Mark Tweedie: Welcome to Mastering Leadership, the Psychology Behind Business performance podcast. I'm Mark Tweedy, former CEO, passionate about working with and supporting teams. Exactly why I founded the Performance Blueprint, a unique organizational development program that enables leaders to optimize performance through systems and cultural development. So what if we'd been thinking about wellbeing in the wrong way? In this episode, we talk with Dr. Richard Simpson, lecturer in psychology and researcher in human flourishing and sport at Leeds Trinity University. Richard helps us unpack why wellbeing is so hard to define, how flourishing differs from thriving and what leaders can practically do to help people grow even under pressure. So let's dive in.
Stu Munro: Hi everyone and welcome to the Mastering Leadership podcast. Today we have a special guest who is Dr. Richard Simpson. And I first met Richard when we were connecting with a project I was working on with a national sports team. And he helped me out with this incredibly complex thing around wellbeing. But before we go there, I thought maybe Richard, you could introduce yourself.
Mark Tweedie: Hey Stuart, so what a fantastic episode with Dr. Richard Simpson. I'm really looking forward to this breakdown with you to really unpack it and hopefully listeners will have some really good takeaways. I think for me on reflection, what I was really pleased with and I found really insightful is how important wellbeing is to your performance as an individual and how you can relate that to the corporate setting. And the key reason why I found that really encouraging and insightful was...
Stu Munro: Hi, I'm Stuart Munro, a Chartered Psychologist, Registered Sports Psychologist and founder of Minds to Perform Ltd, a performance psychology consultancy. With 25 years in high performance sport, I've supported elite athletes, national teams and recently my research has shown how psychology frameworks from elite sport can help corporate leaders overcome barriers to success. Let us know your role and perhaps some of the research that you've done that we can maybe begin unpacking this thing of human flourishing and wellbeing.
Mark Tweedie: you know, as you know, I've developed this performance blueprint ⁓ model. and intuitively I always thought to myself when I was developing the model without any any reason you know research backing or evidence thought none of this is going to work unless we've got an organization with a strong sense of well-being that allows people to have well-being and I created this framework which was about purpose, direction, mindset, environment you know each with a set of interventions you know how you drive a purposeful organization how you get direction in terms of your plans and move those into actions that Together we offer decades of experience leading and supporting high performing teams. So join us as we bring together inspirational business leaders, academics and professionals to unpack the psychology behind great leadership.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Thank so much, Stu, and thank you so much, Mark, for having me on the podcast. Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Richard Simpson, and I'm a lecturer in psychology at Leeds Trinity University, and I'm a researcher in human flourishing in sport and performance domains. I completed my PhD three to four-ish years ago, and my initial focus was on The name of my PhD, the title of it, was Psychological
Stu Munro: Each episode blends real world leadership journeys with accessible psychological insights and skills that people can learn. We conclude each episode with a breakdown section where we critically examine our discussion, offering theoretical insights coupled with practical tools for anyone looking to elevate their understanding and their impact as a leader.
Mark Tweedie: everybody in the organization understands what the role is to deliver that vision and purpose. How you get people to have the right mindset and to be able to manage their thinking and how you create the conditions. And that's all great, but unless you've got the core wellbeing, none of that is gonna be optimized. So I got so much from this episode So did you think?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: being among members of sport organisations. So I have a sport background predominantly in sports psychology.
Mark Tweedie: So whether you're an aspiring leader, a seasoned executive, student, or simply curious about the interplay between psychology and business, this podcast is your gateway to mastering the art and science of leadership.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And a lot of my work was really focused on the organisational sport context. So initially I came in with the interest of working with a PhD supervisor, Dr. Faye Didymus, whose expertise was in organisational stress. So I came in with a lens of being really interested in stresses and how people cope with stress, how people perceive stress, and so on and so forth. But as kind of my interest grew, a lot of my
Stu Munro: Well, there was so much in there. That's a rich, deep ⁓ conversation we've just had. thanks to Richard for helping us understand it a bit better. And it is one of these things that if we're offering listeners and being able to offer listeners something that's practical, ⁓ let's unpack some of these things.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: was still kind of dealing with well-being, but I was wanting to move, in my mind, the narrative within sports psychology at the time, more from a stress and coping, almost a bit of a deficit-based perspective, towards a more kind of positive and asset-focused perspective, where I'm focusing on stress and well-being. I then initially, I guess, dropped the stress bit, whilst not precluding it per se from conversations, but I became more interested in
Stu Munro: maybe allows it to be helpful for them. So what I would say like, you're absolutely right at the core of like, ⁓ we should be considering wellbeing. And what Richard was saying is that ⁓ to consider wellbeing, we've got to, it is multi-dimensional, it's complex. There's so many bits of it, but it is subjective. So we each have our own.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: wellbeing in sport organisations. So my work kind of focused initially on kind of relationships between athletes, coaches and support staff and psychology practitioners. And some of my work looked at the idea of a concept of interpersonal psychological wellbeing. So rather than wellbeing as an individual experience, also a shared experience. And then some other work I've also been looking at, which might be relevant to our conversations today, has been wellbeing.
Stu Munro: idea of what well-being is. know, what well-being is for one, it could be different from the other, even in the same situation and environment. ⁓ There's this, the multi-dimensional part of it, because it's going to deal with our own coping resources, our own emotions, behaviors, purpose, environments, systems, processes, all these types of things. And, you know, and it's a perceived quality of life. Yet,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: experienced among performance leaders and managers. In other words, your performance directors within sport organizations, your performance managers, your heads of performance and so on and so forth. So yeah, that's a bit of ⁓ an extended outline, but no, I'm excited to be with you today and to really get into some really juicy topics.
Stu Munro: As leaders, if we begin to understand that there's all these many elements, know, a bit like spokes on a wheel in serums or the orchestra metaphor that we use, yeah, you might not be able to target all of these, but if you begin to look at that, those pieces of a pie or spokes on a wheel, the orchestra, is that there are many, there are many aspects that a leader can influence. And I think if we take that on board, you're absolutely right. It would sit at the heart of any model around leadership. Thanks for sharing that. it really, you know, ⁓ when we first met, I remember that one of the reasons I wanted to reach out to you is because I was asked, hey, Stuart, you know, we want you to help us with ⁓ a wellbeing framework for the national sports team. And I was like, ⁓ my goodness, like wellbeing, wellbeing. And I asked this question to somebody the other day, and I think this maybe encapsulates to, yep.
Mark Tweedie: Just jumping in on that, Stuart. So I'm thinking of a practical application here and I'm thinking of my own experience. I learned over time as a leader that the most important part of any conversation was that initial checking with a member in your team to say, not to jump straight in to how they're getting on with a particular work task, but the checking is about, how are you feeling today? How's things? Tell me about how you're feeling. How are you?
Stu Munro: complexity of it sort of said, I'm interested, what do you think wellbeing is? And there was a bit of a pause and then it was like, you know, it's, kind of, know I'm kind of feeling good, it's, yeah, but it's not that also, it's more than that. It's kind of, and it was, there was no definitive answer. And I was wondering, you know, your research has tried as best it can to unpack this complex thing. Mm-hmm.
Mark Tweedie: And having listened to that conversation with Richard, I can progress that now. And I'm thinking, actually, if you've got this wellbeing literacy in your organisation where people understand more about what wellbeing is and how individual it is, you can not only have the conversation about how you're feeling, you can say, look, how's your wellbeing?
Stu Munro: Maybe you can help us just understand that a little bit more, how complex it really is. It's interesting you say that.
Mark Tweedie: What is it that you've been working on to bring your best self to work to allow yourself to flourish in the workplace? What is really working for you in terms of that? And what do we need to do more of to help you to flourish and thrive more around your wellbeing?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: It is indeed very complex and I think almost digesting it and synthesizing the topic of wellbeing is a complex task in itself, but hopefully I can give a good effort at trying. So I guess through my years of trying to understand wellbeing, there's been many difficulties, mainly because there's many frameworks, there's many perspectives that people take. I think for me, the approach that I've taken rather than to zoom
Stu Munro: So there's two things in there that I think are really helpful for leaders to understand is that, you know, what we've talked about is the wellbeing flourishing as Richard went on to say, it's not just an individual state. know, emerges flourishing, wellbeing emerges from interaction between individuals and their environment. So you're absolutely right. It's those conversations. I think, you know, if we,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: and specify a definition is to zoom out a little bit. ⁓ to really take a broad definition of well-being as being almost like a relative attainment of a personal and subjective state of quality. So through doing that, we're drawing on an academia understandings of quality of life, for example, where we've, we're understanding a few things in the definition that well-being is personal to us. And also it is a subjective reality. And I think that points actually to what you were mentioning Stu in terms of like
Stu Munro: were to help leaders to understand ⁓ how to practically put things into place would be start having the conversations. What does well-being mean to you as an organization? Create focus groups, groups from ⁓ different parts of the organization and start having the conversations.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: trying to understand what it is. What's really clear about wellbeing is that it is personal to an individual and that it is a subjective reality. And through that, when it's a subjective reality, we might be talking about how someone is feeling, how someone's thinking, and also their behaviors as well. So I think for me, the best way to understand wellbeing is through that broad definition, which allows quite a few frameworks
Stu Munro: What does it mean to you? And you're gonna get a whole diverse range of things because it is subjective, it is personal, but at the same time, it is systemic and it is environmental and it is a relational process too. So if we start to have the conversations and we begin to emerge, you know, creating some general agreement, I mean, I say some, but you're never gonna get it all right, but it could be.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: whether it's our sense of life satisfaction and affect, whether it's our sense of meaning and purpose to be really encompassed under that personal and subjective kind of view. So yeah, that's, mean, there's loads of other neighboring terms which almost makes it confusing. So, you know, what's the difference between health and wellbeing? What's the difference between flourishing and wellbeing or flourishing and thriving? And I've really liked the works of the human flourishing
Stu Munro: We had a little chat off air just before and we talked about the fact that somebody might just want the ability to have a 10 minute walk around the block because that's their coping resource. Now, if you understand that and as an organization you say, you know, if that's important, you go and do that. But it's having that conversation, defining it and obviously, know, what Richard's shared is incredibly complex, a lot in it.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: programme at Harvard who have been given specific functions and purposes, I guess, for these terms, which has really helped me. And in turn, I've been able to start to work alongside the human flourishing programme at Harvard to try and bring that clarity to other contexts, such as sport and performance, and in turn leadership within these contexts as well. So I know there's programmes at the human flourishing programme focusing on leadership for flourishing, for example.
Stu Munro: It doesn't have to be complex. It's about simple conversations and define it as you want to define it. What I would say is that within your organization, what do we perceive well-being or flourishing to be in this space? Have the conversations and then from those conversations, if you are able to kind of list a number of things that are, those can become strategic objectives.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: But yeah, no, I mean, I'd be curious to know, I suppose, from your perspective, when I've kind of that definition of well-being I've kind of provided back, is it something that makes sense? Is it something that is still got kind of holes in the middle of that kind of understanding, I suppose?
Stu Munro: We're going to protect this. And these are things then is to almost become these are non-negotiables. Even when things get tough, we're going to protect these things. So when things get challenging, that we are protecting these things that we know because we've had the conversation help people to cope. And I'm just interested in your thoughts on that.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Stu Munro: Well, the thing that jumped out at me and it really makes sense is that, you know, that you talk about it's personal to the individual. And what I'm picking up from that is that one person's sense of wellbeing could be quite different to another person's sense of wellbeing in terms of what they're experiencing, you know, their levels of resilience, the interpersonal factors that
Mark Tweedie: So what's come into my mind, having listened to that, how, I think Richard talks about this, he's creating a situation where people have agency to look after and pursue their own wellbeing so they can flourish and thrive. And... ⁓
Stu Munro: they have that are shaping their experience in and around them at that time. it's not something that we can turn around and say, well, this is wellbeing that conveys to everyone. It very much has that, it's personal to individuals, but also that really personal subjective aspect to it is that what are people perceiving from their experiences that
Mark Tweedie: You you're getting into the realms here of when someone shows up at work, is it the organization's responsibility and the leaders within it to make sure everybody's flourishing? Or is it, you know, the employee? Or is it a mix of both? And how does that dynamic work? And an example has come into my head, actually, because Finland's got one of the most highest performing educational systems in the world.
Stu Munro: you know, they will then pick up to read their, their wellbeing. And it, and and it just to help me understand that a little bit then again, because we've, we've spoken about this in the past as well, Richard, and there was, I think it would be really helpful for the listeners to understand this is that again, you know, when we think about wellbeing, we kind of almost think in this linear sense of I'm feeling a little bit two steps up than I was yesterday or
Mark Tweedie: And when you look into that, which researchers have done, the dynamics of how the school day works are very interesting. So one of the things that children within the Finnish education system can do is join a lesson. They can say to the teacher, look actually I think I could do better here if I go into a private study area can I be relieved from the group class environment to go and just pursue this work on my own in the library and the teacher then obviously can use discretion and say ⁓ yeah that's fine that's fine Stuart go and do that.
Stu Munro: I'm feeling three steps down from the day before. And that this linear kind of sense and even in the way that we talk about it may not be helpful. This zooming out that you talk about and being able to look at the many, many factors that might actually be influencing might be a helpful approach too.
Mark Tweedie: But actually what that's about is that's about that young person saying, you know, I've got agency over decisions that can optimize my performance and I'm going to feel better and flourish better doing this particular task if I go outside this classroom. And that's embraced by the whole system. That's a kind of norm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Absolutely, yes. I think there's quite a few things in which, you know, we could touch on there. I think there's almost a temporality around well-being in terms of well-being you're experiencing now and well-being that you could experience in the future. So there's often been... ⁓
Mark Tweedie: You know, so look at that in the workplace where we are, well, you know, we set workplaces up to be quite rigid, know, it's one size fits all. And perhaps inadvertently what we're not doing is we're not permitting people to have agency to say, actually, this is what's gonna work for me today.
Stu Munro: Hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: differentiations made between pleasure, for example, in the short term and kind of hedonic well-being and hedonia. And then almost a bit of a delayed gratification, I suppose, which the likes of Seligman and positive psychology have spoken about, but also the the well-being benefits that can come through, for example, negative balanced experiences. So if you know what the role of experiences like sadness or
Stu Munro: It's such a good point and Richard talks about this doesn't he? He talks about that volitional wellbeing, such a key dimension that, you know, the sense that one has influence, that one has agency, you know, these are basic psychological needs. When you have a sense of autonomy, you feel better about yourself. And then, you know, so as leaders then, it's about setting up environments and systems where people have the capacity.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: frustration and anger and even boredom can offer to well-being. So in many senses. So I think that temporality element is really important. There's also other elements around desirability. for example, the well-being dimensions that we feel are worth valuing.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm. and the opportunity to make decisions and input on things. ⁓ And again, it comes back to that, have these conversations. How would we do this? How would we best offer you this autonomy ⁓ that lead to a sense of flourishing? So it's about, as leaders then, it's about ⁓ having these conversations to say that
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: suing are often the ones we see we deem to be the most desirable. However, there's often instances where some well-being experiences, you know, might be non desirable, but might also be useful in themselves as well.
Stu Munro: How can we create opportunities for ownership, autonomy, involvement, decision making? Because when they do, when people do feel that you have influence, they're probably gonna experience greater engagement. They actually feel that what they're doing has input and that leads to confidence. And as we've been talking about in the theme of this thing, this podcast is,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So, you know, there's the element of them we bring into the four usefulness or utility, the usefulness of wellbeing dimensions, which are kind of also really important because, you know, for example, going through a bad period and having, I'll use a sport example, experiencing injury can be an opportunity through which you can grow and experience a sense of, yeah, well,
Stu Munro: a sense of well-being flourishing. And I think very strongly linked with that, that Richard talks about, and you brought up about stress in the work environment, for example. And we know there's a very, very, very strong science around when people feel capable, they're more likely to perceive challenging.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: post injury growth. If you experience some form of adversity, there's post adversarial growth. So there's a lot of elements here as part of the kind of wellbeing question in terms of how we appraise kind of the subjective nature of wellbeing. And we can do so in many different ways. And for me, positive and negative is a lot more nuanced than people think it is when people use the words positive and negative, they often think that it's referred
Stu Munro: threatening things as challenges as opposed to threat. So when we move into difficult periods, is that, you know, it's our perception of what's going on that will influence the levels of stress. So how can leaders help with that? Well, obviously, we've talked about autonomy and ownership, that's one element to that. But leaders can build flourishing by strengthening people's sense of capability. in psychology, psychological terms, we talk about
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: to a balance or like that feels positive or that feels negative but actually it's a lot broader when we use those semiotics we call them. Yeah, no, I'm curious to know what you both think and your own experiences with this, well, this wicked term I think as we mentioned off camera.
Stu Munro: Yep. Yeah, it is. then you've helped us understand some really key areas there is that, you and I guess the appraisal that you were talking about there goes to that kind of subjective element is that we make an appraisal, we make an interpretation or an evaluation around our sense of wellbeing. And that leads then into the kind of temporality, this time factor about how mastery. It's quite a strong term, but in terms of mastery, it you can, to me, it almost feels like you've reached the top. But it's not about that. It's that as leaders, it's about, you know, when you are having those conversations with people is reinforcing, recognizing strengths, progress, you know, reminding people of what they're capable of, you know, and What that does is it does strengthen the sense of mastery, the capability that, you know, as much as, you know, my psychological work, I help people to build this by themselves. But one of the strongest ways of really quite believing that is when a leader turns around and says, Hey, Mark, how you communicated in the meeting today, that was terrific. Like you prepared well, you communicated it really clearly. if we're feeling alone in a certain moment is that in that time we might think, my wellbeing is suffering. But it also, as you described that this growing from adversity is recognizing that, you know, actually these, it's these difficult and challenging experiences that actually can lead me to the growing, perhaps be more resilient in the future.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm.
