About this episode
In this episode of The Future of Work® Podcast, Daniel Lamadrid speaks with Jen Fisher, a globally recognized workplace wellbeing expert, author of Hope Is The Strategy, founder and CEO of The Wellbeing Team, and Deloitte US’s first Chief Wellbeing Officer. Together, they explore why burnout is often a symptom of something deeper: hopelessness in the workplace. Jen shares why hope is not a vague emotion but a measurable, actionable strategy that helps people move through uncertainty, build momentum, and reconnect to meaningful work.
The conversation covers what leaders still get wrong about wellbeing, why perks alone cannot solve burnout, how boundaries actually improve performance, and why vulnerability at work needs to be redefined. From leadership communication and trust to AI anxiety and the expectations of younger generations, this episode offers practical insight into how organizations can build cultures where people feel seen, supported, and able to thrive. It is a timely conversation about leadership, wellbeing, and what the future of work must become if it is going to sustain people rather than drain them.
About Jen Fisher
Jen Fisher is a global authority on workplace wellbeing, author of the new book Hope Is The Strategy: The Underrated Skill That Transforms Work, Leadership, and Wellbeing, host of The WorkWell Podcast, and the founder and CEO of The Wellbeing Team. As Deloitte US’s first chief wellbeing officer, she pioneered a groundbreaking, human-centered approach to work that gained international recognition and reshaped how organizations view wellbeing. From her personal experiences with burnout and cancer to her role as a trailblazer in wellbeing intelligence and co-creator of WellQ360, Jen has dedicated her career to helping leaders build work cultures where people can thrive—physically, mentally, and emotionally. Her work challenges outdated systems and champions a vision of work that sustains people rather than depletes them.
What you’ll learn
- Why Jen Fisher believes many workplace burnout symptoms are actually signs of hopelessness.
- What makes hope a strategy rather than a feeling.
- How leaders can bring people along during change instead of making work feel like something being done to them.
- Why workplace wellbeing programs fail when they ignore workload, culture, and leadership behavior.
- How boundaries help people perform better instead of slowing them down.
- What “operational vulnerability” looks like in healthy, high-performing teams.
- Why trust must come before leaders can accurately assess burnout or hope on their teams.
- What younger generations are teaching organizations about boundaries, work, and the future of leadership.
Transcript
Jen Fisher
[ 00:00:00,000 ]Why are you still burning out? I think the biggest tell that I tell leaders is if 60 or 70% of your workforce is saying that they experience burnout on a regular basis, that’s not an individual problem. There is something going on.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:00:15,540 ] In your workplace ecosystem, that is creating this as an outcome.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:00:22,370 ] Hey, everyone. Welcome back to the Future of Work podcast. I’m really excited to be speaking with Jen Fisher today. And we’re going to be talking about leadership and hope and how those two relate.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:00:35,270 ] Jen, it’s amazing to have you. Thank you. Welcome.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:00:38,230 ] Thanks for having me on. I’m excited for this conversation.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:00:41,410 ] I’m excited too, especially since we’re going to be talking about hope. And I think these days, what is hope? But we’ll get into that.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:00:49,370 ] I’m really excited and honored, as I said. Jen, you were Deloitte’s first chief well-being officer in the U. S. — that’s a very symbolic title, especially when it’s uh it’s a structural uh change that the company was making back then. Right? Uh, yeah. What was broken do you think in traditional leadership models that made that role necessary?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:01:12,050 ] Yeah, it’s a great question. I think it was.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:01:17,430 ] I’ll. I’ll answer this from both a personal perspective and also an organizational perspective. So I, I think you know, well, for me, it was a um kind of the intersection of my own personal experience with pretty extreme burnout and needing to take a leave of absence, take some time off of work, reset the role that work played in my life, and just figure out how to get myself.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:01:50,610 ] Healthy and well, both physically and mentally, and come back to work in the same environment that led to my burnout.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:02:03,740 ] And figure out how to do those things differently. And that also intersected at a time, it was 2015, 2016.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:02:17,240 ] You know we were at a pivotal moment in the workplace, not dissimilar to where we are today. Um, where technology was really becoming embedded into everything that we did, um, and now it’s AI. And so, you know, they’re Yo. people were people were struggling, we were trying to figure out different behaviors and norms, you know. There is excitement around the fact that you could work at the beach, but should we really be working when we’re at the beach?
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:02:50,990 ] Thank you.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:02:51,060 ] So those things kind of really came together and created this perfect storm, this need to step back. Focus on, okay, well, what are our norms and behaviors going to look like? What are the things that we’re doing institutionally at an organizational level and on our teams that are creating negative well-being outcomes for people, and how can we do that better and do that differently? But I will say that, when I started in the role, largely my focus was on— you know, do we have the right programs, tools, and resources? Are we teaching people, you know, the right skills in order to take care of themselves? We largely didn’t kind of think about the organizational aspects of what was burning people out. We were saying, ‘Hey, just take care of yourself, and you won’t burn out.’
