As relationships mature, holding hands seem to become less of a priority. And that could be a big mistake. There are real benefits to holding hands and this episode begins by explaining what those benefits are. https://www.nytimes.com/2006/10/05/fashion/05hands.html
We may not like to admit it, but just about everyone enjoys a juicy bit of gossip. In fact, we all gossip at least once in a while and that turns out to be a good thing. Gossip serves a lot of useful purposes in life. Frank McAndrew, a leading researcher on gossip joins me to reveal just how gossip works, why most gossip really isn’t all that nasty. He also has some advice on how to gossip better. Frank is a professor of psychology at Knox College in Illinois (https://www.frankmcandrew.com/)
During a busy day, you likely jump from one task to the next with hardly any room to breathe. If that is true, you could be missing out on a great opportunity according to Juliet Funt founder and CEO of The Juliet Funt Group (https://www.julietfunt.com/) who advises Fortune 500 companies. Listen as she explains the importance of creating “white space” in between all the things you do and the benefits of doing so. Juliet is author of the book A Minute to Think (https://amzn.to/3mmsXIv).
Rejection hurts - a lot. Why? Listen as I explain some interesting research that reveals why romantic rejection can be so devastating and how to handle it better if it happens to you. Source: Helen Fisher author of the book Why We Love (https://amzn.to/3g7Ctel)
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This is an unofficial transcript meant for reference. Accuracy is not guaranteed.
Today on something you should know. If you don't hold hands with your mate list,
and discover why you probably should then gossip yeah. It can be nasty, but gossip also serves us well, we are in fact interested in gossip about other people of our same sex that are close to us age. We also found that we liked dirge about powerful
people and rivals, because this is the stuff that we can use to get ahead. Also, today, romantic rejection, why does it hurt so much and if your workday is so busy, you don't have time to think you may want to restructure your day out by doing
things like having permission to take a pause when you pause to recuperate or think or
oxygenate, what you're doing everything that your touching his amplified in its output all this today on something you should know
Are you currently enjoying the show on the stitched up? Then? You need to know. Sticker is going away on august, twenty nine yup going away as in conflict, guy's, dead, rest in peace dinner and thanks for fifteen years of service to the pod cast community, so switch to another pine cast out then follow this show their apple,
spotify or wherever you listen.
something you should now fascinating in the world's top experts and practical advice, you can use your life today, something you should now make, rather, as I welcome,
there's something you should know
do always like it. When I see couples holding hands,
is really one of the few acceptable public displays of affection, and
couples who hold hands may be doing themselves a lot of good in the process. Reach
it shows that physical intimacy of any kind improves any relationship.
It also turns out that people in stressful or threatening situations remain calmer.
Cope better when they hold hands with their mate.
It also seems to have a beneficial effect on pain,
can lower the level of stress hormones that can do damage to your immune system, even monkeys. No,
importance of handholding mug
have been observed, holding hands in reconciliation after a fight- and I
is something you should know
the
as you know, people gossip,
it's just kind of what people do.
And when you say the word gossip it, it does seem to have kind of a negative connotations to it. Gossip is real
talking behind someone else's back its tacky, it's not the cause,
see a thing to do and yet,
all gossip to some extent, and it may in fact be a positive thing that offers real benefits. Frank make in
Who is one of the leading researchers on the topic of gossip, and he is
professor of psychology at knox. College in illinois. Frank welcome to something
should know thanks mike happy to be here so maybe before we start talking about gossip,
should have like a working definition here? What what is it
Well, it is a word gets. Misused lot
and I am always entertained by people who claim that
he never gas, but people who are in the gas business usually define it in the following ways. First of all its talk about, it
person and it has to be an individual that isnt present at the moment. So if I
talking to you. I can't really gas to you about yourself. It wouldn't qualifies gossip. Thirdly,
It's usually information that we can make some kind of judgment about we can approve were disapprove of the information that we're talking about and finally, by definition, it's fun.
we can't resist it. Nobody ever since her.
