[00:00:00] Dan: Hello and welcome back to We Not Me, the podcast where we explore how humans connect to get stuff done together. I'm Dan Hammond.

[00:00:12] Pia: And I am Pia Lee.

[00:00:14] Dan: I've been looking at the News Pier , 

[00:00:16] Pia: That's a little, 

[00:00:17] Dan: watching the news and No, unfortunately, I,

[00:00:20] Pia: Donald Trump or anything, you know, not another indictment?

[00:00:23] Dan: No, I do try to ration my consumption of the news because it is so, it can be a little bit of a downer sometimes on the old mental health, but I did spot this one yesterday.

[00:00:34] Dan: Zoom orders workers back to the office. So Zoom, the sort of early champions, they're Synonymous, 

[00:00:42] Pia: with 

[00:00:43] Dan: with virtual working, yeah, are now saying that structured hybrid approach is the most effective way of working, and that people living within 50 miles of an office, 80 kilometers, should work in person at least twice a week.

[00:00:57] Pia: Quite dare I say as the topic of ironic. A virtualized platform forcing everyone back into I mean yeah a bit bonkers really. I wonder what's created that to happen

[00:01:10] Dan: Yes, I wonder, I heard someone on the radio yesterday actually commenting on this from I think their Advanced Workplace Solutions or something like that. And he's made the really good point. He just said that in their research and their work, things that are forced on people don't tend to work that well and you know and the compliance of these things is not great. And obviously if there's a good if you're near an office and there's good reasons to go in you can go in and you can make the most of it and you can sort that out for yourself but these, he said, generally these things are, these fail because they're undermined. And they are, as you say, this is a little bit of an example of corporate absurdity which we're actually strangely going to be talking about today.

[00:01:55] Pia: We are. We are. I mean what segue is that

[00:01:59] Dan: I know, exactly. Corporate absurdity. So, yes, our guest, Richard Claydon, he's, he has a, yes, he has a varied background, but he's now an academic. Doctor Richard Claydon, and has done a lot of work on this area, actually, of how do you deal with and how do people deal with, with this, this sort of slight absurdity that creeps into organization. So this is a slightly different topic, but Richard will take us into that world. Can't wait to hear what he has to say. 

[00:02:31] Pia: Hello and welcome, Richard. Welcome to We Not Me.

[00:02:37] Richard: Thank you for inviting me. It's an absolute pleasure.

[00:02:40] Pia: I'm hoping it's going to be, but the thing that isn't pleasurable is where I'm about to hand you, which is straight into the lion's den and to the Hammond cards. So we'll do that bit first, then we'll find out more about you.

[00:02:54] Dan: Yes, as you know, Richard, we go straight into this. So let us try this one. The worst piece of advice I ever received was. have you ever had any bad advice? 

[00:03:05] Richard: Yeah, possibly do a PhD, which is simultaneously good and bad advice because having gone through it, I would never recommend anybody else to go through it, but I'm very glad I've done it.

[00:03:22] Pia: And why? So I might just tease that one out. Somebody that is considering doing a PhD, why?

[00:03:28] Richard: It's, it's comfortably the hardest thing I've ever had to do in my life. Now that, that was partly because I took a theoretical approach, which is unusual in, in this day and age, and I took a very transdisciplinary approach, which is equally unusual. Um, but if you, if you have that deep curiosity, you just end up in this world of mess where you're trying to pull things together and do something and it is, it drives anxiety and it's stressful and it's, but you learn something. You become an expert in your field but in the process of doing that, you end up being able to talk to fewer and fewer people about what you know about because you're the only person really taking anything like that as seriously as you. So you feel quite lonely during this as well. But at the end of it you'll know stuff that you're really, really glad that you know. And maybe two or three years after the PhD, you can start using that stuff to make a difference in the world.

[00:04:29] Dan: When you come out of therapy, yeah,

[00:04:32] Richard: that, it's that translation and interpretation bridge where you have to lose that passion of what you've been doing and then interpret it and re translate it into something that might be useful in the world. So even when you've finished it, you've probably still got another three years of work to do.

[00:04:49] Dan: Digestion, right, interesting. And you mentioned anxiety there, Richard, where does that come from? What is the source of that anxiety in your experience?

[00:04:58] Pia: Hmm, the university giving you the PhD probably.

[00:05:01] Dan: Yeah. Yes.

[00:05:02] Richard: Yeah, I mean, it's just, in my experience, and more about supervising research projects than something I necessarily went through myself, but when you're, the people who are doing a really good job get to this point of crisis about how much work there is, and how much new information there is coming in, and whether they can turn it all into something meaningful, and they have to be coached through that crisis. Once you know that someone you're supervising is going to be really good, when they get to that point, they call you up and say help, and then you help them find some patterns, and then people who don't call you up and say help are probably never going to get to the point where it's something fantastic.

