Jessica Grossman (00:00.376)
But in reality, it's signals of toxicity. Like it's like, why can't you ask your boss? Why aren't you taking proper vacations when we know there's a mental health challenge in this country and there is no rest?

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Jessica Grossman (00:53.4)
Today we have the talented futurist Libby Rodney joining the podcast. Libby is the chief strategy officer at the Harris Poll and brings all that needed data-driven insights to balance and ground my big ideas. And in this conversation, we discuss parenting, mental health, that need for vulnerability. We also discuss the impact of facing a polycrisis, which is

this interconnected crises occurring simultaneously. We also discussed the fact that we are still dealing with some toxic work environments and the impact that the layoffs have had on our current work environment. And we finalize and finish it up with how often we feel like we're never quite enough. These topics are quite the cocktail. But I will say, although some of these statistics were admittedly a little daunting, I actually didn't find the conversation

depressing. I found Libby very optimistic about her own outlook in these issues. A fun behind the scenes note as we get started, as I was chitty chatting with Libby pre-episode, I decided to just hit record. So we actually never really officially started the interview. So we'll miss out on like all those softball questions like, how did you start this work? What's your background? Tell me your story. And I actually think

Libby played a trick on me with this one, so she didn't have to talk about herself. But again, who needs an introduction when you're jumping into such a rich one? Again, for those of you who actually don't know Libby or the Harris Poll, Libby is a strategic consultant, a creative researcher, and a global trend forecaster who helps Fortune 100 brands and startups uncover what's next.

She's kind of a big deal because her work has been featured on all the major stages and media outlets. Besides her being an expert in pretty much everything and having all the data, one of the things that actually stood out to me was Libby's kindness and openness to discussion, which bizarrely I kind of didn't expect, but it made me feel like I was just talking to a friend and not even recording a podcast. So let's just jump in.

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Jessica Grossman (03:11.448)
So do you feel like something you navigate well is you both can understand the research, but then you can turn research into a story?

 

Libby Rodney

When I was in the advertising world, which I spent about a little over a decade in, I was the person who was in charge of strategy and I ran strategy teams and I did a lot of brand strategy workshops and all these things. And that was my job was to tele-positioning around a brand. And I would use data to help tell that positioning.

But I also received a ton of data from research companies, like 80 pages worth of data that I would have to dig through and then retell a story around. And that is what I'm trying to prevent. That's like why I was like, let's let me like take this job at the Harris poll and help people tell stories around data so they don't have to redo it. I think we've all experienced like there's a million data points, but it's like there's some that just seem to you that you understand and

that kind of get into an earworm in your head about like, if this is true, then there's an action I need to take on the other side of that. And that's what we're always trying to push forward, you know? There's this one lately that's been kind of ringing in my head about, we did this mental health study, the state of wellness with the Sesame Street workshop. And one of the data points was, about 78 % of parents wish their own parents had been more open about their own mental health issues. And I, a parent, I constantly think about that. I'm like, okay, this is a call to action here about how to deal with emotions with your children in real time in the moment so that they can understand and they can model your behavior, right? And so I love how I can have a lot of cultural impact, you know, was featured on NBC and ABC, but also that it's like personally just scratching my own itch. And I'm trying to understand like, how do I raise my own children and how does this work together? What stops people from sharing? I would say there's a missing skill gap, right? And we know from research for the most part, and a lot of people have been talking about this for years, Brene Brown, like we know how important and critical vulnerability is in the workplace.
parents, yet I think there's a missing skill gap because we do not know how to bring it to life. Like we can conceptualize it, but then in the day-to-day practice of being vulnerable is challenging. And because we hadn't had the role models or we hadn't learned to effectively use those skills, it becomes then challenging to apply it in appropriately in the moment. And so for example, When Elmo asked the world, how are you doing? And he got trauma dumped on last year, right? That's too much vulnerability, perhaps. Or there's like lots of debates on LinkedIn about who's got the right to be vulnerable at what moment and how much is considered trauma dumping, which is almost being like coined negatively against people, right? Versus what is appropriate amount of sharing?