Gotta go and gossip with my friends. Now it's just inherently entertaining, and it does seem that if you get more than one person together,
meaning two or more and gossip will ensue. It seems that, like it will almost always happen well
absolutely leave the thing that probably matters the most most of us in our lives are other people. What are other people doing? What are the implications for me? What are these other people? Thinking were saying about me. So social talk is really the most.
entertaining and important talk in some have argued. That is one of the reasons we have language in first place so that we can keep up with each other or when you d,
I bet that way. They were merely keeping up with people. It sound
very benign, but when I think of
If there's a nastiness to it, there is a negative connotation to it that this isn't just keeping up with other people. It's in
you know talking about people behind their back, usually not in a very nice way. Is that fair? Oh, it's very fair! When ever I talked to people who find out that I'm a gossip researcher
in that they hear that I sometimes say gossip is an all bad. I get these frowns and the problem is, I think, people defined
gossip in a very narrow way. They only thing
it is negative talk and interesting. We they often find it is something that other people do.
If they're talking about somebody there expressing
sir, you know Mary who bless her heart,
or their shearing important information they dont think of his gossip, but in fact most gossip is actually pay
benign it serves a very valuable social function of, for example, one of the things that make a good citizen.
Is that we know that other people are monitoring what we're doing and that they're talking to other people about it. So, if you're at work and you're tempted to sort of slack off and let other people pick up your share of the load, one of the things that makes you be a good citizen is your the fear of having a reputation solid. So in some ways it's a way of keeping
and why- and it also create, creates a bond of trust if I share some sensitive in
invitation with you? What I'm saying to you is, I trust you with this. I do not think you're going to use this information in a way that is going to come back to hurt me and that creates a bond between us. So there are a lot of positive functions of gossip and, if we're talking about information that positive, if you and I are discussing our coworker Joe and we're wondering, if he's going to get that promotion that just opened up, that's not
get to information about Joe but we're gossiping. I think what people immediately do as they go to the dark place where they think of gossip is just you're.
Making up information, that's negative for the sole purpose of stabbing somebody in the back, so that you can get ahead, and I am not denying the gossip you can be used that way, but that's not all that it is.
Since europe, gossip researcher, what are you research,
to and what are you find me what what is their new to know about gossip
something of an evolutionary psychologist when you see?
it seems to be universal, and people do everywhere. You
that you're onto something about human nature, so if the result
in adaptive about gossip. We ought to be able to make some predictions about what kind of information like what kinds of people we like to hear it about
would spread it too. So I sat up some very simple experiments. Where are we
if we asked people, we give them samples indifferent.
such stories and asked me to rate which
they want to read more about. I which take
the people they want to read them about who they would tell them about and too
make a long story short. As you might expect. We are in fact
twisted in gossip about other people of our same sex that are close to us, an age
so found that we like dirt about powerful people and rivals, because this is the start that we can use to get ahead. On the other hand, we like good
information about allies, friends, relatives, because that stuff tat we can use to get ahead, so
drawn, the information that we see as being useful to us and unfortunately, that is often dirt watching
to me it's interesting, that you say that that it, because a lot of gossip seems idle, like it's just gossip for gossip sagan. Who did you hear about betty and oh bob?
this and that there is no real usefulness to it? It's just who did you hear.
no and there may not be any usefulness in the immediate situation, but by engaging in this on a regular basis with people
If greasing the skids for other people to trust you with information that might be more important and useful down
line. So what you're really doing is setting up the channels.
entailing the relationships that keeps you in the network.
That's one of the reasons why gossip is just inherently entertaining it's fun to talk about bill and Betty, even if you just kind of engaging idle church,
because you never know where that's going to be next, it's just a very engaging sort of thing, but isn't there gossip that is basically used as a weapon
Absolutely and a lot of damage is done by that in the whole social media world. That we live in now with facebook in particular,
There are ways of spreading gas.
On a scale that we're just completely unprepared to deal with, I'm talking about gossip so far as if always, this wonderful thing that keeps society humming,
but there is no doubt about it, it can be used as a weapon. In fact, I, the stereotype, has more than a grain of truth to it.