[00:05:45] Dan: Interesting. We see this a lot, don't we? You want to get to the other side, but there's a messy bit in the middle. I think, Pia, you sometimes call it the U bend. You've got to descend into this darkness to come out the other side in different ways. 

[00:05:59] Richard: So I hope I haven't scared you off, Pia, and I'm doing a

[00:06:02] Pia: No, no, but I have made a commitment to myself that I will stop, I will not be working full time when I do it because I did that with my masters and they don't call it a marriage breakup award for no reason, you know, it's a tough one, and trying to balance. Two children. So anyway, enough about me. Tell us about you, Richard. So give us a, give us a, a bit of a rundown who you are, um, and how you've come to be who you are today.

[00:06:33] Richard: I mean, the way I tend to describe myself is in terms of accidental progression. I regard myself as an accidental academic and really even sort of an accidental leadership scholar, leadership developer, whatever you'd like to call it. It was never a, a passionate approach. It was never something that I, I anticipated doing. It just, it just fell into my lap over, over time, through a series of circumstances and coincidences.

[00:07:02] Richard: So yeah, historically I was an artist. I trained as a, as a fine artist and, um, and in visual studies originally, and worked as a, as an artist in residence for a while, realized there wasn't too much money in that, and then worked as a language instructor, um, and, uh, in, in Asia, and came back into Europe and took a job, uh, I really worked as an agent in language instruction in Scandinavia and then turned that into a business on cross cultural communication and those kind of skills rather than teaching English because the Scandinavians don't really need to learn English, they're better at it than most native

[00:07:40] Dan: come, come the other way. Yeah.

[00:07:43] Richard: Um, so we, we looked at, we, I, I started my own business in teaching, sort of cross-cultural skills, uh, reading efficiencies, so speed reading, uh, writing professionalism and, and stuff like that within the business setting. And it took off. Um, but I was a little bit embarrassed that I only had a fine art degree when I was teaching all of these quite senior people. I had to do all of this work, um, and accepted an offer to do a masters, uh, in cross cross-cultural communication and international management, uh, at Newcastle upon Tyne in the UK, and was awarded a scholarship to do a PhD in Sydney. And now that PhD was on organizational irony. Took about six and a half years to finish it. Perhaps why I described it as one of the worst pieces of advice I'd ever been given.

[00:08:26] Richard: And since then fell into teaching leadership. I mean, I didn't really, leadership wasn't really a component of my studies, I mean, it's really organizational behavior is really where I situate myself. Organizational theory. So leadership sits underneath that. But it's not something I read much about. And I got asked to teach a leadership program at an MBA, you know, I got asked to was inherited the program, and was sitting reading the textbook that I'd inherited and the, and the slides I've inherited getting angrier and angrier because this was a university for, uh, developing economies. It really specialized in students from develop economy, developing economies, and all of these theories were from white, north American males had been dead for 20, 30 years, and they didn't speak to the experiences that, that these young people were going through.

[00:09:22] Richard: It also didn't speak to any of my own research. So all of the patterns that I seen weren't contained in this. Um, so I, I launched a very poor rewrite of it, uh, 'cause I had to learn what I didn't know and then rewrite it in about eight weeks. Uh, but then that kind of launched what I'm doing now. Is it, it was, I, I was asked, it went very well. I was asked to do it at, at a, at the university. I did my, my PhD in. So I did it again for them and, and wrote it as sort of a second version of it, which was far better than the first one. And I'm now in kind of stage three of that, which is rewriting it for corporate needs.

[00:09:58] Richard: And it's just very different from the mainstream stuff that is out there. So whilst we get exceptionally good feedback, I think over 30, 000 people have taken the Global MBA, the online version of this, and exceptionally good feedback. It doesn't sell particularly well, because what we talk about isn't what the market thinks works. And so there's kind of that bridge to get past all the time.

[00:10:26] Richard: But that's really what I'm trying to do at the moment is how do you get over that bridge and teach and develop leadership in the way that I think it needs to be developed. And I think that's what the patterns and historical patterns illustrate. And not do all of this, I would say, fuzzy, feely stuff that the market's asking for, which doesn't work and has never worked.

[00:10:50] Richard: So that's kind of the last five or six years of my life doing that, alongside developing a bunch of facilitation techniques that allows us to do it in a very different way. So it's not me standing up and lecturing, it's all the people doing a huge amount of practical work and participatory work to learn it rather than just learning a theoretical idea or model.

[00:11:14] Dan: The thing I want to just get us. You know what our whistle with was? I, um, I think one of my contacts must have liked or commented on one of your posts, and it was around about Simon Sinek cynic, Simon Sinek. So, and it was particularly about, are you, it said, are you a Sinek cynic? So are you cynical about Sinek? I'm going to stop saying those words now. But it sort of caught my eye because I'd had some similar sort of thoughts myself. But I really like that post because you took a couple of different sort of, you viewed that question in a very balanced way. Do you want to just talk a little bit about your thoughts around this sort of management guru, Simon Sinek, and what he's doing and your reflections on him?

