Jeff Harry - Rediscover Your Play (Part 2)
Welcome to Part 2 of our discussion with Jeff Harry, a champion of play in the workplace! Discover how setting boundaries and cultivating self-awareness can empower you to combat toxic work settings and improve your mental well-being. Jeff challenges us to look inward for personal growth and mindset shifts, revealing that merely changing jobs won't fix underlying issues. By aligning workplace values with actions, organizations can truly embody their cultural aspirations.
Links and Resources from the Episode:
Click here for Jeff's LinkedIn profile
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The Bosshole® Chronicles
"Jeff Harry - Rediscover Your Play (Part 2)"
Original Publish Date: 10/22/2024
Hosts: Sara Best & John Broer
Jeff Harry: And that empowers everybody else to be like oh look, Jeff just stood up to Chad, maybe I can stand up to Chad, right, and then each and every one of us is standing up to this person, and then they can't act that way anymore, because it's not a fun place for them to work, because they can't bully people, and that's when they consider leaving. So that's my approach from a boundary standpoint.
John Broer: For those of you that listened to part one of our episode with Jeff Harry, you'll remember that little clip when he's talking about dealing with and standing up to Bossholes. Well, welcome back to the podcast, everybody. This is your co-host, John Broer. It is good to have you here listening to The Bosshole Chronicles and get ready for part two with Jeff Harry. I remind everybody to go into the show notes, learn more about the remarkable stuff that Jeff does into the show notes. Learn more about the remarkable stuff that Jeff does and specifically, how he is reintroducing people to the world of play and how critical that playful connection to our work really is when it comes to finding work that is more meaningful and fulfilling. So let's not waste any more time and rejoin part two of our discussion with Jeff Harry.
The Bosshole Chronicles are brought to you by Real Good Ventures, a talent optimization firm helping organizations diagnose their most critical people and execution issues with world-class analytics. Make sure to check out all the resources in the show notes and be sure to follow us and share your feedback. Enjoy today's episode In knowing and getting to meet you and in this interview and getting to know you.
Jeff, I think you are wired. Everything we do is around behavioral data. I mean at Real Good Ventures, our science, our people, science is rooted in objective data. The most critical competency for effective leaders or managers or humans, quite frankly, is self-awareness, and you seem to be a highly self-aware individual, understanding the ability to adapt. I would say that in a circumstance like that, you are equipped to deal with Chad. Most people, I think, would acquiesce and say screw this man, I do not need this, and they may stay and be completely disengaged or part of the actively disengaged, or they leave. I totally agree with you. It's like standing up to the bullies. We had Kim Scott right, Sara. Yeah, Kim Scott on Radical Candor. And it's about standing up to the bullies, and I totally agree with you, and yet I really feel for people that feel like they're totally stifled by that.
JH: And that's tough, and that's why. I even ask them is it worth it? Is it worth it for your mental health? Is it worth it for you to put yourself out there? And if it's not, then figure out what you need to do next. Figure out if you need to quietly quit, then do that. But I'd rather you make a full decision to leave rather than acquiesce and just continue to stay, because then that's affecting your mental health even more, because you're compromising who you are every day and you're internalizing the toxicity. Every day you get meaner, every day you get stupider, and that will affect your work in other companies down the line.
JB: Oh, for sure.
Sara Best: Well, and I'm glad you said that. That reminded me, Jeff, what I thought about when you were talking is some people leave and go to another location.
JH: They take them with them, like you take you with you, you take your trauma. You take your trauma with you.
SB: You do. I learned that to be the geographical cure, like in many cases I think that was in Alcoholics Anonymous or somewhere like that where you can go to another place or another dynamic, but the things that you have to address are still with you. The common denominator factor and I love that you call that out, because it's something every one of us can do, no matter what circumstances we're facing. We can look within and say where do I need to shift my mindset? Where am I stuck in unhealthy and unproductive ways of thinking. We also interviewed recently Joyce Chen from the Conscious Leadership Group. They talk about being above the line or below the line. In the below the line mindset it's easy to feel victimized and to get sucked into resentment and fear and even self-loathing. It's just this ugly little space to be. But above the line is where things happen by me, like I start to make choices. So I think your call out to address that inner boss hole which we all have. It's some it might even be a whole slew of them like a jury of boss holes that need to be fired.
