The Handbook: The Operations Podcast

Amy Hopper: How to build more engaged, high-performing teams

• Harv Nagra • Season 1 • Episode 17

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Individuals thrive when they’re equipped to handle challenges.

Amy Hopper is a former agency owner and now founder of the business consultancy TOA. In this episode, Amy opens up about her journey through some serious challenges. She shares how those experiences helped her create a system that keeps teams (and individuals) focused, engaged, and productive.

Amy dives into practical tips on:

  • Planning your day in a way that energizes you instead of draining you.
  • Letting go of perfectionism so you can delegate more and grow faster.
  • Overcoming resistance to change, both personally and within your team.


Her insights are packed with real-world lessons for leaders looking to build stronger, more resilient teams.

Follow Amy on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/amyhopper/

Follow Harv on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/harvnagra/

Stay up to date with regular ops insights. Subscribe to The Handbook: The Operations Newsletter.

This podcast is brought to you by Scoro, where you can manage your projects, resources and finances in a single system.

Harv:

Thanks for listening to The Handbook: The Agency Operations Podcast. This podcast is brought to you by Scoro. Scoro is a PSA or professional services automation platform. Don't blame me. I did not come up with that label, but yeah it's easy for those of us in agencies to forget that ultimately we are professional services businesses in the business of selling time. A PSA platform helps your agency take a leap in maturity from disjointed tools and spreadsheets that don't talk to one another, to a single source of truth for your business. Bringing together quoting, project and time tracking, invoicing and reporting into one beautiful place so you don't have to spend your time looking up or copying and pasting data from several different places. I left my job as an in house ops director to work for Scoro because I was so impressed. Sign up for a free trial at scoro.com or if you arrange a demo call, tell them Harv sent you. Now let's get to the episode. Hey all, welcome back to the podcast. So a confession to start, I have a bad habit of letting work, and particularly my sense of achievement and productivity, influence how I feel about myself at the end of each day. I mean, I probably got into ops because I'm obsessed with getting things done and wanting things to be efficient, but that can have a negative influence on my mental health. If I didn't get everything done that I wanted to, even if those expectations were unreasonable, the lingering guilt and anxiety can ruin my evening. Actually, that story reminds me a bit of a TV series some of you may have seen called Severance. When the employees in the series step into their office, they can't remember anything about their personal lives, and when they leave work, they can't remember anything about their work lives. For better or worse, that's just not how real life works. We don't get a clean divide between who we are at work and who we are at home. What's happening in our personal lives, in our relationships, how well we slept, and our health, all of that can influence how we get on with work on a given day and like my story above, what happens at work can easily influence how we feel and behave at home. So what we're going to be talking about today is emotional regulation, the psychology of work, why we act the way we do, and how we, as agency leaders, can work towards creating a culture that gets the best out of people by looking after their well being. We'll also be sharing some tips and tricks on how you can plan your day in a way that energizes you rather than drains you. Our guest today is Amy Hopper. She's a former agency owner and now founder of business consultancy, the TOA Group. Amy is a sociologist and entrepreneur. She founded her first business at 25. She's overcome what you might call extreme personal challenges. I'm going to let her tell you her story in her own words in a few minutes, but through everything she's been through, Amy's created a system that helps individuals and teams overcome their challenges and become more focused, time efficient, engaged, and productive. That sounds like something we could all learn and benefit from, doesn't it? So let's get into the conversation. Amy, welcome to the show. Thank you so much for being here.

Amy Hopper:

It is a pleasure. Thank you so much for having me.

Harv:

There's so much you've done, so much you've accomplished and so much you've overcome. Can you tell us your story,

Amy Hopper:

Oh gosh. Quickly?

Harv:

Take as much time as you need.

Amy Hopper:

I've actually written some of it down because I feel like if I don't, if I don't, then I'll uh,

Harv:

You'll

Amy Hopper:

I'll miss details. Okay. So. Yeah, it's been, it's been a colorful decade for sure, but, essentially went to uni, studied sociology, did my final thesis in the sociology of work and alienation in the workplace, then went straight into work and realized that it was not for me. But the nine to five classic structure and hierarchical system, I just thought, yeah, that's, that's not, I want to do my own thing. So I started my own agency at 25. It was a PPC search agency in, in the glory days, as we like to call it, you know, when you used to have to write your own code in Excel,

Harv:

Right

Amy Hopper:

like, like, ah, how beautiful was that? And, Sadly, a year later, I was involved in a dangerous car accident. A woman came into our lane, hit me head on, ended up with permanent spine damage. And

Harv:

Oh no.