Stu Munro: and you got the points across that was a great job. So you know you're going away thinking I prepared well, I communicated well, it was clear, I got my points across, boom. Those are all skills capabilities that I've got. and learning also to then be able to deal with challenge and hardship in the future. And it's not just this. so well-being must then encapsulate these both desirable and undesirable experiences. But what we might do, what we might do though is that when we're in those undesirable experiences, we might go, this is the worst thing ever. This is terrible. And that also leads into this next bit, like Richard was saying, that, is how we appraise the stressor. You know, do we view it as a challenge or do we view it as a threat? And as leaders, we could be pivotal to that appraisal. You know, you can imagine a leader coming in and going, ⁓ my God, we might be losing this client and that's going to be a crisis. everyone, everyone, right, you know, you need to work hard and blah, Now.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm, no absolutely.
Stu Munro: I'm not trying, you know, and that then may, it impacts the appraisal, it impacts our temper, temporality judgments. It then pushes, pushes us perhaps to more undesirable focus and exaggeration perhaps or something like that. So it, you know, maybe you can help us unpack that bit that, you know, wellbeing, you know, let's, let's use a sporting example, you know, my
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you
Stu Munro: through that narrative, you've created something where people have gone, ⁓ my God, it's a crisis. You've influenced people's appraisal. Whereas as a leader, it's about helping people. It's about understanding about a person's perception of stress is about the appraisal. ⁓ The events themselves don't.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm. Yeah.
Stu Munro: the athletes and the team that I support, the sport that they do, ⁓ the national ski team I work with, the sport they do is incredibly dangerous. Incredibly dangerous. And to the extent that there have been deaths on the circuit, yet what we're actually doing is setting environments for them to go out and train in those incredibly dangerous environments to be able to enable them to determine people's experience. It's the appraisal. And as a leader, you have a big influence on that appraisal. How composed you are. So rather than viewing it as or communicating it as a crisis, you're saying to it, right, we're going through a difficult time right now. But you know what, we've been through this before. And also, we have the capabilities to get through this. I believe in you. You know, I believe, you know, if we work hard, Five. So if they didn't embrace those risks and go through those challenges, they wouldn't flourish as a sports person. and that we will get through this. And that's the critical point of leadership.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm, no, absolutely. And I think this is a question that we're at the moment in our current work trying to really explore bit further. So this brings into the question, and we've kind of danced around it a little bit, but the idea of human flourishing.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah Stuart, I'm just jumping in there for a moment because I think that's such a fantastic takeaway for leaders. And if leaders can go and think actually, when we get involved in a conversation about stress or when we are inadvertently modeling, you know, the fact that we're feeling stressed, how we appraise that is critical because that will not only influence our own performance, but can spread throughout the organization and either give positive or negative suboptimal consequences. So the appraisal of stress is really important. And I think, you know, I'd been guilty of coming into the workplace, certainly as a young person,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So if I were to define well-being as a personal state of quality, flourishing, how I differentiate that is a personal and systemic state of quality for an individual and the context that they are situated in. So immediately when we're talking about flourishing, we are talking about not only the individual doing well, but also their systems and environments and contexts that they're in also doing well as well.
Mark Tweedie: and young leader thinking, know, responding to stress or a discussion about stress in a binary way, you know, low stress, no stress is good, lots of stress is bad, know, stress good or bad, black and white thinking. When actually the appraisal is...
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And for me, think that's really important when we... among different organizations. And one word I want to revisit, I suppose, is the term relative. And I think that gets us into really interesting conversations because when people talk to me about flourishing, they tell me, is this just a kind of pipe dream, right? It's this kind of polyannic, fluffy and positive kind of like, you know, dream in a sense. But when we revisit the word relative, it kind of reminds us that whether it's
Stu Munro: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: actually stress isn't a bad thing at all. It's harnessed in the right way and managed in the right way. It's a really positive thing. So coming back to this wellbeing narrative and literacy, you know, it's creating an understanding about what actually stress is and why it can be a really, really positive thing. And when it can be a negative thing and how you can have that really sensitive conversation with your team or with people in your charge in one-to-ones or whatever, just to examine in a bit more detail their experience of stress.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: through wellbeing or flourishing that these experiences are a relative attainment of the ideal of flourishing. And I think that's really important to note because we are not always fully, we are never really fully flourishing to a full extent and nor should the expectation be that we should be. There are some elements and dimensions of our life where we're doing well and other dimensions of our life where we're doing less well and a comparable extent.
Mark Tweedie: And is it actually the solution is we need to build some capability or we need to just move people back into the comfort zone for a while because they've been in the stretch zone for too long and they're at risk of burnout? And being really sensitive as a leader in terms of your stress barometer and communicating with people to understand where they are. But no point in that discussion saying we need to eliminate all stress because stress is bad. Actually, it's inevitable in the workplace. It's a part of growth and development.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: which is why I think it's really important that leaders and organizations are very clear on how realistic and relative they see terms like well-being and flourishing. They might feel that it's attainable to really get to a high sense of well-being. Now I have reservations on the descriptors of high and low for well-being, which we might be able to come onto, but I think it's really important that
Mark Tweedie: you know so how can we have a positive constructive conversation around that.
Stu Munro: It's some great points in there and thanks for sharing that because you're absolutely right. It's the... There is, again, stress is a very complex thing, many elements that are involved in it. the point that we're trying to get help, the listeners to understand is that as a leader, you are so influential on that appraisal of stress. It's not binary, as you say. so when leaders communicate things like belief, they're
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: leaders have a really clear understanding on what dimensions of well-being they think are realistic and attainable within the organisational context. yeah, and that's what I think is kind of, we're starting to see a lot more seep through into knowledge around flourishing and more into the workplace, a lot more of this systems-based lens as well as the individual within that system. That interaction is so important and for
Stu Munro: they're clear, know, they offer clarity, perspective to say, you know, we've been here before that if you can help people see this isn't threatening, this is just difficult and challenging, it begins to shift the perception of what is going on. And, and you've also touched on that, we didn't talk about this so much in the flourishing thing, but you know, you know, I work with, you know, national sports teams, lot of the elite athletes and Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: wellbeing and guess flourishing. Yeah, it's important that we consider that and then also realise that there's different ways in which we can attain wellbeing. There is the elements of, I guess, addition versus subtraction in many ways. So you might almost do something different and add something to your life which enriches it in some way. But there's also the reduction element in terms of if you're looking to reduce your sense of suffering at work or in a sport environment,
Stu Munro: You know, their routines, their day, their preparation to be able to compete and perform at the Winter Olympics, Paralympics is based around periods of very, very hard work, but also planned rest and recovery. I've been in discussions and session work with senior leaders.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: then there's a kind of almost two different goals there. There's a goal of wanting to reduce suffering and bring yourself from a minus one back to zero if I were to use that kind of continuum metaphor. And then there's almost another goal of wanting to move from zero neutrality to plus one to what the majority of people would probably call flourishing. But you know, for me, I define it differently, that plus one happiness state. And so for me,
Stu Munro: And it's one of the things that I would say, and this is generalizing here, but my elite athletes take rest and recovery seriously. The senior leaders I work with don't seem to take rest and recovery as planned. ⁓ So, you know, the point I'm trying to get to there is saying to you as a leader, say, for example, you know that you're building up to a very busy, heavy workload.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: leaders almost have different goals there when it comes to well-being and it goes it draws back to what I mentioned earlier about that subjectivity. I believe that well-being is ⁓ value laden and is you know not only do we have personal views and perspectives on what well-being is but the
Stu Munro: is having these conversations. Okay, how can we plan to help our teams with restaurant recovery? What does that mean? You know, and how can we enable that so that we get through this? And again, what you're doing here is that, and again, a very important thing that Richard brought out here is this idea of
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: the value judgments that leaders make of well-being are exceptionally important for determining what's valued in the workplace around well-being as well. I'm curiously know your thoughts, suppose, of just hearing that, I guess.
Stu Munro: It's interesting and it kind goes back to... ⁓ yes, of you will Mark.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah, could I quickly just jump in on that one?
Stu Munro: you know, as organizations, you do go through difficult, very, very difficult, challenging times. But, and the science is quite clear on this is that whenever anyone perceives challenge or a threat, if they perceive support, they're more likely to perceive that situation, that environment is challenging versus threatening. you know, flourishing, you know, it's not about removing difficulty.
Mark Tweedie: Is that okay? So just... ⁓ Well, I can't resist coming in with some organizational context. And Richard, you've talked about what you do. You've touched upon leadership there. So when I work with organizations ⁓ around developing their leadership capability and working directly with leadership teams, that's in the context of... ⁓
Stu Munro: No, not at all. Good.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm.
Mark Tweedie: creating a culture which is conducive with high performance.
Stu Munro: but it's flourishing is created when individuals feel that they're supported within the difficulty. So as a leader, it's about creating that environment where people feel supported, you know? And he touched on this idea of interpersonal coping. We kind of think, well, it's down to you, Mark. You've just got to cope through the stressor. But actually, what's it like when somebody comes up and goes, hey, Mark, how you doing? You getting through this? How can I help you?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: And there is a framework which I use to do that and ⁓ very briefly it's around understanding purpose, know, around people in the organization connecting that purpose with the job that they do, having the type of mindset which is conclusive with taking risks, taking challenge and growing and developing, you know, against adversity, understanding others and creating an overall environment where people feel empowered and engaged. But one thing I do talk about and I'm fast
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm. ⁓
Stu Munro: Suddenly you're supported. don't it things just do not feel as heavy do they? That I just to touch on this because it I'll share this very quickly because it's quite fascinating. It does some research and forgive me I can't name the research paper, but they did some research on perceived effort and It was quite simple. They got somebody put backpack on them and said we want you to walk up that hill and they were and then at the top or the bottom I can't remember they said
Mark Tweedie: to understand a little bit here from you for the benefit of us and the listeners around your work on stress in particular. So in the context of the framework which I've explained.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm
Mark Tweedie: and how we try and use that to develop a high performing culture through great leadership. One thing that I do talk about is an essential core component is wellbeing. I've never used the word flourishing, but that's certainly something that I'd love to adopt going forward after this conversation. And that's in essence, I think what I'm trying to say to leaders and the discussion we have is that in order for you to have a high performing organization,
Stu Munro: What is your perception of effort? And they would rate it quite highly when they did it themselves. And then they would get people to say, right, you're going to do that same thing, but this person's going to come with you. And they did the same thing. And the perception of effort was lower just because there was somebody with them. And I think as leaders, it's a very important, if we're talking wellbeing, if we're talking flourishing,
Mark Tweedie: your people and yourself as leaders need to have this sense where you feel that you're flourishing. And I think what we're getting into is what does actually that mean? Cause it's subjective and different for everybody. And it's has to, you have to flourish within a corporate setting here when I'm going in talking to leaders, but the piece of insight that I get back, and this is, this is pretty consistent.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Hmm Yeah
Stu Munro: it's a really important thing to take on board is this, yeah, we're gonna go through difficult times, challenging times. So if I want to build in this interpersonal coping, how do I do that? How can I make my team feel supported? Because when people know that support is present, challenge becomes something that's, it's more developmental.
Mark Tweedie: is that when I ask people about their wellbeing, I say, what about your behaviours? And that's about, you know, what physical activity they're doing, what nutrition. Generally pretty good. You know, when I ask, how's the organisation supporting you in terms of supporting your behaviours, which are conducive to wellbeing, pretty good. But consistently across the board,
Stu Munro: rather than overwhelming, it's something they feel that, yeah, I just need to get through this phase. Somebody's there with me, we'll get through this. And also, it doesn't last forever. And that's where the leadership can be ⁓ pivotal to those appraisals. Any thoughts on that? ⁓
Mark Tweedie: People report relatively high stress levels. When I ask, what is your experience of stress? People say, yes, we are experiencing stress. And what I'm getting here is, what is the positive sense of stress? Where does it deliver a positive impact? And where does it deliver a negative impact? Where is the needle? How do we know? What do we do about it? I suppose that's my question.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: Again, I've got to share this quick example with you ⁓ because this, as a leader, you have people in your charge, but what you want to do is you want to empower those people. So they have an agency and they do their own things. But there are certain policy requirements with any organization that you have to comply with.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmmmm Yeah great question and there's a lot of really great work in the organization of stress literature that is looking to really unpack this more. Now when you get into stress for example, and I think this links to well-being which I'll come back to, when you look into a stressor for example, now what determines its usefulness is how we appraise that stressor. So do we view that stressor as a challenge which we can rise to and which we can
Mark Tweedie: So bear with me on this, but you know a long time ago I was a teacher, I taught for seven years, I've been left uni and ⁓ there was a friend of mine that didn't teach in, taught in a different school than me, but I knew them from doing triathlons and one of the challenges being a teacher is you've got fixed holidays, know, arguably you've got some nice holidays, you know, but they're fixed, you know, can't go anywhere outside.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: overcome? Do we view it as a harm to our well-being? Or do we see it as a threat? And so when we perceive a stressor or organisational stressor as a threat, then that is more likely going to lead to some consequences. If that stressor is chronic and experienced over a long period of time, it's going to lead to bigger consequences.
Stu Munro: Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: outside term time and she was a very good triathlete and she got picked to represent Great Britain as an age group and quite often these competitions were taking place during term time. So and those were still open to her and she still did it because her head teacher who I actually had a conversation with once said to me said look I've made a decision here that I allow her to have two or three days out a year to go and do international competitions during term time.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So there's almost again a need I see when managing stresses is there's a sense of stress is inevitable, but there's also a sense of, you know, what stresses are kind of useful in which people can rise and rise and see as a challenge, either individually or collectively, and in which have the and capacity to do harm. Now from a wellbeing sense, there's a dimension of wellbeing, which kind of links to our overall mastery
Mark Tweedie: because she is so fit, she is so good, she brings that ability to work and she's so productive because she looks after herself. And I know that without these moments during the year, I wouldn't get the same level out of this person. So they were...
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So a sense of environmental mastery. Now the way I see mastery is that coping strategies or coping ⁓ efficiency and coping capabilities come under that kind of dimension of mastery in that, you know, if we are able to cope with the stresses that, ⁓ you know, that are within the work environment, then we have a sense of mastery within our well-being. ⁓
Mark Tweedie: being flexible around what would normally be quite a rigid policy because they were appraising the situation. It was interpersonal, what worked for that individual. And they knew actually the win-win here was to say, you know what, have two or three days out a year either side of weekends to get away to international competition because this makes you flourish in the workplace.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: that said, you know, and this is where flourishing comes in really importantly, is that we then this is how I bring in terms like thriving and some I know some colleagues who do work in thriving who may take a different stance to me. But this is how I bring in that differentiation between another term. So flourishing is the you know, the is a personal and systemic state of quality where the individual and their context of doing well. Whilst alternatively, the way I see thriving is when a person is
Mark Tweedie: And that's a bold leadership decision. Now, equally, you know, having had, you know, 30 odd years in the workplace, being a leader, being in educational settings, corporate settings, I can think of far more examples where leaders have decided to go on the side of policy and not make those individual exceptions to the detriment of the individuals and the team. And I would argue, you know, the culture and performance of the organization.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I think it's a great point and that and that and I think in these types of conversations then that, you know, it may be that people's ⁓ narrative around wellbeing flourishing is that, you know, we are too rigid, that it's that's affecting me and that ⁓ it's not that we're going to blank, we're saying that people should have this openness to just take days off.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: doing well, despite of their context. So thriving is often spoken about alongside stress, not always, but quite often alongside we thriving with a we are thriving when there's been an occurrence of a stressor. We experience thriving as kind of this joint development and success, where we're able to thrive despite of a stressor, or despite of an adversity, or despite the lack of environmental
Stu Munro: That's not what we're talking about here is you're talking about ⁓ a flexible type of leadership to take on board things that can be super important for people. ⁓ I think, you know, we talk about that interpersonal nature of things and wellbeing and as the, know, what Richard touched about on as well is that, you know, we, what we experience as wellbeing ourselves is actually shared. You know, you,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: support. And this is why I believe that thriving has been adopted probably a lot more than flourishing has in the workplace because there's a sense of there's, you know, sometimes at the systemic level, there's always some struggles and environmental and organisational stresses, which leaders often have to do a job of kind of handling that and seeing, I'm trying to think of a suitable metaphor of, you know, what they let through.
Stu Munro: that head teacher example there is he realized actually by allowing this person to do that, they're going to come back into my organization and share that greater sense of wellbeing and flourishing because I've allowed them to do that. And I think that was such an important point that Richard was saying is that it's wellbeing isn't only individually experienced. It's shared with others. We've always been there, you know, you know, like everyone's maybe a bit.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: the floodgates I suppose and what they try and block coming through the floodgates I suppose and so that's a difficult job and leaders often do that through the often through either
Stu Munro: Hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: absorbing a responsibility or delegating responsibility as an example, at a systemic level. So there's for me those important distinctions which I think are really important. And yeah, going back to what I mentioned about stresses is that stress is indeed inevitable, but there is kind of ways in which mastery and wellbeing can be built and where opportunities can come from, you know, from
Stu Munro: down and gloomy and just that bright light of a person comes into the room and everyone's like, ⁓ yeah, that was good. Like maybe they, hey, or like just it changes the vibe because their sense of wellbeing is, ⁓ and he talks about this having wellbeing, having a ripple effect on others. We know this, right? So, you know, and that's got the powerful leadership implication, doesn't it? Because
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: the from consequences of stress. But there's determinants that make that a little bit more difficult if the frequency of stress is very high, if the severity and duration is high, then you know, that becomes almost difficult to manage.
Stu Munro: the emotional tone that you offer as a leader, if you're coming in and being autocratic and gotta do this and blah, that emotional tone, that behavior, that presence is gonna directly influence people's psychological state around them. We talk about emotional contagion, that we pick up on other people's emotions. So.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: But I think also what's really important to note, and this goes for different human beings, and I've been intrigued to get both of your thoughts on this, us psychologists probably from many different perspectives would maybe argue that we as human beings have a negativity bias, I suppose, in that we are hardwired to scan and assess threats in our environment.