A females are more likely than males to use gas as a weapon to ask her size. Their rivals to destroy their reputation
It's not that women are nastier people than men. This just happens to be their style of aggression. Males are much likely more likely to punch in the face or engage in some sort of physical violence, but it's called relational aggression. A women use this kind of tactic to deal
with people that they want out of their social circle, is most gossip negative now
I think most gossip is positive in no minister,
is that have ban and done on gas in the last twenty years indicate that most of the talk to people engaged in that can be classified as gossip.
is harmless or even positive. There is
certainly an element of negativity and it can be used in a disruptive sort of way.
When I see offices were workplaces that try to set up new gossip rules. I think you might as well as people to stop breathing, is destined to stop gossiping. It's just so much part of whom we are. It's kind of a show, stop running.
This conversation right, because sooner or later, almost well, almost any, but many converse
genes slip into gossip, or at least gossip becomes part of the conversation. Absolutely it does. I it's hard to imagine a conversation that you're gonna have for more than a minute or two where another person doesn't come into the
because part of the story, as you said in the beginning of this discussion, you can only gossip about someone who isn't there and what.
so often happens, and I guess
were the
in the meanness of gossip comes is when you talk about
when behind their back, because they are not there and then they hear about it and then
what really causes the pain? Yes, it does, and one of the things I've done when I've written about gossip is to describe it as a social skill rather than a character flaw. It's not that it's good or bad necessarily to gossip, but it's bad to be a bad gossip and its two you're getting to be a good gossip. A good gossip is actually usually a popular person, have a reputation for knowing stuff but shearing things very discreetly. They
keep secrets when you need them to another part of the network. Bad gossips are due to different types. One is the type who just instantly blue
jobs, any new information that they ve gotten indiscriminately. They don't care whose
listening and who isn't that they just come out with it and they can't keep a secret and any other kind of bad gossip is the one that is using it as a weapon. Almost like a dagger that turkey,
it hidden under a coat to bring out at a moment's notice and do damage with it. So you want to establish a reputation as being a good gossip rather than a bad gossip, and you don't want to get a rip
Patients, the person whose holier than thou refuses to be part of the gossip network at work, for example, because if you gotta work and just announced people, I'm not gonna, be part of this. What you're saying to them? He is, I don't trust you I d
want to be part of your network, and this isn't going to really, when you many very, very many friends in your workplace, my guest.
is frank. Mc Andrew he is a professor of psychology. It knocks college in illinois and we are talking about gossip.
I want to quickly share with you one of my favorite pod casts it's called masters of scale and its filled with essential.
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Co, founder of linkedin, he chats with
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of scale to hear the stories behind these powerhouse entrepreneurs, along with their hard won,
wisdom and advice again. The podcast
is called masters of scale and you can follow the show where ever you get your pod cas so frank. You said it's probably not
It idea to announce in an organisation that you have no interest in the
ass up going on in that organization innovation. But there are some people who are not comfortable with gossip and who seem to steer clear when they hear gossip they leave they, don't they just don't wanna get down in the dirt, because because often it seems that it just as no good that that it's no good will come from this. So I'm gonna not participate,
That's right in the key is to distinguish between doing that selectively when it is negative, nasty, dirty stuff versus just extricating yourself whenever any kind of light, hearted social conversation,
comes up, one of them is, can work in your favour. The other one is not. When people talk about. Oh,
he did this thing or she wore that thing or bob. You know had too many drinks, and did this that I mean it's. It's hurtful I mean, did the only
what's the point of bringing it up other than you know, you, and I are gonna bond over the fact that that this and eighty it will certainly the person who's been
What about as an idiot is never going to think it's good, but it can serve positive functions for some people. So imagine yourself getting a new job, your young person right out of college or starting to work in an office. There are a lot of things. People don't tell you right off when you start a new job. How formally should you dress? Is it ok to use the boss's first name when you're
talking to him or her. Oh, when five o clock comes round, can you just leave worry supposed to hang around a little bit longer so by turning into the gossip network in here
what's being said about people who engage in behavior, ay or behaviour, be the new person is getting socialized into the rules of the group, their learning, how to be an employee there. So
ass, if mom in Jos, immediate and we're talking about what an area that he is, maybe
that's not really doing anything for you were I and certainly not for job, but it me
be serving a positive social function for some of the people involved. Often you hear when people here that they are being gossiped about, they will say.
