On this episode of the At The Corner podcast, Matthew is joined by Sarah O’Hanason, productivity coach who aids companies and workers work through burnout and cultural issues and Jeff Gibert, aka Spiderman, Author, speaker and consultant for brand and culture.  

Sarah speaks about Soul Productive and how it got started. Sarah shares how she herself found she was enjoying her previous role as Chief Marketing Officer but could feel burnout slowing creeping into her home life due to the stress of the decisions she was facing within the workplace. Sarah decided to start Soul Productive in order to help others who were also facing burnout, and to help companies help prevent burnout. Sarah achieves this by coaching, training, speaking and through system implementation with Jeff. 

Jeff shares how he is all about having a uniquely identifiable and memorable brand. Jeff talks about previously running a marketing agency where he had the motto if you’re going to do something make it distinctive. Jeff mentions how his superhero brand was actually an act of discovery as opposed to a deliberate decision. Jeff states that he is trying to take the skills he has and leverage them to make the world a better place whilst also encouraging others to recognise the gifts that they have so that they can also make the world a better place. 

Sarah and Jeff discuss how they operate quite differently but how they both help each other with system implementation. They also discuss how organisational health has changed since the pandemic. They mention how they have noticed that teams are now remote which can actually lead to higher levels of burnout. Jeff mentions how leaders define what the culture is and how it’s important for leaders to appropriately respond to remote teams. 

Sarah speaks about how workers now address burnout differently. Work no longer needs to be the centre focal of our lives, we used to work to live but now we are living to work. This shift is calling a new breed of leaders who will need to lead from the heart and acknowledge that it’s not a one way relationship. Teams are a dynamic organism of individuals who are bringing their purpose, passion and values and who don’t want to go to a workplace that is conflicting with these visions. 

Jeff states that the three lenses of leadership are: 

-       Responsibility

-       Burden

-       Privilege

Jeff and Sarah are working on empowering companies to give individualised management so that they can try and avoid micro-managing their teams. Right now leaders need to trust that their teams are doing the work remotely. 

If you enjoyed this episode, please be sure to subscribe so you never miss a new episode, and leave a 5 star review as it helps us reach new audiences and grow as a podcast. Thanks for listening!