Welcome to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning workplace podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

Most businesses struggle with recruiting. They post jobs on Indeed, sponsor LinkedIn ads, and cross their fingers. Rachel Harris, co-founder of StriveX Accountants, does the exact opposite. She has built a multimillion-pound firm from her dining room table with a waiting list of over 200 people eager to join her team.

In this episode, Rachel reveals how she treats recruitment like a 24/7 marketing function and why her employees are her most powerful recruitment tool—even when they’re calling her a "micromanager" on social media.

🔥 What we cover in this episode:

The "Always-On" Strategy: Why Rachel never posts "we're hiring" ads and why waiting until you have a vacancy means you're already too late.

Franchising the Inside: How Rachel systemized recruitment and onboarding so the process runs itself, allowing her to focus on the human connection.

Employee Generated Content (EGC): The "no-rules" scheme where Rachel’s team earns bonuses for sharing raw, unscripted stories about their work life.

The "Micromanager" Post: How a post highlighting Rachel’s intense systems became one of their best-performing pieces of recruitment content.

Culture as Credibility: Why a lack of employee advocacy isn't a social media problem—it's a culture problem.

💡 3 Key Lessons for Leaders

Recruit Like a Marketer: Stop selling the job; start showing the life. Use day-in-the-life stories and team moments to sell the culture before a candidate ever applies.

Turn Your Team into Trusted Voices: Authenticity beats polish. Giving your team the freedom to share their real experiences without an approval process builds massive credibility with future hires.

Fix the Culture First: Rachel’s EGC scheme only works because the workplace actually delivers on its promises. If your employees won't vouch for you publicly, focus on the culture before the content.

🔗 Connect with Rachel Harris

LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/rachel-harris-a3192372

StriveX Accountants: https://strivex.co.uk

Instagram/TikTok: @accountant_she

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork

Mental health support

UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit https://www.samaritans.org

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning workplace podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. This week, we explore the shifting vocabulary of the modern office, the rise of "Gen Z entrepreneurs," and a sobering look at the prevalence of toxic leadership.

Plus, for Mental Health Awareness Month, we dig into the research behind "Bring Your Dog to Work Day" and answer three tough listener questions in a bumper Workplace Surgery.

🔥 Stories Covered

1. Six Words Defining the New World of Work

Meaning-maxxing: Optimising life around purpose rather than status.

Rage applying: Rapidly submitting job applications as a cathartic response to frustration.

False retention: When staff stay for security but aren't actually engaged.

Vibe working and the Anti-office: How AI and office design are prioritising "progress over productivity."

2. The Gen Z Career Ladder is Being Rebuilt

3. Is Toxic Leadership the New Norm?

🧠 Truth or Lie: Bring Your Dog to Work Day

Does having a "fluffy colleague" actually support mental health?

The Truth: Some studies suggest dogs act as a stress buffer and increase workplace engagement.

The Lie: The evidence is surprisingly weak. Most studies rely on self-reporting, and for the 15-30% of people with allergies or phobias, a dog-friendly office can be a major source of stress.

💬 Workplace Surgery

Question 1: Are we doing more harm by asking and not acting?

Question 2: Why isn’t anyone using our wellbeing benefits?

Question 3: If people keep leaving, is it really a hiring problem?

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

Mental health support

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning workplace podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. We are part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

In this special LinkedIn Live edition, hosts Al Elliott and Leanne Elliott are joined by three world-class experts to tackle one of the most pressing questions of the modern era: If machines are increasingly doing the thinking for us, what happens to our own ability to think?