The person, if you have something to say about me, say it to my- have the guts to say it to my face. Don't
around my back and gossip. Is that
legitimate request. Well, it depends upon what the information he is, but a lot of times. The gossip is you
You're talking about something the person already knows to be true about themselves,
What you're trying to do is alert other people to the dangers. Perhaps at this person poses some
he is a cheater- were an undesired
a social partner in some way or other? You wanna put people on alert about that if you're in an office where there's a guy who's, sexually harasses female employees,
I'm going in saying to his face. You shouldn't be
This probably isn't got changes behavior, but you
want to give a heads up to some of the people who may be potential victims. If you have reason to think that there is in danger.
People who are known as gossips is it because they do it too much or
they do it incorrectly, and how much is too much and do it like one of the parameters
what are the rules of gossip yeah? And I think that goes back to the question. I don't think it's a question of too much or too little as much as a question of doing it well versus doing it poorly. So the person who gets labeled with that tag you're a gossip,
often the person whose engaged in a lot of mean spirited back stabbing or they're just
clueless lie, going around saying, inappropriate things about people with no for no good reason. Those people that wouldn't we would refer to as gas
are the person who is doing well stays on
the radar and we don't think of them as gossip, we think of them as just a good social companion, a good team player, and
that's where you want to be. If you can keep yourself in that zone,
will it almost seems like if
if you want to live by the rule of, if you dont have something nice to say, don't say it at all: you're not much of a gossip, then because it does seem that so much gossip is that stuff under the rug that people's don't talk about because
It isn't real nice, that's right and I dont think its is as important to be the person who spreads gossip, but you certainly need to be turned into the gossip net,
work. When I talk about this as an evolved human trade, I use the example of the societies that we evolved in through most of human history. We lived in relatively small groups may be a hundred. Fifty people are so to be successful in this group to it
status to yet needs to be able to hang onto allies? You
to know what other people were apt. You had to know who was sleeping with her.
You had to know who had powerful friends and allies you had no, who had access to resources.
and if you were unconcerned with those things, if you just didn't care, you didn't do very well, you got there
behind where the descendants of busy bodies the people who were fascinated by what
going on behind the scenes with other people are the ones who did well. They knew when there was an opportunity to exploit, they knew who they could trust and who they couldn't trust and people who were interested in gas people who just were out of
loop, I fell behind so I say we're descendants busybodies because by definition our ancestors were successful enough to eat
passing those genes on, and here we are, I always wonder
in any social circled. The person who is considered the gossip does that person know that other people, think of them as a gossip, r, p d. Do people know what they're doing when anne and usually,
When somebody's label a gossip, it's not it's not a compliment its it. Somebody who's got their nose in everybody's business. In there talking about it behind their back, do they know their
perceive that way. If they ve been bad enough
at that they ve been labelled a gossip. My guess is they probably art aware that other people.
Something about them for being gossip, because
We do use that as a negative label. You never. You
his dad as an adjective for somebody in a complementary way? Now I think there are people who are aware that they're kind of gossipy and they may sort of playfully or self deprecating they say about themselves. Oh
I'm a terrible gossip, but I think people who have a really bad reputation are probably walking.
Around oblivious to the fact that other people think about in this way it
seeing that there's a two kinds of gossip there's gossip about,
but we know people we work with people we work for, but
in our circle and then there's celebrity gossip and peoples. It is people seem to be real into like one hour's celebrities up to so
what's going on there? What's going on, there is our brains, are unprepared for mass media and celebrities? Celebrities didn't exist,
in the world that we have all been. If you know a lot about somebody by definition, that was a socially important person. It was somebody there was in your life that had an effect on your life and what they did matter to you. Well, in the twenty first century, we live in this world of celebrities, where we know
awful lot about these strangers. Are you probably know a lot more about a great many celebrities, then,
you knew about your next door neighbour and this tricks, our brains, are consciously. We know these people should mattered
was, but the fact that we know a lot already feeds the beast makes
I want no more. We can help ourselves and we d
I a one sided, what's called a paris social relationship with these,
they don't know we exist
we sure, know a lot about them, and so I think,
This fascination we have with the lives of celebrities, is kind of a a byproduct or an accidental side effect, but there is kind of a side effect
that. Are you know I've never spoken for day, but I think we could probably worked lunch together and sit down and talk about Donald.