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:03:44,790 ] Yeah.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:03:45,140 ] and so so much has now changed that was, you know, that was 11 years ago, and so now we know a lot more, but that was really the origins of it. It was kind of this, this intersection of my own personal need and and coming back into an environment where I recognized, you know, that there was so much about the the work environment that I was in and just the broader work environment in general that it hadn’t culture. Yeah. I mean, we hadn’t changed the way we were working for a hundred years. We just layered all kinds of technology on top of it, which didn’t necessarily make us better. It made us worse.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:04:20,950 ] Exactly. And look, I mean. You were set to change not just an environment but like a culture and a system that you just said was was working well for a hundred years. And most companies are in the mindset of, ‘Well, we’ve been doing this for a hundred years. Let’s go another hundred years.’ But you know, and who better to lead this than someone who was actually experiencing that lack of wellness? Because, like you said, it’s not just that. I mean, we all experience it. I think even Deloitte’s own research, your own research from Deloitte, established that 77% of employees experience burnout, at least at some point.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:02,580 ] Burnout to me is a breaking point. I’ve been there, and I’ve also struggled. I’m pretty sure most people these days experience it at some extent.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:14,190 ] But kudos, kudos to you and Deloitte, because, um, I think, like you said, a lot of companies say, ‘Okay, we’re doing wellness now.’ And they put, like, billboards and, you know, like, here’s the coffee.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:05:26,150 ] We check the box.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:27,810 ] Exactly. Um.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:31,020 ] So that’s really interesting.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:33,850 ] And look, as we segue into Hope, you’ve, um, you’ve said, ‘Hope isn’t just a feeling’ and I’m really curious to learn more about this. Um.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:45,190 ] You say it’s a business strategy.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:49,390 ] How so?
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:05:51,550 ] For leaders who still see hope or well-being as soft, how do you frame it in terms they can’t ignore?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:06:02,370 ] Yeah, so, um, well, if you haven’t figured it out about me yet, I, um, I am the kind of person that really likes to push back against societal and institutional norms. And so the title of my book is Hope is the Strategy, and it is a direct pushback on the the framing that we’ve always heard, which is hope is not a strategy. Um and you mentioned burnout and the prevalence of burnout. In my book, in my book in the very beginning, I actually argued that. While I do think we’re seeing an increase, I know for a fact we’re seeing an increase in burnout perspective, I argue, is actually hopelessness. So let’s start with what hope is, why it’s a business strategy, and then, and then, that I think will lead us into why I think what we’re seeing is hopelessness. So the research, you know, the kind of if you will, the godfather of of hope theory is C. R. Snyder and he and many others that have researched hope as a science will tell you that the reason that hope is a strategy and not a feeling is it’s a cognitive process.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:07:14,870 ] And the way I like to think about it is it’s a very specific and sophisticated way to set goals. So real hope requires you to have a goal and to be to be very clear about what that goal is. It can’t be, ‘I’m gonna win the lottery’ and then kick back your feet, you know, go buy a ticket and, you know, kick your feet back up and sit on the couch. Like that’s not hope.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:07:43,550 ] I hope I get a promotion. Right. And then just not do anything.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:07:47,050 ] Maybe that’s stupid. I mean, I don’t know.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:07:51,210 ] Get it?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:07:51,510 ] Yeah, it’s definitely wishful thinking. So, it requires you to have a very specific goal. Being very clear about that. What that goal is. Then it says you need to identify multiple ways or pathways in which you can reach that goal. And so, not just one way in which you can reach that goal. Typically, three or four or maybe even more. And the reason behind that is oftentimes we state, you know, we set out on a goal, we set out to do something, and we go down a path, and we get blocked. There’s a barrier. Or it doesn’t work, and we get frustrated. We give up. We, you know, whatever it is that happens. Well, hope would tell you. Okay, well, you went down this path, it didn’t work out, but you already identified two others. So just keep going, right. And so that’s kind of how you cultivate this forward momentum. Hope, to me, is always about identifying and taking what’s the very next step. The third and probably most important thing with hope is that hope requires you to take action. And that’s why I said you can’t just kick back and sit on the couch and put your feet up.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:08:54,650 ] Um, it requires you to understand what your ability or your agency is to take action towards that goal, and then it requires you to actually take that next step. And so, how often, when we’re setting goals for ourselves and most especially in the workplace, when we set our goals at the beginning of the year, we do not sit down and say, ‘OK, here’s the goal. Here’s three ways I’m going to get here. And here’s how I actually can take, what I’m actually going to do about it.’ And start to take action. We set goals in the beginning of the year. We do a bunch of stuff. And at the end of the year, we look at our goals and we’re like, ‘Wow, those don’t even make any sense anymore.’ You know, because so much has changed. And that’s what I mean. And that’s why it’s a business strategy, because I think a lot of what’s happening in the workplace today is: We have these big, lofty goals and transformation. So much about work is changing, especially with AI. Um. You know.