Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan

Q&A episode: Annette synthesises Wendy Smith's both/and thinking, Cathal reflects on Bob Geldof's recent speech on empathy in leadership, and we answer Lou's question on preparing for her first competency-based interview.

Following last week's conversation with Wendy Smith (Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems), Annette walks through the takeaways that stuck with her. The Fab Four: assumptions, boundaries, comfort, dynamics. The two metaphors at the heart of Wendy's framework: the tightrope walker who splits attention and chops between competing priorities, and the mule, the integrated both/and solution that's stronger than a horse and smarter than a donkey.

Cathal and Annette get into why so many of us end up tightrope walking at work without meaning to. The "stop starting, start finishing" trap. The way leaders accumulate priorities until everything is urgent and nothing is finished. And why complexity, the thing most of us instinctively dread, can actually be a source of energy if you have the right framework to meet it with.

Then a swerve into Bob Geldof's recent awards speech on empathy and what's gone missing in global leadership. Cathal pulls the thread: the both/and case for caring about people and running a business well. They're not in tension.

The listener question this week comes from Lou, who's preparing for her first ever competency-based interview and has no idea where to start. Annette lays out the framework:

→ Prepare 5 examples from your career, things you're genuinely proud of
→ Cover real range: a difficult stakeholder, a deadline crunch, an unsolvable problem
→ Structure each one with situation, action, outcome
→ Connect each example back to your core skills and values
→ Practise out loud, to camera or to a mirror, so the interview isn't the first time you've heard these words in your own voice

Plus a look at what's coming next week: Leidy Klotz, author of Subtract, on his new book In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive.

Got a career dilemma you'd like us to tackle in a future Q&A? Head to betteratwork.net.
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Wendy Smith is a management professor at the University of Delaware and the co-author of Both/And Thinking, a book translating 25 years of research into practical tools leaders can apply immediately.

In this conversation:

- Why workplace tensions are a feature, not a bug
- What most business schools are getting wrong about leadership
- The difference between a dilemma (where you choose) and a paradox (where you don't)
- Four types of paradox every leader faces: learning, performing, organising, belonging
- The three traps of either/or thinking: rabbit holes, wrecking balls, trench warfare
- Why King Charles got both sides of the US Congress on their feet
- The X-on-the-hand habit that made Wendy a better listener (and a better leader)
- A preview of her next book on anxiety and finding comfort in the discomfort

Wendy's biggest invitation: notice how often the tensions in your life present themselves as either/or. Then ask one question. What if it's both?

Featuring callbacks to previous Better at Work guests Jennifer Moss and Amy Gallo. Recorded with Wendy in Philadelphia.

Got a career dilemma? Send it in at betteratwork.com

NEXT WEEK: Q&A with Annette on this episode and listener questions.

Making your work life better, one conversation at a time.
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Annette's back with three takeaways from last week's Jennifer Moss episode that genuinely changed how we think about hope at work. Plus a listener question from Paul, an Australian who's been working in Dublin for 7-8 years and is now moving the family home to Melbourne while weighing a career change.

In this Q&A:

- The Admiral McRaven "make your bed" reminder
- FOBO (fear of becoming obsolete) and the five-step Gallup framework for compassionate leadership in the AI era
- Why scheduling time for learning is the part most leaders skip
- "Hope is not a method" vs. "hope IS a strategy": Annette's full reframe
- The four-part hope framework: goals, pathways, personal agency, agency for others
- Paul's question: how do you survive an international move AND a career pivot at the same time?
- The both/and move that changes the maths on midlife career transitions

Annette tells the story of the Post-it she kept on her monitor at one of the toughest jobs of her career: "Hope is not a method." Years later, Jennifer Moss reframed it for her. Hope is a strategy when you build goals, pathways, and agency underneath it. Without those, it's just wishful thinking with better PR.

For Paul, and anyone considering a big move plus a big career shift at the same time, the advice is the both/and: contract while you network, build foundations while you research, and don't try to do all the big rocks at once.