Amy Hopper:

yeah, just having to, you know, having a year old business, what on earth am I going to do? And, and running the business, pretty much like lying on my back on the sofa. And I think one year, I think eight, eight spinal procedures just, just in the course of the year, but managed to grow that business to a top 30 Google partner agency, we won Drum awards, won the Amazon business award and the business was doing really beautifully. Really

Harv:

Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

but got to a stage, I'm still undergoing so many procedures, sometimes having to use a wheelchair and it got to the point where the doctor said, yeah, you're going to need a fusion.

Harv:

Okay. Okay

Amy Hopper:

A titanium fusion at 31.

Harv:

Wow.

Amy Hopper:

In the December, in the January, we went into lockdown.

Harv:

Mm.

Amy Hopper:

and, and then very, very sadly in, in the first lockdown, I, I was widowed. I was, I lost my, my husband and my business partner and just,

Harv:

Oh my gosh.

Amy Hopper:

yeah, just being in this position of just, you know, I was still using a wheelchair, wasn't able to, I'd lost my body, lost my best friend, my husband, and, and now thinking about running a business, running an agency, which was doing really well, when we went and thinking, what on earth am I going to do?

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

And, And there is a beautiful, there's quite a beauty actually in being in that, in that position of surrender, full surrender and, your only way is up because you're, you're just, you're on the floor and cause it teaches you the, it teaches you the beauty of what's important.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

What truly matters and what true value is.

Harv:

Mm

Amy Hopper:

so sold my business. Sold my agency.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

Rebuilt my body, went, went traveling around Europe solo, went solo hiking 600 kilometers around Europe.

Harv:

Wow.

Amy Hopper:

Got to the position, obviously invested a huge amount in therapy, self care, Mm. studying psychology and, and, you know, training and building my body and my mind back up to a place where I was healthy.

Harv:

Mm

Amy Hopper:

And then people started to say to me, how did you do it? How are you, how are you here?

Harv:

hmm.

Amy Hopper:

Not only are you, but also smiling and, and able to function and thrive. And there was that British thing of instantly saying, Oh, well, you know, you just put one foot in front of the other

Harv:

Mm hmm.

Amy Hopper:

and realizing in myself that that wasn't true at all, that I'd actually gone back to my, my training as a sociologist and I'd, I'd gone back to my psychology, and I had read every single self help guide in the library and I'd done the yoga ashrams and I'd taken the supplements and I'd

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

gone from everything from sort of intensive trauma EMDR therapy, all the way through to sort of mind, body yoga experience and everything in between, plus business coaching, plus a bit of military training and realized I created a system,

Harv:

Wow.

Amy Hopper:

Not only what worked for me, but what worked within business and what worked within organizations and worked for individuals and teams. And that's the system the, the TOA is based on today. And I thought I need, this isn't just for me, I need to show other people this. They don't have to go through what I went through in order to achieve the same wisdom and the same results.

Harv:

That is incredible.

Amy Hopper:

Thank you. That, that, that, that covers, that covers.

Harv:

That, that is, that is intense. You know, well done. And that's just super inspirational. And also that epiphany as well, you know, that, that's not easy to come by or to say, other people could learn from this or, or benefit from some of the things that you've learned. So that's, that's, that's amazing. So that's where you started TOA and that was a couple of years ago.

Amy Hopper:

Yeah, so T-O-A, some people call it TOA, I don't, I don't mind, I think there's however, however people want to pronounce it. Yeah, that started in January 2023.

Harv:

Mm.

Amy Hopper:

So, we started off as, as, well, although I hate the word wellbeing and that's another story, but I started off as a wellbeing consultancy for corporates, for agencies, and for, for businesses in stressful, high stress environment, and it's turned into a performance consultancy.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

That's, that's very much the way that, that the direction the clients wanted to take it in. And so that's what we did to facilitate the need.

Harv:

Right. So, I think I know what a sociologist does, but the sociology of work, you know, I mentioned this in the intro about yourself. What does that mean? What is the sociology of work?