Stu Munro: Again, we've got to strike this balance between authentic leadership and being open and openness to vulnerability and things like that. But at the same time, we want to be able to say to leaders is that as best you can, demonstrate composure, confidence, perspective to things. Is this actually a crisis or is this just a really challenging, difficult moment? And that can help stabilize this emotional environment. Okay. ⁓
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And so with that, we then need to almost reprogram our brain to kind of manage that, to manage that kind of filter in the sense that we're looking in our work environment for threats so that we can protect ourselves. But ultimately that might indeed program ourselves to have that negativity bias. And so therefore we need to look at ways in which we can program our minds, our systems to
Stu Munro: Yep. Just through the fact that you're offering a bit of a composure, people feel they got it. And when we feel that that person's got it, that we think, oh, maybe, if they can cope with it, I can cope with it too. So by doing this, thinking about your own emotional tone, behaviors, and things like that, you create that effectiveness of being a leader.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: promote positivity. I I wonder how that sits with you both, I guess, from your perspectives.
Stu Munro: ⁓ It's so interesting all of this, it? And then it goes to the complexity of it. But there are some bits there, particularly around the stress that I thought would be helpful. And I loved what you were saying about the nuance between flourishing and thriving and the thriving that sense of, yeah, you're doing well despite certain circumstances, for example. And also that people would thrive ⁓ the psychological conditions which people can kind of function more effectively and flourish.
Mark Tweedie: So Stuart, do think we've done it justice now?
Stu Munro: Well, I just, you know, I think maybe one, one or two last little things is that, you know, we've talked about the wellbeing literacies, this is about having conversations about wellbeing, having conversations about flourishing. And I think that's, you know, we haven't really touched on that yet, but, you know, Richard helped us to, you know, we talked, we went into this talking about wellbeing. potentially without even with support, whereas flourishing because you've got that personal and systemic side that this kind of impacts more to what a leader can help with then because you've got that systemic almost organizational interpersonal aspect. So that as a leader, we would be wanting to help people flourish. And going back to that bit then about And we've kind of shifted, come out of that to be talking a little bit more about flourishing. And he helped us understand that, know, wellbeing thriving, he kind of defined as, you know, that's individual functioning well, despite the environment. Whereas there's a lot of science that's building now where they're talking about flourishing. This is where the individual and the environment are functioning well. And I think that's where the leadership implications come in, isn't it? Because you know, organizational stress and stressors and how we make appraisals of stress and how we might, some people might perceive certain things as threatening, which then if that's an everydayness of threatening, would accumulate to a kind of chronic stress state. Whereas there might be others who perceive that as a little bit more as just a challenge. And I say just a challenge, but that appraisal element. The leaders set the environment, the systems, the processes, interpersonal coping, interpersonal relationship aspects of things. And then this last thing, just to kind of sum it up, is that... Now as a leader then, first off, I guess from a leadership perspective would be to ask people is to say, how are you evaluating this? What's going on? How are you interpreting this? Is this something you feel that you have the resources to cope or do you feel that you don't have the resources to cope? And this goes to this psychological term, Mark, we've talked about a lot self-efficacy and that how this is it's not about, you know, maybe doing a survey and people say, yeah, we're okay. And thinking, well, we've got it. We don't need to do anything. Well being is just a, they're all a set of good wellbeing now, aren't they? It's not fixed. It's dynamic, it changes. So, you know, we talked about the other podcasts with the severe job, but making relationship quality a strategic objective. Like if you say the core of your model is make wellbeing, make flourishing. this idea of mastery of being able to, and that idea of mastery leads to, I guess, your sense of coping resources that you've, through your past experiences, you are fully aware that you have certain capabilities that may help you in a certain situation. Now, as a leader, what we may be able to do is help identify people, those coping resources. a strategic objective, because it doesn't stay static. It does shift, you know, it is. And as Richard helped to share is that we're never really fully flourishing. What would that mean anyway? You know, and he talked, he said he's moving away from the word balance and more about harmony, which encapsulates that more that orchestra metaphor that we talked about how some things can be but also as a leader, if we are, you through that interpersonal connection, is able to identify where people are struggling and then offer support, their appraisal may change. Because that threat, often when we perceive that we've got support, may come down to a challenge appraisal. And, you know, this is... playing in tune and being awesome, but there's two or three little bits in your life that are just a bit out of tune and maybe that's where you need to focus on. But it's understanding that as people's lives, you know, and it does change. offers us things. Sometimes we do have to go through challenging things, but as leaders, you know, it's not about creating perfect conditions.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ That's where it all comes
Stu Munro: I go back to the sporting analogy is whenever we move to high risk training environments, one of the big things that we're always trying to get the coaches and staff around them is to make the athletes feel that they've got support reassured so that they're about to do this high risk thing, which they naturally with a negative bias would perceive as threat. But what we're helping them perceive is that they have support. that's impossible. But what it is, it's about creating environments where people can adapt, they can grow, they can get through difficult circumstances, they can continue functioning effectively even as circumstances change. So flourishing, I would say, is sustained more effectively through consistent leadership behaviour, not about creating ideal conditions. around them that might help them bring that appraisal down from threat to, know what, actually, I've got the resources to do this. I have the capabilities and the support around me to be able to go out and do this very dangerous thing. Mark, and then any things that you've picked up from that.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah, I think that's a brilliant way to finish and I think that's a strong message for leaders out there to say, know, create an environment that involves challenge, pushing people and allows people to adapt and grow. But at the same time, having those, having that discussion with people and really having sense checking on wellbeing to make sure you're just pushing enough. Yeah, I think just to catch all at the moment and just from my perspective, ⁓ there's two things. One thing is, one big issue here and that is stress is seen, from my experience anecdotally, stress is seen as something that you want to eliminate from the workplace. to ensure that people are flourishing but not burning out. And they're making time for exercise, they're eating well and they're feeling great in the workplace because unless we're pushing and adapting, then we're not gonna be achieving high performance. So I think that's a brilliant way to finish. So thanks Stuart. And the results of my evaluations I do are that, look, we're experiencing stress and we talk about that with a negative bias to use Richard's term before. then Stu, you're talking about, ⁓ you know, from a sporting context, you know, let's look at self-efficacy. Have you got the tools to kind of, you know, deal with this element of stress? You know, have you got the confidence to use those tools? And that's a really good strategy that we've talked about, haven't we, previously.
Stu Munro: It is and I think it is definitely something that I think we ought to speak to Richard again in the future. one of the things that we didn't see in the podcast, but Richard was ⁓ very open to is that he is Dr. Richard Simpson that leads Trinity University. I'm sure if you Googled on LinkedIn, he's very open to, you
Mark Tweedie: So I'm interested from a practical implementation point of view, ⁓ Richard, how we can turn this notion of stress in the corporate setting to more of an asset, you know, which is a real point of the work that you're doing in your interest. And how leaders can then be equipped with the skills so that
Stu Munro: Discussions and conversations around this which is such a lovely thing to offer to people because it ⁓ ⁓ an important thing in this day and age. hopefully we've unpacked a bit there, offered some ⁓ implications for leaders and that they can take on board and ⁓ view things a little bit differently.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm
Mark Tweedie: Conversations can be had about stress as an asset within the organisation, but at the same time, leaders can make sure that they're sensitive so that this stress doesn't go beyond coping and it can still be mastered. Thanks Stuart, next time.
Stu Munro: Cheers Mark.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yes, great, some great thoughts there and great questions there, Mark. I think for me, a reframing is often needed when it comes to stress. And this is not to say we're ignoring stress, that it happens and so on and so forth. For me, some of the current work that I'm working on as well, in addition to flourishing is the idea of what we call well-being literacy, which is more seeing well-being as a capability. a resource. So the idea that for me to I guess address your second question first in terms of what we can do for leaders, I think for me we need to promote well-being literacy, so how we communicate about and for well-being. ⁓
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So it's a relatively new term within the positive psychology literature. But for me, if we are reframing stress to the idea of wellbeing literacy, then we almost need to start talking about from a more broader sense in terms of what language and communication tools we have to communicate about wellbeing and for wellbeing. How, for example, can we recognise, and some of my workers looked at this, know, how one person person's wellbeing might be ⁓ individually experienced but also shared with other people, how one's wellbeing might have a ripple effect on other people as well. So that's almost one part of understanding that picture. But yeah, from a wellbeing literacy sense, there's a need at kind of almost a cultural level to understand how... and it goes into everything I suppose culturally in terms of the symbols values and whatnot but also the communication in throughout an organization about well-being how on par and aligned is it ⁓ how is that shifting an organization to in their ways in which they all mutually understand well-being and all mutually have this sense of emotional intelligence in many ways that can understand where there's pinch points within an organization or calendar, I suppose, where there's going to be at the pinch points that stress is going to be quite difficult to manage and that we need to have a high sense of support to, you know, the high challenge, high support kind of elements, I suppose. So we call this in psychology, the challenge support matrix. When you have a high challenge or high stresses, you need high support to meet that. So I think almost being able to do that and plan ahead with that is one element of which, you know, in terms of
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: what leaders can do in their planning and organisation is really important, as well as their commitment, I say commitment, because this is almost suggesting another educational seminar, which I'm sure they have so much to do. But in terms of, you know, how we can map out for leaders and map out for their you know, for want of a better word, followers and, you know, direct reports, you know, like here's the kind of rich terrain of wellbeing. And, you know, here's the various experiences that we might come across in the workplace. And this is how we're going to promote awareness of all these different rich and diverse experiences whilst recognising there's opportunities within here that some wellbeing may not be desirable or may not be something that one can experience short-term pleasure from, but more something that the challenge is an opportunity to grow from. ⁓ I'm in danger of going off in their tangent, I suppose, with that response, but I'll be in shape to get you going back in there, Mark.
Mark Tweedie: Can I? In that case, Richard, you've mentioned a word, culture, a couple of times. So that prompts me, because this is something I talk about a lot within organizations. And I'm really fascinated to understand the links you've made between culture and stress. And I think you've touched on it a couple of times there with what you've just been talking about. But I'd love you to elaborate.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ yes. Mmm. Mmm. Yes, so there's almost dimensions of stresses that could be cultural. Now when we get into conversations around culture... This is where it gets really complex, right? Because people have different understandings of whether culture is something that we have or something that we are. And so that's then between a subjective and an objective distinction. So there is a very messy discussion talking about culture, but I guess talking about almost like cultural elements or organisational cultural elements. And you're bringing in kind of elements about either from one or the other perspective in terms of what we have. have, in terms of maybe from a resource-based perspective, which might align with stress, in terms of, know what Stu was mentioning about, do we have the resources to manage and deal with the demands of an environment? So maybe that's almost kind of slightly objective, I suppose. Though, if we're understanding culture from what we are, from a subjective almost perspective, then it's almost kind of accepting and, you know, there's different ways in which you might deal with stress, whether it's a reframing of what stress is or an accepting that it's part of the natural work environment. And then so from a cultural perspective, when you're linking stress is how Can we... sensitively and compassionately approach the idea that stress is part of this work environment and then kind of managing any potential consequences with that. So I've used the word stressor a lot and the difference between stress and stressor is that stress is almost like an umbrella term. So from a transactional perspective, stress is not only the stressor but also how we appraise the stressor and then how
Stu Munro: .
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: we cope with the stressor and almost a transaction between the event, which is a stressor, between how we perceive that event and then how we cope with that event and then all the emotions that are ensued with that. So there is that kind of like transactional perspective and there's a sense of we can reframe, like through an appraisal, we reframe our appraisals of what stress and what is stressful. And then there's also the element which is more coming into psychology at the moment around acceptance and tolerance. Now I've heard the quote used before about culture being the behavior that culture being defined by the behavior that you believe least accept or something along those lines. But like the behavior that you're not, your culture is defined by the behavior you tolerate essentially.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So for me, there is that element of uncertainty coming into the conversations, which often can define an organisational culture, precarity and uncertainty. unpredictability, suppose. And whether I guess from a cultural level, you know, how prepared are people in the workplace and how prepared our leaders to kind of manage and work with uncertainty and knowing that uncertainty itself is what we as psychologists would call a situational property that underlines that transaction, that stress process. So uncertainty, for example, will determine how we, you know, the stresses that come up in the environment, how we perceive them and how we cope with them. So I think for me, the situational properties have clear links to a culture. And for us, culture can very much define those situational properties, which in turn will define how we, how the stresses we experience, how we view those stresses and how we cope with them as well. Does that make sense? I suppose it is that? Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah it does it does it's it and there's so much in that and I think there's just there's probably one last thing that I want to kind of say and maybe ⁓ kind of unpick a bit more there is that ⁓ you mentioned emotional intelligence and you mentioned this notion look if there's an event you know our response to that event dictates the kind of outcome
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: And for me, you know, working with leaders, you know, I talk about creating the organizational conditions for people to thrive or flourish, to use your terminology. And it's the role that leaders have either consciously or unconsciously.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm ⁓ Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: to support people to respond effectively to events in such a way that they're not overstressed or that stress becomes an asset. So it's the leadership's behavior, leader's behavior and role to make sure that people can respond in the best way they can to any given event. And the expectation is in a high performing environment, there's lots of events because you're pushing all the time, you're taking risks, you're trying to innovate and everything else.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: It's just the skills that a leader needs to ensure that that response is effective and how much of that is about having emotional intelligence.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: I I agree. think emotional intelligence and being able to, yeah, go for it too. Sorry. Yeah.
Stu Munro: Can I? I was just going to say, it's, you know, trying to kind of unpack this, this bit about, you know, stress culture and stuff like this. And you started with something that I think, wrote this down because I thought it was quite interesting is that stress, we've said that often is the something that we want to eliminate. And, and we use language around, you know, wanting to get rid of stress. so we build this rhetoric around stress being this bad thing. And ⁓ it went to this next point about how are we communicating well-being then. And what we said before is actually moments that evoke a stress response actually might be part of flourishing. And so as a leader in this cultural, this reframing thing then, it could be, I'm just wondering in your research and your opinion on this is that within a culture then if we were able to reframe and I'm not undermining people's experiences of ⁓ stress that's where they're maybe not feeling they are able to cope but if we were able to reframe as a senior leader for example if we were able to reframe as you say the pinch points where we know that we might have high challenge ahead as opportunity, learning, growth, that yes, this is going to be difficult, but you know what, I'm going to be there, I will be there and the team will be there to support you. Do you think that would then impact the person's appraisal of the experience, which then would impact their appraisal of stress and their coping, which may lead to them flourishing bit more effectively in that challenging time.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. So much to unpack there and I think there's some commonalities coming out and hopefully I'll try and address your point Mark and Stuze because there's some really good stuff in there. So when we're getting into topics such as emotional intelligence, I'd even throw one in there like emotional labour is another interesting topic. And then we're talking about ⁓ the reframing of appraisals and the influence of other people. In my research that I've done in sport environments and I've kind of been looking into kind of those relationship elements. There's the ideas of, I guess there's shared appraisals that we almost are one of one person's appraisals can influence the appraisals that other people make. So if someone deems something to be a threat that might have an influence on how someone else might view something to be a threat.
Stu Munro: Right. Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ So there's those elements. There's also elements that my research has found in published work about the idea of interpersonal coping. So the idea of the shared element around coping and how sometimes, you know, we, there's different circumstances on this in terms of, you know, how people might attempt to cope first with their stress and then go towards another person or someone might look to
Stu Munro: Right.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: cope through someone else first, and then if that's not successful, then they try and cope with it with themselves. Maybe it's a reality of a little bit of both there. And then guess links finally to guess Mark's point around emotional intelligence, there's so many different terms that one could talk about. So the emotional intelligence is managing your own emotions and other people's emotions. Then there's the idea of emotional labour, the idea of how we put on the performance a little bit, we might mask our emotions, we might engage in what we call surface acting. So the idea of like, we're feeling really annoyed and frustrated, but we're putting on a big smile whilst you know, feeling really frustrated. So that kind of sort of emotional labour. I would add another one in there, which is emotional contagion, which I think is a huge topic within the workplace. And I think for me, ⁓ it's yeah, those emotions from an emotional perspective, managing those emotions.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: through either reappraising them, reframing them from one, guess, mean, cognitive behavioral therapy is very broad, but from one aspect, maybe from a rational, emotive behavioral perspective, we might want to kind of reframe and rationalize and normalize some of what's been experiencing in the workplace. And then there's also on the other side of that CBD spectrum, the idea of acceptance and tolerance. which is also really important. Now I would suggest that that acceptance can't fully happen unless it's shared or acknowledged by someone else. If acceptance is just in the case of sometimes you might reach that individually, but if you're kind of encouraged, leader tells you you've just got to accept it, this is stressful and you've just got to accept it, then that almost might lead to some form of avoidance, which you know is not necessarily effective. But like yeah, if I was to share, you know, to link those points you mentioned together, it kind of brings in the idea of that interpersonal and shared element being really important. The interactions between leaders and their followers, the communication of well-being between leaders and their followers through all these different topics that we've discovered, or discovered, sorry, have explored, sorry, are really, really important. And so, yeah, I think in order to do all of that, we need to kind of broaden our understandings of wellbeing and promote a broader literacy of what wellbeing is and what goals there are for wellbeing and what are the common goals that can be developed for wellbeing within a sport organisation and then how this is in turn communicated and has a trickle down or grounded up kind of approach, I suppose. I mean, how's that landing with you both? I've tried to answer two questions in one go.
Stu Munro: No, it's been very helpful. just again, what I'm taking from this is this, and what you were leading to there, and this is kind of what this podcast is about, what are some of the practical implications that leaders can begin to do? And it almost starts with this communication of wellbeing flourishing, that broadening our understanding of it. And in that, and I wanted you to share, I'll come back to some of my points is that again, when we first met, Richard, helped with this because my brain works in metaphors and you helped me with this understanding of well-being flourishing around is rather than thinking of it in linear perspectives of is to think of it like an orchestra where there may be some elements that are actually working really well, but there may be two or three
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you Mmm.
