Leading Resilient Teams with guest, Paul Taylor

Resilience continues as a big leadership topic but this time it's all about the team. Paul Taylor, neuroscientist, exercise physiologist and former airborne naval officer, joins Gerard for a conversation about the role leaders play in promoting more resilient teams. 

Paul shares his 7 keys leaders can use to cultivate resilient teams, brought to life by Gerard and Paul sharing their insights gained working with some truly remarkable leaders and teams. 

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Transcript

Xtraordinary Leaders Podcast 

Episode 18 | Leading Resilient Teams with Guest, Paul Taylor

FULL TRANSCRIPT

It's not about the ordinary. We've got enough of that. It's about the extraordinary. And we need more. 

I'm Gerard Penna and welcome to the Xtraordinary Leaders Podcast, where we spend time with recognised leaders and global experts exploring the art and science of remarkable leadership. 

Welcome back to another episode of the Xtraordinary Leaders Podcast. You may have noticed it's been a bit longer between podcasts than is usual. That's because I took a well-earned break, very energising, replenishing break, and I've come back raring and full of beans and ready to continue our mission of developing, growing and cultivating better leadership in our organisations, our communities and our teams because we need more of it. You can of course find back episodes of the Xtraordinary Leaders Podcast on our website: www. xtraordinaryleaders.com.au

If you were to visit that back catalogue of Xtraordinary Leaders podcast episodes, you will find that there's a couple of topics which have appeared quite regularly, some themes that appear quite frequently. And that's because many of us have been having an experience over the last couple of years during the global COVID pandemic of increased volatility, uncertainty, complexity and ambiguity, which has placed more of a demand on all of us. 

So the questions around motivation and energy and wellbeing and resilience, they're top of mind for us as leaders. 

Over those episodes, we've tried to take to different angles. On those topics, one has been, How do we cultivate those things well-being, sustainability, energy in ourselves?. The other angle has been from a leadership perspective. How do we cultivate those same conditions in those people that we're seeking to lead and engage and help succeed? Today's episode continues in that same vein. It's a question about how can we support and promote and cultivate more resilient teams? How does our leadership affect the resilience of those people that we're seeking to mobilize and influence and support? And I could think of no better person to have this conversation with than our very first guest who appeared on the Xtraordinary Leaders Podcast, my friend Paul Taylor.

Paul is an exercise physiologist, nutritionist and neuroscientist, and he works with leaders quite extensively, both in helping them achieve high levels of sustainable performance, as well as helping them promote resilience, wellbeing and sustainable performance in their teams. So I've invited Paul back for a conversation. We're going to dig more into both the science and the practice of leaders cultivating greater resilience amongst their team. And given that Paul has been one of our most popular guests as measured by the number of episode downloads. 

I'm sure that you're going to enjoy this episode immensely as well. So hang around. It's going to be a good one.

Well. Paul Taylor, welcome back to the Xtraordinary Leaders Podcast. 

Thank you, Ged. Delighted to be here. 

Yeah, well, it's great to have you back on. But I don't want to assume that people have listened necessarily to the early podcast that we did together, which was fantastic, by the way, of course. But for those who don't know who Paul Taylor is, would you be happy just to share a little bit about who you are and what you do? 

And look, I'll give you a quick elevator pitch. My background is pretty eclectic. ex-British armed forces. Spent eight years flying in helicopters, hunting submarines for a while, doing helicopter search and rescue for a while. Went through combat survival and resistance to interrogation, training and all that fun stuff. And then I left the military and became a geek. So I an exercise physiologist, nutritionist and neuroscientist and currently doing a Ph.D. in applied psychology.

And like you work a lot with organisations, my kind especially. I do some stuff on leadership and a lot of stuff around resilience and peak performance. 

Yeah. And that, that that's where that overlap between you and I is around leadership because we actually met at a presentation at a leadership conference. Then we discovered that we lived in the same suburb and we became friends. And we've continued working alongside each other in some organizations and have supported each other's work since then. 

Indeed. Absolutely. 

And you've also positively influenced my wellbeing, when a few years ago I had your voice rattling around in my head and I decided that I needed to stop it. 

It's never a good thing. It's never a good thing. 

Well, it was it had the accent and everything. And I decided that I needed to incorporate some regular exercise into my life. So I chose open water swimming because people may not know that both you and I live we live on the sort of shores of Port Phillip Bay and I swim. I do open water swimming now and in Port Phillip Bay all year round because and I chose that because I knew from your research that he combined the benefits of whole body movement, really good cardiovascular exercise. It's low impact. 

But and then perhaps most importantly, the cold water exposure in the winter months, and we know that that improves mood and activates the immune system. So it's been tremendously helpful for my resilience as well. So a big thanks to you take.

Awesome. Glad to have another one nudged into the cold exposure. You know, actually, in one of the big four banks, I've done a lot of work over the last ten years. I'm known as the cold shore guy because of very cheap cold showers for about the last eight or nine years. 

Well, as long as that, I think about it in terms of resilience and well-being and  mood elevation and immune system activation, as opposed to any other reason for a cold shower into heat. 

Yes, indeed. 

So but that point of intersection for you and I is around leadership. And it's gotten me really curious and focused in this podcast conversation cause last time we spoke about resilience. And leadership. And I and I've been thinking a lot about this lately. What is the role that leadership plays in promoting resilience and resilience in other people? So what impact does a leader have in cultivating or detracting from the resilience of team members or the team more broadly? So what do you sort of some of the starting thoughts around that? What's your experience? What does your research tell you? 

Yeah. Look, I mean, I think it's huge. Absolutely huge in terms of big because a leader really sets the tone for the culture. And culture, as we'll see as we talk further, has got a huge impact on people's ability to get through difficult times and relatively unscathed. And also and how they communicate all of these things are hugely, hugely important.

And I have worked with some great leaders. I've also worked with some rubbish leaders underneath that. I'm saying in my time in the military, you know, I had exposure to probably one of the best leaders I'd ever experience and another one who was one of the worst. And I saw morale changed dramatically in that squadron, and stress levels go through the roof and people went from there were there were people, particularly in the aircraft maintenance side of things, who had been there for years and years and years and years and were just able to keep standing because they absolutely loved the place. 