🔥 Discussion Highlights

1. The Irony of Automation

2. Writing as a Thinking Tool

3. The Case for Human Authenticity

4. Leadership & Curiosity

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork

🎙️ Connect with our Guests

Charli Nordone

Website: www.thebetterwritingstore.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/charlinordone/

Instagram: www.instagram.com/betterwritingstore

Gabrielle Dolan

Website: gabrielledolan.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gabrielledolan/

Instagram: @gabrielledolan.1

Paul Spiers

Website: paulspiers.com | principlesandleadership.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/paulspiers/

🆘 Mental Health Support

UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit samaritans.org

UK — Mind Call 0300 123 3393 or visit mind.org.uk

US — Suicide & Crisis Lifeline Call or text 988 or visit 988lifeline.org

Australia — Lifeline Call 13 11 14 or visit lifeline.org.au

Global helplines: findahelpline.com

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning workplace podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture. Part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

If you’re a founder who has built something brilliant but finds the idea of 'selling' it a little bit icky, this episode is for you. Today, we’re joined by Thomas Waites, a fractional Chief Revenue Officer and startup advisor who has scaled multiple companies from seed stage to successful acquisition.

Thomas takes a refreshingly contrarian view of sales. He argues that the very traits many founders think disqualify them from sales—honesty, empathy, and a hatred for pushiness—are actually their greatest competitive advantages.

🔥 What we cover in this episode:

The "Rainmaker" Reimagined: Why a Chief Revenue Officer (CRO) is about more than just closing deals—it’s about owning the entire customer revenue journey.

The Tattoo Bet: The incredible story of how a team culture of "tattoo bets" led Thomas to ink a bull on his shoulder after closing a massive deal with 40,000 Warner Brothers employees.

Sales for STEM Founders: How highly analytical, introverted founders can become world-class at sales by treating it like an engineering problem.

The 75/25 Rule: Why the best salespeople speak only 25% of the time and how "negative reverse selling" can turn a 'no' into a 'yes' by simply respecting the prospect's boundaries.

Building Your Sales Team: Why your first hire should NOT be a VP of Sales or a CRO, and the specific progression founders should follow to scale their revenue.

🧠 Key Takeaways

Honesty is a Competitive Advantage: Most prospects expect to be lied to. When you are transparent about what your product can’t do, you build instant, unshakeable trust.

Sell to Emotions, Not Just Logic: While logic supports a purchase, emotions drive it. Avoid "information overload" and focus on the pain you are solving.

Hire Junior First: Start with a Business Development Representative (BDR) to fill the pipeline while you, the founder, continue to close. Only bring in a senior sales leader once the process is proven.

🔗 Connect with Thomas Waites

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

Mental health support

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture. Part of the HubSpot Podcast Network.

This week, we explore Microsoft’s new retirement strategy, NVIDIA’s radical management secrets, and the one wellbeing investment most businesses are overlooking. Plus, we debunk a legendary psychological model and answer your burning questions about toxic top performers and small business culture.

🔥 Stories Covered

1. Is Microsoft Quietly

Microsoft has launched a first-of-its-kind voluntary retirement program for U.S. employees whose age plus years of service equals 70 or more.

The Targeted Group: Open to staff at senior director level and below.

The Strategic Shift: While framed as giving employees choice, it comes as Microsoft pivots heavily toward AI infrastructure, potentially reshaping its traditional software workforce.

Reward Changes: The company is also decoupling stock awards from cash bonuses to give managers more flexibility in rewarding high performers.

2. The $5 Trillion CEO: Jensen Huang’s Radical Rules

NVIDIA recently crossed the $5 trillion mark, and CEO Jensen Huang did it by breaking every rule in the management handbook.

Flat Structure: Huang has 55 direct reports—nearly 10x the corporate average.

Equal Pay: He pays all 55 top executives the exact same cash bonus, removing internal "status games."

No 1:1s: Information is shared with everyone at once to eliminate power asymmetry and speed up decision-making.

3. The Wellbeing Investment You’re Overlooking

While most companies spend on gym memberships and apps, the data suggests that employee development is the real driver of wellbeing.

The Progress Problem: Research suggests low engagement is often a "progress problem," not a "perks problem."

Retention Secret: 73% of employees would stay longer if their company invested more in learning and development.

Science-Backed: Competence is a core human need in Self-Determination Theory, directly linked to lower burnout.

🧠 Truth or Lie: The Kübler-Ross Change Curve

We’ve all seen the "Stages of Grief" applied to corporate change. Business Psychologist Matt Furness joins us to reveal whether research actually supports using a model designed for terminally ill patients as a roadmap for office restructuring.