[00:12:00] Richard: Yeah. So I mean, I, I, I started this line of thinking when, when I, when I designed that, First M b a program way back seven or eight years ago. And I, I looked at who, who was the top selling leadership writer of that year, and it was Simon Sinek. And so I, I, I, I think I might've seen his Ted Talk by then that made him famous, but I hadn't read anything and I hadn't, I couldn't find any academic work even referencing him or citing him. So, so I, I, I bought his book, uh, Start With Why, and I watched his, watched his video again and, and kind of read it and thought, well, from an academic perspective, it, it's one of the worst leadership books I've ever read. It's, it's just assertion versus followed by assumption versus followed by assertion, followed by assumption. But it was a bestseller, so it was clearly calling for something. Um, and what he's calling for is the regeneration of purpose in people's lives through the practice of leadership. And I think that's a call that needs to be well heeded because there's an awful lot of people struggling with this. So that's kind of the way I've always treated it is it's a worthwhile call. But his discussion of leadership is, I mean, I don't think it's very good. I mean, I think at best it doesn't work and at worst it potentially causes harm.

[00:13:25] Richard: Because what people can do, and I've had students tell me about this, is they're so busy looking for the why in their jobs and the purpose in their jobs, and they can't find it, so they internalise that they're not good enough, that there's something wrong with them rather than there's something wrong with the systemic, uh, practice of organizations and, and leadership and, uh, and things like that. Which can, which can lead to some, some quite challenging, um, psychological problems for, for, for them. So that, that's kind of my positioning of him.

[00:14:00] Richard: I'll just tell, there's one thing that I think is always worth talking about within Synex work, one of his examples is the Wright brothers using their why to get to flight before Samuel Pierpont Langley. So that's one of his, you know, it's in the book, it's in the video, it's front and centre. And so when I read the book, I went through the references. And he only had one book that he'd read talking about this search for flight, the Wright brothers v Langley. And so I read it. And it's so cherry picked. There are descriptions of Lang Lee being quite kind of self interested and pompous and loving money and ego and things.

[00:14:39] Richard: But it, what really happened is he was stuck in a government bureaucratic system where he was getting somebody else Build to build a plane from these blueprints. So it's a classic, it's a classic command and control, do what you are told kind of structures and, and the Wrights were iterating and, and experimenting and iterating and flying and it didn't work and try again. And he knew, Langley knew that the theory he was working on was wrong and he asked the rights for help and they refused. And what, what happened post-it. So the rights won. And of course, Sinek's point is they did it for the why. But they launched so many patents to stop anybody else making any money building aeroplanes in the United States, by the time the First World War was going on, American aviation industry had fallen so far behind Europe, who weren't impacted by these patents, that they couldn't actually contribute planes to the fighting. And so they actually, it's one of the biggest lawsuits in terms of wrapping up patents and trying to allow people to use the theories and the ideas to build plans in American legal history. So they did it for the money. They didn't do it for why. And that kind of sums up some of the challenges I have with the work. 

[00:16:03] Pia: Sinek's Golden Circle is, I mean, it's one of the most watched YouTube clips, so I've been told, probably by YouTube, but that's what it seems to be, the number of likes. So is this, is the challenge here that sometimes the academic rigor is so hard for people who are busy in the workplace to understand that then there are people that step into the space to go, we'll simplify this, we'll give you three things to think about, and it's near enough is good enough. Is that what we're talking about here?

[00:16:40] Richard: Yes, I would agree, yes. I'm not sure 100% I would agree with the academic rigor being that rigorous sometimes, but the complications within academia are so difficult for people to get their heads around. So the jargon, and the theory, and the models, and the diagrams, they're really, really difficult to grasp. And so what Sinek is doing is saying, well, here's a simple way of doing this that can generalise. And there's always been a market for simple things that can generalize. The challenge is they're not particularly accurate. So you're generalizing things that are not accurate.

[00:17:18] Richard: And the opposites of what you're talking about in terms of academia are things that are accurate and generalizable, but not simple. And it's trying to find the right balance between those types of work that is, um, central to the stuff that I'm trying to do is, is how do you get the generalizable, accurate stuff into something that's digestible? And sometimes, but that LinkedIn post you said, you, you, you read, that's my, that's, that's my sandpit. Can, can I create in that, um, the, the, the certain number of characters that LinkedIn has, uh, because, um, Twitter is too short, but LinkedIn gives me enough to see if I can say, right, here's a reasonably complex idea. Can I get a number of people to read it and respond to it? So I'm much more interested in what happens below the line. Does it capture an audience, are people saying what they think? Because then that's an example that I've, or a bit of evidence that I'm getting closer to perfecting my craft, which I then take into the classroom and say, right, okay, we can learn this in situ rather than via texts and things like that.

