173 | How to Build a Better Workplace Culture (So People Thrive at Work), with Aoife O’Brien

The culture in our workplace has a massive impact

on us and everyone we work with.

It shapes how people feel at work, how they work together, and whether

they can do their best work.

And of course, all of that feeds into how well the businesses and the

organisations that we work for perform.

But it can feel like a bit of a mystery.

How can we shape the culture of our workplaces, and what is it

that we all need to thrive at work?

It's such an important topic for anyone who works in HR, so I'm really excited

to be exploring it again today on this HR Coffee Time podcast with you.

If we haven't met before, hello, I'm Fay Wallis.

I'm a career and executive coach, as well as being the host of this show, the

creator of The Essential HR Planner and the Inspiring HR Leadership programme.

It's wonderful to have you listening or watching today.

And if you're a regular listener or watcher of the show, welcome back.

It's great to have you here.

And today you are going to be meeting the fabulous Aoife O'Brien.

If you're a longtime listener to the show, you may remember Aoife from when she was

a guest back in episode 107, which was called The Impact of Imposter Syndrome

at Work and How To Tackle It Head-On.

In today's episode, Aoife shares the framework that she's developed to

help organisations create workplace cultures where people can thrive.

We explore the role that leaders play in shaping culture, why psychological safety

matters so much, and practical ideas to help people do their best work and

get more from their experience of work.

To tell you a little bit more about Aoife, she is the founder of Happier

at Work, and she's also the host of the award-winning Happier at Work podcast.

She's a culture and leadership expert, and her debut book, Thriving Talent:

How Great Leaders Drive Performance, Engagement, and Retention, was released

at the end of March this year, and it has already been featured by Forbes

and is an Irish Times bestseller.

I hope you're going to enjoy learning from Aoife as much as I did.

Let's go ahead and meet her now.

Welcome back to the show, Aoife.

It is so wonderful to have you here.

Aoife O'Brien: Thanks for having me, Fay.

I'm really looking forward to this conversation.

Oh, me too, because since we last met each other, you have become

I'm going to hold up for anyone who's watching the video, this is Aoife's book.

Aoife has become a world-famous, incredibly successful author.

All I keep seeing are all these incredible LinkedIn posts showing her on TV, b-

where she's been invited to talk about the book at all these different events,

where she's been asked to share the book.

So it feels like a real honor that we have you on the show today to

talk about your fabulous book.

It's called Thriving Talent: How Great Leaders Drive Performance,

Engagement and Retention.

So super exciting to have you here and to talk about the book with us.

Aoife O'Brien: Thanks so much.

And I forgot, Fay, that you actually, you obviously have your copy of the book to

show people, so that's really exciting.

I do have my copy of the book, and in fact, I think I've done

a book giveaway … Well, I have done a book giveaway once before,

which was absolutely ages ago.

This is such a great read.

I thought for listeners of the show, I will definitely do a book giveaway.

So if you leave a comment under the YouTube video, or you do a LinkedIn

post about this episode talking about- why you'd like a copy of the book or

what you enjoyed about the episode, then I will enter you into a prize

draw to win my copy of the book.

Well, actually, not my copy of the book, 'cause I'm keeping this

one, an extra copy of the book.

So, um, yeah, hopefully people are going to enjoy doing that.

Something a bit different for us all.

Aoife O'Brien: Absolutely.

Sounds fab.

And don't forget, Fay, that there is a discount for anyone who is listening today

or watching today indeed, uh, if they use the discount code FAY, and we've put the

link where you can use that code below.

I think you have a direct link as well, I believe, to include, so people can

just click, and, uh, the- the link, the, uh, discount is already applied.

Oh, fab.

Okay.

I'll pop that link in the show notes and in the YouTube description.

And if anyone can't find it, just send me a message on LinkedIn.

But we better stop talking about all the excitement about this and actually

dive into some questions, Aoife.

Uh, hopefully we've built up the excitement levels though for people

to learn more about the book.

So I'm gonna start off with two questions for you.

The first one is what made you decide to write the book?

And the second one is who have you written it for?

Aoife O'Brien: Both really good questions.

So I think the first one I'll answer in maybe a couple of different ways, like

I've always wanted to write a book.

I just never knew that that was going to be a business book.

I think when I worked in corporate, I had an idea that maybe I could possibly,

potentially write a business book, but up until that point, it was like, oh, it's a

novel, it's a story, something like that.

So I always had this kind of inner thing that I wanted, and I think a

lot of people can relate to that.