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:09:55,650 ] Our leaders, we have forgotten how to bring people along on the journey. We have forgotten to help people identify.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:10:05,170 ] What their goal, pathway, and agency is in this transformative world, right? And so, um, you know, I tell a lot of business leaders that look— your transformation strategy might be the best transformation strategy in the whole world. But if nobody gets on board, if you haven’t convinced people that tomorrow is going to be better than today because of your strategy, you’re going to have a really hard time implementing that strategy. People have to be hopeful about it. They have to believe in the strategy. And we tend to kind of forget that, unfortunately, in the workplace today. And that’s why I argue. People are feeling hopeless. People feel like things are being done to them and not done with them or for them or at least not with their best interest in mind. And so a lot of people are saying, ‘Well, what I do doesn’t matter. They don’t care about me.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:11:05,160 ] You know, I don’t feel valued here.’ All of those statements are statements of hopelessness and hopelessness can lead to burnout.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:11:13,700 ] And if you add, I mean, definitely, but if you add the additional layer of hopelessness outside of work, it just piles up, especially these days, there’s a lot going on. And you said people feel like things are being done to them in spite of them. Uh, That’s happening a lot right now.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:11:35,270 ] It’s happening a lot.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:11:36,210 ] We won’t get into it, but we all know the politics and this and that.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:11:41,570 ] It’s just layers and layers of hopelessness, and I do understand why that can lead to burnout. Hey, it happened to me recently, you know? Um, there came a point I was, I was working, I was sending my emails and scheduling meetings. And at the same time, it’s like the war here, and this, and that, and the files of this person. And I was just like. What’s the point? I’m here, like, scheduling meetings. Maybe we don’t live to see tomorrow.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:12:10,110 ] I’m sort of understanding a little bit more how you argue that hope fits into all of this, because another question I have is.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:12:18,630 ] Does hope come from within?
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:12:21,300 ] Or can hope be transferred? Because you talk about leaders being hope dealers. What does that look like? I mean, you’ve sort of mentioned that it’s transferring that vision and that empowerment, I guess, believe not just in me, but in what we’re doing.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:12:40,330 ] How does that look like? And what happens when, at a leadership position, there’s someone that’s just not optimistic and can’t or won’t do that? Does it end there? You know?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:12:51,080 ] Yeah, um, so, so I think it’s both. I do think that it does come with from within. Um, if you if you think back about kind of what I said the three things that are required to cultivate hope, you do have to do some of that for yourself. I mean, you can’t have somebody else identify.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:13:14,670 ] What your agency is.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:13:16,150 ] I hope someone gives me hope. You can’t do that.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:13:19,620 ] So, so it does have to come from within, but I think that the the beautiful thing about hope, like I said, is hope is not.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:13:31,670 ] You don’t have to identify every single step in the strategy or in the plan. You just have to be able to say, ‘What’s the very next step I can take?’ If you’re feeling hopeless, what can I, what can I do about what’s within my control? I can’t control war. I can’t control climate change. I can’t control whose names are in what file. Like, I can’t— I can’t personally, cannot control any of those things. But what can I control? What can I do within my own spheres of influence as a human being, as a person, as a colleague, or a leader that does help me feel better, that does help other people feel better. And so it’s both. I think you have to be able to find it within you. But what the research also says is that hope does grow in community, right?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:14:31,350 ] When you are feeling hopeless, actually, one of the best things that you can do is spend time with others and help them cultivate hope because that’s a very hopeful thing to do.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:14:44,140 ] You know, like, and and so one of the biggest pieces of research is that children and this translates to the workplace. But children most often learn about hope or become high hope individuals because of their parents and so they learn hope from their parents and they learn it through boundaries, consistency, and gosh, I’m gonna forget the The third one. Well, they learned three things. Boundaries, consistency, and the word. Blank.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:15:18,040 ] We’ll add it later. Yes.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:15:19,600 ] It’s in the book. I feel like it starts with a C. It’ll probably come to me as soon as I stop trying to find it. But if you think about that, that’s that’s also how we learn in the workplace. That’s how we learn behaviors and norms and what’s accepted and how we get promoted and how we feel like we belong. We learn that from others. In particular, we learn that from modeling.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:15:47,070 ] The behaviors and the language of our leaders.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:15:51,420 ] Yes.