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Jessica Grossman

You know, one of the things that I think it's a reminder of is like this hush culture, right? To a certain degree, where our parents was like, well, if we just don't talk about it, it's like, it won't impact our kids. we highlight, if we talk about our own mental health issues, then our kids will have them. That's what the fear is, right? Yeah. If we just hide them, if we just don't tell people what we're going through, then they won't. They won't go through that. This is why I was so interested in your work because I am so interested in parenting and leadership. It's like this very clear thing I see that goes like this. And it's like the way in which I learn how to lead my kids is also so applicable to the way in which I work with my leadership clients.

 

Libby Rodney

And to your point about parenting, I think it's such an interesting parallel because

When you think about kids and you think about organizations, you have to have very clear messaging around what it is that you need to explain from your point of view about vulnerability. And you want to address things, but not over overly share, right? So you don't need to tell them every emotion that you've ever had, but you do want to talk to them about the situation in which they find themselves, again, whether it's organizations or children, and what are the next steps and how you are personally processing or feeling about it, and then ask them how are they processing and feeling that. So I feel like that's kind of an interesting parallel. And I'm very optimistic by parents today, their ability to want to stop the generational cycle of not sharing and being more vulnerable. And then

perhaps how they take that into the workplace as well as leaders.

 

Jessica Grossman

So I think like what I'm hearing you say is like, there is a skill gap between how do we be vulnerable, but not trauma dump. And so there's like one side of the port where it's just like, you just share all you are not processing, you're not regulating yourself. You are just dumping onto your children, which is not healthy for kids. The other part is you emotionally suppress, which we know from What's his name? James Gross. That doesn't work. Kids pick up on your feelings. Emotional suppression does not work. So then it's like, we only see that there's two things, right? We think this or this. And we're like, no, there's something in the middle. I'm gonna work to process it and I'm gonna be vulnerable and honest about it with my kids. I always tell my daughter, I talked to my therapist today because she's like struggling. Sometimes she struggles with this. And so like, this is what I'm working on. Like I'm processing it and I'm coming back and telling her that these are sometimes the things that impact me?

 

Libby Rodney  (10:15.95)

Yeah, I feel very similar to my son is has more of fixed mindset. He's more of a perfectionist. He's six years old. And he gets frustrated by the fact that he can't read really well yet and do these things. If some of his classmates can. And I was talking to someone about this and they're like, you need to constantly show them show him that you make mistakes. So my whole life has been like, Whoops, mom forgot this. Mom did that wrong. He's like, you really got to get it together. and I have applied that to my team as well, like for better or worse. And I think it makes me a better leader. because it's like, I'm not just getting it wrong and then not doing anything about it. It's like, I got it wrong. I'm working this out. This is how I'm working it out. This is going to be the result of this, but it creates like a culture of of that kind of vulnerability, I guess, without overusing that word, but just like honesty, like we all make mistakes. We're all trying to do our best. We're all trying to be accountable. But I think, you know, when I've seen things go really wrong, it's when people kind of keep sweeping it under the rug and then it snowballs and snowballs and becomes a big thing, which we never really want to see. But I guess you have to kind of practice and showcase that you can be that person who's also always in the wrong. Constantly making mistakes. Yeah, and I'm excited about the next generation of parents and I think that makes us better leaders.

 

Jessica Grossman

Have you seen any research on that on intentional parenting and leadership?

 

Libby Rodney

Not interesting enough, the connection necessarily between the two. That would be a great piece of research to do. We do a lot of research on parents for kindercare and some of our other clients. We do a lot of research on leadership for a lot of our corporate clients, but we haven't done that interconnectedness of how parents are fostering good leaders. And I do think there's probably like a sub-context of being wary of where we sit at that moment in the moment of culture, right? When there's conversations about single cat ladies and, know, I'm a part of chief and one of the biggest difficult conversations or conversations that gets probably the hottest topic within the chief community is the way that parents are treated in corporate America versus single income, no kids, people, the sinks and that pressure and that divide between the two. I think that's, oftentimes I feel like when we do leadership studies, we bring everyone together and we might say like parents have these challenges, but we don't typically haven't really looked at the strengths of what parents bring to the table besides like great time management and ability to project manage and all those things that amplify usually from being a parent. But that's an interesting one. And it'd also be interesting to talk about like, what do people without children, you know, without kids that are their own, but maybe other things that are finding meaningfully, what do they bring into the leadership?