I think a lot of people feel like they have a book in them that they

want to- to kind of get that out.

And the second reason was because of the experiences that I had at work, so

I had a, two experiences in particular, which people can read more about

in the book, but those experiences kind of drove me to seek out answers

as to what's not working with work.

I was always really ambitious.

I was always working in these really positive working environments, and

then I experienced on two different occasions where it, that wasn't happening.

So I called into question myself, my- my own value, my own worth, and I also sought

answers like what should leaders have been doing, what should HR have been doing.

And, you know, the- the HR thing is- is- W- as I was writing the book, I

thought, "That's, that's interesting," because since I, I never worked in HR,

I always worked in corporate roles, but my perception when I worked in those

corporate roles was that HR should be the ones to fix all of this stuff.

And as time has gone on, I've realised it's not just HR's responsibility,

it's leaders' responsibility.

So with that in mind, I wrote the book very much focusing on leaders,

and it's not to say that HR won't take something away from this book.

I think it's something they can use with their leaders.

Uh, someone described it as an encyclopedia.

Someone else described it as like a Bible for leadership that people

can refer to again and again.

Um, so that's who … And I had a very specific leader in mind.

I didn't always stick to it when I was doing my writing, but

certainly when I started writing the book, when I structured it,

that was what I had in mind.

Her name was Sarah.

She was a senior leader in a global organisation, and I tried

to kind of steer it towards like I'm speaking to this one person.

Yeah, that's so helpful, I think, when you decide

to speak to one person, isn't it?

It really means that as you're reading the book as well, you can

see how you get that feeling that you are being written to directly.

Mm-hmm.

Even if I may not be Sarah, your imaginary person.

And in the book, you share your thriving talent framework, which

is made up of different components.

Could you just quickly talk us through what those components are?

Aoife O'Brien: Yeah, of course.

Yeah, so it has evolved over time, but I've landed on this now.

So it's a foundation of psychological safety.

That's feeling safe to speak up and challenge the status quo

without fear of consequences.

Uh, so if you imagine it like a temple, we've got the foundation

of psychological safety.

We've got three pillars.

So the first pillar is workplace culture.

The second pillar is drivers.

The third pillar is capabilities.

And then the capstone, so it's like a little roof on the temple, is leadership.

And when I talk about leadership, I refer to self-leadership,

so how we lead ourselves, as well as leading other people.

Yeah.

And the idea being that actually if you follow this framework, you're going to

create this incredible culture and the conditions for everyone to really thrive.

I think one of the many things I really enjoyed about the book is the fact that

you can read it as someone who is working in an organization, and straightaway

take things that can actually make your own personal experience of work better.

Or you can read it as an HR professional and realize, okay, if I start doing

these things differently, if I put these ideas forward, if I speak to

leadership about this, then I, as an HR professional, can have a hugely

positive impact on the organization.

And then thirdly, if you're in a leadership role, no matter what kind of

leadership role that is, there's so much that you can take away from the book.

So I really like the fact that there's so much to take away, no

matter really what position that you're in at, in work for yourself.

Aoife O'Brien: Mm. And I did that deliberately.

So while it is targeting leaders, that's not to say that leaders

can't take that information and apply it to themselves as well.

So if you're thinking about, "Well, how do I use this with my team," you

can also turn it back on yourself and, and try and understand, "Well, where

are my values feeling a bit misaligned?

Where do I feel frustrated at work?

Where am I, are my needs not being met?

Where am I not getting the opportunity to use my strengths?

Or where is busy work or too many meetings, where are those things getting

in the way that I can't actually perform my day-to-day role, that I can't have

the impact that I would like to have?"

So I'm really glad that that came through, that it, you know, I very

deliberately wanted to make it accessible and practical for people

Well, you have definitely done that.

I think the framework really, really helps, having those different

components that you've taken us through.

How did you identify those different components as being the ones that are so

essential to create a thriving workplace?

Is that the right word, thriving workplace?

Yes.

Aoife O'Brien: I'm not sure

I've got that quite right.

Aoife O'Brien: No, absolutely.

Thriving workplace, that sounds ideal.

That's where people want to work, isn't it?

You know, somewhere that's really thriving.

Um, so the, if we take the middle three pillars, because

that's how the framework started.

I had those middle three pillars.

They came from the research I did as part of my master's.

So I had those two experiences that I mentioned, and after that

second experience, I really, uh, I didn't really know where to turn.

I left my role.

I had nothing to go to.