[00:18:34] Dan: Well, thank you for unpacking that. It's just, as I say, I felt it was an... While there is clearly in your view some dangers around the Sinek approach, it was interesting to see how you took that science and said, Hmm, that's not great, but there is something here that people need. That's a huge lesson, isn't it, to sort of, rather than dismiss it because of the science, I think to say somewhat some people need something here.

[00:19:01] Dan: Can we just sort of... Segway a little bit, staying on your work too. And it's with some trepidation we step into this because this is the subject of your PhD, I believe, so, um, well, we'll see if we can ask you some, some interesting questions. But you've, you've written as well. I've seen on, on LinkedIn, um, and you've, you've, you've sent us a paper on this ironic leadership. ironic Organizations, I think is the actual topic. And I think it's led into some other, other areas. Could you just see if you can share that. And you were talking about trying to make things reasonably simple to explain. Could you have a go at that in to say what that is?

[00:19:38] Richard: Yeah, I think I've got it to a point where it's at least semi intelligible, but you can let me know after I try to explain it.

[00:19:46] Dan: What?

[00:19:50] Richard: So what we're really looking at here in Irony is a perspective on the world and the performance, and it's relatively easy to explain if you have a certain perspective on the world. So, you see organizations as a machine with cogs and wheels and things that can be fixed by managers and stuff like that. Or you might see organization as a culture and you use language like rights and rituals and values and beliefs. And so you take a very specific perspective and then you perform in accordance to that perspective. And irony does the same thing, but the perspective the ironists take is expecting absurdities. So instead of looking for evidence that any one perspective is real and correct and describes the world accurately, you look for absurdities and contradictions and flaws and follies and things like that, where there are gaps between what people say the world is like and what it's actually like. So at the perspective level, you're looking for that. You're finding joy in that rather than anxieties in that.

[00:21:01] Richard: And then in the performance level, is how do I have I closed some of this without getting my head cut off? Because if you are pointing out gaps and foibles and absurdities to power, the chances are, you will get your head cut off. So do you do, what do you do about it when you're seeing it? And in my research, in the body of the organisation, you get lots and lots of people seeing these gaps, and either getting their head cut off or not, but there's an awful lot. In the leadership literature, it's positioned as the highest level of leadership, but very few people get there. Which is contradictory to my own research, which sees quite a lot of it. But it's whether those people who can do this kind of ironic performance and perspective taking actually get promoted. Thank you. And I don't think they do get promoted to the, because they don't take the process of management and the process of organization and the process of leadership seriously enough. What they take is the process of finding the gaps seriously. 

[00:22:08] Dan: So, um, just help certainly me understand this a little bit more and our listener, I hope. These people, is their intent positive? These are people who are just seeing the world differently but actually trying to make the system work. Would you say that in their own way or, and I, I just sort of, the alternative is the thing people we see sometimes, which who are sort of what Pia being Australian calls white ants, people are actually not helping the system, they're undermining the system.

[00:22:37] Pia: And in England, they're sometimes called clever dicks.

[00:22:40] Dan: Clever dicks exactly, and they are, but they're undermining the system rather than just finding their own way to, for a personal but organizational success, or am I oversimplifying?

[00:22:52] Richard: Um, no, you're not. I mean, this is the this is the real challenge with with the ironic perspective, the ironic performance, or let's call it the ironic personality to shorthand it. So the real challenge with the ironic personality is, is it always risks being interpreted both ways. Um, so you have one hand, you have the snorkel of sanity, you know, it's the one person who says Look at this absurdity. Look at, look at the folly. Look at, look at this stuff that everybody's taking seriously. It's absurd. And everyone goes, oh my God. Yes it is. Thank, thank you. You've given us the air brilliance and the other hand it's the devil's mark is you are, you are pointing it out in order to, um, for self interest, for opportunities to reconstruct the system in a way that's instrumentally rational or gives you advantages in that reconstruction.

[00:23:44] Richard: So, and also the devil's mark is that when you point out the absurdity, you risk it being read as sarcasm. So sarcasm, it means to strip the flesh. It's an attack on somebody. So it's the, oh, this is absurdity and you're fools for creating it and you're fools, you're to blame. That's why the head cutting off becomes quite challenging.

[00:24:08] Richard: Now, Pia talked about the Clever Dick in the UK and I think that's worth mentioning as well. Because, Dick was historically the term for, uh, the rogue character. So if you had Tom, the fool, you had Dick the rogue, and you had Harry, almost the destroyer to Harry and to, and to destroy. So, Dick, Dick became the, the, the rogue, the rascal, the raps, scallion, the wit, the rake, the, that kind of, that kind of character emerging out of the. 'Cause tom, Dick and Harry were the names of the poor. So you had this roguish, witty character coming out of these poor masses who was able to trick the wealthier into doing what he wanted.

[00:24:58] Richard: And, and that's partly where, where we go, so the, the, the tricky dick or the the, and then re almost re, um, reframed as the toxic rogue in, in the Dick or, uh, the fool again in the Dickhead. That all comes from the same interpretation of, of, of what it means to be human and do this kind of work as, as the ironist does.

