The Culture Trap with Dr. Jeanne Hardacre

This with Jeanne Hardacre conversation explores Jeanne's book The Culture Trap the profound impact of emotions on behavior change, emphasizing that while knowledge and beliefs are important, it is ultimately our feelings that drive transformation. The discussion delves into how understanding behavior and the role of emotions can lead to more effective change strategies. 

Takeaways

• What we think and know is important, but actually the change comes from what we feel.
• Emotion is the energy that leads to behavior change.
• Feelings are crucial for transformation.
• Understanding behavior is key to change.
• Knowledge alone isn't enough for change.
• Belief shapes our actions and reactions.
• Energy from emotions fuels our decisions.
• Transformation requires emotional engagement.
• Our emotion drives our actions.
• The interplay of emotion and knowledge is vital for effective change.

00:00 Introduction to Leadership and Power Dynamics
02:52 Jeanne's Journey: From Baby Manager to Independent Consultant
06:12 Challenging Authority: The Cost of Speaking Truth to Power
09:08 The Shift to Independence: Embracing Freedom in Consultancy
11:59 Patterns of Power: Perpetuation vs. Interruption
14:54 The Courage to Change: Self-Reflection and Accountability
17:56 The Role of Culture in Leadership
20:54 Learning from Experience: The Importance of Humility
23:54 Martial Arts and Leadership: The Art of Letting Go
33:49 The Humility of Martial Arts and Leadership
37:45 The Culture Trap: Understanding Workplace Dynamics
46:28 The HUMAN Approach: Transforming Organizational Culture
55:54 Invitational Change: Empowering Teams to Evolve
01:02:55 Emotional Connection: The Key to Behavioral Change

To find out more about Guy Bloom and his award winning work in Team Coaching, Leadership Development and Executive Coaching click below.

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Transcript

Jeanne Hardacre (00:00)
Yes, what we think and know is important, but actually the change comes from what we feel. It comes from how we feel. It comes from our emotion, because our emotion is the energy that leads to behaviour change.

Guy Bloom (00:15)
nothing exists. So here we are on Leadership Bytes and I am so glad to have you with us today, Jane.

Jeanne Hardacre (00:28)
Hi Guy, I'm delighted to be here.

Guy Bloom (00:31)
So this is my way, I've fallen into it being my way now, my templated approach to not introducing others when they can quite easily speak for themselves. Gene, if you were at a social gathering and somebody said, what do you do for a living? What would you say? How would you make sense of that for people?

Jeanne Hardacre (00:52)
So thanks Guy for inviting me on and also for that question because I guess it's a bit of a heart sink question in many ways. What I tend to say is I help people at work get on better together and then I see how interested they are and you know what some people just take another slurp of their drink and kind of move the conversation onto the burgers or the know the how nice the food is in which case that's fine that's absolutely fine.

However, what I find is that that is relatable enough for everybody to sort of think, oh, getting on with people at work, that can be tricky. And it can then lead to more questions. And that's when I sort of start going a little bit sort of more meaningful because what I really like to share with people is I help people unlearn how to use power at work.

Guy Bloom (01:46)
Boom. Okay. Yeah.

Jeanne Hardacre (01:47)
Boom. And if they're

still with me at that point, you know what? I'm onto something.

Guy Bloom (01:54)
Maybe if they go boom, you know, and their heads do what mine did and went, well, that's a good one. Right, bring, yeah, so we'll talk about that. We'll talk about that. And listen, this is a podcast called Leadership Bites. It's about leadership, it's about culture, and we've had, you know, it's a conversation. So hopefully if anybody's listening is going, boy, that's why they're listening, right? If they've gone to come to the wrong place, then exit stage left. So before we...

Jeanne Hardacre (02:13)
haha

Guy Bloom (02:21)
bring that even further alive. Let's get a little sense of you and your journey. And then we'll get into the book, The Culture Trap, we'll ⁓ culture trap practical ways to improve your influence, relationships, and culture for leaders and teams, which is available on Amazon.

saying that now to people because that is where we're going to go but I think understanding the person that wrote it really helps to bring alive some of the thinking. So on that note just give us that little guided tour of I was born up a mountain top and I lived with wolves and whatever it is that where you started to where you are today and I think that'll help us a little bit.

Jeanne Hardacre (03:02)
Mmm.

Sure. So without wanting to give a life story, I think there are probably ⁓ one or two or maybe three points in time, I guess, which might help to make sense of who I am and why I've decided to do what I now do. And the first point in time, I think, was when I was a baby manager. I was a manager in my early 20s.

on one of the most prestigious management training schemes as a graduate in the UK, which was very competitive and was essentially advertised as become a chief executive in 15 years. And it was, it was in the public sector. And ⁓ I started on that, that program. was a two year experience and it probably was only 15 days in when I started to think.

isn't quite what I thought it might be and there was just something guy at the age of what was 22 which I just started to think hmm wow not sure not sure anyway I did the two years and I ended up after that managing a new development in mental health services in London which at the time was about shifting care from hospital settings into community

and home-based settings for people with really severe enduring mental illness. And the thing that happened at that point that I didn't realise at the time, but it was going to be a signature kind of hallmark of the rest of my working life, was I did something unthinkable. And I challenged and questioned something my director asked me to do. ⁓ my gosh. Can you imagine?

and she didn't like it. And without going into the stressful details of it, she basically told me to find another job. Now, whether you call that being sacked or not, I'm not sure. I didn't get taken through any disciplinary process, but it was made very clear that I was not welcome.

Guy Bloom (05:21)
good old

days.

Jeanne Hardacre (05:23)
If

I thought that it was my place to question, and actually the question I was asking was about quality of care, was about priorities, it was about why I was being asked to ⁓ enforce ⁓ a DICTAT to take people away from clinical work at the last minute when actually I didn't believe that that was in the best interests of our patients that we were caring for and who were extremely vulnerable.

And in some cases quite dangerous to the public. And, and it was a, it was a moment in time where looking back, I've learned a huge amount from that. But at the time, of course, because this is kind of maybe what we learned to do in organizational life and we get conditioned so early on is, well, I'm obviously the problem here. I obviously don't fit. I'm the one that's not doing this right. I'm somehow not.

And for me, it was, am not playing the game. was the overriding sense. And I just felt like a total management misfit. And I had this training that was supposed to be leading edge management development. And I was finding I was in a context where I was unable to enact what I thought to be effective management leadership, according to my values, because it wasn't the way we did things.

