PART ONE

[00:00:00] Ross: Hi there, and a very warm welcome to Season 5, Episode 35 of PeopleSoup. It's Ross McIntosh here

[00:00:06] Producer Emma: P Supers, this is so exciting! It's gonna be a bit of a different episode today. The tables are turned, and I'm gonna be interviewing Ross. I'm going to interview him about his specialism, act in the workplace, and in particular his Train the Trainer program next year, which is a collaboration between Ross and Dr.

[00:00:24] Joe Oliver at Contextual Consulting. Before I do all that, I'll introduce myself. My name's Emma, I'm from Dublin, Ireland, and I'm passionate about all things psychology related. In particular, the ways in which psychology and behavioral science can be integrated into the workplace.

[00:00:41] As a producer of the PeopleSoup podcast, I usually work from behind the scenes, but as I mentioned, today we're trying something a little different.

[00:00:49] Ross: Now, for those of you who are new to PeopleSoup, , we're an award winning podcast where we share evidence based behavioral science in a way that's practical, accessible, and fun. Our mission is to unlock workplace potential with expert perspectives from contextual behavioral science.

[00:01:13] Now let's just head back to Emma as she sets the scene for this table turning episode.

[00:01:18] Producer Emma: Now Ross, I've heard from your collaborator in preparation for this episode, so I'm going to share some words that Joe sent on if you don't mind.

[00:01:26] Ross: Oh, oh, of course. Yeah, that's exciting.

[00:01:29] Producer Emma: Joe Oliver from Contextual Consulting has had the privilege of closely collaborating with Ross as he and Paul Flaxman from City University worked on the development of the Act in the Workplace program. Ross and Paul embody the ideal scientist practitioner relationship. Ross brings the extensive knowledge and experience from working in diverse workplace settings, as well as excellent training skills. Paul contributes its excellence in psychological science and translating research into practical applications. Together, their [00:02:00] collaboration has yielded an effective and impactful program for building employee well being and resilience. In 2019, Contextual Consulting hosted Ross and Paul for their first Train the Trainer program, which received an overwhelming response from practitioners across various workplace settings.

[00:02:18] The following year, Ross returned to deliver a comprehensive Act in the Workplace training, including modules on leadership development and organizational flexibility. Participant feedback for these sessions was exceptionally positive, highlighting Ross's training skills and the value of the Act in the Workplace package he developed.

[00:02:37] These trainings certainly align with contextual consulting's commitment to evidence based practical and impactful programs for practitioners in diverse settings. That's why we are thrilled to announce that we will be hosting Ross again for an upcoming Act in the Workplace Train the Trainer workshop next year. Now, I'd also like to add that Contextual Consulting should be the first place you look for high quality, evidence based ACT training, therapy, and supervision. And you'll find the link in the show notes. So, Ross, what do you make of that?

[00:03:08] Ross: Wow. They are very kind words on the... Relationship that is ongoing, that me and Paul have had with Joe. And it's fabulous to read Joe's review and, uh, the impact we've had. So I'm really grateful for that.

[00:03:22] And folks, I'm super excited to share the protocol I developed with Dr. Paul Flaxman Hashtag Flaxibabes at City, University of London. I've trained hundreds of adults using this approach, and also hundreds of trainers, too.

[00:03:36] And before we continue, A couple of breaking news items. Firstly, hold the front page, there's a discount code for the Act in the Workplace Train the Trainer program. And you'll hear that discount code in the middle of this and next week's episode.

[00:03:50] The code will give you a 20 percent discount on my Act in the Workplace, Train the Trainer program. And if that's not enough, PSupers, There's also the chance to win a free place on the Act in the [00:04:00] Workplace, Train the Trainer program.

[00:04:01] All you need to do is fill in a very brief form via the link in the show notes for this episode and the competition closes at midnight central European time on 20th of December 2023 and the winner will be chosen at random and notified the next day the 21st of December.

[00:04:19] So don't miss out

[00:04:20] SECTION REMOVED

[00:04:20] Ross: So, enough excitement. Now Emma's set the scene, for now. Get a brew on, and have a listen to part one of our table turning episode where I'm in the hot seat.

[00:04:37] SPOONS Ready to dive in

[00:04:37] Producer Emma: So, ready to dive in?

[00:04:40] Ross: Let's dive in, Emma. Yeah.