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Jessica Grossman (12:41.558)
roles that are unique and different than those of us who are parents, right? That's true. Yeah. I think there's so many ways outside of being a leader that you can gain those skill sets and one is parenting and I'm sure there are so many others that are out there as well. But I do think there's a level of patience and empathy that I know I've gained from being in position. I'm sure you can gain it in multiple ways. What do you think about the Surgeon General's warning about parenthood? Did you see that? No.

 

Libby Rodney

Okay, so the Surgeon General of the US, he came out with a warning about how parents are facing some really severe mental health challenges and that we need to really put a stop to this. mean, a couple of years ago, he was the same person who pulled out the one about children and phones. And we have seen a lot of, you know, along with the anxious generation and Jonathan 

Height? Is it heighty? Height. H-A-I-T-E. right. You know, there's been actually a lot of movement around banning phones in the schools. So I don't know if this new Surgeon General warning about the stressors of being a parent will change things. I'm very curious if they will because we have, know, research shows that like younger people are just not as interested as being a parent because of all of the, really the lack of support. There's lots of different reasons, but one of the key ones is that they feel like they're doing it all on their own with a society that is not supportive of them.

 

Jessica Grossman

I mean, I agree. think, again, we talk about how you use the research, I use anecdotes. But anecdotally, I feel like every woman I know is on anti-anxiety medication. It's like you have kids and then you go on anti-anxiety medication.

our generation has less frustration tolerance and like, but like kids are still kids and kids are still inherently frustrating. And so it's like, due to our lack of frustration tolerance, is it harder to prepare?

 

Libby Rodney  (15:04.922)

I think we're dealing with so much more. And so it's a common question we get from clients are like, is wrong with this generation? We had the seventies, things were hard to the eighties. You we had economic declines, had wars, but
I subscribe to kind of what Adam Tuza at Columbia says about the poly crisis. And the poly crisis is this concept that everything is interconnected and more increasingly interconnected the challenges that we solve. So the war in Ukraine, what's going on with Gaza, like all these things that impact our supply chain, impact our businesses, that all has implications on like how we think about the economy. And so it's like, we're not just dealing with like a slow economy, we're dealing with a slow economy, graying Western nations, climate change, wars, and religious wars. Like all of these things are kind of compounding and happening all at the same time. And I think to say that, and meanwhile, there's been like a pullback of support in some cases with like even the ideas of what a traditional family household looks like because typically, parents aren't living near grandparents. There are more single-family homes. And most parents have to have dual-income homes to survive because income has not kept up with inflation and school costs have way outpaced inflation. So I just feel like there needs to be this real conversation about the stressors of modern day world that parents are facing. And I think that intuitively, young people really feel that. And that's why the mental health rates of young people are very concerning across the board. And they're not going to get, in my mind, better. I mean, there's awareness, which is great that we're having these conversations. But it's also there needs to be this like structural understanding of really trying to evolve and move big things to create kind of the change and the relief I think a lot of people are looking for. So what are the changes that businesses are going to have to make? Because I think especially as you see Gen Z come into the workforce, they've had on college campuses, they have tons of mental health support. They expect that organizations take mental health into consideration.

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Jessica Grossman (17:27.66)
What impact does this have on organizations and how much do organizations have to take on this idea of mental health?

 

Libby Rodney

Well, a couple of things. I think that private companies are getting a little bit of a downfall effect on the mental health issues that impact the entire nation. So for example, the burnout rates that you used to see, there was burnout before the pandemic at the World Health Organization called burnout, the topic of the workforce in 2019. And we did a bunch of studies on that back then. But now you're seeing like young people get into the workforce and be in the workforce a year and be burnt out. So what that's telling us is that you already have a very anxious, like mental health written generation that is getting into the workforce. And then you have private companies that are expected to basically take on that role and that, that opportunity for change, I should say it, I should call it. I think it's a very challenging place for a private entity to be, to be kind of the ultimate caregiver of the individual. But at the same time, know, workplaces have been very toxic. We did a study that Fast Company ran about toxic bosses and about, you know, three fourths of Americans have survived or experienced a toxic boss. I think getting through that toxicity of the workplace is a good thing. But for the most part, think companies can provide more mental health by probably creating a focus on work-life balance, which is such like an ambiguous topic and everyone like rolls their eyes when you say it, but it's really what

these younger generations are looking for. They're looking for that ability to really work a nine to five versus, I don't know about you, but when I was entering the workplace, I worked like a nine to 10 PM, 11 PM. I like, that's how you got your stripes and your stars at a young age. So, and I know everyone's not bought into that philosophy, but it's just, it seems like.

