53. Rachel Cooke on Navigating Leadership Through Burnout

Speakers

Greg McKeown, Rachel Cooke

---

Greg McKeown   

This is a real treat. I’m here with Rachel Cooke, the host of the Modern mentor podcast, as well as many other things. She’s terrific speaker, a top 100 speaker, according to ink magazine, and they would know the founder of Lead Above Noise, which really just unlocks results by helping people with companies to figure out how to get thriving teams and it’s just a pleasure to be with you today.

Rachel Cooke 

Well, Greg, thanks so much for having me.

Greg McKeown     

We were having an interesting conversation just before we went live, and you asked me how I was. And 20 years of living in the United States has not cured me of a sort of social faux pas of always answering that question, honestly. And I think of it now as being a British, you know, peccadillo, but maybe it’s not, it could just be me. Or my family in England might be saying, right now, they might say, well, that’s not what we do this just what you do. And whatever the reason is, I answer it directly. And you asked, and I said, Well, I’m I said, I’m feeling pretty, pretty exhausted. Right now actually. I said, It’s ironic, having just written Effortless and before that essentialism, and you had a good point, point that I thought was worth reiterating.

Rachel Cooke     

Well, thank you for that. And it would be my pleasure to repeat it as an expert in peccadilloes. I think you said, I actually don’t know what that word means. But perhaps you’ll educate me. What I said, Greg, is that so you said it was ironic if you focus on being effortless and essential, shouldn’t really be exhausted. And what I said is, I’m going to call you out on that. And I said, I think you’re probably tuned into your exhaustion more than most. And I think for most of us, we have to hit a point of burnout before we start to feel it. And I’m going to say, you’re just in a healthier place. You recognize that exhaustion is coming, and I think you just feel it sooner. And I’m going to call that one of your superpowers.

Greg McKeown     

Ooh I like the transformation. First, peccadillo is sort of like a small, relatively unimportant offense, oddity, you know, tweak it. So that’s SS This is a peccadillo and mature, But to your point, but to your point, now, I like what you say about it, because I think in the world right now, there are, broadly speaking, two kinds of people, there are people who are burned out. And then there are people who know they’re burned out.

Rachel Cooke    

I think that is sadly, a fair assessment.

Greg McKeown    

And I, when I very first said that, I said, it may be semi as a, as a, you know, as a line. But as I have been working with business leaders and coaching individuals, and still speaking, or virtually, but still speaking around the world, I find people nod their heads to that. Beyond a sense of well, that’s a fun, funny line. It’s like, yep, that’s, that’s where we are right now. And it raises for me a whole series of questions for people and for leaders. About what do you do if this approximates reality? And I want to put that to you, because I was just talking to a tech leader of 1100 person company, and he’s summary was, everybody’s burned out in his whole company. That was his summary. So what do you do if that is approximately true as a leader right now? Are there implications and what are they?

Rachel Cooke     

Well, I certainly think that there are implications and I think, you know, a tightly packaged answer around what you do is the million dollar question and I think all week can do collectively is kind of tap into our shared intuition and start to ask the right questions and figure it out together. You know, we are, you know, to your point about how universally people are experiencing this, and everybody is really head nodding. I mean, in my lifetime, I am probably for people way older than me. I don’t think we have ever had such a universal, difficult, traumatic experience as a world, right? There is nobody living in any part of this country of the world that doesn’t know what you’re referring to, who hasn’t been living this reality write both personally and professionally. And by the way, the lines between those two things have become so vastly blurred for us. That that is such a major contributor to burnout, to the burnout that we’re all experiencing. And I think there are a couple things that we can be doing collectively, I think there are some things that leaders in particular can be doing. I think, first and foremost, it is acknowledging it, but acknowledging it in an authentic way. You know, I have so many clients right now who say things like, you know, our CEO continues to talk about burnout. But then he or she just kind of keeps piling it on, you know, there’s a bit of corporate speak, there’s a bit of messaging, and hey, it must be hard. And let’s, let’s be in this together, but also, let’s continue to do a million things and kind of burn the candle at both ends. And I think, you know, acknowledging it in a real way, and just giving people a little bit of space to own it. You know, I love Greg, you asked me how I was, and I said, Fine, I was great. And you called me out on it a little bit, right? It is kind of an American thing to say that we’re great. Sometimes asking someone to just go a level deeper. Really, how are you today, how’s your day been, you know, has anything difficult or challenging or stressful come up for you? Just giving it a little bit of space, I think is a great way to start. But I think the most important thing we can be doing and that certainly leaders in organizations can be doing is asking employees for their input on how do we start to right this ship? Right, if we recognize that burnout is happening all around us? What are the things that we can be doing and maybe more importantly, that we can stop doing to help kind of mitigate that experience for you?