trump brother politicians or movie stars or people there
sort of known com, and I guess you can think of them, his friends and walk, and so
they provide a safe way into real relationships with real people in your life. While I certainly approve
the explanation and the depth you went into about gossip because I think most people,
like me, think of gossip, is, is relatively unnecessary, pretty nasty and something that people probably shouldn't do, but clearly there are benefits to gossip in it it's good day. Here both sides of the story, frank
Mc Andrew has been my guest. He is a leading researcher on the topic of gossip and he is a professor of psyche.
Oh at knox college in illinois. Thank you right thanks. My best part of my day to day. Thank you,
on any
given day particularly a work day? It would be
a call to go very long during that day. Without somebody telling you how busy they are everybody's busy, I'm
a you're busy, there's all there's a lot of business
going on
and we or or many of us have a tendency to jump from one busy thing to the next, without barely catching our breath in between and
herein lies a missed opportunity, those times in between things
according to juliet fund jew.
It is a speaker and adviser to fortune five hundred companies she's found,
and c o of the juliet fund group and she's author of a book called a minute to think, and
he believes that those moments in between tasks in meetings in projects those moments
be golden may. If you treat them right, I Juliet welcomed
something! You should know thanks again
to be here, so I think people have heard of the concept of white space on a page of text. That
text is easier to read and more likely to be read if there is
out of white space rather than cram as many words as you can on a page, and you take that concept of white space and apply it to time. So explain what you mean.
Sure the idea would be. Let's say you have the zoo, michalek lifestyle that we ve all been living and you have back to back meetings. If you look at your physical, your actual calendar you'll see colors, you won't see. Any white you'll see blocks a come right up against each other, but if there were white space on their calendar, if there were a five to ten to fifteen minutes slice interlaced in between those meetings, everything that has been stressing us out would be less. We would have time to think about
meeting preceding the meeting that follows. We might have time to take a humane bio break or have a snack, and we would be different in the next interaction that we showed up in, because we would have been able to refuel before we do
then again, and so something as simple as space between meetings or even shorter space. Before answering a question before
walking in the door when you ve, just driven up in your rushing in from work. These little moments interlaced through the day at amplify and accelerate everything that we do.
Why? What happens in those little spaces between the things
What are we know is going on and sounds good, but but what what's really happening? Sure what we can look at it from this,
our point of view, a neurological point of view. There is a lot of different sides of it. So from a visceral point of view, if you, if you have every lists, are out there just take a minute and just how they will realise that from a recuperative angle, they ve probably been craving that at least for the last eighteen months may be longer, but we all desperately just in need of power
mission to just take a minute? It's like. If you're in the gym lifting waits you do ten and then you take a rest and then you do ten. You don't do a hundred and fifty in a row and then take a break, which is how we work so there's the recuperative angle, which is very important, but there is also the creative and strategic.
Angle where, in those breaks, we're doing a what scientists have noticed is disconnecting from the primary task and then reconnecting to come back to it, with more focus and and activity in arms in default, neural network. In fact, you can
see this. If you looked at an mri scanner during a moment when someone was taking a supposed pause, there's all this activity that has been scientifically linked to incite to introspection
to memory and creativity. All in a moment were kind of seems like we're doing nothing.
