Beyond Busy #77 Lucy Clayton & Steve Haines

Graham Allcott 0:05

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and how people define happiness and success. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to Lucy Clayton and Steve Haines. They are the authors of a book called How To Go To Work, the honest advice no one ever tells you at the start of your career. So before we get into that, a couple of things I want to talk about. The first is Black Lives Matter. So if you are not yet on my mailing list, if you go to GrahamAllcott.com you can sign up there each week. I'm basically sending out this thing called Rev up for the week, and it's basically one positive or interesting idea to just help get you set for the week ahead. So it comes out on a Sunday evening. If you want, you can read it Monday morning on your commute, remember those. And the idea is just kind of share something usually productivity or kind of leadership he related. But yeah, a couple of weeks ago, I did a thing on Black Lives Matter on there. And I want to just kind of share a couple of responses to it. So the first thing is, I was quite prepared to get quite a big percentage of unsubscribes because it's kind of seen as like a political thing. And, you know, as someone who just talks about productivity, should I really be dabbling in politics and whatever? Those of you who know me well will know that, you know, that really stops me used to be very gobby on Twitter and decided to pack that in. And guess what, zero unsubscribes like zero, and also just some really nice messages back with people saying it helped them to articulate their own thoughts on it, and People just, you know, really recognising for the first time where they might have had some biases or weren't aware of certain things. So that was really great. And I just wanted to I guess I just wanted to say that it it's really struck me over the last week that hang on, like this change is really happening this time. I'm someone who gets quite cynical about these things. I, you know, I find I found the whole black tile, social media thing, that blackout Tuesday thing, just really problematic. It's like, do we have to turn something that's really serious into this kind of shallow participators social media thing? You know, and really, the real work is what goes on in real life in real conversations and, you know, challenging policies in your workplace, thinking about your own biases, thinking about, you know, your own decisions or treatment of people or whatever, you know, and I think is for the same reason I'm really anti stuff like children in need and quite relief and telephones in general all that stuff because it feels to me like it puts in a neat Tupperware box the idea that people need to care. So people do they're like, you know, they do their sponsored event or whatever, one, you know, watch children need one Friday every year, and then it kind of feels like for the rest of the time, oh, well, that's taken care of I did my bit. And, you know, I get that sometimes in life, we need ceremony and stuff. But I think it's more interesting just how we behave and the choices that we make just all the rest of the time when there isn't a spotlight on us. And when we're not seemingly all under pressure to walk out of the kind of virtual houses outside of our house and deliver the kind of virtual on the steps of 10 Downing Street statements to our virtual audience. You know, I just find this really bizarre that it's like every brand and every person needs to come out and kind of make a video kind of serious personal statement, you know, that basically is cut like, cut and pasted from everyday everybody else's statements. I just don't think that is the best way to make change. But I think the last week or so, there's been a couple of things where I've really thought Ah, hang on this is this is happening this is great. One was the the toppling of the statue of Colston into the into the harbour in Bristol. That just felt like a really historic moment. I love the fact that the I think was the mayor of Bristol said this happening this throwing the statue into the sea. This is now part of part of its history. Right and I just think that's just just so amazing to witness that. The other one was cycling down to the seafront last Saturday, with my son Roscoe on the back of the bike expecting to see about 1000 people for a demonstration that was happening in Brighton for Black Lives Matter And I don't know how many people were there 10,000 15,000 something like that. It was huge. And you know, Brighton can be Britain's very white place but it can be a very politicised you know, open to politics kind of place. And just to see, just the sheer volume of people there just made me think, Wow, this this feels different and that's really promising. So, I guess, you know, the reason for saying this is my, my cynicism for blackout Tuesday and putting up a black tile on social media is that you know, we need to prolong the conversation and it needs to keep going. And it Brittany's to keep going longer than most people are. Like, willing to do it before they get tired, right? Like we kind of have to get tired of this sprint to actually start to make a difference. So So I guess the main point of this is to say let's keep this conversation going even more longer than it feels comfortable to and then we might be on with a shot so it's probably saying it's a really interesting time and yeah really promising to to see what what might come next. So if you want to check out the blog by the way that I did that was part of the rabbit for the week about Black Lives Matter we put that on my blog, So we'll put a link to that in the show notes. getbeyondbusy.com, we'll put links to everything in there as per usual go check that out. Also lovely to see that Aston Villa have resumed action lovely also to see both teams doing the Get down on one knee thing. Just as the game kicked off it just the the choreography of that and the moment of that was just something to behold so you know, really good to see really exciting and, you know, in a weird way exciting to see a really boring nil nil draw, because that's obviously inevitably what the villa game tended to and it's like the spotlights on us to be like the first Premier League game back. It had to be awful, didn't it? But, you know, wouldn't be there if it wasn't awful. So yeah, hey, so speaking about getting back to some level of normality. So this episode is with Lucy Clayton and Steve Haines. It was recorded just before locked down at the offices of penguin on the strand in London, and I'm offering this one up now as a little bubble of normality. So we talk in here about loads of really, just really well observed little things that happen in offices and organisations. The book is basically a career guide for people at the start of their career. And it's like the manual of how to go to work and what to do in jobs and how to deal with office politics and all that sort of stuff. So, as you can imagine, I pick out a lot of the more sort of nitty gritty slightly to boot Kind of subjects about office life work life. So if you're pining for the office a little bit pining for normality, a little bit pining to get on the train or in the car on the tube, go to a desk, meet with your colleagues and all that kind of stuff, then I hope this is a nice bubble of normality little escape. And let's get into it. This is Lucy Clayton, Steve Haines and me in the offices of penguin in London, just before lockdown. Let's do it. I'm here at penguin. I'm with Lucy Clayton, Steve Haines. Hello, hello. So you've just written this book, which we're going to talk about a bit later, but it's about you guys first. Okay. The book is how to go to work. Yeah. So I just wanted to start with, let's just paint the picture of the work that you guys do yourselves before we get into the book itself.

Steven Haines 9:04

Both of us have worked a lot with people at the start of their careers, people who are just younger than us and getting those first steps on the career ladder. Lucy ran the famously dubbed University of advertising the J. Walter Thompsonvgraduate recruitment programmevmany years ago, and I worked a lot with young people through saved the children and through my current work in the National Deaf children's society. And so a lot of the grinding from the book came from our practical experience of working with people who were just younger than us. And we kept seeing the same issues come up the same frustrations or the same lack of knowledge. So the idea for the book very much came from our own professional backgrounds and the work that we were doing with people that started their careers, and we thought it was about time to write some of this advice, Dan, what was fascinating when we started doing the book was was actually just a pen and a piece of paper and the list flowed so quickly, of all the things that no one ever tells you. And yet we'd experienced time and time again. And as we talked to more of our contributors in many other fields, we actually found the same things coming up. So this is a book that came directly from our experience, something of our frustration, and definitely our willingness to just be on the side of all of these people just starting out and trying to find their way through what work should be about and some of the realities of what it actually is about as well.

Lucy Clayton 10:32

I think sometimes it's quite surprising to think about, there's a sort of common thread that runs through a lot of those things that are unknown at the beginning or that cause anxiety as you're starting out in your career. And what we noticed is those things are the same whether you are a grad with the stars degree and you know, you've won Short Film Awards and you work experience all around the world, or whether most recently, I've been running a social enterprise in a fashion company, community clothing, Which works a lot with UK factories, creating jobs, very much sort of factory floor jobs. And as part of that we partner with lots of people who are helping the long term unemployed, often young people back into work. And I noticed that there is a threat of the unknown and the things that are worrying that are the same whether you are doing that kind of entry level job, or a graduate entry level job. And so it seems ridiculous that there hadn't been a kind of collection of those thoughts and that sort of rock solid, basic advice from you know, how to sort of conduct yourself in the workplace, how to get dressed at work, how to forge relationships with bosses, there's common themes that are the same whether you are in the NHS or in fashion or in advertising or in an NGO.

Graham Allcott 11:50

Yeah. And it's kind of like, you know, setting yourself the challenge of writing the What to Expect When You're Expecting, but for work, yeah. And then you think about the Question. Well, why did that not exist before? And suppose the answer is because the job was mainly with careers advisors. Yes. I had terrible careers advisors through school in university. And it was like, the day I realised that the careers advisor has the shittiest job in the you know, you suck. So why are they the ones advise me? So? Where did you have a sense of where people were getting that advice from? Before you wrote the book? Or was it Yes, they were just coming to you like, Where else? Yeah, so looking for that kind of guide?

Lucy Clayton 12:35

Well, you would think that in the years since we were all at school, it would have become a lot more sophisticated. And But the truth is, it hasn't really so the kind of wonky CD ROM that we all probably did sitting in the library at 16 in the porta Capitan library. There's a version of it. It's not on a CD ROM anymore, but it's the same kind of crude set of questions that ends up sort of spits you out. At the end and suggests that you become a vet. Or in the case of my sister, who is a very brilliant early years teacher, now and a very happy early two years teacher, I can't think of anyone who is as fulfilled in her job as she is. And that process suggested that she become a funeral director. So I think it's fair to say that one of the things we say in the book is even if the advice comes from supposedly an official source, doesn't mean necessarily, it's the best possible advice. So it's kind of startling that that hasn't become more nuanced or more refined over the years. The other thing, the other insight, I guess, that the very beginning was really front of mind for us in the writing was, I was mentoring a wonderful person called puppy, who, at the time wasn't really sure what direction she wanted to go in. And was it a kind of critical time in terms of age and education for making some quite big decisions. And I remember in one of the But we were talking through all her options and trying to kind of give her a little bit more sense of what might be the right path to follow. She had a sort of moment of epiphany where she just said, Oh, my God, I only had what my parents told me they were wrong about everything. I think, I think that resonates with quite a lot of people's experience. Parents are, of course, supposedly entirely on your side, and they are gunning for you. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have the right context or that their experience is relevant to what you want to do, or the modern world of work. And so again, one of the things we've tried to do in the book, and we've spoken to a lot of parents of people who are just leaving University now, and that's sort of the fact that they are thrilled, but there's something about a desire on all sides to kind of understand a little bit more about the landscape that graduates particularly are going into right now.

Steven Haines 14:55

And what's fascinating the evidence in terms of where people look to for advice Cities. Absolutely the parents by a long way. Yeah. And that has a real challenge in it. And we talked about this in the book about embedding privilege and access to certain careers. It we're talking there about the it's not what you know, it's who you know. And it certainly is a myth. So some of the things we've tried to pull out are about equalising the playing field, and people go into work. The second is obviously teachers hugely supportive, very inspirational. And a lot of in our podcast, we have people talking about their biggest influence being some of their teachers, and there's a wonderful conversation about a head teacher who genuinely turned to my friend is one of our guests. So I think they're a huge source of advice. But let's remember teachers are brilliant and varied and all over different careers and backgrounds, but many of them are teachers, fundamentally, they don't have access to that Industry Insight or that bit of knowledge. And the third part is careers advisors and they've suffered a lot over the past few years and there's enough evidence out there and government reports and some good efforts to try and update that sector, that industry. But, you know, the world of work renews itself generation by generation. My dad was an electrician, he worked in a factory for 40 years at the same factory. And I do something around public policy. And frankly, he's got no point. So from the age of about 21 onwards, he was entirely useless, but well meaning. The The other thing, I think, is that we now have extraordinary access to information. And one of the things that really worries me is misinformation. That's going to a lot of people at the start of their career and again, something we talk about in the book, which is this, you know, all you need to do is believe in yourself. And that can actually be quite damaging, unless you've got those practical skills to be able to operate in the workplace, the kind of productivity skills that your book talks a lot about. Great. You know, it How can you actually apply that in work so we see this contrast between feeling I'm prepared an education system that does all the right things about helping you pass exams, but none of the right things about suddenly going into a workplace where you're working next door to somebody who's 50. You're trying to navigate through an industry with no guide books, no curriculum behind you. And lots of bits of wonky advice all around, you aren't really helping. So I think the sources of advice doing their best, but they've all got an incomplete picture. So the idea was, can we just put as much of this as we can put it in one place and give it a sense of authority, a guidebook that you need, like you mentioned, like what to expect, when you're expecting a rite of passage where you just have something you can fall back on, that at least gives you a bit of a steer through that difficult time.

Lucy Clayton 17:44

And the other thing about careers advisors is that's worth saying I think is obviously they are under resourced and stretched, particularly if you're talking about, you know, a bog standard Comprehensive School, for example, like the one I went to, but also, I think, let's be realistic about what they're capable of doing. You know, in the book we talk about most of the jobs that the people we're writing for will end up doing haven't actually been invented yet. So can you honestly expect someone who, as in their own careers advisor may have? Well put it this way, mostly worked in a school to have a comprehensive sense of all of the possible future jobs? Of course, you can't, you know, that would be insane. And even if they weren't the best person in the world at their job, they would still only have a limited perspective. And I think one of the things that we want the book to do is to explode the idea that those limited perspectives that you were offered at 16 or again at 21 is the end of the picture. I think that's really, and I went to the kind of school where that sense of institutionalised low expectation was something that is really oppressive. If you are at the very beginning of you know what's about to become your working life, and we want the book to kind of, I think, to empower and challenge that What is quite a depressing? And unfortunately really common sense of attitude observable collection attitudes?

Graham Allcott 19:09

Yeah. And I sort of, you know, I definitely feel for people starting their career now, where they're starting with the premise of a huge student debt problem. Yeah. You know, or they're going into a situation where the minimum wage has been sort of diminished for younger people. So if you're starting an apprenticeship, yeah, you're on such a small amount money that you can't really be expected to live off it and you've got to kind of live with your parents for a while to do that. And it's like, these things get harder and harder at the beginning of career. But it kind of what was sort of interesting was, you know, you talk about in the book, a lot of the sort of high points of people's jobs and kind of, you know, think things that are going to go really well with individuals but then yours, you also talk about the warts and all in And perhaps the things that are often left unsaid or very difficult to find written down, you know, which again, is a careers advisor gonna know about crying in the toilet. Yeah. We'll come back to. But yeah, so it kind of feels like it's a really nice way of exposing the good and the bad. You know, and kind of seeing all these things. So, one thing that really struck me was internships, right? Because another thing about the current first routes into jobs, versus when we were probably starting out careers is like, internships now is such a much bigger thing. And I was really interested in there was a piece in there that talked about somebody's experience as a manager of interns. And some of the kind of lessons of as an intern is what to do and what not to do. Yeah. And it kind of struck me that it's like, yeah, you want to get noticed, and yeah, you want to sort of play that game. But then also, there's like, certain things that you could really sort of pays off. Yeah. So do you want to talk about that dynamic of interns? And, you know, coming into another organisation? what they're trying to get out of it and what he was trying to get out? Yeah, cuz I just found that really interesting.

