Thriving through ambiguity with Dr Debbie Sutherland

Today, I'm here with Dr Debbie Sutherland. Debbie is an executive coach and an academic executive who, as an expert in behavioural science in the corporate world, has helped executives, leaders and business owners to thrive all over the world.

The highlights

• Debbie tells us who she is and how she helps people with systems thinking  00:48
• Debbie explains what her role was in the corporate environment  04:12
• Debbie tells us about her thesis on knowledge sharing in business  07:45
• Debbie talks about how she brought her research knowledge to the world  11:50
• Debbie takes us through the other main themes that emerged in her research  22:42
• Debbie tells us about her book  30:13
• Debbie talks about her consultancy work  34:12
• Debbie tells us where to find her book and where to connect with her online  37:21

Links for Debbie

Website & Book:

The Business of Ambiguity: Demystify the Unknown with Five Key Thinking and Behavior Strategies

https://www.behaviorsinbusiness.com

Instagram: @behaviors_in_business

Twitter: @BehaviorsinBusiness

Other Links

Course Creation Guide

Psychology Business School

Mentioned in this episode:

Free Client Checklist

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Client Checklist 2021

TRANSCRIPT

SPEAKERS

Rosie Gilderthorp, Debbie Sutherland

Welcome to the Business of Psychology Podcast, the show that helps you to reach more people, help more people and build the life you want to live by doing more than therapy.

Hello, and welcome to the Business of Psychology. Today, I'm here with Dr. Debbie Sutherland. Debbie is an executive coach, and an academic who's helped executives, leaders and business owners to thrive all over the world. Debbie, your career is fascinating. And I know that you're a real expert in behavioural science in the corporate world, and lots of other things as well. So I can't wait to hear more about you. So could we just get started with a bit of an introduction, really? So who are you? And how do you help people?

Thank you, thank you for inviting me on your show is really exciting for me. So essentially, I'm a Canadian, and what I've done is spent most of my young adult and adult life overseas, and I've worked in different countries. So I have always wondered, I guess how we kind of go back and reflect back and find out what inspired us what my passion is, is I was always curious how people think. So if you can think back to all your childhood dramas that you went through, I was. it seemed like I was never in the middle of them. I was always on the periphery just watching, trying to understand how people think, what got us into this mess. So I think that that type of thinking mental model that I had progressed me into centralised positions as a young adult, and so um, I think that took me into the leadership sphere, where I was always wondering about the leaders. How did they get there? How are they becoming a leader? And so I was always watching them. And back in that timeframe, I thought those really good leaders are the ones who have very strong opinions. And they were very strong in how they force those opinions. Maybe they weren't the loudest ones in the room, and I thought, oh my gosh, they're so convincing, they're so influential, and how they give their message across. And I thought, humbly speaking back then, that I would never become a leader because I never had that strong of an opinion, I always was swayed by new information that came in going, oh my gosh, oh, that sounds like an interesting idea. So that's what I thought leadership was at that point. And so as I progressed, in my career, I was looking at the theories, I was a, you know, a corporate person. But I really wanted to know the theories behind all the behaviours that we saw in the business. So I did go to Columbia University, and there's a wonderful programme there called the ExMA, Executive Master's in organisational design and behaviours. And what I learned there, the one theory, you know, when there's a one theory that you learn, and it just flips the light on and you're like, oh, my gosh, that's it. That's what I understand. It was systems thinking. And so I'm not sure you've heard of system thinking. It's a, it's a very old term that comes from the design sciences and chaos theories, but really what it is, it's the art and science of making inferences about people, behaviours, and systems. And so that you can understand the underlying structures that propel people and do, they do what they do in the corporate. So when I got that, I'm like, ah-ha, I now see that there's a lot of good leaders who understand people and their behaviours, and I found them to be more successful. So I think that became my, my guiding light to understand systems thinking in the business. And so that helped me with all of the practicalities of business, performance management, rewards, retention, people. It's not just one thing that people understand in the business, it comes down to so many other nuances that make employees successful in their journey.

So at that time in your life, when you just discovered this course, and discovered systems thinking, and we're finding that really helpful, what was your role in the corporate environment in that time? So a lot of us don't have very much experience at all of what the corporate ladder looks like.