JH: Oh, yeah, yeah, like a whole United Nations of mean voices. Yeah, yeah.
JB: They breed them. I mean, you know, some organizations just replicate the same boss behavior over and over again.
JH: And I think the other thing we need to also challenge from a boundary standpoint is who are we celebrating? Who are the leaders who celebrate? Some people might love Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos and Steve Jobs and Mark Zuckerberg and that style of leadership. You just have to decide is that the environment? Is that the leadership that you want to celebrate? So we have to challenge is this OK, like, do we want that? Or do we want to celebrate places like Zappos, where they celebrate their staff, or or Spanx, where, when Spanx went public, they gave out $10,000 bonuses and first class tickets to all of our staff? Any other company can do that, right, or would do that, but you have to be asking yourself what does your organization's actions say about your values? Forget about your values on your wall. What are your actions saying? Are you actually expressing your priorities through your actions?
JB: Yeah, what do you want your business to create? What's your legacy? I mean, I don't know if people even think about legacy anymore. Jeff, I love the idea of play at work when we talk about what are some unique, practical, really accessible things that people could do. I think play and fun and activity experience is critical. Sara and I I would say, Sara, you and I I think we could proudly say that we're very much about experiential learning and facilitation. We try to make it fun and I don't know what happens I don't know what age it is that we forget to play. We just we forget to play, and I'm not talking about going to the annual golf outing. That's not what I'm talking about. I'm talking I want to hear more about how you would come into an organization and teach that to play again. Yeah.
JH: Yeah. So what staff want more than anything is to feel seen, heard and appreciated, right, yeah. So how does what does that look like? So when I usually go into an organization OK, after we've addressed the Bosshole problem, because a lot of times you can't play while the bully is in the playground and when I say play, I'm not talking about forced fun, right. I'm not talking about like, let's go to the escape room and put Chad in the room with Samantha and they come out and they're friends. That doesn't play out that way.
There's Chad again, you know I do a lot of unhealthy places that had a slide and ping pong table. That's not what we're talking about when we're talking about play, or what I when I talk about play. What we're talking about when we're talking about play or what I when I talk about play. I talk about play as any joyful act where you forget about time, where you're fully immersed in the moment, where you're fully immersed in like who you are. So I would work with leaders to help their staff identify their zone of genius. What is the work they forget about time, what is the work that if if they weren't getting paid to do it, they would still do it? So that would be one of the first things Identify your staff's zone of genius. Carve out five hours a week or three hours or whatever one hour for them to do that, because when you do that, they feel seen. And great examples of this, as it works from a money standpoint, is Google used to do that with a 20% rule. They would give their staff whatever they wanted. They could pursue whatever project they wanted, as long as it benefited Google. And what came from that? Gmail, Google news, Google maps, Google earth the foundations of Google came from play right. So there's that. There's that zone of genius.
The second thing, though, would be like how does your staff want to be celebrated? How do they want to be appreciated? How do you communicate that appreciation? Do you know their language of appreciation? Is it acts of service? Is it gifts? Is it quality time? Are you giving in the way that they feel recognized? So how are we actually celebrating? And then, when are we celebrating? And again, I'm not talking about happy hour, I'm talking about how do you celebrate when they accomplish certain successes. So those are just some of the things.
Right, then we could go even deeper and figure out and this is a technique that I do with a lot of organizations, where I actually have in a group. We usually do this during a workshop. We have them reflect back on what they love to do as a kid. So they were they. We do a whole meditative exercise, and we're like what do you love to do as a kid? And we identify what they love to do as a kid, and we identify the three play values that connect to that type of work, and then we're like oh, based off those three play values, how can you play more at work this way?
So an example of that would be like I love to combine all my board games together when I was a kid, make an epic board game and I would have my sisters play with me like Clue, Mousetrap, Monopoly. I'd make this huge thing. They hated it but I loved it right. But what I loved about it was creativity, connection, collaboration. Those are my values. So my best work has those three. So that's what I would do with staff identify their play values. How do we infuse that into their work? Again, they feel recognized, they feel appreciated, they feel seen and then they feel heard. Right. Those are just a couple of the techniques and I can go into other ones as well.