Lucy Clayton 21:12

I think there's a huge pressure on the interns, you're that you know, you're there for a limited period of time, you want to make the best impression. And for you, it's really significant that it feels like a high impact use of your time. But for the employer, it probably doesn't feel like so there is a sort of disconnect in expectations and what we talked about in the book, it's one of the contributors, we thought, who better to talk about how to be the best possible intern than someone who has experienced so many of them in an industry that thrives on internships. So it's Gabby deeming a friend of ours, who is at Conde Nast and she has written this sort of the this Yes, sort of crib sheet of how to be the best possible intern. The first thing to say is, and we talked about it elsewhere in the book, there is nothing wrong with enthusiasm and enthusiasm, frankly has become as a sort of personality style. It seems to become quite unfashionable. There's a lot of sort of body language, it's about sort of shrugging, looking like you don't really give a shit and then there is nothing that winds people up playing it cool. Looking like you don't care. So and quite often, it's completely at odds with the fact that you care, a huge amount, especially if you're down you know, a couple of months internship, of course you care. So there's a whole thing about just being seeming and behaving King is probably the most useful thing you can do. Now, that doesn't mean talking constantly. Or assuming that you'll be able to run the company by midday on the first day. But it does mean offering up your services. It does mean saying and one of the things that she says in the extract which is brilliant is you don't underestimate the impact of the Should I just kind of Starting sentences with because also you might as an intern, you may find yourself working to someone who isn't that senior who actually hasn't got a lot of experience of managing people. So therefore, you try to see it from their perspective. Sometimes having an intern can feel a little bit like babysitting. And other times you might be uncomfortable asking them to do something or giving them instructions. So to offer to say, should I go and get that file from reception is bad? It's using an example from the 1940s Yeah, but you know, offering up really specific things, just shows people that you're in it to make it to make everybody's job easier.

Graham Allcott 23:40

Yeah, making it easy for somebody to, to delegate to you the stuff that might be quite sort of drudgery work, but we all done in that moment. So it's like making that easy for that person. Yeah. And, and the other one was like, well, that bit where it was like don't Swan around. You've conquered the university. Yes, sir Daniel ever, like be a little bit humble? Yeah. And so I thought that was really interesting.

Steven Haines 24:08

Well, there's so much soft stuff and assumptions and a lot of industries do rely on internships and, and actually, there's been quite a lot of bad practice in some of those industries as well. So let's remember that as a lot of goodwill, that brings in interns to try and make sure they get their exposure to the workplace and there's some pretty punishes behaviour, which is about underpaying people. So we tried to give an overview to people are interested in doing an internship about what to navigate what what the good stuff looks like, and what the bad stuff looks like. But I hope also that this is the kind of thing that somebody who's an employer who wants to bring in turn in is perhaps feeling a bit worried about the realities of managing it. Almost we can give this advice that they could then give to their intent and say this is the stuff you need to know because it is a really different environments work. It is a very different place to be. And if you've had, especially if you're coming from school where the bell goes at the start of the day, and at the end of the day, you know, when your lunch break is we've heard these terrible stories of interns getting to sort of six half past six a night and going, when do I go home? Because they're not being said even that basic, let alone as you say, things like, enthusiasm or the soft skills or humility. Yeah, you do have to spell this stuff out. So I think

Graham Allcott 25:29

I said the other way around, by the way, a couple of years ago, and think about it. We had a couple of interns work with us. And they were actually they were, they were university students, and they were doing a kind of summer placement. And we were sort of in the middle of a meeting at about five o'clock. I was like two minutes to five, and you can see them just get touchy. We're still in the middle of meeting we it's clear that we're going to wrap up in the next 10 minutes. It's like it's clear where the meetings going. And they literally just stood up now it's five o'clock.

Lucy Clayton 26:00

Wow.

Graham Allcott 26:00

And obviously, we're in this weird position where you're in the middle of a meeting and you don't really want to stop everybody else mid flow and have a five minute conversation about whether that's the right thing to do or not. Yeah, obviously there's always a right yeah. And but it was just this really awkward thing of Okay, so now we just don't know what to say what to do. Right?

Lucy Clayton 26:23

So we talked about that we say do not run. Do not run from the building if all your colleagues like that sounds basic, but maybe it isn't maybe written down in your in the agreed contract or that you know, five o'clock is home time that But again, it's sort of what we say is take the take your cue from those around you, but I think it is really important to say with internships, it has been an area, it's getting better, but you know, particularly in industries like mine in fashion, it can be hugely exploitative. There can be you know, there are whole industries that famously run on free, inverted commas, talents. That's dangerous and wrong. And so things like what to do if you're being exploited, we cover those things because whilst it is getting better, you still need to know your rights in those situations.

Graham Allcott 27:10

Yeah, for sure. And let's talk about that a little bit more than in terms of bad bosses. Yes. Because this is another thing that just because there's all these experiences that you know, if you've worked for 1015 years, you've probably come across bad bosses you've come you've probably come across politics and bullying, whatever, but no one's ever really sort of written them all in one chapter. Pick this stuff up, but all that was sort of like my favourite stuff in the book because Yeah, because it just kind of surfaced all these things. But there's a you have a lovely line that says, treat a bad boss as if as a training exercise. Which really, yeah, got me thinking about what did I learn from points. I've had bad bosses and I think you tell me,

Lucy Clayton 27:57

I'm hoping that the person that you I write about unnamed in the book is not able to identify herself. But I had a really bad boss at the very beginning of my career. So I was I'd finished my graduate trainee bit and was kind of just, I guess, a young new person working in an ad agency within a fashion account. And, and I think it I recognised even at the time through the fog of my misery, my daily misery that it was super useful because that person's leadership style. And to a certain extent, I suppose personality style in that example, became a blueprint for everything I didn't want to be professionally and I genuinely think that I have held true to those lessons pretty much every day of my working life since it really was strive

Graham Allcott 28:56

to be the opposite

Lucy Clayton 28:58

to be the opposite. And there are others Oftentimes, when particularly if you're, you know, running a tip a big team, or you're particularly under pressure or you're stressed, where, you know, you do have to check your instinctive responses to a thing. And I think it's been really useful for me to kind of think well, what would she have done in this situation and do the opposite, even, you know, 15 years later. Now, that doesn't mean that it's easy. And it doesn't mean that you have to do it for a long time. But I do think just knowing that if you're having a really difficult time with a really bad boss, is some kind of comfort actually, because, and actually, I think it's super useful at the beginning of your career. I don't know whether it's as useful if it happens kind of midway through, I think, perhaps, for me, it was that it was so early on that it was just really instructive. I mean, yeah, everything from tone of voice to how you play people off on one another to sort of publicly rewarding and acknowledging credit and a lot of the things in the book that we talk about as best practice come from our experiences of Having worked with both brilliant people, and we talked about also in the book, what you can learn from working with brilliant people. But I don't think people are particularly honest about what you can learn from the bad experiences too.

Graham Allcott 30:09

Yeah, I think it's really good. I think, for me, I had a bad boss experience very early on, and then a really great experience. And I think the two of them together a perfect, right, like both sort of shaped me in similar ways. But you know, some of the stuff you've got in here, it's like, the bad boss is sticking to their vision, their plan, even in the face of the evidence that they're wrong. sucking energy rather than inspiring with opportunity and optimism. And this one, kicking you from mistakes rather than helping you grow. I mean, on one level, that sounds really basic, right?

Lucy Clayton 30:41

I think it all sounds really basic, but we all know that when you're working with someone who perhaps doesn't exhibit his qualities or exhibits the opposite of them, then you know, it can be very, very difficult to simply get through the day to day and a lot of that is because you feel like the rules are always changing or that the ground You're standing on isn't stable. And at the beginning of your career that can feel like oh, well, this is just what work is. But of course it isn't. It's just what works with that person.

Steven Haines 31:08

And I hope that through that we can give some good questions, good pointers to help people get a bit of perspective, because it is really simple to think this is how all bosses are or this is how will workplace cultures operate, and not have that sense of that gut sense that you develop much later of Hang on. This isn't right, I'm not being given the opportunities I need to I am actually learning some pretty bad lessons along the way. So it's almost prompting that question in the mind. We talk a lot in the book about key questions to observe about culture, things you might want to ask yourself about documenting a lot of that, and they can always build up to a guidebook that you'd write yourself alongside this is what is this place really like and give them something to talk to your friends or, again back to those sources of advice to say is this what I should be expecting?

Lucy Clayton 31:57

And that reminds me of Penguin have been given a book to all their new starters in that intense ever since I think we submitted the first kind of, you know, first draft version. And they did a brilliant thing where all of the current intense at Reddit, and they filmed them to camera.

Graham Allcott 32:12

I've seen that video, I didn't realise they were all penguin people. Yeah,

Lucy Clayton 32:15

it was a really good idea of Leo, who's on our team for the book,

Graham Allcott 32:19

we will link that in the show notes. Yeah,

Lucy Clayton 32:21

that is really great. And, and it was great for us because it was a real moment where we realised that what we'd set out to do was landing it was it was kind of being received in the spirit that we intended it, which of course, when you're writing it, you're never sure. That was really the one of the one of the people who talking to camera says I wish I'd had it. My very first job, which I think was in a marketing company, because I wasn't sure what was normal and what I should put up with or went whether I could leave or not. I think that actually is a really common experience in your first Job, quite a few people have their first job straight out of university, and then spend a lot of time thinking, been delighted originally to get the job and then think oh my god, this is absolutely not what I thought it was. All this makes me miserable. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. I've got a job. So how could I possibly. And so the sections that we talked about, about new toxic cultures, or when to quit, I think are reassuring, kind of step by step. You know, check in with this, because when you have no context, you know, you're probably turning up every day still feeling lucky even if you might be in the right place or the fit is wrong or any of those things. I thought that was really interesting that she identified that.

Graham Allcott 33:40

Yeah, and you just reminded me of my favourite quote from the book. about leaving parties. says do not miss behaviour leaving parties stay sensible. Eat something larger 5pm nurse one drink from six to eight, and then take it sensibly until tax time. You'll regret everything. But it's true that

Lucy Clayton 34:07

it does sound like everyone's mother. Go home.

Graham Allcott 34:12

Have you had some horrendous leaving party experiences that were like, Oh,

Lucy Clayton 34:16

yeah, I mean, I've had I've been leaving parties when people have broken limbs.

Graham Allcott 34:21

I feel like I've been neglecting my podcast, if I didn't ask you to tell them what?

Lucy Clayton 34:28

It wasn't me, obviously, because I'm the sensible one. Yeah, I mean, I used to work. It's this, I guess, not even that long ago. But it does feel like culturally different moments. So in an ad agency with you know, when one whole floor is a bar, then it can get messy pretty quickly and pretty early on. So yeah, I think I should probably not recount awful stories, but it's fair to say that yes, I think that you will regret every other version of this evening is true, and it's important to exit with dignity. Most industries are really small. And again, this is hard to know when you're starting out and you think, Oh, well, you know, I'm on to my next job. So, but you can get that really wrong and then regret it later. It is

Steven Haines 35:12

a really murky space. I remember one of my first jobs, it was just a part time job. And I was just finished up sixth form, was working in a bar. And we were all very excited opening this brand new bar as a big kind of concept place. And the new bar manager joined us as well as the owners, and he got absolutely hammered that night. So big vodka promotion games, you know, they're trying to sell us this the products that we'll be selling. And of course, he was fired on the spot didn't do his first day because in the pre party, it got so drunk, and this is quite murky space, isn't it? You know, should I go to the pub? Should I buy a random drink should should I how much should I have? And I think there's a lot more responsibility, thankfully, around a lot of these areas now but you can have Some big impact of the things that you're doing outside of work on work itself. And of course, one of the areas we talk a lot about is your social media profile. And some pretty Frank advice about there is a point where you're gonna have to separate those brilliant. First time you're away on holiday with your mates, photos, from something that a recruiter could see. So, yeah, we we talk about bringing your whole self to work. And there's a lot of truth in that. But you do need to create division between your work life and your personal life as well. And that can play in lots of different ways. But there are these grey areas where you might get drawn into some pretty hefty conflict between the two leaving parties being a classic bad for that,

Graham Allcott 36:43

just on the social media thing. I also think we should all work harder to create the world where people can be fully human. Yeah. And where there isn't this sort of pretence that no one ever gets drunk? No, no one ever has fun. Oh, yeah. Or whatever. But yeah, in the current Working world that we're in. It's not quite there is it? So the practical advice needs to be a bit more. Yeah. Yeah. pragmatic around.

Lucy Clayton 37:07

Well, I think it's interesting. We got advice on this when writing this book, because it's a really murky and ever changing area. So Andy Lipton at the University of Plymouth actually wrote the section for us about social responsibility and tech. And the truth is a lot of what people are told in school about being having complete clarity and division between the private social media and their or the feeling very kind of risk averse around. What they might publish, isn't actually played out in law or isn't actually paid on your employer doesn't have kind of, I guess. They're not able to use that against you in most cases. But that doesn't mean it's the sensible thing to do to be wildly uninhibited, online. So there's somebody else that doesn't mean that they weren't

Graham Allcott 38:00

use it against you then blame something else,

Lucy Clayton 38:02

then you'll never know. Exactly. So just from a sort of cautiousness perspective, it's, it's, it's sensible to kind of approach it with a bit of kind of reality check, I guess. But but it was important to us to kind of put the facts in the in the book about this quite a lot of scare mongering around that stuff. And I agree with you, of course, we should be able to be our wholesales at all times. But one of the things we also talk about because I think there's also pressure to be our whole selves at work, and actually, it is okay, if you don't fancy that you're someone who actually needs a degree of privacy, or who wants to be able to have a professional persona and a very different one at home. That is also completely okay. And I think just because it's fashionable to sort of be like, Here I am, and doesn't mean that doesn't doesn't mean that you necessarily have to adhere to that for a lot of people. It's really useful to have a slight distance between your work self and your home self and that's completely you shouldn't feel like you're doing it wrong if that's that applies to you

Graham Allcott 38:59

for sure. This podcast obviously talks a lot about work life balance. So you've got a whole section in the book, which is under total overworked stress, sleep, whatever you like. And so the thing that I really learned from that section was this idea and I think this I think this is your experience this is like I can go for five weeks Yeah. And really sort of be at full throttle and then the the week where I'm just really in fallow period catch out sort of sleeping a lot being a bit more distant kind of a bit. Yeah, so tell. Tell us more about this. Five week one.