and the greatest leaders I can rattle off stories of of people who take this kind of thinking in transition time for granted, and it it amplifies what they do. Every single day
while in the flip side of that- and I think everyone is experience this- that, when you're working on something maybe up against a deadline or something in your really trying hard to get it done, though,
harder. You work the worse. The work
that you really need to get away to take a break and that's where the ideas come right in its that there's
a very famous writer Mihai cheeks in me. High wrote the book called flow, which is about when we get in that creative flow seat, and he said the one thing that differentiates people who can easily get into flow is how much uncommitted time they have left over for novelty,
to appear in their mind or in their day and as create
We are innovators. This is what we want, certainly, but that that time in between
it also has a really really strong impact on the culture of work, and there is no time in history where it's ever been more important to think specifically about that cause, wherein this is a most spectacular opportunity for redesign and companies. We've ever been in all the the
or engine parts have been taken out there on the driveway were examining everything were redesigning work, and so we also now can
insert this spaciousness this oxygen into the way that work
works all day long, and maybe we could make work, not the most miserable part of people's life by doing things like what
doing things like having permission to take a pause when you pause to recuperate or think or oxygenate what you're doing everything that your touching his aunt
fight in its output, so I ll give you an example of one of the wonderful examples of space
this gentleman named John John, as a security guard at a company that prides itself on patents,
They do a lot of innovations. They have a lot of patents he's a sick.
Purity guard, but he also happens to be
I who leads the company in the recorded amount of innovative patterns- and we talked about how
His day is ninety five percent uncommitted time. He is not hampered by the typical tasks that weak
all work, and that liberty now is very creative, smart person, but that liberty brings him too.
Different level of contribution and the punchline of the story is two different times he was promoted from
thirty into innovation and two different times. He went back to security, because
in innovation, he kept being assigned all this work.
getting in the way of him being able to think any just couldn't predict produce the same results he's also
security guard who has more patents than anybody else in the yes,
more than any one else in the innovation department is a fortune two hundred company. It's not a small potatoes organization, he's a brilliant guy, but
Could the argument be made that the amount of liberty and open time that he has to be thoughtful is amplifying that process? I believe so and John is not
story, there's all sorts of leaders. If you look at Phil night from nike used to have-
designated share in his living room. That was only four daydreaming and jack well to everyone thought of as a g as this driven
our driving workaholic, a guy.
He spent an hour and a half every single day. He called it. Looking out of the window Time- and he would
Do that old fashioned thing that many of us remember feet up on the desk skipped staring at a window, concocting cooking dreaming.
We have no respect with that thoughtfulness posture any more and its
it's almost shameful. You have to hide around the corner like a smoker to think these days, but but that that tells you a little bit about how much we value thoughtfulness
but there has to be a balance between that and productivity. You still have to get the work done. We cannot all just look out the window in and daydream all day, because then nothing happens, yeah! That's not that
well, that's not the live problem that I see an empathize with every day at work, but we do have to understand the difference between activity and productivity, and this is a crime
called delineation. If you and I sat in a room all day long in the conference room, let's say we put out danish and we sat and we thought we thought we didn't really do very much
But eight hours later, one of us had a spectacular idea that would have been a very productive day:
I wouldn't have been a very active day
corporations and companies, even entrepreneurs who have that business gene in them were over indexing on activity and checking
boxes and moving inaction. There's plenty,
that we're never gonna have a risk that there's not enough of that. But this other element must be present, an
Our dream is to insert it in small, manageable sips throughout the day not to have
eight hours in a row of ponderous window time, but just to have some just to be able to stand back and have some objectivity about the work that we're doing, because you hope what will happen.
well, I don't hull by see what happens. We ve been doing this work for many years, incorporation so there's on the level of the plot. If you did the kind of plot and sub plot, the plot is that work becomes more efficient cause people think before they.