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:15:52,439 ] That’s how we learn the culture. So kids learn it from their parents. We learn it from our leaders. We learn it from our colleagues. And so in the book, I talk about, you know, I have a whole chapter on language and words that kill hope and words that build hope and create hope. And some people have challenged me. He said, ‘Oh, this is just a linguistics game. Like this, this, this can’t really matter. But language, look, behavior absolutely matters But how we communicate with one another is so powerful, especially in a digital environment, you know, because we read emails in the emotional state that we’re in, not necessarily in the state that the person sent it. Right. So. When we say things like, we value innovation. I want you to bring me your ideas, and then you bring me your ideas. And I say we don’t have time for that, or let’s be realistic— you get shut down. Right. And so children learn from their parents.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:16:53,320 ] Okay, I’m not going to bring that up again. You want me to be innovative, but when I’m innovative, you tell me no.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:17:01,030 ] Same thing happens in the workplace when I bring an idea to my leader or my colleague, and they don’t take the three minutes to say, ‘What interests you about this idea?’ Why do you know we have a lot going on? Where do you think we could fit this in? Just get curious about where this person is coming from. You could say that— that’s good leadership. It’s good leadership.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:17:23,410 ] But we don’t think about it. And I reflect on my own personal experience. I mean, this is where this came from because. I used to believe, as a leader, it was my job to tell people. Like, we don’t have time for that. Don’t waste your time, because we have so much else going on. Right? And so it’s— It’s easier though.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:17:41,550 ] That’s what we’re taught. It’s easier. It’s harder to be a human leader.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:17:46,650 ] And you’re being realistic, right? Like, you’re being realistic when you’re just telling somebody, ‘Hey, we don’t have time for that. Like, don’t waste your time.’ But what they’re hearing is you told me you want to hear my ideas, but actually you don’t. Right. And so I learned that the hard way, you know, I had people leave my team and said, ‘I came here to make a difference.’ But whenever I bring you an idea, you tell me that we don’t have time. or we tried it before, or it didn’t work, or you tell me all the reasons why it’s not going to work or why it’s a bad idea, and you never listen to why I think it’s a good idea. And that’s a hard pill to swallow as a leader, but it’s so important. And look, we’ve all done it. We are all that person.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:18:25,260 ] Yes, we are all that person. Look. No one teaches you how to be. You’re just put there. It’s like how when you have children, I don’t have any of my own. No one teaches you how to be a parent— you learn, you mess up, you, you, you know. And.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:18:41,100 ] No one teaches you, and I think, What I see. In my own experience as well is that What’s even more dangerous.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:18:50,870 ] Than a leader not giving off that hopeful energy through communication, through body language is this back and forth that leaders have of giving you hope and then no, and then yes, and it’s kind of perverse if you think about it. Um, because in your example, you know, send it to me via email, let’s circle back. But then the next day it’s like, ‘You guys we’re a family, let’s you know and that’s where employees are like, ‘What’s going on?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:19:26,350 ] Because I would never treat my family this way. Or maybe I would. I don’t know.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:19:30,680 ] Yeah, exactly. But then I think it’s also the responsibility of an employee to at some point say, ‘There’s no hope here for me.’
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:19:40,830 ] I have a lot of friends who are feeling hopeless right now because they won’t ever get that promotion they want. And I tell them, ‘Have you asked? Why do you hear they’re like, ‘No,’ I’m afraid to ask because maybe they’ll say ‘No.’ Ask. And if you get a ‘No,’ then you know where your hope levels are at. And then you take a decision.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:20:00,190 ] If you never ask, then you never know the answer.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:20:03,670 ] We tend to not ask the things we don’t want to know the answers to. Sometimes we need that.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:20:10,050 ] And look.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:20:10,390 ] And sometimes you’ll be surprised too. Like sometimes you will be pleasantly surprised. You’ll get an answer you didn’t expect.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:20:18,910 ] Real quick story. I once asked for a promotion— it had been like three four years since I was like, ‘Okay, I’m just gonna do it And I went in, I asked for my promotion, and they gave it to me. I was shocked. And then I asked. My boss at the time, my manager, like, ‘Why did it take three four years for you to give me one?’ And he responded, ‘Because it took you three or four years to ask for one Ask for it, yeah. Since then, that like really shifted. Cause I mean, that’s something that still gives me goosebumps. I learned that if you want something, you gotta go for it.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:20:54,630 ] Anywho, I mean, as we’re talking about promotions, you were promoted.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:00,680 ] and recognized while you were experiencing this burnout. And that resonates, I believe, with a lot of high performers.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:09,000 ] There’s this mindset that in order to move forward and make more money and more status, you need to burn out. You need to give it your all.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:21,850 ] What would you tell leaders if we’re talking about this?
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:27,240 ] Who worry that boundaries will slow down their growth and not only leaders, maybe the workforce at large.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:34,860 ] What would you say?