I had nothing lined up, and it was the first time I'd ever done

that because up until that point, I always had an excuse, let's say.

Like I was going traveling, or I was, uh, looking for another job,

or whatever it might have been.

In that most recent role, I left, and I had nothing to go to, and

I ended up doing a master's.

Now, the irony is I looked into doing that master's previously, but I thought I

would have to wait for a year and a half before the next round of the master's

started, and that was too long to wait.

The irony being I probably did, I did, end, ended up doing it later than I

would have had I applied at that stage.

So I did this research.

I asked those hard questions about w- you know, why are people so unhappy at work?

What does it mean to really fit in or to belong at work?

And I came up with this framework, and at that time, the language has

evolved since then, but at that time, I looked at things like values

and values alignment specifically.

I looked at need satisfaction at work, making sure our needs are being satisfied,

and then looking at our strengths And the, the academic language talks more about our

abilities, and I changed the language just to be a bit more, I suppose, uh, company

friendly, so I talk about strengths.

But in the process, and I think it was in the process of writing the book, the

language of those three elements evolved.

So it's not just about our values, it's about the behaviors that we see around us.

It's about the workplace culture more generally.

It's not just about our individual needs being met, it's understanding

what our unique needs are.

It's understanding about these other things like derailers that are inner

drives, but they don't help us to succeed.

So perfectionism could be a derailer, for example.

It's an inner drive.

You really want everything to be perfect, but actually it's

holding you back in some way.

So I've kind of renamed it as drivers rather than just needs.

And then the third element around strengths has been broadened to

capabilities, so it's not looking just at individuals, it's looking

at organization-wide capabilities.

By understanding what each individual's strengths are, how they complement each

other, so they may antagonize each other from time to time, the idea there, I

think, um, you know, one of the, the kind of main differences, let's say,

is the big-picture thinker versus the detail-oriented person, and they may kind

of run into a bit of trouble if they're put to work together not understanding

the strengths that each other brings.

So really understanding that.

But also in the capability section, it's not just about unleashing our strengths,

uh, which is definitely something we don't talk enough about at work.

We don't talk about what people are really strong at and what really energizes them.

I think we focus a lot on roles, but if we think about what gets in

the way of us being able to do our best work, and those things are, you

know, too many emails, overflowing inboxes, lack of prioritization, too

many meetings, so we spend all of our day in meetings, but we're not

actually moving our work forward.

And I wanted to address some of those issues so that we can clear

out time to get into a state of flow, to get into our deep work that

really has an impact, the impact that we really want to have at work.

So that's kind of how, how it stemmed and how it has evolved, those three elements.

And through conversations with leaders, through conversations on the podcast,

through my own research, my own reading, I realized that there were two core

elements missing from this framework, and the first one was psychological safety.

We cannot, as you mentioned earlier, Fay, we cannot implement this stuff unless

we have psychological safety, unless we feel safe to speak up, to share what's

on our mind, to challenge the status quo.

And then on the other side, we need to have really effective

leaders in place to execute across these three pillars as well.

So that's where, where it comes from, in kind of a long, roundabout

way, but hopefully gives people a flavor of what it is I talk about.

Gosh, there's so much I could ask you to share.

I could just imagine everyone's ears pricking up as you're

mentioning different things there.

I think the two bits that really made me sit up and think, "Okay, I

have to ask you about this because of who'll be listening," which is, of

course, mainly people who work in HR.

I think the very first one is around culture.

Because just as you said at the very beginning of our chat today, you said

that when you had started this work, you thought, "Well, actually, HR should be

responsible for sorting all this mess out." And I can imagine everyone listening

thinking, "No, no." It's everyone.

"It, it shouldn't just fall on

us." Yeah.

But I think the fact that lots of HR teams are being renamed as people and

culture, there are lots of job titles now that sit with people and culture.

There can be an expectation of organisations and people

within a workplace of thinking, "Right, this is all HR's problem.

They've got to solve it." Yeah.

Um, so it's nice to hear you say, oh, but as time went on, you realised

that's not necessarily the case.

Mm. For anyone listening right now who is feeling that actually everyone

in the organisation does expect them to sort out the culture on

their own or just as an HR function, what would your advice to them be?

Aoife O'Brien: I think it really, for me, is everything, you know, if we

ever want to change anything in an organisation, it starts with awareness.

You have to make people aware, and you have to really have

clear roles and responsibilities.

And I think for me, how I learned or how I uncovered this was because

I have been dealing with so many HR people since starting my own business,

having not had this HR background, and understanding what their expectations are.