Lucy Clayton 39:39

Yeah. So I think what we're talking about when we use that as a very personal example, but is that throughout your working life, you will start to learn and part of its to productivity and part of its to do with pace, I think. So you will learn how you operate best. So I have observed over the years my working life now is very different because so so I have the freedom now, because of the sort of strange patchwork of things that I do to be able to kind of use this very without kind of hindrance, I guess. So use this patent, I know that I can have a full diary deadlines every day, some high pressure ship new on the horizon for about five weeks and be able to perform at that level to not kind of get flaky to not start to become a bit less good at all of those things. And I'm someone who doesn't really like becoming less good at those things. So I could probably push it to Week Six, but I wouldn't be happy with the output at that point. So So I and beyond that. Everything would start to get really bad. So I don't ever now if I can help it. We're about to kind of come to probably week five on the brink as I as I'm talking. I'm like Yeah, it's probably about like,

Graham Allcott 41:02

are you panicking about where the

Lucy Clayton 41:07

next I think I know where it is it's not and it doesn't need to be completely follow. I'm not so sort of, we'll see that I need like a week on the beach at that point. But what I probably need is not you know, so we last week I did gave, I don't know, four speeches on three different stages. And that's absolutely fine. But it wouldn't be fine if I was doing it relentlessly. Now, some people are able to relentlessly perform a certain level. I'm just not, I'm not. So I think there are equivalent work patterns that you will notice about yourself throughout your working life and it's smart, even in a small way to be able to reflect upon them and then try to plan them as best as possible. And you can do that even if you don't have a kind of weird patchwork portfolio career like mine, with the advice we give in the book is you know, if you've been doing if you've been working at whatever the equivalent of that level is in your particular job, carve out some time for yourself the following week or say I was in every year. Till whatever time last week to your boss, I'd really like to leave early on Thursday or, you know, and and if you've been truly working to that level, then no one resents someone who is self aware enough to be able to say, I need a bit of balance, I use the word balance, you know, with it with caution, because it's not really balanced to say it's just about I guess we're dressing a bit of a bit of emphasis really.

Graham Allcott 42:25

Yeah. And there's a thing in that way, you're saying, you know, we are given a number of days of paid holiday. Yeah. And surely, a good manager would always appreciate you coming to them and saying, I need to use a bit of this application, cause I've been, you know, pushing it really hard. We've been working on this thing

Steven Haines 42:45

yet. And there's some interesting evidence out there that people that started their career are less likely to take those days holiday they want presents and perform and actually it's very damaging for them as well, that they're there for a reason. And we also talk about you Experiment a few years ago about doing a five to nine shift, and the nine to five one. There's a history to a lot of the ways in which you work and isn't necessarily in tune with people's energies. So helping to help you know yourself and how you work and what energises you and what saps your energy. And those points in the day where you're going to feel better and feel worse. And we're at the moment coming up to about three o'clock where I have a natural slump every single day, things that you can start to work through. And as you get that understanding of yourself and be able to know when to allocate that what when to organise certain chunks of your time. And I think that points of having the conversation with your boss, with your colleagues understanding that other people have pressures on their time.

Lucy Clayton 43:47

And that's really important. The other people having pressures I think, at the beginning of your career where you're probably you know, you don't have you most likely to not have other demands on your time outside work. caring responsibilities, it can be quite difficult to recognise that the people that you're working with and collaborating with every day, perhaps do actually care that the hours of the office are adhere to, because it means they have to lug it down the road and do the nursery run. So therefore, while self awareness about your own working patterns is really important, it's also important to observe what other people's work in patents and why they might be relevant. Because I think it cuts sometimes there are, there can be quite a lot of friction. I think in a lot of a lot of organisations where young people kind of turn up and start and don't have that sense of understanding that actually does matter that you arrive at nine, because otherwise you lose a whole hour of the day at the end. Even if you're happy to stay later, someone else can't. So I think just being a bit kind of just a bit savvy really about how everyone's day looks different.

Graham Allcott 44:53

And it's like part of that is about being self aware so that you can be productive. Yeah, and also part of that as well. Southwest so you can be perceived well be a good team member. Exactly. So many different facets that there's always going to be attention in this.

Yeah. So let's talk about goals. This is another thing that really resonated with me. I feel like in my 20s I always had really clear three years. And I feel like and regular listeners to this podcast will be probably in hearty agreement, the fact that I have no plan now. I do stuff that I enjoy, and I feel like I'm also probably the other interesting thing about reading this book in general, by the way is I feel like I'm totally unemployable with a similar portfolio career, you know, the idea of going into going back into the situation with you know, toxic work cultures and bad bosses and you No and, and that sort of that sort of matches the word regime, which feels like so removed from how much control and autonomy. Yeah. And there are downsides to that too, obviously. But it feels like, I feel very lucky to have that. And I feel like yeah, maybe tricky for me to go in and sort of work.

Lucy Clayton 46:21

Well, in the interest of the interest of balance. I would just like to say lots of other people who've read the book and said they wish they were 21. Again,

I don't think that

it's not supposed to put you off. But I totally agree, I think.

I think if you have had a career or often several careers and then have made a decision to do a number of things that are, as you say, autonomous and that kind of have their own schedule. Then I think the if that if that works for you, then the freedom around it. is a very hard thing to think about giving up. Someone asked me the other day, whether I would go with I would take a big job and go back, go back into work. And I actually felt horrified. Which is not not to say that I didn't have the absolute best time, when I was doing all of those things. It's just that I feel like the things that I value now are really different. And actually, that's just about being much older. So I don't think I need a job title that makes me feel impressive. I think I care about what I'm producing more so. So and also, it's just a lifestyle thing. The truth is, you know, if I had a massive job in a big company, I would need around the clock childcare, and I don't want to do that I want to I want to run up the hill and, and pick my son up from school. And so, and again, I think that's relevant to our audience for the book because one of the things we say particularly around opportunity and promotion and moving roles, there is an amazing period In your 20s, where you can pretty much say yes to anything. And that freedom is a very different kind of freedom to the one that you and I do. Now. Yeah, and if you are the sort of person that enjoys that stuff, definitely grasp that moment because it's much, much harder later on when, you know, you're thinking about things like the school run. That's, that should feel really distant to a lot of our readers. And that distance is a really valuable thing. So you know, if you want to travel if you want to work abroad, you know, say yes, do all of those things at that point, because it's much harder to that was much more complicated to do it later.

Graham Allcott 48:35

Yeah. And then probably it comes back round, doesn't it when you're sort of in your 50s and your kids are older and you never see them?

Again, so weird. Bell Curve kind of situation, but talk about goals thing, right? So yeah, it was about like in my 20s I had sort of good three year career plans of what next and I was always following That advice that someone told me very early on have never think about the next job, but was think about the one after that happened, the positioning and how to pivot towards those things, wherever. And now I don't think that that I love this whole thing which is like, but what about those people who don't have a sense of purpose or ambitions that can be easily articulated. Here are a few tips on how to set goals for people who aren't so sure. And they talk about sketch a sketch that we'd like to see in the future versus a specific number of years that sometimes helps to draw rather than just them and prioritise a few key things in that picture. And keep to between three and five ambitious goals. Love this one, make them about what you want, not what you think other people like you to achieve that that really spoke to me and describe what happened when you reach those goals, not how you'll get there. So I felt like there's some really good advice in there but you feel like we're in this sort of age now with social media and the sort of Instagram world of it. It's really difficult to admit if you don't have a plan and it's not submit, if you're not quite sure, or if you're in the wrong thing,

Lucy Clayton 50:06

I think it's almost impossible to say out loud, because everyone is so used to and you'll be talking the book about a lot of the language around social media is, I think really damaging and dangerous. This sort of, you know, you're killing it. Yeah, you on fire? And it's like, well, you know, first of all, do we really want to be killing it and crushing it? And also, I'm not necessarily sure That sounds fun. Sounds really stressful. And I think that that tone means that then to say, out into the ether, Oh, God, I didn't I didn't mean it was do is it feels very counter to the main, the main theme.

Steven Haines 50:49

Yeah, I guess, attention here, actually going back to the start, and we're talking about that careers test. Who do you want to be? We're giving people that start their careers now. And yet, we actually give all the careers advice later to be verbs. So you don't necessarily want to be a physician or a, you know, a podcast host or whatever. You want to be several different things at once. And so it feels like the wrong advice we're giving to people at their start their career instead of the tools to be able to navigate it. So in the book, frankly, the jury's out about whether life's goals are a good idea or not. So one of the quotes that we have in the book is actually from another brilliant book called The his book about rice. It's young people in Britain today talking about their experience and Rosalind Jana who's a journalist talks about how she'd already got a book deal before she left University and how things don't necessarily have to be in the same order. And we also spoke to Kathleen Saxton is brilliant, CEO of the executive search firm and also psychotherapist who runs very different parallel careers. So I guess the point we're trying to get across is that if there ever was there certainly isn't today this linear, go to school, go to some form of further or higher education, go into work, progress up the ladder in that and then take your retirement package those days, as I said, they wherever they're at now completely gone. So the advice that you can do different things at different times feels very relevant. We know and talk to many people who haven't even started that traditional career and yet have already built companies or maybe decided not to do that and just explore a bit of themselves and who they want to be. So I guess we're saying the book, you know, there's that there's a helpfulness to these goals. They can focus their attention, they can keep you moving in a certain direction, but be a bit sceptical about there being an obvious end points or an obvious set of export

Lucy Clayton 52:54

order, I think about not needing it to do not needing to do it in the order that you know, it's really difficult if you've been You know, merrily, bobbing away through the education system. And the next thing is your a levels. And then the next thing is you do your cap here or there you do. You know, it feels like the next step is always obvious in that in that process, and I think there is there is I mean, I remember being in my 20s and thinking, Okay, well I want to meet, I actually am so embarrassed by this. I don't want to say it out loud because it feels so it's such a ridiculous thing to think. But I remember genuinely thinking, I want to be a sound, you know, insane. But I wanted to be married by the time I was 30 on the board, but before the time I was 30. I wanted to had a baby before the time I was 30. Now, I don't know what that was based on. But certainly not things that I necessarily actually wanted. It was probably a collection of social pressures, things that I thought might my parents might be pleased about, like, those ideas came from a really weird, they weren't. They weren't sort of from within. They were kind of Just I guess,

Graham Allcott 54:03

like when you like, yeah, so those feel like very much external extrinsic narratives, right? Were but

Lucy Clayton 54:11

they weren't my goals like if you ask me, I would assume

Graham Allcott 54:14

because you've seen, like articles or talks where people have said, I was on the board before I thought about having a kid. So you've taken those and sort of made them yours. Yeah, they're not. Like you said, they're they're not really yours. They're sort of what your parents might like

Lucy Clayton 54:32

they were a collection of things that I'd internalised. Yeah. So do

Graham Allcott 54:36

you think as people get older, so I'm 41 now, but I, I feel like now I have a better sense of who I am. So any goal that I put out into the world is like this is about Yeah, is very much what I want to do rather than what somebody else would want me to do.

Lucy Clayton 54:54

Yeah, definitely. So I think that's why when we talk about goals in the book, that line that you read out about Making sure it's something that it's not just what other people might want to see on that list is really important because I do think it is harder, partly just because of age, and partly because of the influences around you in your early 20s. To isolate what it is that you actually as an individual want or need.

For your adult life. I just think that's harder,

Graham Allcott 55:21

I suppose. 21 we all know much less about ourselves. And we also much less than we know much less about the options. Yes, is around, right. So once you figure out both of those things out, it sort of changes. Yeah, exactly. It's definitely easier now. Yeah, a couple of things before we finish. So one thing that I read, I recognise a lot in myself is wait about work life balance, and you say, plot your playtime as much as your work. Tell us more about that.

Lucy Clayton 55:53

You're much better at that.

Steven Haines 55:55

This was a bit of advice I had quite early on in my career as well. It's, it's pretty easy, especially in those early days to make work everything. And actually, that's just going to lead to stress and worry. And I think we, we get given two things, either a very clear task list to get done, and a lot of pressure and time to do that without many of the skills of having the autonomy about it, and actually quite a busy social life when you're younger. And I think that's great. But how do you balance the two? How do you make sure that you haven't got and I think the example we give it, the book, you know, your family waiting in the restaurant, around the corner with the birthday cake with the candles on it, and you're still trying to hit that deadline and work, there's a great deal of expectation. And yet, you need to plan your personal time just as much as you do your work time. So, you know, have that to do list with work or however you choose to manage your own productivity, but do that with your personal time as well. And I think that this can often be a time of great change. You might be moving, where you live, or who you live with, or the place in which you live. And all of those changes are happening while still trying to get your head around this whole work Lark. So how do we manage both of those? Well, I think you need to take a really similar approach to all of it and say, What do I need as an individual? What makes me happy? What are their times of pressure? And the antidote to that? And how can I get a much stronger balance between the two? And actually, where do they cross over as well? Also, there's that wonderful time to experiment with different careers, you might be in a sports team or you might have, yeah, musical projects on the side, you're gonna need to balance that to don't compromise the stuff you're really passionate about. Just because you've got this nine to five work going on, as well understand that actually, you've got more scope for flexibility. Do you realise? Yeah, for sure.

Graham Allcott 57:54

A friend of mine who's a CEO. His thing is, he knows that the things That really nourishes him, he's going to the theatre. And so he knows that even at the most, you know, busy for next time, he just make sure he always has to take his books. Yeah, you know, every couple of weeks, he's, he's spending an evening just going and having downtime and doing something else. Yeah.

Lucy Clayton 58:14

But I think that's a really good example. Because, um, you know, the way we use culture and the way we interact with culture, and that could be 30 tickets, or it could be, you know, frankly, sitting on your bed watching Netflix, it balances and also provide you gives us other resources and other ideas. And so, you know, we need we all the time where we're not working in order to inform and make better or working. And so I think that we shouldn't ever feel guilty about doing that. And again, knowing that is quite hard at the beginning where you feel like God, why should becaming at work because, you know, we're all killing it or whatever.

Steven Haines 58:51

And one of the biggest mistakes I think I made my career was at a point. When I was in my late 20s. I had this big job that I'd landed on. Super excited about it. And I cleared my diary. And it was a huge mistake. I, my stress levels went through the really unpopular I was really lost of my friends and lonely. Yeah, you know, we kind of think we've got to clear out time to do our absolute best at work and give that priority. And sometimes, and that was definitely a case where it's a lot of pressure on but without that release valve became very difficult. And I took me a few months to kind of get those, get those phrases back.