[00:04:42] Producer Emma: Great, well, I'm going to start with the all important question, Ross, if you don't mind. So, what is ACT?

[00:04:49] Ross: Brilliant question Emma, thank you. So yeah, ACT is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy, or Acceptance and Commitment Training, some people call it. Don't be alarmed by that therapy word folks, because what we've done at City University of London over the last 20 years, particularly Paul, is to research the application of ACT in the workplace.

[00:05:11] And over those years, the body of research has grown significantly The evidence shows it can enhance work and life effectiveness. It can improve our own well being and personal resilience. It can help us develop our skills to move towards what matters in life and work.

[00:05:28] It can help us reduce rumination outside of work, consider what's important and recognize the internal barriers to us moving forward with purpose.

[00:05:37] Producer Emma: Wow, well isn't that impressive?

[00:05:39] Ross: And Emma, ACT is made up of six different processes, which all contribute to the development of psychological flexibility. But for the workplace, we break them down into three skills. Noticing, Active and Open.

[00:05:53] Producer Emma: okay, interesting. And that's great that the key skills of ACT can be simplified into [00:06:00] memorable concepts for the workplace. So, could you expand on those three skills?

[00:06:04] Ross: Yes, of course, I'd love to. So, I'm going to start with the noticing skill. The skill of noticing. How much of our lives do we spend on autopilot? And what I mean by autopilot is not noticing what's going on around us. Our body is somewhere, but our mind is off somewhere else.

[00:06:21] And some research from Harvard suggested it's about 47 percent of our lives we're not in that present moment. So, there's real scope for us to enhance our noticing skills, to notice how we're showing up as a person at work, how we're showing up as a person in our relationships. In every area of life, There's room for us to become more aware of how we're showing up. And there's also room to notice what's going on around us in our environment. Are there opportunities? Are there threats happening? And also noticing what our minds are up to, that content that our minds produce can sometimes be less than helpful.

[00:06:55] So that's a little bit about the skill of noticing. Let me talk about active. Active is about really pausing and thinking about what matters to us in different areas of life.

[00:07:06] In our training we like to call these personal values, what qualities of behaviour do we want to bring to our life at work and our life outside of work. And with these personal values, the challenge is then, how can we bring them to life in how we show up? How can we express them in our behaviour In a way that gives us meaning and moves us towards what's important for us and how we'd like to be in life. If you like, the best version of ourselves.

[00:07:32] And then the final skill is Open. That's about it. relating skillfully to our inner world. Now that might sound a bit woo woo, but what I mean is that our mind is producing loads of thoughts, emotions, memories, sensations, urges all the time. And sometimes that stuff's helpful, and sometimes, quite a lot of the time in fact, it's unhelpful.

[00:07:54] And that unhelpful stuff, thoughts like, I'm not good enough, or it's not going [00:08:00] to work, or I'm not clever enough, that can really hijack our behaviour. I mean, we're not showing up as the best version of ourselves. And what we can do in act, and this is a feature of act I love so much, is that we can learn to relate to that stuff differently, so it doesn't have such a hold on us.

[00:08:18] Producer Emma: Thank you so much, Ross, for expanding on those three skills. And presumably those three skills all work in conjunction with one another to enhance psychological well being and flexibility in the workplace. And that skill of noticing in particular really resonates with the practice of mindfulness. And we'll delve into a taster of some of the notice, active, and open techniques a bit later on in the episode, but firstly Ross, I'm intrigued. How did you come across ACT?

[00:08:51] Ross: yeah, thank you, Emma. Well, before I became a freelance organizational psychologist and coach, I had a long career in HR leadership in the UK civil service.

[00:09:01] I was in senior leadership roles in the Home Office and also the Department for Business. And my last job in the Department for Business was I was Head of Leadership Assessment. So I was working on developing rigorous procedures to identify the leaders of the future. And about that time, eight or nine years ago, I jumped ship. because I had this itch I wanted to scratch, I thought I could make more of an impact in the workplace, with some additional study behind me. So I did an MSc in Organizational Psychology, on top of an MSc in Human Resource Management that I'd done some years earlier.

[00:09:34] And of course, my very first degree, way back when, was in psychology. so that's a bit of a roundabout way of telling you when I came across ACT. But I think that sets the scene nicely.