And I think, uh, just a really honest conversation about roles,

responsibilities, and expectations, and an education for the masses, for want

of a better word, of what workplace culture is, how important it is.

It's how, if you want to kind of describe it, it's how people feel about

work, m- quite generally speaking.

And I think if we want to get it right, everyone needs to be involved.

If we want to make sure that we have the culture that we aspire to have, because

oftentimes the cultures that we talk about are aspirational rather than the reality,

but if we want to have those aspirational cultures, we need to allow people to,

um, to reward people for living that culture and empower leaders to be able

to reward and recognize people for living the culture, but also to hold people to

account who are not, so people who are detracting from the culture in some way.

And to do that in a way that makes it known that that kind of behavior

is not acceptable based on the culture that we're trying to create

And so the follow-on question I have for that, Aoife, is

how can the HR professionals listening right now help the organization to

identify that ideal culture, the culture that they do want to have happen?

Because of course, it's not just up to that one person to say, "Okay,

this is the culture that I think we should have." Like, what's the process

do you think they should go through?

Aoife O'Brien: Uh, th- that's a really good question as well because I think,

again, oftentimes we assume that it's just one person sitting in a room.

I think, uh, you know, depending on the size of the organization,

depending on what you have in place already, so let's take it from a

couple of different perspectives.

Let's assume that you don't have a clearly defined culture.

You do obviously have a culture, because if you have an organization,

you have a culture, but maybe it's not clearly defined.

If it's not clearly defined, how do you get as many people as you can to help you

define what that culture should look like?

Like, what's the current culture?

What's the current experience, and what would we like that to be?

How could we move that?

From the other side, there could be one that's clearly defined, but maybe it's

not being lived at the moment, so you can have a look at, well, what's the

gap, and ask some very specific questions between here is how we've defined what

we want our culture to be based on these specific values and behaviors

and principles that we want to live by.

How are we living up to expectations across all of these things?

And maybe there's just one or two people who are, who are not really

aligned with that, or not behaving in a way that we would expect.

And again, this, to me, this falls to leaders to address those kinds

of behaviors to, to call that out.

Like, you need to know as a leader that that is your responsibility.

And, and maybe to kind of skip forward to talking about leadership, and we haven't

touched on it specifically, but some of… When I was doing the research on

this, I found that 80% of leaders, this was based on, uh, research done in the,

um, uh, Chartered Management Institute in the UK, 80% of leaders have never

been trained how to be a people leader.

Mm. And so th- they ca- they have this great term for it, accidental leaders.

Like, people who are, who are basically really good at the day job, and then

they're promoted into this, um, you know, "Oh, hey, we want you to lead

our people now because you're so good at the day job," but they're

not given any sort of instructions.

The, it's just assumed that they're going to be really good and they're

going to excel in leading other people because they're good at the day job.

So I think it's really important to train leaders on, on how to do those things, and

I think specifically how to give feedback, especially feedback when it's hard to

give, but also feedback that is positive.

I think it's really important to- Set those really clear expectations for what,

what we're going to achieve, but also how we're going to achieve it, so that

behavior expectation is there as well.

So I think, yeah, I think there, there is a job to be done when it comes to

leadership, but I think that's where HR can, can kind of, uh, recruit, for want

of a better word, to get leaders to get that buy-in for building a better culture.

Yeah.

It's amazing to think that statistic is still so high-

Aoife O'Brien: Yeah

… Fay Wallis: for all of these people who get promoted into

managerial and leadership roles and aren't given any support.

Well, one piece of support is, uh, everyone can say, "Go ahead and read

this book," and it's going- Yeah … to, uh, definitely Oh, well, yeah, that

Aoife O'Brien: too.

Yeah, yeah.

Definitely help, I think.

Yeah.

I think.

But yeah, it is worrying that there are that many people who aren't

being given the support they need to really thrive at that level.

And in my experience, a lot of people just end up trying

desperately to do a good job.

No one wants to be a terrible leader or a bad manager.

Mm. They'll be trying their best.

Or if they're really, really committed, they might start actually

doing some training on their own.

Yeah.

Unless, of course, they're very lucky to work in an organization

that has got excellent leadership and management development.

But yeah, just thinking of the fact that I know I've spoken to a few people who

have been talking about the fact that budgets are being squeezed and cut- Yeah

and often it's learning and development that is the first to have the budget go.