Graham Allcott 59:35

And then the final thing I just want to talk about with because it's kind of central theme of the podcast is productivity. So it's probably worth saying at this point that you very kindly reached out to me had a bit of a zoom call. So some of my productivity stuff is in your book. Yeah. I'm really excited. So you've got a little bit of my my core productivity modules in there and stuff like that. But um, I'd love to just hear before we finish your, your thoughts and what you've learned about productivity over the years and the things that particularly work for you and make you do your best work.

Steven Haines 1:00:11

I mean, it was a great that first conversation was fantastic. And I knew you'd written this book. And as I've said to you before, it's probably the most stolen book I've ever had, I've probably got about five copies, the product was legit, and people just take it from my desk and it never comes back. So the I think there are some core skills that are just worth learning. At the start, the big one I learned from you was, how to organise the emails. And I think that's changing. There are very different communication forms coming in, but emails been really dominant for a number of years. So having the inboxes that are at action at read, you know, that's pretty helpful for us to be able to rapidly break down all of those different wonky things you get in an inbox, but also writing things wells. So you're helping other people take action more rapidly, just actually saying what you mean. So that's hugely important. And I always write a long list and I categorise it A, B and C a is it has to happen today. B, I'd love it to happen, but it probably won't. And c that genuinely can wait. We do. We mentioned some of these things in the book as well. Like, as you're writing the minutes of meeting a symbol that I right next to the thing I need to do, but I think it's that combination of and, and I think can easily forget it whilst you're trying to make yourself productive. Remember that you've got responsibility to make others productive, too. So that's a huge part of it. And again, maybe a bit reflect on the work life balance then wants to don't recommend waking up at three in the morning and work, worrying about work at the same time. To use a bit of that walk to and from work to clear your mind and let the important things pop up. You have an amazing resource in this brain of yours that makes you productive, without having to kind of push it To have a system or structure to it will tell you what's important.

Lucy Clayton 1:02:03

I think the point about knowing one of the things that's really impossible to know at the very beginning of your career is the decisions that you make the impact other people's ability to do their job well. And so we're really clear in the book about, you know, before you allocate your task before you decide where you're going to put your energy for that day, you know, prioritise things that have an impact on everybody else, because one of the things that I've seen time and time again, is people not actually just not even thinking about that. And that means that you know, everyone can else to be sat around waiting, or you know, there's a deadline that you didn't even realise was the deadline, because you just haven't actually engaged with the person who effectively you're handing the baton to. So some of that stuff is really super simple. It's just, you know, the stuff that should be trained or that should be taught at the very beginning, but so often isn't anymore. So. And I think the other thing to say about the productivity section is it's a really good example, the bit where we quote all your wisdom from your book is a good example of how we treat all The other themes in the book. So we have, it's not just us kind of running on our instincts, we take the expert in the field, and we distil that piece of information in the most kind of accessible way possible. And we apply it to whatever problem or whatever theme. And the reason for that is, because let's be honest, we know that our readers are too busy and having too nice to talk, either at work or outside work to be hanging around in the business section of Waterstones, they are not kind of engaged in that material. But that so that sort of the best in leadership theory or productivity theory, or any of those things we have distilled, just to give them a sort of a sense of the best thinking about those things.

Graham Allcott 1:03:42

Yeah, and I'd love it if people read those three or four pages of my stuff in your book. That'd be great. And there any final thoughts and reflections from the process of writing the book itself? How did it affect you Productivity with work life balance.

Lucy Clayton 1:04:02

Got a productivity plummeted. Yeah.

Graham Allcott 1:04:06

You fit it in because you're doing this portfolio career around all the stuff that you do.

Lucy Clayton 1:04:10

It was easier for me, I think because I have real flexibility on diary and, and deadlines and stuff. So the other things that I do definitely took a backseat throughout the writing of this, although my other podcast project was also thriving at the time I did a TED talk halfway through the writing process, which was I have to say, that was an example of five weeks where I very nearly burnt out. But, but I think we wrote the book really quickly. And I think the reason we made quite an active decision to do that, we felt like there was a quite urgent need and that the time was definitely right for it, right. We basically wrote it in seven months. Yeah. And then obviously, the Edit process took a little bit longer, but the sort of actual kind of Getting these 80,000 was pretty quick. And that was very deliberate. I think there's a momentum to it that you can read and you can kind of feel on the page. And that was really necessary for us. And she was doing a full time job at the time. So I mean, it's actually definitely testament to how how much you've taken on board games productivity. I think,

Steven Haines 1:05:27

Well, I think there's a few things to add to that. Firstly, if felt like we'd be writing this book for years and our heads, the conversations, so don't forget that, you know, work isn't just something you do on that day that you start immediately and then finish a bit later. This is something that that is drawn from lots of different sorts of advice. Secondly, as with yourself grown, you know, there are so many people in our network and who we met through the process of writing who gave us so much insight. It was other people to be writing this book as well. So in some We became the convener of all of this and as much as the writers of it, and also tells you something about strength and building a good team around you, you know, I, I did a lot of the research backbone, but the stories and a lot of the writing, were loosely. You take a first draft, send it to me, I'd then send it back. And we had we put in those systems, different coloured text, that kind of thing. We had a brilliant editor at penguin who did I think one of the great things in leadership, which is genuinely believing in people, giving them support, they didn't let them get on with it. So she was phenomenal to we've had a great team around, there's loads of different sorts of advice and a wonderful willingness of people to go, yeah, I get what you're trying to do. I'm willing to help.

Lucy Clayton 1:06:46

Yeah, there wasn't us that we spoke to hundreds of people in the writing of this one's conversations that are very much visible in the book and conversations that are much in the background. And not a single person said or don't think there's much, much To see an idea, it was the opposite, we were overwhelmed by the sense that the book was needed and that they could help with it, and that they were excited about existing. And that gives you a certain that gives you a confidence to write. And the other really basic thing, and I say this knowing other people that are writing books, or be it, fiction, we put in a schedule, that meant that we pretty much had a deadline a month for so we would share with my team, our editor, very regularly each section. I don't think I could have written it any other way. So the idea that you might have had one deadline at the very end terrifies me, partly maybe because it's our first book, but also I think I'm kind of classic head girl syndrome. Like I need to, I need to submit an essay. That's good carry on. Otherwise, I can't really the idea that you're writing into the ether that I found very, very frightening. So for me that structure of having a deadline, needing to deliver on it, I'm really comforting.

Graham Allcott 1:07:55

Yeah, you just made me think about my next book. Maybe I'll do it. That way, because I do just have one deadline,

Lucy Clayton 1:08:02

like I can.

Graham Allcott 1:08:03

I do? I usually do. I didn't read the last book. But what I do to cheat that system is that about a month before that deadline, I have a false deadline. And that deadline is to send the book out to a bunch of focus groups, people who I know,

Lucy Clayton 1:08:19

I see. Yeah,

Graham Allcott 1:08:21

so the great thing about that is then I get loads of feedback on it. And that and then that creates the last bit of push momentum that I need. So the Polish

Lucy Clayton 1:08:27

Yeah, yeah.

Graham Allcott 1:08:29

Yeah. And some a couple of deadlines I've had have been like a Friday afternoon, and it's got to them on the Monday morning, let's say okay, but to those like, because I think to be honest, they expect if they set a deadline of Friday afternoon and publishing, they really know it's coming Monday. And so if you get it there, you know, 9am Monday morning, my thought is, well, they're off on the weekend. Yeah. And then on Monday morning, they're expecting to sit down next week with my books as long as they're by 9am. Yeah.

Steven Haines 1:08:58

You know, I think There's something about setting the priorities in the process as well, which I found really fascinating. You know, it, it would be really tempting to write this book and it would be really preachy and just all of our own thoughts rather than the time, the stuff that took the time was the consultation within the British Youth Council, which was so important, shaping it, all of those conversations and really picking through it. So in some ways, it wasn't the kind of can we meet the deadline of writing the words is

Lucy Clayton 1:09:27

that it was easy. It was all of the other bit. It was Yes, as you say, having early readers who were all sorts of different different parts of the process in terms of Kind of, yeah, whether they were just about to start a job or job searching or any of those things. And I think it was really important that we had those voices reflect on it before we did the final Polish because the truth is, although we've got lots of contributors from all sorts of different industries, tonally the voice is ours and we're lucky because we have backgrounds and very different engines. So it feels that automatically feels quite broad. But you know, we don't know what it's like to do an engineering degree. So it was really important that we had someone read it, who had done an engineering degree, just to check that we weren't kind of just giving us some sort of, you know, one version of events and

Steven Haines 1:10:15

my big learning from that was not just how much time do you need to get it done, get the product out, but rather, how much time and what do you need to do to get something you're genuinely proud of, is the best version of Lucy, as he told me that, you know, this sense of not going to do unless the outcome is the best version that could possibly be. And that's a really interesting challenge to think when

Graham Allcott 1:10:38

you're at the start. Yeah, although me with books, and this might sound very highfalutin if it doesn't, but I always remember the quote from Leonard Cohen, which says, art is never finished just abandoned.

Lucy Clayton 1:10:52

Yeah,

Graham Allcott 1:10:53

yeah, I can some point. There has to let go. And then you and then you'll spend the next month beating yourself up. I mean, I could tell you now all the things that I wish.

Lucy Clayton 1:11:04

But I think, but I think doing that last last month of which I found very, very difficult, probably the most challenging and unpleasant of the heart of what's otherwise been a really lovely experience. But that whole, making sure that structurally it felt true to the original proposition, those those that making sure that it was strategically meeting all those things I found, I found that pressure in the final instance, almost overwhelming. Because by that point, you've got this massive bloody great document and it feels huge. And suddenly it feels like the task you're, you know, no one had written a book like this before, and it felt like it was herculean. Every sentence - you're too familiar with. And that was really, really difficult, but then equally in that by forcing yourself to engage in that painful lost process, I think we did things that make it And infinitely better, but overall so for example, I remember waking up at 3am. We were on holiday shaking me awake and saying Happy Holidays. Oh my god, were you idiots we are we've put the leadership section all the stuff around leadership, we've put somewhere towards the back, which of course is the logical place when you're talking about the starts for Saturday jobs, leadership feels like it should be at the back. But the truth is the spirit of this project is about emboldening people from the start. Therefore, the sectional leadership has to be at the beginning. And so things like that, you know, I think if we hadn't made those kinds of significant changes that absolutely are about it being true to itself. I think it would be less good, but I found that last month, which is clearly why I wasn't sleeping.

Graham Allcott 1:12:50

Well. It's done now and it's launched and out there in the world. So congratulations. Thank you. So it's called How to go to work. I'd love you To just also just plug your other podcasts and other stuff that you're doing and how people can find you. So let's just finish that.

Lucy Clayton 1:13:06

So we have a podcast for this book, which we should talk about, which is very much in the same area. But it's slightly more about discovery. So to our, where we started, I guess this conversation talking about what careers advisors can't know. So our theory with the podcast is that people at the apex of their career forget to talk about the early moments of their career. And that's quite unhelpful, because it's really useful to be able to sort of chart someone's progress from a paper round through to becoming a, you know, a world class architect, for example, to pluck an example at random. So the podcast is about I'm having conversations with people that starts from their very first day job. And we're talking to people in all sorts of industries. And we're not just talking to people who do the headline job in an industry. So for example, in fashion, was of course we talked to a fashion designer. We also talked to a supply chain sustainability leader To, you know stylists and buyers and all the jobs that probably you're not being told about by your guest services, what the foot whatever they are. So that's called How to go to work. You can listen to it at how to go to work.com or on Apple podcasts if you search how to go to work, and if bizarrely you also have an interest in fancy dress and the role of costume in fashion history and how we style and identify ourselves, which would make you a niche reader. Then I also like that's basically me and probably someone else. Then I would direct you to my other podcast dress fancy podcast, which is also on Instagram at dress fancy and in all the podcast places

Graham Allcott 1:14:47

and how people how can people connect with you guys personally,

Lucy Clayton 1:14:50

we are there is an email address actually at the front of our

Steven Haines 1:14:53

clips, how to go to work@gmail.com you can send us anything you want to see somebody you want us to integrate For the podcast, yes.

Lucy Clayton 1:15:00

Justin's

Steven Haines 1:15:02

tell us that we got a bit wrong in the book. Yeah, we can do that. And of course, we have the social media as well. So at how to go to work on Instagram, and that's how to go to work on Twitter as well.

Graham Allcott 1:15:15

Cool. Well, Lucien, Steve, thanks so much. Thank you.

Lucy Clayton 1:15:18

Thank you for having us. Thank you for being in the book.

Graham Allcott 1:15:20

Yeah, thank you and good luck with it.

Thanks again to Lucy and Steve really enjoyed that conversation really fun. And thanks also to think productive, who are our sponsors for the show? So if you're interested in productivity training for your organisation, we do everything now both face to face and virtually Find out more at think productive.com and thanks also to Matt and Leo from penguin for helping to arrange that thanks to Emily, my assistant and also to Mark step and my producer on the show and his platform podiums. And one quick thing to mention at the end, which is this Friday, if you're listening to this podcast just as it comes out, this Friday, the 26th of June, I'm doing a Friday fireside chat with Lawrence and Carlos from the happy startup school. So I'll put a link in the show notes for that as well. So just go to get beyond busy.com. And you get to see it there. Or if you just Google: happy startups, Friday Fireside, Graham Allcott, something along those lines, he'll come up. The topic is productivity in a pandemic. So I'm going to be just sharing a few tips and tricks around productivity that I think are particularly useful right now. And also probably giving people the message that it's okay to have a bad day when times are as they are. I think that's one of the things that a lot of people are struggling with right now just like the feelings of guilt and the feelings of I've not done enough or I'm struggling with my energy, you're struggling with my emotions and just struggling with all the stress and the change in the childcare and all these things that are being thrown at us this year. So, I guess a big part of my message is going to be a productivity ninja as a human, not a superhero. And it's okay to have a bad day. But yeah, if you're just listening to this as it comes out, then you still have time to sign up for productivity in a pandemic, my Fireside chat, it's Friday the 26th of June. And as I say, we'll put a link at getbeyondbusy.com. You can find it from there. That's it from me long episode, mainly because my intro was pretty long this week. So if you stuck right through to the end, then kudos to you. All I can say we'll be back in two weeks time with another episode. Until then, check out get beyond busy comm for show notes and links and everything else previous episodes. Like Subscribe, all that fun stuff.

See in two weeks take care bye for now.

