack at nine or you have to be visible on Microsoft Teams at nine. And you know, you have to continue to be visible, even if actually, the more sensible and productive way of working will be to say, you know, you can start whenever we're going to have a team meeting at 11. Because that seems to be a point where everybody crosses over. You can finish whenever, as long as you don't overdo it or under do it and the work gets done, the targets get met, whatever, you know, I am aware of a number of organisations who have really clever systems for making that work where people put for example, their working hours or in their Slack bio, and you're not allowed to message them outside of that time. And you just have to schedule send. And it's like 30 more seconds on your messaging sending and then it becomes habitual, and everybody is just much happier, and much more productive. So you know, there are workarounds to all this stuff. But it does require a level of thought and conversation. And I just think we're very, very early on in that process. And also, the other thing that I always point out in the workshops is that we are tired, we are so tired. This has been incredibly hard for all of us in all sorts of different ways. And people are shattered
Chris Moriarty
It’s a great spot, really in terms of, of what the opportunity is, but also just the realistic appraisal of is not going to be straightforward. It's taken us 200 years to get to this point, we're probably not going to undo it and redo it up in two years.
Ian Ellison
One of the places in the book which I was naturally attracted to is the where we work bit because that's kind of the starting point for Chris and I for all of this you know workplace for as is a broad church, but the workspace part of workplace is very definitely, you know, where our bread and butter has come from for a long time. And it's the stuff that we're very passionate about. And so, what I found were quite quite interesting was it's really hard not to check, measure yourself as you're reading your chapter, the the hacks or the suggestions or the reflections or the research that you found this useful.
But the other thing that really occurred to me was of all of the things that you can do around daylight and access to nature, and full marks for not mentioning forest bathing or biophilia, by the way because if you had, I might have had to put the book down and go for a little walk and calm down.
Rebecca Seal
Did I not use the word biophilia. That's amazing.
Ian Ellison
No, you didn't. But you talk about imagery…
Rebecca Seal
I do love Biophilia, sorry
Ian Ellison
Can you not just say you love trees and stuff, rather than it has to have this funny name. And you talk about textures, you just got a you know, like your chair choices, but not in like from an ergonomic perspective, just from a, something which kind of feels a bit more natural, and not artificial and sterile. And it just occurred to me that the big observation for me was, right, you can't affect that stuff at work, because you get what you're given. To a greater or lesser extent, for most of people at work, you get what you're given, right. And if you're lucky, you get an organisation that understands it, and gives a damn, and therefore is prepared to pay a bit more for a better quality workspace. But at home, you have the complete control to do that, right. But that leads to well have we got the space to do it. And what's lovely about your book is it's not for the privileged people who are lucky enough to have a spare bedroom, you talk about the ways that we can all do it. The knock on of course, is that once you've created this wonderful nest that you love, and that makes you feel better, it makes it even harder to go back to the office because people can't match it, can they and that sort of then, it ratchets up the organize. If organisations desire to have people back at work for the right reasons, it means that the pool that they have to create becomes even more challenging. If they don't want to do that three line whip Rees-Mogg, get back to the office type affair.
Rebecca Seal
Which is going to be very effective. Right?
Ian Ellison
Quite.
Rebecca Seal
Yeah, yeah, you're right. I hadn't exactly thought about it in that way. But you're right. It does. It creates a stronger distinction between your home working experience and your office working experience for sure. And, you know, I think it's interesting, and I'm sure you've got many more thoughts about this. But I think it's interesting to see that there are offices, and particularly co-working spaces, which are trying to use the same sort of research I came across. And to create setups, which are more well, I call them I always say brain and body friendly working environment. But you know, I kind of at the same time now can't believe that we don't talk about this stuff more. Because this is the majority, for those of us of working age, you are at work this is this is the main thing we do. So we should think about where and how and why we do it. But we don't, in general. And that was I mean, that's why I think this moment is kind of, I mean, like I said earlier, I wish the pandemic hadn't happened, of course, but you know, now that we're now that we're here, for all that Boris Johnson making lunatic statements about lurching from coffee to cheese to coffee to cheese and not getting any work done, which frankly, is there's more about him than it does about working from home or or anything else. You know, it does mean that we're having these conversations. And that's mad, isn't it? That's extraordinary.