So we see measurable results in improvements in productivity, increased strategic thinking, time, ridden reduction of stress in the workplace. All sorts of different,
happen when people don't have to be on a maniacal treadmill every minute, but then the sub
What is really what moves me is real people
sitting in real desks, who have had their chests compressed for so long can just breathe again. They can take a minute,
think about an idea or maybe remember why they do the work they do in re access that
meaning that vision inside of them. This work was supposed to be fine in a lot of different ways that it isn't for a lot of
people. So when somebody listening to you says okay, so how do I do this like? Do use
structure vision? Basically,
downtime into the day and then and then do you force yourself to do it or do you just? Let me a hot. What do I do different in the course of the day,
training wheels protocol that we teach is called the wedge. So if you
imagine I'm holding my fingers like a triangle going up, though
it is a little portion of open time. It could be five
seconds a minute, ten minutes o wedge inserted in between two activities that without it would have been connected
think about. We talked about between a meeting at a meeting a little wedge between a fire drill and diving into
between getting an email that is hurt your feet,
These are worries you and responding between being asked. A question and answering these are all moments were tiny oxygenation opening open
can occur, and we want to really take those breaks when we are taking the longer wenches where we may be are taking our lunch or where were really taken some thoughtful time. We want to do it in a way that supports prince
we talk a lot about about eating just eat when you're eating lunch, if you're not with other people, try
abstain from watching something or listening to something in just allow that to be recuperative white space time.
It doesn't have to be a lot. This is one of the most important parts is you can start with literally, if we did, I want won't waste your time, but if we did fifteen seconds, you be shocked at how long that fell to just let there be some openness and you're hoping like how do you know
How do you know it worked like so? What's gonna be different? Now? How am I going to feel differently? Because I did it right. It's like like oxygen or like a new trend that you ve been missing. Consistent use of white space will make you less stressed. It should make you more focused. It will actually make you more productive because you're using moments to decide what you do next at work, instead of just doing doing doing doing doing so, you'll get lost in
more less rabbit holes of unnecessary work in teams, which is how we do a lot of our work. We also see measurable results in that low value category that I mentioned. We see less emails, we see less meetings, we see shortened or reduced reporting
he's flurries of nonsense activity in the work day largely come because we're just not thoughtful about what we're assigning or choosing or touch
and you slow things down, and you add some white space and the way that work is selected becomes different and we have lost
dad at a show those changes in real teams in real time. It seems
that what often happens in an office is like you know. Let's say you, you plan out five minutes in
we meetings to do your white space sing. If that's it, that's the verb white spacing.
white, spacing yeah sure. Well, let's go with it, but but so after
first meetings over what often happens is bob comes up and says: hey Julia,
you got a minute and then that five minutes gives eaten up with bob telling you
what he did on his weaken crews,.
And then what you're whites base while there there
definitely will be moments like that, but what most people experiences? They don't have the five minutes in the first place. So when bob
as do you, have a minute. That means they're, just gonna, be five minutes late to their next meeting and rushing in and frenzied off
the time they also
in case. They, like bob, would miss the beautiful opportunity to slow down and have a human moment with bob and to hear actually
here did you swim with dolphins and what was the crews and did they have those big platters of food in and that is part of,
What fuels us as interpersonal teams, is being able to be with each other? And now
have the. What is that you?
what they put around the oxen, where they're just pushing them through that, I'm probably getting this all wrong, pushing them through the rice field, every single second, the beautiful open time also leads to the ability to be interpersonal with each other and many fine
not a benefit. So you ve been doing this because I can imagine people listening thinking. Well, this all sounds great, but but where is the evidence? I mean the worse the proof that this really is helping not just wasting time, and you have the evidence. Yes,
yeah. There's lots of studies. That show I mean we could go into some of the ways of what one of my favorite ones is that there is a stir
That shows that we experience something in white space called beneficial, forgetting, which is a term that I just love. That means that when you stop a creative purse
Your brain is allowed to disentangle itself from the thing that it was doing before and come back again with a fresh perspective, so someone
people are working on problems at work. We can't seem to get this product to sell. We can't seem to get this channel to work and we can't seem to develop this relationship
when they take a moment of time. Studies show that this beneficial forgetting allows them to come back stronger.
There is also a wonderful study where they put for different people into groups, and they had them do or repetitive task. Only one of the four groups had the ability to take very small breaks during the period of
work, and they were the only one. Who's productivity and output was consistent by the end of the fifty minutes that they were working so
terms of the british gray. We say grey matter like swayed space at stats, absolutely been proven, but all you have to do it.
make a human being
I mean there's a woman in the book in a we call her. The peanut
manager, because she,
he works with a jar of peanut butter on her desk all day long because she can't give herself the liberty of taking one
and this is the way she worked for a very long time- she's just one person that many many will see a mirror.