But-

Aoife O'Brien: Yeah

… Fay Wallis: I mean, I think your book just helps show how important it is that-

Yeah … we fight for those budgets, that we do really try and impress upon the

powers that be that actually the culture is so important, and the leaders- Yeah

really are the gatekeepers.

Aoife O'Brien: This is it.

Gatekeepers, is that the right word?

Stewards?

I think so.

They, they're stewards, I think.

Yeah I don't know what the figurehead.

The people who really massively impact- Yeah … that culture.

It, it, they need to have the support and the training to be able to do that.

Aoife O'Brien: There's, there's a couple of things I'd love to pick

up on what you said there, Fay.

One of them is this idea that no one sets out to be a terrible manager,

and I, I totally agree with that.

I think we assume that when someone's a bad leader, they know that they're

a bad leader, and we kinda blame the bad leaders, but it's actually just

because they haven't been trained.

And again, the old adage that people leave managers, they don't leave companies,

and it is really important to train those leaders because of how much it costs.

It costs between 30% and 200% of that person's salary when

they leave the organization.

So if you can do some quick calculations to see if you have a terrible

leader in place, and you, you lose two people, like let's say they're

Just for easy maths, say they're earning £50,000 each.

That's, you know, that's £100,000 each that that's costing that company.

That's £200,000.

How much would it have been to invest in that kind of upfront and, and before,

um, before we actually get, we get to it?

The other thing that I … That kinda ties in with the other thing that I, I wanted

to share, and that's about the investment and, and Invest and the importance

of using the language of leadership to be able to maintain those budgets.

So when those budgets are cut, and it usually is things like learning and

development, it's certainly not marketing and sales budgets that are getting cut.

But if you can show just how much that is costing or how much you're saving

by investing this money in training, by investing this money in building a

better culture so that you retain more of your staff, then that will pay off.

But you do need to learn how to speak the language of data and the

language of money at the end of the day, because that's, that's why

most organizations are in business.

You, you're not here, you know, unless you're speaking of a not-for-profit,

but typically speaking, you are in business to, to earn money, uh, beyond

the other impact that you want to have.

But it's really important to learn how to speak that, that language to

make sure that you are pitching the right things and you can show the

results that you are achieving as well.

Yeah, that's really great advice, and thank you for giving us

the example of what the cost saving can be or what the cost impact would

be on not providing the development and training opportunities for leadership.

There's one question that I know some people listening will be saying

or thinking, "Please ask Aoife this question, Fay. Why haven't you

asked her already?" Which again, I know I keep coming back to culture.

It's because I know it's something that it is so important, and I know

a lot of people working in the HR profession would like more support with

this, so I'm gonna ask you about it.

So you said you need to know what the culture is now, and you need to identify

what the culture is that you're heading towards, that, that you're aiming for.

How can people identify what the culture is now, especially if they've been

working somewhere for a long time?

I think it can be quite hard to actually- Mm

put your finger on it.

Yeah.

So what's your advice for them?

Aoife O'Brien: So the, um, the, the kind of analogy that I used in the

book is like a fish swimming in water.

The fish does not know that it's swimming in water.

So you may not even know.

It's just how things are done.

It's how things get done around here.

I think rather than trying to understand where are we now by asking questions

about where we are now, because that will be really hard for people to

articulate, you can use the benchmark of where is it that we would like to be.

That can be based specifically on a set of values, a set of behaviors, a set of

principles that you aspire to have, and you can measure yourself against that.

So, um, one example I always think of when I talk about culture is an

organization I worked in, and we had, uh, one of our values was simple,

and it was the most bureaucratic organization I think I've ever worked

in, and so it was far from simple.

And the difficulty there is when, when the organization says one thing and it,

it has policies and beha- and procedures in place that show a very different thing

Then there's a level of mistrust there.

Like, if they're lying about this, what else are they covering up on

or what else are they lying about?

And so I think if we try and understand this is where we want to be, how are we

doing against where we want to be, and it could be the case that we haven't

looked at this in a long time and we've slipped a little bit, and we're not

kind of meeting the expectations around some, some of these very specific areas.

Or maybe we need to revisit what we aspire to be.

Maybe things have changed and evolved over time.

But I think collectively we can decide where is it that we want to

be, and if you want to get down to, like, the actual tactics of doing

that, it's just really asking people.

Something that we did in the organization I worked in, we had

our annual engagement survey.

We used to use the results from that.

We used to make focus groups based on those results.

So you don't have to speak to individuals, but you can have representatives

who can collate information, can collate feedback from people.