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:37,580 ] I think we live in a pretty boundaryless world right now. Even working remotely, even where are the boundaries when does home begin when does work begin.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:21:49,160 ] What are your thoughts on that?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:21:51,910 ] Well, so I so I would say that burning out will slow you down even more.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:21:59,490 ] But I don’t actually believe that having boundaries will slow you down. I think that I think that that’s a myth because I think that we have turned the word boundaries into a dirty word. Um and and it’s not a dirty word and so I i challenge people you know to to really think about. The times when they felt like they were performing really well and were, you know, in their flow and doing really good work and sleeping well and having the ability to engage in activities and things that matter to them outside of their workplace. What did that feel like and what was the experience of work like for you?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:22:52,910 ] When we are taking care of ourselves and doing the things that make us us outside of the workplace, that makes us better in the workplace. And we can’t do that if we don’t have boundaries. If we are constantly checking our email and, you know, not setting aside time for ourselves. And even worse, saying yes to everything. And so, you know, boundaries to me is, you know, we’re afraid to say no. I think that that is a— I think that that’s just kind of a natural human experience, especially in the workplace, especially in high performers, because we’re afraid to let someone down. And so I’m going to give you a story of a boundary because I don’t, you know, to me, boundaries is not about saying no. It’s about what are you saying yes to.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:23:47,929 ] And what are you actually able to show up for? And so I had a situation once where somebody was like, ‘Hey, Jen, can you come speak at this event?’ And I really wanted to do it. And I looked at my calendar and I was like, ‘Wow.’ I mean, logistically.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:24:07,750 ] I could do it if everything went great.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:24:10,400 ] Yeah.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:24:11,160 ] You know, I would be in three different cities. In three days. And, you know, and if all the flights were on time, I could, you know, get in at midnight the night before I needed to be on stage at 8 p. m. and I could do the talk.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:24:26,640 ] Oh my God.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:24:27,680 ] Um, so I went back to the person and I was like, ‘Look, this is the situation. This is what I’m up against. I’d really like to help you out, but I’m afraid that, number one, something might go wrong, because you know, it always does.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:24:40,870 ] We’ll go wrong.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:24:43,620 ] And even if it didn’t, arriving at midnight to be on stage at 8 a.m. I’m not going to show up and be my best for you. You know, this is not what you want. This is not what you’re expecting from me. And I’m not going to be able to give your audience my best. But how else can I help you? Can I help you find someone else? Is there another option? Can we do, you know, think about this for a future event? You have so I think we have to think about. We have to be more human when it comes to, well, let me actually talk to this person about my bandwidth.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:25:18,320 ] You know, like let me tell this person what this looks like. It’s not always— i mean, sometimes it’s about saying no. And no is a complete sentence, like ‘no.’ Period. And you don’t always have to feel like you need to explain yourself. But there are other ways to set boundaries with people. To say, for example, ‘I don’t feel like I have the ability to do this.’ If it’s your boss or someone on your team, say, ‘Can we have a discussion about all the other things that I’m working on? And what impact that’s going to have? Can you help me prioritize everything that I have on my plate so that I can— so that we can collectively determine if this is the right thing for me to take on?’ And so, again, it goes back to like— we have forgotten the art of. talking to one another as human beings and so just because somebody asks you to do something doesn’t mean that you have to do it doesn’t mean that it’s aligned to your future goals um and there’s nothing wrong with saying hey can we have a conver before i say yes can we have a conversation about this
Jen Fisher
[ 00:26:19,250 ] can we talk about you know whether this is the right thing for me to take on whether this is you know the right time if i have you know too much else going on i would like for you to help me prioritize this but we often just feel like because someone asked us, we had to say yes. But most of the time when somebody asks us, I’ll be honest with you, when somebody asks us to do something, most of the time it’s because they want to get it off of their plate.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:26:44,280 ] And put it on to someone else’s, right? They’re like, ‘I don’t want to have to deal with this anymore. And so I’m going to give it to someone else to do. And so I think, when you think about it like that, it becomes.’ Less of like this. Oh my gosh, if I say no, it’s going to impact my trajectory or my career, or it’s going to slow things down. It will actually— you’re honest with people— and say, ‘I can’t do this’ or ‘I don’t think I’—I think people appreciate that more than if you’re like, ‘I need to do that then you do crappy work, or then you burn out, or then you you know— you kind of show up in a bad way for the rest of your teammates. That’s the kind of stuff that actually slows you down. Not setting boundaries.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:27:23,670 ] Yes. And I love what you said, because I also believe this is true. Boundaries has become a dirty word.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:27:31,200 ] In my opinion, it’s because people see it as.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:27:36,390 ] How high of a wall do I want to put up? So other people don’t come in, or I say no to other people. I started thinking about it in a different way. It’s not about how you say no to people. It’s how you say yes to yourself.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:27:50,802 ] Exactly.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:27:51,555 ] And um, that I was— I did not have boundaries back in the day. And I’ve learned to do that. And something I do that you just mentioned as well is: When I don’t know what to say, I will lay out what’s happening at that moment and you decide. This is where I’m at. That’s also easy. But the worst thing is to not communicate like you said. Right? And we are losing that.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:28:16,420 ] And I would say that as a leader, but also as a colleague, look, we adopt the behavior of the people that we spend the most time with. And for most of us working adults, we spend the most time with our colleagues. And so if I model setting boundaries, for my colleagues, they’re going to start setting boundaries. We’re going to make it okay to set boundaries, to tell people when I can’t do something, to tell people when I feel like I have too much on my plate. When we start doing it, other people start doing it too. It just needs one courageous, brave person. To start doing it and then others will follow along.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:28:55,610 ] Definitely. And I mean, as we talk about burnout and wellness, Amen. There’s a lot of reports and memos about companies spending millions on wellness and perks and benefits.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:29:11,130 ] But burnout still is going higher and higher. What’s happening? Are those reports false? Are they doing it wrong?