Amy Hopper:

Essentially in sociology, what you're studying is, is you're studying relationships and structures.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And sociology in itself is actually a subject that is a, it's a rich tapestry with threads from many different subjects. So you've got history in there, cultural studies, you've got neuroscience, psychology, philosophy, anthropology, and everything in between. But essentially how sociology works, you, you are studying everything from the micro level in terms of this is an individual, why is an individual making these decisions as part of their personal makeup within society, all the way up to the macro of what are sociological structures and cultures and what are the behaviors that govern why certain groups do things both in the present and historically.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

So in In terms of a company and in terms of a business, it's really, really important actually to look at it sociologically and psychologically, rather than simply applying, you know, like traditional business coaching or just economics, because people aren't numbers, people aren't, they, they, and there'll be a whole host of reasons, both within the business and outside of the business, why your team, individuals within your team, act the certain way that they do. And how we can help them to support them to make sure that they are thriving within all environments.

Harv:

Right. Okay. So, you do some of your own research. Is that kind of the, the sociologist background and is that separate to your work or, or has that kind of become all part of TOA now as well?

Amy Hopper:

It's all part of TOA now. I started it just as a bit of fun.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

Because I have a, apparently a strange definition of what I consider fun. Let's do a sociological study, why not?

Harv:

That's amazing.

Amy Hopper:

The reason I started it is because You know, we didn't want to just want to go down the route of, oh, well, we're qualified or this person's got an MBA or this director's got an MBA. I've got a sociology degree, blah, blah, blah, blah. You know, we know what we're doing.

Harv:

Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

It's, it's about, no, we are here as a service. It's our job to service our customers. So let's find out what's happening with our customers. So for example, in the last bit of research, we took a number of, well, 40 software houses and agencies within Europe. So it was within the UK, Romania, Hungary, and Poland. And we really got to the nitty gritty through, through, it was interview face to face interview with directors and owners of those businesses. You know, what was actually happening within the agency, within the software house, where are the sticking points? What is the world of work after COVID like? What are the communication challenges that are coming up? How is hybrid work versus remote work and just very, very, well, what turned into essentially what was essentially a chat turned into a much larger research study where some very key themes came throughout no matter what the country, no matter what the size of the business. And that's when we started doing more and more of the research because it allows us to see the challenges that our clients are actually having, allows us to keep our ear to the ground. And therefore the workshops that we produce and the content that we produce is actually solving those challenges rather than just us doing things on a whim and thinking, oh, it might get picked up.

Harv:

Much more grounded in what people are talking about or experiencing. There's, there was a couple of, of kind of studies that you had mentioned. There, there was this, you'd mentioned something to me about The Happiness Index, first of all, and there was something else about the, something about the team is dead. So maybe you can tell us about those.

Amy Hopper:

I've got to be, I've got to be careful about what I quote you in for in other chats. Yeah. Okay. So happiness index. So the lovely Matt, co founder of Happiness Index and I, we started chatting just because of course we work in similar spaces and got on. So, so well, got on like a house on fire. And then in one of our chats, we, we've discussed everything and everything from neuroscience all the, all the way through to, I don't know what, what plants we're planting in the garden, but that came up was, this idea of jealousy and envy within the workplace. And The Happiness Index is a great company, they do a lot of research, into what's happening in teams and making sure that you can create a happier workplace because happy people create better work. And we realized that actually no one talks about jealousy. No one talks about envy within the workplace. And of course, a lot of people think that they're intertwined and that they're the same thing when they're actually quite separate and that when you think about the idea of toxic workplace culture and cliques...

Harv:

mm.

Amy Hopper:

And alienation within the workplace, that actually it's grounded in jealousy and it's grounded in these emotions, which, which are perceived as negative and people hide because they're ashamed of them.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

And so we ended up doing a couple of little surveys on LinkedIn and a bit of research into, one, has anyone experienced someone being jealous towards them and therefore being alienated in the workplace?

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

And, two, was anyone going to admit that they've been jealous of someone else and how it impacted?

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And it was very, very interesting, the results that came through. Obviously you can imagine most people have experienced it at some point in their career, yet it's just not talked about. So we, then we did a webinar, about it and got lots of people involved. Cause I think it's something that really needs a, a lot more focus

Harv:

Mm.