SB: That's some good stuff right there.
JB: Yeah, and we're going to include all of your links in the show.
JH: They can even ask their friends as well, but let's do it just with colleagues, ones that know them really well, right? So we're talking about three to five people that know them really well, and you ask them two questions. One is what value do I bring to your life? Right, or to work, because a lot of times we don't know the value we bring, we don't know what we do for people, how we contribute. And then the second question, which is an interesting one, is when have you seen me most alive? Right? And another way of asking that is like when have you seen me most playful, most creative, most myself? That's another way of asking when have you seen me come most alive at work? So, whenever you see me come most alive, and what value do I bring to you, when you get answers from three to five different people, you get this laundry list of things that you're like oh, I didn't even know I did that. Oh, I didn't even know. That's how I do show up. Oh, I do get excited when I run events, I do get excited if I'm putting together a podcast or I'd like to talk and then you figure out, based off of that, how you can get them to play more, based off of all of that feedback back.
So a lot of these things are reflective exercises of like what brings you joy? Let's find some more joy, even if it's a little bit. Because studies show that if you give them two to three hours a week they are five times more productive, 500% more productive. Why? Because they feel seen, they feel heard, they feel recognized, they feel valued and they get to do the cool thing. So if they're doing the fun thing to start the week or they get to look forward to doing it at the end of the week, they get all of their other work done. So they can get to that.
JB: Right and that in our world looks like meaning and fulfillment.
SB: That's what we have.
JB: That's meaning and fulfillment.
SB: And I have two thoughts on that. The Bossholes, they don't know they're Bossholes yet, but there are people who are listening, who will be like we don't have time for that.
JH: You know we don't have time for it, absolutely.
SB: So be advised, people that are thinking that in your head that's just a mental map. That's when your play and fun got sucked out of you at some point. You got domesticated out of that. The other thing is I think we come full circle now, Jeff, back to empathy, compassion and humanity. What you just shared, those two little exercises, are a way for a manager or boss to demonstrate empathy, compassion and appreciation for a unique humanity around them by just grabbing onto this information, and it's not costly. It allows us to shift and move things a little bit, but it opens up so much more productivity, health and well-being all the things you've been talking about.
JH: So good and anyone that has a visceral reaction to that. As a leader and like I, don't want to answer that question you don't have that good of relationship with your staff. That's your issue. That's true. Like you don't, you haven't built any connection to even ask them. How do you want to feel seen, heard and appreciated at work? That should be one of the first questions you should be always asked your staff. How do you want to be appreciated? How do you want to be recognized? When have you felt recognized? When have you not? When have you felt like quitting a job in the past? When have you not? We usually are not having these conversations until the exit interview anyway, and this is why so many people are disengaged. So right now I did a talk on on the four day work week. I'm pitching four day work weeks. I'm like awesome, this should be a thing. But also it doesn't solve the problem of crappy management.
JB: Nope.
JH: So if you have a four-day work week and you have a micromanager, they're going to make it horrible because they don't know about you.
JB: They're going to turn it up, that's right.
JH: They're going to even be more on you. We only have four days, but it's just like well, why don't you pick up some of my work? How many managers, how many Bossholes, are in the trenches with their staff? How many of them understand what it's like to even do the job that they're asking, right? So it's challenging, right, because I tell this about how, by the time you reach the age of 18, you've heard the word "no 148,000 times. Right, like that, that's the study that was done, and you probably hear the word yes, maybe eight to 9,000. So you're fighting all that, right, you're fighting a negativity bias in your mind, and then you're fighting a lot of trauma because a lot of the boss holes, frankly, should be in therapy and instead they're bringing that to the workplace. They're bringing their problems to the workplace.
JB: Yeah, they should be. Listening to this podcast is what they should be doing.
JH: Yeah, man, and that's the thing that's ironic, right? The people that should be in therapy, the last people to go, right, the people that should be listening to this podcast are the last people to go. So that's why I set the boundaries thing first and foremost, right, yes, and be like I don't tolerate this behavior. And then, once you remove the boss, or at least put them to the side, then you can do the play stuff. But if you haven't been this, you haven't built the safety. Don't force it. You're not ready. You're not ready to have a conversation on on feeling seen, because Chad is still running amok everywhere.