They loved working under this leader who's a guy called Jock Alexander. But then we had another one. He was great. Coach Richie Cunningham. I won't tell you the name of the one who was who was a shocker, but people left in droves. They absolutely left in droves and the culture of the place. And it was unbelievable the impact. And I was lucky to serve under four different leaders. I spent most of my time in the military at that squadron and just see firsthand and the impact on individuals from different leadership because the role didn't change. 

So the one thing that changed was the leader, right? So that's why, you know, it was a it wasn't it wasn't a proper designed experiment. But you'd need to be blind not to see the impact of leadership there. Yeah. 

What was the impact on you personally when you went from these great leaders to something other than that? What? 

Did you look at it? Oh, it was it was pretty significant because I ended up with I had a run in with this guy over see if they were basically we had done we were doing search and rescue. We had done a full day of search and rescue. Then you do day on days down by day on day. Stand by day on day, stand by. So you do six days like that and on standby you're on call. And we actually got called in the next day because what they the search and rescue helicopter had was on a job up in far north Scotland in Stornoway and there was a mechanical fault. 

So we had to come in and go up and get those guys and then the next day there was some sort of military parade on and this guy, you know, he was so into his fist time that he wanted the search and rescue guys, that duty guys, to do the parade and wanted us to do another day of search and rescue. And I actually went to him and said, Sir, this is on. See if I cannot fly, this is unsafe because we have certain, you know, there are certain protocols around flying and safety. 

And he actually said to me, he said, I'm you efforts don't do enough paperwork to be tired. I'll tell you when you're tired. Right. And so I actually ended up putting a complaint in against him and then it got kind of persecuted after that. So I really felt it personally. Yeah. 

Yeah, you would. Because one of the conditions of motivation for people is that you can actually I have open communication. I think one of my other guests who headed up a Australian Army helicopter squadron talked about it and he now runs the leadership training for the Australian Defence Force. 

He talked about this notion of contributory descent that a team, yes, should be able to actually be have an open conversation with a leader about something which concerns them. And it's probably no bigger concern in aviation than safety and to not be able to have that conversation. We have an extraordinary power motivation of. 

Morale, that there is a culture in the air crew world. That's called tops off so that if it's around safety rank doesn't matter. And I have seen our crew men who are and ratings you know not officers call like commanders over safety. Right. But this guy was an absolute tyrant. So anyway, there you go. 

Mm hmm. Okay. 

I've seen the best and the worst. 

And even today, you have interest in. 

Defence, the connection between resilience and leadership and the operation of people in those sort of defence areas. You were actually completing a Ph.D. in applied psychology and you're developing and testing resilience strategies with the Australian Defence Science Technology Group and the University of Newcastle. Is that right?

Correct, correct, yes. Yeah. Yeah. And we did a recent a recent study which was an intervention where we actually showed a reductions in symptoms of burnout, improvements in mood and improvements in resilience as measured by standardised and validated questionnaires and through that intervention. Can you tell us more on active duty air crew squadron. Yeah. So, so it was it and the paper's about to be published, so I'm just finishing writing it up. 

So it was either we at Squadron and on the East Coast, they're based out of Nowra, just a little bit south of Sydney. And the boss was a guy, Commander Paul Hannigan, again, brilliant leader. And he's, he'd said to me, you know, he'd heard me talk and he said, look, I'd love you to come and do some stuff for my guys because they're under the pump. And we ended up turning it into a research study. And again, and he said, Look, if you could just keep these guys alive, it'll be awesome because, you know, they run the maritime support helicopter, but they were involved in all of the bushfires in New South Wales. 

Then they had the floods. So these guys were working really, really hard on it and they had trouble getting aircraft parts. So everybody was massively stressed. They and they had COVID after that. So you know, it's just had issue after issue after issue. And so we went in and did an intervention. I did a 3 hours of resilience training, identified some stuff with the leaders afterwards. And then everybody went on a three week program. 

And we measured levels of mood, we measured levels of resilience, and we measured burnout using the models like burnout inventory and showed statistically significant improvements in all three of those measures, which was pretty cool. 

Right. And so you did your research. It implicates or talks to the role of leaders or leadership upon resilience and well-being. 

Yeah, there's that. That's a part of it, but it's actually a small part of it. A bigger part of my research is really around individuals and what they can actually do to enhance their resilience. And. And I like to talk about psycho physiological resilience. So a lot of people a lot of that resilience, it's a lot of it's psychology. And you know what, you know, being a psychologist, Shelvey Lo, when you're a hammer, everything looks like a needle. Right. So and it's that kind of siloed approach where it's just talking about mindset stuff and how you process thoughts in those sorts of things. 

And I'm a very strong believer that you can't have a, a, a full conversation around psychological resilience if you're not talking about the physical as well. Because the, the brain slash mind controls everything that the body does, but it is absolutely dependent on the health of the body and order to function well. 

Yeah. So does that two way connect that sort of in fact multiple connections between body, brain and mind that if any part of that system is is not well, not functioning effectively, it can have a negative impact upon the other parts of that integrated system that is the human being. 

For sure. And, you know, we tend to have this very Newtonian Cartesian world view of of science in the Western world. A lot of it driven by René Descartes a few hundred years ago. But and I think we're beginning to realize that that the that there's this this two way communication and or three way between mind, body and brain. 

You said that the small part of your research implicated leaders or leaders. The impact of leadership upon. Team resilience or other people. The other person, resilience and well-being. Can you tell us a little bit about that small part? What have you been learning about it? 

Yeah well really up RINDGE High and high leaders can impact the way that individuals deal with stress, and the high leaders can actually influence the amount of stress that people are exposed to in the first place. So that's one part of it. And then the second one is, is how they influence and how they can actually deal with it. Right. So for me and being ex-military, my take on leadership is, is a military tech. 

And I, I always when I'm talking to organizations and leaders, I talk about the military definition of leadership, which is influencing people by providing purpose, direction and motivation and to achieve the mission and improve the organization as a whole. But I think from a step back from that, the way the military view leadership is often quite different to the way organizations do. Rear Admiral Grace Murray Walker said. You manage things, you lead people, right? So in the military there's a very clear distinction. 