[00:25:23] Pia: And I think it's so I find it fascinating because all organizations, they institutionalize you. You know, you go in as a, as an individual with a set of beliefs and the culture starts, It starts to stain your skin for good or bad. And you are institutionalized.

[00:25:43] Pia: I remember as a teacher, I was institutionalized as a teacher. That's why I left. And then I can see that, particularly in a role or as a third party consultant, you can see different cultures in the way that people that you've known for years, how their behavior begins to change. And is some of that fear based as well? Because it's in a competitive system and people want to be rewarded for their work. But is some of that to comply with the system rules in order to be successful and secure?

[00:26:20] Richard: Yeah, for some people, yes, but not for everybody. So within the leadership development literature, you're looking at a developmental journey. Well, first of all, you're young, you come in, you're opportunistic, oh, let's do that, let's, you know, you're foolish, I don't care who I upset, I'm going to go and do that. And we've all been there, oh, do that, and everybody else goes, oh, and you upset them, and then you become a diplomat, where you still, you're now beginning to go, right, how do I fit in, how do I comply, how do I do this without?

[00:26:52] Richard: And then, as you go through that institution process, first of all, you become what the literature calls an expert. So you go through your training, you get all your tick boxes, your certifications and accreditations, and you're seen as an expert in a certain area. And then you realize after a while, and not everybody gets past this stage, but you realize your expertise doesn't actually create a huge amount of value. It acts as a blocker, because everything has to go through you before a decision is made, etc.

[00:27:23] Richard: And then you go beyond that and you become, again, what the literature calls an achiever. And the achiever, I think, is what you're talking about, where you are fully institutionalized. You're developing teams. To create organizational value within the system that's currently constructed. So that's what you're doing.

[00:27:41] Richard: What you possibly went through. Pierre, is a subjective shift into individualism where you are now beginning to step outside the system and see its flaws. So this is the first step in, this is the early step into irony. You step outside the system, you see its flaws. Um, and this is partly, if you don't have the performative quality to get others to understand the flaws, you tend to leave, or you tend to get your head cut off, because you're only seen as someone pointing out the flaws and breaking the rules, rather than somebody who creates a network of connections. And if you do that correctly, you go into that network and say, right, re describe the flaw or the absurdity in a way that they understand, and say, well, if we correct this, what's in it for you? And if you can make a big enough networks of what's in it for you and strategize around that, then you can start making a difference.

[00:28:37] Richard: And what tends to happen is that's a later stage of development initially, you know, the individualist is a bit like that opportunist that I spoke of earlier, they're like, oh, we can fix this management challenge if we just do this. And they upset people at a much higher level of the organization, rather than the frontline workers that you upset when you were an opportunist. So it kind of repeats itself.

[00:29:00] Dan: This so reminds me of, made me think of two people I encountered in my corporate life, because it was clearly absurd. I think that's one thing I would say, Richard, as you said, Pia. There's so much in the organization. It's utterly ridiculous and you'd have to be really blind to miss it. But one person said to me, Dan, just play the game, you know, just play at the forecast time, downplay it, and I thought, I'm not interested in that.

[00:29:28] Dan: Another guy was, he was the one, it really reminded me, when you, when you used that irony thing, he saw the absurdity, pointed it out, but managed to sort of work out his own way of working with it, mostly through wit and humor. And he brought people along with him who he would sort of see the absurdity and help us to navigate that. And that sort of appealed to me a little bit more, but without a doubt, person B had a bit more harder time in the organization than person A who just said, keep your head down and play the game. Um, which is. I suppose part of the absurdity of the system, but it reminded

[00:30:02] Richard: absurdity. Yeah and I would suggest there are three. There's what I would call the games player which is your person A. So they work out where the power and the money is, they keep their head down, they follow the power and the money and they make a nice career for themselves. You've then got the role player or the role actor who just goes, right, when I'm here, I have to behave like that, when I'm there, I have to behave like the other, when I'm here. And they don't really care about anything other than survival and not getting so stressed. And they, you know, they're quite vital for an organization because they do pass information through, they do create channels of information exchange. And then the ironist is the one with the elegance and the wit and all of this kind of stuff, who does make things happen.

[00:30:50] Richard: And what you would normally find within the body of the organisation, that they would be deeply connected with all kinds of people who wanted to work with them, but they won't be being perceived as leadership material by those higher up because there's that kind of lack of seriousness in their attitude. 

[00:31:07] Dan: and yeah, there's a sort of ironic network creates around them that, but I think my, what I reflected was that person really got stuff done. They saw that their intent was good. They were serving, we were in a pharma company at the time, serving patients. They really got things done, but it was somehow, as you say, not with the blessing of the people up above who wanted person A a little bit more.