 

Libby Rodney(19:47.842)
Whenever we look into the research, younger people, that's really what they want. So I would love to know a little bit about how millennial leaders can navigate this because it feels like, okay, Gen Zers want work-life balance. Millennials are being told to have the same type of productivity and output, and then they're kind of smushed. I think millennials are caught in the middle because I think they get it, but then it's also frustrating to them and they don't know how to.

They're kind of like, okay, you need a mental health day? What am I supposed to say to that? Right. So I don't know. What are your thoughts around this issue? Yeah. Look, I think we're in mist of a workplace evolution for sure. mean, even Wall Street Journal wrote a piece about how the German workforce, which has always been a very work-dominated workforce, is pushing back on time boundaries. I think... Probably the best case for millennials is to try to figure out rules of engagement a little bit better. So for example, you know, I'm a edge of millennial Gen X leader. We had no rules of engagement. It was just work your ass off, hustle to death, right? And that was what you were expected of. Now, I think when you see younger workers come in and they ask, they're like, they're going to leave at five. Even McKinsey said they had to hire more younger workers than they ever have before just to kind of fill the roles. So I think to push back and act like they're all going to suddenly fall in line is probably just not realistic. And so it's like, what are the ways in which we work? What are the rules of engagement? Meaning when do I expect you to be working. What is, what am I going to judge you on at the end of the day, getting more clear about those KPIs that you care about. And then also being able to use that to manage up to senior leadership and saying like, look, we can't ride these young people the same way that y'all used to ride us. Like we need to hire more people or we need to think about staffing differently. Cause I do think millennial leaders are generally interested in the new values that this younger generation brings, they're forced, that's why this quiet vacationing exists, because they're forced to find workarounds around it. And when you look into the return to the office data, for example, it's the C-suite. So most of them are in that boomer generation, like forcing it back. And it's really up to millennials and Gen X managers to force, like reinforce it, but they're not. for the most part, unless they have to have those key scanner cards, they don't see the same value benefit that an older generation necessarily brings. But they're kind of working around it. So it's like, do I have to be in those five days? And they go, listen, let's make it all work. If you come in two to three days, let's call it what it is. And I think they're going to be kings at that. I I highly...

feel very empathetic with a lot of the millennial leaders trying to figure that out. Because it's just like, you paid your dues, you thought you were going to have this much easier career as you get into your 40s. And it's not like you're still catching the errors and doing the things at midnight that you thought someone else might be doing, which is a very frustrating point. it happens, there's lots of cocktails and drinks and conversations about that. But then also,

Don't you want that reality for your child? Do you want your child working in their 20s until 11 p.m.? I don't know. I was very burnt out by the time I hit my early 30s because of that kind of culture. It's not something I want or would subscribe to either. I also think it's a balance to you that millennial leaders need to understand, which is like...

I think one we don't really understand in an effective way what the tenets of resilience actually is. think it's been misused in the workplace. so I think they're like, the idea is like, yes, something is stressful. And in reality, we're not trying to get rid of everybody's stress because that in and of itself isn't actually helpful to mental health. You want to stretch people and challenge people. And so how do you help people when they're potentially feeling stress move or move beyond that stress and they might signal it as, it's a mental health issue. And it's like, no, I'm gonna help you. Like you're frustrated and you're stressful, but it's like, we're gonna do this. It's like, we're not gonna do this every day because that's burnout. You have to pick your points when you're like, no, we're actually gonna build through this.

 

Jessica Grossman

Stress is, there's nothing inherently wrong with stress and actually getting through this is going to make you more resilient in the future.

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Libby Rodney

That's just very funny. This is the conversation I have with my son and daughter recently when I was trying to teach him how to skateboard and she was trying to learn how to bike. I was like, we can do hard things. We can do hard things. This is part of it. This is part of... And think about every time you've gone through something very challenging at work.