Leadership is exclusively about people. Management is about systems and processes, right? So if we think about that influencing people, it's pretty clear to see that leadership has a significant role to play. Not the kind of research that I'm doing around that is secondary stuff. It's other people's research. It's not my primary research. My primary research is on that psycho physiological resilience, which plays into all of this. And we'll talk a little bit about this as we go through this podcast. 

I think. 

Yeah, now you have a particular resilience framework when you think about leadership and the role of leaders in promoting resilience in others. And I think it's wonderful because it gives us a discrete number of things that we can pay attention to and we can even talk about. So you can share that with the audience and start talking us through what are those critical things that leaders need to be paying attention to if they're going to build resilience in not only themselves but other people? 

Sure. And well, so the seven things I said, which is influenced by you. So a while ago you helped me around the framework of my book and that whole idea of having a certain number of things and having that repeated. So I talk about seven things that leaders can do, and we can dive into each one of those, but just at a very high level. The first one is putting your oxygen mask on first, which and we can jump into that obviously then connecting with purpose, giving clarity of expectation, using the top code, which we will impact. 

I know you know about to top code, but other people won't. Then it's about supporting autonomy and then it's around orienteering, around resilient characteristics. And then the last one is around savvy hiring and firing. 

Yeah. Cool. So let's start with the first 1/1. Putting your mask on, putting your oxygen mask on first. 

Yeah. So most people get this analogy straight away, right? And when you're on the plane and they say, if you got little kids, you got to put your oxygen mask on first. So that's the analogy. And the research that has come out and particularly with the advent of functional MRI, the ability to look into people's brains and to see changes over time. There has been a number of studies done in the recent years, particularly the last five years, looking at the impact of workplace stress on brain structure and function. 

And what we actually see is that that people who are exposed to significant, consistent stress have significant and both structural and functional changes in the brain. So what I mean by that from a structural perspective and the frontal lobes actually shrink and because stress creates exciting toxicity, it's too much glutamate in the brain and basically the brain cells will fire themselves to death. And from the other structural perspective, the amygdala and that deep part of the brain whose one of its roles, one of its primary role is to sense and respond to stress. 

We see that I actually grows bigger and becomes more sensitive. So from a functional perspective, when your frontal lobe is shrinking and you and your amygdala is getting bigger and more sensitive, that creates a brain that becomes hyper vigilant to stress. Right. Which should be concerning for everybody listening. And but there has been one study showing that that that that these changes are partially reversible. And there are a whole heap of parallel lines of research right. 

From different areas. And this is where, for me, being an integrationist, I like to connect them, right? So for me that the kind of take home and I probably dove more into that detail in that first podcast. So if anybody's interested in this in a little bit more detail, jump into the first podcast that we did. But for me, exercise is absolutely critical. And this is one of the things that almost the first thing that goes out the door when people are stressed and under pressure, and that's the worst thing that you can do. 

I mean, I'm impressing upon my kids now, I like this is the non-negotiable to have for the rest of your life. Right. And there is so much research in this area that I can now say unequivocally and without any judgment whatsoever that if you do not currently engage in regular physical activity, at least some of which is vigorous, there's not a snowball's chance in hell that your brain is functioning optimally, particularly at times of stress. 

So what you're pointing to is you've got these two sort of orientations in the brain, these two kind of functional areas, if you like. And I know it's much more complex than this, but if we simplify it down, you've got this part of your brain which is concerned with surviving, keeping you safe. Yeah. And you have another part of the brain, which is sort of the more modern part of our brain, which, you know, outperforms a lot of the executive function and a lot of the stuff we really rely on in leadership around sort of both creativity and impulse control and deliberate decision making, emotional control, emotional regulation, etc.. They're all the sorts of things that we really value in executive life. 

And you've got one part of the brain which is kind of becoming more active, more vigilant, more reactive. And you've got this, this, this modern executive part of your brain. Think about it that way that we rely on, which is becoming atrophied and diminished and in some way. And so the quality of leadership, therefore, that we're able to exercise under those conditions is going to be compromised. 

Absolutely. You've hit the nail on the head. And what a lot of people don't realise is that the biggest impact of exercise on brain function is actually only executive functions. Right. And it's very aptly named when it comes to leadership, because, as you rightly said, that's the stuff. That we use as leaders on a daily basis. Right. And we know that particularly when you exercise regularly, it grows volume in your frontal lobes. And it also exercise creates all the conditions necessary for neuroplasticity, which is the ability of your brain to adapt. 

Right. And if anybody listening is going through any change in the workplace in the last couple of years, you need an adaptable brain. Yeah.

So exercise is a great example of something that as a leader you should do to look after yourself. So then that allows you to show up more helpfully, more intentionally, more deliberately, more choice fully. The second thing in your framework affected you talked about was connecting to purpose. Can you tell us a bit about that? 

Yes. Yeah. So look, I'm big on purpose way back from my time in the military and, you know, over the military are exceptional at communicating purpose. And they realized the importance of this because if we think about that whole idea of influencing people quite often, not always, but quite often in a military theatre, it's about influencing people to go to war where they could quite possibly die. And whereas in the workplace it's a little bit different, right? It's down a couple of notches. 

It's influencing people to give some extra discretionary effort to stay late at work. All of these things. So, so and purpose is exceptionally communicated in the military. And actually I never flew a single aircraft sortie or I did an embarkation where the purpose was not communicated very, very well to everybody. Right. And in the military, if I think of jobs in the Navy, everybody right down to the chef in the galley and nose hide their daily work contributes to the purpose of the organization and to that and to the mission as well. 

Right. So what I and the research has been shown in organizations and I know you've seen this research, but that people who engage with the purpose of the organization, they give more discretionary effort. Right. And even if they find that that's really, really key. 

Or even if they can find their own purpose. So sometimes, you know, sometimes the organisation purpose can float your boat. But in everyone plays this individual role within it and being able to connect your individual, you know, a reason for doing what you do and bringing yourself to it and pushing forward in particular in times of difficult. Being able to connect that to something that matters to you as an individual is equally as important as connecting it to the purpose of the organization. 