In another organization that I used to work in, we created an entire team of

communication specialists at each level, so I was on that communications team.

It was in addition to the role that I had, but I could gather information

from people at my level and then feed it back in, in a kind of a central source

with other people on that communications team, which is a really great way to

kind of elicit feedback from people.

Um, I think that one of the things to watch out for here is that if it's been

going on for so long and if it is kind of maybe a toxic culture, that people are

not that willing to share or they think if they do share that nothing will change.

I think we need to address those things upfront.

"Listen, I know we've done this in the past.

I know things haven't necessarily changed.

But this time it's going to be different, and we really want to listen

to what it is that you have to say.

If there's something that can't be changed, then we'll be really upfront

about that and say, for X, Y, Z reason we can't implement that, but we will revisit

it again in three months, in six months, next year," whatever that looks like.

Um, but I think being honest and upfront with people will really pay off.

If you don't know the answer, say, "I don't know the answer.

I can find out," or, "I don't know the answer," uh, you know.

But just being transparent with people I think will go a long way.

Yeah, and it makes me think, uh, as you were answering that question,

thank you, Aoife, for answering it in such detail, it was great to hear

your really practical advice, just how intertwined those different components

of your thriving talent framework are.

Like, the psychological safety piece just came through so strongly there.

Aoife O'Brien: Mm.

Well, I know that I have, um, really hooked onto this culture theme,

but there are so many other things I could ask you, and I feel it would be wrong

of me not to ask you this next question.

Before I let you go, I know that you are incredibly busy with your book

launch at the moment, and you have another call after this one, so I

must be good and not, uh, pepper you with absolutely loads of questions.

So this question is for anyone listening who's thinking, "Yes, yes, this is

all interesting about culture," but actually, what's Aoife's biggest piece

of advice for me, a regular person within an organization, to help me to

thrive and really enjoy my work and it be something that I f- I feel is fantastic?

What are some practical steps that person can take to enjoy their work more and

feel that they're thriving at work?

Aoife O'Brien: Is that kind of looking from the, from the different

perspective, so looking from the individual perspective rather than-

Yeah, so looking from an individual perspective instead of

maybe someone who is wearing an HR hat with responsibility for culture.

How about someone who's just within an organization, they may

not even work in HR, they're an individual, what can they be doing?

Aoife O'Brien: Yeah, I love this question, and you may be giving

something away for the next book, Fay.

I'm not sure.

I haven't landed on exactly which book I will do next, but that certainly

will be one of them, this idea of looking at it from the individual

perspective, because that's…

When I was writing this book, I could have gone in both directions.

I could have gone in one or the other, and I decided to focus on leaders.

As we said, it's not to say that a leader can't apply this, but if I

speak very directly to an individual and how can they thrive more, it's

taking that same framework, but it's just applying it to ourselves.

So looking at values, you know, how, what are my values?

How do I understand what my values are, and how do I make that link

between my own personal values and the values of the organization?

And I'll add to that, I did not know that I had values when, when I

first started doing this work, when I first started doing this research.

I knew about corporate values.

We had them on the wall.

We had them in our email signatures.

I did not know that as an individual, I also have values.

So I think understanding what your core values are, and there's lots of

exercises that you can do online There's lots of things that will help you.

I have some examples in the book as well.

I think understanding what your needs are, and again, did not

know that I had needs at work as well that needed to be satisfied.

It may help an individual to understand what's really frustrating

for them at work right now.

So where do you feel frustrated?

Do you have a micromanaging boss, for example?

And do you have maybe too much work on?

Like, what are the things that are really frustrating?

And I think a lot of people will have a long list of wha- what those frustrating

things actually are, and then you can start take, to take steps to address it.

And I think the, the difficult or the awkward thing here is that you

have to speak up and advocate for yourself and, and talk about what you

need at work to be able to thrive.

Like, "This is how I do my best work. I need X, Y, Z from you as

my leader," and really share that.

And, you know, you can use whatever language you're comfortable with.

It doesn't have to be all fancy kind of, "My needs are not being met." But you can

say what's really bothering you or, or what's frustrating you or what's getting

in the way of you doing your best work.

And then the, the third aspect is around strengths, understanding

what your strengths are and, and carving out time in a week to use

your strengths at work and to do work that really speaks to your strengths.

If I think about myself personally, I'm very analytical, and I, I was so lucky

to be in roles for about 20 years where I got to use my strengths on quite a regular

basis, not even having to think about it.

So I enjoyed my roles a lot.