[00:09:44] When I came across ACT

[00:09:44] Ross: So, it was in a lecture with one Dr. Paul Flaxman on my Masters, that he introduced ACT as a way to enhance psychological well being at work.

[00:09:56] And I was like, OMG. This just [00:10:00] immediately resonated with me. This idea that we can choose values that have resonance and meaning for us and we can relate to that unhelpful stuff in our minds in a different way, as well as bringing our skills to notice the present moment.

[00:10:15] And it just like rang every bell in my whole system, if you like. I was like, I love this for its practicality, but I also love it for its humanity. one of the most powerful things for me was, we know that ACT can enhance psychological well being. And psychological well being is the strongest predictor of attendance, turnover, and performance in organizations. And that's from a theory called the Happy Productive Worker. And I'll put a link in the show notes to that, Emma.

[00:10:45] DISCOUNT CODE

[00:10:45] Ross: We interrupt this broadcast with an important public service announcement. The discount code for 20% of your act in the workplace Train the trainer program is P Soup 20, all in capitals, that's the letter P, followed by the word soup, followed by the figure two and zero P soup 20.

[00:11:02] Producer Emma: Ross. It's brilliant to hear a bit of background. And it's funny, as you were mentioning how you had your long career in HR and then you jumped ship, it was almost like you were practicing that active skill before you even knew what ACT was. I'm sure that was a contributing factor to, why ACT resonated with you so much.

[00:11:24] Ross: Emma, I'm so pleased you picked up on that. I actually jumped ship before I discovered ACT, but looking back on that, it feels really authentic in terms of, I was following a path, and I did it, it took me a while, like a couple of years to make that decision, but I was following a path that had purpose and meaning for me.

[00:11:44] And I guess some of the other ways it's impacted in my life is with anxiety. I'm someone who's been anxious their whole life. It's helped me realize that the stuff that my mind produces is actually my mind doing exactly what it's designed to do, [00:12:00] keeping me safe. And it was one of those ah ha moments, how we can use those personal values as a guide for our behavior. They're like a beacon for how we want to be. And it really has transformed my life in many different ways. I grew up in the northeast of England near Newcastle. And I knew I was different. But for me there were no credible gay role models in public life.

[00:12:22] And fast forward, this increased my feelings of isolation and disconnection at university and also in the workplace in my early twenties. So the fact that I've now got behavioural science that helps me think How do I want to be? Becoming more aware of myself, my authentic action and adaptability, as well as the role modelling I'm doing for other people in the workplace.

[00:12:45] It really brings that to life for me and helps me think about, in a very small way, how I'm role modelling for other people in the world of work.

[00:12:53] Producer Emma: Thank you so much, Ross, for sharing a bit more of that personal meaning of What ACT means for you. And it's funny, as you are talking about some of those ACT concepts, there's one image that keeps playing in my head.

[00:13:07] And that's a hamster wheel. And it's that hamster going around in that wheel, and that's a lot of us.

[00:13:13] And it's about getting off the hamster wheel, and thinking about what's important. You know, we're all so busy. in our lives, but it's about using some of those noticing skills and thinking about what are my values stepping off that hamster wheel and figuring out what matters.

[00:13:31] And so Ross, could you tell me a bit more about the evidence base for ACT?

[00:13:35] Ross: Yeah, for sure, Emma. So, It's one of the features of ACT that particularly attracts me. It's got a really solid evidence base behind it. And some of the work we've done at City University of London, We know that people who signed to come on a workplace program of four sessions to cultivate the skills from ACT, around 40 percent were experiencing borderline clinical levels of psychological distress.

[00:13:59] Usually that would [00:14:00] take the form of depression, anxiety, and stress. we interrupt this broadcast again because what I didn't say is that after a four session act program over four consecutive weeks, the measures on the general health questionnaire had all reduced to well below the threshold for psychological distress. And to be honest, Emma, that's what gets me up in the morning. can be shared and cultivated in others. And remember, if we can increase psychological well being, that's the most reliable predictor of performance, attendance, and turnover.

[00:14:31] And I love your metaphor of the hamster wheel. Because I think that's exactly it. In training like this, we're inviting people to step off the hamster wheel. Because the temptation can be just to keep going, just to keep going, just to keep going. I don't have time to stop. But we're inviting them to pause and think about how would I like my career and my life to be?