Is this making any sense? Is it resonating at all?

Guy Bloom (06:51)
Well, it

does. And I'd like to pause because there's a few things there to unpack and a couple of them really resonate with me on a personal level. So I'm having a bit of a kumbaya moment with you in my head, which is great. So I love that. And I think, you know, first of all, that's that, you know, we don't always have the words for the things that we do at the time. But actually, you know, if you talk about speaking truth to power, it's an interesting thing where there's bringing challenge to power, but then there's just

Jeanne Hardacre (06:54)
Mmm.

Okay.

Guy Bloom (07:22)
curiosity or help me make sense of but actually if you hold space and You offer an opinion and it's based in and we're talking about the NHS, correct? This which is yeah, which is a you know

Jeanne Hardacre (07:33)
We are, yeah, in the

1990s, so it is a long time ago. Although, to be honest, unfortunately, people are still having this experience in far too many places. But anyway, yeah, listening to what you're saying.

Guy Bloom (07:38)
Yeah, and I couldn't go.

Yeah, I'm-

Yeah, and listen, these are large organisations that have a distribution curve of phenomenal leaders and managers all the way through to, you know, probably shouldn't be in the role. And that's not even an NHS truth. That's just an inherent truth. But also then you've got the social conditioning, you've got the hierarchy that's baked into the system, you've got, and go back to the 90s, just as it was. So there's a lot going on there. I am intrigued by when you

⁓ spoke just about being on that first two-year course when you said some of this just didn't resonate it didn't sit well and I wouldn't mind just unpacking that a little bit just to go what was the because I was on a I was on an executive coaching program some years ago and many well probably ⁓

and it was at a very prestigious, inverted commas, institution and it didn't feel right and I turned round to the group and said, can I ask, because I'm leaving, can I ask why do you feel the same as me? And they all went, yeah, yeah, it's terrible. And I went, why are you staying? And they went,

I'm gonna get a certificate from this place and that's worth its weight in gold and I just... God damn it! So I'm just really interested in that part of your brain that went even at those early doors where you went mmm this doesn't feel right so I'd love to just get a sense of that. What was it?

Jeanne Hardacre (09:15)
And I think

I I would emphasize that for me it was a personal experience I didn't mean that this doesn't feel right in terms of well, everybody else has got it wrong and I'm right it was simply I Don't see myself being able to make the compromises That that it seems that I've contracted to do and it feels as if I'm being paid here Not not necessarily to do what?

Guy Bloom (09:21)
Hmm.

Jeanne Hardacre (09:45)
to me would seem the right thing, but actually instead to do what is viewed to be, do things right according to the rules. And for me, very early on, there just seemed to be this difference between what felt right at a values level, at a sense level, at a common human kind of, well, this just seems...

a good way of having some doing some joint work compared with, well, no, this is the way it has to be done for all sorts of reasons that often remained opaque or invisible to me. And so it was a tension there that I held that I couldn't make sense of, didn't make sense of. Only at that point, the only sense I could make was, I'm the problem. And that's, mean, now with all my gray hair and my 30 years plus experience, that's

That sounds so naive, but I was naive. And also I could have probably handled the whole thing altogether better, but I didn't have the skills to do that at the time. So, you know, it's all this learning with retrospect. However, the reason I mention it is because it kind of was the first chapter in what ended up being a bit of a pattern.

Guy Bloom (10:54)
Hmm.

Well, we don't. sorry.

But I think it's massively important to recognise, I did have a radar, there was an alarm bell that went off and it's not about judgement or whatever, it's something didn't feel right. And that's okay, isn't it? And sometimes you get that radar, especially when you're young, you're not calibrated, so something may not feel right and then you might learn, it is me! I do need to adjust and I am... ⁓ yeah.

Jeanne Hardacre (11:30)
Yes. And there were aspects. There were aspects that

I was contributing to the problem. And I totally get that. And I work with people and leaders on that, even now. However, you know, it was was just such a damaging experience to me at the time that I couldn't I couldn't glean the learning for some time because I just had to I had to heal. I had to recover from the utter shock, the utter shock.

Guy Bloom (11:41)
Hmm. Yeah.

Yeah.

Jeanne Hardacre (12:00)
of basically being told to leave on the basis of having asked a question about patient safety and values.

Guy Bloom (12:05)
Yeah.

Yes.

And I think that is good to recognise that actually you may be, you may ask a question, but actually the right manager would have gone...

Where's that coming from? What I haven't understood? Or they could be curious. And they might go, OK, I get your position. Let me be double clear about why I'm saying this. And you go, OK, been put back in my box, but I was listened to all the way through to, you know what? Bugger me, you may be right. Or who knows? Who knows? But of course, there is a way, isn't there, of dealing with and engaging with people even when you're saying no.

or whatever it is. But I think it's fascinating that you have the instinct. I think it's fascinating. I think a lot of people have the instinct. I think some people have the instinct and they haven't calibrated it and they just think they're right constantly because they feel a certain way.

but actually it's that ability to have that calibrated so you then become better at. I did feel like that before, but actually it turned out I was wrong, and or no, I had that feeling before and that definitely tells me something. It doesn't matter, but we all have them, you know, and I don't think they just come when you're 50. I think from a very early age, you have a sense of,

this doesn't feel right or this feels great or whatever. So lovely to hear that. So, you know, just from that kind of, I love that phrase, baby manager, I was just making sure you weren't managing babies in some weird way. You clarified that. You went on this, I mean, what sounds like, what was the level it said in 15 years become a chief executive? Yeah, that's a hell of a statement for a course, isn't it? ⁓

Jeanne Hardacre (13:49)
Yeah, was the chief exec in 15 years with the pathway, the pathway. some people, some people achieve

that. Some people do do that. I'm a very small minority, I've got to say, but some do.

Guy Bloom (13:57)
I'm sure they did.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely if you stick with it and you know, you maybe you are the right person So that's a hell of a course title being MD in 15 years or I'll I may go into marketing with that one I won't so challenged and got asked to move on which I just think again painful at the time but actually You know, you probably wouldn't be where you are today if those things hadn't have happened and they they become your points of reference for so again I think this is anybody that's listening to this that is long in the tooth will recognize their own

versions of these things but if you're younger and you're listening to this and you've just been you've had a kick recently or you get one it's okay it's part of that foundation of things have got to happen to you for you to have experience and actually everybody that's got somewhere of a level such as yourself has got a

whole load of stories about falling over being kicked in the head metaphorically and I think it's good to hear that. I think it's super powerful.