Yeah, absolutely. And if you can connect it, you know, if you're, you know, to your values as well as your purpose. So here we open up that bigger discussion. Yeah, values as well. And this is one of the ways, you know, where we're kind of getting into a little bit of the autonomy stuff later on. But leaders can help this are can help people to move up the motivational continuum. And by actually saying, Ged, I know this is really difficult. I know that what I'm asking you to do is hard and it's stressful.

Here's why it's important for the organisation. Here's why it's important for our team. Right. And I always say we have both worked in very large organizations where our and the leader doesn't have an influence on the purpose. It's kind of handed to them. That's why when I work with teams, I'm always like, okay, what's your team purpose? Or I like to use the term mantra, you know, why do you guys come to work? So anybody who's listening to this can actually go back and do some work with their team to create a mantra, right? And having your team contribute to that, you know, where they have a say and a role in it that is going to make them much more engaged. 

So I think that is hugely, hugely important. 

Yeah. Connecting to purpose. 

The thing connecting you daily that excited to connect your daily work to the purpose is the bit that some people miss. 

Yeah, interesting you say that because I remember reading this article in the I think it was in the Sydney Morning Herald at the beginning of the COVID pandemic hitting the shores of Australia. And everyone was expecting this huge tsunami of COVID cases. And in Sydney at St Vincent's Hospital they were preparing themselves for this kind of this tsunami to hit. And this article was they were interviewing a fellow by the name of Jack Hong, and he was a cleaning supervisor at St Vincent's Hospital, and he was leading a cleaning crew that were really high risk of becoming sick themselves as they disinfected emergency rooms and some of the other parts of the hospital. 

And many of these individuals, these cleaners, were especially at risk because they came from some of the vulnerable health categories, such as being smokers or having diabetes. 

But despite this, Jack said that they continued to work in those risky environments. And continued to do additional shifts in those risky environments because and even though they were given the option not to, because they said they thought that they were making a really meaningful contribution at a really crucial time and that whilst a hospital on the social scale, you know, to be honest, is not particularly high. And they might say that I'm just a cleaner. He would say to them, No, you're not just a cleaner. You're doing something great. You're part of the whole system of care. 

And for that system to work, we have to everyone has to pull together. And your role really matters. 

And that's sad. And as I read that, I thought it's a wonderful example about how leaders can connect individual contribution to things that. Really. Yeah. 

Yeah. That, that, that little story has just hit the nail on the head. 

Yeah. Clarity of expectation is the third area you spoke about. What do you mean by clarity of expectation? And what's the impact that leaders have creating clarity of expectation? What impact does that have on other people's resilience? 

Yeah. So the Gallup research and when they were looking at engagement, they surveyed over 200,000 people, over 100 countries, and they found that the most important thing for engagement is clarity of expectation. Right. And and other parallel research has shown that when people don't have clarity of expectation, it tends to put their brain in a threat state and they tend to go into survival mode, which is not what you want in times of stress, because then collaboration is out the window. 

Creativity is out the window. You know, people are just checking their sex all of the time. Right. So and we were always told in the military that you can never overcommunicate clarity and and Leela. So we are both hard on our podcasts, you know, we'll talk about him later in the Hanoi Hilton. And he he said that that that communication is the glue that holds the organization together. Right. So it's really about sitting down with your people and just making sure that they are clear about what you expect from them. 

And just in terms of their road, their priorities and behaviours and that whole thing, you can never overcommunicate clarity. And because it does make people be more engaged and they give more effort then as well. 

Is there a risk then? Over the last couple of years that I have as leaders and have seen their team members encounter, you know, quite difficult circumstances that the tendency towards. Well, let me sort of back off let me back off. Holding team members accountable for things. Let me back off. Setting clear expectations of team members. I don't want to put people under pressure. I don't want to create stress for people that in fact, yeah, under some circumstances that can actually create more stress for individuals because then they lack the clarity of actually what's being expected of them. 

Yeah, absolutely. That that that that's really, really key. I think what you should never pull back on is clarity of expectation. And yes, you can maybe lighten the load in stressful times, but never, ever pulled back on clarity of expectation. 

We're going to take a quick break from the conversation with Paul. So I can take a moment to share with you some great news. We've just announced some new dates for our amazing Energise programme. The Xtraordinary Leaders Energise Programme is an exceptional development experience for leaders who need to engage, influence and mobilize people. Participants in the program learn how to engage others, how to motivate their efforts, maximize their contribution and commitment, and release their full potential. It's a special program that we designed to help leaders whose success depends on their ability to influence and mobilize others and to achieve results through their team members and colleagues. 

It's an immersive program that takes cutting edge insights from psychology, neuroscience and management and combines them with powerful development experiences to produce a remarkable experience. We have two versions of the program for which we are currently taking registrations. The first is a three day face to face program in Melbourne from the 19th of July to the 21st of July. I said That's three consecutive days. That's a perfect program for people who want to take a dedicated period of time out from their regular work to immerse themselves in the development experience. 

We also have a virtual Energise program which is kicking off on the 20th of June. So that's a Monday. And the way that that will work is that for 3 hours, over six weeks, every Monday, we're going to take you through the same immersive, powerful experiences that we have in the face to face workshop. We're just going to run it in a virtual environment. We learned a lot about how to create high impact, powerful leadership development programs during COVID lockdowns, and we're now bringing that to bear for the benefit of all of those people out there who want to experience the energized program, but may not be able to make a three day face to face program, or perhaps they're working flexibly or remotely so virtual works for them much better. 

The additional benefit of virtual is that it gives you time between each workshop, each three hour block to think about, reflect the plan, reflect upon, and apply some of the techniques and skills that we're going to be sharing with you. So for some people, that's going to feel and work a lot better for them. The great news is you've got both options available to you. A three day powerful program face to face, or a virtual program over six weeks, 3 hours a week. And you can find out more information about this program by visiting our Xtraordinary Leaders website. 