Graham Allcott 0:05

Hello, and welcome to another episode of Beyond Busy, the show where we talk productivity, work life balance, and how people define happiness and success. My name is Graham Allcott. I'm your host for the show. And on this episode, I'm talking to Lucy Clayton and Steve Haines. They are the authors of a book called How To Go To Work, the honest advice no one ever tells you at the start of your career. So before we get into that, a couple of things I want to talk about. The first is Black Lives Matter. So if you are not yet on my mailing list, if you go to GrahamAllcott.com you can sign up there each week. I'm basically sending out this thing called Rev up for the week, and it's basically one positive or interesting idea to just help get you set for the week ahead. So it comes out on a Sunday evening. If you want, you can read it Monday morning on your commute, remember those. And the idea is just kind of share something usually productivity or kind of leadership he related. But yeah, a couple of weeks ago, I did a thing on Black Lives Matter on there. And I want to just kind of share a couple of responses to it. So the first thing is, I was quite prepared to get quite a big percentage of unsubscribes because it's kind of seen as like a political thing. And, you know, as someone who just talks about productivity, should I really be dabbling in politics and whatever? Those of you who know me well will know that, you know, that really stops me used to be very gobby on Twitter and decided to pack that in. And guess what, zero unsubscribes like zero, and also just some really nice messages back with people saying it helped them to articulate their own thoughts on it, and People just, you know, really recognising for the first time where they might have had some biases or weren't aware of certain things. So that was really great. And I just wanted to I guess I just wanted to say that it it's really struck me over the last week that hang on, like this change is really happening this time. I'm someone who gets quite cynical about these things. I, you know, I find I found the whole black tile, social media thing, that blackout Tuesday thing, just really problematic. It's like, do we have to turn something that's really serious into this kind of shallow participators social media thing? You know, and really, the real work is what goes on in real life in real conversations and, you know, challenging policies in your workplace, thinking about your own biases, thinking about, you know, your own decisions or treatment of people or whatever, you know, and I think is for the same reason I'm really anti stuff like children in need and quite relief and telephones in general all that stuff because it feels to me like it puts in a neat Tupperware box the idea that people need to care. So people do they're like, you know, they do their sponsored event or whatever, one, you know, watch children need one Friday every year, and then it kind of feels like for the rest of the time, oh, well, that's taken care of I did my bit. And, you know, I get that sometimes in life, we need ceremony and stuff. But I think it's more interesting just how we behave and the choices that we make just all the rest of the time when there isn't a spotlight on us. And when we're not seemingly all under pressure to walk out of the kind of virtual houses outside of our house and deliver the kind of virtual on the steps of 10 Downing Street statements to our virtual audience. You know, I just find this really bizarre that it's like every brand and every person needs to come out and kind of make a video kind of serious personal statement, you know, that basically is cut like, cut and pasted from everyday everybody else's statements. I just don't think that is the best way to make change. But I think the last week or so, there's been a couple of things where I've really thought Ah, hang on this is this is happening this is great. One was the the toppling of the statue of Colston into the into the harbour in Bristol. That just felt like a really historic moment. I love the fact that the I think was the mayor of Bristol said this happening this throwing the statue into the sea. This is now part of part of its history. Right and I just think that's just just so amazing to witness that. The other one was cycling down to the seafront last Saturday, with my son Roscoe on the back of the bike expecting to see about 1000 people for a demonstration that was happening in Brighton for Black Lives Matter And I don't know how many people were there 10,000 15,000 something like that. It was huge. And you know, Brighton can be Britain's very white place but it can be a very politicised you know, open to politics kind of place. And just to see, just the sheer volume of people there just made me think, Wow, this this feels different and that's really promising. So, I guess, you know, the reason for saying this is my, my cynicism for blackout Tuesday and putting up a black tile on social media is that you know, we need to prolong the conversation and it needs to keep going. And it Brittany's to keep going longer than most people are. Like, willing to do it before they get tired, right? Like we kind of have to get tired of this sprint to actually start to make a difference. So So I guess the main point of this is to say let's keep this conversation going even more longer than it feels comfortable to and then we might be on with a shot so it's probably saying it's a really interesting time and yeah really promising to to see what what might come next. So if you want to check out the blog by the way that I did that was part of the rabbit for the week about Black Lives Matter we put that on my blog, Graham Allcott calm so we'll put a link to that in the show notes. get beyond busy calm, we'll put links to everything in there as per usual go check that out. Also lovely to see that Aston Villa have resumed action lovely also to see both teams doing the Get down on one knee thing. Just as the game kicked off it just the the choreography of that and the moment of that was just something to behold so you know, really good to see really exciting and, you know, in a weird way exciting to see a really boring nil nil draw, because that's obviously inevitably what the villa game tended to and it's like the spotlights on us to be like the first Premier League game back. It had to be awful, didn't it? But, you know, wouldn't be there if it wasn't awful. So yeah, hey, so speaking about getting back to some level of normality. So this episode is with Lucy Clayton and Steve Haines. It was recorded just before locked down at the offices of penguin on the strand in London, and I'm offering this one up now as a little bubble of normality. So we talk in here about loads of really, just really well observed little things that happen in offices and organisations. The book is basically a career guide for people at the start of their career. And it's like the manual of how to go to work and what to do in jobs and how to deal with office politics and all that sort of stuff. So, as you can imagine, I pick out a lot of the more sort of nitty gritty slightly to boot Kind of subjects about office life work life. So if you're pining for the office a little bit pining for normality, a little bit pining to get on the train or in the car on the tube, go to a desk, meet with your colleagues and all that kind of stuff, then I hope this is a nice bubble of normality little escape. And let's get into it. This is Lucy Clayton, Steve Haines and me in the offices of penguin in London, just before lockdown. Let's do it. I'm here at penguin. I'm with Lucy Clayton, Steve Haynes. Hello, hello. So you've just written this book, which we're going to talk about a bit later, but it's about you guys first. Okay. The book is how to go to work. Yeah. So I just wanted to start with, let's just paint the picture of the work that you guys do yourselves before we get into the book itself.

Steven Haines 9:04

Both of us have worked a lot with people at the start of their careers, people who are just younger than us and getting those first steps on the career ladder. Lucy ran the famously dubbed University of advertising the J. Walter Thompsonvgraduate recruitment programmevmany years ago, and I worked a lot with young people through saved the children and through my current work in the National Deaf children's society. And so a lot of the grinding from the book came from our practical experience of working with people who were just younger than us. And we kept seeing the same issues come up the same frustrations or the same lack of knowledge. So the idea for the book very much came from our own professional backgrounds and the work that we were doing with people that started their careers, and we thought it was about time to write some of this advice, Dan, what was fascinating when we started doing the book was was actually just a pen and a piece of paper and the list flowed so quickly, of all the things that no one ever tells you. And yet we'd experienced time and time again. And as we talked to more of our contributors in many other fields, we actually found the same things coming up. So this is a book that came directly from our experience, something of our frustration, and definitely our willingness to just be on the side of all of these people just starting out and trying to find their way through what work should be about and some of the realities of what it actually is about as well.

Lucy Clayton 10:32

I think sometimes it's quite surprising to think about, there's a sort of common thread that runs through a lot of those things that are unknown at the beginning or that cause anxiety as you're starting out in your career. And what we noticed is those things are the same whether you are a grad with the stars degree and you know, you've won Short Film Awards and you work experience all around the world, or whether most recently, I've been running a social enterprise in a fashion company, community clothing, Which works a lot with UK factories, creating jobs, very much sort of factory floor jobs. And as part of that we partner with lots of people who are helping the long term unemployed, often young people back into work. And I noticed that there is a threat of the unknown and the things that are worrying that are the same whether you are doing that kind of entry level job, or a graduate entry level job. And so it seems ridiculous that there hadn't been a kind of collection of those thoughts and that sort of rock solid, basic advice from you know, how to sort of conduct yourself in the workplace, how to get dressed at work, how to forge relationships with bosses, there's common themes that are the same whether you are in the NHS or in fashion or in advertising or in an NGO.

Graham Allcott 11:50

Yeah. And it's kind of like, you know, setting yourself the challenge of writing the What to Expect When You're Expecting, but for work, yeah. And then you think about the Question. Well, why did that not exist before? And suppose the answer is because the job was mainly with careers advisors. Yes. I had terrible careers advisors through school in university. And it was like, the day I realised that the careers advisor has the shittiest job in the you know, you suck. So why are they the ones advise me? So? Where did you have a sense of where people were getting that advice from? Before you wrote the book? Or was it Yes, they were just coming to you like, Where else? Yeah, so looking for that kind of guide?

Lucy Clayton 12:35

Well, you would think that in the years since we were all at school, it would have become a lot more sophisticated. And But the truth is, it hasn't really so the kind of wonky CD ROM that we all probably did sitting in the library at 16 in the porta Capitan library. There's a version of it. It's not on a CD ROM anymore, but it's the same kind of crude set of questions that ends up sort of spits you out. At the end and suggests that you become a vet. Or in the case of my sister, who is a very brilliant early years teacher, now and a very happy early two years teacher, I can't think of anyone who is as fulfilled in her job as she is. And that process suggested that she become a funeral director. So I think it's fair to say that one of the things we say in the book is even if the advice comes from supposedly an official source, doesn't mean necessarily, it's the best possible advice. So it's kind of startling that that hasn't become more nuanced or more refined over the years. The other thing, the other insight, I guess, that the very beginning was really front of mind for us in the writing was, I was mentoring a wonderful person called puppy, who, at the time wasn't really sure what direction she wanted to go in. And was it a kind of critical time in terms of age and education for making some quite big decisions. And I remember in one of the But we were talking through all her options and trying to kind of give her a little bit more sense of what might be the right path to follow. She had a sort of moment of epiphany where she just said, Oh, my God, I only had what my parents told me they were wrong about everything. I think, I think that resonates with quite a lot of people's experience. Parents are, of course, supposedly entirely on your side, and they are gunning for you. But that doesn't necessarily mean they have the right context or that their experience is relevant to what you want to do, or the modern world of work. And so again, one of the things we've tried to do in the book, and we've spoken to a lot of parents of people who are just leaving University now, and that's sort of the fact that they are thrilled, but there's something about a desire on all sides to kind of understand a little bit more about the landscape that graduates particularly are going into right now.

Steven Haines 14:55

And what's fascinating the evidence in terms of where people look to for advice Cities. Absolutely the parents by a long way. Yeah. And that has a real challenge in it. And we talked about this in the book about embedding privilege and access to certain careers. It we're talking there about the it's not what you know, it's who you know. And it certainly is a myth. So some of the things we've tried to pull out are about equalising the playing field, and people go into work. The second is obviously teachers hugely supportive, very inspirational. And a lot of in our podcast, we have people talking about their biggest influence being some of their teachers, and there's a wonderful conversation about a head teacher who genuinely turned to my friend is one of our guests. So I think they're a huge source of advice. But let's remember teachers are brilliant and varied and all over different careers and backgrounds, but many of them are teachers, fundamentally, they don't have access to that Industry Insight or that bit of knowledge. And the third part is careers advisors and they've suffered a lot over the past few years and there's enough evidence out there and government reports and some good efforts to try and update that sector, that industry. But, you know, the world of work renews itself generation by generation. My dad was an electrician, he worked in a factory for 40 years at the same factory. And I do something around public policy. And frankly, he's got no point. So from the age of about 21 onwards, he was entirely useless, but well meaning. The The other thing, I think, is that we now have extraordinary access to information. And one of the things that really worries me is misinformation. That's going to a lot of people at the start of their career and again, something we talk about in the book, which is this, you know, all you need to do is believe in yourself. And that can actually be quite damaging, unless you've got those practical skills to be able to operate in the workplace, the kind of productivity skills that your book talks a lot about. Great. You know, it How can you actually apply that in work so we see this contrast between feeling I'm prepared an education system that does all the right things about helping you pass exams, but none of the right things about suddenly going into a workplace where you're working next door to somebody who's 50. You're trying to navigate through an industry with no guide books, no curriculum behind you. And lots of bits of wonky advice all around, you aren't really helping. So I think the sources of advice doing their best, but they've all got an incomplete picture. So the idea was, can we just put as much of this as we can put it in one place and give it a sense of authority, a guidebook that you need, like you mentioned, like what to expect, when you're expecting a rite of passage where you just have something you can fall back on, that at least gives you a bit of a steer through that difficult time.

Lucy Clayton 17:44

And the other thing about careers advisors is that's worth saying I think is obviously they are under resourced and stretched, particularly if you're talking about, you know, a bog standard Comprehensive School, for example, like the one I went to, but also, I think, let's be realistic about what they're capable of doing. You know, in the book we talk about most of the jobs that the people we're writing for will end up doing haven't actually been invented yet. So can you honestly expect someone who, as in their own careers advisor may have? Well put it this way, mostly worked in a school to have a comprehensive sense of all of the possible future jobs? Of course, you can't, you know, that would be insane. And even if they weren't the best person in the world at their job, they would still only have a limited perspective. And I think one of the things that we want the book to do is to explode the idea that those limited perspectives that you were offered at 16 or again at 21 is the end of the picture. I think that's really, and I went to the kind of school where that sense of institutionalised low expectation was something that is really oppressive. If you are at the very beginning of you know what's about to become your working life, and we want the book to kind of, I think, to empower and challenge that What is quite a depressing? And unfortunately really common sense of attitude observable collection attitudes?

Graham Allcott 19:09

Yeah. And I sort of, you know, I definitely feel for people starting their career now, where they're starting with the premise of a huge student debt problem. Yeah. You know, or they're going into a situation where the minimum wage has been sort of diminished for younger people. So if you're starting an apprenticeship, yeah, you're on such a small amount money that you can't really be expected to live off it and you've got to kind of live with your parents for a while to do that. And it's like, these things get harder and harder at the beginning of career. But it kind of what was sort of interesting was, you know, you talk about in the book, a lot of the sort of high points of people's jobs and kind of, you know, think things that are going to go really well with individuals but then yours, you also talk about the warts and all in And perhaps the things that are often left unsaid or very difficult to find written down, you know, which again, is a careers advisor gonna know about crying in the toilet. Yeah. We'll come back to. But yeah, so it kind of feels like it's a really nice way of exposing the good and the bad. You know, and kind of seeing all these things. So, one thing that really struck me was internships, right? Because another thing about the current first routes into jobs, versus when we were probably starting out careers is like, internships now is such a much bigger thing. And I was really interested in there was a piece in there that talked about somebody's experience as a manager of interns. And some of the kind of lessons of as an intern is what to do and what not to do. Yeah. And it kind of struck me that it's like, yeah, you want to get noticed, and yeah, you want to sort of play that game. But then also, there's like, certain things that you could really sort of pays off. Yeah. So do you want to talk about that dynamic of interns? And, you know, coming into another organisation? what they're trying to get out of it and what he was trying to get out? Yeah, cuz I just found that really interesting.