Okay. Well, it was interesting, because I gravitated towards centralised positions. So it wasn't necessarily hierarchy that I was concerned about in my career. I was in HR teams, which is centralised, and then I was centralised in strategy teams as well. So it wasn't really title oriented. It was... I considered myself almost the glue because I seem to understand people and I pulled them together so I seem to have been valuable in that space. So working alongside these McKinsey, BCG consultants, they actually had, you know, inches thick of strategy, but they didn't know necessarily how the people would implement it, how do they carry it forward. So it became a wonderful partnership.

Aha, so you were already working in roles where you were facing these problems all the time, where things like retention, for example, were sort of your problem, but you hadn't found the, the way of fixing that that would stick.

Right. And so I think through practice, through experiences you learn, right, and then, of course, the academics, stepping my toe into the academic world was wonderful, I loved all these new theories. Adult learning theories, motivation theory, and the you know, the basic, the good basic stuff that help you in your role. And then what, I can tell you a little bit the types of companies I worked for, because I've worked mainly with startup, large scale startup companies, and so they're very messy. I have to say, the first 18 months to two years, it's very messy, wearing a lot of hats, there's a lot of pressures, there's not a process in place. So people who we've maybe hired, and maybe like that structure, maybe we didn't filter them, or talk to them about it as much as we should have when they were hired, but maybe they don't do very well in that space. And either they leave on their own orr maybe we asked them to leave, because they just can't seem to handle all of these, again, systems thinking, something that happens on this side of the business is resonating throughout, it's like a little trampoline, right? There's little vibrations that happen. And you have to be aware of what's happening in the marketing department of why that product is not selling, it just really doesn't have anything only to do with marketing. There's other things. Were they trained well enough? Does their line manager even talk to them? Was there any performance reviews? Have they ever gotten feedback? Do they ever have milestones? There's all of these systems things, that is probably the reason why this product is not selling.

Wow. So you found a theory that kind of made sense of the problems that all of these businesses were facing, and allowed you to, I guess, communicate that to them. Because I get the sense that from your experience, you were kind of already aware that there might be these issues. But it's very difficult to communicate that to an organisation in a way that makes sense to them. Whereas when you've got a unifying theory behind it, that sounds incredibly useful.

One of the next things I think I learned that propelled me now to you know, the next big phase is knowledge sharing. To me, it was like, people could sit 50 feet away from each other in a business and never know each other's names. And it's so prevalent, I didn't realise that knowledge sharing was so valuable, it's intangible, I can't make you share information in a business. So what is that motivations behind all of that, because the business, if you want to be flexible, if you want to be agile, you have to make quick decisions, you have to know where to find all of this information. So I did my master's thesis on, on knowledge sharing in the business and created a wonderful template that I think a blueprint other Organisational Psychologists can use. But what I really honed in on is that through all of these startups, I work with some wonderful people, dignitaries, CEOs, foreign diplomats, scientists, and they all came from diverse backgrounds, and education backgrounds. And but some of them were better, and more equipped, thinking skills in ambiguity, then others and I didn't know what the pattern was, and that became the impetus for my doctoral research is, I would love to know how these people how they pick up these nuances. Where did they learn it from? Do they all go to the same university and have this? Are they all engineers? Because they're, they think, like engineers, I didn't know. And that's, that became my research.

Wow, fascinating. So tell me a little bit more about that research project then, what kind of came out of that for you?

Oh, my gosh, so much. It was so, it was so, it was a wonderful experience. But there were three big research questions that I had, as your listeners will probably know in terms of research, getting it all structured in place so that you can go forth and collect data. It was an exploratory, semi structured interview process from Columbia University. But the first question is, what are the beliefs? What are the principles? And what are the behaviours of executives who worked in conditions of ambiguity? What do they think? And then the next layer was what experiences and events provide the scaffolding in the development of that thinking capacity? And then the third question is what relationship systems and elements in the environment help to develop this? So, and where that came from, you can see my hands moving in spheres, there's this great researcher, Dr. Bronfenbrenner, and he did adult learning of in the 1960s. And he had spheres, he says the childhood developments is their little nucleolus at home, but their behaviours and their learning experiences change as they expand from the home, what happens in the streets with their playground friends, what happens in the school, what happens with your churches in their communities, in their clubs, so that you could have two children in the same household, but one has got different groups of friends, the other one plays sports, was bullied or something. They will have different experiences, and recollections of how they grow up in terms of their values. So I call them spheres of insights. You have your individual sphere, what you're thinking, what's happening to you in the organisation, that impacts you and how you think, and then what happens when you expand even further to the environment, what's going on outside of your business that influences you, and how you show up to work each day. All of those things is your whole person self.