But then in my most recent role, I deliberately chose something

because of the title and the ego.

I was like, "Oh, wow, I'll be on the senior leadership team.

That's incredible." And then in retrospect, I didn't have the opportunity

to use my strengths in a way that I had in previous roles, and that

was a real source of frustration for me, that I didn't get to, to kind of

really excel in the role and to do something that really energized me.

So I think understanding that and making decisions based

on those three core factors.

That's not to mention the environment that you find yourself in as well.

So whether it's working from home, hybrid, being in the office, your teammates,

your manager, like, all of those things can have contributing factors.

You don't always control it, but you do have choices around how you, how you

react and how you relate to other people.

I'm nodding along, uh, with enthusiasm to everything

you've said there, Aoife.

I remember when I very first did my career coach training, which

was, gosh, 10 years ago now, and, uh, we got taught about values.

And again, like you, I thought, "Oh, really? I know, know about work

values." And I remember thinking, "Well, I don't know about this. This

all sounds a bit wishy-washy to me." And then the minute you start actually

identifying what your values are and diving into it, you realize, oh,

no, this, this isn't wishy-washy.

Yeah.

This is so important.

Aoife O'Brien: Yeah.

And again, with strengths, I think you may even

mention it in the book, actually.

I love the… Well, they've changed the name of it, and I

now cannot remember the name.

I think they've called it CliftonStrengths- The CliftonStrengths?

… now.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Clift-

Aoife O'Brien: I don't know.

Was it… Yeah, Clifton- I call it

CliftonStrengths.

I think that's the new name for it.

I think it is called CliftonStrengths now.

Yeah.

It used to be called StrengthsFinder.

StrengthsFinder,

Aoife O'Brien: yeah.

And, um, it's such a good low-cost assessment to take.

I, I just remember doing that for the first time and finding

it so incredibly insightful.

Yeah.

It's one that I recommend a lot to my coaching clients.

So for anyone listening who's thinking, "Oh, well, how do I go about finding out

my, my values and my strengths?" And- Uh, because they can feel a bit tricky

really Yeah I have done an episode of the podcast before specifically about values.

I can't remember off the top of my head which number it was, so if you make sure

you listen or watch all the way to the end, I'll let everyone know what that one

is, and hopefully that's really helpful.

I know you've also got tips in your book, Eva, and if anyone listening has got a

copy of my essential HR planner, there's a values exercise in there as well.

So lots of different ways- Loads of resources … for

you to uncover your values.

Yeah.

Yep, yep.

There's- Yeah … always has a values exercise in there.

And then for strengths, I would definitely recommend the Clifton Strengths- Yeah

um, assessment.

You only need to do, they, they'll try and sell you when you go on

the website the one that unlocks sort of all, I think it's- 24 or

Aoife O'Brien: something,

isn't it?

Or absolutely loads of strengths.

Yeah.

But actually, if you dig around, you'll see you can pay a much lower fee

just to get your top five strengths.

Aoife O'Brien: Mm.

And they're incredibly helpful.

That, that's all- Yeah … in my opinion- Yeah … that you really need.

So I would definitely recommend, uh- Yeah … trying that.

Yeah, yeah.

And then the other advice you've shared about just really figuring

out what actually is it that you want from work and what helps you enjoy

it and what kind of environment.

They're things that all of us can figure out for ourselves.

It's just about carving out that bit of time for doing it- Yeah … really, isn't

Aoife O'Brien: it?

Yeah.

And I think, I think it's an important point there, Fay.

It's carving out that time, isn't it?

How important is this?

Are you really miserable at the moment, or are you kind of okay?

But how much better could you be if you carve out this time, and, and

what's the payoff of carving out, say, an hour or two to do these exercises?

And you know, I, I love the, the CliftonStrengths, the Strengths Finder.

There are other free options available as well, but you can also look at

feedback that you get from your manager, from clients, from your colleagues.

You can think about what you really enjoyed at school.

You can think about what do people come to you for to ask you questions about.

Those are all clues as to what your strengths really are.

The other thing I'll say about strengths is we often don't recognize our own

strengths because we are so good at it.

It comes easily and naturally.

It requires almost no effort.

That actually it's, you may think that that's, that couldn't possibly be a

strength because it comes so easily to me, and you need to recognize that as a

natural strength or ability that you have.

On the values, I think when I was doing these exercises, I started

casting my mind back to when I was younger, and an example that stuck in

my mind was when we were on holiday.