Lucy Clayton 21:12

I think there's a huge pressure on the interns, you're that you know, you're there for a limited period of time, you want to make the best impression. And for you, it's really significant that it feels like a high impact use of your time. But for the employer, it probably doesn't feel like so there is a sort of disconnect in expectations and what we talked about in the book, it's one of the contributors, we thought, who better to talk about how to be the best possible intern than someone who has experienced so many of them in an industry that thrives on internships. So it's Gabby deeming a friend of ours, who is at Conde Nast and she has written this sort of the this Yes, sort of crib sheet of how to be the best possible intern. The first thing to say is, and we talked about it elsewhere in the book, there is nothing wrong with enthusiasm and enthusiasm, frankly has become as a sort of personality style. It seems to become quite unfashionable. There's a lot of sort of body language, it's about sort of shrugging, looking like you don't really give a shit and then there is nothing that winds people up playing it cool. Looking like you don't care. So and quite often, it's completely at odds with the fact that you care, a huge amount, especially if you're down you know, a couple of months internship, of course you care. So there's a whole thing about just being seeming and behaving King is probably the most useful thing you can do. Now, that doesn't mean talking constantly. Or assuming that you'll be able to run the company by midday on the first day. But it does mean offering up your services. It does mean saying and one of the things that she says in the extract which is brilliant is you don't underestimate the impact of the Should I just kind of Starting sentences with because also you might as an intern, you may find yourself working to someone who isn't that senior who actually hasn't got a lot of experience of managing people. So therefore, you try to see it from their perspective. Sometimes having an intern can feel a little bit like babysitting. And other times you might be uncomfortable asking them to do something or giving them instructions. So to offer to say, should I go and get that file from reception is bad? It's using an example from the 1940s Yeah, but you know, offering up really specific things, just shows people that you're in it to make it to make everybody's job easier.

Graham Allcott 23:40

Yeah, making it easy for somebody to, to delegate to you the stuff that might be quite sort of drudgery work, but we all done in that moment. So it's like making that easy for that person. Yeah. And, and the other one was like, well, that bit where it was like don't Swan around. You've conquered the university. Yes, sir Daniel ever, like be a little bit humble? Yeah. And so I thought that was really interesting.

Steven Haines 24:08

Well, there's so much soft stuff and assumptions and a lot of industries do rely on internships and, and actually, there's been quite a lot of bad practice in some of those industries as well. So let's remember that as a lot of goodwill, that brings in interns to try and make sure they get their exposure to the workplace and there's some pretty punishes behaviour, which is about underpaying people. So we tried to give an overview to people are interested in doing an internship about what to navigate what what the good stuff looks like, and what the bad stuff looks like. But I hope also that this is the kind of thing that somebody who's an employer who wants to bring in turn in is perhaps feeling a bit worried about the realities of managing it. Almost we can give this advice that they could then give to their intent and say this is the stuff you need to know because it is a really different environments work. It is a very different place to be. And if you've had, especially if you're coming from school where the bell goes at the start of the day, and at the end of the day, you know, when your lunch break is we've heard these terrible stories of interns getting to sort of six half past six a night and going, when do I go home? Because they're not being said even that basic, let alone as you say, things like, enthusiasm or the soft skills or humility. Yeah, you do have to spell this stuff out. So I think

Graham Allcott 25:29

I said the other way around, by the way, a couple of years ago, and think about it. We had a couple of interns work with us. And they were actually they were, they were university students, and they were doing a kind of summer placement. And we were sort of in the middle of a meeting at about five o'clock. I was like two minutes to five, and you can see them just get touchy. We're still in the middle of meeting we it's clear that we're going to wrap up in the next 10 minutes. It's like it's clear where the meetings going. And they literally just stood up now it's five o'clock.

Lucy Clayton 26:00

Wow.

Graham Allcott 26:00

And obviously, we're in this weird position where you're in the middle of a meeting and you don't really want to stop everybody else mid flow and have a five minute conversation about whether that's the right thing to do or not. Yeah, obviously there's always a right yeah. And but it was just this really awkward thing of Okay, so now we just don't know what to say what to do. Right?

Lucy Clayton 26:23

So we talked about that we say do not run. Do not run from the building if all your colleagues like that sounds basic, but maybe it isn't maybe written down in your in the agreed contract or that you know, five o'clock is home time that But again, it's sort of what we say is take the take your cue from those around you, but I think it is really important to say with internships, it has been an area, it's getting better, but you know, particularly in industries like mine in fashion, it can be hugely exploitative. There can be you know, there are whole industries that famously run on free, inverted commas, talents. That's dangerous and wrong. And so things like what to do if you're being exploited, we cover those things because whilst it is getting better, you still need to know your rights in those situations.

Graham Allcott 27:10

Yeah, for sure. And let's talk about that a little bit more than in terms of bad bosses. Yes. Because this is another thing that just because there's all these experiences that you know, if you've worked for 1015 years, you've probably come across bad bosses you've come you've probably come across politics and bullying, whatever, but no one's ever really sort of written them all in one chapter. Pick this stuff up, but all that was sort of like my favourite stuff in the book because Yeah, because it just kind of surfaced all these things. But there's a you have a lovely line that says, treat a bad boss as if as a training exercise. Which really, yeah, got me thinking about what did I learn from points. I've had bad bosses and I think you tell me,

Lucy Clayton 27:57

I'm hoping that the person that you I write about unnamed in the book is not able to identify herself. But I had a really bad boss at the very beginning of my career. So I was I'd finished my graduate trainee bit and was kind of just, I guess, a young new person working in an ad agency within a fashion account. And, and I think it I recognised even at the time through the fog of my misery, my daily misery that it was super useful because that person's leadership style. And to a certain extent, I suppose personality style in that example, became a blueprint for everything I didn't want to be professionally and I genuinely think that I have held true to those lessons pretty much every day of my working life since it really was strive

Graham Allcott 28:56

to be the opposite

Lucy Clayton 28:58

to be the opposite. And there are others Oftentimes, when particularly if you're, you know, running a tip a big team, or you're particularly under pressure or you're stressed, where, you know, you do have to check your instinctive responses to a thing. And I think it's been really useful for me to kind of think well, what would she have done in this situation and do the opposite, even, you know, 15 years later. Now, that doesn't mean that it's easy. And it doesn't mean that you have to do it for a long time. But I do think just knowing that if you're having a really difficult time with a really bad boss, is some kind of comfort actually, because, and actually, I think it's super useful at the beginning of your career. I don't know whether it's as useful if it happens kind of midway through, I think, perhaps, for me, it was that it was so early on that it was just really instructive. I mean, yeah, everything from tone of voice to how you play people off on one another to sort of publicly rewarding and acknowledging credit and a lot of the things in the book that we talk about as best practice come from our experiences of Having worked with both brilliant people, and we talked about also in the book, what you can learn from working with brilliant people. But I don't think people are particularly honest about what you can learn from the bad experiences too.

Graham Allcott 30:09

Yeah, I think it's really good. I think, for me, I had a bad boss experience very early on, and then a really great experience. And I think the two of them together a perfect, right, like both sort of shaped me in similar ways. But you know, some of the stuff you've got in here, it's like, the bad boss is sticking to their vision, their plan, even in the face of the evidence that they're wrong. sucking energy rather than inspiring with opportunity and optimism. And this one, kicking you from mistakes rather than helping you grow. I mean, on one level, that sounds really basic, right?

Lucy Clayton 30:41

I think it all sounds really basic, but we all know that when you're working with someone who perhaps doesn't exhibit his qualities or exhibits the opposite of them, then you know, it can be very, very difficult to simply get through the day to day and a lot of that is because you feel like the rules are always changing or that the ground You're standing on isn't stable. And at the beginning of your career that can feel like oh, well, this is just what work is. But of course it isn't. It's just what works with that person.

Steven Haines 31:08

And I hope that through that we can give some good questions, good pointers to help people get a bit of perspective, because it is really simple to think this is how all bosses are or this is how will workplace cultures operate, and not have that sense of that gut sense that you develop much later of Hang on. This isn't right, I'm not being given the opportunities I need to I am actually learning some pretty bad lessons along the way. So it's almost prompting that question in the mind. We talk a lot in the book about key questions to observe about culture, things you might want to ask yourself about documenting a lot of that, and they can always build up to a guidebook that you'd write yourself alongside this is what is this place really like and give them something to talk to your friends or, again back to those sources of advice to say is this what I should be expecting?

Lucy Clayton 31:57

And that reminds me of Penguin have been given a book to all their new starters in that intense ever since I think we submitted the first kind of, you know, first draft version. And they did a brilliant thing where all of the current intense at Reddit, and they filmed them to camera.

Graham Allcott 32:12

I've seen that video, I didn't realise they were all penguin people. Yeah,

Lucy Clayton 32:15

it was a really good idea of Leo, who's on our team for the book,

Graham Allcott 32:19

we will link that in the show notes. Yeah,

Lucy Clayton 32:21

that is really great. And, and it was great for us because it was a real moment where we realised that what we'd set out to do was landing it was it was kind of being received in the spirit that we intended it, which of course, when you're writing it, you're never sure. That was really the one of the one of the people who talking to camera says I wish I'd had it. My very first job, which I think was in a marketing company, because I wasn't sure what was normal and what I should put up with or went whether I could leave or not. I think that actually is a really common experience in your first Job, quite a few people have their first job straight out of university, and then spend a lot of time thinking, been delighted originally to get the job and then think oh my god, this is absolutely not what I thought it was. All this makes me miserable. And yet I'm one of the lucky ones. I've got a job. So how could I possibly. And so the sections that we talked about, about new toxic cultures, or when to quit, I think are reassuring, kind of step by step. You know, check in with this, because when you have no context, you know, you're probably turning up every day still feeling lucky even if you might be in the right place or the fit is wrong or any of those things. I thought that was really interesting that she identified that.

Graham Allcott 33:40

Yeah, and you just reminded me of my favourite quote from the book. about leaving parties. says do not miss behaviour leaving parties stay sensible. Eat something larger 5pm nurse one drink from six to eight, and then take it sensibly until tax time. You'll regret everything. But it's true that

Lucy Clayton 34:07

it does sound like everyone's mother. Go home.

Graham Allcott 34:12

Have you had some horrendous leaving party experiences that were like, Oh,

Lucy Clayton 34:16

yeah, I mean, I've had I've been leaving parties when people have broken limbs.

Graham Allcott 34:21

I feel like I've been neglecting my podcast, if I didn't ask you to tell them what?

Lucy Clayton 34:28

It wasn't me, obviously, because I'm the sensible one. Yeah, I mean, I used to work. It's this, I guess, not even that long ago. But it does feel like culturally different moments. So in an ad agency with you know, when one whole floor is a bar, then it can get messy pretty quickly and pretty early on. So yeah, I think I should probably not recount awful stories, but it's fair to say that yes, I think that you will regret every other version of this evening is true, and it's important to exit with dignity. Most industries are really small. And again, this is hard to know when you're starting out and you think, Oh, well, you know, I'm on to my next job. So, but you can get that really wrong and then regret it later. It is

Steven Haines 35:12

a really murky space. I remember one of my first jobs, it was just a part time job. And I was just finished up sixth form, was working in a bar. And we were all very excited opening this brand new bar as a big kind of concept place. And the new bar manager joined us as well as the owners, and he got absolutely hammered that night. So big vodka promotion games, you know, they're trying to sell us this the products that we'll be selling. And of course, he was fired on the spot didn't do his first day because in the pre party, it got so drunk, and this is quite murky space, isn't it? You know, should I go to the pub? Should I buy a random drink should should I how much should I have? And I think there's a lot more responsibility, thankfully, around a lot of these areas now but you can have Some big impact of the things that you're doing outside of work on work itself. And of course, one of the areas we talk a lot about is your social media profile. And some pretty Frank advice about there is a point where you're gonna have to separate those brilliant. First time you're away on holiday with your mates, photos, from something that a recruiter could see. So, yeah, we we talk about bringing your whole self to work. And there's a lot of truth in that. But you do need to create division between your work life and your personal life as well. And that can play in lots of different ways. But there are these grey areas where you might get drawn into some pretty hefty conflict between the two leaving parties being a classic bad for that,

Graham Allcott 36:43

just on the social media thing. I also think we should all work harder to create the world where people can be fully human. Yeah. And where there isn't this sort of pretence that no one ever gets drunk? No, no one ever has fun. Oh, yeah. Or whatever. But yeah, in the current Working world that we're in. It's not quite there is it? So the practical advice needs to be a bit more. Yeah. Yeah. pragmatic around.

Lucy Clayton 37:07

Well, I think it's interesting. We got advice on this when writing this book, because it's a really murky and ever changing area. So Andy Lipton at the University of Plymouth actually wrote the section for us about social responsibility and tech. And the truth is a lot of what people are told in school about being having complete clarity and division between the private social media and their or the feeling very kind of risk averse around. What they might publish, isn't actually played out in law or isn't actually paid on your employer doesn't have kind of, I guess. They're not able to use that against you in most cases. But that doesn't mean it's the sensible thing to do to be wildly uninhibited, online. So there's somebody else that doesn't mean that they weren't

Graham Allcott 38:00

use it against you then blame something else,

Lucy Clayton 38:02

then you'll never know. Exactly. So just from a sort of cautiousness perspective, it's, it's, it's sensible to kind of approach it with a bit of kind of reality check, I guess. But but it was important to us to kind of put the facts in the in the book about this quite a lot of scare mongering around that stuff. And I agree with you, of course, we should be able to be our wholesales at all times. But one of the things we also talk about because I think there's also pressure to be our whole selves at work, and actually, it is okay, if you don't fancy that you're someone who actually needs a degree of privacy, or who wants to be able to have a professional persona and a very different one at home. That is also completely okay. And I think just because it's fashionable to sort of be like, Here I am, and doesn't mean that doesn't doesn't mean that you necessarily have to adhere to that for a lot of people. It's really useful to have a slight distance between your work self and your home self and that's completely you shouldn't feel like you're doing it wrong if that's that applies to you

Graham Allcott 38:59

for sure. This podcast obviously talks a lot about work life balance. So you've got a whole section in the book, which is under total overworked stress, sleep, whatever you like. And so the thing that I really learned from that section was this idea and I think this I think this is your experience this is like I can go for five weeks Yeah. And really sort of be at full throttle and then the the week where I'm just really in fallow period catch out sort of sleeping a lot being a bit more distant kind of a bit. Yeah, so tell. Tell us more about this. Five week one.

