E30 | Leah McLaren: Are You Less Competent Than You Think? #TeamWorkTuesday

Today on #TeamWorkTuesday, we are in conversation with Leah McLaren about the folly of thinking that we are more competent than we may actually be - and what that means for our leadership.
We will also be talking about how to change this and why it matters. 

Leah is an award-winning journalist, screenwriter, and novelist. Her two novels, The Continuity Girl and A Better Man, have been published in half a dozen countries and translated into several languages. She has also written for film and television.
Leah is also a coach and hypnotherapist and she lives and works in London, England.

GETTING TO UNSTUCK is a live podcast recording hosted by Christal Duncan, Colin Kingsmill, and Carol Vickers from Whole Human Coaching. Find out more about our work and take our free Whole Human Wheel of Life Assessment at https://wholehumancoaching.com

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Transcript

Colin Kingsmill: [00:00:00] Sorry, Leah, I forgot to tell you about the music part. 

It's peppy! Our intro is that we always bop a little bit to it to be nice. 

Christal Duncan: It does actually feel like a late night talk show when we have the music, right? Too bad, too bad we couldn't have like a picture of you like sliding into your square. I know exactly.

Well, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome to Getting to Unstuck. And today is teamwork Tuesday. And every Tuesday we have fantastic conversations. And today we know that we're about to have a really fantastic conversation with a really special guest, [00:01:00] Leah McLaren. Welcome to the show, Leah. We're so glad you're here.

Hello. Hello, 

Leah McLaren: Carol, 

Christal Duncan: Kristin, and 

Leah McLaren: Colin. Do you guys, is that like a thing? Did you find each other because of speech names? Yeah. Oh. 

No. I hadn't 

Colin Kingsmill: noticed that. 

It wasn't intentional, although it, it does, we do sometimes sign ourselves as three Cs. Yeah, exactly. 

Leah McLaren: I love it. 

Carol Vickers: Yeah. 

Christal Duncan: Luckily we also all have different last names, so if we use our initials, it's like not too confusing, but.

Yeah, that 

Leah McLaren: would be awkward if you all had the same last name. Yeah, 

Christal Duncan: totally. 

Leah McLaren: Like, I swear to God, we're not related. 

Christal Duncan: Okay, well, welcome. Welcome to the show. If you are just joining us now thanks for, thanks for tuning in wherever the show finds you, whether you're joining us live, whether you are driving in your car, you're doing your dishes, you're working out.

It's just really a pleasure to have you join us every day or every episode. We are talking about things in the workplace and in life about how we can reclaim [00:02:00] our humanity. Thanks around those areas and just continue to build a better world through becoming better, better people. Today, we're going to be talking about are you less competent than you think?

And before we get into that, I want to do a quick reminder that this Thursday is our next free workshop at 8am Pacific, 11 Eastern and 12 Atlantic standard time. And then. You can work out the details from there onward. If you're coming from across the ocean, we're going to be talking this this month again.

We're going to be talking about the future is whole human connection and you're going to see evidence of that in this conversation. And we're going to be doing a live workshop of how you can start to use coaching as a leader. But right now, here in this place, we're going to be chatting with Leah. Leah has been, she's a fantastic human, first of all, I just want to put that out there.

And Colin, Colin was the one You barely 

Leah McLaren: know me. Oh, but I do, Colin. I do, I've known 

Christal Duncan: you. [00:03:00] I vote for you. I vote for you. All the time. I'll 

Leah McLaren: take it. I'll take it. I'll 

Christal Duncan: take it. Leah's an award winning journalist. And she's a screenwriter. She's a novelist. She's had two novels, A Continuity Girl and A Better Man.

And she's also a memoirist. And her memoir that was recently released is called Where You and I Begin. And she's also a hypnotherapist and a coach. And she has a lot of really great insights today. We're going to be talking about how we can Overestimate, underestimate our competency and where the truth lies somewhere in the middle, and how we can better serve ourselves and the people that we lead.

So Leah, welcome to the show. And I am going to hand it over to Carol or Colin to just take it from here. 

