You're at the Coaching Inn, 3D Coaching's virtual pub where we enjoy conversations with people who engage in the world of coaching. Hello and welcome. It's Claire here and I'm just here to unlock the pub and to welcome Becky Hall with the next edition of The Book Club. Hi there and welcome to chapter four of the 3D coaching, coaching in book group of The Art of Enough. And chapter four, of course, is where we begin to think more about doing enough than being enough.
And it's art for enough boundaries. And I've had just one question here, which is so useful. It's such a good question. And I'm going to read it to you and then talk about what I think about it. So the question is this. I'm interested in your comment about no one will tell you not to send a tweet at midnight. Do you think work stroke organizations should work harder in creating boundaries that better serve our pursuit of doing enough. Or is enough boundaries solely a personal endeavour?
I absolutely love this question and it's one that I come up against a lot or I'm asked a lot. I'm teaching a programme on building resilience and wellbeing at work for a university today actually and it's this very question that we've been discussing which is what's the relationship between our own personal boundaries and an organisation's responsibility. for setting boundaries for those who work.
And it's of course front of mind as organisations go back to hybrid working and suddenly as the world opens up, think loads of us are having really interesting debates about what are the boundaries that we want to keep that happened as a result of lockdown and what are the ones that we're very happy to not have anymore. which ones were enabling, life-giving, and which ones were restricting. So the answer to the question is both, I'm afraid. I think that there are two layers to this.
One is to begin with the individual one, the comment I made, which is no one will tell you to stop sending a tweet at midnight, that's on you, is true. I think that because of the digital 24 seven immediacy, access to digital at any time of the day or night. The challenge of that is that it means that we all have to have our own boundaries and maintain our own boundaries. And because of the way that lots of social media is set up is that it's slightly addictive.
It becomes a habit, it becomes habitual and it can become addictive as we know. A little bit of dopamine is created every time we get a tweet or a a notification and we get hooked back in, it's got a reward signalled for us. And it can become habitual. The whole statistic of the fact that I think this was in the States actually, but I would be surprised if it's not the case in the UK and Europe too, is that a third of adults wake up in the night and check their phones.
So of course, why does that matter? Well, because it produces, can produce dopamine or even cortisol and wake us up and restrict our sleep. And because it's a slightly habitual compulsive, perhaps sometimes even addictive behaviour. And unless we're conscious of this, unless we're making choice about these things, then they can start to diminish. our sense of what we're doing, what we want to be doing.
The thing about whether you wake up in the morning and immediately look at your phone, and then when you look at your phone, do you immediately look at social media, and do you get drawn in immediately? Of course, that might not be you, and if not, then fine, you know.
And, of course, if it is you and you choose to do it and you think, no, that's exactly what I want to be doing, that's exactly when I want to be looking at my social media, then brilliant, it's an active choice, you're making it, it's clear. It's this sort of bleeding into everything that I think can require a boundary.
So if you find yourself unable to concentrate on a... conversation because you're wondering what's going on in other aspects of your life on social media or you are unable to sleep because you're anxious about emails or things. It's when it gets to that level that personally we can and it can be beneficial for us to create healthy boundaries, to make decisions and be intentional about what we want to do. So do we want to create an hour long, an hour a day where we look at social media?
Or do we want to integrate it with our work or do we want to do it elsewhere? I'm not making any judgment or comment on what your choices are. I am advocating for making choice about this stuff, making what you do intentional. And if you feel compelled to send a tweet at midnight because it feels urgent or an email or whatever it is, that's when... it can become really useful to re-look at your boundaries and the choices that you may have.
Now, that leads me into what organisations can do and could do, should do even, because sometimes people really don't feel they have the choice but to start doing all of their emails on Sunday night. That's something I hear a lot. or work again in the evening having signed out of everything else because they need to get through the email traffic is a really big issue for lots of the organisations I work for.
And of course, organisations can and I believe should help their employees to make good, healthy boundaries around work.
I'm wary of using the word should because it's such a judgemental, such an instructive, but actually I think it is beholden on organisations to do this, especially organisations and increasingly I work with organisations like this who say things like, we really care about your wellbeing, we really don't want people to be working around the clock, but I need that report by Friday.
It's the paradox or the contradiction of... of saying, yes, we want you to be well and we want you to be able to do things at the drop of a hat, which means you have to work extra hours and sorry about that, but you know, hey. And that works in every sector that I work in, be it public sector, charity sector, university sector, private sector. There are always examples of that. And good, healthy boundaries are really important and really enable.
So, great practices of organisations I do work with where they say, do not want you sending emails out of hours. And of course that needs to be role modelled from the top. Often it's senior leaders who find themselves in this absolute bind of pressure and volume of work, but not only and not always. And it's there that the discipline needs to start and be role modelled, of course, and rolled out.
so that people really do know that the boundaries that contain and keep them safe and enable the enough boundaries are there to help them flourish in role. I was coaching or having a coaching conversation with someone just this week who's just been appointed to a very senior role in a big complex organization.
And she was saying that her, she was quite surprised at finding that the organisation she'd come to was very different from the one she'd just left in that people really did start doing their emails on Sunday night. And we were discussing, she was exploring how she could bring her boundaries to this new organisation, which she acknowledged meant that she would have to be counter-cultural for a while. she would have to say, you're not going to hear from me until Monday. And that's it.
I'm holding that boundary. And because she's a senior leader, that'll have a huge ripple effect on the organization she's part of. So I'm conscious that sometimes it requires people to be counter-cultural. And this is not an opportunity for... for an organization or a business to abdicate their responsibility for creating healthy holding, enabling boundaries for the people they're working for. Enough boundaries are good for everybody.
And this person I was working with as a coach was saying, you know, the irony is that the productivity is no better in the new place as it was in the old place. In fact, the opposite. that she's used to saying to her teams, I want you to have breaks, I want you to have good holidays, I want you to not work at weekends, because I know that then you'll be fully present and more productive. And of course, what she was talking about in my lexology in this frame is enough.
So yes, both, very much both. And I am conscious perhaps that the... The question behind the question is that it's not really okay for it to become an individual endeavour and sometimes it's not even possible, it doesn't feel possible for it to be an individual endeavour. And I would say, look at your own boundaries, of course, where organisations and where you're in a position of leadership or influence. begin to create space for good, healthy boundaries in organisations too.
I hope that was useful. Great conversation, great question, let us some more great thinking. I'm loving these questions, I'm loving the interaction with you as listeners and readers. So please do keep sending them. I hope it's resourcing and enriching for you too, as much as it is for me. Thank you and take care. Speak to you next time. Bye bye. If you've enjoyed what you've heard today, we'd love you to share the podcast with a friend or leave a comment on social media.
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