Lucy Clayton 39:39

Yeah. So I think what we're talking about when we use that as a very personal example, but is that throughout your working life, you will start to learn and part of its to productivity and part of its to do with pace, I think. So you will learn how you operate best. So I have observed over the years my working life now is very different because so so I have the freedom now, because of the sort of strange patchwork of things that I do to be able to kind of use this very without kind of hindrance, I guess. So use this patent, I know that I can have a full diary deadlines every day, some high pressure ship new on the horizon for about five weeks and be able to perform at that level to not kind of get flaky to not start to become a bit less good at all of those things. And I'm someone who doesn't really like becoming less good at those things. So I could probably push it to Week Six, but I wouldn't be happy with the output at that point. So So I and beyond that. Everything would start to get really bad. So I don't ever now if I can help it. We're about to kind of come to probably week five on the brink as I as I'm talking. I'm like Yeah, it's probably about like,

Graham Allcott 41:02

are you panicking about where the

Lucy Clayton 41:07

next I think I know where it is it's not and it doesn't need to be completely follow. I'm not so sort of, we'll see that I need like a week on the beach at that point. But what I probably need is not you know, so we last week I did gave, I don't know, four speeches on three different stages. And that's absolutely fine. But it wouldn't be fine if I was doing it relentlessly. Now, some people are able to relentlessly perform a certain level. I'm just not, I'm not. So I think there are equivalent work patterns that you will notice about yourself throughout your working life and it's smart, even in a small way to be able to reflect upon them and then try to plan them as best as possible. And you can do that even if you don't have a kind of weird patchwork portfolio career like mine, with the advice we give in the book is you know, if you've been doing if you've been working at whatever the equivalent of that level is in your particular job, carve out some time for yourself the following week or say I was in every year. Till whatever time last week to your boss, I'd really like to leave early on Thursday or, you know, and and if you've been truly working to that level, then no one resents someone who is self aware enough to be able to say, I need a bit of balance, I use the word balance, you know, with it with caution, because it's not really balanced to say it's just about I guess we're dressing a bit of a bit of emphasis really.

Graham Allcott 42:25

Yeah. And there's a thing in that way, you're saying, you know, we are given a number of days of paid holiday. Yeah. And surely, a good manager would always appreciate you coming to them and saying, I need to use a bit of this application, cause I've been, you know, pushing it really hard. We've been working on this thing

Steven Haines 42:45

yet. And there's some interesting evidence out there that people that started their career are less likely to take those days holiday they want presents and perform and actually it's very damaging for them as well, that they're there for a reason. And we also talk about you Experiment a few years ago about doing a five to nine shift, and the nine to five one. There's a history to a lot of the ways in which you work and isn't necessarily in tune with people's energies. So helping to help you know yourself and how you work and what energises you and what saps your energy. And those points in the day where you're going to feel better and feel worse. And we're at the moment coming up to about three o'clock where I have a natural slump every single day, things that you can start to work through. And as you get that understanding of yourself and be able to know when to allocate that what when to organise certain chunks of your time. And I think that points of having the conversation with your boss, with your colleagues understanding that other people have pressures on their time.

Lucy Clayton 43:47

And that's really important. The other people having pressures I think, at the beginning of your career where you're probably you know, you don't have you most likely to not have other demands on your time outside work. caring responsibilities, it can be quite difficult to recognise that the people that you're working with and collaborating with every day, perhaps do actually care that the hours of the office are adhere to, because it means they have to lug it down the road and do the nursery run. So therefore, while self awareness about your own working patterns is really important, it's also important to observe what other people's work in patents and why they might be relevant. Because I think it cuts sometimes there are, there can be quite a lot of friction. I think in a lot of a lot of organisations where young people kind of turn up and start and don't have that sense of understanding that actually does matter that you arrive at nine, because otherwise you lose a whole hour of the day at the end. Even if you're happy to stay later, someone else can't. So I think just being a bit kind of just a bit savvy really about how everyone's day looks different.

Graham Allcott 44:53

And it's like part of that is about being self aware so that you can be productive. Yeah, and also part of that as well. Southwest so you can be perceived well be a good team member. Exactly. So many different facets that there's always going to be attention in this.

Yeah. So let's talk about goals. This is another thing that really resonated with me. I feel like in my 20s I always had really clear three years. And I feel like and regular listeners to this podcast will be probably in hearty agreement, the fact that I have no plan now. I do stuff that I enjoy, and I feel like I'm also probably the other interesting thing about reading this book in general, by the way is I feel like I'm totally unemployable with a similar portfolio career, you know, the idea of going into going back into the situation with you know, toxic work cultures and bad bosses and you No and, and that sort of that sort of matches the word regime, which feels like so removed from how much control and autonomy. Yeah. And there are downsides to that too, obviously. But it feels like, I feel very lucky to have that. And I feel like yeah, maybe tricky for me to go in and sort of work.

Lucy Clayton 46:21

Well, in the interest of the interest of balance. I would just like to say lots of other people who've read the book and said they wish they were 21. Again,

I don't think that

it's not supposed to put you off. But I totally agree, I think.

I think if you have had a career or often several careers and then have made a decision to do a number of things that are, as you say, autonomous and that kind of have their own schedule. Then I think the if that if that works for you, then the freedom around it. is a very hard thing to think about giving up. Someone asked me the other day, whether I would go with I would take a big job and go back, go back into work. And I actually felt horrified. Which is not not to say that I didn't have the absolute best time, when I was doing all of those things. It's just that I feel like the things that I value now are really different. And actually, that's just about being much older. So I don't think I need a job title that makes me feel impressive. I think I care about what I'm producing more so. So and also, it's just a lifestyle thing. The truth is, you know, if I had a massive job in a big company, I would need around the clock childcare, and I don't want to do that I want to I want to run up the hill and, and pick my son up from school. And so, and again, I think that's relevant to our audience for the book because one of the things we say particularly around opportunity and promotion and moving roles, there is an amazing period In your 20s, where you can pretty much say yes to anything. And that freedom is a very different kind of freedom to the one that you and I do. Now. Yeah, and if you are the sort of person that enjoys that stuff, definitely grasp that moment because it's much, much harder later on when, you know, you're thinking about things like the school run. That's, that should feel really distant to a lot of our readers. And that distance is a really valuable thing. So you know, if you want to travel if you want to work abroad, you know, say yes, do all of those things at that point, because it's much harder to that was much more complicated to do it later.

Graham Allcott 48:35

Yeah. And then probably it comes back round, doesn't it when you're sort of in your 50s and your kids are older and you never see them?

Again, so weird. Bell Curve kind of situation, but talk about goals thing, right? So yeah, it was about like in my 20s I had sort of good three year career plans of what next and I was always following That advice that someone told me very early on have never think about the next job, but was think about the one after that happened, the positioning and how to pivot towards those things, wherever. And now I don't think that that I love this whole thing which is like, but what about those people who don't have a sense of purpose or ambitions that can be easily articulated. Here are a few tips on how to set goals for people who aren't so sure. And they talk about sketch a sketch that we'd like to see in the future versus a specific number of years that sometimes helps to draw rather than just them and prioritise a few key things in that picture. And keep to between three and five ambitious goals. Love this one, make them about what you want, not what you think other people like you to achieve that that really spoke to me and describe what happened when you reach those goals, not how you'll get there. So I felt like there's some really good advice in there but you feel like we're in this sort of age now with social media and the sort of Instagram world of it. It's really difficult to admit if you don't have a plan and it's not submit, if you're not quite sure, or if you're in the wrong thing,

Lucy Clayton 50:06

I think it's almost impossible to say out loud, because everyone is so used to and you'll be talking the book about a lot of the language around social media is, I think really damaging and dangerous. This sort of, you know, you're killing it. Yeah, you on fire? And it's like, well, you know, first of all, do we really want to be killing it and crushing it? And also, I'm not necessarily sure That sounds fun. Sounds really stressful. And I think that that tone means that then to say, out into the ether, Oh, God, I didn't I didn't mean it was do is it feels very counter to the main, the main theme.

Steven Haines 50:49

Yeah, I guess, attention here, actually going back to the start, and we're talking about that careers test. Who do you want to be? We're giving people that start their careers now. And yet, we actually give all the careers advice later to be verbs. So you don't necessarily want to be a physician or a, you know, a podcast host or whatever. You want to be several different things at once. And so it feels like the wrong advice we're giving to people at their start their career instead of the tools to be able to navigate it. So in the book, frankly, the jury's out about whether life's goals are a good idea or not. So one of the quotes that we have in the book is actually from another brilliant book called The his book about rice. It's young people in Britain today talking about their experience and Rosalind Jana who's a journalist talks about how she'd already got a book deal before she left University and how things don't necessarily have to be in the same order. And we also spoke to Kathleen Saxton is brilliant, CEO of the executive search firm and also psychotherapist who runs very different parallel careers. So I guess the point we're trying to get across is that if there ever was there certainly isn't today this linear, go to school, go to some form of further or higher education, go into work, progress up the ladder in that and then take your retirement package those days, as I said, they wherever they're at now completely gone. So the advice that you can do different things at different times feels very relevant. We know and talk to many people who haven't even started that traditional career and yet have already built companies or maybe decided not to do that and just explore a bit of themselves and who they want to be. So I guess we're saying the book, you know, there's that there's a helpfulness to these goals. They can focus their attention, they can keep you moving in a certain direction, but be a bit sceptical about there being an obvious end points or an obvious set of export

Lucy Clayton 52:54

order, I think about not needing it to do not needing to do it in the order that you know, it's really difficult if you've been You know, merrily, bobbing away through the education system. And the next thing is your a levels. And then the next thing is you do your cap here or there you do. You know, it feels like the next step is always obvious in that in that process, and I think there is there is I mean, I remember being in my 20s and thinking, Okay, well I want to meet, I actually am so embarrassed by this. I don't want to say it out loud because it feels so it's such a ridiculous thing to think. But I remember genuinely thinking, I want to be a sound, you know, insane. But I wanted to be married by the time I was 30 on the board, but before the time I was 30. I wanted to had a baby before the time I was 30. Now, I don't know what that was based on. But certainly not things that I necessarily actually wanted. It was probably a collection of social pressures, things that I thought might my parents might be pleased about, like, those ideas came from a really weird, they weren't. They weren't sort of from within. They were kind of Just I guess,

Graham Allcott 54:03

like when you like, yeah, so those feel like very much external extrinsic narratives, right? Were but

Lucy Clayton 54:11

they weren't my goals like if you ask me, I would assume

Graham Allcott 54:14

because you've seen, like articles or talks where people have said, I was on the board before I thought about having a kid. So you've taken those and sort of made them yours. Yeah, they're not. Like you said, they're they're not really yours. They're sort of what your parents might like

Lucy Clayton 54:32

they were a collection of things that I'd internalised. Yeah. So do

Graham Allcott 54:36

you think as people get older, so I'm 41 now, but I, I feel like now I have a better sense of who I am. So any goal that I put out into the world is like this is about Yeah, is very much what I want to do rather than what somebody else would want me to do.

Lucy Clayton 54:54

Yeah, definitely. So I think that's why when we talk about goals in the book, that line that you read out about Making sure it's something that it's not just what other people might want to see on that list is really important because I do think it is harder, partly just because of age, and partly because of the influences around you in your early 20s. To isolate what it is that you actually as an individual want or need.

For your adult life. I just think that's harder,

Graham Allcott 55:21

I suppose. 21 we all know much less about ourselves. And we also much less than we know much less about the options. Yes, is around, right. So once you figure out both of those things out, it sort of changes. Yeah, exactly. It's definitely easier now. Yeah, a couple of things before we finish. So one thing that I read, I recognise a lot in myself is wait about work life balance, and you say, plot your playtime as much as your work. Tell us more about that.

Lucy Clayton 55:53

You're much better at that.

Steven Haines 55:55

This was a bit of advice I had quite early on in my career as well. It's, it's pretty easy, especially in those early days to make work everything. And actually, that's just going to lead to stress and worry. And I think we, we get given two things, either a very clear task list to get done, and a lot of pressure and time to do that without many of the skills of having the autonomy about it, and actually quite a busy social life when you're younger. And I think that's great. But how do you balance the two? How do you make sure that you haven't got and I think the example we give it, the book, you know, your family waiting in the restaurant, around the corner with the birthday cake with the candles on it, and you're still trying to hit that deadline and work, there's a great deal of expectation. And yet, you need to plan your personal time just as much as you do your work time. So, you know, have that to do list with work or however you choose to manage your own productivity, but do that with your personal time as well. And I think that this can often be a time of great change. You might be moving, where you live, or who you live with, or the place in which you live. And all of those changes are happening while still trying to get your head around this whole work Lark. So how do we manage both of those? Well, I think you need to take a really similar approach to all of it and say, What do I need as an individual? What makes me happy? What are their times of pressure? And the antidote to that? And how can I get a much stronger balance between the two? And actually, where do they cross over as well? Also, there's that wonderful time to experiment with different careers, you might be in a sports team or you might have, yeah, musical projects on the side, you're gonna need to balance that to don't compromise the stuff you're really passionate about. Just because you've got this nine to five work going on, as well understand that actually, you've got more scope for flexibility. Do you realise? Yeah, for sure.

Graham Allcott 57:54

A friend of mine who's a CEO. His thing is, he knows that the things That really nourishes him, he's going to the theatre. And so he knows that even at the most, you know, busy for next time, he just make sure he always has to take his books. Yeah, you know, every couple of weeks, he's, he's spending an evening just going and having downtime and doing something else. Yeah.

Lucy Clayton 58:14

But I think that's a really good example. Because, um, you know, the way we use culture and the way we interact with culture, and that could be 30 tickets, or it could be, you know, frankly, sitting on your bed watching Netflix, it balances and also provide you gives us other resources and other ideas. And so, you know, we need we all the time where we're not working in order to inform and make better or working. And so I think that we shouldn't ever feel guilty about doing that. And again, knowing that is quite hard at the beginning where you feel like God, why should becaming at work because, you know, we're all killing it or whatever.

Steven Haines 58:51

And one of the biggest mistakes I think I made my career was at a point. When I was in my late 20s. I had this big job that I'd landed on. Super excited about it. And I cleared my diary. And it was a huge mistake. I, my stress levels went through the really unpopular I was really lost of my friends and lonely. Yeah, you know, we kind of think we've got to clear out time to do our absolute best at work and give that priority. And sometimes, and that was definitely a case where it's a lot of pressure on but without that release valve became very difficult. And I took me a few months to kind of get those, get those phrases back.