Colin Kingsmill: Yeah. I mean, go for it, Carol. I'm 

Carol Vickers: Well, Leah, one of the things that fascinated, fascinated us when we were [00:04:00] talking about having a conversation with you is how much leaders particularly tend to overestimate their ability.

And we've been talking all this month about what gets said to leaders behind their backs and how they might be able to address it in person and what, what are the consequences of that? in how you are seen by the people that work around you. So this is a big issue. If you have overconfidence or you're certain that you know your own way, and the reality is that maybe you don't.

And you've run into this. So tell us how you've seen it. 

Leah McLaren: Oh, how I've seen it. Well, I mean, I'm in my shed, my writing shed, where I work alone because I've been a freelancer for a long time, but I did, I worked at a newspaper for 10 years on staff, and then remotely, kind of in a bureau, but and well, the culture of a newspaper is, you know, very [00:05:00] particular, but it's very autocratic and top down.

It has to be because, because you're always in production and you have to have someone, the buck has to stop somewhere. It's unlike other offices, I think in that sense, and that somebody has to make it or like other offices, but it's just more. Intense in that sense because somebody has to make the final decision every day.

And the stakes are quite high in the sense that the news is going out and and it has effect and reverberation in the world. So I guess that's the only office environment I've seen. Myself, but in the world, generally, I have worked sort of adjacently in many in TV production and in lots of aspects of media and the publishing world.

Obviously, yes. I, I would say myself, I don't want to, I don't want to like, [00:06:00] Backtalk any of my former bosses, but some were terrible. Some were amazing. I would say that as a writer, one thing I have learned is that when I feel when I feel most frightened and insecure and worried about the work that I'm doing, I have noticed over time.

That's often when I make a kind of leap forward. forward in my process and my craft, because that feeling of being Feeling less than competent often means that you are on a learning curve and learning. But I would imagine for leaders, like people in organizations there, that's a tricky thing, right?

Because you are leading and you're not meant to sort of show, show that, that kind of dissonance or [00:07:00] insecurity because you have to have, Confidence. And people, you don't want that to sort of filter down into the ranks. Exactly. That's so interesting. Yeah. So a lot of leadership is about, and a lot of leadership training that I've read about or even experienced because we did do some leadership stuff is about sort of projecting this error of confidence.

That error of confidence can sometimes turn into overconfidence or false confidence. Especially in organizations where if you don't, if you don't have an open culture, I suppose, if people are afraid to say what they think and the leader can start living in a bit of a, a kind of false Trumpian world where, you know, where it's sort of like, You know, all those stories about Trump and how he, when he was in office, he would just sit and watch Fox Fox news.

And that was his feedback. [00:08:00] And it was essentially a kind of fanfare and that's not, that's not really, that's not a healthy, I don't think Trump's white house was a healthy office environment. I'm just putting, that's just my analysis.

Colin Kingsmill: There's something really interesting in here though, that there's something really interesting in what you said, though, Leah, about about the workplace today, right? And this this tension between feeling like you don't know enough or feeling maybe incompetent, and that's a driver to succeed and to kind of do better and learn and dive into things.

But at the same time, I don't know about Carol and Crystal. I'm seeing a lot of a lot of A lot of leaders that are dealing with people with with with a generation or or a workplace that needs to feel safe all of the time. So how do you, how do you, how do you, how do you balance this, this, you know, [00:09:00] pushing a team or pushing people to kind of grow and evolve, but at the same time, there's this, there seems to be a lot of this sort of need for safety and a lot of a lot of tripwires and, and, and I've been speaking to people recently with an organization that we're working with and, and, you know, There's this almost this pent up holding in of I can't say I can't speak.

I can't do. It's interesting. I just wanted to kind of note that. And how do we navigate? How do we navigate in that world today, where you gotta be safe, but that doesn't mean you can't, it feels like you can't grow if you don't, yeah, 

Leah McLaren: anyway, 

Colin Kingsmill: sorry, I probably took myself too far. 

Leah McLaren: I mean, people, I think people need to feel challenged sometimes, don't they?