[00:31:29] Richard: The work that I did and the research that I did, this was in a big steelworks, and it was going through this massive transformation, um, where it was much more about the strong culture, love your company, love your job, self management, agile kind of stuff, but within the Steelworks environment. And of course, Steelworkers are very, they're not used to that kind of stuff. And so the research, and we were researching for about 14 years as a team. And what we found was that the ones who were creating the most value for the organizations, the one that were making the transformation work, poked fun at absolutely everything. They didn't take anything seriously at all, but everybody wanted to work with them because they had a reputation for solving all of these complex challenges that were constantly coming up. But the question is, were they perceived by management as doing that work? And probably not, because a lot of it, by its nature, is done on the backstage. It's done beyond the glare of the management spotlight. So they're working behind the scenes to do this stuff, in the dark a little bit.

[00:32:40] Richard: And so, you know, the data that I have pretty much, I mean, I would say very clearly indicates that they are the most valuable people an organization has, because they do everything in context. And that's absolutely vital. But if you choose to take that perspective on life, you are also potentially harming your chances of climbing the greasy pole and getting to the top.

[00:33:05] Pia: And, and what is the higher intent of individuals who are practicing that, that ironic behavior? is it to serve the, the greater needs of the people they lead? Is it to serve their own intellectual fun? Is it to serve the organization? What, what's the purpose?

[00:33:24] Richard: Well, I think it's a bit of both. I mean, I think that there is it is serving their own intellectual fun, but it's their intellectual fun in finding absurdities. It's not their intellectual fun in creating answers. So the way the way that I look at it is the the the ironist always stands with his back to the future. Because what they can do is look at where we are now and see the absurdities, but they're not for a second suggesting they have the capacity to create the answers. What they can do is facilitate a kind of collective creativity to deal with the absurdities and move into the future in a more meaningful way.

[00:34:05] Richard: So they are absolutely blind as to what the future might hold, and they're quite comfortable with that. And they're also, their intellectual wit, the kind of, the pleasure they take in their intellect is only about interrogating the flaws in the present, not saying that they know what the answer is in the future and being held up as this kind of great leader that's taking everyone into a preformed vision of, uh, of a wonderful horizon that we're all going to reach, they have absolutely, they don't want to even go there at all, the horizon is what it looks like, don't know how far away it is, don't know what it's going to take to get there, but what I do know is what we're doing now doesn't allow us to see anywhere near far enough into the future to get close to where that horizon is.

[00:34:57] Dan: Richard, it's sort of a cryptic question, but when you're studying ironic leaders, do you see any of yourself in that? Is there some of this self study?

[00:35:10] Richard: They're kind of, so part of, one of the big quotes around irony is you can't possibly study irony without some of it rubbing off on yourself. And I think that that's the case because you have to become aware of your performance. That's part of it. And you have to be, but you're also becoming very aware of looking for absurdities everywhere. So it's kind of an accelerator of how to get to that stance, but only within certain aspects of my life. I mean, other aspects, I'm as naive as anybody. It's only when it comes to organization and leadership concepts and things that I can do it. In other areas of my life, I'm reliant on other experts to tell me the way they think the world is because I can't see the uncertainties.

[00:36:00] Pia: And we see, I mean, a lot of the work that we do, we see that, um, particularly with the changes in the way that people are working with hybrid and geographically disparate businesses, people are seeking connection. Does this enable connection in some ways as human beings, particularly in teams, or does it sometimes put a spanner in the works for that? And does it sometimes actually create a bit of disconnection because you're a little aloof, or does it actually sometimes psychologically bring the team together?

[00:36:38] Richard: So, so it's both and I think so. So, um, clearly it's a bonding mechanism, so if you, if you've seen, uh, the world in a way that somebody else else has, hasn't seen, and you present it and it's deconstructed by others around you, they all are in on this, this deconstruction. And there, there's a lot of, Writing about how tightly it bonds communities together. Uh, it very often as well, kind of minority communities in, in a majority system, it binds them together. So it clearly does that. But it also can make you seem very, very arrogant and egotistical, um, so you're sitting above the world and pronouncing on down all you foolish people that you can't see. You can't see what I see. And that would be the ironist that doesn't perform. That's the ironist that just sits up and goes, oh, you idiots, you idiots. The ironist that performs creates that bond.

[00:37:35] Richard: And again, within, this is more the American interpretation of irony, but within that literature and philosophy, it's regarded as one of the tightest social bonding mechanisms there is finding a group that's deconstructed and irony and uses that to bond with each-other. It's a really powerful way of doing it.

[00:37:55] Dan: That's fascinating. Just having been there, I think myself a fair bit where you just look at the organization and just think This is absurd, what the hell is going on here? I think a lot of people in organizations are probably switched onto that and it actually leads to quite a bit of suffering to try to work in that system, when you see it like that.

[00:38:18] Dan: This might be oversimplifying, but what would you advise people to do to be able to release themselves from that suffering, if you like to, to engage with the system in a different way? If they're feeling stuck?