Wow, that sounds like an incredibly useful study to have completed. So when you got, I imagine that was a long period of work. I know from doing a doctoral thesis, they are normally long.

Yes, exactly.

So when you came out of the other end of that, and I know I can hear it in your voice that you just had this sort of passion to use it, so how did you go about bringing that to the world and making use of that knowledge?

So you're absolutely right. I'm a, I'm in corporate, and I love the academic space. So I'm an academic practitioner. So I definitely wanted my doctoral research to be something that would be like a blueprint, you can just bring into any business. So my research was really aimed towards executives, that's my primary audience, because executives don't get into leadership programmes, they're just too darn busy. But the world is moving way too fast for them to even absorb what's happening in their own space. So how do they learn? How do they grasp all these dynamic and fluid in environment that they're in? So I really wanted to research the ones who were successful, and then maybe it would help other executives. And then a second audience, of course, is talent professionals, because it is like a blueprint, you can take this into your own organisation and help spread these thinking insights and behaviour insights into your own organisation. So everybody is kind of thinking and speaking in the same language.

Okay. So just to double check, did you say a talent professional?

Yes, like, your learning and development team within the business.

Ah, okay.

So for your listeners, I think it would be people who are therapists and clinical psychologists, is I think some of the key insights that I pulled out of the coding and the research might be of interest, because you're essentially entrepreneurs, right? You're in this amazing space and you've taken this leap into, outside of maybe a corporate what you were doing before, or the academic setting that you were in, and it's kind of scary out there, you're on your own. Where do you get your information from? How do you think the next step when you have so many variables? How do you get out of your own head in your thinking to see if you're on the right path?

Absolutely, I think I very much encourage people to own that identity as entrepreneurs. I think a lot of mental health professionals who go into private practice struggle with it. But actually, we need to learn how to manage this stuff. And we need to recognise that we are leaders within our businesses, and actually look into what do you know, as you're saying, what do effective leaders need to know to get through difficult times to deal with, say conflict, difficult decisions, putting out products and services when you don't know that they'll be successful? We've been talking a lot on here about launching online courses. And there is no blueprint on how to create the perfect online course that will perfectly serve your niche client group, there really isn't. You have to cope with the uncertainty and put stuff out there and see and test and be a scientist about it. But in order to have that objective and scientific analytical point of view, you have to deal with all of this anxious, horrible uncertainty inside yourself while you're creating it.

I think you also on another one of your shows you were talking about zoom calls with your clients now. That was never the norm, now it is. Now it's the expectation is when we were going through that change and thinking about it, when we listen to other people, did we think it would never work? Yeah, there's, it's changed. And what was your thinking when you got through that is very helpful. I can tell you, one of the first things that I found from my research is that, I call something called an ambiguity mindset, so I go through, I found five key things that all of these successful leaders have done to manage ambiguity, or not manage, thrive within ambiguity. They have a deeply reflective mindset. So if there's new elements and situation and influencers, they reflect on it, they take that deliberate pause, and they say what's happening here? Because if you just keep moving forward without that critical reflection piece, you're just, you could bulldoze over, you'll definitely move forward, but is it the right forward? So what happened with these executives is they actively take a deliberate pause, and to be a critical, critical thinker, reflection thinker, of course, you have to have a new behaviour to move forward. It's not just looking backward. It's like journaling, I think that all of your clients at some point, you're, you're advocating for journaling, which is amazing. People in corporate world don't journal, doctors journal, therapists journal, clients journal, but in the corporate world, that's really not a thing. And so that's, because you can, when you're, when you do it, you can see your patterns of behaviour, insights, oh, what was my trigger? Why do I always keep getting upset with that employee? Why am I anxious about this meeting, when that person is very difficult to work with? Why am I always not speaking my mind in those meetings? So being able to journal and go back to those patterns of behaviour, I think, give you another insight up to how you can move forward and tackle that work situation again.