And there is, I mean, in the culture in recent years, I mean, Definitely millennial. I consider myself sort of late, very late [00:10:00] Gen X, millennial cusping, you might say. But I'm, I'm as old as a millennial can get and as, and as young as a Gen Xer can get in my demographic. But I find a lot of my millennial friends, who I often work with on projects, are just way, in a good sense, way more aware of their own of just, of their feelings, of their but also of their weaknesses, and maybe their strengths, but there is, with that comes potentially a fragility, and I'm more of a generation where You just put your head down and work and push through everything.

And I think it's a really healthy thing in a way that things like bullying in the workplace, it has become an issue because when I was like in my early 20s, it was just, I worked in restaurants, dude. It was just like, that was management. You weren't bullied and it was sort of very top down. I was just [00:11:00] like, sorry, isn't that what leadership is?

It's like somebody saying, shut up, go do it. And it's good, but that's no longer the case. But on the other hand, I also see with some young people, just there is also value in learning to push through your own discomfort and, and, That discomfort doesn't always mean wounding. Like it isn't always like, Oh, I have to go lay down in a dark room or I need to take a sick day.

It's and I think it's probably, there's a bit of a generational split in most workplaces where you have the people in power are going just go do it. Some of the people who might be really talented people are saying, I feel, I feel stressed out and it's like, yeah, it's a workplace. It's stress. That's how we operate.

So there's a balance like stress. I'm fascinated by stress because I, in my career, I have found it to be often a really good thing, [00:12:00] but there is a tipping point where stress. People get burnt out and and how to know that as a leader, I suppose. Well, you 

brought up the term awareness. I think that is a big piece of it as whether you're a boss or whether you're an employee is knowing how you sound and what your reaction is because yes, I think there is great value in that we are more more aware in general about bullying and about stress, but at the same time, how do we, how do we use stress, as you said, to be a motivator and to keep us on a, a really good clean edge working towards something?

Cause there is always this balance. And I think, well, bullying bosses may not be as visible. I think in some cases, what we've seen, if they've just gone underground. And they're more subtle about what they do. And it's no longer just shut up and go do that. There is a whole [00:13:00] implied 

Leah McLaren: I live in London, England, and I'm also known as the world capital of passive aggression.

The English. Nobody does passive aggression. Like, you Canadians. You think you're good at passive aggression. You have no idea. No, I'm just kidding. But it is a very English trait of sort of, would you mind please doing it? And that means, do it right now! So, yeah, yeah, yeah. But it's, and that's fine. But passive aggression can be very toxic, I think.

But it tends to flourish in cultures where people have what's called have you ever heard of preference concealment? It's like a sociological term. So preference concealment is studied by sociologists in often in like regimes. So like Berlin, right after the wall fell. So you have this sort of, you have, This autocratic [00:14:00] communist government where you can't say, you know, the Stasi will like round people up.

If you say anything against the government, suddenly the wall falls regime change basically. And people are like, Oh yeah, the party. No, wait, no, I hate the party. No. What do I even think? What are my politics? Like, what are my values? Because I live in East Germany, right? You know, in whenever it was like 1982 or 1888.

So people, but people in, when there are cultural, rapid cultural changes, as I think there have been in recent years in the culture at large, which obviously filters into the workplace in terms of what is changing. What is considered politically correct? What is taboo? What is offensive? What is permissible?

people Sort of you have what you think but then you learn you think oh, well, I can't say it that way That's offensive and Then you kind of have to conceal [00:15:00] what you mean and you And you it creates a culture of preference concealment Which means that when people want to say what they think like, you know Leaders or employees, they might say it in a concealed way, and that can lead to passive aggression.

So it's like, there's what you're saying and then there's a subtext and that can be, I personally as a Canadian don't, I don't grapple with passive aggression very well. I would just rather people were more direct, but it's hard to be direct in an office. 

Christal Duncan: It's very hard. I think it's also interesting when you when you consider because earlier we were talking about how there's And right now in the workforce, there's, there's technically also four generations in the workforce at the same time.