Greg McKeown     

Okay, I want us to put together like a five-point plan for what leaders can do right now. And by leaders, of course, I do mean title leaders who I think bear a particular responsibility. But that is still can be a broad description. You know, that could be leading in your team, it could be leading your family, I mean, anywhere where burnout is happening, which is pretty much everywhere. So okay, the first thing is, how are you really, so doubling down? I like that as a, as a little tool in your toolkit, not just hey, how are you? Pause? How are you really allowing someone the permission to just give the reality I was coaching a leader recently on this, and he applied it to a family member. extended family member, and he actually texted me later to just say, thank you for doing that. Because I asked two of my family members, you know, how are you really, and what flowed out of them? I just didn’t know anything about and here I am. I care about them. I love them. I just was not aware. So I like that as a little unit. The second thing is something you said is just asking people.  What can I do to make your life a little easier right now? Yeah, what can I do to ease the burden, especially where it isn’t adding a lot of value? Just asking that question.

Rachel Cooke     

Yeah and by the way, I think there’s something really important how you in how you just phrase that because sometimes if we just say, oh, how can I, you know, what can I do, how can I help? We’re sort of implying like, well, you need help, because you’re not strong enough to do this on your own. So how can I swoop in and be your hero? But the way that you just phrased the question was more of a hey, what burden can I strip out you know, what noise can I take away? There’s a literal bit of moving away from the sense of you need help, and I’m here to rescue you. And it’s more acknowledging, hey, there’s a bunch of junk in the system. So let’s collectively and strategically identify what some of it is. So we can pull it out and just get it out of your way so you can get on with things. I think the framing matters.

Greg McKeown     

That reminds me of what I think could be our item three, which I learned from a good friend of mine, whose daughter became terminally ill. And, and he suddenly was faced with that most awful of life tests and experiences. And what he said to me, he said, so many people who want to help, would say to him, how can I help? And he said, he learned from that, that, although the intent is good, it puts the burden on the person who is in need to come up with the answer. And so I think it’s a sort of necessary inclination that you want to be in service. But it needs to go beyond that. What he said to do was, you just serve, you just do a thing. So you don’t, oh, what can you let me know if I can do anything? or h ow can I help you, if you do something, and even if it in a sense is symbolic, you know, even if it is the, I mean, what he said to me was, he just, he was quite, it was dramatic, but he’s like, you just, you just fly to the person, you just drive. You just go there, you just drive over there, you just, you just act take an action. And so maybe number our three is contradictory to number two, but I think if you use them in concert, they’re not contradiction. You know, you’re signaling that you’re ready to serve. But then also just take an action, take something off someone’s plate, do something for them, that shows that you see them that you hear them, what things could somebody do immediately if they knew someone was struggling with burnout?

Rachel Cooke     

Yeah and I love that. And you know what I’m going to say, I’m going to call that 2A and 2B, because I think you ask because maybe they do in a workplace setting where there’s maybe less sort of emotional intensity wrapped up as compared to that family situation. Maybe they maybe they do want to ask you for help and something so hey, is there something that that you can think of that I can help take off your plate? And if not, I’d love to make a few suggestions. Right, so you’re, you’re sort of offering them the option, but then you’re ready to swoop in. And I think, I think a couple of a couple things that a leader can suggest if he or she kind of just wants to drive the conversation, I think first and foremost, it’s, hey, let’s find one or two meetings on your calendar that you don’t need to be in. And let’s find something else for you to do with that time, right? Maybe it’s let’s hook you up with a mentor, maybe it’s you just need some free time, you need to go on a walk all good, right. But being a little bit proactive about creating some time and space for somebody.

Greg McKeown    

One of the things I like what you’re saying that about not just saying, Let’s get you out of a meeting, but let’s get you out of a meeting and here’s something that might be able to be an additionally helpful resource is that if you just take people out of meetings in an environment where everyone’s virtual, there can feel a sense of increased FOMO. That, and this is one of the reasons I think we’ve had such meeting inflation.

Rachel Cooke 

That’s right.