Stu Munro: bits of the orchestra that are just not playing in tune. And that might be what your attention needs. Now, obviously there's a self-awareness aspect of that. And I think that's been such a helpful way of encapsulating that. But what we often do is because those two, three little aspects are playing out in tune, we think our whole life is... or we think our whole sense of wellbeing is gone, is not good. Whereas if we actually begin, we think in that, if we zoom out and think in that multi-dimensional approach, we might be able to say, actually, my relationships are really good here, my social activities are really good here, my health and fitness is really good here. It's just, do you know what? It's just these two, three little bits here. And that perspective might offer you a different appraisal then.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm. Hmm.
Stu Munro: to begin shifting and you maybe notice the pinch points and say, well, what can I add, subtract to those little areas that might be helpful? Now from a leader perspective, then, you know, it really kind of helped me see is how could a leader take some of what we're talking about to help with practical implications. So you talked about there's a relationship element and sharing appraisal. So as a team sitting down and go, We do have some challenging times ahead, right? But let's unpack this challenging time. What have we got? What capabilities have we got that are gonna help us through here? What support can we put in place? So now you're sharing the narrative, the communication, the language around it. So it's not all threat, doom and gloom. ⁓ my God, it's like, yeah, this is challenging. But you know what? I think we've got this. It's gonna be tough, but together you have that shared appraisal. Now... you have a sense of interpersonal coping. You get shared coping now. Shared coping, you can go back to past experiences of mass and getting through. You know what? We've been here before. Remember like two years ago, we had this tough time. You know what? We got through it. That's that shared coping. And then, of course, what you're then doing is you're taking on board that kind of emotional contagion element. So as a senior leader, as you say, it's not about masking emotions or surface masking, as you kind of said, that almost, it's almost being in, we've talked in previous podcasts about being empathic and compassionate to sort of say, yeah, this is tough. And actually I might be having a tough time here too, and that's okay. But in sharing that, it kind of goes, ⁓ actually I thought I was the only one that was struggling here. And that, you know, that shading around emotion and,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Stu Munro: ⁓ normalizing experiences in the workplace can go that way to allowing people to feel accepted to, ⁓ actually, we have this support in place, the coping resources. We have been here before to have that sense of ⁓ tolerance to it. So I was just I was kind of thinking around the practical implications there and how then a leader could use that, a lot of it, when you begin to put all of that together, if you're doing that effectively, that is going to impact the culture. Now, I haven't said a question there, I guess I'm just maybe asking your kind of thoughts around the orchestra metaphor, which I wanted to get in because I know it's a wonderful metaphor you shared with me, and just that those kind of practical implications for a leader.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm. Thank Yeah. Yes, well firstly I want to give a little bit of a shout out to colleagues at the Human Flourishing Programme for their work on that metaphor. So there's a paper called The Garden and the Orchestra. So there's obviously metaphors such as the garden which speaks to the kind of systems and personal metaphor in which they've defined flourishing linked to that metaphor and then the orchestra like the sense of harmony. I'm always a fan of the word harmony rather but that's maybe another thing to come back to. yeah, think coming down to, yeah, so the shout out I was going to give was to the Human Flourishing Programme and anyone listening who's intrigued in looking into their work.
Stu Munro: ⁓
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So Tim Lomas, Tyler Van der Weeler, and even Richard Cowden, who I'm doing some work with on metaphors at the moment. yeah, they've done some great work on those metaphor fronts on flourishing and indeed on suffering and what they're looking into as well. guess, yeah, moving on from that to the practical implications. I've been thinking about a lot about this knowledge translation and about the very things that we were mentioning, how can we, you know, allow opportunities for this? In amongst kind of the limited time that leaders and people with responsibilities in an organization have, you know, in terms of we could, for example, provide recommendations that you need to add this and do more and do this and so on and so forth. But Obviously every organization is unique and there will be things that will work and not work according to in terms of how they operate and function in their culture. However, what I've typically seen done well you know, typically within organizations is things such as when I say wellbeing panels, I mean kind of having these forums for things to be shared, I suppose, in the ways in which you described Stu. I would also link to leadership, one thing, and I'd be curious to know what you think about this and whether it's been successful in practice in the ways you guys have seen it, but I'm a huge fan of the idea of reverse mentoring. So with the idea of reverse mentoring, obviously mentoring is often seen one way in terms of that vertical dynamic, the leader supporting the follower. But if you can create a dynamic through reverse mentoring where it's two way, as leadership for me is a two way kind of relationship, where you're creating in those leadership conversations that often have, like for example, in my organisation, I have a half an hour chat each month with my line manager. If in times like that, there's an opportunity for two way feedback, you know, and kind of a two way dialogue where reverse mentoring is also taking place, then you're kind of developing and lead and kind of moving forward together. And with that kind of reverse mentoring, you can see opportunities where when I think of leadership, often leaders are having to differentiate between logic and emotion. When is the times a leader has to be more emotional and so therefore they can resonate with the people that are following them and with the organization. When is it, it's a bit too chaotic and too emotional where you need to bring logic, reason and calm and rationality into the conversation. Now actually when it comes to reverse mentoring, I think that's a really good way of ⁓ sharpening those abilities is being able to differentiate between when emotion is needed and when logic and getting feedback through reverse mentoring in terms of I've misread the situation. ⁓ been too robotic, know, being too much like Spock in my reasoning and whatnot? Or when is there an opportunity here to show character? When is there an ability to, I think personally, reverse mentoring is an initiative which could potentially enhance a leader's credibility. If done right, now, of course, there's always two sides to every coin, I suppose, reverse mentoring, know, you need to show there is the kind of balance of leaders wanting to show that they can.
Stu Munro: Yes.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you know, lead and take responsibility and lead by example, and that they can make decisions under pressure and whatnot. But I don't think there's any harm in a little bit of professional vulnerability personally, like, you know, and engaging in reverse initiatives, like reverse mentoring is one of the ways of doing that well being forums. Now, sometimes they can be a bit tokenistic, but we're starting to see more in organisations, the ideas of well being champions. which is obviously you're putting the responsibility beyond just a psychologist or a hotline or the organizations where you can get six free sessions as part of a package deal or whatnot. I think there's a lot more opportunities through, and this is actually linking back to think what you mentioned at the start, Mark, and the idea of where's the expertise in psychology. Now obviously the assumption is it's with the psychologist, but for me, this is where I see that psychology is everywhere. And that's a bit of a cliche and a bit cheesy, but I see the expertise in psychology can be shared among people. And this is where we can bring in responsibilities and roles, like I mentioned, like reverse mentoring, whilst evaluating it as well and seeing how it works and what can be tweaked. Reverse mentoring, wellbeing champions, wellbeing forums. And then opportunities where in performance decisions, I mean, my ambition, and this is a very ambitious one, which gets into another conversation altogether, we have key performance indicators. Could one of those KPIs in organizations be about well-being? Or could we just all together just rewrite the script and have key performance indicators and key well-being indicators? That might be something that listeners may respond well to or think, ⁓ goodness me, what have you just, what kind kind of words have you just opened up there?
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ but you know,
Stu Munro: Is that not like dress down Fridays and pizza Tuesdays? Is that not what organisations have to... Is that not a dress and well being?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Well, yeah, well, you guys will, yeah, you guys will know better than me in that regard. those are just the starts of some practical thoughts. I mean, yeah, sorry, go for it, Mark.
Mark Tweedie: Richard. No, Richard, I just want to pick up on something. I mean, loads of stuff in there terms of practical, you know, implications and tools for leaders. what you mentioned about reverse mentoring, I think is definitely worthy of a whole other discussion with you. I'm mindful of the time. I'd love to have that. Stuart's nodding as well because One of the things that I've found and something that I've been passionate about over my career is this notion of asking your people, not telling them. As a reverse mentor, what you're doing is you're saying, look, I want to ask you, I want to ask you how I can be a better leader. Or in other words, what is it you need from me in order for you to be able to do the best job you possibly can? Because I have a role as a leader in terms of creating the conditions in my organization.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm.
Mark Tweedie: for all the people to flourish and thrive.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, yeah.
Mark Tweedie: What is it I can do? And then understanding that what and then following up with another question as a leader. How can I do that? When can I do it? Could I do it for other people? What does success look like? know, you're actively seeking to be mentored by the people in your charge and that creates a huge level of agency and empowerment for the people in your charge.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm. Mmm. Yes.
Mark Tweedie: and I'm making an assumption here and maybe a quick comment on this but from you would be helpful. But when you have that sense of agency empowerment, what's the impact on your wellbeing?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: It's huge. And I guess so if when we're talking about well being, and I want to make this distinction earlier, but when I talk about well being as different divisions of labour when it comes to well being as your mental well being, your physical well being, social well being, spiritual well being, I would also then add another one in terms of someone might talk about digital well being as well. That's another discussion, but the idea of volitional well being. the idea of how much of a choice and kind of ⁓ capacity to make a difference and make change do you have. So I think for me, the volitional dimension of wellbeing is really important. you have the capacity and opportunity to make decisions ⁓ and to input on things you may feel is right or wrong? ⁓ And this brings in again the important dimension of character and the important dimensions of character and virtue into leadership. And for me, you know, and I've prepared for this, guess later if the question does come up, but for me, this is the idea that people, the idea, and I won't go into it too much, but the idea of virtuous leadership for me is important. And there's so many different assets and dimensions of leadership itself, but I am for me, like a lot of wellbeing work is like underpinned by Aristotle.
Stu Munro: It will.
Mark Tweedie: Bye.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ But for me, I think it's really important that virtue can be considered within leadership, which it is a lot of the time. ⁓ for me, like virtuous leadership and character ⁓ links really nicely to that volitional element as well. And it's so important to have that.
Mark Tweedie: Hear hear, 100 % Richard and I think if we can learn anything as leaders, just show up with virtue and that will take you an incredible distance with your team, an incredible distance consistently. It's a superpower that is often undervalued I think. You can talk about it but actually being consistent with your behaviors when you're under pressure.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you Yeah. you Yeah, ⁓ goodness me, yeah. Yes.
Mark Tweedie: sometimes that's where you know our fight-flight mechanism that you mentioned earlier our negative bias can send us perhaps in a direction that's not necessarily conducive with helping everybody flourish.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, what I'd come back on as well is when I think of virtues and all the different virtues that everyone talks about, what Aristotle talked about, one thing that sticks to me about the one virtue that guarantees the rest of the virtues is courage. And I really like that. I really love the idea of courage in a leader. The courage has been defined by Aristotle as the virtue that guarantees all the rest. It has also been referred to in iconic, you know, well-known people in the past. think about Napoleon, who talked about this two o'clock in the morning courage. ⁓ almost that sense of spontaneous courage that, you know, in the middle and leaders are often in the thick of it, right? And I think Napoleon was obviously in the thick of it in the battles and wars, thought, but I think this rings true with me when you're in the thick of it, you need that spontaneous courage, because that then is the kind of, that's the starting point that guarantees the rest of the virtues that you see. unfortunately, sometimes it will go unnoticed, you know, the courage is quiet, right? It's the whole metaphors we're talking about, courage isn't this kind of really
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: and loud roar of a lion, but it's just kind of a little whisper of, I'm gonna continue onward. I'm gonna make a brave decision and just keep going. Again, you talk about reverse mentoring being on almost different podcasts, but so is courage. I'm so passionate about the idea of courage and from a personal perspective, but also from my views on wellbeing and flourishing and leadership as well.
Stu Munro: Well.
Mark Tweedie: I love that. What you mentioned earlier as well, Richard, was that you mentioned the word vulnerability and courage and vulnerability coexist, don't they? You have to be courageous as a leader to demonstrate vulnerability because, you know, know, traditional forms of, you know, ⁓
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: you know, kind of, you know, the knight on a white horse style leadership is we don't show vulnerability, but actually if you're courageous and show it that can do a huge amount in terms of developing trust, cohesion amongst your team and ultimately that sense of actually I can take risks, I can get things wrong, I can push hard with and maintain a good sense of well-being here because I don't have that fear of judgment because we share our vulnerabilities.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Yeah Yeah ⁓ goodness me. I want to shout out a book very quickly and it's based off, it's called, it's The Courage to Be Disliked. There's The Courage to Be Disliked. ⁓ so I won't spoil anything. The Courage to Be Disliked and then it has a sequel, I The Courage to Be Happy.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Stu Munro: ⁓ go on then.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Stu Munro: Yes, I'm reading that right just now.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, it touches on very much a lot of the things that we're discussing about and for me I'm someone the reason that what reinforces my views on courage is actually through a admittedly geeky Admission here, but actually through watch reading stories and watching superhero movies and you know I mean some of can go over the top right but one of my favorite movies of all time is the Dark Knight and a quote that I've actually written down here and obviously this is in context and we could easy paraphrase it. So I'm gonna try and paraphrase it, you might recognise it. But is a hero, or I say a leader can be anyone, even someone doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young person's shoulders to let them know the world. I'll paraphrase a little bit of that.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, the idea that in the end of the Dark Knight film, you know, he's not really seen as a superhero. He's a Dark Knight. He's not what the people want, but it's what they need. And I think, yeah, that kind of desirability and need and usefulness links back to what we've mentioned a little bit as well, that sometimes you've got to make difficult decisions with well-being. There's the elements of desirability often when it comes to well-being, but sometimes we need to surpass desirability sometimes and do what is necessarily needed.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: leaders have to be courageous to make that decision, which is why I quite like putting them in that kind of element of that quote, of that Dark Knight quote there, because they do what's necessary even if it's not desirable.
Stu Munro: And you've said this way, there's beautifully to that question, which we normally ask at the beginning or a podcast, Richard, then you've kind of almost answered that. maybe if I asked the question, you can give that summary kind of thing. what we do ask people is that, you know, in your view, what's your perspective around the difference between good leadership and great leadership?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Go for it. ⁓ goodness me. I'll start with great leadership because I have a, I've been trying to work on an aphorism that just summarises it and doesn't go off on a tangent and kind of make this podcast any longer. So a great leader holds a mirror up to your own humanity. I think that's an aphorism that I quite like about great leadership. Now, if I was to tease that apart, a good leader for me might still be virtuous and might still hold some virtues and might lead by example, might work hard, might show elements of character, might show some elements of wisdom. They called it in ancient Greece, phronesis, that sense of practical wisdom. They might show some... character and might have elements of integrity, honesty and and whatnot. But the best leadership I've seen actually brings in courage is when a great leader gets the people that follow them or work with them to consider their own humanity and you know holding up that mirror to your own humanities often done through when you're inspired by someone or through when someone opens up to you or showing vulnerability and showing courage and and showing compassion as we discussed that willingness to try and reduce the suffering of other people. And yeah, that's how I would define it. How I've seen it in great leaders is that, you know, that is, it goes into sport, I suppose, but, you know, often the idea where leadership is thrust upon someone, right? The idea is the best leaders are the people that's thrust upon them, they didn't want it. But that's where I've seen the best leadership and the best leadership that I've experienced has been someone who's been willing to be professionally vulnerable and courageous and compassionate.
Stu Munro: Mm-mm. Man.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, to meaningfully make efforts to connect with me During what has probably been busy times for them I mean that's a whole different debate altogether about busyness how I don't think I ever not met anyone who's not busy You know, great leads don't use that as an excuse great leaders are courageous and compassionate Appreciate that everyone is busy and you know do not use that as an excuse We've all got how many hours in the day in our working day
Stu Munro: Yes.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And yeah, you know, I think for me that's really important. yeah, holding up a mirror to your own humanity, someone who inspires you, someone who, you know, brings out the good in you, ⁓ but brings out the good in terms of the good of your wellbeing, in terms of like, you you feeling good and thinking good and flourishing and whatnot, but also brings out the moral good as well, that kind of sense of you want to do right. as a result of ⁓ them, of their influence on you. But I'll stop there because I could go on.
Stu Munro: That is being, well, ⁓ we could probably talk for easily for another hour. I think what we've got there is what Mark and I do is we'll do our best to unpack that a little bit in our next little section. But Richard, thank you so much for that. I think it's the richness that you've offered around this complex thing that I'm hoping is allowing people to kind of, right, I have a little bit of a better idea around this thing now. And also some practical insights to how they may help as a leader, may help their teams, their employees to flourish in difficult circumstances.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah, I think I'm really looking forward to us getting together Stuart to kind of, you know, review this discussion. And it's been fascinating for me. And the thing that's the thing that's in my mind at the moment is how if leaders, most leaders will recognise well-being is really important. But what we've what we've got here is we've really got into starting to unpack the complexity of it and actually how important it is. and how it really should feature for leaders in organizations as an objective that they kind of look at, they manage. know Richard you talked about you know... What about having some performance indicators around wellbeing? And a lot of organizations are getting into that, but is it actually measuring the right thing? You know, and those are some of the questions you're asking here and the complexity of ⁓ it that you go through. And then that term, wellbeing literacy, you know, what does that look like for an organization and how can people create an understanding of wellbeing literacy? And then the behaviors in order to... further good wellbeing in your organisation because of that understanding. So many questions. I think it's fantastic. It'd be wonderful if you could come back on the podcast another time, I think. Thank you.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Absolutely, I would love to. I mean, it always, yeah, my head's gonna be buzzing after this discussion as well, because in terms of the ways in which this has led me into some different thoughts as well. And yeah, it's been great to get both of your insights and knowledge as well, because this is the thing between research and practice is sometimes you are very well and you're right to...
Stu Munro: Likewise.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: saying what the heck is that researcher talking about in their ivory tower? But it's really important that we have conversations like this and that literacy or that knowledge translation is really important. So yeah, I'm more than happy to come back and talk about whatever else you would like to discuss around well-being, leadership, flourishing or whatever that might be.
Stu Munro: Well, I think we will all look forward to that. And I just want to finish up by saying, Richard, thank you so much. think you've, as I say, our listeners are going to go away with a much better idea of around well-being flourishing and how to, you know, implicate, ⁓ put that into practice as a leader. So thank you very much.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mark, thanks Stu, thank you so much.