And so that's a lot of different experiences. It's a lot of different viewpoints. It's a lot of a [00:16:00] lot of different, like, this is how we've always done it here, or that doesn't make sense to me. And so I think that there can be a lot of. Like, like communication that's going like this all the time and not connecting.

And I'm curious. Around, around what your, what your thoughts are around how that plays out in people's perception of their own competence in, in the scenario. So as a leader and we work with, we work with a lot of leaders in whole human coaching. In fact, that's really Essentially all we work with in, in the, in the business setting, in the workplace setting, but also with individuals because of their own individual leadership.

And one of the things that is, that will often come up is either if someone has what would be like a false, false bravado as a leader or and almost the, the opposite where they have like an imposter syndrome in. In the fact that they don't feel like they don't deserve it or they, you know, [00:17:00] that they're, they don't belong there.

Somebody else is more qualified. So what are your thoughts around competency? And I remember Colin brought this up before in one of our conversations around the Dunning Kruger effect. And that was how, and he was like, you know who I talk about this with? I talk about this with Leah and I'm curious. To dive into that a little bit and give us some understanding around it.

Leah McLaren: Oh, I'm obsessed with the Dunning Kruger effect. It's one of those, I'm a bit of a sociology geek. So the Dunning Kruger effect is a famous, Sociological study. Let me see if I can paraphrase it. Succinctly. It's a famous sociological study. I think it was done in like eighties where a bunch of researchers went into the workplace and they basically, they asked, interviewed everybody.

And they, the main thing they quiz people on was how competent, how, how competent do you think you are rank yourself and rank your colleagues? [00:18:00] And. They didn't even, they did look at actual competency at some point, but the most surprising thing about it was they found that the two worked in kind of inverse proportion, proportion, like the people who rated themselves highly competent were often rated quite incompetent by their colleagues and vice versa.

So the people who. rated themselves as incompetent or less competent tended to be rated higher. And of course, every time I talk about Dunning and Kruger to someone who hasn't heard about it, they go, Yes. Intuitively, it makes sense for anyone, not just in the workplace, in the world, right? People who, people who sort of think they're the shit are often really annoying.

And people who are self critical can, are often, Really [00:19:00] charming and lovely and you want to be around, but similarly, it's also like that. Michael Poland, the New York Times food writer who's brilliant has he writes a lot about food and how to eat. And he says something like, don't take vitamins, be the kind of person who does take vitamins.

So meaning the kind of people who take vitamins always rank. On studies as healthier, fitter, more because not necessarily because they take vitamins, but because they're the kind of people, the kind of people who take vitamins, take care of themselves because they are worried about their health and they are self critical.

So being self critical is directly correlated to competence. But you're not necessarily aware of your own competence. I think in the workplace for leaders, like it would be, you know, that term, you guys must know that term failing upwards. There is that kind of I think for leaders that struggle would be you.

People are [00:20:00] often, people often want to reward or they, tend to reward people who remind them of themselves, but not everybody in the workplace is a leader. And a lot of highly competent, highly talented people are often don't necessarily outwardly display leadership skills, classic leadership skills, like huge social confidence, or self belief, or even a certain amount of bravado or, you know, that to, to actually manage a workplace.

Well, you have to see people's strengths that they maybe don't see themselves. Yes. Yeah. I don't think that the challenge is to try to convince self critical people. That to be overconfident or, but it's to get self [00:21:00] critical people to understand that their self criticism is a good thing and is part of their part of what they bring to the table in a good way, rather than using it to worry with self critical, highly competent, self critical people is that they can sometimes burn out also that the less competent.

Non self critical people often when I worked in a workplace, we called it managing up. So often the people who did less work spent more time polishing apples, more time managing up, i. e. more time impressing the boss with their dazzling ideas. And then there's this thing where. You'd suddenly, or suddenly the people, the people who worked harder got more work pushed on them 

because 

Leah McLaren: they got the work done.

They were competent. 

Leah McLaren: And [00:22:00] sometimes, not always, but there were some people that seemed to get ahead by doing that, by sort of pushing work off onto highly competent, self critical people who were less likely to say excuse me. I'm overloaded or I'm, and those people in, in toxic organizations, I think really thrive disproportionately.