Amy Hopper:

also not as much shame around it for people to just hold their hands up and gone. Yeah, I've done that, but let's work about how we can correct it and make sure it doesn't have a negative impact in the workplace.

Harv:

Right. We do kind of try to, deny those negative emotions, don't we? Like try to distance ourselves from them. and, and you're right, there is shame there when, when you think about those kinds of things.

Amy Hopper:

For sure. And you've actually said a really good point there. You said the word negative, negative emotion.

Harv:

Mm. Mm.

Amy Hopper:

I mean, a big thing that we try and do in TOA is teach people that there is no such thing as a negative emotion, that there is only emotion.

Harv:

Good point.

Amy Hopper:

And the how one reacts to it, the reaction is negative and or positive. So in terms of as if you're envious of someone that actually envy is one of those emotions that on the surface, someone may say, Oh, that's a negative emotion, but actually it's your driver and your direction. It could be, Oh, I'm envious of this person, they can speak Spanish.

Harv:

Yeah.

Amy Hopper:

I therefore, it could be your driver to, to learn how to speak Spanish and take Spanish lessons.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

So it's quite a nice, if you can feel it and you can recognize it and you can practice self awareness, it actually is a really key way of trying to find your direction.

Harv:

I really like that. And you're completely right. I would always frame that in a negative context if, if you hadn't pointed that out. and, and what is, what is"the team is dead"? What was that idea about?

Amy Hopper:

No, that's just me saying something click baity.

Harv:

Was I not supposed to mention that one? Okay.

Amy Hopper:

The reason I say the team is dead and, I was talking to a dear friend of mine, who's one of the business directors that advises TOA, and we just agreed that particularly in the light of COVID, people have come back to work and there's a huge lack of collective well being, but also there is so much movement in the workplace. I mean, when we talk about agencies and ops, digital is a, it is a very fast moving industry. Always has been so much change all the time. You often go to sleep an expert and wake up a novice. Which creates such, I want to say, sometimes confusion and confliction within the person. And you're constantly in that battle of imposter syndrome of who am I? And am I good at this? And cause one day you might be great. One day you might not cause I've changed it. And the reason I say the team is dead is because. As there is so much movement, as there is so much change, as teams are merging, acquisitions, changing structures. If you, if you go in and you treat the team in its current space, I think we're going to do workshops and we're going to do structures. I'm going to change culture just within this team, next week it could change. And someone goes out, someone comes in, there's a different hire, there's a different structure. Like there's a new project. So if you're treating it as a team, it might not work because that you're giving someone a structure and that structure is going to change. So we have a phrase, we say, we teach individuals how to work with individuals. And so when you bring it down to the individual level of teaching someone personal resilience, and emotional regulation and empathy for oneself and one's colleagues, just as the basis, that person can go and work in any team, any structure, any management level, and having those as their base skills will thrive. That's why we say the, the team is dead because as well, we've got people that are working from home, remotely, hybrid in different countries, different cultures, to treat someone just as a, as a team group, it just doesn't, doesn't seem to work, but yeah, the phrase itself, obviously the team's not dead, you've got, you've got to work all the same. It's just, it's just click baity nonsense.

Harv:

I got you. I see where you're going with that. That is super interesting. And I imagine you work with teams of a variety of sizes as well; is there any other kind of things that you see, problems that bigger teams might have versus smaller teams. Do you see any patterns like that?

Amy Hopper:

I think the, the common threads that come up are, when you, when you see teams that are going through a growth, the common thread that comes up is there is always, there's be someone somewhere that doesn't want to let go of the reins. And it could be a founder, it could be a director, but as a team grows, perfectionism is normally rife. And this idea of I can't, I can't let go of this, the short term discomfort of having to train someone and allowing that person to make mistakes for the longterm gain of growth.

Harv:

I've been there.

Amy Hopper:

Yeah, we've all, we've all been there. I've made that mistake so many times. So that's one that needs a lot of coaching. And as a, as a company gets really big...