You can register there for either of the programs. You can also request more information and we can send you out more detail in a brochure. And if you feel that you'd like to. We'd be absolutely delighted to have a conversation with you about what your needs are and whether this program is going to be helpful to you and so that you can make the best choice. You can also email us right now if you'd like on interact at extraordinary leaders dot com dot IU. 

Now let's head back to the conversation with Paul Taylor. 

So on the one hand, you set an expectation that team members make a contribution that matters, a contribution that that is necessary for you to continue to serve customers or look after clients or to do whatever it is that your team does. And on the other hand, whilst you're asking them to do what can sometimes feel like difficult, hard work, you're also needing to provide support to them. And you talked about the introduced the term earlier on the tap code. So let's talk about the tap code and the idea of communication and providing mutual support and connection amongst people. 

Yeah. 

So the tap code comes from that. The Hanoi Hilton, which was a prisoner of war camp in Vietnam, and it was you know, it was a rather ironic nickname given by the inmates, because it was pretty brutal. And we have both interviewed somebody who spent five and a half years in Hanoi Hilton. And I know a lot described as. 

And he describes it as something like, you know, 1956 days of boredom interspersed by moments of sheer terror. 

Tara Yeah, absolutely. And particularly and you know, the leaders, Jim Stockdale has written a lot about this, who was one of the three senior leaders in there. And but when they and these guys were routinely tortured as well, but then they got wind at people that they were going to be put in solitary confinement. I think one of the guards let it slip. And so one of the guys actually remembered an old chief from the Second World War telling them about this thing called tap coach. 

And people can look it up and it's basically a grade for high people. They could tap out the letters of the alphabet. So they quickly communicated to tap code with people and they created a whole heap of shorthand. And Stockdale, he said to people, and I just have this quote burned into my head. He said, Gentlemen, get on the wall, learn the tap code and share information, help each other, support each other, remind each other of the mission. And each prisoner of war role in that mission. He said, when your brother is taking out of his cell to be tortured, when he comes back, get on the wall. 

You tap to him. You tell him that you love him. You tell him that you're here for him. Now, Dennis Charney, who's the neuro psychiatrist I mentioned earlier on, he'd done that military research. He'd actually interviewed most of these guys. And he said that lifelong friendships were struck up in that prison camp between people who never even met each other face to face because they tapped on the walls and they helped each other get through. And Lee Ellis told me, as I'm sure he told you, he risked his own life on several occasions to communicate the top coat and to communicate with other people. 

And most of the guys he got through said it was that top code that helped them get through. So what we know is if men you have a a top code conversation, a lot of people talk about, are you okay conversations right now say you're helping me out with an issue. We know that oxytocin and vasopressin are released in both people's brains. Right. So oxytocin by suppressing that, both involved with love, trust and social bonding. But they are also very potent anti-stress chemicals. 

Right. Really, really potent. And that's the beauty. That's why I love this analogy of getting on the wall, because it takes two people, one who's struggling and the other who's helping. But both people actually benefit psychologically from a top coat conversation. Right. And this is the thing that when you're stressed is as a leader, we were always told leadership in clean ceiling is relatively straightforward, but it's when the shit hits the fan that it becomes much more difficult and much more important. 

Right. And I think a huge part of that is around that top coat and just connecting, just checking in with people, seeing how they're going and promoting a culture of that top called within your team, I think is really, really key. 

And I think that's a key point, Paul, that you make around cultivating a culture of that tap code, cultivating a culture of connection and genuine communication between people in the team because often. Leaders might make the mistake of feeling like it's they're the only person who's got that responsibility, that it's their sole responsibility to be checking in with all of the team members into some sort of hub and spoke model rather than I. How do I, as a leader, create an expectation and cultivate, encourage and reinforce open and genuine communication between team members so they're supporting each other because then that exponentially increases the amount of support and oxytocin and visit person that's just flowing through that team. 

Yeah, absolutely. And as well is doing that. I think from the leaders perspective, being vulnerable and is really, really important. And most people will probably have seen Brené Brown's TED Talk on vulnerability. If they haven't, I highly recommend that they do it. I mean, she doesn't own vulnerability, but that being vulnerable to actually go first to say, hey, here's what I'm struggling with and I've seen it before. Him. No, you've seen it before that when leaders actually stand up and be vulnerable, he can almost feel the connection from. 

From other people to them. 

Yeah. That. Turning up and communicating openly about how I am feeling, what I'm experiencing, what I'm being challenged by. I mean obviously allows the team to jump in and support me, but it builds trust as well because I'm clearly not seeking to protect myself that yeah, there's, there's, there's an unfortunate and unhelpful tendency in some leaders to protect themselves and to turn up as if they have it all sorted out and they have all the answers. 

And their job is just to get everybody on board with what we what I've decided that everything's okay if you just do what you're told. And it kind of runs pretty counter-productive to the motivations of other people because they're going to then that feel they might not be able to nail exactly what it is the latest doing which is driving that. But they kind of feel like this is not genuine open communication. I'm being I'm being told something here in a way which is intended to control me. So being over control, not really having choice, not really having autonomy. 

And I think you're the next area that you're about to talk about is this idea of autonomy, support and the role this autonomy genuine autonomy. But the role that that plays in team members being motivated and able to meet the demands of the moment. Tell us a bit about autonomy support. 

So, so first, let's talk a little story about a bit of research that was done in the UK by Sir Michael Marmot, who is an epidemiologist. A lot of people now know what an epidemiologist is. Right. So. So he stuck? Yeah, exactly. But he was particularly involved with stress. And he wrote a pretty landmark paper called the White Toll Study. And he had followed it up with the Whitehall study, too. And basically they studied the British Civil Service, right, which is government and it's 30 years of study looking at the impact of, of stress on people's long term health, on both stress induced illness and early death. 

And what they actually find, as well as clarifying that that long term stress can cause stress induced endless disability and early death. And one of the things that came out of the study was that the amount of stress induced illness and early death was inversely proportional to the level that they were in the hierarchy of the organisation. Right. And the British Civil Service is beautiful to study because it's a very hierarchical organisation. 