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:29:18,770 ] We were talking about this at the beginning. A lot of companies say, well, we’re wellness now and we spent a million dollars, but then.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:29:26,710 ] There’s more burned-out people than ever. What’s that thing that’s missing? John. It doesn’t make sense to me. Doesn’t make sense.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:29:34,380 ] Yeah, I am. I completely agree and so I think for a very long time the focus has been on um Oh, everybody’s burning out. So like, there must be something wrong with them. Like, let’s let’s fix the people by giving them meditation apps and you know, giving them access to gym memberships. By the way, all of those things are important. I’m not saying that they’re not. I’m a huge advocate for them. I think they’re foundational. I think that. Are really important and they do signal to your workforce that you care about them and you care about their well-being. However, where we’ve gone wrong is that we adopted the belief somewhere along the way that a meditation app is going to fix, um, you know, work overload, overwhelm, uh, system, you know, systemic problems within the workplace, cultural problems within the workplace, relational problems within the workplace.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:30:36,270 ] Those are the things that actually are the top things that are creating bad well-being outcomes.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:30:44,200 ] Application apps will never fix those problems, and by the way, was never meant to fix those problems. So the fact that we’re saying ‘you know more technology’ which is what’s burning us out, you know. So like, there’s nothing wrong with your meditation app if you like to meditate and it helps you great. But if you’re really leader and you’re saying, ‘I checked the box’ I got you a meditation app and a gym membership. Why are you still burning out? You’re missing the whole point. Like, that’s great. I’m glad that you invested in those. Let’s talk about how do we maximize the ROI on those things, which means that you have to deal with the cultural, systemic things that are creating burnout in your workforce. And I think the biggest tell that I tell leaders is if 60 or 70% of your workforce is saying that they experience burnout on a regular basis, that’s not an individual problem. There is something going on. In your workplace ecosystem, that is creating this as an outcome.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:31:49,210 ] And leaders could say, well, you know, exactly what you said earlier. Like, it’s a really hard world to live in. People are struggling, you know, mentally and emotionally for many different reasons. Yes, that’s absolutely true. But the workplace should not exacerbate those problems, or at least not as much as they can control.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:32:11,640 ] And so we should seek to not further harm people and think about how the workplace can actually help them. And so we need to address things like workload, you know, like relationship with my leader and my manager and my team, you know, the things that are actually driving. that create anxiety and overwhelm and um you know hopelessness and uncertainty in the workplace. We need to be able to address those things as much as possible and when we can’t. As a leader, the most hopeful thing that you can say is, ‘I don’t have the answer.’ but I believe in our ability to figure it out together. Like nobody wants to work for a leader that has all the answers, as a matter of fact, that’s annoying.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:33:00,290 ] You know, like everybody who’s worked for that leader, that is, like, ‘All right, I got all the answers. This is how we’re gonna do it. It’s gonna work out great. Like everybody just go do their thing. Like that’s awful. Wants to work for that person, but as you, as a leader, you are willing and open and vulnerable enough to say, like, ‘Hey, I’m feeling uncertain too. But what I’m actually certain about is our ability to figure, figure whatever this problem is out together. That could talk about inspiring hope, that brings people in, and is like, ‘Oh wait, this person sees me. They want my help. That you know, and so I think again, as leaders, we’re taught that like, we have to know everything, and we never Let them never let them see you sweat and you know this definition of like strong leadership and it’s completely backwards because nobody likes working for that that version of a strong leader.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:33:51,310 ] I definitely agree.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:33:54,310 ] I think leaders need to learn to be vulnerable and to learn that it’s okay. My team and I, before we joined this episode and this conversation, I was like, ‘Guys, we have to have a meeting because Jen.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:34:08,300 ] I didn’t know what I was doing, I didn’t know the answers to anything. I was like, ‘Let’s figure it out together And I think a lot of leaders are like, ‘And this happens to me too.’ I shift. I am sometimes like, ‘I need to know everything. And then I’m like, okay.’ Why don’t we all talk about it? Different perspectives.