-- Pinder Ponder --
James Pinder
Hello,
Chris Moriarty
Hello, James. How was Cumbria?
James Pinder
Oh, it's great. Yeah.
Chris Moriarty
Do you want to tell us anything about Cumbria
James Pinder
No I can't tell you. What goes on in Cumbria stays in Cumbria.
Chris Moriarty
Right, so you've had the chance. And in your absence, we had a chat with Rebecca, Rebecca Seal, so you've had a chance to listen to that. So if you've got three key takeaways that we can take from Rebecca's conversation with us.
James Pinder
I've got two, but I think Ian has got another one. So I'll let him talk about that one. So yeah, the two that that stood out to me were; one around writing and who you're writing for in the audience. And, you know, Rebecca talked about, she was writing something that hopefully made people think, stop and think or maybe do things differently, or at least reflect on how they go about things. And I thought that was interesting, and, you know, writing for different audiences and different styles of writing. And also what makes something interesting, or not as the case might be. So that that was one thing that stood out, and then the second one was around, and Rebecca talked about understanding more about the topic and the the sort of searching around that she did and, and how she went about that and what she, I guess, deemed to be good sources of knowledge or not, and even the discussion around when to there was one person she spoke to and she sort of did a bit of digging around and that person that sort of had been sponsored by I think it was….
Ian Ellison
a dairy organisation.
James Pinder
Yeah. So yeah, so I thought that was just an interesting part of the conversation.
Chris Moriarty
So with the writing bit, because there's this moment in our conversation where I have, and I’m sure academic listeners have notched it up on their chart, their tally chart, that I have a little bit of a dig at the writing style of some academic papers, which I got the impression Rebecca had a kind of similar view of them. Someone, she's probably looked through quite a few in her time. But is that kind of what you're getting at in terms of who you're writing for and why and the style you adopt as a result?
James Pinder
Yeah, and I guess, the conventions and constraints within when you're writing in particular areas. So if you are writing, often for academic journals, you are more constrained, because there are conventions and ways of writing and actually requirements that you need to meet to be able to publish in a particular journal. And also, the purpose often might be to describe a piece of research and explain a piece of research. And you might be able to bring that to life and make it really exciting. But you might not be able to, because you, you know, the way you've got to sort of write dictates that you can’t.
Ian Ellison
in some respects, this talks back to the kind of rules of the game that we were talking about right in episode one with Matt Tucker and with Mark Eltringham. And it's interesting, Chris, because it also reminds me of a conversation, which we've recorded, but we haven't published yet with Dr. Jo Yarker, who talks about in certain journals, even publishing diagrams isn't the done thing. And we quite often say, you know, a thinking tool expressed visually is one of the most powerful things you can use.
So, when you're saying about writing styles, were you kind of thinking about the comparison of academic conventions to Rebecca's autoethnographic kind of way of telling stories to invite reflection, is that the bit that you sort of really honed in on
James Pinder
I guess, it's are you just conveying information? Are you trying to get people to reflect on things? And yeah, we we did this when we did a series of guidance notes a while ago, didn't we, for a professional body. And the way we wrote those was to every so often we asked people to sort of stop and think and reflect about the situation, their situation and, and a particular issue. You're not just conveying facts and figures in information, you're actually getting people to think and maybe one of my criticisms of all the stuff that's been pushed out in the last couple years around, future of work, and all the surveys that come out is all they are really doing often is bombarding you with facts and figures, and the same sort of recommendations that everybody else gives you rather than actually making you think and think about your own particular situation. And that is, for me, more, more powerful sort of writing and work to read and something that gets you thinking. And I think we did get bits of feedback from people from those guidance notes saying, actually, that was really useful that style, because it did, you know, I did scribble notes on them and stuff like that. So yeah, I think that that was, that was something that stood out to me,
Chris Moriarty
Well, you've got me kind of thinking about and reflecting and perhaps reflecting even on my own criticism of it, that I kind of I sort of flagged with Rebecca is that there's convention at a broad level, which is academic style, generally, for what we're doing, which is, is typically to get through some sort of peer review process, right? You know, I'm going to have to outline, everything that I did, as part of this is someone separate is gonna go, yeah, this stacks up, because…
Ian Ellison
then I'm gonna have to toe the line, I'm gonna have to demonstrate competence. And I'm going to have to demonstrate that this is a valuable contribution to the body of knowledge.