Harv:

Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

So, we've done some projects with the likes of, like Virgin O2. There is always a sense of the people at the top don't know who I am and they don't see me and whereas in the smaller agencies and smaller businesses there is a beauty of everyone knows each other and therefore you're much able to just have a sense of who that person is, what they're about, rather than just a number, which comes with its own problems, own set of challenges, but yeah, in the, in the larger businesses, there is, it's harder to implement change successfully because there is a distinct lack of connection between the people that are trying to implement that change and also the ones creating the change or writing what the change is going to be and the people that it's actually going to affect. And that's probably the biggest, the biggest challenge that we see. There's the Maurer's three principles of resistance, and that's normally the reason why change isn't implemented successfully within businesses and people don't follow it. And it's essentially, I don't like it. I don't understand it. And I don't like you.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

Even if the change is great and it's brilliant and it's been understood, there's an emotional level there and a person saying, you don't know me, you don't know how this impacts my job, so I'm not going to do it. to do it

Harv:

Totally makes sense.

Amy Hopper:

For us when we go into businesses and there will be a set of challenges that that business is facing. Nine times out of 10, there is a psychological, sociological reason as to why that is happening. And if you can find that, and you can work on that element, generally everything else falls into place. And we work on the basis that happy, emotionally regulated individuals create better work. And once you realize that, and you see that, and you see workplaces that actually have well being at the forefront are 21 more productive as a whole, that was a study done by Deloitte in 2022. That if you can actually implement that change successfully, just through what may seem like a massive ask, but can just be some tweaks and changes to structure and psychology and culture, that what you're trying to do as a sort of the superficial overarching goal of your company is much, much easier to achieve. Because you've got the people on board to do it and everyone's heading in the right direction.

Harv:

And, and I, I think, as your organization grows and evolves, from, from a management or an operations director point of view, you're very close to what's happening, so it's easy to sometimes lose sight of the big picture, perhaps.

Amy Hopper:

Absolutely. And we've all suffered from the curse of knowledge in which you're just too close to something or it's, it's your baby and you just can't, you can't see the wood through the trees. And that's not, that's just human nature. That's not anything bad. And even when we go in and sometimes we have to say to directors, look, you're in the"tell" stage of management. You're not being collaborative with your team. You know, you're not being open enough. You're not being empathetic enough. There's no judgment there. There's, there's no, you're doing this wrong. Like,

Harv:

Mm

Amy Hopper:

I think that's sometimes the fear of businesses or people when they bring us in that we're going to tell them off and expose their inadequacies. When actually we're saying, look, you're just human. We're all just human. We're here to just help support you and guide you for something that you might not even be able to see that's, that's happening.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

which is quite often the case. I mean, that's why we have unconscious bias training, right?

Harv:

Mm

Amy Hopper:

That's the whole point of it. So I think it takes quite a, an open and self aware director and manager, to, to see that and, and put the hands up and go, you know what? I'm probably not the best person to do this. I know we've got some challenges. Let's, let's sort them out.

Harv:

Yeah, it's almost like that, that is it the frog in the boiling pot of water kind of thing. Sometimes you just can't see what's happening. So I think, you know, whether it's with external help or not just having the awareness that as you're growing, you do need to take these moments of kind of reflection to see what was working for you at a certain size or a certain stage, versus what would be better now. And if you're not taking those opportunities, then you're, you're kind of very reactive. I think that's where a lot of us end up, unfortunately, is that we, we don't take those opportunities to optimize, and then we end up having to react to the problems after they're already taking place rather than being proactive with the solution.

Amy Hopper:

I think that's an excellent point. That's a really excellent point. We, we use an analogy about what we do, but also not, not just what we do, but also things like therapy and, and engaging in well being in the first place is that, although we've made huge strides in things like mental health and well being and self care and people are, people are jumping more onto the side of knowing how important it is in the, you know, you, you can't use a phone when the battery's not charged. There's still this idea, and definitely when I've been doing my research, there's still this idea, quite common that therapy and services like what we do, what TOA provide, are a fire extinguisher to use when the fire is already raging, rather than a preventative service to make sure the fire doesn't start in the first place. And, that's the key, I think. So it's exactly what you said, the, the, the frog in the pot analogy, exactly. The hot, the, the water's just getting hotter and hotter and hotter. And suddenly you realize that you're boiling. But just having that, that service there in the, in the first place and using it, you won't be putting out fires, you'll just be making sure that they don't start.