Jeanne Hardacre (15:00)
Yeah.

And just on that, it sparked something in my mind, which is that I've been told and heard through the process of deciding to write a book that we write the book we need or we write the book we would have liked to have. And I guess I feel as if I have done that. I've written a book that I would have just so wished I'd had when I was 22, 23, 24, or even 32, which was the next key.

kind of milestone in my journey, if you like, was in my early thirties. This is the book I would have loved to have had. And actually it's the book that I needed to write in a way. So that was just sparked by your comment.

Guy Bloom (15:45)
I love that

and we'll get on to this next milestone but you know what, I think you can write a book because maybe somebody says it'll be valuable to others, fine. But when I wrote my book, I felt lighter afterwards. I had a lot of thoughts and they were like, the editor actually said, it's like a bowl of spaghetti guy.

Jeanne Hardacre (16:07)
Ha

Guy Bloom (16:07)
you know,

she read it, because I just got them out because I'm not a writer per se. And then somebody helped me, you know, put it, but actually, yeah, it was all in there. So I needed, I think I love that. just, it helped me get clarity, create a linear, doesn't matter. Maybe it's cathartic. Maybe it helps you think straight. Maybe it's the thing that, know, God, if I'd have had this 20 years ago, where would I be now? It doesn't matter. But I think that's a beautiful ⁓ way of thinking about, yeah, write it, write it not because you think it's

Jeanne Hardacre (16:12)
Yeah.

So.

Guy Bloom (16:37)
gonna help you in your career write it to help you because then you'll help others right that's that's beautiful so love that so tell me about this next milestone tell me about so we've done the baby manager we've been we've been on this fantastic well of course but sounded fantastic however then we move into that role where hmm excuse me can I just ask no you can't get lost you know right and then you move forward what happens next

Jeanne Hardacre (17:03)
So,

okay, so ⁓ in summary, ⁓ I did leave because there was no going forward from there, even though she did eventually change her mind and asked me to stay. I'd already left emotionally and in terms of trust and everything. And so I spent some years then in other roles. I moved more into development and education and training. And what was then?

They did, was a very early organisation development, although that in the late 90s was not really a very well known term. And I also then ended up working for a university ⁓ in a role where I had no job. I had to generate the work, I had to generate consultancy, I had to bring income in to a self-funding academic unit. And that's really where I started to

have a chance to explore what is this thing called leadership and what on earth has it got to do with getting anything achieved? And I started dipping my toe in to researching and also consulting in national and international contexts and really, really getting under the skin of the way leaders and managers were trying to do their work and why they were doing it in the way they were doing it.

But the milestone came, I think, when I realised ⁓ when I had two very small children and a third one as a twinkle in my eye, that I wanted to be more in, ⁓ I suppose, control of my own destiny. And I chose to leave employment altogether. I chose to take my last salary at the age of 32 and basically set myself up.

independently and that was ⁓ in 2004 to five and so 20 years ago now so that was a really early choice and at that time it was not normal at all to be doing that and I know it's a lot more normal now but at that time people raised a lot of eyebrows and asked a lot of questions were actually quite worried on my behalf that I was being completely rash and ⁓ you know

overly audacious and so on. So I got my last paycheck over 20 years ago and since then, yeah.

Guy Bloom (19:37)
And just to jump in

there, is that to a particularly because you're coming from the stability and the inverted commas, gravitas that comes with being in the academic institution? And I guess that magnified it. It wasn't like you were leaving Tesco's and setting up. had, what do you think? Or do think it was because, know, again, no, just in the market, people just don't inherently do that as a concept?

Jeanne Hardacre (19:54)
Maybe. Maybe.

think it was a bit of both. mean, think it

was, well, Jean, you've stepped off to this career, you've stepped away from this career path to be a chief exec. Now you've stepped away from a career path to potentially be a professor. Both of which you could argue I could have done, but I didn't want to do either of them. I didn't want the compromises. And I didn't feel that I was going to be able to give what I wanted to give within the constraints of those hierarchical, ⁓ very,

dominating and rule-based ways of becoming somebody that anyone would listen to. And so I just had a sense that certainly at that point, I didn't know I was never gonna go back into a real job ever again. I just knew at that point that my way of offering something to the world was not by...

writing yet more research proposals, getting more peer reviewed publications, getting another contract for prestigious executive development that I was now providing rather than receiving. It wasn't going to be that way. But what transpired is... Pardon?

Guy Bloom (21:12)
So you are a doctor at this point.

You are a doctor at this point. You are a Dr. Gene. Ah. Ah, right, okay, right.

Jeanne Hardacre (21:18)
No, no, no, I hadn't, hadn't, no, not at all.

No, I was just me. Well, I mean, I still am just me. But no, I didn't do my PhD until quite a few years later. And that was a complete accident guy. It's the most accidental PhD anybody's ever done. But that's another story that I probably won't follow with. Never had any intention of doing that.

Guy Bloom (21:27)
Thank you.

Okay, right.

No, we'll get to that, sorry.

Brilliant.

Jeanne Hardacre (21:44)
So,

yeah, I left organisational life and I then worked for 15 years, freelance and then set up my own company and earned a good living and had all school holidays off. you know, so-called living the dream, doesn't it sound like?

Guy Bloom (22:04)
No, because I'm self-employed and I know how hard it is. So I'm sure you were technically. As an observer people probably go, ⁓ it's easy you can work whenever you like and you go, yeah right. But anyway, back to you.

Jeanne Hardacre (22:09)
Yeah.

I suppose the benefit of that period of my life was that it helped me understand the power of not having organisational entanglements. So when I was working with client organisations, I was genuinely coming from a place of no vested interests. ⁓ I didn't have an organisational agenda. And what I found was that I was able to offer perspectives that nobody else dared offer.

Guy Bloom (22:26)
Beautiful.

Jeanne Hardacre (22:46)
I was able to ask those questions from a place of, you you can judge me and actually I can, I'm not part of this going forward. You can even stop the contract with me if I get so challenging that you can't cope with it. If I'm ruffling feathers too much, my volume on speaking truth to power is too loud, you know what? I'm dispensable. So there was a real risk, but there was also a freedom.

and a power that came with that. Does that make sense? I don't mean to sort of big it up, but what I just started to realise was the genuine, ⁓ people would actually approach me to do the work because I brought that utter independence.

Guy Bloom (23:21)
No.