Greg McKeown    

And plus, of course, the technology allows it so a meeting previously that had 10 people in it will, all you have to do is send the meeting to more people and now you can have 30 people in it. It’s the meeting equivalent of reply all in email, is just everything can be in these meetings. And so then we replicate and double down on this zoom eat, sleep, repeat world. So I think talking to someone about saying, look, it’s fine one of these meetings that isn’t as essential, but let’s also use it to protect something that does matter more to you. And what’s the main project you’re working on, so that you can have time to do that important work? It shows that you’re not as a leader thinking someone just can’t do the job. You help to do the essential work, that will be even more valuable.

Rachel Cooke 

Yeah, absolutely.

Greg McKeown     

Okay, does that count as number three?

Rachel Cooke     

I think that’s a solid number three, don’t you?

Greg McKeown     

So I want to talk about something for a second. Let’s talk about what not to do.

Rachel Cooke 

Okay.

Greg McKeown 

Because I have seen some pretty tone-deaf leadership moments recently. And I don’t, for example, and I hate a little bit to, to mention it directly, CEO of a major company. And he basically said, I’ll tell you how to know who your most engaged employees are. It’s the ones who show up physically in the workspace. Those are the ones that ought to be there. And I thought, well, maybe that’s, maybe that’s just them, you know, they happen to be in a selling, you know, work office space is the company. So maybe just bias. But then I came across another example of another CEO who went, it’s not just something they said, is something they wrote an op-ed about and their employees read it. They felt so burned by it. They felt threatened by this other op ed. Like job security is based in being known. And people intimately took it as a threat that if they weren’t physically there, then they would have less job security. And in fact, they went on strike, basically 25 employees at the company took a day off. I think on Friday, just like, okay, we’re not doing anything, because this is just not, you know, just not okay. Well, those are tone deaf moments. So I think maybe, number four is, is don’t pressure people to be back physically right now.

Rachel Cooke     

I would say don’t pressure people to be back physically is important. But I might almost elevate number four to say, pressure test your messaging, whatever it is, before you go public, because everybody’s experience while there is something so universal about the experience, there is also something that is so deeply personal for each of us. Pressure testing your messaging a little bit to just to get some perspective around. Oh, you know, this is this is actually how it’s gonna land with some people but not others. There are absolutely people Greg who are dying to get back into a physical office and that doesn’t make them better. Whereas more or less engaged, it just means that’s what they need in their lives right now, and other people don’t. And so just being really mindful of how your message is likely to be received, I think is really, really important.

Greg McKeown     

I love how you say pressure tested, I want you to tell me in a second how you think we should do that. But while I’m just pausing on it, it feels like maybe don’t shame anyone for the choice they’re making to prefer to be at home the whole time, to prefer to be in the office the whole time, to want a hybrid, like, it’s not a time for shaming anyone about who’s more engaged or who’s better. It’s a time for just maybe going a little more cautiously.

Rachel Cooke     

That’s right, it’s about getting really clear on what are we here to do as an organization? What is the impact we need to have on our customers on our clients on the environment around us? And what do we need in order to achieve that? So I think it’s just about asking yourself as a leader, the important questions, right, what, what really is mandatory versus what is just my own personal preference and where can we just offer grace to our employees? And I say, offer them as much as you can, that might look different in different organizations or different types of jobs, but offer what you can.

Greg McKeown     

Okay, give us a magic number five?

Rachel Cooke     

I would say, number five for me. And I do think that there is a bit of magic in this because it can be easier said than done. But you just take action. The thing that I see people doing wrong is asking, you know, how are you doing? What can I help? Give me an idea, that sounds great. And then there’s kind of radio silence on the other end. And I think what is so important is, as the as the person who needs to do the acting, I say give yourself permission to start small. You don’t have to solve somebody’s problem. But if you can just infuse one degree of ease, one degree of breath into their day, then you’re winning, right? And there’s something so symbolic about the fact that they feel heard, they feel seen, and you’ve taken some sort of action. And I think the act of asking and not acting is actually more damaging, and if you hadn’t acted at all, so if you’re going to go to step three and four, please make sure you take step five, and take some sort of action.

Greg McKeown 

I love that phrase, what can you do that will make somebody’s life? Wow, I say I love the phrase now I can’t say it

Rachel Cooke   

What can you do to infuse one degree of ease or one small breath into their day?

Greg McKeown     

Wow that was very good and that was impressively refound in your words. I like that infuse one degree of ease into somebody else’s life. I agree completely, that even a symbolic action is going to matter more than law lots of talk. So I wonder beyond this what are you finding yourself to be challenging right now? Like, is the opening up of things in the United States great for you, is there something about it that’s anxiety producing for you?