So that was one of the key things which you pulled out as being helpful for people who were quite good at getting through these kind of ambiguous situations. I think that self reflection piece is really crucial. And actually, although all of us might advocate for our clients to do it, we will know the value of it. It's really common for people to never do that when it comes to their business life or even their personal life, actually. But particularly in business, often, I'll say to somebody, you know what, why do you think that you keep going in circles with that course? Or, you know, you don't ever publish that blog post? And they'll come up with something really superficial like, oh, you know, it's been really busy, I've just been really busy. I think, really? Or is there some avoidance going on? Or is there some reason that you really dread doing that and you haven't kind of worked through that? So, you know, we're not that great at that self reflection quite often. I know, from personal experience, I've often not been that great at it. So that's, that seems like a really important takeaway for people.

What is interesting, there was actions behind it. And another thing that businesses are not necessarily good at, because it's painful, is the lessons learned exercise. And then of course anyone in therapy as well, after a session, if it didn't go well, obviously, you're probably tracking why. Or you could be thinking, oh didn't come across too strong? Was the setting not right? Was the technology not working? What was that? So being able to do those lessons learned is also patterning and then you'll be able to gain insights into why that happened, and how you can make corrective action in the future.

Brilliant, it kind of gives you an action plan to move forward.

Exactly. So one of the other things that came out in the research was, and I'm kind of laughing when I say this, is that the only way that they learnt how to deal with ambiguity was being an ambiguity. They got some definitely good lessons learned when they were immersed in that mess. And I don't want to talk about the pandemic, because that's just so much on your nose, right? We all learn a lot in different ways. But when you're in, when you're working on a project, and there's so many variables, like we were talking about at the beginning of launching your business into a different sphere and doing a blog, you know, there's so many amazing bloggers out there, but how do you replicate that, is if you, it turned out that if you don't put yourself in those positions, it's hard to do that more in the future. So it just becomes easier to get into those grey spaces when you're like, oh, yeah, I've already had three of those last week, I've managed them, we survived them, this is what I've learned. So again, it's putting yourself in those situations, being a reflective learner so that you can take away those experiences, and getting a better action in the future.

So there's always something about being willing to be in those situations.

You have to be curious. I know that seems to be the biggest catchphrase that's going on, but if you're not curious, you're judging. And that's how I say it in the business, because if somebody is late for work, you, or late for work twice or the third time, you kind of lay on a little bit of judgement of why are they always so late? Right? They don't think can't they be here on time? So that's a judgement. But if you're curious, and you come from that kind of ethos, then you can ask the question, I've noticed, is everything okay? Right. And then you get more information. Again, it's about knowledge sharing. So you have to be, you have to take the time to query.

That's yeah, that's such a good example. I remember somewhere that my husband works, everyone was always late for work. And it was because the public transport had changed routes. So the train that used to go to a particular station had been rerouted to a different station. And they actually handled it really intelligently. So they started out punishing everybody, when that wasn't making any difference, they started to ask what's going on? Found out and just set all meetings back by an hour, and people stayed in the office an hour later, that they didn't have that pressure in the morning. Made a really big difference and boosted morale loads.

Amazing, right? So I mean, that comes down to something in the externals, the outer sphere that was impacting the behaviour in the business.

That's really interesting. So what were the other main themes that emerged in your research?

So this is moving into the outer sphere, I was so thrilled that the actual research actually came out in those kinds of spheres, it's your mental models, and adaptable mental models. If you have new information, you can change your mind. It's okay. And that was a big thing for me as a leader, I'm like, oh, I can be a leader because I now have new information. That's okay. But the other ones moved into these outer spheres. And so the social, the cultural, and the operational system is an underutilised strategic intent. Meaning if you're not paying attention to your environment of what's happening, you're probably not gleaning all the tools that you can be doing to be understanding the ambiguous situation that you're in, but again, are taking the next step to what is the next decision point that I need to get to. So that is your community of practice. That is your platform that you're using right now to help everyone come to a centralised area where you give them great information from different experts. And so that's part of, it's part of the social intelligence theory is that you can only be so smart, but you need the other people's intelligence to make a broader base of the decision that you're going to make next, if that makes sense.