We were on holiday with our neighbors, and it was my turn to do the dishes,

and- Uh, you know, my mom was calling me to say, "Oh, do…" I'm like, "Oh,

sure, I have to go and do this chore.

I have to go and wash the dishes." But when I was washing the dishes,

my neighbor was beside me, and she said, "I can't believe how well

you're doing that considering it's not something you want to do."

And for me, it, it, it's, it kind of illustrates this idea that if I want to

do something, I want to do it really well.

It's a value of excellence, you know?

And, and that's how that manifests itself.

Our values are something that stay with us throughout our entire lives,

and it's probably something that you have had since you were very young.

So if you think of some specific examples like that, I know, like, there's, there's

lots, again, of online tools that people can use, your, your tool as well, Fay.

But this is not a one-off, like one-and-done exercise.

When I first looked at my values- Mm … I had 35 values, and I was

like, "Oh, I'm so great. I have 35."

Talk about the overachiever in me.

But when I whittled it down, I kind of combined some things together.

I'm s- I still feel like it's a work in progress.

Like, are these really my values?

Are there other things that are emerging?

Are there some things that are less important?

So I think for me it's, it's like an ongoing thing.

Oh, definitely.

I think it's something you can almost never look at too often.

Um, you'll always get insights, new insights from revisiting them.

But sadly, Aoife, we are running out of time.

So before I say goodbye, I'm going to ask you the question that I ask all my

guests who come on this show, which is, do you have a book recommendation for us?

Of course, we are recommending your fabulous Thriving Talent book.

But are there any other books that you think could be a great

read for everyone listening?

Aoife O'Brien: Uh, oh, there's so many, Fay, and I read a lot.

Can I give three recommendations- … or can I give one recommendation?

You

can give three.

That's fine.

Aoife O'Brien: Okay.

So recommendation one, Insight by Dr. Tasha Eurich.

It's all about self-awareness.

I think that's really good.

It's really important, and I cite it in my book, Thriving Talent.

Number two is Dare to Lead, because I'm currently reading it at the

moment, and I just think it's so good.

That's by Brené Brown.

And the third one is Your Best Meeting Ever.

Unfortunately, that book came out after I had finished my book, so I would love

to have included some of the insights from that, and that is by Oh, I can't

remember her name, but we'll, we can put a link in, in the show notes.

Her name just, um, her name escapes me f- in this exact moment.

Um, but yeah, I will, I will follow up with that.

But Your Best Meeting Ever, I'm sure if you search for it,

you will absolutely find it.

Um, but that is also a really excellent book.

It's great to have those three recommendations.

Dare to Lead is my, one of my all-time favorite books, so I

can definitely second that one.

And the other two sound great as well.

I can't wait to read them.

Well, I'll add them to my giant reading pile.

I'm sure.

And I'm sure lots of people listening will really look

forward to reading them as well.

So, sadly, we are at the very end of our time together today.

As well as saying a huge thank you for your time today, can I possibly ask, for

anyone who would like to get in touch with you or learn more about your work, what

would be the best way of them doing that?

Aoife O'Brien: Yeah, so three ways to do that.

Since you're listening or watching a podcast, search for Happier at Work.

It's available across all plat- all podcast platforms and on YouTube as well.

The second way is check out the book, thrivingtalentbook.com.

And the third way is if you wanna find me and connect on LinkedIn, I'll

give, I'll spell out my name because not, not everyone can spell it.

It's Aoife O'Brien, and it's spelled A-O-I-F-E.

Fantastic.

Well, thank you so much, Aoife.

I know you've got your next appointment to get to, so I will let you get going.

It's been wonderful chatting to you again today.

As

Aoife O'Brien: always, Fay.

It's such a pleasure to catch up.

Thank you.

I hope you enjoyed hearing from Aoife.

If you'd like to learn more about her work, you'll find links to her website,

her podcast, and her book in the show notes or the YouTube description.

And if you'd like to get your own copy of Thriving Talent, Aoife has

kindly arranged a 10% discount for HR Coffee Time listeners and viewers.

Just use the link that I provided to access the special offer.

And as I mentioned at the start of the episode, I'm also

giving away a copy of her book.

For your chance to win the

book, either leave a comment underneath the YouTube video or share a LinkedIn

post about the episode and what you found most interesting about it.

Make sure that you tag me into the post so that I can see it, and then I'll randomly

select one winner once the episode has been out for a couple of weeks.

Thank you so much for staying all the way to the end of the episode with me.

I'm looking forward to being back again soon with the next one for you.