Chris Moriarty
And as part of that, if it's something like if I make some sort of proclamation, if I say something, I need to show where that's come from, either through previously published material, or through the work that I have done, which is based on previous published material. So that is kind of quite a clunky but important thing to do. So there is a general convention. But even to your point in about Ian, about Jo, there's going to be house style guides for certain journals were certain, even if it's not explicit, but you know, it's kind of, it's kind of just
Ian Ellison
It’s very opposite. It's very often explicit, it's very often explicit,
Chris Moriarty
Right, so it says, you know, you will not include diagrams, they have to be actually I've remembered, right, we co-authored one with Matt Tucker a while ago there was, there was nothing that about the style of the diagram had to be a certain way, didn't it? So we had to be quite careful on that.
James Pinder
Probably, they'll even tell you whether you can write in the first or third person? I mean, that's quite a different style, isn't it? Yeah, reading something in the first person reads very different to the third person. So if you've no choice over that, then straightaway your style of writing is going to be different.
Ian Ellison
So just one last question for me on that point, that James. Is it possible, even with all of the conventions and the expectations that academics could introduce more reflective questioning within their papers? And I know that's a huge super broad question, but my hunch is that actually if you recognise it as a valuable tool to enhance or promote learning on the part of the reader, you actually could introduce some questions which encourage that?
James Pinder
Well, yeah, and I guess part of this is and you know, there are some academic authors, lots of academic authoer, who even within the those constraints, right, brilliant stuff that's engaging and interesting. And partly that's down to the research they've done in part, but it's just the very good writers, aren't they? And, yeah, why not try that? I mean, what's the worst that could happen? You get it gets pushed back. And that'd be interesting in itself, isn't it? Can the can the peer review process, how flexible is that? Yeah, maybe we should try it at some point.
The other the other one I was gonna add was, was about what interests people and what's interesting in you clearly found Rebecca's book interesting, and why is that? And just that sort of discussion around that, you know, how do you make stuff interesting to read. And I was listening to podcast and other podcasts. And they were talking about the Kindle and hoow Amazon can get could get data from underlining. So you know, when people underlying stuffing Kindle, it's like
Chris Moriarty
Shut up.
James Pinder
So that's quite interesting, isn't it in terms of telling you what within ebooks people are finding interesting or, or that stand out to them?
Chris Moriarty
Janey Mac, is that a real thing
Ian Ellison
Janey Mac? What on Earth was that phrase?
Chris Moriarty
That's what that's what people in Ireland say. Instead of Crikey. True story, it’s a true story. And my dad, my dad says it and it's, it's to do with some, I don't know, some celebrity in Ireland, I will find out whilst you're telling us the next bit.
James Pinder
So no, yeah, it's just you know, things like that are quite interesting. In terms of being able to spot what is it that that sort of stands out to people and resonates with people in the stuff they're reading?
Ian Ellison
And what's the spoiler alert that most people underlined lots in the first chapter, and then it drops off massively, because most people only get to the first chapters of their books.
James Pinder
Well, so what what does that say then about length of content, books, and all of those sorts of things. If people don't finish that,
Ian Ellison
We've got to get your stuff up front, rather than at the back. Don't save your best stuff till the last chapter because unlikely to get read. It was Daniel Kahneman wasn't it who actually acknowledged that his best sentence in Thinking Fast and Slow, was in his last chapter. And yet, nobody, nobody ever draws on that sentence and references it, which basically means that nobody got that far in the book, as far as he's concerned, something like that.