Harv:

There was another thing on your website that I saw that, TOA can result in a decrease in presenteeism. What does that mean? Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

A lot of people ask me this, and actually presenteeism, it costs the UK economy twice as much as absenteeism.

Harv:

Oh, wow.

Amy Hopper:

Presenteeism is where, and we've all done it, where you almost feel the, the need to have to go into work even though you shouldn't be.

Harv:

right?

Amy Hopper:

it could be because you are poorly, it could be because you are having a very bad mental health day, it could be for a whole host of reasons. You shouldn't be going into work, but you do.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

And in those situations, individuals feeling that pressure, that aren't then going to be doing their best quality work. Because they could be incredibly poorly, they could be in pain, they could be not mentally able or have the capacity to work that day. And so the quality of work will not only be likely poor, or it will have to be redone, or it will have to be checked over, or you could end up in a really bad situation where the work done then loses a client or loses money, or the person coming in that's poorly then makes everyone else poorly because they're spreading a cold around. And so actually in those times, saying to someone, No, stay at home or having a culture that facilitates self care is really, really important because it's costing your business money and it's, and it's reflecting on the bottom line. It's sort of like you could have a person, imagine you've got two hours and you can either have an hour to yourself, recharge your battery and then work at 100 percent capacity for an hour, or you can work at 50 percent capacity for two hours.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

Same work gets done. I know that's a bit, that's a bit of a sweeping statement and a bit facetious, but the point still remains.

Harv:

Absolutely. So Amy, in your system, one aspect is productivity. And I wanted to give our listeners some practical tips that they could take away today and implement for themselves as ops people. I sometimes felt as an ops director, just like firefighting constantly with people's issues. And on the one hand, it's like, okay, well, I'm helping unlock people, from their issues and allowing them to do their work. But then it also meant I'm not getting things I need to get done as efficiently. And also for their teams, there's a lot of distractions these days, and I'm, I'm going to be, presenting a webinar as well on some of these distractions and how those could be overcome, but I was keen to hear some of your advice, on what you advise on, how people can bring a bit more focus to their work and to their teams as well. Could sure. you, could you some advice?

Amy Hopper:

Oh, do you want some of the...

Harv:

The hot tips..

Amy Hopper:

The hot, the hot tips. Okay. Let's think, I'd start, I mean, this isn't, this isn't a TOA, this is something that we teach, but it's, it's not ours. It's, I'm sure people are very aware of setting SMART goals. let's, Let's take the example, we said about the person that was envious of the person that spoke Spanish. And so someone might set the goal of, Oh, I want to speak Spanish. You're very, very unlikely to achieve that goal because it's not time sensitive. It's not measurable. It's kind of a, Oh, I want to learn Spanish. So if you're going to make that goal SMART, we have to set a time. You have to make it very specific and you have to be in a space where, let's, let's take, for example, I want to learn basic conversational Spanish in order to have a conversation with someone within the next six months. That's a SMART goal because you are able to achieve it. It's not out of the ordinary for you to be able to achieve that. You haven't said it's so high that you're not going to do it, but also you're able to measure whether you've done it or not and therefore congratulate yourself on whether you've done it or not and make yourself feel good and get that dopamine hit from completing something.

Harv:

Good point

Amy Hopper:

so I'd say that's the first thing, always making your goals SMART rather than, rather than a random goal that you can't, that you can't then achieve, and then you have to go to an ops director to help you with it.

Harv:

Okay. Good.

Amy Hopper:

Um, the Lift List is really important, the TOA Lift List. So, you get a piece of, get two pieces of paper or a notebook, and on one side you write, what drains you on the other side, you write what lifts you.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And this is things, and essentially it's what, what makes you happy, what makes you sad. But it's much more, when we do it, we talk about, okay, how does that make you feel within your body when something truly lifts you? And Mm-Hmm. think of it like a, like a bank account, like what's paying into that bank account. And what spending? So people, on the lift list, have written things like cooking, yoga, spending time with my family, spending time with a pet, gardening, et cetera, et cetera. On the drain list, there might be, let's, let's think about the emails that should have been like a text message or a meeting that should have been an email. yeah. Having, meetings that you shouldn't have been in because like you, you sat there for an hour and you didn't contribute anything, et cetera, et cetera. You write down these things. Then when you come to your diary and actually putting those, those clients in, those tasks in, we have what we call the TOA traffic light system. And so when you have a client that is going to drain you and you know, they're going to, and you know, the ones.