Yeah, this is massive and I recognize this, that when I was in consultancy for 10 years, having done roles in corporate roles, head of leaderships, et cetera, I had to learn to give myself permission when I moved into the consultancy space to speak my truth. And not because I'm awesome and I'm right.

But actually I realised that I've been habitualised, institutionalised, whatever it was, to being careful, to being selective, to being political. And not that I wouldn't tell the truth, but it would always be polished, would always be etc. And tell me if this resonates with you, but I suddenly realised that a lot of the work that I did was a diagnostic phase followed by then feeding that back and then doing the work.

And in the diagnostic delivery phase, especially with the executive level, what I recognized is if the problem sat around that table, then I ran a internal dialogue when I was starting out, which was, if I say this, I might not get the gig.

And what was interesting is when I offered it from a position of being in service, which is, right, so, know, I hope this doesn't land badly and I hope you're okay to hear this. They went, thanks for the insight. And I never got the work. When I actually went, right, okay, so buckle up, buttercup, here it comes. Everybody's sitting comfortably. And I delivered it as a peer. I got the work.

because actually what it was is it was that recognition that you're offering something at the level of the person and it's an insight and it's counsel and it's an observation but actually yeah that freed but then I had to give myself that permission to do it because I feared not getting the work.

And there is, and I know everybody comes to these things in different places, but you saying you having your freedom, your capacity to offer your truth, that ability to be real, and then guess what? People want to work with you because actually if you work with Jean, you're going to get the truth. She will offer you her insights. She won't offer you what everybody else would do if they worked here already, which is be careful. I mean, she'll be elegant and crafted, but she'll give you her truth. I think that's what I'm hearing. And if that is what I'm hearing, that strongly resonates with me.

you

Jeanne Hardacre (26:01)
Yes. And I also, one of the ways I think about this is that it's a choice and it's a choice we have whether or not we're in an organization. And it's a choice really about do I do one thing or do I do another? Do I perpetuate the patterns of power that are already in place or do I interrupt the patterns of power?

And I don't know whether you've come across the work of Cindy Suarez. She's based in the States. But that was one of the most incisive learning points I gained about power, was that that is the simple choice we have. Am I going to perpetuate the patterns of power that already exist, or am I going to interrupt them? And I think what I heard you describing was you making that choice. Am I going to go along with what essentially is a pattern of

Guy Bloom (26:36)
Nope.

Jeanne Hardacre (26:58)
I call it a pattern of pretence, ⁓ or am I going to be real and open up a real conversation that may have some different ways of using ⁓ truth and power to shed a new light on something? ⁓ And that choice around perpetuating or interrupting can be in the most micro actions.

Guy Bloom (26:58)
Hmm. Hmm.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Jeanne Hardacre (27:24)
But people in the workplace, I think, become very conditioned to forget that they have that choice. And the only choice to them feels as if they just have to perpetuate the way things are because it's far too risky, scary, too many consequences, all sorts of reasons why it's just too uncomfortable to not just perpetuate the way things are.

Guy Bloom (27:42)
Yes.

Jeanne Hardacre (27:48)
And once people at work and teams and leaders I work with, and I'm sure you find this, start to realise that they are themselves perpetuating the problems they want to change. my gosh. If they're able and courageous enough to start acknowledging and taking responsibility for that, it opens up enormous opportunities to say, okay, well, let's stop perpetuating it and let's try something else.

Guy Bloom (28:13)
that I talk about stepping out of the performance

which is probably just different words for the same thing, which is that, you know, there is a performance. It is sometimes habitualised, often learned from a very early age. You can have it within family networks. You can have it socially. What's my place in this? What's the hierarchy? What's the pecking order? What's the risk associated with telling my mate Bob that I don't think that T-shirt looks very good on him? You know, will he not be my friend anymore? Just it is. So we become performative, which is, yeah, you look really good in that, mate, versus dude, right, that's way too tight.

you know it doesn't matter what it is but stepping so this this nature of I like it that patterns of power patterns of pretense patterns of performance they will begin with a P for some weird reason but but the point is there's a model in there somewhere isn't there but the point is yeah I think this is from that same space of the working with the somebody who

Jeanne Hardacre (28:57)
haha

Guy Bloom (29:09)
for the want of a word of word, it's very hard to see the back of your own head and the ability to have somebody not that can observe it, that's step one, because a lot of people can observe it, but is at a space in their...

growth themselves to be able to then offer it to you. I think a lot of people can see what's going on, but the capacity to offer it or put it into the known space, that's the adult, that's the maturity, that's the craft in a manner that others can not feel judged and shamed, but it is what it is. Now let's have a conversation about it. That's, think, where the work begins. I don't know what you think about that, but that's my kind of line of sight on it.

Jeanne Hardacre (29:52)
Sure. And again, what you said there has just really connected with something that for me is also at the heart of my work, ⁓ which is the blaming, judging, shaming that you mention that can be such an instinctive response when things are not going the way we want them. That actually starts inside ourselves.

And then it projects out to others. And so for me, there's this parallel, is it parallel or it's just a concurrent or it's an intertwined process of? It's literally hand in hand. The work on me becoming less self-shaming, self-critical and self-blaming ⁓ intrinsically then enables me to be less

Guy Bloom (30:31)
It's aligned, it's connected to it's... ⁓

Jeanne Hardacre (30:50)
critical judgy othering and shaming and blaming of others. No surprise really, is it, when we think about it. But what I often see is approaches to culture, which you and I are both passionate about, the impact and importance of culture at work, starting with behavior of other people, largely. ⁓

And if it's not aligned with the really deep work of, well, I might need to accept that I'm part of the problem here first and foremost, before I start asking everyone else to change, that requires a real courage and humility that in conventional ways of using power in organizations is not rewarded and has not been rewarded in the past. ⁓

But, and yet when people find the courage and humility, because the two things go hand in hand, courage, humility, strength, they're all really hand in hand, to acknowledge that and then to start verbalizing it and being open and honest about it, that transforms everything in our relationships. Because we can let go of this competition as to who's more right, who's more virtuous, who's more perfect, who's more honorable, all of those things.

Because frankly, Guy, for me, that's a nonsense because every single human being on this planet, in my experience, has the capacity to love and to hate, to be really such a positive force in the world and also to be hugely destructive, depending on the conditions they find themselves in. And that's that's sort of at the heart of some of my work, really. But it feels as if we've gone quite deep here. And I don't know whether that's where you wanted to go.