Stu Munro: Hi everyone and welcome to the Mastering Leadership podcast. Today we have a special guest who is Dr. Richard Simpson. And I first met Richard when we were connecting with a project I was working on with a national sports team. And he helped me out with this incredibly complex thing around wellbeing. But before we go there, I thought maybe Richard, you could introduce yourself.
Mark Tweedie: Hey Stuart, so what a fantastic episode with Dr. Richard Simpson. I'm really looking forward to this breakdown with you to really unpack it and hopefully listeners will have some really good takeaways. I think for me on reflection, what I was really pleased with and I found really insightful is how important wellbeing is to your performance as an individual and how you can relate that to the corporate setting. And the key reason why I found that really encouraging and insightful was...
Stu Munro: Hi, I'm Stuart Munro, a Chartered Psychologist, Registered Sports Psychologist and founder of Minds to Perform Ltd, a performance psychology consultancy. With 25 years in high performance sport, I've supported elite athletes, national teams and recently my research has shown how psychology frameworks from elite sport can help corporate leaders overcome barriers to success. Let us know your role and perhaps some of the research that you've done that we can maybe begin unpacking this thing of human flourishing and wellbeing.
Mark Tweedie: you know, as you know, I've developed this performance blueprint ⁓ model. and intuitively I always thought to myself when I was developing the model without any any reason you know research backing or evidence thought none of this is going to work unless we've got an organization with a strong sense of well-being that allows people to have well-being and I created this framework which was about purpose, direction, mindset, environment you know each with a set of interventions you know how you drive a purposeful organization how you get direction in terms of your plans and move those into actions that Together we offer decades of experience leading and supporting high performing teams. So join us as we bring together inspirational business leaders, academics and professionals to unpack the psychology behind great leadership.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Thank so much, Stu, and thank you so much, Mark, for having me on the podcast. Hello, everyone. My name is Dr. Richard Simpson, and I'm a lecturer in psychology at Leeds Trinity University, and I'm a researcher in human flourishing in sport and performance domains. I completed my PhD three to four-ish years ago, and my initial focus was on The name of my PhD, the title of it, was Psychological
Stu Munro: Each episode blends real world leadership journeys with accessible psychological insights and skills that people can learn. We conclude each episode with a breakdown section where we critically examine our discussion, offering theoretical insights coupled with practical tools for anyone looking to elevate their understanding and their impact as a leader.
Mark Tweedie: everybody in the organization understands what the role is to deliver that vision and purpose. How you get people to have the right mindset and to be able to manage their thinking and how you create the conditions. And that's all great, but unless you've got the core wellbeing, none of that is gonna be optimized. So I got so much from this episode So did you think?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: being among members of sport organisations. So I have a sport background predominantly in sports psychology.
Mark Tweedie: So whether you're an aspiring leader, a seasoned executive, student, or simply curious about the interplay between psychology and business, this podcast is your gateway to mastering the art and science of leadership.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And a lot of my work was really focused on the organisational sport context. So initially I came in with the interest of working with a PhD supervisor, Dr. Faye Didymus, whose expertise was in organisational stress. So I came in with a lens of being really interested in stresses and how people cope with stress, how people perceive stress, and so on and so forth. But as kind of my interest grew, a lot of my
Stu Munro: Well, there was so much in there. That's a rich, deep ⁓ conversation we've just had. thanks to Richard for helping us understand it a bit better. And it is one of these things that if we're offering listeners and being able to offer listeners something that's practical, ⁓ let's unpack some of these things.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: was still kind of dealing with well-being, but I was wanting to move, in my mind, the narrative within sports psychology at the time, more from a stress and coping, almost a bit of a deficit-based perspective, towards a more kind of positive and asset-focused perspective, where I'm focusing on stress and well-being. I then initially, I guess, dropped the stress bit, whilst not precluding it per se from conversations, but I became more interested in
Stu Munro: maybe allows it to be helpful for them. So what I would say like, you're absolutely right at the core of like, ⁓ we should be considering wellbeing. And what Richard was saying is that ⁓ to consider wellbeing, we've got to, it is multi-dimensional, it's complex. There's so many bits of it, but it is subjective. So we each have our own.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: wellbeing in sport organisations. So my work kind of focused initially on kind of relationships between athletes, coaches and support staff and psychology practitioners. And some of my work looked at the idea of a concept of interpersonal psychological wellbeing. So rather than wellbeing as an individual experience, also a shared experience. And then some other work I've also been looking at, which might be relevant to our conversations today, has been wellbeing.
Stu Munro: idea of what well-being is. know, what well-being is for one, it could be different from the other, even in the same situation and environment. ⁓ There's this, the multi-dimensional part of it, because it's going to deal with our own coping resources, our own emotions, behaviors, purpose, environments, systems, processes, all these types of things. And, you know, and it's a perceived quality of life. Yet,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: experienced among performance leaders and managers. In other words, your performance directors within sport organizations, your performance managers, your heads of performance and so on and so forth. So yeah, that's a bit of ⁓ an extended outline, but no, I'm excited to be with you today and to really get into some really juicy topics.
Stu Munro: As leaders, if we begin to understand that there's all these many elements, know, a bit like spokes on a wheel in serums or the orchestra metaphor that we use, yeah, you might not be able to target all of these, but if you begin to look at that, those pieces of a pie or spokes on a wheel, the orchestra, is that there are many, there are many aspects that a leader can influence. And I think if we take that on board, you're absolutely right. It would sit at the heart of any model around leadership. Thanks for sharing that. it really, you know, ⁓ when we first met, I remember that one of the reasons I wanted to reach out to you is because I was asked, hey, Stuart, you know, we want you to help us with ⁓ a wellbeing framework for the national sports team. And I was like, ⁓ my goodness, like wellbeing, wellbeing. And I asked this question to somebody the other day, and I think this maybe encapsulates to, yep.
Mark Tweedie: Just jumping in on that, Stuart. So I'm thinking of a practical application here and I'm thinking of my own experience. I learned over time as a leader that the most important part of any conversation was that initial checking with a member in your team to say, not to jump straight in to how they're getting on with a particular work task, but the checking is about, how are you feeling today? How's things? Tell me about how you're feeling. How are you?
Stu Munro: complexity of it sort of said, I'm interested, what do you think wellbeing is? And there was a bit of a pause and then it was like, you know, it's, kind of, know I'm kind of feeling good, it's, yeah, but it's not that also, it's more than that. It's kind of, and it was, there was no definitive answer. And I was wondering, you know, your research has tried as best it can to unpack this complex thing. Mm-hmm.
Mark Tweedie: And having listened to that conversation with Richard, I can progress that now. And I'm thinking, actually, if you've got this wellbeing literacy in your organisation where people understand more about what wellbeing is and how individual it is, you can not only have the conversation about how you're feeling, you can say, look, how's your wellbeing?
Stu Munro: Maybe you can help us just understand that a little bit more, how complex it really is. It's interesting you say that.
Mark Tweedie: What is it that you've been working on to bring your best self to work to allow yourself to flourish in the workplace? What is really working for you in terms of that? And what do we need to do more of to help you to flourish and thrive more around your wellbeing?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: It is indeed very complex and I think almost digesting it and synthesizing the topic of wellbeing is a complex task in itself, but hopefully I can give a good effort at trying. So I guess through my years of trying to understand wellbeing, there's been many difficulties, mainly because there's many frameworks, there's many perspectives that people take. I think for me, the approach that I've taken rather than to zoom
Stu Munro: So there's two things in there that I think are really helpful for leaders to understand is that, you know, what we've talked about is the wellbeing flourishing as Richard went on to say, it's not just an individual state. know, emerges flourishing, wellbeing emerges from interaction between individuals and their environment. So you're absolutely right. It's those conversations. I think, you know, if we,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: and specify a definition is to zoom out a little bit. ⁓ to really take a broad definition of well-being as being almost like a relative attainment of a personal and subjective state of quality. So through doing that, we're drawing on an academia understandings of quality of life, for example, where we've, we're understanding a few things in the definition that well-being is personal to us. And also it is a subjective reality. And I think that points actually to what you were mentioning Stu in terms of like
Stu Munro: were to help leaders to understand ⁓ how to practically put things into place would be start having the conversations. What does well-being mean to you as an organization? Create focus groups, groups from ⁓ different parts of the organization and start having the conversations.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: trying to understand what it is. What's really clear about wellbeing is that it is personal to an individual and that it is a subjective reality. And through that, when it's a subjective reality, we might be talking about how someone is feeling, how someone's thinking, and also their behaviors as well. So I think for me, the best way to understand wellbeing is through that broad definition, which allows quite a few frameworks
Stu Munro: What does it mean to you? And you're gonna get a whole diverse range of things because it is subjective, it is personal, but at the same time, it is systemic and it is environmental and it is a relational process too. So if we start to have the conversations and we begin to emerge, you know, creating some general agreement, I mean, I say some, but you're never gonna get it all right, but it could be.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: whether it's our sense of life satisfaction and affect, whether it's our sense of meaning and purpose to be really encompassed under that personal and subjective kind of view. So yeah, that's, mean, there's loads of other neighboring terms which almost makes it confusing. So, you know, what's the difference between health and wellbeing? What's the difference between flourishing and wellbeing or flourishing and thriving? And I've really liked the works of the human flourishing
Stu Munro: We had a little chat off air just before and we talked about the fact that somebody might just want the ability to have a 10 minute walk around the block because that's their coping resource. Now, if you understand that and as an organization you say, you know, if that's important, you go and do that. But it's having that conversation, defining it and obviously, know, what Richard's shared is incredibly complex, a lot in it.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: programme at Harvard who have been given specific functions and purposes, I guess, for these terms, which has really helped me. And in turn, I've been able to start to work alongside the human flourishing programme at Harvard to try and bring that clarity to other contexts, such as sport and performance, and in turn leadership within these contexts as well. So I know there's programmes at the human flourishing programme focusing on leadership for flourishing, for example.
Stu Munro: It doesn't have to be complex. It's about simple conversations and define it as you want to define it. What I would say is that within your organization, what do we perceive well-being or flourishing to be in this space? Have the conversations and then from those conversations, if you are able to kind of list a number of things that are, those can become strategic objectives.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: But yeah, no, I mean, I'd be curious to know, I suppose, from your perspective, when I've kind of that definition of well-being I've kind of provided back, is it something that makes sense? Is it something that is still got kind of holes in the middle of that kind of understanding, I suppose?
Stu Munro: We're going to protect this. And these are things then is to almost become these are non-negotiables. Even when things get tough, we're going to protect these things. So when things get challenging, that we are protecting these things that we know because we've had the conversation help people to cope. And I'm just interested in your thoughts on that.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Stu Munro: Well, the thing that jumped out at me and it really makes sense is that, you know, that you talk about it's personal to the individual. And what I'm picking up from that is that one person's sense of wellbeing could be quite different to another person's sense of wellbeing in terms of what they're experiencing, you know, their levels of resilience, the interpersonal factors that
Mark Tweedie: So what's come into my mind, having listened to that, how, I think Richard talks about this, he's creating a situation where people have agency to look after and pursue their own wellbeing so they can flourish and thrive. And... ⁓
Stu Munro: they have that are shaping their experience in and around them at that time. it's not something that we can turn around and say, well, this is wellbeing that conveys to everyone. It very much has that, it's personal to individuals, but also that really personal subjective aspect to it is that what are people perceiving from their experiences that
Mark Tweedie: You you're getting into the realms here of when someone shows up at work, is it the organization's responsibility and the leaders within it to make sure everybody's flourishing? Or is it, you know, the employee? Or is it a mix of both? And how does that dynamic work? And an example has come into my head, actually, because Finland's got one of the most highest performing educational systems in the world.
Stu Munro: you know, they will then pick up to read their, their wellbeing. And it, and and it just to help me understand that a little bit then again, because we've, we've spoken about this in the past as well, Richard, and there was, I think it would be really helpful for the listeners to understand this is that again, you know, when we think about wellbeing, we kind of almost think in this linear sense of I'm feeling a little bit two steps up than I was yesterday or
Mark Tweedie: And when you look into that, which researchers have done, the dynamics of how the school day works are very interesting. So one of the things that children within the Finnish education system can do is join a lesson. They can say to the teacher, look actually I think I could do better here if I go into a private study area can I be relieved from the group class environment to go and just pursue this work on my own in the library and the teacher then obviously can use discretion and say ⁓ yeah that's fine that's fine Stuart go and do that.
Stu Munro: I'm feeling three steps down from the day before. And that this linear kind of sense and even in the way that we talk about it may not be helpful. This zooming out that you talk about and being able to look at the many, many factors that might actually be influencing might be a helpful approach too.
Mark Tweedie: But actually what that's about is that's about that young person saying, you know, I've got agency over decisions that can optimize my performance and I'm going to feel better and flourish better doing this particular task if I go outside this classroom. And that's embraced by the whole system. That's a kind of norm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Absolutely, yes. I think there's quite a few things in which, you know, we could touch on there. I think there's almost a temporality around well-being in terms of well-being you're experiencing now and well-being that you could experience in the future. So there's often been... ⁓
Mark Tweedie: You know, so look at that in the workplace where we are, well, you know, we set workplaces up to be quite rigid, know, it's one size fits all. And perhaps inadvertently what we're not doing is we're not permitting people to have agency to say, actually, this is what's gonna work for me today.
Stu Munro: Hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: differentiations made between pleasure, for example, in the short term and kind of hedonic well-being and hedonia. And then almost a bit of a delayed gratification, I suppose, which the likes of Seligman and positive psychology have spoken about, but also the the well-being benefits that can come through, for example, negative balanced experiences. So if you know what the role of experiences like sadness or
Stu Munro: It's such a good point and Richard talks about this doesn't he? He talks about that volitional wellbeing, such a key dimension that, you know, the sense that one has influence, that one has agency, you know, these are basic psychological needs. When you have a sense of autonomy, you feel better about yourself. And then, you know, so as leaders then, it's about setting up environments and systems where people have the capacity.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: frustration and anger and even boredom can offer to well-being. So in many senses. So I think that temporality element is really important. There's also other elements around desirability. for example, the well-being dimensions that we feel are worth valuing.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm. and the opportunity to make decisions and input on things. ⁓ And again, it comes back to that, have these conversations. How would we do this? How would we best offer you this autonomy ⁓ that lead to a sense of flourishing? So it's about, as leaders then, it's about ⁓ having these conversations to say that
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: suing are often the ones we see we deem to be the most desirable. However, there's often instances where some well-being experiences, you know, might be non desirable, but might also be useful in themselves as well.
Stu Munro: How can we create opportunities for ownership, autonomy, involvement, decision making? Because when they do, when people do feel that you have influence, they're probably gonna experience greater engagement. They actually feel that what they're doing has input and that leads to confidence. And as we've been talking about in the theme of this thing, this podcast is,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So, you know, there's the element of them we bring into the four usefulness or utility, the usefulness of wellbeing dimensions, which are kind of also really important because, you know, for example, going through a bad period and having, I'll use a sport example, experiencing injury can be an opportunity through which you can grow and experience a sense of, yeah, well,
Stu Munro: a sense of well-being flourishing. And I think very strongly linked with that, that Richard talks about, and you brought up about stress in the work environment, for example. And we know there's a very, very, very strong science around when people feel capable, they're more likely to perceive challenging.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: post injury growth. If you experience some form of adversity, there's post adversarial growth. So there's a lot of elements here as part of the kind of wellbeing question in terms of how we appraise kind of the subjective nature of wellbeing. And we can do so in many different ways. And for me, positive and negative is a lot more nuanced than people think it is when people use the words positive and negative, they often think that it's referred
Stu Munro: threatening things as challenges as opposed to threat. So when we move into difficult periods, is that, you know, it's our perception of what's going on that will influence the levels of stress. So how can leaders help with that? Well, obviously, we've talked about autonomy and ownership, that's one element to that. But leaders can build flourishing by strengthening people's sense of capability. in psychology, psychological terms, we talk about
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: to a balance or like that feels positive or that feels negative but actually it's a lot broader when we use those semiotics we call them. Yeah, no, I'm curious to know what you both think and your own experiences with this, well, this wicked term I think as we mentioned off camera.
Stu Munro: Yep. Yeah, it is. then you've helped us understand some really key areas there is that, you and I guess the appraisal that you were talking about there goes to that kind of subjective element is that we make an appraisal, we make an interpretation or an evaluation around our sense of wellbeing. And that leads then into the kind of temporality, this time factor about how mastery. It's quite a strong term, but in terms of mastery, it you can, to me, it almost feels like you've reached the top. But it's not about that. It's that as leaders, it's about, you know, when you are having those conversations with people is reinforcing, recognizing strengths, progress, you know, reminding people of what they're capable of, you know, and What that does is it does strengthen the sense of mastery, the capability that, you know, as much as, you know, my psychological work, I help people to build this by themselves. But one of the strongest ways of really quite believing that is when a leader turns around and says, Hey, Mark, how you communicated in the meeting today, that was terrific. Like you prepared well, you communicated it really clearly. if we're feeling alone in a certain moment is that in that time we might think, my wellbeing is suffering. But it also, as you described that this growing from adversity is recognizing that, you know, actually these, it's these difficult and challenging experiences that actually can lead me to the growing, perhaps be more resilient in the future.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm.
Stu Munro: and you got the points across that was a great job. So you know you're going away thinking I prepared well, I communicated well, it was clear, I got my points across, boom. Those are all skills capabilities that I've got. and learning also to then be able to deal with challenge and hardship in the future. And it's not just this. so well-being must then encapsulate these both desirable and undesirable experiences. But what we might do, what we might do though is that when we're in those undesirable experiences, we might go, this is the worst thing ever. This is terrible. And that also leads into this next bit, like Richard was saying, that, is how we appraise the stressor. You know, do we view it as a challenge or do we view it as a threat? And as leaders, we could be pivotal to that appraisal. You know, you can imagine a leader coming in and going, ⁓ my God, we might be losing this client and that's going to be a crisis. everyone, everyone, right, you know, you need to work hard and blah, Now.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm, no absolutely.