Harv:

Mm hmm. Absolutely.

Amy Hopper:

You put them in red.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And when you have a client that's going to lift you or, or a situation that's going to lift you. Like I love pitching. So if I pitch in that, that pitch is going to be green.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And then your amber is, Oh, I don't really know. It could go either way.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And when you then look at that traffic light system, you're able to emotionally regulate yourself and say, okay, well, I've got a load of red on here. I've got, I need to sandwich this between green. So then you go to your lift list, you see what makes you happy, and you make sure that you've got, if you've got a load of red, that you've got at least a big chunk of green before and after. So that your day doesn't start and you're just going down, downhill,

Harv:

Yeah.

Amy Hopper:

you're keeping yourself emotionally regulated. And that for me and my traffic light system, I don't have any red after 2pm.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

I have that sort of afternoon slump and I, unless it's an emergency, unless it's an emergency and something's come in, you just, you just can't help it. But then I would make sure that I've got some green afterwards.

Harv:

I like that.

Amy Hopper:

It's, it's, I don't know why my Alexa keeps going. Stupid, stupid thing. I mean, sorry, lovely thing. I don't like calling my Alexa stupid just for when the robots take over, they'll remember that I was polite.

Harv:

Mm hmm. Mm

Amy Hopper:

But yeah, going back to the point when you're talking about emotional regulation and making sure that your battery stays a little bit more full throughout the day, it's about making sure you haven't got a load of red, you sandwich it between the green and that you're really, truly understanding what makes you happy because some people don't know and sometimes you're so, sometimes you are so, what's the word? Sometimes we can be so paralyzed through choice. Particularly if we're having a busy day and if it's a busy ops day, you just got so much stuff going on. Even if you had 10 minutes to spare, the mental labor required to choose something to lift you or think of what to do, you actually sometimes don't have the mental capacity to do that. So that's why it's good to have the lift list and go, Oh, okay, I've got 10 minutes. I can do that. I fancy going for a walk. I'll just go for a walk, and the decision is kind of made for you. You've already pre created the list. It's also really good for managers to understand that every single person's lift list is different.

Harv:

hmm. Mm hmm.

Amy Hopper:

So it's no good in terms of wellbeing and you might have the best of intention. And saying, Oh, well, we're going to bring a yoga instructor in and we're going to do yoga on the, on the rooftop and everyone's going to feel great. The amount of drain lists I've seen with yoga at the top, so you can't have a one size fits all.

Harv:

Right.

Amy Hopper:

And this is another reason why we say the team is dead. Cause we let, we get everyone to do their individual lift lists and drain list in their first workshop, no matter what. No matter what they're doing with us, they always do that first workshop first thing. Because we want individuals to be able to know themselves and to practice that self awareness, practice that emotional regulation so they're able to communicate better and set better boundaries and interact with well being activities that will lift them, not drain them.

Harv:

Amazing. I, I like there's multiple layers to this. First there's the non work stuff there as well, that's on the lift list, right? And that could be good or bad. And then you can also put tasks there as well that make you feel good or, or, or not so good. And then, from what I understood is that you put people there as well.

Amy Hopper:

Yeah, that's, I mean, that's, that's another workshop, but we, that's, that's, that's another reason why sociology comes in as well, because I say when I do work, particularly with C suite and they might have a huge amount of pressure on their shoulders. And they might be thinking about, they might be going through VC funding. They might be starting a new business. They might be merging with another or acquiring, or there, there is a huge amount of pressure and you could have the best business plan that's ever been written in the history of man. But if you're spending your time exclusively with people that make you feel three out of 10, that don't believe in you, that don't say, yeah, you can do it, that are constantly criticizing you or, or your abilities. There is no way in hell you're going to be able to implement that business plan successfully. It's almost pointless. So that's why we think about, when you think about sociology, you think about the behaviors of your social groups and the wider social culture. You Need to be thinking how that has an influence on you as an individual and on your business, because it has a massive, massive impact. Huge impact. And, and the impact on your team.

Harv:

Super, super good advice. So, Can you tell us a bit about the kind of work that you end up doing with some of your agency customers.