Guy Bloom (32:41)
Hmm. No, that's okay. I think it's lovely. I think

this is a great conversation. So with your permission, we'll keep going. And I'll offer you an observation, which is, so I've done martial arts all of my life, basically. And I can bore you rigid with that another day. The thing about the martial arts is that you learn very, quickly if you're not prepared to lose.

Jeanne Hardacre (32:56)
Okay.

Guy Bloom (33:11)
If you're not prepared to learn, if you're not prepared to let your ego go, you'll never progress. Because nobody's gonna wanna train with you. Anybody that's better than you, if you try and beat, if you can't be beaten, then I can't learn. Because If you're always gonna dominate me, then if I'm...

junior to you I don't want to train with you because I'm not learning anything if I'm your peer and you're always combative with me I don't want to train with you because I'm not learning anything and if I'm senior to you I can't teach you

And so you very, Very quickly notice, I mean, the odd person gets through with a big ego, but 95 % of senior martial artists are, you know, they can tie you up in a knot and throw you in the boot of the car, but they're incredibly nice, incredibly humble, because they've just spent the last 10 years being handed their arse, basically, and then, you know, to get there.

they've had to park ego and learn that true strength is true vulnerability. You can't embarrass me or hurt me. You can only teach me. Now it doesn't mean I'm gonna take it on board because you're six foot two and what works for you when I'm only five foot 10 doesn't work for me. But it is your truth. So let me understand it. Why? Because one day I might be teaching somebody that's six foot two as well. So it may not work for me, but it does work for them. So I'll put that in my memory bank because it might help that person. So I really resonate with what

saying and I think I was quite blessed and I do notice it in certain areas where people have been in places and spaces where you will not move forward unless you're willing to be like that but sports is a particular truth for that. again I just offer that parallel of really recognizing that that's true across an entire kind of ⁓

sort of genre of being, know, let's just say the martial arts. know, if you're a golfer or a tennis player, who wants to play you if you don't want to be beaten, if you won't, etc. So that resonates. I think that's a huge, I think that's a truth, but you have to get past ego, you have to get past position. I'm older than you. And one last thing, what's really fascinating is when you walk into a martial arts club,

Jeanne Hardacre (35:25)
Yeah.

Guy Bloom (35:39)
there's two types of instructors and you'll notice you'll make this parallel straight away just like with senior managers in some martial arts clubs you walk in and they've got a load of senior practitioners who are better than they are and then you go into other martial arts clubs where you walk in and they are the best one in there and that tells me all i need to know does that make sense

Jeanne Hardacre (36:02)
Fascinating. Yeah, it's a world I've never had any opportunity to have an insight into, but I find it really interesting hearing those stories and insights and parallels. Thank you.

Guy Bloom (36:04)
Yeah.

Yeah, I just observe it as it, because these things are true. They're usually true in other places, not just in this one linear business world context. Actually, it's not just true there. If you think about it.

and you can spot them and you can walk into an organisation and go, well, if you're the top jolly and you're always right and nobody else is better than you, that tells me everything I need to know versus actually most of my senior team are pretty better than me at most of this, but I'm still in charge, right? And that's a different kind of human. So I really resonate with you on that.

Jeanne Hardacre (36:46)
can't hear you. Yeah.

Guy Bloom (36:50)
Fascinating. So listen, let's move into just because otherwise this is going to be an all nighter and ⁓ that's not going to work for anybody is let's just talk about your book. Let's jump forward. Let's let's be we'll be brave. You've written this book, The Culture Trap, Human Ways to Improve and Human is an is a it's not a it's an acronym. Is that the word?

I'm looking for, yeah, H-U-M-A-N with dots in between. Ways to improve your influence, relationships and culture at work. So I think we've got a real strong sense of you. I think you're driven by a sense of curiosity and instinct and insight and you've got lived wisdom and I can feel that through this conversation and I'm probably only touching the sides of that truth.

Jeanne Hardacre (37:19)
think so.

Yeah.

Guy Bloom (37:46)
So you wrote the book, ⁓ it's probably a rhetorical question because I think I know the answer, what was the instigator? I've got to write this book, I'm going to write this book. Who is it for? What do you want it to do? And just start to bring that to life.

Jeanne Hardacre (38:04)
I wrote the book out of sheer despair. It came from a place of utter despair, which was reached ⁓ after I'd been working independently for about 15 years and I was working with ⁓ people who had a lot of organisational and political power. ⁓ And I also, in my home life, found myself supporting ⁓

in my family, someone I love very much who got to the point of almost ending their life because of how the culture at work, and they were a leader with power themselves, almost destroyed them as a result of whistleblowing. And not wishing to dwell on that, it for me left me

feeling utterly bitter, cynical, angry with the world, powerless to improve and do anything. And actually it really affected my ability to do my work because the whole, realizing the lack of ethics and the corruption actually, and I will use that word, because that's what I came up against in trying to fight.

on behalf of this person to have their justice and values acknowledged, which never actually happened. It left me in a really, really terrible place, guy. I was trying to run my business. I was trying to support ⁓ this person who had disappeared, really.

in, for people who know what it's like to work, see, or to live with someone who has an acute episode of ⁓ psychological ⁓ trauma, then they will know what I mean when I say this person had disappeared. They were there in front of me, but they were gone. ⁓ And I was also bringing up three, at the time, teenage children. And I realised I had a choice.

I couldn't really continue the way I was because it was affecting everything, including how I showed up for my clients. And the choice I had was to either continue to be that person or to change. And the change had to happen here. And I decided that I...

couldn't bear the idea of living my life as the person I've described, the bitter, twisted, cynical person. And it was actually going to make me ill. And so my question became, and this is really the question that led me to start writing the book, how is it that people who are apparently good, decent people with the best of intentions, trying to work hard so often create an awful experience for each other?

because that's actually what culture is all about. How does that happen and why does it happen? And once we understand how it happens and why it happens, and that's what I call the culture trap, that is what we create if we're not careful and if we don't understand stuff that we need to understand.

Once we've understood that and how we create the culture trap for each other at work, we can then find ways of liberating ourselves together from it. But only if we understand how it happens in the first place and why can we take responsibility for the part we play in it and make that change. So that was why I wrote the book. And it pulled together a very wide range of work that has been done by

an eclectic mix of ⁓ researchers, academics, practitioners over the years. My own research is really in there as well. But it reframes it in a way that I've not ever seen it reframed before. And that's why for me it felt like it was worth writing because I didn't want to write a book that had already been written. And I don't... ⁓

I don't mean to diminish any books by saying that, but what I wanted to do was to really get into this question that I think has been avoided because it's very uncomfortable to ask the question, how can I possibly be part of creating this culture that is causing so much harm?