Connect with Matt:

💬 Workplace Surgery

This week, we tackle three tough listener dilemmas:

The "Checked Out" Employee: Is "quiet quitting" the inevitable result of mandated return-to-office policies?

The Toxic High Performer: Can you ever justify keeping a salesperson who hits their targets but destroys your culture?

Culture vs. Cash: At what point does a "small business family" culture lose out to a £15k pay rise elsewhere?

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

Mental health support

What does it actually feel like when the company you built starts falling apart?

In 2021, Aedan Fida’s company, Blade Air, was on top of the world. They had a $20 million school board contract, 25,000 square feet of manufacturing space, and revenue hitting $30 million. Then, the pandemic ended, and revenue dropped off a cliff—falling to just $2 million by 2024.

In this episode, Aedan (a Forbes 30 Under 30 honoree and EY Entrepreneur of the Year) gives one of the most candid accounts of founder life we’ve ever hosted. From sleeping in cars to build prototypes to the brutal reality of a 93% revenue drop, Aedan shares the "deep learning" that comes when you stop chasing goalposts and start leading with purpose.

🔥 What we cover in this episode:

The Pivot that Paid Off (and then didn't): How Aedan went from building carbon filters for cannabis growers in a Toronto basement to massive government contracts.

The "Deep Learning" Period: The truth about managing a $30M company with a management structure that wasn't ready for it.

Slow Down to Speed Up: Why the instinct to "go harder" during a collapse is often wrong, and how coaching, therapy, and systems actually turned the tide.

The "Right" Team: The remarkable story of Aedan’s brother, Kieran, who recognized he was becoming a bottleneck and went out to find his own replacement.

Purpose Balance over Work-Life Balance: The heart-wrenching lesson Aedan learned after losing his father about being present for the life you’re already living.

👤 About Aedan Fida

Connect with Aedan:

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

Mental health support

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning workplace podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. This week, we’re unpacking the "human" skills needed for an AI-driven future, a bizarre experiment in digital leadership at Meta, and whether the "loudest" person in the room is actually the best person to lead it.

🔥 Stories Covered

1. 5 Skills LinkedIn Says Will AI-Proof Your Career

2. The Digital Mark Zuckerberg: Efficiency or Madness?

3. Why the DoorDash CEO Reads 2,000-Word Complaint Emails

🧠 Truth or Lie: Extroverts Make More Effective Leaders

We often celebrate magnetic, commanding figures as the gold standard for leadership. But Leanne dives into the research to distinguish between leader emergence (who looks the part) and leader effectiveness (who actually delivers results).

💬 Workplace Surgery

This week, we answer three listener dilemmas:

Should I Bother with Engagement Surveys? Are you just measuring problems or actually fixing them?

Managing Generational Friction: Is the tension between Gen Z’s boundaries and "earned authority" something a manager should fix? Leanne explains why this is a clash of unspoken norms, not age.

New Job Red Flags: What are the signs in your first few weeks that you’ve joined a genuinely healthy workplace versus an intentional disaster?

Resources Mentioned

Who is Al Elliott? Hear our co-host’s story from bankruptcy to award-winning business owner: https://truthliesandwork.com/episodes/16-who-is-al-elliott-award-winning-business-owner-to-bankruptcy-and-back-our-co-host-s-story

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork

Mental Health Support

UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit https://www.samaritans.org

🎧 Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioral science meets workplace culture, brought to you by the HubSpot Podcast Network.

This week, Al and Leanne are joined by Danni Mohammed, founder of the creative and innovation practice Gentle Forces. Danni has spent her career at some of the world’s most iconic agencies—including Saatchi & Saatchi and WPP—but she’s now doing something genuinely radical: running a global innovation firm with just two job titles.

Danni explores why traditional hierarchies might be holding your team back, how to balance the "chaos" of creativity with the "order" of delivery, and why her team describes their workplace as "calm" despite tackling some of the biggest brand challenges on the planet.