You can tell from some of these job title exactly where they sit in that. Right. And there's this this mistake that that leaders make that am I'm the busiest, therefore I'm the most stressed. And what I've actually find and the key thing was autonomy that leaders actually had, even though they may have been busier, they suffered from less stress induced illness and early death because they have more autonomy, they have more control and say in how they do their job. 

And if you're listening to this, if you've had a leader before who was controlling, that's the opposite of autonomy. If you're in a controlling relationship and personal relationships, you know how stressful that is. So that lack of autonomy is hugely, hugely stressful. So leaders can actually give people autonomy and, you know, help them with basically understanding and strive to help them understand high tasks, their assignments to work conditions, understand, number one, high that is perceived from the employee frame of reference. 

Right. So putting on a different lens actually, you know, as Gandhi says, never judge someone to you've walked a mile in their shoes or trying to see things from their viewpoint is really important. But there's a few things that that leaders can do and as much as possible, ask for their inputs and ideas. Right. And, you know, that comes back to purpose. You know, if you're doing a purpose exercise, don't do it with yourself and then communicate the purpose of the team. Get your team to contribute to it because then they have a say in it. They have some ownership in it. 

Right. And autonomy is things like taking your team's viewpoint wherever you possibly can and, you know, providing them with this meaningful rationale for the work that they're doing. We talked about that earlier on. And, you know, and I know this is stressful, but here is why it's important and then just giving people a sense of choice wherever possible. Jed, here's what I'd like you to do. And when I'd like you to do a pie and you just crack onto it. Right. Tell me if you've got if you're if you need any resources or whatever or if you're stuck, come to me and I'll help you, but you just crack on and get it done. 

That is much more effective, much more engaging. 

And if we put together what you were talking about before, that, you talked about the other condition for optimising resilience in team members is to have great clarity of expectation. So on the one hand, you might create a clarity of expectation about what it is that needs to be produced or what's the outcome or the output, or what would be the criteria that would sort of signify a successful sort of outcome and then assume where appropriate that that individual has the confidence to make it happen. So you let them make all of the choices around how they might execute that work? 

Absolutely. 

So absolutely. You've got those you're meeting both of those conditions simultaneously. You're having clarity of expectation as well as providing offering choice and allowing autonomy. 

Yeah. And autonomy and an accountability slash expectation. They are bedfellows and don't give autonomy without accountability. Right. I think that that's one of the things. 

Yeah. Because the there was this thing. So during the 1990s, the idea of empowerment. Became a really big thing in the corporate world. You know, empower people. And what unfortunately that was interpreted as was that you should provide people with a lot of freedom. And it almost the leadership style that emerged was almost laissez faire where you the assumption was you let people make all of the decisions, team members make all the decision about what needs to get done and how it gets done. And by when it gets down to what quality or standard it gets done, what resources are required to get it done. 

Rather than understanding that, setting an expectation and challenging people and holding them accountable for producing what it is that really matters and is needed is the bedfellow of then allowing and providing them with the empowerment and support to make appropriate choices about how it gets done, in what order it might get done, what resources might be needed to get it done, etc.. So it's that clear balancing that presence of both those things simultaneously, not the. 

Absolute. 

And the other. 

100% they've got to be done together. That is the key take out from that. 

Yeah. You said the sixth area was orienting people. What is it that they give warranting around and why does it matter. 

Yeah. So it's really around oriented, around mindset. So, so this is largely the work of Marty and Mashaba and from a research paper back in 2005, which there's some parallel research by Diane Coatue and who has done a lot of research around hardiness. Right. And I love the hardiness research. I think that's been lost in in some of this. 

The other resilience that is more around self-care and stuff like that, like the hardiness stuff is really, really important when you're in difficult situations, right? So the three orientations that Marty and Kashima talked about and actually this was talked about extensively in probably my favourite book, which I think I lent you a while ago called Biobehavioral Resilience to Stress. Right. So it's a military book written by a lot of psychologists and generals and stuff like that. 

Right. And they talk about this. So one is a control orientation and this comes down to locus of control. And so what we find is that non resilient people often have an external locus of control. They have a belief that their destiny is controlled by other people, whereas highly resilient individuals have an internal locus of control. Right. And that that they actually are in control of their destiny. But that that actually goes with this whole idea that that down culture from hardiness showed is that that resilient individuals have a staunch acceptance of reality and a willingness to face it with determination. 

Right. And that's very similar to the Stockdale Paradox. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Very, very similar. But it's independent, right? It's completely independent research that that Stockdale paradox of of realistic optimism that that I have to retain the faith that I will prevail in the end. But at the same time, I need to accept that that the harshness or the difficulty that I'm actually in. Right. It's not this Pollyanna optimism where you bury your head under the sand or she'll be right me. 

It adds, We are in the shit here are we are in a bind. This is going to be difficult. And what Stockdale actually said and when he arrived in the Hanoi Hilton, he got the prisoners together. He was a senior officer, and he said, Gentlemen, and this is going to be worse than most of us can imagine, and nobody will get through this alive. And I think we'll be here five years at least. But we will prevail if we band together and we work through this together. 

Right? So that was really, really key. So that's the first one, that control orientation link to the Stockdale Paradox. 

Then the second one is a commitment orientation that that you are absolutely committed to working through these problems. Right. And that is link to data and coaches research that shows that resilient individuals have this belief that life is meaningful and the ability to ascribe heart meaning to hardship. I mean, that has been written about extensively, Viktor Frankl. 

Lots of people have written about that. So that that linking to why this is important and the meaning behind it helps people to be absolutely committed. When stuff is hard, it links back to purpose again. Right. 

Well, Stockdale even talked about this himself, where he said that that what bound together these two the same paradoxical things which were, you know, on the one hand acceptance of my harsh reality, the brutal facts of the situation that I'm in and on the other hand, are not holding belief and optimistic belief, but realistic that I will prevail. He said that the he what bound that together for him was the sense that he was there for a reason. It's just that that that the suffering that he was experiencing must be happening to them because the life needed to teach him something that he hadn't yet learnt and just that lesson had not yet revealed itself to him. And I found and fascinating in moments of suffering and moments of challenge to actually say, well, what is the gift in this that I just haven't yet had the opportunity to unwrap and realize? 