[00:38:30] Richard: Well, you're almost leading me back to Sinek now, and this notion of don't expect an absurd system to create purpose in your life. It's not going to create this. You're not going to find your why in an absurd system. You're not going to find your meaning. You're not going to find your purpose. So the protective, the first aspect of the protective mechanism, I think, is that it's not there in an absurd system.

[00:38:54] Richard: It might be in an early stage startup that really is tightly focused on doing something different. It's not going to be in a complex global organization because absurdity is going to be everywhere in it. So don't look for that, but expect the unexpected, expect the absurdities, and don't meet it with, Oh my god, everything's terrible, oh, it doesn't work. Meet it with a right smile. You know, just go, Okay, here's another one. This is just another thing of what I expected.

[00:39:29] Richard: And, you know, the three of us are of a certain age. And there's a certain maturity with this, is we talk from bitter experience. We've been there, we've seen it, we've done it. What you tend to find, partly because of, you know, texts a bit like Sinek's and this kind of purpose movement and uh, really the positive psychology purpose movement that's really quite dominant in leadership at the moment is you go, go and find your purpose within these systems and, and younger people who are, they, they're not experienced with the complexity of organizational systems. I think they get lost trying to find something that's, they're not going to find where they're looking.

[00:40:10] Richard: And I think to go back to Pia's point with the hybrid teams, well, what we actually found when we were working from home was purpose outside the organisation again. We started connecting with communities in a different way and we started. And so we saw that it wasn't where we were looking. And we don't really, to go back to the notion of cynical again, we've become more cynical as a whole, including the young, that the organization can provide it for us, and we're looking for something else.

[00:40:42] Richard: Now I think there's something else. I think where purpose lies within the organization is in teams almost doing the ironic work themselves. Where, what is the absurdity you're trying to solve. It could be a customer need, it could be an internal challenge, and being given the, the kind of given the permission to go, well, OK, let's see where, if you found one, let's see where you might take the solutions.

[00:41:07] Richard: So I think a lot of where I would be developing people is, you know, don't follow agile process to the letter. Make sure you bring that wry smile and that humor and that wit to the discussions and see what emerges. And there's a whole bunch of techniques and practices that you can use to enable the laughter to emerge. And from that laughter, you get really fascinating insights. Not necessarily from the most ironic person in the group, from somebody else who sees something different. And from that, you can start creating really powerful new value, I think.

[00:41:43] Dan: Richard, I think that's a fantastic place to come to an end, but where could people go to get more thinking like this? 

[00:41:52] Richard: yeah, follow, follow me on LinkedIn would be, would be a first thing. 'cause I do not, not at the moment, 'cause I've been very busy for the last three or four weeks, but usually post quite a lot on, on, on absurdities and organizations and leadership and management and stuff like that. Uh, eqlab.co is the website that I, um, associated with as is thehumanfactor.net. And yeah, that's pretty much it at the moment in terms of my output into the virtual world.

[00:42:19] Dan: Sounds perfect. Richard, thank you so much for being with us today. It's been, yeah, it's been as fascinating as exercise down grey matter. Thank you, yeah, perfect. And thank you so much for being with us. I think our listeners will find that hugely valuable. So thank you for being with us. And we may see you again on We Not Me at some point in the future, if we can drag you back.

[00:42:38] Richard: Thanks very much for inviting 

[00:42:42] Dan: Oh boy, this took me back to my corporate days Pia. This really resonated because I think I'm one of those people and started to see like a lot of people did absurdity in the system. I mentioned a couple of people I met actually on my travels in the US working there. And I definitely did find that you see true absurdity. I mean, really, really ridiculous decisions being made by people many thousands of miles away that make zero sense, and here's no explaining it. And these are very well paid, purportedly intelligent people. And it can only be put down to absurdity.

[00:43:24] Dan: And I love the way he said, take it with a wry smile. But I definitely, as he said, I've You start, I've found a couple of times in my life purpose outside the organization, you know, either, right, I'm just going to really pay attention to my customers, the patients I'm serving. In one case, I just, I volunteered as an advocate for people with learning disabilities and trained up in that and found my purpose in that. And it was really weird how it was sort of work just faded a little bit. You know, the absurdity faded in my mind in terms of importance because I had these people to look after. But I definitely, as he said, sought purpose outside the organization. It certainly wasn't coming from within, as some people think it should do.

[00:44:08] Pia: You know, the old joke is about drinking the Kool Aid, isn't it, you know, and, and, and, yeah, I think that I think it was interesting. There's a couple of couple of things that stood out that for me, right, but I think the flaws in Simon Sinek, and in terms of finding real purpose in your work, I mean, I think that my view on it is you need to find purpose in yourself and for yourself and not as an externalized thing because you're only ever probably going to be disappointed.

[00:44:41] Pia: I mean, I remember one of my very first leadership programs that I've served with Rob Metcalfe has been on this program. And, and Robert worked with this guy to get his, um, his purpose. And then he announced, he said, it's fantastic 'cause I'm resigning tomorrow. And he did. Because actually that was for him, was like, there were, there were, you know, they, they were, they were misaligned.