Graham Allcott 59:35

And then the final thing I just want to talk about with because it's kind of central theme of the podcast is productivity. So it's probably worth saying at this point that you very kindly reached out to me had a bit of a zoom call. So some of my productivity stuff is in your book. Yeah. I'm really excited. So you've got a little bit of my my core productivity modules in there and stuff like that. But um, I'd love to just hear before we finish your, your thoughts and what you've learned about productivity over the years and the things that particularly work for you and make you do your best work.

Steven Haines 1:00:11

I mean, it was a great that first conversation was fantastic. And I knew you'd written this book. And as I've said to you before, it's probably the most stolen book I've ever had, I've probably got about five copies, the product was legit, and people just take it from my desk and it never comes back. So the I think there are some core skills that are just worth learning. At the start, the big one I learned from you was, how to organise the emails. And I think that's changing. There are very different communication forms coming in, but emails been really dominant for a number of years. So having the inboxes that are at action at read, you know, that's pretty helpful for us to be able to rapidly break down all of those different wonky things you get in an inbox, but also writing things wells. So you're helping other people take action more rapidly, just actually saying what you mean. So that's hugely important. And I always write a long list and I categorise it A, B and C a is it has to happen today. B, I'd love it to happen, but it probably won't. And c that genuinely can wait. We do. We mentioned some of these things in the book as well. Like, as you're writing the minutes of meeting a symbol that I right next to the thing I need to do, but I think it's that combination of and, and I think can easily forget it whilst you're trying to make yourself productive. Remember that you've got responsibility to make others productive, too. So that's a huge part of it. And again, maybe a bit reflect on the work life balance then wants to don't recommend waking up at three in the morning and work, worrying about work at the same time. To use a bit of that walk to and from work to clear your mind and let the important things pop up. You have an amazing resource in this brain of yours that makes you productive, without having to kind of push it To have a system or structure to it will tell you what's important.

Lucy Clayton 1:02:03

I think the point about knowing one of the things that's really impossible to know at the very beginning of your career is the decisions that you make the impact other people's ability to do their job well. And so we're really clear in the book about, you know, before you allocate your task before you decide where you're going to put your energy for that day, you know, prioritise things that have an impact on everybody else, because one of the things that I've seen time and time again, is people not actually just not even thinking about that. And that means that you know, everyone can else to be sat around waiting, or you know, there's a deadline that you didn't even realise was the deadline, because you just haven't actually engaged with the person who effectively you're handing the baton to. So some of that stuff is really super simple. It's just, you know, the stuff that should be trained or that should be taught at the very beginning, but so often isn't anymore. So. And I think the other thing to say about the productivity section is it's a really good example, the bit where we quote all your wisdom from your book is a good example of how we treat all The other themes in the book. So we have, it's not just us kind of running on our instincts, we take the expert in the field, and we distil that piece of information in the most kind of accessible way possible. And we apply it to whatever problem or whatever theme. And the reason for that is, because let's be honest, we know that our readers are too busy and having too nice to talk, either at work or outside work to be hanging around in the business section of Waterstones, they are not kind of engaged in that material. But that so that sort of the best in leadership theory or productivity theory, or any of those things we have distilled, just to give them a sort of a sense of the best thinking about those things.

Graham Allcott 1:03:42

Yeah, and I'd love it if people read those three or four pages of my stuff in your book. That'd be great. And there any final thoughts and reflections from the process of writing the book itself? How did it affect you Productivity with work life balance.

Lucy Clayton 1:04:02

Got a productivity plummeted. Yeah.

Graham Allcott 1:04:06

You fit it in because you're doing this portfolio career around all the stuff that you do.

Lucy Clayton 1:04:10

It was easier for me, I think because I have real flexibility on diary and, and deadlines and stuff. So the other things that I do definitely took a backseat throughout the writing of this, although my other podcast project was also thriving at the time I did a TED talk halfway through the writing process, which was I have to say, that was an example of five weeks where I very nearly burnt out. But, but I think we wrote the book really quickly. And I think the reason we made quite an active decision to do that, we felt like there was a quite urgent need and that the time was definitely right for it, right. We basically wrote it in seven months. Yeah. And then obviously, the Edit process took a little bit longer, but the sort of actual kind of Getting these 80,000 was pretty quick. And that was very deliberate. I think there's a momentum to it that you can read and you can kind of feel on the page. And that was really necessary for us. And she was doing a full time job at the time. So I mean, it's actually definitely testament to how how much you've taken on board games productivity. I think,

Steven Haines 1:05:27

Well, I think there's a few things to add to that. Firstly, if felt like we'd be writing this book for years and our heads, the conversations, so don't forget that, you know, work isn't just something you do on that day that you start immediately and then finish a bit later. This is something that that is drawn from lots of different sorts of advice. Secondly, as with yourself grown, you know, there are so many people in our network and who we met through the process of writing who gave us so much insight. It was other people to be writing this book as well. So in some We became the convener of all of this and as much as the writers of it, and also tells you something about strength and building a good team around you, you know, I, I did a lot of the research backbone, but the stories and a lot of the writing, were loosely. You take a first draft, send it to me, I'd then send it back. And we had we put in those systems, different coloured text, that kind of thing. We had a brilliant editor at penguin who did I think one of the great things in leadership, which is genuinely believing in people, giving them support, they didn't let them get on with it. So she was phenomenal to we've had a great team around, there's loads of different sorts of advice and a wonderful willingness of people to go, yeah, I get what you're trying to do. I'm willing to help.

Lucy Clayton 1:06:46

Yeah, there wasn't us that we spoke to hundreds of people in the writing of this one's conversations that are very much visible in the book and conversations that are much in the background. And not a single person said or don't think there's much, much To see an idea, it was the opposite, we were overwhelmed by the sense that the book was needed and that they could help with it, and that they were excited about existing. And that gives you a certain that gives you a confidence to write. And the other really basic thing, and I say this knowing other people that are writing books, or be it, fiction, we put in a schedule, that meant that we pretty much had a deadline a month for so we would share with my team, our editor, very regularly each section. I don't think I could have written it any other way. So the idea that you might have had one deadline at the very end terrifies me, partly maybe because it's our first book, but also I think I'm kind of classic head girl syndrome. Like I need to, I need to submit an essay. That's good carry on. Otherwise, I can't really the idea that you're writing into the ether that I found very, very frightening. So for me that structure of having a deadline, needing to deliver on it, I'm really comforting.

Graham Allcott 1:07:55

Yeah, you just made me think about my next book. Maybe I'll do it. That way, because I do just have one deadline,

Lucy Clayton 1:08:02

like I can.

Graham Allcott 1:08:03

I do? I usually do. I didn't read the last book. But what I do to cheat that system is that about a month before that deadline, I have a false deadline. And that deadline is to send the book out to a bunch of focus groups, people who I know,

Lucy Clayton 1:08:19

I see. Yeah,

Graham Allcott 1:08:21

so the great thing about that is then I get loads of feedback on it. And that and then that creates the last bit of push momentum that I need. So the Polish

Lucy Clayton 1:08:27

Yeah, yeah.

Graham Allcott 1:08:29

Yeah. And some a couple of deadlines I've had have been like a Friday afternoon, and it's got to them on the Monday morning, let's say okay, but to those like, because I think to be honest, they expect if they set a deadline of Friday afternoon and publishing, they really know it's coming Monday. And so if you get it there, you know, 9am Monday morning, my thought is, well, they're off on the weekend. Yeah. And then on Monday morning, they're expecting to sit down next week with my books as long as they're by 9am. Yeah.

Steven Haines 1:08:58

You know, I think There's something about setting the priorities in the process as well, which I found really fascinating. You know, it, it would be really tempting to write this book and it would be really preachy and just all of our own thoughts rather than the time, the stuff that took the time was the consultation within the British Youth Council, which was so important, shaping it, all of those conversations and really picking through it. So in some ways, it wasn't the kind of can we meet the deadline of writing the words is

Lucy Clayton 1:09:27

that it was easy. It was all of the other bit. It was Yes, as you say, having early readers who were all sorts of different different parts of the process in terms of Kind of, yeah, whether they were just about to start a job or job searching or any of those things. And I think it was really important that we had those voices reflect on it before we did the final Polish because the truth is, although we've got lots of contributors from all sorts of different industries, tonally the voice is ours and we're lucky because we have backgrounds and very different engines. So it feels that automatically feels quite broad. But you know, we don't know what it's like to do an engineering degree. So it was really important that we had someone read it, who had done an engineering degree, just to check that we weren't kind of just giving us some sort of, you know, one version of events and

Steven Haines 1:10:15

my big learning from that was not just how much time do you need to get it done, get the product out, but rather, how much time and what do you need to do to get something you're genuinely proud of, is the best version of Lucy, as he told me that, you know, this sense of not going to do unless the outcome is the best version that could possibly be. And that's a really interesting challenge to think when

Graham Allcott 1:10:38

you're at the start. Yeah, although me with books, and this might sound very highfalutin if it doesn't, but I always remember the quote from Leonard Cohen, which says, art is never finished just abandoned.

Lucy Clayton 1:10:52

Yeah,

Graham Allcott 1:10:53

yeah, I can some point. There has to let go. And then you and then you'll spend the next month beating yourself up. I mean, I could tell you now all the things that I wish.

Lucy Clayton 1:11:04

But I think, but I think doing that last last month of which I found very, very difficult, probably the most challenging and unpleasant of the heart of what's otherwise been a really lovely experience. But that whole, making sure that structurally it felt true to the original proposition, those those that making sure that it was strategically meeting all those things I found, I found that pressure in the final instance, almost overwhelming. Because by that point, you've got this massive bloody great document and it feels huge. And suddenly it feels like the task you're, you know, no one had written a book like this before, and it felt like it was herculean. Every sentence - you're too familiar with. And that was really, really difficult, but then equally in that by forcing yourself to engage in that painful lost process, I think we did things that make it And infinitely better, but overall so for example, I remember waking up at 3am. We were on holiday shaking me awake and saying Happy Holidays. Oh my god, were you idiots we are we've put the leadership section all the stuff around leadership, we've put somewhere towards the back, which of course is the logical place when you're talking about the starts for Saturday jobs, leadership feels like it should be at the back. But the truth is the spirit of this project is about emboldening people from the start. Therefore, the sectional leadership has to be at the beginning. And so things like that, you know, I think if we hadn't made those kinds of significant changes that absolutely are about it being true to itself. I think it would be less good, but I found that last month, which is clearly why I wasn't sleeping.

Graham Allcott 1:12:50

Well. It's done now and it's launched and out there in the world. So congratulations. Thank you. So it's called How to go to work. I'd love you To just also just plug your other podcasts and other stuff that you're doing and how people can find you. So let's just finish that.

Lucy Clayton 1:13:06

So we have a podcast for this book, which we should talk about, which is very much in the same area. But it's slightly more about discovery. So to our, where we started, I guess this conversation talking about what careers advisors can't know. So our theory with the podcast is that people at the apex of their career forget to talk about the early moments of their career. And that's quite unhelpful, because it's really useful to be able to sort of chart someone's progress from a paper round through to becoming a, you know, a world class architect, for example, to pluck an example at random. So the podcast is about I'm having conversations with people that starts from their very first day job. And we're talking to people in all sorts of industries. And we're not just talking to people who do the headline job in an industry. So for example, in fashion, was of course we talked to a fashion designer. We also talked to a supply chain sustainability leader To, you know stylists and buyers and all the jobs that probably you're not being told about by your guest services, what the foot whatever they are. So that's called How to go to work. You can listen to it at how to go to work.com or on Apple podcasts if you search how to go to work, and if bizarrely you also have an interest in fancy dress and the role of costume in fashion history and how we style and identify ourselves, which would make you a niche reader. Then I also like that's basically me and probably someone else. Then I would direct you to my other podcast dress fancy podcast, which is also on Instagram at dress fancy and in all the podcast places

Graham Allcott 1:14:47

and how people how can people connect with you guys personally,

Lucy Clayton 1:14:50

we are there is an email address actually at the front of our

Steven Haines 1:14:53

clips, how to go to work@gmail.com you can send us anything you want to see somebody you want us to integrate For the podcast, yes.

Lucy Clayton 1:15:00

Justin's

Steven Haines 1:15:02

tell us that we got a bit wrong in the book. Yeah, we can do that. And of course, we have the social media as well. So at how to go to work on Instagram, and that's how to go to work on Twitter as well.

Graham Allcott 1:15:15

Cool. Well, Lucien, Steve, thanks so much. Thank you.

Lucy Clayton 1:15:18

Thank you for having us. Thank you for being in the book.

Graham Allcott 1:15:20

Yeah, thank you and good luck with it.

Thanks again to Lucy and Steve really enjoyed that conversation really fun. And thanks also to think productive, who are our sponsors for the show? So if you're interested in productivity training for your organisation, we do everything now both face to face and virtually Find out more at think productive.com and thanks also to Matt and Leo from penguin for helping to arrange that thanks to Emily, my assistant and also to Mark step and my producer on the show and his platform podiums. And one quick thing to mention at the end, which is this Friday, if you're listening to this podcast just as it comes out, this Friday, the 26th of June, I'm doing a Friday fireside chat with Lawrence and Carlos from the happy startup school. So I'll put a link in the show notes for that as well. So just go to get beyond busy.com. And you get to see it there. Or if you just Google: happy startups, Friday Fireside, Graham Allcott, something along those lines, he'll come up. The topic is productivity in a pandemic. So I'm going to be just sharing a few tips and tricks around productivity that I think are particularly useful right now. And also probably giving people the message that it's okay to have a bad day when times are as they are. I think that's one of the things that a lot of people are struggling with right now just like the feelings of guilt and the feelings of I've not done enough or I'm struggling with my energy, you're struggling with my emotions and just struggling with all the stress and the change in the childcare and all these things that are being thrown at us this year. So, I guess a big part of my message is going to be a productivity ninja as a human, not a superhero. And it's okay to have a bad day. But yeah, if you're just listening to this as it comes out, then you still have time to sign up for productivity in a pandemic, my Fireside chat, it's Friday the 26th of June. And as I say, we'll put a link at getbeyondbusy.com. You can find it from there. That's it from me long episode, mainly because my intro was pretty long this week. So if you stuck right through to the end, then kudos to you. All I can say we'll be back in two weeks time with another episode. Until then, check out get beyond busy comm for show notes and links and everything else previous episodes. Like Subscribe, all that fun stuff.

See in two weeks take care bye for now.

Links

• Black Lives Matter: cheap words & valuable actions

• How to Go to Work: the book

• Penguin interns discuss the book

• How to Go to Work: the podcast

• The Dress: Fancy podcast

• Productivity during a pandemic

• How to be a Productivity Ninja

• Subscribe to Think Productive’s monthly tips newsletter