Got a career dilemma? Send it in at betteratwork.com

NEXT WEEK: Wendy Smith on Both/And Thinking. You're going to love it.

Making your work life better, one conversation at a time.
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Three years ago, Jennifer Moss came on Better at Work and gave us a line that stuck: we can't yoga our way out of a bad boss.
She's back. New book. Sharper take.

Jennifer is a burnout researcher and workplace culture strategist whose new book Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everybody Wants is her third on this space and one of the most useful Cathal has read this year.

In this conversation:
→ Why hope is collapsing at work, especially for under-25s (the World Happiness Report numbers are bleak)
→ Charles Snyder's hope theory and why agency is the piece most leaders miss
→ Why a compliant team isn't a loyal team, it's a team where hope is dying
→ The real cost of layoffs to the people who stay
→ Phobos and the 1 in 2 stat on AI anxiety from Microsoft's Work Trend Index
→ Why most micromanagers are frightened, not malicious
→ The 5-step compassionate leadership framework for AI transitions
→ Why "I'm an ally" framing has made diversity work fragile, and the reframe that fixes it
→ Optimal distinctiveness: fitting in and standing out at the same time
→ Three things leaders can do this week

Jennifer references Adam Grant, Lindsay McIntyre (formerly of Microsoft), Amy Gallo, Claudia Goldin, Robin Dunbar, and case studies from companies including Patagonia and Bright Horizons.

Find Jennifer at jennifer-moss.com and on LinkedIn.

Better at Work is hosted by Cathal Quinlan. New episodes every Thursday 7am.

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What if the colleague who drives you up the wall is the one your organisation can't afford to lose?

Cathal and Annette are back for a listener-questions special, picking up where last week's conversation with David [surname TBC], former Head of Design at Tesla, left off. The idea that stuck: every team has Mad Hatters and White Rabbits. The Mad Hatters bring the wild, disruptive, sometimes maddening ideas. The White Rabbits keep things running on time. Most organisations over-index on one and quietly punish the other, which is exactly how you lose the creative edge that made you competitive in the first place.

Cathal shares why the framework hit home, why psychological safety matters more than surface-level politeness, and why "I don't agree with you" should be a welcome sentence in any good team. He also references his recent LinkedIn post on the thing nobody tells you when you become a manager for the first time: there's no handbook. You're going to get it wrong sometimes. That's fine, as long as you keep showing up and keep supporting the ideas.

Then the listener question. Michelle wrote in from retail. She's covering two to three people's roles on her normal shifts and being called in on her days off. She's drained. She can't say no. She's breaking. Annette and Cathal unpack it honestly and the reframe is the gold: the days-off problem isn't the real problem. The root cause is the workload. And there's a way to raise it with her manager that doesn't torch the relationship, with a Plan B ready if it doesn't land.

Expect the glass-of-water stress analogy, a useful reframe on supporting failure at work, and a reminder that the people who held the retail and service economy together through Covid deserve better than being treated as infinitely elastic.

In this episode:
Why Mad Hatters and White Rabbits need each other
The LinkedIn post Cathal wrote about becoming a manager
Why feeling threatened by a different viewpoint is a trap
The glass of water and what stress does when you hold it too long
How Michelle can raise the workload conversation, with a Plan B ready

Chapters:
00:00 Welcome back
01:35 Recap: David on curiosity at Tesla
05:38 The Mad Hatter and the White Rabbit
11:06 Why entrepreneurial thinkers need air cover
12:15 No handbook for being a manager
14:05 Why supporting failure is a leadership skill
15:03 Listener question: Michelle is running on empty
19:08 The glass of water test
20:14 How to reframe the conversation upwards
25:20 Respect for frontline workers
26:15 Next week: Jennifer Moss returns

Mentioned in this episode:
Last week's interview with David Imai, former Head of Design at Tesla (Apple, Spotify, YouTube)
Cathal's recent LinkedIn post on becoming a manager
Next week: Jennifer Moss, author of Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants

Got a career dilemma of your own?

Send it in. We'll take it on anonymously, just like Michelle's. Details at betteratwork.net

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