[00:45:06] Pia: But another point too is, is that, uh, and, and, and I challenged Richard A. Little bit on this. The, the, the difficult part of it is that academic research is dry. You know, there's a big part. Once you sort of get into, you do any master's or PhD in behavioral science, it has to be empirically proved and evidence based, and this gets pushed into your brain again and again and again, what's the theory that backs it up, what's the research in it? And so, you know, I think Richard's probably right on the money. Some of the stuff that Sinek's done is probably only 60% there. But he's got the capacity to reach into people's hearts and minds, sometimes with the most banal of comments and his quotes. Seriously, we could be millionaires if we came up with a few of those.

[00:46:04] Pia: But the thing is that academic stuff could be dry and therefore doesn't get paid attention to even though it probably is the much more rigorous and therefore this stuff is like popular psychology. It appeals. It appeals. People can see something in themselves in it. So it's a, it's a bit of a bind, really,

[00:46:25] Dan: it is and the you're right and the I mean, I really like the fact that he said that the people must have a hunger for what he's talking about. And, you know, as you say, one of his his quotes are getting, to be honest with you, quite banana. He says, you know, one of them is great companies don't hire skilled people and motivate them. They hire already motivated people and inspire them. I'm pretty sure if I put that on LinkedIn,

[00:46:47] Pia: LinkedIn, you get about, you get about three likes.

[00:46:50] Dan: Maybe, and they'd be from family. And then I'd get one of my mates in the background saying, what are you talking about? So, but there's clearly a need for this. There's clearly a need. And actually. That idea of why and purpose, Richard said it can be damaging in times, I can imagine because it challenges you to seek a higher order of leadership than you're probably enjoying at that time. So that can lead to dissatisfaction, but it in itself is. It's a useful thing and Sinek has done some good work there, Sinek has done good work, I think, in putting that into people's practices and into their minds.

[00:47:32] Pia: And on the other flip side of it, we've got a lot of gurus in the leadership industry and in that motivation. And because people are looking for something, then when something is really agreeable to listen to, you know, you're putting them on a pedestal. And your bias is to believe them before they've even said anything and it becomes a business of that, rather than sticking to proper researched and evidence based information. So I can 100% get that. It's harder.

[00:48:10] Pia: You know, we're always sometimes, we like to be seduced. And we like to be seduced by things that make us feel good. And that's an age old model. So we've just got to be a little, you know, keep, keep, keep the rye smile. And I think the, I, the absurdity and the irony of it is keeps your feet flat on the floor. You know, it keeps, there's a groundedness to it that I really like. And I think, you know, Richard said, you know, when it becomes laced with sarcasm, then it can be a bit dangerous. But you know, for yourself, you can blow yourself. But if it's the way of being able to get a really objective view and just go, OK, here we are,

[00:48:47] Dan: And, And, yeah. And being, being tough on the facts, but having a right smile about them. But I think it is also about intent. That if you, if you, if you stay in that, it's not a good place to be, to be constantly dissatisfied and undermining things. You know, Eckhart Tolle's three options, you know, if you don't like something, change it, get out of it, or learn to like it. You know, staying in there and not liking it and undermining and white anting is not good for anyone. So, yeah, one to watch for.

[00:49:24] Dan: But I have also seen, as he said, that you can have a network of people who are a little bit, who have this irony and you can really connect and I think that's my sort of, as I think about another way to find comfort in these places is to build a team and a network around you that has the right intent but can sort of live in this ironic space, have a language and a way of doing things but still move forward. And that's I think where a team can sort of somehow encapsulate itself, serve the organization, but not be like it. And I think that's another way in which teams can create a microclimate for themselves where they can get things done despite,

[00:50:04] Pia: Yep. And the final bit I would say is that sometimes the tough, lonely part of leadership is that you are accountable. You get to see things that other people don't see. You get closer to the truth. And you get caught between a rock and a hard place. Now, that is. Absurd in itself. But your intent is to lead the people that you're with. And that's the direction you're going. And sometimes you have to suck that up. And it is a lonely. That's a lonely place to be. But that's some of the darker side of leadership. You are responsible and you're accountable. And it's not always straight or plain sailing.

[00:50:47] Dan: Yeah, yeah, and this can be a route towards that making sense and making headway, I think, a little bit like we talked about Bernadette, you have that responsibility, don't you? So, really fascinating, that was a real mind bender, I think we've both enjoyed little bit, bit of a joust there with, uh, with fan, fantastic work and a really, and a new angle.

[00:51:07] Dan: But that is it for this episode. You can find show notes and resources at squadify.net. Just click on the We Not Me podcast link. If you've enjoyed the show, please do share the love and recommend it to your friends. If you'd like to contribute to the show, just email us at wenotmepod@gmail.com. We Not Me is produced by Mark Steadman of Origin. Thank you so much for listening. It's goodbye from me.

[00:51:30] Pia: And it's goodbye from me.