Chris Moriarty
So Janey Mac is an expression of surprise originated in Ireland and dating back at least 50 years. Some claim it for the West of the country, others for Dublin, but it's definitely from Ireland and has spread into other countries along with Irish immigrants. Janey Mac hasn't made it into victory yet. But he's under consideration. There. Yeah. Okay, that's a real thing.
James Pinder
That's like the name of a drink.
Chris Moriarty
James, that was your first reflection on writing. The bit, I kind of wanted to dive into with you as well, because I thought of you when Rebecca started talking about this, which is what has been written before and you've talked about this in a previous episode of Pinder Ponder, where you said, your first point of call is to go through what's been written before and what you can draw from it. So, what did you take away from Rebecca's kind of reflection on that stuff?
James Pinder
Well, this is something we've touched upon before, so I don't need to dwell on it. But different approaches to going about that and different styles the way different people maybe approach that and, and what people see is a good way or a bad way, or how to get to those sources of knowledge. I found it interesting that, you know, as well, she she went to talk to the some of the people, you know, not just reading the stuff that they'd read it and actually just chat to them.
Ian Ellison
I didn't, I didn't think about it during the conversation. But now that you've just said that, it gets me thinking about sampling techniques. And, you know, we were focusing on kind of literature review skills to give it a fancy name, when we were talking to Rebecca about how she was gathering her data, and sorting the wheat from the chaff and stuff, but actually, when she was saying, you know, I go to sources I'm comfortable with and that I broadly trust, and I find key people and then I find them and then say, who else should I talk to? That's actually snowball sampling, isn't it? It's that technique where you find somebody interesting, or you find somebody useful for your research needs. And then you take their lead. So this is interesting. It's very subjective. And its very trust based. It's a bit like mining a rich seam, rather than panning for gold. It's like you found the gold and so you're going to quickly mine it and you might not be aware of what else is on the mountain side to stretch this metaphor, but you've certainly got some gold that you can work with.
Chris Moriarty
I think what you're saying there, James, as well, though, about not just reading it so that you could find someone, I quite liked her idea that you go to the popular press who may have already done some sort of vetting process, that kind of shortcuts you into okay, well, if they think they're credible, then the chances are they probably are, although she did sort of caveat that with the I don't just take that as read but it's a kind of a nice quick way of trying to sort this stuff out, but actually going to talk to these people as opposed to just then scanning Google for them and pulling stuff up because and it's not something that we've got in the final interview, it's something we talked about Rebecca separately. She did tell us a little story about speaking to someone who, you know, one of these people that had been used in a lot of different articles about something very specific. And this person saying, look, actually, I've just supervised someone's PhD. And it's not even published yet. But this is absolutely bob on for what you're talking about, you better go and speak to them. And that wouldn't have come from any sort of Google scanning that only came because they have conversations. But the question then for you, James, as I guess, as a former academic who's doing this full time, right? Is it one thing to have a journalist ring you up and say, I'm writing a book, I'm doing an article, there's going to be in the Guardian, or another national bit of press, or someone and bear in mind, we're trying to relate this to people in jobs every day, someone saying, I'm a workplace manager at, you know, Corporation X, and I'd love to talk to you for 10 minutes about your paper. Are you going to give them the time? Because you’re sort of getting into consultancy land here. You know, you don't want that happening all day every day. So is it? Is it the kind of the gift of people who are doing this type of work to be able to speak to people and get that rich kind of experience? Or do you think that that's something that someone should try? You know, should? Should someone listening to this think I've seen a paper, that's really good. I'm going to call out that, that professor and see if I can get a chat with them.
James Pinder
Yeah, why not? What's the worst that can happen? They ignore you?