And that came from stock deals and incubation into stoicism. And that that happened when he that, you know, military had sent him to university to do a master's degree in international relations before the Vietnam War. And he had some spare time and he took up a short course in philosophy. And the head of department, they clicked. They were about to see me. And he said to Stockdale, you're a military man. You need to you need to know about stoicism. So every week they talk about stoicism. And when Stockdale laughed, he gave him a copy of which I have right behind me sitting here. 

In fact, I'll grab it at James Bond Stockdale and Courage Under Fire Testing Epictetus doctrines in a laboratory of human behaviour. Right. Which is was really key. And what Stockdale actually said, it's another quote that I burned into my head. He said, I never doubted that I would get out. I never doubted that I would prevail in the turn the experience into the defining event of my life, which, in retrospect, I would not try it. Right. And it's linked to what you talked about earlier on this link to Epictetus. 

His idea that that circumstances don't make us the man. They only reveal him to himself. Right. 

Well, Invictus. The poem by Thomas Henley ends with these two lines. I am the master of my own fate. I am the captain of my own soul. So we may not be able to choose the fatal circumstances we find ourselves in, yet we can choose our response. You said there was a third orientation. So if it's a limitation, commitment, orientation, what was the third orientation? 

The third is a challenge orientation. And I can remember in the military, nobody ever talked about stress. Like we went through some really stressful times, but the word was used was challenge. And this is a bloody big challenge. But we need to overcome this challenge. Right. And it's been shown. I said, I've got a really cool research paper, which I'll send you through and the listeners can that that challenge or threat. If you think something is a threat, it will activate something called the heat API axis. And that is that is there's two elements to your stress response system. 

One is the same axis sympathetic, adrenal, modulate, basically fight or flight, and the hitbox axis is to do with cortisol. Now it turns out that the same axis, that fight or flight actually gives you resources and mental energy to overcome threats and stressors and is a can actually be a good thing that drives resilience bonds. If cortisol is released in long periods of time, it can actually start to damage you. 

And it's been shown that if you think that something is stressful and threatening, it will switch on the Headspace axis and release cortisol. Whereas if you view at the exact same thing as a challenge, it activates a different part of your stress response system that is more adaptive rather than maladaptive. And you're all ideas for. 

Having worry about stress. That stress, you can talk about it as distress or you can talk about it as you stress. So you. 

Stress. 

Stress stressors themselves are neutral. They are neither good nor bad. Hmm. It's how we respond to them. Always struck me that that notion of if we were to go out in an inflatable dinghy to a big wave spot like Mavericks or Jaws and these 40 foot waves imploding. And we can feel the percussion effect of them, you know, through the air that I would be. Even though I surf, I would be, you know, my adrenaline would be going coursing through my sister, my pupils dilating, you know, white blood cells would be rushing to my depression, to my skin. 

All of the sort of stress responses that appear in body that. If a big wave surfer were in the boat with me who was excited by that, they were having the same sort of physiological reaction in some ways, yet their framing of it would be fundamentally different. They would say this, this is a good thing. This is now performance arousal and I'm going to now engage with the experience, whereas I would want to run away from it.

Yeah. And that's the thing that most people don't realize is. But the difference is your perception, right? It's not just how you deal with it. It's also your perception of it, whether you perceive it. So having that that language around challenge, I think is hugely, hugely important. Right. And I'm doing a long term psychological experiment with my kids. Right. Where all of that language. Language is so, so important. Right. We don't realize the power of language a lot of times, and it's particularly important in stressful times. 

So you're telling me that Tyler and Tyler are becoming the new Sartre and Skinner? 

A an experiment. 

Yes. 

Exactly. 

As long as you don't lock them in a box. Okay, we should. You should be acceptable. The seventh theory you spoke about is CV hire and fire. Tell us about that. And how does that contribute to leaders helping to build or allow resilience to actually be cultivated in a time? 

Yeah. So I actually got this from an Ernest Shackleton, the Arctic Explorer. And if people haven't read that story, you know, just read the story. Right. It is one of their greatest ever survival story. Bar none. It is unbelievable. But one of the things that Shackleton and he realized, you know, going on this expedition and there's that advert I can't quite remember the advert, but the advert was pretty forlorn that they'd put it in there. 

And but he realized that the most important thing wasn't necessarily skills because he could teach skills. The most important thing was character. And because you cannot teach character. And it's particularly when the shit hits the fan, someone's character, and really determines how they how they react. And the Stoics talked a lot about character and but and this is the thing Shackleton was very, very savvy with his hiring. So as I said, he hired on character, but he was very, very quick to fire someone if he thought that they didn't have the right character or they didn't fit into their team. 

And because he realized that, that when you're away on difficult, really difficult situations, you need everybody to be completely committed and rowing in the same direction. That is the key thing that we all have to be pulling together. And it goes back to what Stockdale said, that, you know, the only way that we will get through this is is that we are all united. Right? And so that thing of of for leaders, as soon as you realize that you have a bludger in your midst or somebody of poor character is to get rid of them as quickly as possible. 

Now, I realize that this may not be practical, particularly in some of the larger organizations. You know, it can be quite difficult, but it is really, you know, whether you can sit down with these people and have a really frank discussion with them around their behaviours, because particularly in times of stress, if someone is not contributing, that will have a very, very negative effect on the rest of the team members.

And I've seen this happen. I have absolutely seen this happen. And so for me, it is hugely important that that as a as a leader, you have this this idea of savvy hiring and firing because you need your team to all be pulling in the same direction and all be contributing as much as they possibly can. 

Yeah. Jim Collins in Good to great could do great in the research the deep research asset behind that book good to great. And I looked at those organizations that had been actually been able to move from being okay to actually being extraordinary to the ones that are the real market leaders 

and talked about that they paid a lot of attention to, you know, understanding who should be on the bus before you even travelled anywhere. 

Yes. 