Guy Bloom (42:43)
Hey.

So who would read it? Who's your audience?

Jeanne Hardacre (43:05)
Well, I'm learning who my audience is by the people who are reading it and coming back to me and talking to me about it. And the people who are reading it range from ⁓ leaders and chief people officers and chief execs who are searching for something beyond the norm, beyond the conventional. Let's diagnose it. Let's do lots of surveys. Let's got lots of data. Let's measure it.

Let's then put an action plan in place and then let's see what the recommendations are and then let's realise that we've not managed to do the recommendations and then wonder why the culture hasn't changed. Or let's try and take a behavioural approach and tell everybody how they need to behave. know, people out there are realising that that, doesn't really cut it. We've tried it for decades and we still find ourselves in the situation we're in with, you know,

huge workforce problems, not being able to keep or retain or attract the people that we want, affecting the bottom line, a mental health crisis at work. Do know what? Our previous approaches to culture, the evidence is it's not really making the difference we want it to make. So the people who are seeking out this book are the ones that are acknowledging that and saying, okay, so what else is there? What else is there? What else could we do? And what works?

what actually has an impact. And so people are reading the book and then coming to me and saying, I can see how this will work. And so how can we implement this? How can we together jointly embed this approach to get the outcomes that, you know, that we're getting and I'm getting with the work that we're doing with organisations. But it also includes Gen Z people. got people who are not even graduated yet reading it saying,

my gosh, my gosh, this is happening in the bar where I work. This is happening in the takeaway where I serve at the counter. I've got people coming to me who are trying to address endemic toxic cultures in some of biggest public services in the country. I've got managing directors of manufacturing and tech companies coming to me saying, we're losing people, we can't keep people.

because we're just struggling to get on and everybody's under pressure and the pressure's just eroding the collaboration we need. ⁓ And so the people who are reading it are people who are either struggling because they've got a real problem and they need a new solution, although solution isn't really the right word because it sounds too ⁓ simple and transactional, and need a new approach.

or they're people who can see that they have to invest in this work as a future-proofing way of ensuring that they stay ahead of the curve in what is a hugely competitive market. So it's a whole range of people and their motivations tend to fall into one or the other of those categories.

Guy Bloom (46:19)
So what is the, I mean we're not gonna do an entire book and an entire way of working with you on a podcast that would not do you justice at all. If I was sat down with you and I said.

What are we going to do here? What's the way of us?

Jeanne Hardacre (46:37)
Mm-hmm.

Guy Bloom (46:41)
because again, won't know it really until we're in it with you. But we're to have to trust you because you know what's what. You can make sense of it for us so we know what we're doing. It's like me describing France if you've never been there. OK, so that's what it's going to be like. Well, until we get there, you're not going to have the experience, but it's going to be like this. What is that? Whether or not you bring the new molecule human alive, whether or not you just bring your way of, OK, when I work with people, this is what it looks like. Either way, I think

I'd just like to hear that.

Jeanne Hardacre (47:14)
So my approach almost exclusively, not completely, but almost exclusively is with groups of people at work together, teams or groups of people who need each other. I work in that space rather than one to one. And what this does, it enables people to all learn and understand the human approach, the HUMAN approach together.

and apply it collectively. So every single individual is learning and putting it into practice and that then creates a collective impact. ⁓ the HUMAN approach is around honesty, which sounds so simple and yet it really isn't and there is a real lack of honesty. But it's not just saying what you think or feel, it's humble honesty to acknowledge the part I might be playing.

Guy Bloom (48:05)
Mm-hmm.

Jeanne Hardacre (48:12)
and also honesty about human nature, really getting under the skin of why do humans behave in ways that are so often damaging and harmful to themselves and each other at work. You is uncomfortable. It takes people into the discomfort of realizing how they perpetuate ⁓

staying in their comfort zone and how that limits them ⁓ and helps them have those really uncomfortable conversations that might need to be had in ways that don't leave ⁓ a detritus behind, damage behind, are not embarrassing, shaming ⁓ and also that allow us to name the really important issues that generally we'd rather ignore or not pay attention to.

And so this is not, this is not for them faint hearted. And yet it really transforms trust and vulnerability and collaboration and the ability to do the really difficult work. ⁓ is because all of this is very messy and it's around nurturing human group dynamics that are healthy. Understanding why teams and groups fall into such harmful patterns of

behaviour together, particularly under pressure. And then once you've learned why and how that happens and recognised, yeah, we're doing that as well. my gosh. Well, how are we going to choicefully, intentionally and deliberately hold each other to not do that, not to fall into those traps and to behave in ways that are really healthy group dynamics. A is amazing because the impact of

what these groups and teams of people can achieve is way beyond what they believe. Because most people at work have learned to think that they don't really have much power. Even chief execs I work with, they sometimes do not feel powerful. And so it's around working with people to reframe what power is and when you've got it, when you've found your own, what are you going to do with it?

Guy Bloom (50:20)
Great.

Jeanne Hardacre (50:32)
And a lot of people are terrified actually about, if I find my power, my gosh, that means I've got to do something with it. And actually I'd rather everybody else take responsibility for that. Or, yes, I've got my power, but I realize I'm using it essentially to try and control everything and everybody, and it's not really getting what we need. So how could I use my power less to dominate and more to liberate this human system of resourcefulness we've got?

And then new, N is for new because embedding new expectations, norms of behaving, new ways of using our power, new ways of relating, conversing is not easy. And yet it's so much easier together, jointly. And it also involved holding boundaries in new ways because what I see a lot is people at work who have lost a sense of where it is appropriate and healthy to hold boundaries.

to say no, to say enough, and to keep themselves well. And that is contributing hugely to the burnout levels that are ruining people's health. So that's a very quick whistle stop tour through HUMAN. And it is an approach that when people do this together in teams,

as leadership teams or as mixed teams with operational people doing the work and people doing the managing. They tell me it's like having team therapy. Now, I don't hold myself up as a therapist, but because of the depth of ⁓ change that happens in people's willingness to engage and interact in a completely different way together.

it releases people's fears that are absolutely paralyzing. And that is why it liberates people from the culture trap.