In that just when they gave
when she gave herself permission to make work
what a grueling marathon all day, long, that her headaches disappeared, that her errors in client process procedures in her team started going down that things got better an end. People just have to try to its like one of those free kafka samples. Once you once you taste a little
space you'll want more wool. This whole conversation, I think, makes you stop and think
Why we go to work in the first place is that it's not to go somewhere and be busy all day. That's or maybe there
This is why some people go to work, but that's probably not the best definition of work. It will we go to work
a contribution? So, yes, business,
I would say it's a form of an enemy that we do. Fight in. Our work also said something that I've struggled with. My entire life
it's. Probably why I'm so interested in this work. I I I was
hold that when I was seven years old, they wrote a story called em busy forever and turned it
was suffering. And so
it's been a very long time and my raw
stayed. Naturally, if I didn't have these tools is that I would just keep moving and probably not be very thoughtful about what I was touching and that speed.
would also detract from my ability to be a mom and human and all sorts of other things that I care about. So I'm in the trenches with people, in my experience you asked me for proof, is my own personal proof is that when there is space that the whole day
feels very different and you'd determined the amount of time in your white space. How I mean how? How is it? Sometimes it's a minute. Sometimes it's five minutes because of one cell.
their productivity gang wants to have very prescribed rules. People say: should there be timers and how many times a day it's a
little bit like learning to watch your own.
hunger and understand the difference between hunger and craving in society is eighty six.
They get that when wrong, but being satiated the white space time that you should take
is as much as you need to feel better. So for some people that is thirty
seconds once in a while, through the day for some people
Obviously we have a lot of executives who take an hour because they think that they can't do any thinking time. That's deepen rich invaluable in less than that and everywhere in between
we want to be doing is approaching it from two angles: the intellect and the visceral from the intellect. You could look at your day if I
you screen shared your calendar right now, and I saw your calendar, I could
if there was enough white who just looking for the actual white on the calendar,
and if there was an I'd, be able to guess with enormous certainty, whether your day would be flexible and fluid or whether we feel pressed and rushed and stressful that's the intellectual side. So we look at our camp
years ago, I need a couple white slices in here and then the
Israel scientists, were sitting at our desk and were just having that feed.
Well. Well, I need an express so or I hate it can
bar I'm, gonna check my email to have the dopamine goose me up here and instead often we just need to take a strategic pause, what it does
seemed to make sense of anybody whose had those
is where you just going from one thing to the next, and you don't have time to breathe you can.
Imagine how that day would go differently. If you,
if you plan those white space breaks in between all the events Juliet fund.
has been my guest, she is a speaker and an adviser to fortune five hundred companies. She's found
and ceo of the juliet fund group and the name of her book is a minute to think
which, by the way, was nominated for the next big idea club, which is curated by Malcolm Gladwell, Adam grant Dan pink ends.
And cane and
we'll find a linked to that book at amazon in the show notes. Thank you. Juliet, thanks for being here. Wonderful will, thank you so much for having
If you
ever had someone reject you break up with.
someone. You were in love with
Well, you know it can mess with your brain in
study. Researchers, looked at brain scans of subjects who had recently been rejected by their partner and who
still in love with the person who rejected them and hope that they might return what they found. Is that romance
rejection stimulated the same parts of the brain is cocaine and other addictions, in other words,
romantic love acts much like an addiction in the brain, and this helps
explain why behaviors by people who have been rejected, like stalking, are often differ.
To control the good news, is that time?
evidently heels the hurt after appear
It is time the subjects were shown photos of the person who had rejected them in those parts of the brain
it showed so much activity before had quieted down in that
is something you should know. If
whenever asks you to recommend a pod, castor, ask what podcast you listen too. I hope you'll tell them.
Thing you should know and ask them to
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Transcript generated on 2023-08-20.