🔥 Inside the Episode

1. The "Two Title" Experiment

2. Balancing Chaos and Order

3. "Night Vision" and Innovation

4. A Culture of Calm

🧠 Key Lessons for Leaders

Structure for Output: Don't inherit your industry's habits. Ask if your current titles are defining roles or just defining limits.

Embrace Interdisciplinary Thinking: Move beyond simple collaboration to a space where different disciplines work together to create something entirely new.

Practice Over Agency: Why viewing your work as a "practice" encourages continuous learning and keeps the "ceiling" off your team's growth.

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork

Connect with Danni Mohammed:

Mental health support

UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit https://www.samaritans.org

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture. This week is a very special "cross-over" episode as we are joined by Alexis Zahner and Sally Clarke, hosts of the Live+Work More Human podcast. Together, we tackle the "bums on seats" myth, the stress of AI limits, and why being a "vulnerable" leader is more nuanced than you think.

🔥 Stories Covered

1. The "Sh*tcut": When Speed Kills Quality

Read more here: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/really-shortcut-shtcut-james-hardie-rouye/?trackingId=aTyABh%2F%2BTgCbctmdoTx97w%3D%3D

2. The 4:30 PM Empty Office

Watch the video: https://www.google.com/search?q=viral+video+of+swedish+office&oq=viral+video+of+swedish+office&gs_lcrp=EgZjaHJvbWUyBggAEEUYOTIHCAEQIRigATIHCAIQIRigATIHCAMQIRigATIHCAQQIRiPAtIBCDQzNDlqMGo5qAIAsAIB&sourceid=chrome&ie=UTF-8#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:d0449930,vid:iMc8VrcsfQs,st:0

Read the story: https://www.ndtv.com/feature/empty-office-at-4-30-pm-indian-techie-highlights-swedens-work-culture-11275625

3. Token Anxiety: The New AI Stress

🧠 Truth or Lie: Does Vulnerability Make You a Better Leader?

Alexis puts the "vulnerability" gospel to the test. While popular, the research shows it’s a double-edged sword.

The Truth: Sharing critical feedback about your own performance builds psychological safety.

The Lie: "Willy-nilly" oversharing without strategy signals incompetence.

The Verdict: Leadership vulnerability only works when paired with discernment, humble self-assessment, and a clear plan for growth.

💬 Workplace Surgery

Our panel of four experts answers your burning questions:

Leading through your own burnout: How do you support a team when you’re running on empty? Sally suggests seeking outside help pronto and putting on your own oxygen mask first.

Leading culture "uphill": What to do when the organization rewards speed but you want to protect your team? Lex discusses creating a "micro-culture" and using the language of business to defend boundaries.

The "Hiring Like Me" Trap: Why hiring for "culture fit" often leads to groupthink and how to move toward "culture add."

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

– LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/truthlieswork

Connect with our Guests

Mental health support

UK & ROI — Samaritans Call 116 123 or visit https://www.samaritans.org

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.

Welcome back to Truth, Lies & Work, the award-winning workplace podcast where behavioural science meets workplace culture.

Ken Blanchard was told in college he couldn't write. His graduate professors said he lacked academic ability. When he finished The One Minute Manager, his colleagues warned him it would embarrass him professionally. It went on to sell 15 million copies and become one of the most influential business books ever written.

In this episode, we sit down with Martha Lawrence — editor, novelist, and the woman who spent 22 years working directly alongside Ken Blanchard. Martha recently wrote his biography, Catch People Doing Things Right, and she's here to share what she learned about the man, the philosophy, and why his ideas matter more than ever in today's leadership landscape.

📖 What We Discuss with Martha Lawrence

1. The Book That Broke the Rules

2. Leading With Love — What It Actually Means

3. EGO = Edging Good Out

4. What He Did With a Tape Recorder

5. The 9/11 Test

🔗 Connect with Martha Lawrence

📬 Connect with Al & Leanne

Truth, Lies & Work is part of the HubSpot Podcast Network, the audio destination for business professionals.