Stu Munro: I'm not trying, you know, and that then may, it impacts the appraisal, it impacts our temper, temporality judgments. It then pushes, pushes us perhaps to more undesirable focus and exaggeration perhaps or something like that. So it, you know, maybe you can help us unpack that bit that, you know, wellbeing, you know, let's, let's use a sporting example, you know, my
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you
Stu Munro: through that narrative, you've created something where people have gone, ⁓ my God, it's a crisis. You've influenced people's appraisal. Whereas as a leader, it's about helping people. It's about understanding about a person's perception of stress is about the appraisal. ⁓ The events themselves don't.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm. Yeah.
Stu Munro: the athletes and the team that I support, the sport that they do, ⁓ the national ski team I work with, the sport they do is incredibly dangerous. Incredibly dangerous. And to the extent that there have been deaths on the circuit, yet what we're actually doing is setting environments for them to go out and train in those incredibly dangerous environments to be able to enable them to determine people's experience. It's the appraisal. And as a leader, you have a big influence on that appraisal. How composed you are. So rather than viewing it as or communicating it as a crisis, you're saying to it, right, we're going through a difficult time right now. But you know what, we've been through this before. And also, we have the capabilities to get through this. I believe in you. You know, I believe, you know, if we work hard, Five. So if they didn't embrace those risks and go through those challenges, they wouldn't flourish as a sports person. and that we will get through this. And that's the critical point of leadership.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm, no, absolutely. And I think this is a question that we're at the moment in our current work trying to really explore bit further. So this brings into the question, and we've kind of danced around it a little bit, but the idea of human flourishing.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah Stuart, I'm just jumping in there for a moment because I think that's such a fantastic takeaway for leaders. And if leaders can go and think actually, when we get involved in a conversation about stress or when we are inadvertently modeling, you know, the fact that we're feeling stressed, how we appraise that is critical because that will not only influence our own performance, but can spread throughout the organization and either give positive or negative suboptimal consequences. So the appraisal of stress is really important. And I think, you know, I'd been guilty of coming into the workplace, certainly as a young person,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So if I were to define well-being as a personal state of quality, flourishing, how I differentiate that is a personal and systemic state of quality for an individual and the context that they are situated in. So immediately when we're talking about flourishing, we are talking about not only the individual doing well, but also their systems and environments and contexts that they're in also doing well as well.
Mark Tweedie: and young leader thinking, know, responding to stress or a discussion about stress in a binary way, you know, low stress, no stress is good, lots of stress is bad, know, stress good or bad, black and white thinking. When actually the appraisal is...
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And for me, think that's really important when we... among different organizations. And one word I want to revisit, I suppose, is the term relative. And I think that gets us into really interesting conversations because when people talk to me about flourishing, they tell me, is this just a kind of pipe dream, right? It's this kind of polyannic, fluffy and positive kind of like, you know, dream in a sense. But when we revisit the word relative, it kind of reminds us that whether it's
Stu Munro: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: actually stress isn't a bad thing at all. It's harnessed in the right way and managed in the right way. It's a really positive thing. So coming back to this wellbeing narrative and literacy, you know, it's creating an understanding about what actually stress is and why it can be a really, really positive thing. And when it can be a negative thing and how you can have that really sensitive conversation with your team or with people in your charge in one-to-ones or whatever, just to examine in a bit more detail their experience of stress.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: through wellbeing or flourishing that these experiences are a relative attainment of the ideal of flourishing. And I think that's really important to note because we are not always fully, we are never really fully flourishing to a full extent and nor should the expectation be that we should be. There are some elements and dimensions of our life where we're doing well and other dimensions of our life where we're doing less well and a comparable extent.
Mark Tweedie: And is it actually the solution is we need to build some capability or we need to just move people back into the comfort zone for a while because they've been in the stretch zone for too long and they're at risk of burnout? And being really sensitive as a leader in terms of your stress barometer and communicating with people to understand where they are. But no point in that discussion saying we need to eliminate all stress because stress is bad. Actually, it's inevitable in the workplace. It's a part of growth and development.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: which is why I think it's really important that leaders and organizations are very clear on how realistic and relative they see terms like well-being and flourishing. They might feel that it's attainable to really get to a high sense of well-being. Now I have reservations on the descriptors of high and low for well-being, which we might be able to come onto, but I think it's really important that
Mark Tweedie: you know so how can we have a positive constructive conversation around that.
Stu Munro: It's some great points in there and thanks for sharing that because you're absolutely right. It's the... There is, again, stress is a very complex thing, many elements that are involved in it. the point that we're trying to get help, the listeners to understand is that as a leader, you are so influential on that appraisal of stress. It's not binary, as you say. so when leaders communicate things like belief, they're
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: leaders have a really clear understanding on what dimensions of well-being they think are realistic and attainable within the organisational context. yeah, and that's what I think is kind of, we're starting to see a lot more seep through into knowledge around flourishing and more into the workplace, a lot more of this systems-based lens as well as the individual within that system. That interaction is so important and for
Stu Munro: they're clear, know, they offer clarity, perspective to say, you know, we've been here before that if you can help people see this isn't threatening, this is just difficult and challenging, it begins to shift the perception of what is going on. And, and you've also touched on that, we didn't talk about this so much in the flourishing thing, but you know, you know, I work with, you know, national sports teams, lot of the elite athletes and Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: wellbeing and guess flourishing. Yeah, it's important that we consider that and then also realise that there's different ways in which we can attain wellbeing. There is the elements of, I guess, addition versus subtraction in many ways. So you might almost do something different and add something to your life which enriches it in some way. But there's also the reduction element in terms of if you're looking to reduce your sense of suffering at work or in a sport environment,
Stu Munro: You know, their routines, their day, their preparation to be able to compete and perform at the Winter Olympics, Paralympics is based around periods of very, very hard work, but also planned rest and recovery. I've been in discussions and session work with senior leaders.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: then there's a kind of almost two different goals there. There's a goal of wanting to reduce suffering and bring yourself from a minus one back to zero if I were to use that kind of continuum metaphor. And then there's almost another goal of wanting to move from zero neutrality to plus one to what the majority of people would probably call flourishing. But you know, for me, I define it differently, that plus one happiness state. And so for me,
Stu Munro: And it's one of the things that I would say, and this is generalizing here, but my elite athletes take rest and recovery seriously. The senior leaders I work with don't seem to take rest and recovery as planned. ⁓ So, you know, the point I'm trying to get to there is saying to you as a leader, say, for example, you know that you're building up to a very busy, heavy workload.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: leaders almost have different goals there when it comes to well-being and it goes it draws back to what I mentioned earlier about that subjectivity. I believe that well-being is ⁓ value laden and is you know not only do we have personal views and perspectives on what well-being is but the
Stu Munro: is having these conversations. Okay, how can we plan to help our teams with restaurant recovery? What does that mean? You know, and how can we enable that so that we get through this? And again, what you're doing here is that, and again, a very important thing that Richard brought out here is this idea of
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: the value judgments that leaders make of well-being are exceptionally important for determining what's valued in the workplace around well-being as well. I'm curiously know your thoughts, suppose, of just hearing that, I guess.
Stu Munro: It's interesting and it kind goes back to... ⁓ yes, of you will Mark.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah, could I quickly just jump in on that one?
Stu Munro: you know, as organizations, you do go through difficult, very, very difficult, challenging times. But, and the science is quite clear on this is that whenever anyone perceives challenge or a threat, if they perceive support, they're more likely to perceive that situation, that environment is challenging versus threatening. you know, flourishing, you know, it's not about removing difficulty.
Mark Tweedie: Is that okay? So just... ⁓ Well, I can't resist coming in with some organizational context. And Richard, you've talked about what you do. You've touched upon leadership there. So when I work with organizations ⁓ around developing their leadership capability and working directly with leadership teams, that's in the context of... ⁓
Stu Munro: No, not at all. Good.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm.
Mark Tweedie: creating a culture which is conducive with high performance.
Stu Munro: but it's flourishing is created when individuals feel that they're supported within the difficulty. So as a leader, it's about creating that environment where people feel supported, you know? And he touched on this idea of interpersonal coping. We kind of think, well, it's down to you, Mark. You've just got to cope through the stressor. But actually, what's it like when somebody comes up and goes, hey, Mark, how you doing? You getting through this? How can I help you?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: And there is a framework which I use to do that and ⁓ very briefly it's around understanding purpose, know, around people in the organization connecting that purpose with the job that they do, having the type of mindset which is conclusive with taking risks, taking challenge and growing and developing, you know, against adversity, understanding others and creating an overall environment where people feel empowered and engaged. But one thing I do talk about and I'm fast
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm. ⁓
Stu Munro: Suddenly you're supported. don't it things just do not feel as heavy do they? That I just to touch on this because it I'll share this very quickly because it's quite fascinating. It does some research and forgive me I can't name the research paper, but they did some research on perceived effort and It was quite simple. They got somebody put backpack on them and said we want you to walk up that hill and they were and then at the top or the bottom I can't remember they said
Mark Tweedie: to understand a little bit here from you for the benefit of us and the listeners around your work on stress in particular. So in the context of the framework which I've explained.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm
Mark Tweedie: and how we try and use that to develop a high performing culture through great leadership. One thing that I do talk about is an essential core component is wellbeing. I've never used the word flourishing, but that's certainly something that I'd love to adopt going forward after this conversation. And that's in essence, I think what I'm trying to say to leaders and the discussion we have is that in order for you to have a high performing organization,
Stu Munro: What is your perception of effort? And they would rate it quite highly when they did it themselves. And then they would get people to say, right, you're going to do that same thing, but this person's going to come with you. And they did the same thing. And the perception of effort was lower just because there was somebody with them. And I think as leaders, it's a very important, if we're talking wellbeing, if we're talking flourishing,
Mark Tweedie: your people and yourself as leaders need to have this sense where you feel that you're flourishing. And I think what we're getting into is what does actually that mean? Cause it's subjective and different for everybody. And it's has to, you have to flourish within a corporate setting here when I'm going in talking to leaders, but the piece of insight that I get back, and this is, this is pretty consistent.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Hmm Yeah
Stu Munro: it's a really important thing to take on board is this, yeah, we're gonna go through difficult times, challenging times. So if I want to build in this interpersonal coping, how do I do that? How can I make my team feel supported? Because when people know that support is present, challenge becomes something that's, it's more developmental.
Mark Tweedie: is that when I ask people about their wellbeing, I say, what about your behaviours? And that's about, you know, what physical activity they're doing, what nutrition. Generally pretty good. You know, when I ask, how's the organisation supporting you in terms of supporting your behaviours, which are conducive to wellbeing, pretty good. But consistently across the board,
Stu Munro: rather than overwhelming, it's something they feel that, yeah, I just need to get through this phase. Somebody's there with me, we'll get through this. And also, it doesn't last forever. And that's where the leadership can be ⁓ pivotal to those appraisals. Any thoughts on that? ⁓
Mark Tweedie: People report relatively high stress levels. When I ask, what is your experience of stress? People say, yes, we are experiencing stress. And what I'm getting here is, what is the positive sense of stress? Where does it deliver a positive impact? And where does it deliver a negative impact? Where is the needle? How do we know? What do we do about it? I suppose that's my question.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: Again, I've got to share this quick example with you ⁓ because this, as a leader, you have people in your charge, but what you want to do is you want to empower those people. So they have an agency and they do their own things. But there are certain policy requirements with any organization that you have to comply with.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmmmm Yeah great question and there's a lot of really great work in the organization of stress literature that is looking to really unpack this more. Now when you get into stress for example, and I think this links to well-being which I'll come back to, when you look into a stressor for example, now what determines its usefulness is how we appraise that stressor. So do we view that stressor as a challenge which we can rise to and which we can
Mark Tweedie: So bear with me on this, but you know a long time ago I was a teacher, I taught for seven years, I've been left uni and ⁓ there was a friend of mine that didn't teach in, taught in a different school than me, but I knew them from doing triathlons and one of the challenges being a teacher is you've got fixed holidays, know, arguably you've got some nice holidays, you know, but they're fixed, you know, can't go anywhere outside.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: overcome? Do we view it as a harm to our well-being? Or do we see it as a threat? And so when we perceive a stressor or organisational stressor as a threat, then that is more likely going to lead to some consequences. If that stressor is chronic and experienced over a long period of time, it's going to lead to bigger consequences.
Stu Munro: Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: outside term time and she was a very good triathlete and she got picked to represent Great Britain as an age group and quite often these competitions were taking place during term time. So and those were still open to her and she still did it because her head teacher who I actually had a conversation with once said to me said look I've made a decision here that I allow her to have two or three days out a year to go and do international competitions during term time.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So there's almost again a need I see when managing stresses is there's a sense of stress is inevitable, but there's also a sense of, you know, what stresses are kind of useful in which people can rise and rise and see as a challenge, either individually or collectively, and in which have the and capacity to do harm. Now from a wellbeing sense, there's a dimension of wellbeing, which kind of links to our overall mastery
Mark Tweedie: because she is so fit, she is so good, she brings that ability to work and she's so productive because she looks after herself. And I know that without these moments during the year, I wouldn't get the same level out of this person. So they were...
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So a sense of environmental mastery. Now the way I see mastery is that coping strategies or coping ⁓ efficiency and coping capabilities come under that kind of dimension of mastery in that, you know, if we are able to cope with the stresses that, ⁓ you know, that are within the work environment, then we have a sense of mastery within our well-being. ⁓
Mark Tweedie: being flexible around what would normally be quite a rigid policy because they were appraising the situation. It was interpersonal, what worked for that individual. And they knew actually the win-win here was to say, you know what, have two or three days out a year either side of weekends to get away to international competition because this makes you flourish in the workplace.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: that said, you know, and this is where flourishing comes in really importantly, is that we then this is how I bring in terms like thriving and some I know some colleagues who do work in thriving who may take a different stance to me. But this is how I bring in that differentiation between another term. So flourishing is the you know, the is a personal and systemic state of quality where the individual and their context of doing well. Whilst alternatively, the way I see thriving is when a person is
Mark Tweedie: And that's a bold leadership decision. Now, equally, you know, having had, you know, 30 odd years in the workplace, being a leader, being in educational settings, corporate settings, I can think of far more examples where leaders have decided to go on the side of policy and not make those individual exceptions to the detriment of the individuals and the team. And I would argue, you know, the culture and performance of the organization.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm. Yeah, no, I think it's a great point and that and that and I think in these types of conversations then that, you know, it may be that people's ⁓ narrative around wellbeing flourishing is that, you know, we are too rigid, that it's that's affecting me and that ⁓ it's not that we're going to blank, we're saying that people should have this openness to just take days off.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: doing well, despite of their context. So thriving is often spoken about alongside stress, not always, but quite often alongside we thriving with a we are thriving when there's been an occurrence of a stressor. We experience thriving as kind of this joint development and success, where we're able to thrive despite of a stressor, or despite of an adversity, or despite the lack of environmental
Stu Munro: That's not what we're talking about here is you're talking about ⁓ a flexible type of leadership to take on board things that can be super important for people. ⁓ I think, you know, we talk about that interpersonal nature of things and wellbeing and as the, know, what Richard touched about on as well is that, you know, we, what we experience as wellbeing ourselves is actually shared. You know, you,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: support. And this is why I believe that thriving has been adopted probably a lot more than flourishing has in the workplace because there's a sense of there's, you know, sometimes at the systemic level, there's always some struggles and environmental and organisational stresses, which leaders often have to do a job of kind of handling that and seeing, I'm trying to think of a suitable metaphor of, you know, what they let through.
Stu Munro: that head teacher example there is he realized actually by allowing this person to do that, they're going to come back into my organization and share that greater sense of wellbeing and flourishing because I've allowed them to do that. And I think that was such an important point that Richard was saying is that it's wellbeing isn't only individually experienced. It's shared with others. We've always been there, you know, you know, like everyone's maybe a bit.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: the floodgates I suppose and what they try and block coming through the floodgates I suppose and so that's a difficult job and leaders often do that through the often through either
Stu Munro: Hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: absorbing a responsibility or delegating responsibility as an example, at a systemic level. So there's for me those important distinctions which I think are really important. And yeah, going back to what I mentioned about stresses is that stress is indeed inevitable, but there is kind of ways in which mastery and wellbeing can be built and where opportunities can come from, you know, from
Stu Munro: down and gloomy and just that bright light of a person comes into the room and everyone's like, ⁓ yeah, that was good. Like maybe they, hey, or like just it changes the vibe because their sense of wellbeing is, ⁓ and he talks about this having wellbeing, having a ripple effect on others. We know this, right? So, you know, and that's got the powerful leadership implication, doesn't it? Because
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: the from consequences of stress. But there's determinants that make that a little bit more difficult if the frequency of stress is very high, if the severity and duration is high, then you know, that becomes almost difficult to manage.
Stu Munro: the emotional tone that you offer as a leader, if you're coming in and being autocratic and gotta do this and blah, that emotional tone, that behavior, that presence is gonna directly influence people's psychological state around them. We talk about emotional contagion, that we pick up on other people's emotions. So.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: But I think also what's really important to note, and this goes for different human beings, and I've been intrigued to get both of your thoughts on this, us psychologists probably from many different perspectives would maybe argue that we as human beings have a negativity bias, I suppose, in that we are hardwired to scan and assess threats in our environment.