For me, most of that is usually something very mentally challenging, trying to pull something together, tell a story, whatever. And you get lost in it, right? It becomes really hard to figure out. And then at the end though, you walk away with this knitted sweater and someone likes it and it feels like all the worse. But you do have to go through that crazy process of getting lost and feeling stressed and feeling like you won't make it on the other side out. And I do feel like that is completely different to me, that's like the joy of the fluidity of work versus someone who's just like scheduled your whole calendar from like nine o'clock to nine o'clock. And then you're like, now you have 30 minutes to think at the end of the night and it has to be innovative, you know? yeah, I think that's a really great point. And I'm very interested in how organizations get beyond this meeting culture and more into challenge and inspiration and autonomy based culture. And I was talking to Nick Bloom, who is a Stanford academic who was focused his whole career on remote and hybrid work. And his point of view was that companies can do all of this. All of this can be very utopia in some ways, as long as they have a very clear KPIs.

 

Libby Rodney (26:54.488)
to what each job needs to perform. And once you have that, then people are allowed to have autonomy and creativity in their schedules and all these things. But he's like, the problem is the very big challenges. Most roles do not have clear KPIs. freedom.

 

Jessica Grossman

Freedom only comes within a framework. yeah, I like that. That's great. It only comes within a framework. So I invited you on to talk about quiet vacationing and in every podcast, everyone knows that I do everything backwards. So of course, I get the important topic last because I get so interested in everything else. what is quiet vacationing? And is this just, as you're talking, I almost was like, is this like our parents whisper generation, not actually being explicit about our needs, just coming through in a different form?

 

Libby Rodney

I mean, I think so in some cases. the way we got to the even the term quiet vacation is that we were talking about, first of all, this report comes from the out of office report that we were going to do no matter what about how American employees are taking their vacation during the summer and what are they thinking about it and are they taking all their days. But we came up with the term quiet vacationing because we noticed that people are taking time without telling their bosses. They're like moving around their mouse to make it seem like they're working. And they're also sending emails, not while they're working, but scheduling sending them. And that's, this is all particularly done by millennials. Gen Z is excited to do this once they were reading the survey and Gen X is doing it a little bit.

boomers aren't really doing it at all. But I think that the point was that Gen Z is vocal about their office, right? They come in and they're like, we will quiet quit, which is, which doesn't sound as vocal, but it's very like in some ways aggressive. Millennials are like, we're going to quiet vacation. and that signals this workaround culture and really what they're trying to do is not ask their boss for vacation. There's like this dread of asking their boss. They're like, I think it's like 60 % are worried about asking their boss for those vacation days. And again, when you think about these millennials, they're just kind of squished in the middle. They're bringing up Gen Zs or other millennials, but they still have to answer to boomers, especially, and Gen Xers who don't believe in this and don't know why they can't always be on because that has been the expectation that they're used to.

And so instead they're taking vacation when they need. And they're not disconnecting the way that younger people really are. And so I think that the, I think what's interesting, like the tension point of quiet vacationing and why it got so much traction in the media, but also just on social media was in one case, social media was like, why are you telling everyone our secrets? And in the other case, employers were like, it's returned to office now. We know they're just vacationing and look at, look at what they're doing. But in reality, it's signals of toxicity. Like it's like, why can't you ask your boss? Why aren't you taking proper vacations when we know there's a mental health challenge in, in this country and there is no rest. And then there's this shifting mindset. Again, millennials being raised in hustle culture, girl boss culture, like work till you die culture. There's a softening towards maybe rest is going to actually make me more productive. And I'm not going to be vocal about that in a tight economy, but I'm going to figure it out. Like I'm going to start resting a little bit more because maybe I've had a couple decades under my experience now, might have some children, might have some older aging relatives I need to take care of. And it just becomes too much if you don't rest at all. That idea that you can always be sprinting through life justreally doesn't connect anymore. So. Is this like, as you're talking, I'm thinking about some of the, some of the talking points you had elsewhere.