And if I were running you know, and clients I've worked with too, who, who are in management and executive positions, we do talk about that, like how to actually, See not just recognize the strengths of people who are kind of like you but also the strengths of people who are very different personality types And also not to be dazzled by the incompetent manager at post liner Not to help people fail upwards.

I think it's really, I think leaders should not have a, [00:23:00] have a duty to not allow people to fail upward. But then again, on the other hand, in workplaces, you know, a lot of people, highly competent, self critical people, maybe don't want more you know, they might want to make more money. They might deserve a raise, but maybe they don't want a promotion.

That whole idea that promotions that, that salary should be linked to should always be, why shouldn't it just be linked to actually productivity? What you bring to the workplace culture, how competent you are. Why does it have to be linked to seniority? Some people are really good, good leaders, good managers, but.

I don't know. Women have been paid way less than men, secretly, for however long. Still are. Why can't we just if I was the CEO of the world, I'd be like, you know what? You know, Crystal, Crystal never says anything at meetings, but I'm looking and she's [00:24:00] Clearly a bit insecure, but I'm just going to give her a raise because I see what she's doing.

Yeah. Whereas Carol, Carol's, you know, she's good. She's good in the room, but she's, but she's actually not. And she might be good at rousing the crowd. I'm talking, I don't know, but you know, I, I think that leaders tend to reward other Upcoming leader types and why why should that be? Yeah. 

Colin Kingsmill: Oh boy. Yeah I mean, that's a whole kettle of fish 

it is and I think What I what I think it comes down to and certainly what some of the things that we have observed is this Ability to become self aware and that what we often are doing in our coaching is helping people learn shine, we're helping shine a light in those areas where people are still dark about how they are seen or perceived and how they might be able to grow [00:25:00] in their own self awareness so that they begin to catch themselves in those areas where, I mean, it's like you said, toxic workplaces exist and we run into them all the time and you have to be able to make a shift in a change in the leadership in their perceptions.

in order to make a shift that happens all the way down. But 

Leah McLaren: do you, and I think while you do that, with the leaders that you work with, how because according to the Dunning Kruger effect, you know, it's, the Dunning Kruger has been used to, to demonstrate often that incompetent people fail at work in organizations.

But do you think there's been a shift now with, Leaders in that they are learning to be more self critical or that the leaders that you are coaching are actually of a more self critical personality type, or are they trying to balance both? I 

think there's some, [00:26:00] there's some above. 

Colin Kingsmill: Both. Yeah, I think it's both, Leo.

And I think I think what people are starting to realize now is that leadership is not a one size fits all scenario. And going back to the generational stuff that we were speaking about earlier, we're now in a workforce where we have four generations that are really different than each other. Right. 

Leah McLaren: Yes.

Colin Kingsmill: So somebody in their twenties is acting and living and working and communicating and accepting communications very differently than somebody, let's say in their fifties. Right. And and we, we need, people are, I think I see people kind of going, the lights are going on, right. Because it's like, we have, we've also seen people saying, Oh my gosh, I'm not a good leader because These people are coming into my workforce and I, and they don't seem to thrive and they don't seem to work and they don't get it.

And then I have to fire them and, and they take it on themselves. But really it was a communications issue between somebody that is a millennial and [00:27:00] somebody that is just out of university and Gen Z, just totally different objectives and, and pain points and success measurements for, for all these four generations.

And then you layer in, you know, the Culture, cultural differences or language differences and it turns into it's quite a mix. Much more of a, yeah, it's much more of sort of management, like multi ethnic management almost, right? Trying to, trying to get all of these different, you know, different perspectives on the same sort of mission vision train.

And that's what I'm, I'm, I think we're all seeing this sort of awakening to, Oh, hold on. It's not a one size fits all, you know, the, the, the leadership books that I was, that I read when I was, you know, You know, we're, you know, you know, the, we all know the ones, right? It's like you do this and you seven habits of this, and then you'll be a great leader, right?