JB: So as we start to wrap up. Can I share a Lego story with you, Jeff? I think you will love this. I worked for an amazing organization and I built their corporate university, but I also was partnered with the person that oversaw employee wellness and we did a lot of stuff together because a lot of it went together. I always supported any kind of learning and development that also focused on wellness and balance, and at one point we had this beautiful common area where people would come and have a coffee and have meetings and things like that, and I said we're going to take paint cans, go buy some new paint cans and put our logos on the side and we're going to fill them with Legos and we're just going to leave them out in the common area and it's only there. It said hey, this can is brought to you by. It was the wellness and the university and so forth and the organizations. We just left them out there and we had a chief marketing officer.
She complained. She said I don't know why we're involved in this sort of stuff. Before it was out there, why we're involved in this stuff and we're whatever. And I mean she railed on it and she was talking to the C-suite and all this other crap. I happen to be in a meeting in that room and she was down there in that room and what do you think she was doing? Playing with the Legos. And I look at my colleague and I say, take a look at this, this was a detractor, this was somebody who was a strong detractor and against this, and yet she is. That tactile play, very simple, but it was happening while she was having this conversation and I'm thinking for anybody out there listening to think that that seems sophomoric or childish. You are totally missing out on accessing a whole different level of connection with your people. So don't hold back on that. Call Jeff. Call Jeff and get him engaged.
JH: And this ties back to the whole idea of like hurt people, hurt people, right.
SB: Yes.
JH: And healed people, heal people right, and this idea that it's usually the people that push back the most that need the most healing. And if you give the space and you have a certain compassion because we should also have compassion for the bottle as well to a point right Not fully, but enough compassion to be like what's going on with you? What do you need? Why are you? I know this is not fun for you, you're not motivating the staff and you don't seem happy. So what do you need? Because it might be you just need to vent, right. Maybe you need some therapy and you don't have a good therapist. I got one over here, right, like. So the empathy has to go around throughout the organization and that's hard because sometimes we have to play, you know, we have to be on the. What is it? Play the higher road or whatever it is. What I would challenge any listener that's listening to this is ask yourself how do you want to show up, who are you in the workplace and what type of integrity do you want to show up with and act that way, right? And that should be enough, because when you're doing that heal people, heal people you might be able to heal the boss hole inside all of us, because you are so grounded.
SB: That's beautiful, Jeff. I'm thrilled to bring you to our audience and we do promise to highlight you've contributed to about every great publication there is in the world with some of the articles you've written. You had a podcast a while back. We didn't get to talk about that. We'll do that next time we talk to you, though, because we're going to have you back, I'm sure, and how to get ahold of you. You're a facilitator, you're a coach, you're a keynote speaker. This is very uplifting, and I know our subject matter can feel a little negative and doom and gloom, and we dive down. Everyone knows there are way too many boss holes in the world, but you've given us hope today and raised the vibration, and we thank you for your energy. What's coming next for you, like, what's the next big thing on the horizon for you?
JH: Oh, I don't know. I'm doing a lot of you know it's coming up at SHRM conference, so you know. Go to my website, rediscoveryourplay.com. Yeah, you can go to the events thing and see where I'm speaking. I'm challenging patriarchy and all of I make a lot of stupid videos. So I have like seven wigs and I just challenge Bossholes all the time. So that's on my handle Jeff Harry plays J-E-F-F-H-A-R-R-Y-P-L-A-Y-S and that's on LinkedIn, TikTok, Instagram, Facebook, YouTube, Twitter, all of that stuff. But yeah, I'm constantly challenging a Bosshole, so I'll be announcing any cool events that I'm doing as well up there.
SB: Oh wonderful. Thank you so much. This was a great interview.
JB: Jeff, it was a pleasure. Come back and see us. We'll see you out there. Thanks for all that you're doing and we will see you all next time on the Bosshole Chronicles. Thanks very much for checking out this episode of the Bosshole Chronicles. It was so good to have you here, and if you have your own boss hole story that you want to share with the Bosshole Transformation Nation, just reach out. You can email us at mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. Again, mystory@thebossholechronicles.com. We'll see you next time.