Rachel Cooke     

Oh, it’s such a good question for me right now, because we are at this incredible inflection point, you know, here in the US, the CDC has just literally hot off the presses released guidance about you know, it’s time like, it’s time to go back. And we’ve been waiting and waiting and waiting and now all of a sudden, you know, we’re sort of all like deer in headlights, right. And so what I would say feels hard for me right now. So I have two daughters, they are 14 and 11. And they are young enough to be impressionable, still to me old enough to be wise and have their own intuition and intelligence. And I feel like for all of us, for myself, and for my girls, I am so focused right now on how do we, how do we take the time to reflect and be intentional about how we return to this world that is suddenly returning to us, such that we are re engaging with the things that we care about that matter that we’ve truly missed. And we are letting go of some of what we are now realizing didn’t serve us, right, I feel like we’re at this beautiful moment of a natural reset. And I really hope this is the one and only that we ever experienced, and I don’t want to squander it. But I’m finding it hard to create the time and space to do that reflecting for myself and with my daughters.

Greg McKeown     

You sense that there is a window of opportunity to design, redesign, be selective, be more essentialist but the transition itself makes that challenging.

Rachel Cooke     

The transition itself makes that challenging. Plus, going back to our conversation about steps one through five, you know, I too am on a journey towards a centralism. I’m super busy, right. And so there’s an irony in the fact that in order to be essential to pull yourself out of the constant doing and sort of leading under the noise, in order to pull yourself out of that you need, you need to give yourself the gift of the time and space to do that reflecting upfront, right. So to get more intentional to give yourself more time and space, you need to first find the time and space to create that opening. And there’s a bit of a chicken or an egg thing happening in there. And I’m not sure if I’m the chicken or the egg. But either way, I’m stuck in something and I’m trying to work my way out.

Greg McKeown     

There’s sometimes this idea that if we could just do x, then we would feel on top of our lives. But I think my experience with this is that there is no such thing that we’re chasing something that isn’t, it’s not actually a doable condition. That because life moves forward, because it is always in movement. I don’t know, it’s like being on a train your whole life from beginning to end, and saying, Well, why can’t I just get the, you know, the, the trees outside to stand still, if I could just get those to standstill? It’s like, no, that’s not what life is. So getting on top of it can’t be the goal. So what is the realistic goal that you can take? What would success look like for you in this challenge that you’ve described?

Rachel Cooke     

Yeah, that’s such a good question. I think success would look like for me that as we start to ease back into things, both you know myself, in my personal and professional lives, and also, you know, walking with my kids, that before we step back into anything, we just take one moment of pause and ask ourselves, is this something we want to step back into right? Was this something that was serving us? Is this something we missed? And let’s just take a beat and make sure it’s a hell yes. You know, there’s that expression if it’s not a hell yes, it’s a no. So let’s just make sure that our yeses feel like hell yess before we just let ourselves fall back into old habits.

Greg McKeown     

So let’s say you do that, does that feel sufficient for you? If at each junction, each decision point now you paused, do I really want this? Is this a strong yes for my girls? Would that be a sufficient change to help you feel as reflective as you want to be right now?

Rachel Cooke     

I think I would say sufficient. It doesn’t feel like a giant win. But it feels like a step in the right direction.

Greg McKeown     

What would a giant win be for you?

Rachel Cooke     

Oh, what would a giant win be? A giant win would be like sitting down with them and have it by the way, again, they’re 14 and 11. They don’t actually have conversations with me. But in theory, it would be sitting down and having a conversation in which they look me in the eye, and they put their devices down. And we could actually kind of dive into some of what you know. And these years, they’re in sixth and eighth grades. And these are such emotionally charged years, right for adolescence, oh, I still shudder when I think about the middle school lunchroom. And I know, my girls haven’t missed that, right. And that’s, of course, that’s one of those things, they’re not going to have a choice. But you know, as an example, I would love to have a conversation with them, because they both expressed how much they don’t miss the drama of the middle school lunchroom. So what a big success would feel like to me in that instance, would be Hey, let’s talk about what was sort of stressful or unpleasant or anxiety provoking around it. And, you know, yeah, it is gonna come back and you are going to be back in that lunch room. But let’s at least reflect on what you didn’t love about the experience and is there anything that is within your power within your locus of control to, to shift that experience for the better? Right? It’s those sorts of conversations with them. And likewise, with me, you know, it’s being more reflective on the clients that I’ve worked with the companies, the industries, the geographies, and taking a moment to ask myself, what have my favorite clients had in common? What have my least favorite clients had in common? And what can I learn about myself and my practice and the book of business, I want to build going forward. And being a bit more planful and intentional around that, that would feel like a big win for me.