That checklist I think has become much more multidimensional now. [00:28:00] 

Christal Duncan: Yeah, very multi dimensional. Yeah. 

And I think Leah, one of the things that is an advantage that we have is that when we're brought into an organization or where we're invited to coach individuals, they're already. A little bit ahead of that, though we so far 

Leah McLaren: coaching even is, yes, has been so widely embraced at an institutional level is pretty pretty revolutionary, right?

And the ROIs 

Colin Kingsmill: on coaching are 700%. So it is, it is, it is looking and sounding and feeling like something that's needed more and more because I know when I was, you know, You know, my overachieving younger self. It was just, it was just plow ahead, right? Like we were talking about earlier, just notice the grindstone, plow ahead.

It doesn't matter what, what is in the way. You know, when I first met you, you 

Leah McLaren: were working for Peter Monk. 

Colin Kingsmill: Yeah. Okay. [00:29:00] He 

Leah McLaren: can't sue you. No, but Peter was who I interviewed on that press trip was The most iconoclastic, like he said a bunch of stuff to me as a reporter, as a journalist on that press trip that caused like a riot in the Montenegrin parliament.

And they stripped him of his of his citizenship. Do you remember? And his friend, Oh, Colin's dying. And the piece was great, but when it went and it was great for the project and you were like, yay. But then when it went online, He said all this incredibly iconoclastic stuff to me, like, that was, and it filters back to the crew, it was like basically a riot, there was like a full riot, and it was because it was months after the piece came out, so anyway, he was that style, oh my god.

Yeah, 

Colin Kingsmill: I, I definitely was not, you know, I [00:30:00] was just like that too, I, I mean, especially in my days of, you know financial services and Swiss banking, which I've blocked out of my memory now, but I had a whole first chapter in my life of, of working at UBS. Right. And oh my God. Right. Like, like, talk about, talk about, talk about just steamrolling anything that got in your way.

It was the 

way that we did things. Yeah. I'm grateful that there's some, there's been some shifts and changes. No, exactly. And 

Leah McLaren: we've run culture at large suffered greatly. I mean, you could argue that 2008 is the crash was a direct result of that culture of just coming to a head and nearly, you know, it's like no oversight and just, you know, Yeah, tough guy, that sort of mentality actually nearly sinking the entire global economy.

So, you know, guys, like, yes, exactly. No, [00:31:00] exactly. So it's yeah, that we're definitely living in a whole new world. I think though, when I think about young employees, and in the workplace, I like in London, England, where I live, the gap between the difference between you know, being a salaried employee of, say, I don't know, big PR firm in, in your 30s now versus 20 years ago, in, just in monetary terms of what that salary can afford you, because cost of living has gone through the roof and salaries have not here, I don't know about Canada, I think it's a bit better have you know, salaries have not gone up, you know, proportionally.

And so you have a whole bunch of people in your workplace who are like close to paying off their mortgages on houses that they bought 20 years ago. And then you have people who are like, [00:32:00] I'm never going to, I went to I'm just as smart as you. I work just as hard. Yeah. And. I don't have a hope in hell of ever buying a house.

I would be fascinated at how leaders deal with that. It's not like I can, I'm going to pay you guys all 10 times so that you can have the same, but I, I bet there's a real cultural gap between, you know, You know, those generations in terms of just how nice their life is. 

Yeah, we can't afford it has a there's a real anger and that's some of the things that we're seeing as well is that there is this background background of real disparity and upset and sadness.

You know, it's just it is 

Leah McLaren: Millennials and Oh, you know, they're so sensitive and there're snowflakes and I know, but I think those people should like try being a millennial for five minutes, . [00:33:00] Oh yeah. And actually looking down the barrel. Mm-Hmm. . Yep. An economy and a life that is, that's, you know, that where that jobs, professional jobs that you get that would get you a nice big house on a leafy street and like a member of the country membership to the country club and two holidays.

Caribbean holiday and a summer cottage now gets you like a if you're lucky, like a rent controlled two bedroom apartment and maybe don't have kids because you can't afford it and maybe be a vegan because meat is expensive. That, I mean, that I bet managing those disparities in the workplace. It must be exceedingly difficult right now.