 

Jessica Grossman

And you talked about how the workplace is becoming more transactional, which is that feels true to me. right. This ties back into employee engagement, which is another topic. And I'm like, remember when I worked at a company and I like it at some point it became like, I'm a loyal person and I loved my manager, but I was like, this is a transactional job. And it was like, it was free to a certain point. So I was like, it's transactional. Like we both, they know it, I know it. right. And so I would take calls on the golf course and like I would tell my manager about it. I was like, because I was like this, it is what it is. But I was like, this is a, this is a golf, this is a call I don't need to be on. So I'll just take it on when I go golfing. Like I'm not going to stop my golf day just because, you know, I'll go do my two hour golf and I'll take an hour call on it that. literally is asking me, you know, what color ice cream or what flavor ice cream I like for the first hour. Like I don't need to be at my seat doing this. I also like rode the peloton during these meetings too, because I was like, you know, like, if I'm literally gonna have to listen to 10 people talk about their favorite ice cream color or flavors then. So do you think it's also that millennials like this idea of like transit, like this job is a transaction. And so I'm going to take rest when I need it and I don't

Like I don't feel this loyalty or this like need to share this stuff because at the end of the day, this is a job or is it different? Do those two things not come together?

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Libby Rodney

So if you look into the history of like American and the American psychology and the worker psychology, we've always been extremely tied to our working identity. Like, what do you do? What's your status? Like, what do you do? And that question. Like that question was appropriate to even ask up until really the pandemic. know, it started becoming inappropriate to be like, what car do you drive? But it was always appropriate to be like, what do you do? You know, as like your second question after your name, there was, there's this thing that this D coupling that happened post during the pandemic that was like, I'm not just my worker persona. I am also this expansive person. And I think with that,

and then all the layoffs that happened. And you have to think about Gen Z too. Their parents got laid off in 2008 recession. So did young millennials parents. So there's already this like, I shouldn't be that loyal. There's no payoff to loyalty. think older millennials, Gen Xers might still be really tied to that working mentality, but then seeing things in the pandemic that just weren't aligned with their values or they found a more expansive version of themselves that wasn't just their working identity. And I think that's where the transaction comes from too, because you're like, at the end of the day, I have my health and this job provides me with financial stability and things like that, but I am more of a person. And you can even start to see cocktail parties and things trying to change where it's not

your even corporate events I've been to, they're trying to get out of like, what do do? What's your title? And more about who are you and how do we connect as humans first for that, for that relationship to start on a different level, different level of versus hierarchy versus like getting to know people and how can you kind of help them? So I think, I think there's, it is very transactional in the moment, but I think in the future,

there could be a softening to something where if we can show up more as our whole selves, maybe it will feel different. Maybe that point of being at the golf course isn't transactional. Maybe it just means like, Jessie loves golf and it's cool that she's on the golf course. It just kind of changes in that way. don't know. I'm a I deal with a lot of performance. It's like golf is a way in which I work on that.

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Jessica Grossman

So I think of it as part of my job or it's the thing I lie to about myself. I like to lie to myself that these things are good for work. In reality, it's just, like to do that. I don't know. I do think hobbies and interests and those kinds of things are really good. We talked to a lot of people during the pandemic who were like, I used to love doing this and I haven't done it for years. I finally picked up my

violin again or a piano. And it engages different parts in your head that probably make you better at your job in some degree because you're just activating different ways to think. But people were just so inundated by the pace and race of everything that they just became their worker identity. What's interesting is I think the genie is out of the bottle in that way and people never want to go back to just that one single identity. But we see that

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Libby Rodney (36:18.286)
pushing the genie back into the bottle a little bit to be like, well, it's a tight economy. Don't show too much of yourself again. Make sure you're the worker bee so that you don't ruffle any feathers. But I'm hoping that's just kind of a short-term effect of where we are from an economic point of view. Yeah. I mean, I've been very curious about your positioning on employee engagement, especially around the layoff narrative. What impact does this have on employee engagement and how organizations are positioning themselves in their leaders for future success. Yeah. The layoffs that have happened since the pandemic and now in the last year, year and a half, they create a lot of fear we find in our research and anxiety. And they kind of paralyze the people who are still within the company to be more fear-based thinkers or to be less risk adverse. And then I think that you have to think about the downstream effect of that over two or two to five years, which is that if your employees are afraid and risk averse, they're not going to take the same chances that is needed to be a successful company over time. And so it's like really disheartening, you know, seeing the, layoffs that have happened at Nike, for example, across their innovation team that I really really always looked up to and forward to for their perspectives. I don't know, it's just a signal to the market that they will put those short-term priorities first. And then you know in two years, they're going to rehire lots of innovation people again and say, the most innovative, but it takes a long time to reestablish those cultures. So it's unfortunate to see kind of that short-termism at play, but the pressures must be where they sit.

