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Speaker 1: The average staff tenure in my business Inventium has dropped,

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Speaker 1: and I am.

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Speaker 2: Rapped about that.

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Speaker 1: That might sound strange to here, right, because surely we'll

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Speaker 1: want people to stay with the company for a long

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Speaker 1: time so they can grow and become more efficient and

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Speaker 1: better understand the workings of the organization. This is another

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Speaker 1: lesson that I learned from my biggest leadership mistakes. In

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Speaker 1: twenty twenty four, something I unpacked with my friend Sabina Read,

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Speaker 1: a clinical psychologist and expert in human behavior, and it

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Speaker 1: turns out from a psychological perspective, Sabina also sees lots

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Speaker 1: of reasons why short a tenure for employees can actually

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Speaker 1: be a good thing.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to How I Work, a show about habits, rituals,

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Speaker 2: and strategies for optimizing your day. I'm your host, doctor

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Speaker 2: Amantha Imber.

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Speaker 3: You've talked about how you've had employees there for a

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Speaker 3: long time and tenure average tenure is very is long

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Speaker 3: compared to other organizations, which is a credit to invent Him.

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Speaker 3: But with tenure can become well. You tell me, what

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Speaker 3: do you think long tenure? What are the risks of

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Speaker 3: tenure for people in an organization and culture.

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Speaker 2: Like tenure obviously has a whole host of benefits, and

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Speaker 2: I won't go into those because I think that they're

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Speaker 2: well trodden and everyone knows what they are. But tenure

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Speaker 2: also has a shadowside, and I feel like I really

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Speaker 2: experience that. In twenty twenty four, where we had very

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Speaker 2: high tenure, a ten year is actually dropped and I'm

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Speaker 2: quite happy about that, which might sound strange, but I

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Speaker 2: feel like the thinking is a lot fresher because of it.

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Speaker 2: What I found happening, and this was not across the board,

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Speaker 2: but on occasion, you know, I'd be talking to someone

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Speaker 2: who'd worked in the business for many, many years, and

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Speaker 2: I think I've noticed this for a good couple of years,

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Speaker 2: Like in twenty twenty three was probably when I first

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Speaker 2: began to be hyper aware of it, and it just

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Speaker 2: kind of continued into twenty twenty four. Is that as

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Speaker 2: someone and sometimes that someone would be me, like I

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Speaker 2: have a friend who yeah, so I would notice that

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Speaker 2: sometimes I would bring up an idea or a thought

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Speaker 2: like I think we should do this, and I would

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Speaker 2: be met with resistance from, you know, someone that had

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Speaker 2: been with the business for years and they'd seen all

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Speaker 2: the the whole journey that we've been on, you know,

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Speaker 2: over the last decade, and they would use an experience

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Speaker 2: from years ago or data from years ago to go, well,

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Speaker 2: that's not going to work because we tried it then

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Speaker 2: and it didn't work. And ironically, you know, a large

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Speaker 2: part of what we do in Inventium is innovation consulting

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Speaker 2: and capability building, and it's exactly what we teach our

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Speaker 2: clients not to fall into the trap of that. We

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Speaker 2: tried it last year and it didn't work, And it

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Speaker 2: was quite scary for me to realize that that was

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Speaker 2: happening within Inventium. Again, not across the board, but there

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Speaker 2: were just quite a few instances where I had been

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Speaker 2: experiencing it and it was happening for a couple of years.

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Speaker 2: And as I say, it's the shadow side of tenure

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Speaker 2: that is really I mean, like God, if it's happening

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Speaker 2: at Inventium, where we're talking about innovation every day, I mean,

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Speaker 2: it can happen everywhere, and it is so detrimental to

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Speaker 2: growth and improvements and new things happening.

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Speaker 3: And I've seen this at countless organizations and coach different

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Speaker 3: individuals who are newer so not the longer tenured people

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Speaker 3: who say, I thought I was brought on board here

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Speaker 3: to bring fresh insights and new perspectives, but whenever I

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Speaker 3: raise them, everyone says, no, that's not how we do it,

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Speaker 3: or that hasn't worked before. And it's also we're talking

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Speaker 3: about tenure, you and I. But I also would use

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Speaker 3: the word legacy. Sometimes long term employees are so attached

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Speaker 3: to the legacy or a brand of what used to

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Speaker 3: be in the heyday, they can't let go of that,

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Speaker 3: and they do a disservice to the new voices and

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Speaker 3: the new ideas that come to the point where the

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Speaker 3: new ideas and the new voices feel unheard or undervalued

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Speaker 3: or they never said that. The dial shift on their

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Speaker 3: thoughts or their contribution, and they leave. And so then

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Speaker 3: you end up sitting with the same tenured crew sort

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Speaker 3: of stirring in the same pot, and you're not going

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Speaker 3: to get not just innovation, but you're not going to

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Speaker 3: get any shift towards change or growth or new ways

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Speaker 3: of being or doing things. So I think we have

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Speaker 3: to be careful when new people come on board. And

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Speaker 3: another parallel, I always like to think outside. You know,

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Speaker 3: here's another therapy example. One of the things that we

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Speaker 3: know about research in the best therapists I'm talking about

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Speaker 3: set of clinical psychological settings is not. Of course, rapport

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Speaker 3: is the number one is the number one efficacy factor

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Speaker 3: in therapy, but how long a therapist has trained for

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Speaker 3: it actually doesn't have a huge bearing always on the outcomes.

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Speaker 3: And sometimes newer therapists are open and curious and they

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Speaker 3: want to try new things, and that can bring fresh

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Speaker 3: perspectives for the client as well. And I think that's

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Speaker 3: the same in business. So again, with regards to age

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Speaker 3: or even experience, a new, fresh, bright employee might have

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Speaker 3: ideas that no one's ever thought about before, and when

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Speaker 3: they speak up, everyone's like, well, you know, she's sort

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Speaker 3: of the junior or the grad or what would she

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Speaker 3: or he? No, let's not judge someone by how long

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Speaker 3: they've worked a in the organization or even b full stop.

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Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this quick win with Savina. If

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Speaker 1: you'd like to listen to the full discussion, you can

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Speaker 1: find a link to that in the show notes.

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Speaker 2: If you like today's show, make sure you gud follow

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Speaker 2: How I Work was recorded on the traditional land of

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Speaker 2: the Warrenery people part of the cooler Nation. Two