Colin Kingsmill: Also, when from a workplace perspective, when, when, when we were entering, when we were entering the workforce and even in the first sort of 20, 25 years of that, you know, if you, if you went to school and you got your what degree and you, [00:34:00] you started a career, it, it, it, there was sort of a path, right? That, that.

Whether it was delusional or not, that's another conversation we can have, but there seems to be a hopeful path that if I did A, B, C, and D in kind of a consequence, and I tried my best, then I, I, there was a road map. It was a recipe. 

Leah McLaren: I 

Colin Kingsmill: mean, I started in 

Leah McLaren: journalism. Can you imagine? It was like, great, you've got a job at the Globe and Mail.

Like your set, your it was a union shop. It was great. And I left to go freelance and then, and then I walked, you know, I was fine. I wrote a column and I published books and I journaled, but watching my industry, particularly in Canada, which is completely I mean, journalists in Canada, it's, it's, it's, it's I find that, you know, you see that all the major papers, they're just bleeding.

They've been [00:35:00] bleeding for years and that really affects, but it, that, yeah, that also affects the office culture and the leadership. Did the leadership within Canada's media organizations, any journalist would tell you that it's just become, I mean, leaders are just completely. under the gun. And I'm doing a, I'm doing a screenwriting project adapting a novel to film for a guy called Richard Sturzberg, who's an old, I used to work for the CBC a bit when he was in charge of the CBC.

And I mean, that job, even when he was doing it, was one of the most impossible. Jobs in Canada. And now it's even more impossible. But when you're dealing with a leading organization with all those generations, it's even harder. But I would, I'm not sure the CBC has any money to shell out for coaching [00:36:00] 

too bad.

Leah McLaren: Are you coaching at any major media organizations? Seriously? 

Christal Duncan: Not yet. There's always, There's always potential. 

Leah McLaren: They don't have the budget, I'll tell you. But I think, but maybe if they earmark some funds. 

Well, and Leah, there's so much we could begin to talk about the state of journalism in the world and in Canada.

Leah McLaren: It affects that that office culture is the office culture that I knew and it. And that I still have colleagues working in and it is a really tough one. When you have that feeling of the, you know, you're like on an island and the tides are rising. 

Colin Kingsmill: That whole industry is going through such a fundamental shift, right?

So that's, that's a big part of it. I mean, maybe we could have another conversation another day, almost about sort of massive shifts in industries because the media industry is one, but there's others where the, [00:37:00] they are disappearing. Right. It's 

Leah McLaren: called right. Creative destruction. You know, that term is such an interesting term.

It's like, I'm working at, I'm a piano maker. I'm working at the piano factory. Oh, this thing called the phonograph. Yeah. That's never going to go anywhere. Right. Exactly. I started, and yeah, I remember being shown Google in like my first year at the Globe and Mail when I was a cub reporter and thinking, Oh, cool.

Colin Kingsmill: No 

Leah McLaren: knowledge of like, this is the end of your industry, as you know, it's been quite an extraordinary. Yeah. Right. And that's quite a journey. Yes. It requires huge leadership. 

Colin Kingsmill: Well, let's save that for our next, our next podcast together. We should probably wrap up and let you go back to London. Thank you.

Christal Duncan: Thank you, Leah. Thanks for joining us. [00:38:00] Thank you. And if you are still here, thank you for being a part of being a part of our day and allowing us to be a part of yours. Don't forget, if you're interested in joining our free workshop on Thursday, March 28th, sign up now so that even if you're signed up and you can't join us to make sure you'll be able to get the replay on that.

And you can learn how you yourself can start to use coaching. In your leadership. Don't forget. Also, one more thing. If you liked a show or any of the shows, have you heard, please leave us a review. They are truly helpful and share it with whoever you think is going to benefit from it until the next time.

Yeah. 

Christal Duncan: for joining us. Until the 

Leah McLaren: next 

Christal Duncan: time we'll see you soon.