Guy Bloom (52:35)
Yeah, often, once I hear that, I say to people, look, I'm not a therapist. It may be therapeutic, but it is not therapy. And I think, and I'm not a therapist. So I think you're recognizing that the depth of what you do is creating that experience for people. And yeah, not everybody's gonna have exactly the same experience, but I understand what you're coming from. I find this very... ⁓

Powerful I have a different vocabulary, which is fine, but actually it's reassuring to me to go The mnemonic may not be something unfamiliar with but when I hear you talk about it Everything resonates with me, you know different different chessboard different different pieces different approaches But actually at its core I can hear you talking about

things and I would go, yes, okay, that resonates. Which is reassuring for me, because if I respect you and you say things and I go, bloody hell, I'm not doing any of that, that would be disturbing. So it's great that I hear that resonance in that. So there's a real, I think what I'm really interested in, and time is probably gonna fight against us, but maybe my last kind of question is, if there is a...

an approach, call it the Tao of the way that we're going to do this and people are looking, as you say, I think this is quite right, there's always, you know, there's already a formula for doing certain things, do a diagnostic and dot dot dot dot.

and maybe certain times that is the right thing to do. But if that hasn't worked or it doesn't feel right, then there is deeper work. And we're not talking about the psychiatrist's chair, but we're talking about a place where we can come and have the grown-up conversations and we can have powerful conversations. What's your sense of bringing people...

into a space where you can create that. I wouldn't use the word comfort that may come in time but usually on day one.

There's a lot of my phrase dancing around the handbags, but there's a kind of a, for some people this will be awesome. There's usually a distribution curve of, you know, I've done this kind of thing before. Well, you probably haven't, but you think you have and all that kind of stuff. How do you bring people to a level where they can walk into the room as much as possible?

with an intention that will allow you to then move them forward? Is there a kind of a, yeah, I'd just be interested in that. Because I think anybody listening to this might go, yeah, but you haven't met the, my lot. You know, and I think that that could be a reason that would make people think probably great, but I don't think my lot would react to that or want to do that. And I think that could, if people understood how you're approached there, I think that could put a lot of people at ease.

Jeanne Hardacre (55:41)
And that is something obviously very familiar to me and my approach is quite simple. It's that everything is invitational. There is no obligation and no expectation from me as to whether anybody turns up, comes along to the group team coaching because everybody has a choice. Now that is radical.

in development space because ⁓ it means that people make their choice and then live with consequences of that choice. And it also means that the people who do choose to engage are the ones where the energy will come from. So a very quick example of this is a tech company I worked with last year.

And ⁓ it was a classic of a managing director and two owners who commissioned this, but they didn't think they needed it. It was for everybody else needed it. And of course that would not stand up to the conventional approach, which is, we need top leader buy-in, know, culture change comes from the top. Well, do you know what? We've been telling ourselves that forever and that's what's got us where we are. And so part of this book is, no, actually.

there's lots of evidence here that culture change can happen, whether we've got those at the top involved or not. And it happens because as soon as some people start interacting and behaving differently and interrupting the patterns of the way they're expected to behave, do you know what? It has a knock on effect. in this company I'm talking about, was three people, three or four people out of...

Guy Bloom (57:25)
There's a ground swell.

Jeanne Hardacre (57:33)
a company of 20, who actually with almost the sort of least likely people in any organisational chart or hierarchical kind of mapping or talent spotting process, they really probably wouldn't have been the people that you would expect. But they in six months of working on this with me became the most influential people in that company. And ⁓

their managing director wasn't involved, their owners weren't involved, and yet they were able, together jointly, through taking this approach, to send ripple effects through the whole of that organization. ⁓ And so I think that's one very tiny example of how powerful this is. So my approach is invitational, and my approach is also based on mini experiments.

Guy Bloom (58:21)
Yeah.

Jeanne Hardacre (58:30)
We're not going for big, massive programmes of work. It's everybody commits to and intends and chooses to do many experiments that I guide them in. And they then commit together to do that. And they account together and they support and challenge each other to go and change something in the way that they are responding or the way that they are interacting that they've recognised is causing a problem.

And it is immensely powerful because it means that people actually start to feel they can do something. Because what I hear all the time is, ⁓ culture, it's just the way it is. It's them up there who have to set the direction. And do you know what? That's paralyzing. And how long are we going to wait? A year? Five years? Some of us have been making our health career for them, whoever they are up there, to change the culture. So enough.

Guy Bloom (59:17)
Thank

Jeanne Hardacre (59:26)
It's a nonsense. It doesn't work. So why continue to sort of perpetuate this belief that somewhere, somewhere up there is clever enough to be able to change culture? Of course they're not. We create it. So let's create it.

Guy Bloom (59:40)
I love that, change your truth. know, Change the truth of those maybe around you or influence those around you. And actually, right, if this, yeah, if people see a different version of you that resonates, that has presence, that holds space, et cetera, et cetera, then actually I'd like a bit of that. I'd like a bit of that. And then it becomes an abundance. That's really exciting. So I love that. Now listen, I'm not, sorry, gone, gone.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:00:06)
⁓ So Invitational

and mini experimenting are the two core things. A real antidote to the usual approaches to culture, which is trying to get a grip of the whole thing and be in control of everything, which is counter productive and which is actually perpetuating the problem because it's all about trying to dominate people and telling people what to do. Who likes to be told what to do and to be controlled? Most people not.

Guy Bloom (1:00:10)
Love the mini experimenting.

Well, you're

talking to the right person when you say that. I'm fascinated by it. I am slightly intrigued by something that I often end up saying, be careful what you ask for. Because if you want training and

Inverted commas Bob and I'm doing that anybody called Bob a disservice But if you just want Bob to come in slap up some PowerPoint slides and train people I'm not the fella for you and I have a sense yours You'd be saying I'm not the woman for you if that's the case if you want things and people go. yeah. Yeah. I go well hold on because if you say yes, and then you See this change occur and you then don't adjust to the needs that they then have

what you'll be doing is you'll almost be going there was a game show some years ago called Bullseye and he used to say look at what you could have won to the people that lost

Jeanne Hardacre (1:01:29)
Okay. ⁓

Guy Bloom (1:01:31)
Right,

so when they lost, they would turn it around, they'd show the grand prize and he'd go, look at what you could have won. And you go, jeepers, creepers, mate. But hilariously, if you put people through a process, and I imagine like yours, and they then start to shift and have a sense of what good looks like and they have an appetite for change and, you know, all with good intention, and you negate that.

and you then put them back in their box or whatever that phrase, which is probably a better one required than the one I just used. But if you keep people in their place, then you're saying, look at what you could have won. And then you'll end up in a worse place than when you started.