[00:14:51] How could I live with more intention and make more choices that really align with what matters to me? And the other part, Emma, that I love, it's a privilege to share these skills with adults in the workplace, whether it's in group settings or in one to one coaching.

[00:15:06] These are skills that adults probably weren't taught during their schooling or higher education.

[00:15:12] Producer Emma: That is a great point Ross, and that almost links back to that 40 percent stat that you, you gave us. That's, that's shocking, but it's, it's great that ACT could have such a positive impact on people in the workplace. And thank you for articulating some of that hamster wheel analogy for me. I think you did it a lot better than I

[00:15:34] Ross: Ha ha ha!

[00:15:36] Producer Emma: brilliant points there, Ross.

[00:15:37] Poss end of part one

[00:15:37] Producer Emma: And so who do you use ACT with?

[00:15:40] Ross: Wow! Well, I'm privileged to have been using ACT for the last nine years, and... My ambition is to reach more adults in the workplace with these practical skills. and examples of working populations I've used ACT with are the NHS frontline. I've worked with over 20 NHS trusts, the Treasury [00:16:00] Department and the UK civil service teachers.

[00:16:02] I've worked with a lot of teachers. I've also worked with hedge fund managers, global banking. Global Fast Moving Consumer Goods and the main ballet companies in the UK. So I work with professional ballet dancers, which is such a privilege and an insight to get a glimpse into their world.

[00:16:19] But there's a thing that bonds them all. They're all adults in the workplace, trying to make their way and to have a fulfilling career. So, some of the challenges they face are similar, and some of the contexts are dramatically different. Like, the context of being a principal ballet dancer context of being a nurse in an emergency department.

[00:16:40] There are different external factors, but sometimes some of the things that are going on inside their heads have similar themes there. And, this training protocol that me and Paul Flaxman developed, which is the basis of this Train the Trainer program, I use it as a base for leadership development.

[00:17:03] I've used it as the foundation for a two day masterclass to support senior leaders in enhancing their coaching skills and much more. another thing I love about ACT is that it could be the foundation for many workplace interventions and it can combine with other approaches in a really seamless integrated way.

[00:17:22] Producer Emma: Wow. So ACT is very transferable then. So not only across It's a wide range of industries,

[00:17:28] And it's also great to hear that ACT can be used in conjunction with some other research and coaching methodologies, and I wonder if you could give us any anecdotes about delivering this training in the workplace.

[00:17:41] Ross: Yeah, of course, Emma. And just thinking about combining ACT with other research. One thing that springs to mind that's been on my mind a lot over the last two or three years is combining ACT to help people think how they're going to disconnect and recharge from work. And that has been very successful with working populations, [00:18:00] combining ACT with the research literature on leisure time recovery. That's probably a whole nother podcast. But yeah, anecdotes, Emma, thanks for asking.

[00:18:09] I think I'll draw upon three that have really stood out for me. And one is working with nurses and healthcare professionals in the NHS.

[00:18:17] That's it, PSupers. Part 1 of my chat with Emma in the bag. I'd like to thank Emma for her curiosity and cracking interview style. There'll be more of that next week with a surprise question too. Don't forget the discount code, PSup20, and the prize draw. You've gotta be in it to win it. We'd love your help in reaching more people with this behavioral science, so..

[00:18:46] you enjoyed this episode of the podcast, we'd love you to do three things.

[00:18:50] Ross: Number one, share it with one other person. Number two, subscribe and give us a five star review, whatever platform you're on.

[00:18:58] Number three, share the heck out of it on the socials. This would all help us reach more people and make some noise with stuff that could be useful. We'd love to hear from you and you can get in touch at peoplesoup. pod at gmail. com. On X, formerly known as Twitter, we are at peoplesouppod. on the gram, known as insta, We are at People. Soup and on Facebook we are at PeopleSoupPod. You can also drop us a review or get in touch using a voice note on WhatsApp.

[00:19:25] Thanks to Andy Glenn for his spoon magic and Alex Engelberg for his vocals. Most of all, dear listener, thanks to you. Look after yourselves, peace supers, and bye for now.

[00:19:35] I just felt like it was tripping over my tongue a lot of the time, but I think that will edit down.

[00:19:43] Hopefully it's not going to be too much of a pain in the ass for you.

[00:19:46] Producer Emma: no, no. Well, I'll enjoy it cuz yeah, it's just it's really interesting.