Making sure you had the right people on the bus and that you got the wrong people off the bus, because a lot of leaders make that mistake. If they've got this team member who's just not helpful, they're not contributing in a way which is useful. Their behaviours are counterproductive, dysfunctional or even toxic. The belief that a lot of people have is that if you surround that individual with a whole lot of other people who have all the right thoughts, behaviours that that will neutralize that toxic behaviour and the research actually shows that's not true at all. In fact, that toxic behaviour is like an infection and it infects everybody. 

I say it's like a cancer that spreads through the organization. Right. I say that. One last little thing. I remember Jeff Walsh, who was my first corporate client, who I then he was 

I think he was technology operations. He was the senior guy in technology operations and not 13 years ago. But everybody remember he told me this story about there was a monk that came to give a talk and he was talking to people. Somebody asked him a question and he used the analogy. Orion, he said to people, So you all work for this and you have an agreement, I understand, with the organization where you're expected to do certain things and they're expected to pay you. 

And people are like, Yeah, that's correct. And he said, so, so tell me this. Has anybody here ever not been paid? And everyone. No, no, we've always been paid. And everybody said, have the organization ever not paid you 100%? And everybody went, No, I've always been paid 100%. And he says, Well, has anybody ever not given 100% or had just days where they felt like, you know what? I don't feel like it today. I'm going to take a day off. Right. And you know, that whole thing he said that's all he needed to say was that, you know, you've got a contract and the organization is fulfilling on their contract 100% of the time. 

Are you fulfilling on your contract 100% of the time? Right. No, we can't all be. It was an analogy. Right. And we can't all be have 100% of us in all the time. But if you have people that are consistently showing up and only giving 50% or less than that and are actually malingering, they are dragging your entire team down. It can spread like a cancer in the organization. 

Yeah, yeah, it sure can. So, Paul, thank you very much for sharing those seven things. What I really like about it is it's a discrete list of things that people can almost think through as a checklist. And if they're examining their own leadership and asking themselves, you know, am I am I first looking after myself? Because if I if my leadership, the quality of my leadership is being compromised, that's actually going to create, you know, quite ordinary conditions for my team in terms of cultivating their resilience in their ability to feel motivated and bring themselves to the work. 

Am I connecting people and reminding people regularly of that? What's the purpose of this work that we do? Why does it matter? Why might you performing this particular task or facing into this particular adversity really matter? Clarity of expectation. How do we make sure that people know what's expected of them? Because that actually improves the psychological conditions that they're experiencing and allows them to then do something about what is actually being asked of them rather than wondering, you know, what is expected of me and what is it that I'm not being told to code? Allowing people to connect together in a genuine way and support each other. 

Autonomy. Support. So making sure that your leadership provides appropriate amount of choice, self-initiation, showing empathy and listening and openly communicating, seeking and sharing perspective. Orienting around leadership, some making sure that those three types of orientations are all present and control orientation, commitment, orientation and challenge orientation. And I'm this is this is some stuff that I'm not as familiar with. So I'm going to I'm going to go away and have a bit more of a look into that. Also, thank you. And savvy hire and fire. Understand that the character of the people that you bring into your team or that you keep within your team has an enormous impact upon this, the resilience and the psychological well-being of everyone else in that team. 

So pay a lot of attention to it. Hmm. Great. Seven areas. Thank you. 

That's a brilliant summary. I'm going to get a transcript of this of what you just said, that summary. And that's going to be a LinkedIn article for me. 

You summarized it much better than I could have. That was awesome. 

It is. Thank you. Thanks for the positive reinforcement pull. It's another thing that actually contributes to psychological well-being and motivation. So that's a nice little energizer for me. Paul, thank you again for joining me on the extraordinarily latest podcast. It's been wonderful to dig much deeper into sort of some areas that we kind of touched upon last time, but we didn't have the opportunity to go deep on. And what I encourage everyone who's listening to this podcast to do is to look up Paul, look up the Mind Body Brain Performance Institute. You can look up Paul Taylor on LinkedIn. 

He's got a terrific podcast as well, which, you know, I listen to on a regular basis and I think it's weekly. Paul, you're talking to two experts and really interesting people around the world and all sorts of topics that have to do with mind, body, brain and people being able to meet the moment and turn up well and optimizing themselves so that they can kind of live the life that they want to live. And you've got a program coming up as well soon, too. So hopefully if you and Carly are running a program and hopefully this will go to air before that happens and if people want to to enlist, I'd recommend it. 

Thanks, Ged. It's been a pleasure. Absolute pleasure to be on the podcast and chew the fact with you. And let's do it again sometime. 

I'm sure we will. Take care, mate. Talk soon. 

I'm sure you could tell that I really enjoyed that conversation with Paul. It's incredible that whenever I get together with people who share values, share a mission or share an interest in similar topics, that we can release energy in each other, which increases both our motivation and our sustainability to keep doing the work that we care about. And with Paul, I certainly find that I'd also like to make a correction to something that I said in this conversation with Paul when Paul made the comment about raising his children, whom I know very well with certain principles or philosophies or approaches, I made a joke about Sartre and Skinner, whilst B.F. 

Skinner, a behavioural scientist, was accused of running experiments on his own children. That was certainly not true of Jean-Paul Sartre, the first person that I commented upon. I hope you also enjoyed this episode as much as I did. I hope that it provided you with some ideas, some thoughts, some reflections, and maybe some insights about things that you can do to help promote and cultivate resilience amongst your teams. The environment that we're operating in at the moment certainly seems to require it. I'm also quite excited because over the next several weeks I'm having the opportunity to have some podcast conversations with some amazing leaders. 

These are individuals who right now in the world are taking up leadership roles and leading their organizations around purposes that they care about and on missions that they collectively want to achieve. These are leaders operating in complex, volatile, difficult environments, yet nonetheless, they continue to make progress and energize and mobilize their teams to produce extraordinary outcomes. So keep your eyes and ears open for these coming episodes. In the meantime, don't forget that you can find back episodes of the Xtraordinary Leaders podcast on the Xtraordinary Leaders website.

You can also find copies of all of the blog articles that I've been releasing over the last year on that website, as well as some older ones that we've added just recently. That's it for me for this episode. Take care. Lead well.