Stu Munro: Again, we've got to strike this balance between authentic leadership and being open and openness to vulnerability and things like that. But at the same time, we want to be able to say to leaders is that as best you can, demonstrate composure, confidence, perspective to things. Is this actually a crisis or is this just a really challenging, difficult moment? And that can help stabilize this emotional environment. Okay. ⁓
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And so with that, we then need to almost reprogram our brain to kind of manage that, to manage that kind of filter in the sense that we're looking in our work environment for threats so that we can protect ourselves. But ultimately that might indeed program ourselves to have that negativity bias. And so therefore we need to look at ways in which we can program our minds, our systems to
Stu Munro: Yep. Just through the fact that you're offering a bit of a composure, people feel they got it. And when we feel that that person's got it, that we think, oh, maybe, if they can cope with it, I can cope with it too. So by doing this, thinking about your own emotional tone, behaviors, and things like that, you create that effectiveness of being a leader.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: promote positivity. I I wonder how that sits with you both, I guess, from your perspectives.
Stu Munro: ⁓ It's so interesting all of this, it? And then it goes to the complexity of it. But there are some bits there, particularly around the stress that I thought would be helpful. And I loved what you were saying about the nuance between flourishing and thriving and the thriving that sense of, yeah, you're doing well despite certain circumstances, for example. And also that people would thrive ⁓ the psychological conditions which people can kind of function more effectively and flourish.
Mark Tweedie: So Stuart, do think we've done it justice now?
Stu Munro: Well, I just, you know, I think maybe one, one or two last little things is that, you know, we've talked about the wellbeing literacies, this is about having conversations about wellbeing, having conversations about flourishing. And I think that's, you know, we haven't really touched on that yet, but, you know, Richard helped us to, you know, we talked, we went into this talking about wellbeing. potentially without even with support, whereas flourishing because you've got that personal and systemic side that this kind of impacts more to what a leader can help with then because you've got that systemic almost organizational interpersonal aspect. So that as a leader, we would be wanting to help people flourish. And going back to that bit then about And we've kind of shifted, come out of that to be talking a little bit more about flourishing. And he helped us understand that, know, wellbeing thriving, he kind of defined as, you know, that's individual functioning well, despite the environment. Whereas there's a lot of science that's building now where they're talking about flourishing. This is where the individual and the environment are functioning well. And I think that's where the leadership implications come in, isn't it? Because you know, organizational stress and stressors and how we make appraisals of stress and how we might, some people might perceive certain things as threatening, which then if that's an everydayness of threatening, would accumulate to a kind of chronic stress state. Whereas there might be others who perceive that as a little bit more as just a challenge. And I say just a challenge, but that appraisal element. The leaders set the environment, the systems, the processes, interpersonal coping, interpersonal relationship aspects of things. And then this last thing, just to kind of sum it up, is that... Now as a leader then, first off, I guess from a leadership perspective would be to ask people is to say, how are you evaluating this? What's going on? How are you interpreting this? Is this something you feel that you have the resources to cope or do you feel that you don't have the resources to cope? And this goes to this psychological term, Mark, we've talked about a lot self-efficacy and that how this is it's not about, you know, maybe doing a survey and people say, yeah, we're okay. And thinking, well, we've got it. We don't need to do anything. Well being is just a, they're all a set of good wellbeing now, aren't they? It's not fixed. It's dynamic, it changes. So, you know, we talked about the other podcasts with the severe job, but making relationship quality a strategic objective. Like if you say the core of your model is make wellbeing, make flourishing. this idea of mastery of being able to, and that idea of mastery leads to, I guess, your sense of coping resources that you've, through your past experiences, you are fully aware that you have certain capabilities that may help you in a certain situation. Now, as a leader, what we may be able to do is help identify people, those coping resources. a strategic objective, because it doesn't stay static. It does shift, you know, it is. And as Richard helped to share is that we're never really fully flourishing. What would that mean anyway? You know, and he talked, he said he's moving away from the word balance and more about harmony, which encapsulates that more that orchestra metaphor that we talked about how some things can be but also as a leader, if we are, you through that interpersonal connection, is able to identify where people are struggling and then offer support, their appraisal may change. Because that threat, often when we perceive that we've got support, may come down to a challenge appraisal. And, you know, this is... playing in tune and being awesome, but there's two or three little bits in your life that are just a bit out of tune and maybe that's where you need to focus on. But it's understanding that as people's lives, you know, and it does change. offers us things. Sometimes we do have to go through challenging things, but as leaders, you know, it's not about creating perfect conditions.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ That's where it all comes
Stu Munro: I go back to the sporting analogy is whenever we move to high risk training environments, one of the big things that we're always trying to get the coaches and staff around them is to make the athletes feel that they've got support reassured so that they're about to do this high risk thing, which they naturally with a negative bias would perceive as threat. But what we're helping them perceive is that they have support. that's impossible. But what it is, it's about creating environments where people can adapt, they can grow, they can get through difficult circumstances, they can continue functioning effectively even as circumstances change. So flourishing, I would say, is sustained more effectively through consistent leadership behaviour, not about creating ideal conditions. around them that might help them bring that appraisal down from threat to, know what, actually, I've got the resources to do this. I have the capabilities and the support around me to be able to go out and do this very dangerous thing. Mark, and then any things that you've picked up from that.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah, I think that's a brilliant way to finish and I think that's a strong message for leaders out there to say, know, create an environment that involves challenge, pushing people and allows people to adapt and grow. But at the same time, having those, having that discussion with people and really having sense checking on wellbeing to make sure you're just pushing enough. Yeah, I think just to catch all at the moment and just from my perspective, ⁓ there's two things. One thing is, one big issue here and that is stress is seen, from my experience anecdotally, stress is seen as something that you want to eliminate from the workplace. to ensure that people are flourishing but not burning out. And they're making time for exercise, they're eating well and they're feeling great in the workplace because unless we're pushing and adapting, then we're not gonna be achieving high performance. So I think that's a brilliant way to finish. So thanks Stuart. And the results of my evaluations I do are that, look, we're experiencing stress and we talk about that with a negative bias to use Richard's term before. then Stu, you're talking about, ⁓ you know, from a sporting context, you know, let's look at self-efficacy. Have you got the tools to kind of, you know, deal with this element of stress? You know, have you got the confidence to use those tools? And that's a really good strategy that we've talked about, haven't we, previously.
Stu Munro: It is and I think it is definitely something that I think we ought to speak to Richard again in the future. one of the things that we didn't see in the podcast, but Richard was ⁓ very open to is that he is Dr. Richard Simpson that leads Trinity University. I'm sure if you Googled on LinkedIn, he's very open to, you
Mark Tweedie: So I'm interested from a practical implementation point of view, ⁓ Richard, how we can turn this notion of stress in the corporate setting to more of an asset, you know, which is a real point of the work that you're doing in your interest. And how leaders can then be equipped with the skills so that
Stu Munro: Discussions and conversations around this which is such a lovely thing to offer to people because it ⁓ ⁓ an important thing in this day and age. hopefully we've unpacked a bit there, offered some ⁓ implications for leaders and that they can take on board and ⁓ view things a little bit differently.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm
Mark Tweedie: Conversations can be had about stress as an asset within the organisation, but at the same time, leaders can make sure that they're sensitive so that this stress doesn't go beyond coping and it can still be mastered. Thanks Stuart, next time.
Stu Munro: Cheers Mark.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yes, great, some great thoughts there and great questions there, Mark. I think for me, a reframing is often needed when it comes to stress. And this is not to say we're ignoring stress, that it happens and so on and so forth. For me, some of the current work that I'm working on as well, in addition to flourishing is the idea of what we call well-being literacy, which is more seeing well-being as a capability. a resource. So the idea that for me to I guess address your second question first in terms of what we can do for leaders, I think for me we need to promote well-being literacy, so how we communicate about and for well-being. ⁓
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So it's a relatively new term within the positive psychology literature. But for me, if we are reframing stress to the idea of wellbeing literacy, then we almost need to start talking about from a more broader sense in terms of what language and communication tools we have to communicate about wellbeing and for wellbeing. How, for example, can we recognise, and some of my workers looked at this, know, how one person person's wellbeing might be ⁓ individually experienced but also shared with other people, how one's wellbeing might have a ripple effect on other people as well. So that's almost one part of understanding that picture. But yeah, from a wellbeing literacy sense, there's a need at kind of almost a cultural level to understand how... and it goes into everything I suppose culturally in terms of the symbols values and whatnot but also the communication in throughout an organization about well-being how on par and aligned is it ⁓ how is that shifting an organization to in their ways in which they all mutually understand well-being and all mutually have this sense of emotional intelligence in many ways that can understand where there's pinch points within an organization or calendar, I suppose, where there's going to be at the pinch points that stress is going to be quite difficult to manage and that we need to have a high sense of support to, you know, the high challenge, high support kind of elements, I suppose. So we call this in psychology, the challenge support matrix. When you have a high challenge or high stresses, you need high support to meet that. So I think almost being able to do that and plan ahead with that is one element of which, you know, in terms of
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: what leaders can do in their planning and organisation is really important, as well as their commitment, I say commitment, because this is almost suggesting another educational seminar, which I'm sure they have so much to do. But in terms of, you know, how we can map out for leaders and map out for their you know, for want of a better word, followers and, you know, direct reports, you know, like here's the kind of rich terrain of wellbeing. And, you know, here's the various experiences that we might come across in the workplace. And this is how we're going to promote awareness of all these different rich and diverse experiences whilst recognising there's opportunities within here that some wellbeing may not be desirable or may not be something that one can experience short-term pleasure from, but more something that the challenge is an opportunity to grow from. ⁓ I'm in danger of going off in their tangent, I suppose, with that response, but I'll be in shape to get you going back in there, Mark.
Mark Tweedie: Can I? In that case, Richard, you've mentioned a word, culture, a couple of times. So that prompts me, because this is something I talk about a lot within organizations. And I'm really fascinated to understand the links you've made between culture and stress. And I think you've touched on it a couple of times there with what you've just been talking about. But I'd love you to elaborate.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ yes. Mmm. Mmm. Yes, so there's almost dimensions of stresses that could be cultural. Now when we get into conversations around culture... This is where it gets really complex, right? Because people have different understandings of whether culture is something that we have or something that we are. And so that's then between a subjective and an objective distinction. So there is a very messy discussion talking about culture, but I guess talking about almost like cultural elements or organisational cultural elements. And you're bringing in kind of elements about either from one or the other perspective in terms of what we have. have, in terms of maybe from a resource-based perspective, which might align with stress, in terms of, know what Stu was mentioning about, do we have the resources to manage and deal with the demands of an environment? So maybe that's almost kind of slightly objective, I suppose. Though, if we're understanding culture from what we are, from a subjective almost perspective, then it's almost kind of accepting and, you know, there's different ways in which you might deal with stress, whether it's a reframing of what stress is or an accepting that it's part of the natural work environment. And then so from a cultural perspective, when you're linking stress is how Can we... sensitively and compassionately approach the idea that stress is part of this work environment and then kind of managing any potential consequences with that. So I've used the word stressor a lot and the difference between stress and stressor is that stress is almost like an umbrella term. So from a transactional perspective, stress is not only the stressor but also how we appraise the stressor and then how
Stu Munro: .
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: we cope with the stressor and almost a transaction between the event, which is a stressor, between how we perceive that event and then how we cope with that event and then all the emotions that are ensued with that. So there is that kind of like transactional perspective and there's a sense of we can reframe, like through an appraisal, we reframe our appraisals of what stress and what is stressful. And then there's also the element which is more coming into psychology at the moment around acceptance and tolerance. Now I've heard the quote used before about culture being the behavior that culture being defined by the behavior that you believe least accept or something along those lines. But like the behavior that you're not, your culture is defined by the behavior you tolerate essentially.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So for me, there is that element of uncertainty coming into the conversations, which often can define an organisational culture, precarity and uncertainty. unpredictability, suppose. And whether I guess from a cultural level, you know, how prepared are people in the workplace and how prepared our leaders to kind of manage and work with uncertainty and knowing that uncertainty itself is what we as psychologists would call a situational property that underlines that transaction, that stress process. So uncertainty, for example, will determine how we, you know, the stresses that come up in the environment, how we perceive them and how we cope with them. So I think for me, the situational properties have clear links to a culture. And for us, culture can very much define those situational properties, which in turn will define how we, how the stresses we experience, how we view those stresses and how we cope with them as well. Does that make sense? I suppose it is that? Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah it does it does it's it and there's so much in that and I think there's just there's probably one last thing that I want to kind of say and maybe ⁓ kind of unpick a bit more there is that ⁓ you mentioned emotional intelligence and you mentioned this notion look if there's an event you know our response to that event dictates the kind of outcome
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: And for me, you know, working with leaders, you know, I talk about creating the organizational conditions for people to thrive or flourish, to use your terminology. And it's the role that leaders have either consciously or unconsciously.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm ⁓ Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: to support people to respond effectively to events in such a way that they're not overstressed or that stress becomes an asset. So it's the leadership's behavior, leader's behavior and role to make sure that people can respond in the best way they can to any given event. And the expectation is in a high performing environment, there's lots of events because you're pushing all the time, you're taking risks, you're trying to innovate and everything else.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah.
Mark Tweedie: It's just the skills that a leader needs to ensure that that response is effective and how much of that is about having emotional intelligence.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: I I agree. think emotional intelligence and being able to, yeah, go for it too. Sorry. Yeah.
Stu Munro: Can I? I was just going to say, it's, you know, trying to kind of unpack this, this bit about, you know, stress culture and stuff like this. And you started with something that I think, wrote this down because I thought it was quite interesting is that stress, we've said that often is the something that we want to eliminate. And, and we use language around, you know, wanting to get rid of stress. so we build this rhetoric around stress being this bad thing. And ⁓ it went to this next point about how are we communicating well-being then. And what we said before is actually moments that evoke a stress response actually might be part of flourishing. And so as a leader in this cultural, this reframing thing then, it could be, I'm just wondering in your research and your opinion on this is that within a culture then if we were able to reframe and I'm not undermining people's experiences of ⁓ stress that's where they're maybe not feeling they are able to cope but if we were able to reframe as a senior leader for example if we were able to reframe as you say the pinch points where we know that we might have high challenge ahead as opportunity, learning, growth, that yes, this is going to be difficult, but you know what, I'm going to be there, I will be there and the team will be there to support you. Do you think that would then impact the person's appraisal of the experience, which then would impact their appraisal of stress and their coping, which may lead to them flourishing bit more effectively in that challenging time.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. So much to unpack there and I think there's some commonalities coming out and hopefully I'll try and address your point Mark and Stuze because there's some really good stuff in there. So when we're getting into topics such as emotional intelligence, I'd even throw one in there like emotional labour is another interesting topic. And then we're talking about ⁓ the reframing of appraisals and the influence of other people. In my research that I've done in sport environments and I've kind of been looking into kind of those relationship elements. There's the ideas of, I guess there's shared appraisals that we almost are one of one person's appraisals can influence the appraisals that other people make. So if someone deems something to be a threat that might have an influence on how someone else might view something to be a threat.
Stu Munro: Right. Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ So there's those elements. There's also elements that my research has found in published work about the idea of interpersonal coping. So the idea of the shared element around coping and how sometimes, you know, we, there's different circumstances on this in terms of, you know, how people might attempt to cope first with their stress and then go towards another person or someone might look to
Stu Munro: Right.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: cope through someone else first, and then if that's not successful, then they try and cope with it with themselves. Maybe it's a reality of a little bit of both there. And then guess links finally to guess Mark's point around emotional intelligence, there's so many different terms that one could talk about. So the emotional intelligence is managing your own emotions and other people's emotions. Then there's the idea of emotional labour, the idea of how we put on the performance a little bit, we might mask our emotions, we might engage in what we call surface acting. So the idea of like, we're feeling really annoyed and frustrated, but we're putting on a big smile whilst you know, feeling really frustrated. So that kind of sort of emotional labour. I would add another one in there, which is emotional contagion, which I think is a huge topic within the workplace. And I think for me, ⁓ it's yeah, those emotions from an emotional perspective, managing those emotions.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: through either reappraising them, reframing them from one, guess, mean, cognitive behavioral therapy is very broad, but from one aspect, maybe from a rational, emotive behavioral perspective, we might want to kind of reframe and rationalize and normalize some of what's been experiencing in the workplace. And then there's also on the other side of that CBD spectrum, the idea of acceptance and tolerance. which is also really important. Now I would suggest that that acceptance can't fully happen unless it's shared or acknowledged by someone else. If acceptance is just in the case of sometimes you might reach that individually, but if you're kind of encouraged, leader tells you you've just got to accept it, this is stressful and you've just got to accept it, then that almost might lead to some form of avoidance, which you know is not necessarily effective. But like yeah, if I was to share, you know, to link those points you mentioned together, it kind of brings in the idea of that interpersonal and shared element being really important. The interactions between leaders and their followers, the communication of well-being between leaders and their followers through all these different topics that we've discovered, or discovered, sorry, have explored, sorry, are really, really important. And so, yeah, I think in order to do all of that, we need to kind of broaden our understandings of wellbeing and promote a broader literacy of what wellbeing is and what goals there are for wellbeing and what are the common goals that can be developed for wellbeing within a sport organisation and then how this is in turn communicated and has a trickle down or grounded up kind of approach, I suppose. I mean, how's that landing with you both? I've tried to answer two questions in one go.
Stu Munro: No, it's been very helpful. just again, what I'm taking from this is this, and what you were leading to there, and this is kind of what this podcast is about, what are some of the practical implications that leaders can begin to do? And it almost starts with this communication of wellbeing flourishing, that broadening our understanding of it. And in that, and I wanted you to share, I'll come back to some of my points is that again, when we first met, Richard, helped with this because my brain works in metaphors and you helped me with this understanding of well-being flourishing around is rather than thinking of it in linear perspectives of is to think of it like an orchestra where there may be some elements that are actually working really well, but there may be two or three
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you Mmm.
Stu Munro: bits of the orchestra that are just not playing in tune. And that might be what your attention needs. Now, obviously there's a self-awareness aspect of that. And I think that's been such a helpful way of encapsulating that. But what we often do is because those two, three little aspects are playing out in tune, we think our whole life is... or we think our whole sense of wellbeing is gone, is not good. Whereas if we actually begin, we think in that, if we zoom out and think in that multi-dimensional approach, we might be able to say, actually, my relationships are really good here, my social activities are really good here, my health and fitness is really good here. It's just, do you know what? It's just these two, three little bits here. And that perspective might offer you a different appraisal then.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm. Hmm.