Amy Hopper:

For sure. So we tend to have three types of clients that come to us. And there is the first type of client, and then we'll have a very specific goal.

Harv:

hmm.

Amy Hopper:

So for example, a couple of months ago, Adobe came to us and said, we've got this women's leadership program. We want you to create a system of workshops on confidence and imposter syndrome to add to that leadership program to be delivered over the next year. Like really very specific, clear goal. We know what we want. This is it. And we go absolutely no problem. Let's go.

Harv:

Okay. Okay.

Amy Hopper:

Then there'll be, um, the second type of client. And that'd be, that's probably normally our our main type of client where they're coming to us and saying, we know we're having challenges, our team have expressed this, we think that this may be it, but we don't, we don't really know, but it's causing a lot of, a lot of issues and that's when we'll go in and we'll do a discovery phase and it could be that we do, surveys, one to one interviews, actually looking at the nitty gritty of what, what's going on.

Harv:

Okay.

Amy Hopper:

Finding out what those core, those key pinpoints are. Going back to the client and saying, okay, this is what, this is what we found out from your team which is all of course anonymous, and gives them a much better idea of what, what's actually going on, which they might not have known before. Then we create a system of workshops, training, coaching, maybe one to one mentoring, consultancy and, and structural cultural change to, to help get them on their way. And then there is the third client that come to us and they say, we need a keynote to kick everyone up the ass.

Harv:

Okay. Yeah.

Amy Hopper:

And we go, you come to the right place.

Harv:

Mm hmm. Okay.

Amy Hopper:

And that's normally for, people were having large conferences or they're having big, big sort of team corporate days with hundreds of people. And we'll go and do either a keynote or a mini workshop. And, and that'll be just bam, bam, bam. Here are some things that you can take away and implement from day one.

Harv:

Amazing. Very cool. Very cool. So we're coming towards the end

Amy Hopper:

No.

Harv:

of our, our session and I guess before we go, just a moment to ask you if there's any other advice you would give to an ops director or growing agency, I'm putting you on the spot and if there's nothing you want to say, I will cut out this question, but just any other advice, you know, we talked about productivity and the lift list, the traffic light system and things like that. Is, is there anything else you would say, you know, whether it's about collaboration or anything else you do?

Amy Hopper:

I'd say don't wait until the fire has started.

Harv:

Mm-Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

stop the fire from happening. And in terms of wanting to be better, not only as a, as an individual, but grow as an individual and not just be calmer and more self aware in yourself, but also a better team member, a more empathetic leader.

Harv:

Mm-Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

A person that is able to, to take life and work challenges and really remain resilient.

Harv:

Mm-Hmm.

Amy Hopper:

That investing in wellbeing and therapy is a huge part of that and certainly has been a huge part of, of me and my personal growth.

Harv:

That is such an amazing, lovely note to end on. I really, really like that. Thank you.

Amy Hopper:

You're welcome.

Harv:

So if people wanna learn more about you and TOA, where do they find more information?

Amy Hopper:

Oh, we can go to the website, toagroup.co.uk, or please do connect with me on LinkedIn. I absolutely adore talking to people on LinkedIn and the messages that we receive both from happy clients and people wanting to learn more. So that would be fantastic.

Harv:

Excellent. We'll do that. Amy, thank you so much for being here today.

Amy Hopper:

It's been a pleasure.

Harv:

So, what did you think? I find Amy's story incredibly inspiring, and a lot of what she says resonates. As Ops folks, we can get very into tracking the metrics and designing the processes, but I do think it's important for us to remember that humans aren't machines, and not only can we not treat each other as if we are, but we can have more fun, be more productive, and get more out of each other, if we create workplaces where we address the less tangible elements like mental health and psychology. And personally, I realized I could definitely benefit from creating a lift list, which was creating a list of things I enjoy doing or enjoy working on, and then scheduling my day ahead with the traffic light system in mind, which meant sandwiching those difficult people, conversations or tasks between things that make me feel happy and energized. I hope you'll be able to go away and reflect on some of this as well and see how it applies to your workplace and take some small steps to make a positive change. Now, before I go, I only have one request for you. Please share this podcast with a friend or colleague in the agency space that would appreciate it. I'm going to leave it there. That's your cue. Share the episode. Thanks very much.

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Harv Nagra

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