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:34:26,440 ] It’s okay to be vulnerable. It’s okay to not know the answers. And it’s okay to ask for help as a leader.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:34:33,659 ] Because you also engage people that way.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:34:35,989 ] Yeah and also sometimes, as a leader, it’s okay to say, ‘I know the answer’ and ‘this is the answer,’ right? Like, it’s not black or white; it’s not either or. It’s just an ability to say, ‘I don’t know the answer’ when I don’t know the answer, don’t make it up, don’t pretend like you know the answer, don’t feel like you have to know the answer. But sometimes, the reason you’re a leader is because you have the answer.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:34:59,990 ] Yeah. I think it’s all about just creating.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:35:03,240 ] I don’t want to use this word, a safe space for communication. Yeah, people need to know that they can talk to you or challenge you, and you can do the same. That’s what it’s all about. If that’s not happening, then we’re all just monkeys clicking buttons, you know?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:35:18,580 ] You brought up vulnerability, and this has come up so much, just because I feel like we’ve We’ve done vulnerability a disservice.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:35:29,010 ] Because you know, if you, if you, if you went around and you polled a whole bunch of c-suite leaders and asked them what they think vulnerability means in the workplace—weakness, or it means crying in meetings, or sharing my feel, or sharing too much of my personal life that nobody can see.
SPEAKER_2
[ 00:35:47,030 ] Right.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:35:49,530 ] But when I talk about vulnerability in the workplace, so I’ve started to kind of think about it as like, okay, there’s emotional vulnerability and that’s important. Like you should be able to share your emotions to some extent in the workplace. Yes. But there’s also— what I’m calling operational vulnerability. Like, what are the things, like, for example, like saying, ‘I don’t know the answer or ‘I need help or ‘I can’t do this right now or like the things that we need to be able to say.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:36:17,620 ] Comfortably in the workplace because that’s what makes good teams and good organizations run. My ability to say, ‘I don’t know the answer’ or I screwed up— i messed this up— i you know, like, can you can you help me fix it? You know, how many of us are comfortable with saying that none of us right? But that’s what makes good organizations run. I think that we have To me, that’s the type of vulnerability that I want to see in the workplace. If you want to come and share your feelings, there’s a place and time for that. But I don’t think that that’s what we mean when we talk about vulnerability. That’s not what we need when we talk about high-performing teams and organizations.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:36:56,040 ] I definitely agree.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:36:58,820 ] Look, we’re nearing the end of our episode. So many questions, but I’m going to try to.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:37:06,720 ] If a company, regardless of size— be that Deloitte, a giant or a startup— wants to take the initiative of understanding if their workforce, be that 10 people, 100, thousands, is hopeful, burnt out, if they want to. Start today to understand that what would be the first step. Because I think it’s pretty easy. I’ll share my opinion. But what do you think? Is it possible to be like we’re starting today? I’m of the mindset that you can’t really know if you’re fixing something unless you can measure it, which is my follow-up question. How do you measure hope? How do you measure burnout?
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:37:52,799 ] What’s your thought on that?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:37:54,540 ] So.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:37:55,980 ] Yes, I think that it’s possible. I think that there’s steps that you have to take before to make it possible. You can’t.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:38:05,160 ] If you’re a leader that.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:38:09,460 ] People don’t trust.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:38:12,350 ] Um that hasn’t shown you know vulnerability or taken the steps to create some sort of psychological safety up until this point you can’t just sit down at a table and tell everybody, like, ‘Hey, tell me how’s it how’s it going? Are you feeling burned out? Are you feeling hopeful? Are you feeling hope because they’re they’re gonna lie to you Yeah. Bye. Because they’re going to be like, okay, I don’t trust this person. Why do they want to know this? What are they going to do with this information? What’s going to happen to me? Right. We’re living in a time of extreme uncertainty. Lots of people are getting laid off. And so there’s mistrust in the system. And so you can’t just flip a switch and be like, ‘All right, now we’re going to talk about whether you’re feeling burnt out or hopeful or hopeless, because people will be like, ‘Hell no, I’m not telling you that.’