 

Jessica Grossman

When I think about our interview, what I've learned from you, the red thread I pull is like it is around like setting expectations. I think that when you quiet vacation and when you do these things, it's because you're not sure what the rules are. Yeah. I'm not sure like can I ask for this? And if I ask for it, like that's what you said, can I ask for this? If I ask for it, will I look poorly upon it? And so I think what we really want to do. And that happened to me. kept asking once I had a manager and I kept being like, I was working hourly. And so it didn't matter if I worked 20 hours or 30 hours. They're only paying me for 20 hours. But I didn't know if like they were going to look down on me if I only worked 20 hours. Yes. I wasn't kept asking. was like, does it matter? Like, does it matter to you if I work 20 versus 30 hours? Like, and they would be like, and like, I never felt like I got clarity on that. And so I like, I always was like, I guess I'll work 25 because like,

that I wasn't sure even when I was asking the question. So the red thread I pull is just like, how do we make, how do we just understand the rules? Let's just get the rules. So that we can- Well, I have an example of this. I start work at seven every morning and it was originally a ritual just because my husband takes my kids to school. So I was like, I'll go to a coffee shop. I'll start reading at seven. So it was a reading hour, but then it just became work.

And so I ended up working for the last year from like seven to six o'clock. And I was like, I'm really burned out. I was just like, and then I just had this like fear of not telling my team. Like I'm not going to answer emails from four to six because it's not that's still East coast hours. Like what am I doing? And I recently told people I'm like, I will not be on like, please don't schedule a meeting. And unless it's emergency between four and six, I'm already up at like doing stuff at seven.

and they were all fine with it. What's interesting about it is it's my own personal psychology on am I doing enough that's at play? And I don't know if that's been, I think that's honestly been warped in me through the years of like, I mean, had CEO scream at me when I was like very junior being like, you're not doing enough, you're not enough. Like that message was very toxic and in environments in which I resided. But.

It's really nice to communicate these things and just like know and be very transparent about what works for you, what doesn't work for you. And we have people across mountain time, central time, Pacific time, and they communicate their working hours and it's all doable, right? It's just that we have to feel comfortable in doing that.

 

Libby Rodney (41:03.82)
And to your point, like to the thread behind it of like the quiet vacationing, we, one other post I wrote this year was about loud vacationing. Like we shut down our whole company for a week in July. And I was like, we should be loud. Like we should be really loud about some of these things that we are doing. So thank you for pulling that thread. Cause I think that's a really important one about what do you get loud about, right? Versus quiet about, which I think is kind of. What if we as a generation could just be louder? You know, I think it's scary, it's scary. But that is, think to a certain degree, we've learned that quiet doesn't work like right. The whole mental health. Yeah. I yeah. I you know what? Do you saying like I'm not enough like that? Just that hit me, I think, straight in the heart because that is what I work with a lot of my clients on. It's like, yeah. And it's like we just even as a parent as it's just like I never it never is enough and we are never enough. And I think that sometimes we overwork because that feeling of not feeling enough is so painful that we'd rather work too many hours than have to deal with that question. I 1000 % agree with that. And I think for me, that's a generational. That's like, like, my, my parents, parents, and everyone in Norwegian, and that's like, you work like that's It's called a strong work ethic, right, in some cases, but in other cases, it's because of this fear of you're not enough. it's like, got to stop it at some point, instead of just subconsciously keep passing this message on to your children. And it wasn't until I had children that I really was like, I got to stop this. Yeah. I think it's something that takes a lifetime to break. I'm still working on it. I know, yeah, it's something I work with myself.

I feel like every podcast has to have a quick round of, you know, a couple round answers. I call my round the jolt of insight.

 

list three words you would use to describe the state of mind of the leaders you're working with. Anxious, optimistic, complicated. Complicated. The first two equal the third.

What is your favorite millennial quality about yourself? The ability to dream, to be like there is going to be a better world.

 

If you could change someone's mind on something, what would it be? That we're all much more alike than we are different.

 

And if you could offer one actionable piece of advice to our listeners, what would it be?

Go vote. Go vote. I love it. Go vote. Yes.

