The Mind Takeaway Podcast

Do you need a tight, rigid plan and structure to succeed with your business idea?

In this 10 minutes episode, we explore planning vs. preparing for opportunities and how learning about our resilience and creative we are is much more helpful than being strategic or being able to build a detailed plan.

Do you feel valued by your team and colleagues?

Do you feel you need to talk more to be heard by your colleagues?

In this 10 minutes episode, we explore what gets in the way of having an impact as a leader and allowing others to do the same.

Did you know that your perception of reality shifts depending on how you feel?

In this 10 minutes episode, we share a valuable thing to know regarding how we feel about any given situation that can shape our perception of reality at that moment.

Everything is useful until it is not

Always driven by pioneering the new, Christiane has been an entrepreneur for over 30 years and an international Business Consultant and Coach for almost two decades. Seeing how often the workplace feels disempowering, leading to people feeling disengaged and unfulfilled, Christiane has specialized in new forms of organizing, focussing on self-organization, for over a decade.

Inspired by the years of exploring this new world, she decided to write her book: “New Stories of Love, Power and Purpose; A Global Invitation to Experiment With the Unknown”, which will be published in late June."

Christiane's LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christiane-seuhs-schoeller-5a751624/

Download  a free book sample: https://lovepowerandpurpose.com/

Living a life with purpose.

In this 10 minutes episode, we share some of the insights from our work supporting leaders.

Burnout keeps you from being productive. It reduces your energy, making you feel hopeless, cynical, and resentful. The effects of burnout can hurt your home, work, and social life.

In the first of our podcast live series, we had a great conversation and exploration into what causes burnout and how we can address it individually and in the workplace, together with Corinne Lembe Mayunga from Stillpoint Spaces Berlin.

Suppose you are a leader, HR professional, co-founder or entrepreneur. In that case, you may find this episode helpful, and at the very least, it might spark your curiosity about how your energy levels at work can impact your mental health and productivity.

About Stillpoint Spaces https://stillpoint.org/

Our mission is to re-imagine psychology for the 21st century through connection, exploration, and innovation.

Connect with Corinne here https://www.linkedin.com/in/corinnemayunga/

Kristen is currently the Vice-Chair of European Women on Boards (EWoB) and the Development Programs Committee chair. EWoB is the European umbrella association for gender equality at the decision-making level, a non-profit consortium of national organizations whose aim is to improve gender balance on corporate boards across Europe.

From 2016 to 2021, Kristen was Barilla's Chief Diversity and Inclusion Officer. Kristen reported to the CEO of Barilla and led a 12-member D&I Board, comprised of internal members from 8 regions and two external

Advisors.

Kirsten LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristen-anderson-aaa44a8/

European Women on Boards: https://europeanwomenonboards.eu/

Gender Diversity Index: https://europeanwomenonboards.eu/portfolio/gender-diversity-index-2021/

Timestamps and Takeaways

"You can be successful being yourself; we bring a lot of value in our leadership roles."

01:42 The challenges of getting into senior leadership as a woman and staying yourself.

04:28 Why it is essential to have good role models, mentors and coaches in your career.

05:12 We are up to 50% less productive if we are inauthentic or trying to cover up an aspect of ourselves or our life.

07:40 In performance reviews, women are given feedback on their style, image, or how they express themselves 86% of the time vs 1% for men.

09:38 The difference between homogeneous and diverse teams and the impact that can have on performance and innovation.

17:42 How can we move from box-ticking to hiring more diverse candidates?

23:43 How does the trauma of climbing the leadership ladder as a woman affect how some female leaders treat other female leaders and make it hard for them to grow in their authentic way.

28:24 All leaders need to practise empathy and be able to step into someone else's shoes when it comes to experiencing exclusion or discrimination.

39:47 It's a job-seekers market, and if a company is window dressing instead of being genuinely inclusive and hiding toxic culture, they will fail to recruit and retain talent.

46:11 How can we challenge existing biases and create more inclusive cultures

Humans are so varied and complex that no one phycological test has yet to determine how diverse we are or can even begin to identify your team's strengths.

"We learned through our work supporting leaders that these tests are also not well suited to people outside of western cultures, and they are constructed to be ableist, racist, sexist, and classist."

Timestamps and takeaways

01:43 Some facts and figures about personality tests to date and how it is a $2bn dollar industry, growing by 15% each year.

02:22 Leaders often use them as jumping-off points to get to know their teams. However, that is where they become dangerous.

03:57 Personality tests are not based on good psychology or science and are no better than horoscopes.