And I'm just wondering if that's something that kind of resonates with you at all, that the organization has to be alert to the fact that if you create change and you have people that then have a motivation and they do start to have a kind of a domino effect and start to touch each other and they do want to have this, if you don't allow that change to manifest itself in some way or form, that will then cause you a problem.

Is that something that kind of resonates with you or is that, no, that doesn't sit with me at all.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:02:38)
I suppose my slight concern about that or why I'm slightly uneasy about ⁓ fully endorsing that is that I think it's part of the narrative that has kept us where we are. It's almost the narrative of, well, it's not even worth trying anything unless we have all of these big important people with the hierarchical power are going to support us.

Guy Bloom (1:02:53)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:03:08)
And that's part of the trap. That is part of Keeps People Where They Are. It is a disempowering, dominating way of using power in organizations. And part of what I work with people on is to escape their own beliefs about their agency at work. And I talk to people about stop being a triangle.

Guy Bloom (1:03:11)
Nice.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:03:36)
Stop being a triangle. Stop fitting in to where you believe you fit and what that therefore means about you, your influence, your power. And start working. know, hierarchy is part of our reality. These invested and dominant ways of using power are part of our reality, but it doesn't have to be the whole reality. And I think why I'm so passionate about this is because it works. It has such a huge effect.

And I see the transformation effects it has on teams when they jointly and collectively realize that there is another way of ⁓ enacting their power. And it's about giving up the belief that being powerful is being in control of everything and everybody. ⁓ So.

The whole argument around, well, you know, if the overall context doesn't change, you know, it's not fertile ground. I, I not persuaded. Let's put it that way. I, I've, I've, I've been brainwashed around that for years and years and years, and I'm still quite skeptical about it. And, I see evidence. Yeah. Well, let the work happen. Let people find their power and influence. Let people escape the cultural

Guy Bloom (1:04:50)
So let the work happen. Yeah, let the work happen. Let's do that work.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:05:01)
norms that we're conditioned into and ⁓ yeah let's support people to then use all of that new energy because it does release huge energy this to ⁓ connect differently as human beings.

Guy Bloom (1:05:17)
So actually make place for the work, people then to live with it, don't forestall it or negate it by a presumption or a pre- kind of expected kind of response and actually, if I'm right...

and I think I am because the research and my experience would show that once people go through this experience, they will adapt, they will add value, they will whatever they'll do, but they'll be better for it and then the organisation will be ultimately better for it. How that might manifest, you know, don't know yet because we haven't done the work, but in reality if we don't do the work, how is that going to help you? So I think maybe that's what I'm, I think that's super powerful. Don't stop it before

Jeanne Hardacre (1:06:00)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Guy Bloom (1:06:05)
starts, don't presume, let it do its work, give it as much space as you can to happen and that it feels then is very generative.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:06:17)
And I think one last thing I would just add that we haven't necessarily touched on, but I was reminded of when you were talking about the slides on the PowerPoint. I often work with people and say, look, don't look at the wall. Don't look at the screen. We're not going to get any answers or any change looking at the wall. Let's look at each other. Look at each other as human beings and move less from what we're going on up here.

Yes, what we think and know is important, but actually the change comes from what we feel. It comes from how we feel. It comes from our emotion, because our emotion is the energy that leads to behaviour change. ⁓ Our emotion affects what we think and what we think and what we feel then affects the way we interact. And so as much of my work with people is helping them connect in terms of their feelings, emotions.

and the energy of that as it is anything about what might be right or wrong at a cognitive level.

Guy Bloom (1:07:20)
Okay. Right, so couple of things. If people want to reach out to speak to you, I'll have all the links in the descriptions that we do, of course, that goes without saying. But if just, what's the best place, your website, LinkedIn, what's the best first point of contact for you?

Jeanne Hardacre (1:07:29)
thank you. Thanks.

I would say be the culture change.co.uk. That's my website or just search for my name because there aren't any other gene hard acres, especially not with the name, the way it's mine is spelt with an extra N and an E and on LinkedIn, that's also my main social presence. So, and the culture trap book obviously is available not just through

Guy Bloom (1:07:46)
Mm-hmm.

Perfect.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:08:10)
platform you mentioned earlier but other ⁓ retailers as well.

Guy Bloom (1:08:15)
So

stick it in the search engine and things will appear.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:08:20)
Yeah, be the culture change.co.uk and thank you Guy for what has been a really, for me, a very stimulating conversation. And what I've loved about it so much is your appetite to get to stuff we haven't necessarily really, we don't necessarily talk about normally. I love that. And I can see you've got a real thirst for stuff that's maybe that little bit more radical, edgy.

Guy Bloom (1:08:23)
Fabulous.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:08:50)
provocative, I might even say. Yeah, and so that's been really energising as an experience for me. Thank you.

Guy Bloom (1:08:51)
Yes, that's fair, that's fair. Well, I

think I've met, you know, again, I probably adjust according to the person that I have and 150 odd episodes I sometimes try to have a conversation and if it's so linear and so contrived that actually...

This is hard work for me, different, you maybe there's better people at this than I am, but I think what I've enjoyed is your ⁓ clarity of your position. I think I've enjoyed that you have intention. I think that means a lot. I think some people write a thing because they thought they think they should get a book out, but in truth, they're only telling me data.

which is not necessarily how they feel about it or their self-reflection on it or how their experience has shown them that. So I think when I speak to somebody that has that...

the book is just an outlet for the human. And I think I really feel that. And that really resonates with me. And I also think, I think you're right, I think the world is a big place. I think there are moments where certain more traditional manners of approach may be the right way. Sometimes McDonald's is required. That's okay, but sometimes I want a five-star bespoke experience. Okay, fine, the world's a big place. And we sit on that.

that spectrum. So I think you hold a really lovely way of being, think you hold a really lovely way of approaching it, your fluency shows me your intellect and your thought patterns. So for everybody listening, ⁓ I think this will have been a really

valuable conversation. I'll put the links in the description and all that. You've been an absolute joy. Just stay on and make sure everything uploads. But from me and my two listeners, that's not true I know, but I can't give myself permission to acknowledge the reality. So on that note, ⁓ you've been an absolute superstar and thank you so very much.

Jeanne Hardacre (1:10:54)
you

Thank you, Guy, and enjoy the rest of your week.

Guy Bloom (1:11:07)
Indeed.