 

And then of course, how can people find you? mean, obviously you have such an amazing amount of knowledge and it's like the breadth of it is ridiculous. How can people find you and learn more about you? We post out in sub stack once a week, once every other week. It's called the next big thing.

And the idea is that it's like the data that we bring, we bring it together in one central spot to kind of talk about something that's happening in business culture and really at the intersection of those two things. and otherwise I'm on LinkedIn, primarily Libby Rodney. but those are, those are the two best places to connect. Wonderful. Well, definitely go to the sub stack cause I found it and I would like spend I think an hour reading through various articles. and of course, like I saw your research and that's what prompted me to reach out to you because it's so much, but I think again, it all connects back to just some of the most important problems and issues that we face in modern day society. And out of all the research I see, you were able to connect those things, I think, better than anyone I've seen. thank you. I would love to add too, the last thing is What's interesting about change and research is like, gather signals all the time and change can happen in an instant. So like there's something really optimistic about that because you can be, you know, I've been following like the marijuana industry for years and decades. And then it's like, look, it's pretty much legalized in some cases all across the country. And you know, it's, changing things that, that just like, like that.
can happen. That's what I'm really optimistic about. Like where can change happen super fast after we collected all these signals? So follow me for the signals because you never know when the change is going to come. And make sure I post this quickly after because if I wait too long, all of the things we talked about might be over. I have to say my favorite thing about the new marijuana industry is that they are targeting moms.

I swear, the marijuana again goes back to like parenthood, mental health trials. I'm like, wow, like this is your key demographic now. I love it. Well, thanks again for using your time. Thank you so much. It was great talking to you. Yes. When you come to Chicago, we'll have to nerd out on all of these. Absolutely. All right. Bye, Jessie. Thank you.

 

Jessica Grossman

After recording this interview with Libby, I was actually at a YWCA event.

because I serve on the board for the YWCA. And I started having a conversation with a white older gentleman and he asked me what I did. And not knowing apparently he was like this well known CEO in the community, I just like casually said, I try to make work suck a little less. And he looked at me very confused. Like I had just said something shocking and asked, Do people think work sucks? And then I looked around the room like, I the only one that finds work difficult? And I said back to him like, yes, work just sucks for most people. Maybe, I don't know, as a leadership coach, executive and team coach, I just get to see what's under the hood. And what I see when I look under the hood of my clients and I discuss with my clients, it's just, it's not good, right? If to me, it feels like a matrix of this chaotic mess of bad leaders, endless tasks, and overwhelming pressures of life. And those pressures feel even higher than ever with layoffs, with parenting, with polycrisis. But in reality, the support that we get is actually lower. So to a certain degree, we're all trying to do our jobs, but there's like a flaming pile of poop constantly getting in the way. However, instead of realizing these things, we just keep grinding, believing that, no, it's just that one more push. That one push will actually get us there. And at the end of the day, I think it's this need to prove our worth. Prove our worth, but I'm coming to the conclusion that I don't think we're ever

going to arrive, it kind of feels like we're playing limbo. The bar just keeps getting lower and lower and lower. And no matter how much I bend, how much flexibility and strength and adapting we do, we can only win the game when we finally hit the ground. And trust me, I'm the worst offender of all this.

But I believe, I believe that most of us are realizing it's just not working. It just isn't. But we've become so accustomed to playing this game that we don't and are too afraid of what happens when we just stop playing it. Right? That's why we quiet vacation. When we let go of this potentially toxic prove yourself mentality, like what happens? And again, remember I'm almost giving myself this pep talk at this point. So.

I guess what happens if we stop chasing that validation and believed just for one moment that we and those around us are actually already enough. We are already whole. We are not trying to prove anything because we're whole. We have nothing to prove. How might that change the way we lead, live and work? So for me, I'm focused on making space for this vulnerability trying.

trying hard, not doing well with it, but trying to make space for vulnerability, for rest, but also balancing that with strength in the pursuit of what's hard and impactful. But I cannot only do that, I also need to let go of the shoulds. And that's where the real power lies. Thanks for listening.

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Libby Rodney (51:23.246)
So like the term we came up this summer was with quiet vacationing. And it's like, that could have just sat in data and that would have never been discussed about, but it was the quiet vacationing term that allowed this unearthing of conversation around it because it created a lot of tension between people in the workforce.