Stu Munro: to begin shifting and you maybe notice the pinch points and say, well, what can I add, subtract to those little areas that might be helpful? Now from a leader perspective, then, you know, it really kind of helped me see is how could a leader take some of what we're talking about to help with practical implications. So you talked about there's a relationship element and sharing appraisal. So as a team sitting down and go, We do have some challenging times ahead, right? But let's unpack this challenging time. What have we got? What capabilities have we got that are gonna help us through here? What support can we put in place? So now you're sharing the narrative, the communication, the language around it. So it's not all threat, doom and gloom. ⁓ my God, it's like, yeah, this is challenging. But you know what? I think we've got this. It's gonna be tough, but together you have that shared appraisal. Now... you have a sense of interpersonal coping. You get shared coping now. Shared coping, you can go back to past experiences of mass and getting through. You know what? We've been here before. Remember like two years ago, we had this tough time. You know what? We got through it. That's that shared coping. And then, of course, what you're then doing is you're taking on board that kind of emotional contagion element. So as a senior leader, as you say, it's not about masking emotions or surface masking, as you kind of said, that almost, it's almost being in, we've talked in previous podcasts about being empathic and compassionate to sort of say, yeah, this is tough. And actually I might be having a tough time here too, and that's okay. But in sharing that, it kind of goes, ⁓ actually I thought I was the only one that was struggling here. And that, you know, that shading around emotion and,
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Stu Munro: ⁓ normalizing experiences in the workplace can go that way to allowing people to feel accepted to, ⁓ actually, we have this support in place, the coping resources. We have been here before to have that sense of ⁓ tolerance to it. So I was just I was kind of thinking around the practical implications there and how then a leader could use that, a lot of it, when you begin to put all of that together, if you're doing that effectively, that is going to impact the culture. Now, I haven't said a question there, I guess I'm just maybe asking your kind of thoughts around the orchestra metaphor, which I wanted to get in because I know it's a wonderful metaphor you shared with me, and just that those kind of practical implications for a leader.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm. Thank Yeah. Yes, well firstly I want to give a little bit of a shout out to colleagues at the Human Flourishing Programme for their work on that metaphor. So there's a paper called The Garden and the Orchestra. So there's obviously metaphors such as the garden which speaks to the kind of systems and personal metaphor in which they've defined flourishing linked to that metaphor and then the orchestra like the sense of harmony. I'm always a fan of the word harmony rather but that's maybe another thing to come back to. yeah, think coming down to, yeah, so the shout out I was going to give was to the Human Flourishing Programme and anyone listening who's intrigued in looking into their work.
Stu Munro: ⁓
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: So Tim Lomas, Tyler Van der Weeler, and even Richard Cowden, who I'm doing some work with on metaphors at the moment. yeah, they've done some great work on those metaphor fronts on flourishing and indeed on suffering and what they're looking into as well. guess, yeah, moving on from that to the practical implications. I've been thinking about a lot about this knowledge translation and about the very things that we were mentioning, how can we, you know, allow opportunities for this? In amongst kind of the limited time that leaders and people with responsibilities in an organization have, you know, in terms of we could, for example, provide recommendations that you need to add this and do more and do this and so on and so forth. But Obviously every organization is unique and there will be things that will work and not work according to in terms of how they operate and function in their culture. However, what I've typically seen done well you know, typically within organizations is things such as when I say wellbeing panels, I mean kind of having these forums for things to be shared, I suppose, in the ways in which you described Stu. I would also link to leadership, one thing, and I'd be curious to know what you think about this and whether it's been successful in practice in the ways you guys have seen it, but I'm a huge fan of the idea of reverse mentoring. So with the idea of reverse mentoring, obviously mentoring is often seen one way in terms of that vertical dynamic, the leader supporting the follower. But if you can create a dynamic through reverse mentoring where it's two way, as leadership for me is a two way kind of relationship, where you're creating in those leadership conversations that often have, like for example, in my organisation, I have a half an hour chat each month with my line manager. If in times like that, there's an opportunity for two way feedback, you know, and kind of a two way dialogue where reverse mentoring is also taking place, then you're kind of developing and lead and kind of moving forward together. And with that kind of reverse mentoring, you can see opportunities where when I think of leadership, often leaders are having to differentiate between logic and emotion. When is the times a leader has to be more emotional and so therefore they can resonate with the people that are following them and with the organization. When is it, it's a bit too chaotic and too emotional where you need to bring logic, reason and calm and rationality into the conversation. Now actually when it comes to reverse mentoring, I think that's a really good way of ⁓ sharpening those abilities is being able to differentiate between when emotion is needed and when logic and getting feedback through reverse mentoring in terms of I've misread the situation. ⁓ been too robotic, know, being too much like Spock in my reasoning and whatnot? Or when is there an opportunity here to show character? When is there an ability to, I think personally, reverse mentoring is an initiative which could potentially enhance a leader's credibility. If done right, now, of course, there's always two sides to every coin, I suppose, reverse mentoring, know, you need to show there is the kind of balance of leaders wanting to show that they can.
Stu Munro: Yes.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you know, lead and take responsibility and lead by example, and that they can make decisions under pressure and whatnot. But I don't think there's any harm in a little bit of professional vulnerability personally, like, you know, and engaging in reverse initiatives, like reverse mentoring is one of the ways of doing that well being forums. Now, sometimes they can be a bit tokenistic, but we're starting to see more in organisations, the ideas of well being champions. which is obviously you're putting the responsibility beyond just a psychologist or a hotline or the organizations where you can get six free sessions as part of a package deal or whatnot. I think there's a lot more opportunities through, and this is actually linking back to think what you mentioned at the start, Mark, and the idea of where's the expertise in psychology. Now obviously the assumption is it's with the psychologist, but for me, this is where I see that psychology is everywhere. And that's a bit of a cliche and a bit cheesy, but I see the expertise in psychology can be shared among people. And this is where we can bring in responsibilities and roles, like I mentioned, like reverse mentoring, whilst evaluating it as well and seeing how it works and what can be tweaked. Reverse mentoring, wellbeing champions, wellbeing forums. And then opportunities where in performance decisions, I mean, my ambition, and this is a very ambitious one, which gets into another conversation altogether, we have key performance indicators. Could one of those KPIs in organizations be about well-being? Or could we just all together just rewrite the script and have key performance indicators and key well-being indicators? That might be something that listeners may respond well to or think, ⁓ goodness me, what have you just, what kind kind of words have you just opened up there?
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ but you know,
Stu Munro: Is that not like dress down Fridays and pizza Tuesdays? Is that not what organisations have to... Is that not a dress and well being?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Well, yeah, well, you guys will, yeah, you guys will know better than me in that regard. those are just the starts of some practical thoughts. I mean, yeah, sorry, go for it, Mark.
Mark Tweedie: Richard. No, Richard, I just want to pick up on something. I mean, loads of stuff in there terms of practical, you know, implications and tools for leaders. what you mentioned about reverse mentoring, I think is definitely worthy of a whole other discussion with you. I'm mindful of the time. I'd love to have that. Stuart's nodding as well because One of the things that I've found and something that I've been passionate about over my career is this notion of asking your people, not telling them. As a reverse mentor, what you're doing is you're saying, look, I want to ask you, I want to ask you how I can be a better leader. Or in other words, what is it you need from me in order for you to be able to do the best job you possibly can? Because I have a role as a leader in terms of creating the conditions in my organization.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm.
Mark Tweedie: for all the people to flourish and thrive.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, yeah.
Mark Tweedie: What is it I can do? And then understanding that what and then following up with another question as a leader. How can I do that? When can I do it? Could I do it for other people? What does success look like? know, you're actively seeking to be mentored by the people in your charge and that creates a huge level of agency and empowerment for the people in your charge.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Hmm. Mmm. Yes.
Mark Tweedie: and I'm making an assumption here and maybe a quick comment on this but from you would be helpful. But when you have that sense of agency empowerment, what's the impact on your wellbeing?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: It's huge. And I guess so if when we're talking about well being, and I want to make this distinction earlier, but when I talk about well being as different divisions of labour when it comes to well being as your mental well being, your physical well being, social well being, spiritual well being, I would also then add another one in terms of someone might talk about digital well being as well. That's another discussion, but the idea of volitional well being. the idea of how much of a choice and kind of ⁓ capacity to make a difference and make change do you have. So I think for me, the volitional dimension of wellbeing is really important. you have the capacity and opportunity to make decisions ⁓ and to input on things you may feel is right or wrong? ⁓ And this brings in again the important dimension of character and the important dimensions of character and virtue into leadership. And for me, you know, and I've prepared for this, guess later if the question does come up, but for me, this is the idea that people, the idea, and I won't go into it too much, but the idea of virtuous leadership for me is important. And there's so many different assets and dimensions of leadership itself, but I am for me, like a lot of wellbeing work is like underpinned by Aristotle.
Stu Munro: It will.
Mark Tweedie: Bye.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: ⁓ But for me, I think it's really important that virtue can be considered within leadership, which it is a lot of the time. ⁓ for me, like virtuous leadership and character ⁓ links really nicely to that volitional element as well. And it's so important to have that.
Mark Tweedie: Hear hear, 100 % Richard and I think if we can learn anything as leaders, just show up with virtue and that will take you an incredible distance with your team, an incredible distance consistently. It's a superpower that is often undervalued I think. You can talk about it but actually being consistent with your behaviors when you're under pressure.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: you Yeah. you Yeah, ⁓ goodness me, yeah. Yes.
Mark Tweedie: sometimes that's where you know our fight-flight mechanism that you mentioned earlier our negative bias can send us perhaps in a direction that's not necessarily conducive with helping everybody flourish.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Yeah, and I mean, what I'd come back on as well is when I think of virtues and all the different virtues that everyone talks about, what Aristotle talked about, one thing that sticks to me about the one virtue that guarantees the rest of the virtues is courage. And I really like that. I really love the idea of courage in a leader. The courage has been defined by Aristotle as the virtue that guarantees all the rest. It has also been referred to in iconic, you know, well-known people in the past. think about Napoleon, who talked about this two o'clock in the morning courage. ⁓ almost that sense of spontaneous courage that, you know, in the middle and leaders are often in the thick of it, right? And I think Napoleon was obviously in the thick of it in the battles and wars, thought, but I think this rings true with me when you're in the thick of it, you need that spontaneous courage, because that then is the kind of, that's the starting point that guarantees the rest of the virtues that you see. unfortunately, sometimes it will go unnoticed, you know, the courage is quiet, right? It's the whole metaphors we're talking about, courage isn't this kind of really
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: and loud roar of a lion, but it's just kind of a little whisper of, I'm gonna continue onward. I'm gonna make a brave decision and just keep going. Again, you talk about reverse mentoring being on almost different podcasts, but so is courage. I'm so passionate about the idea of courage and from a personal perspective, but also from my views on wellbeing and flourishing and leadership as well.
Stu Munro: Well.
Mark Tweedie: I love that. What you mentioned earlier as well, Richard, was that you mentioned the word vulnerability and courage and vulnerability coexist, don't they? You have to be courageous as a leader to demonstrate vulnerability because, you know, know, traditional forms of, you know, ⁓
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mmm.
Mark Tweedie: you know, kind of, you know, the knight on a white horse style leadership is we don't show vulnerability, but actually if you're courageous and show it that can do a huge amount in terms of developing trust, cohesion amongst your team and ultimately that sense of actually I can take risks, I can get things wrong, I can push hard with and maintain a good sense of well-being here because I don't have that fear of judgment because we share our vulnerabilities.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Yeah Yeah ⁓ goodness me. I want to shout out a book very quickly and it's based off, it's called, it's The Courage to Be Disliked. There's The Courage to Be Disliked. ⁓ so I won't spoil anything. The Courage to Be Disliked and then it has a sequel, I The Courage to Be Happy.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Stu Munro: ⁓ go on then.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah.
Stu Munro: Yes, I'm reading that right just now.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, it touches on very much a lot of the things that we're discussing about and for me I'm someone the reason that what reinforces my views on courage is actually through a admittedly geeky Admission here, but actually through watch reading stories and watching superhero movies and you know I mean some of can go over the top right but one of my favorite movies of all time is the Dark Knight and a quote that I've actually written down here and obviously this is in context and we could easy paraphrase it. So I'm gonna try and paraphrase it, you might recognise it. But is a hero, or I say a leader can be anyone, even someone doing something as simple and reassuring as putting a coat around a young person's shoulders to let them know the world. I'll paraphrase a little bit of that.
Stu Munro: Mm-hmm.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, the idea that in the end of the Dark Knight film, you know, he's not really seen as a superhero. He's a Dark Knight. He's not what the people want, but it's what they need. And I think, yeah, that kind of desirability and need and usefulness links back to what we've mentioned a little bit as well, that sometimes you've got to make difficult decisions with well-being. There's the elements of desirability often when it comes to well-being, but sometimes we need to surpass desirability sometimes and do what is necessarily needed.
Stu Munro: Yeah.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: leaders have to be courageous to make that decision, which is why I quite like putting them in that kind of element of that quote, of that Dark Knight quote there, because they do what's necessary even if it's not desirable.
Stu Munro: And you've said this way, there's beautifully to that question, which we normally ask at the beginning or a podcast, Richard, then you've kind of almost answered that. maybe if I asked the question, you can give that summary kind of thing. what we do ask people is that, you know, in your view, what's your perspective around the difference between good leadership and great leadership?
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah. Go for it. ⁓ goodness me. I'll start with great leadership because I have a, I've been trying to work on an aphorism that just summarises it and doesn't go off on a tangent and kind of make this podcast any longer. So a great leader holds a mirror up to your own humanity. I think that's an aphorism that I quite like about great leadership. Now, if I was to tease that apart, a good leader for me might still be virtuous and might still hold some virtues and might lead by example, might work hard, might show elements of character, might show some elements of wisdom. They called it in ancient Greece, phronesis, that sense of practical wisdom. They might show some... character and might have elements of integrity, honesty and and whatnot. But the best leadership I've seen actually brings in courage is when a great leader gets the people that follow them or work with them to consider their own humanity and you know holding up that mirror to your own humanities often done through when you're inspired by someone or through when someone opens up to you or showing vulnerability and showing courage and and showing compassion as we discussed that willingness to try and reduce the suffering of other people. And yeah, that's how I would define it. How I've seen it in great leaders is that, you know, that is, it goes into sport, I suppose, but, you know, often the idea where leadership is thrust upon someone, right? The idea is the best leaders are the people that's thrust upon them, they didn't want it. But that's where I've seen the best leadership and the best leadership that I've experienced has been someone who's been willing to be professionally vulnerable and courageous and compassionate.
Stu Munro: Mm-mm. Man.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Yeah, to meaningfully make efforts to connect with me During what has probably been busy times for them I mean that's a whole different debate altogether about busyness how I don't think I ever not met anyone who's not busy You know, great leads don't use that as an excuse great leaders are courageous and compassionate Appreciate that everyone is busy and you know do not use that as an excuse We've all got how many hours in the day in our working day
Stu Munro: Yes.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: And yeah, you know, I think for me that's really important. yeah, holding up a mirror to your own humanity, someone who inspires you, someone who, you know, brings out the good in you, ⁓ but brings out the good in terms of the good of your wellbeing, in terms of like, you you feeling good and thinking good and flourishing and whatnot, but also brings out the moral good as well, that kind of sense of you want to do right. as a result of ⁓ them, of their influence on you. But I'll stop there because I could go on.
Stu Munro: That is being, well, ⁓ we could probably talk for easily for another hour. I think what we've got there is what Mark and I do is we'll do our best to unpack that a little bit in our next little section. But Richard, thank you so much for that. I think it's the richness that you've offered around this complex thing that I'm hoping is allowing people to kind of, right, I have a little bit of a better idea around this thing now. And also some practical insights to how they may help as a leader, may help their teams, their employees to flourish in difficult circumstances.
Mark Tweedie: Yeah, I think I'm really looking forward to us getting together Stuart to kind of, you know, review this discussion. And it's been fascinating for me. And the thing that's the thing that's in my mind at the moment is how if leaders, most leaders will recognise well-being is really important. But what we've what we've got here is we've really got into starting to unpack the complexity of it and actually how important it is. and how it really should feature for leaders in organizations as an objective that they kind of look at, they manage. know Richard you talked about you know... What about having some performance indicators around wellbeing? And a lot of organizations are getting into that, but is it actually measuring the right thing? You know, and those are some of the questions you're asking here and the complexity of ⁓ it that you go through. And then that term, wellbeing literacy, you know, what does that look like for an organization and how can people create an understanding of wellbeing literacy? And then the behaviors in order to... further good wellbeing in your organisation because of that understanding. So many questions. I think it's fantastic. It'd be wonderful if you could come back on the podcast another time, I think. Thank you.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Absolutely, I would love to. I mean, it always, yeah, my head's gonna be buzzing after this discussion as well, because in terms of the ways in which this has led me into some different thoughts as well. And yeah, it's been great to get both of your insights and knowledge as well, because this is the thing between research and practice is sometimes you are very well and you're right to...
Stu Munro: Likewise.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: saying what the heck is that researcher talking about in their ivory tower? But it's really important that we have conversations like this and that literacy or that knowledge translation is really important. So yeah, I'm more than happy to come back and talk about whatever else you would like to discuss around well-being, leadership, flourishing or whatever that might be.
Stu Munro: Well, I think we will all look forward to that. And I just want to finish up by saying, Richard, thank you so much. think you've, as I say, our listeners are going to go away with a much better idea of around well-being flourishing and how to, you know, implicate, ⁓ put that into practice as a leader. So thank you very much.
Dr Richard A.C. Simpson: Mark, thanks Stu, thank you so much.