Greg McKeown     

So you’ve said two specific things now, one both of them around space to have a conversation? It’s a just having it scheduling a meeting with yourself?

Rachel Cooke 

Yes.

Greg McKeown 

And is scheduling a meeting with each of your girls?

Rachel Cooke     

Yes. So does add in three meetings to my calendar, which feels like a step in the wrong direction?

Greg McKeown 

Yeah, does it?

Rachel Cooke     

No, it doesn’t. That’s a pecadillo

Greg McKeown     

It sort of does in one sense, because I know what we’re saying. We’ve just been talking about looks, more meetings, more meetings, but it’s time blocking things that you actually, at least are saying to me, a these are essential. It’s just hard to get to them right now.

Rachel Cooke     

That’s right. And in all seriousness, I don’t by any means believe that meetings are inherently bad. I think mindless constant meetings are inherently bad, but that actually have an intended objective, that by attending them will allow you to better serve yourself, your clients, your team, those are time really well spent. And so in all seriousness, these are meetings that I think would serve me and my goals really well.

Greg McKeown     

So then what is the very first obvious step you can take to make those meetings happen?

Rachel Cooke     

I just I’m going to start with myself. I figured let me practice this on myself before I torture my children. So it’s going on my calendar. 

Greg McKeown     

Let me ask you sort of a kicker here, which is, how can you? Well, first of all, do you want to, but if the answer is yes, then how can you make it effortless to continue having this meeting with yourself?

Rachel Cooke     

Yeah, I do think it is an important practice. I think this moment, this moment of sort of reset, and refresh feels like an opening. But it feels like a practice that really would serve me on a regular basis. And I, you know, I’m a really big believer in the virtuous cycle of winning. So you do something one time, and it brings you a little bit of success, and you get a bit of a dopamine hit, and that feeds you and you want to do it again. Right. And that’s why I was talking earlier about taking small action, I think, I think our minds are wired to look for a win even a small one. I think it’s about doing it once and making sure this becomes the focus in my morning pages so that I’m sort of sealing in that experience of victory. And it creates a craving to want to do it again. And then I think over time, hopefully, it starts to become a practice.

Greg McKeown     

Yeah, I like that. Here’s something else for the structure. I’ve been using a new structure for my offsites, my reflective periods. And their gratitude based which, which, if you’re journaling every morning is a natural extension. But what I call it like positive prioritization, because what I’m doing first is looking through the first, you know, now six months, and, and looking at all the things, the big things that I’m really especially grateful for the big wins. And first of all, that’s just good mental health anyway, it’s, it’s, to me, it’s very satisfying to look at, wow, yeah, there are things I sometimes even forget about why we made that big progress, this whole thing happened, I hadn’t even started that project back then. So it’s good for that reason. But because you’re looking for the things you’re most grateful for, it’s actually a prioritization process too without really noticing that it’s prioritization. You’re just celebrating the things that matter most to you at the end of that six-month period. And so then I use that list as the beginning list for my goal list. So I’m looking at each item and saying, Okay, well, what would, what would great progress look like in each of these things that I’m thankful for right now. I have found that to be rejuvenating, I found it inspiring, and I find it to be focusing as well.

Rachel Cooke     

Is it possible that we could add a number six to our list?

Greg McKeown  

Oh, I like it, go for it. Give us number six.

Rachel Cooke     

I think you just gave us number six; I think that is the loveliest practice. And I think that would be a tremendous sort of conversation for leaders to facilitate with their teams, whether one on one or as a group, you know, hey, this has been a stressful time, and we are dealing with burnout. But as we think about what we want to change going forward, can we take a moment to really highlight some of what we’ve survived some of what we have achieved and some of what we maybe want to turn the dial up on or continue going forward, I think that would be a really beautiful way to carry that sort of Action List through. This gives you an opportunity to see the accumulation of small actions that you’ve taken and hopefully wins that you’ve created.

Greg McKeown     

I do like that.

Rachel Cooke     

Oh, look at us. We’re on fire today.  

Greg McKeown

Listen been such a pleasure to have you, Rachel, thank you for taking the time to come and share your insights and to really almost have a facilitation session, as you would have with your clients to try and think through this moment and what to do in it. Thank you for being open with your own. You know, your own questions and your own challenges in this moment in this, this, this sort of semi eye before the storm moment that that we’re having that can be I think quite anxiety producing for people. And I appreciate your insight and your wisdom. Thank you so much.

Rachel Cooke  

I had a blast. It was a pleasure doing this Greg. Thank you