04:04 What we learned is that these tests are also not well suited to people outside of western cultures, and they are constructed to be ableist, racist, sexist, and classist.

05:04 We get drawn to these tests because we as humans are constantly searching for who we are and our purpose in life, and we also seek certainty/security.

05:48 We will never be able to find out who we truly are by doing a personality test because we are constantly changing and growing.

08:33 Personality tests are rubbish tools for HR and recruitment to create hiring or efficiency shortcuts; there are no shortcuts for getting to know someone.

12:09 Humans are not so good at being comfortable with uncertainty, and it's this grasping for certainty when it comes to wanting to know someone that can get us into trouble.

13:26 The alternative, instead of doing personality tests, is to listen to understand each other, allowing everyone to learn about themselves.

Some further resources on this subject:

7 and a Half Lessons about the Brain, book by Dr Lisa Feldman Barrett

Persona - HPO documentary about personality tests and their origin

'They become dangerous tools': the dark side of personality tests, The Guardian

Why personality tests don't work, PsychMechanics magazine

Personality Tests Don't Work Heres Why and Alternatives, Noble Academy

Reasons why personality tests don't work, Wise Step

When it comes to mental health in the workplace, Sheila Lord, by her own admission, has learned from her mistakes. She saw first-hand how businesses and organisations weren't taking mental health seriously and the detrimental impact on the industry as a whole.

To tackle this head-on, Sheila started BMR, and today the company leads the way in mental health support programmes, all of which have a definitive return on investment.

Well known for her ability to 'cut to the chase', Sheila believes that workplace wellbeing isn't just about fruit bowls and yoga and that you can't simply magic away employee stress by 'fixing' people. The problem is often more complex, but BMR is designed to help.

Takeaways and Timestamps

02:40 Pressure builds on CEOs and business leaders to deal with workplace mental health, and they don't know where to start. 

05:20 Workspace mental health is a shared responsibility; as individuals, we need to take ownership of our mental health, and in the workplace, we need to create a culture where we can have support when we need it. 

8:00 Often, one thing that gets missed is leaders; after conducting engagement surveys, they do not follow up with conversations with employees to get the complete information about the required changes and next steps.

10:33 Why do workplace wellbeing programs and initiatives have relatively low uptake and engagement? 

16:53 What are the dangers of implementing a wellbeing strategy to tick a box and not ask yourself why you need it?

21:18 The benefits of implementing a systemic workplace wellbeing approach even if your company is doing great.

23:32 Employees are a vital part of any organisation; they drive your business forward every day, and having good mental health in the workplace is not an employee perk or reward.

26:31 What are the visible signs of mental health issues, and how having a risk-based approach can help prevent problems occurring in the future and know what to do when someone needs help?

30:42 Everybody has a shared responsibility for mental health and workplace welling, so let's work together to create happy workplaces.

35:43 Fear is often the root cause of inaction when addressing mental health and wellness in the workplace. 

When we blame others, we stop listening and give away any chance of finding solutions.

In this 12 minute Micro Episode, we explore the transformative power of taking responsibility and ownership for our actions.

Timestamps and Takeaways

01:12 When we were kids, we learned that if we blame someone else, we won't get punished, whether we had something to do with the situation or not.

01:48 It's not that we are bad people; we often blame others as a protective mechanism; however, we understand the impact of blaming others on our teams, the company and ourselves.

02:14 When we blame others, we disempower ourselves, and it stops people from being able to trust you as a leader (it's the opposite of psychological safety)

02:29 Your people will copy your behaviour, both the positive things you would like them to continue and the negative things you might want them to stop.

03:08 When you take responsibility for your actions and show a willingness to look for solutions, you create the right conditions for others to do the same in your team.

04:27 You may not be the cause of an issue, but you are more likely to resolve it as an individual, as a team, as a company if you are willing to look at the options with other people and think ok what we can do?

04:42 When we are angry and fearful in the moment, it can look like there are no options, and that is when we need to slow down, take a step back and breathe.

05:24 It can be painful to accept responsibility when looking back into the past; however, this is the only way to resolve trauma. And avoid making the same mistakes in the future.

06:43 By blaming others, we stop listening to others, stifle creativity and limit the possibility of finding solutions to problems.

08:04 When we take the role of victim and blame others, we resolve ourselves from any power to anything about it.

08:16 Playing the martyr and taking responsibility for absolutely everything can lead to isolation and create a toxic environment.

10:38 Blaming others also prevents your team from growing as they will not feel safe enough to learn from their own mistakes.