Ian Ellison
Isn't that to a degree what LinkedIn has become? I mean, there are multiple ways people use LinkedIn. But one of them, and I've certainly done it is, all of a sudden, I might find myself one or two steps removed from an incredible piece of work that I've spotted. And in the past, you might have sent an email to the other side of the world. But what you can often do now is either get an introduction or directly message them say, that was fantastic. We have a quick chinwag about it, or do you mind if I use it? In some respects, this is about being generous with information. James, you talk about this a lot about this world of keeping your secrets to yourself, is kind of anti the sort of progress that we could make if we were more comfortable with sharing in an open-source way. And accepting that sharing of information is one part of a much broader set of knowledge and skills that we can all use together.
Chris Moriarty
James, you mentioned that Ian's got a third point, this is a bit of a departure from structure. Ian what was your reflection on your own conversation with Rebecca post conversation?
Ian Ellison
Oh, how very self indulgent No, all I wanted to say was since the space for a third point is that it just, I hadn't really thought from this perspective until we got into the conversation about when you are working from home for extensive periods of time. And you actually start thinking about making your working environment better, more conducive to work and concentration and comfort and all of the stuff that Rebecca is clearly massively in favour of. I just thought isn't that interesting that for a lot of people, it's going to even widen the gap even more with what you're perhaps getting is available to you in the workspace of your organisation and just stood out to me as a bit of a new thought. Now, Chris, I think that you've had conversations in the industry about this. So maybe it was new to me and it's not new in general. But I just thought it was really interesting, because it means there's more of a sort of repelling force between these two workplaces, which makes it even harder for organisations to sell the benefits of coming back to work with their employees.
Chris Moriarty
Yeah, I mean, I think there's a few things in that. I have had conversations with workplace leaders who are talking about this kind of return to the office kind of conversation at the moment. And they've said that one of the, one of the challenges is not just raised expectations from an experience point of view. And that's certainly something we're going to be talking about with future guests that we've we've recorded this kind of experience element to workplaces. But just that kind of ease of sorting your immediate environment out to optimise it to you whether it's optimised to the things you do, or just the things you like, and you know, there's always been that big conversation about photos of the kids on the desk and hot desking doing away with that. And there's always been that kind of nice. There's always been that kind of tension between those two ideas. But we've kind of, you know, people do like that stuff. They do like familiarity and titbits on their kind of on their desk that remind them and make them feel at home. So, I think there is they definitely recognise this guy was sort of saying actually people are just so used to having everything at arm's length when did they come back into the office then it's not there. So there's there is that but equally, I think this is where Rebecca's book. We didn't talk about this in the interview, but I've read it since, you know, as I'm sort of just coming to the end of the book that they talked about a lot of the like, for instance, a lot of the co-working environments that people have been using, in a way they're trying to, for soloists and self-employed people trying to replace some of the structure that they had in the organisation that's trying to sort of retrospectively put some of that back in, because you, when you go independent, you also lose some of that stuff as well. So, there is this kind of, I think there is there's place for both, I think there is elements where there will still be a draw. But you're right, organisations are going to have to think about how responsive their workplace is to people and their unique needs and tastes, I guess, is what we're saying now as well.
Ian Ellison
Yeah, work even harder, because the stakes are higher now. The stakes are higher, and the expectations are high.
Chris Moriarty
And the thing to add on that James. Just for the listeners at home, James is shaking his head, I suspect to drywall is calling because I know that it's now your new obsession. So, thank you so much for joining us, James. Have you got any plans for the rest of the day?
James Pinder
I think I might go out for a walk and look at some biophilia. That's what I’m going to go an do.
-- Outro --
Chris Moriarty
Okay, so that's a wrap a few items before we let you go. Remember, you can still use the promo code for Sam Coniffs Uncertainty Experts course the code GEEKS will get you 20% off of that that's valid until October this year. And finally, and most importantly, remember the three R's, rate, review, recommend. You can find us on LinkedIn. You can talk about the show using the Workplace Geeks hashtag and drop us a line at hello@workplacegeeks.org.
Speak to you soon