Jen Fisher
[ 00:39:02,580 ] That said, I think that— you know, I talked about hope is like, what’s the next step? I think that we start to do these things as small steps, you know, starting to model. Sharing when you’re struggling, sharing when you don’t know the answer. You have to lay that foundation before you can expect people to tell you exactly what’s going on in the workplace. Um, you know, most organizations do some version of a engagement survey. I think that that is interesting information. It’s part of a larger picture, but I think we give way too much credit to an anonymous survey. That most people don’t believe is anonymous.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:39:51,340 ] Yes. It could be a baseline, no? Like, where are we?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:39:55,400 ] It’s a right. You have to start somewhere. Um, and it’s a piece of the picture. Can you measure hope? Hope, yes. You can absolutely measure hope. There is a chapter in my my book that lays out multiple ways in which you can measure hope, depending on what type of environment, you know, education, school, corporate. There’s, but they’re all validated by, by.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:40:18,690 ] Survey science data geeks.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:40:22,490 ] And and so they’re all validated ways of of measuring hope. And I and I go into some detail in terms of how you do this and the types of questions that you can ask and doing a team hope audit and all those kinds of stuff. But I would say you have to lay the foundation, like you have to be. You have to try also. You can’t just call a team meeting and be like, ‘Hey, I was told I need to talk about how hopeful you are.’
Jen Fisher
[ 00:40:47,430 ] and expect your team to tell you the truth because they’re scared.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:40:51,420 ] And by the way, a lot of leaders are scared right now, too. And if you’re feeling scared as a leader, you can guarantee that your team is also feeling scared.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:41:02,020 ] Yes, yes, um.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:41:05,470 ] Wow. I mean, this has been an amazing conversation. I think we need an episode two soon. Yes, part two.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:41:15,250 ] If.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:41:18,600 ] Are you hopeful? That the future of work At some point.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:41:25,500 ] Hope is a KPI that is measured. Are you hopeful that Because I think what we’ve been talking about right now, I do see. More and more companies are leaning towards really understanding their employees.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:41:43,050 ] Understanding burnout, providing solutions. Um, I still think it’s not enough. Yeah, Um, Are you hopeful that we will get to a point where we will start seeing burnout go down, where we will start feeling more hopeful about the future of work?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:42:06,990 ] Um, I am. Because the younger generation actually makes me feel hopeful. Um, oh that’s a good answer. Oh yes, yes, because they see the world and the world of work in a very different way, and they’re pretty bold in letting us know that That they’re no longer going to do it this way. That this way no longer works for them. And they’re not wrong. Um, that said, I think it’s, you know, right now, we’re in the AI arms race. I think that’s going to go on for a period of time until we realize that.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:42:56,440 ] What I believe— and I could be wrong—is that we realized that we still need humans in the workplace and that, you know, human wisdom and and human intelligence still matter.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:43:08,720 ] Um, but but we’re in this AI arms race, and I think that, that is unfortunately, creating a lot of of bad behavior. But I do think that, at some point, we’re going to have to reckon with um, what society is going to look like if we don’t start taking better care of the people in our workplaces. And so, you know, it might get worse before it gets better. But I think what hope would tell me is just take the next step. And then, after that, take the next step. And if there’s enough of us doing that, I think we’ll get there.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:43:45,260 ] That’s amazing. I’m feeling quite hopeful myself now. And I do agree that.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:43:51,400 ] I think we’re at a point.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:43:53,610 ] In the world of work, a tipping point. And something’s going to break real soon. You know what, Jen? I think I’m also of the thought that sometimes things have to break. Yep, it needs to break.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:44:06,410 ] We’ve been building on a broken foundation for a long time. It needs to break, so we can actually build something new. Yes, and it will be building on top of the old that’s broken.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:44:19,330 ] It will be the younger generation that I believe. will have the power to create this change. Older generations, where this is how we do things, don’t change them. Millennials started asking questions, but why? But why? And it’s the younger people— the Gen Z-ers— which is why they have a bad rep. Because they don’t meet the standards up here. They’re not just asking why. They’re like, ‘No.’ They’re setting boundaries.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:44:46,690 ] They’re very good at it. There’s a lot that the rest of us can learn from them. I say it all the time.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:44:53,040 ] Yes.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:44:54,930 ] Jen, it was amazing to have you thank you so much for taking the time. How where is your book available? We will link to it. Um, and how can someone get in touch? Um. To learn more about you, about the work of Deloitte, how can people reach out?
Jen Fisher
[ 00:45:13,090 ] Absolutely. So my book is available wherever you buy books, obviously Amazon and others, but you can also request it from your local bookseller if that’s how you prefer to buy books. People can connect with me on LinkedIn. I’m very active on LinkedIn. And I also have a Substack newsletter that’s called ‘Thoughts on Being Well’ that I publish every month that actually dives deeper into many of the topics that you and I talked about today.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:45:40,630 ] Amazing, amazing. Thank you so much. I do think we’re up for round two sometime soon. I would love it. Let’s see if, at that point, we feel more hopeful. Um, take care. Thank you.
Jen Fisher
[ 00:45:52,220 ] Yeah, take care. Thank you.
Daniel Lamadrid
[ 00:45:54,180 ] Bye.