Yeah, so if I'm understanding it right, is it sort of similar to what we would think about as the locus of control, like recognising what's beyond you is important in the situation and will be influencing you know, the people or the project that you're working or with?

Yes. And I think in the corporate world, we call that stakeholder relationship.

Yeah, I've heard that.

Who's got the interests? And how does that affect you?

Yeah, yeah. Because I think often when you do see people struggling in business, they are overly focused on their role and not thinking enough about those kind of environmental factors, which might be impinging on you know, their sales or, you know, they'll jump straight to I'm rubbish, that's why I'm not selling anything. And you're like, well actually, let's have a think about what's going on in the wider world, and then maybe you need to take action to reflect what's going on in the wider world, or make sure that you're aligned with what's going on.

Yes, I am, I this comes up a lot, is... I'm not a clinical therapist, but people come into my office, and they're like, o, my God, we we're just having that meeting, it was horrible, I got outed, and it was uncomfortable, and the line manager yelled dot dot dot, and then of course, you can think because it's all about you and you're totally, totally embarrassed. So as we go through this little coaching, and we ask questions, similar to what you guys, you're just doing, is what else was happening? So I get people to pay attention to what the pressures the CEO was under? Why do you think the CEO was irritated in that meeting? Just go there, like, why? Did he have a board meeting? Did the numbers not match? Did he feel that that's a part of his ego? This is his pet, his or her pet project? What kind of pressures do you think was happening over there? And then that was the release and it was aimed at you of course, unfortunately. But being better prepared for the next meeting is taking that scan of what's going on with other people. And, again, I go to the outer sphere is, is there anyone that supports your view? Where's your coalition? Are you influencing people before the meeting happens? So that they understand what you'd like to promote? I think, with your example, maybe somebody wasn't sticking up in a meeting is why is that? Is there, one little small step that you think will be well received by a person? And that's just the first step. And then you get success and you learn from that experience that finding your like minded people is beneficial.

Yeah, I can definitely see how people who are able to do that and rather than, I think it's a natural tendency to make everything all about us, and to heap all the blame on ourselves, I think it's a natural, self protected strategy that our minds have evolved. But I think people who are able to be mindful enough to separate from that and think, okay, that's what my mind wants to do, my mind wants to blame me for this and make it all about my competence. But actually, what else was going on in the environment? What's the political environment in this room? Who's got allegiances where? And how can I use that to do better next time or to get more of what I want next time? I can totally see how those people end up being those leaders or business owners who succeed in the end, I think I've seen that story many times.

Yeah. And you know, I think some people, if they network, they're not, maybe were introverts, and they, and it's, they find it hard to build those alliances, per se, in a more overt fashion. But maybe they can do it, they can foster those crucial connections over coffee with one person, it really doesn't have to be on a macro level. But being able to understand your neighbours, your coworkers, the person, the context and the environment that they're in, is, is very important. I love your story about the late train because it's just it's, it just goes to show that there are so many things happening in the environment that affects the business or even every employee in a different way that they don't even know sometimes.

Yeah, and there could have easily been a line manager there saying, oh, it's because I've got no authority, nobody respects me, that's why all of my team are always really late. And that would cause a certain set of knock on behaviours I should imagine, a bit of ego protection perhaps.

Yeah, because I'm going to be late now too, because if that whole group gets to be late, why not? Why can't I?

Yeah, exactly. But by recognising that that might not be accurate, stepping back and doing a bit of research about what else might be going on for people. They found a productive solution. Yeah, not straightaway, but they did do it. And I've always thought of that, as quite a good example, in my business. I was just wondering kind of, you know how you've applied this because you've gathered all of this amazing knowledge and almost guidelines really for people, either in executive positions or running their own businesses, I'm just wondering how you take that out to people now in your work?

So I wrote a book, in the sense because you've done your dissertation, I don't know how many people read yours, but like three people, four people, I know, I guarantee it that read mine, my husband loves me, he's never read it. I just knew it was good information for other people, so that's why you have to bring it, I wanted it to bring it to a larger audience in a simpler way of digesting all of that theory. So it became a book. But to answer your question, is, I think it becomes how you structure everything in the business. So for example, if you take the knowledge sharing piece, we found out, and the companies are set up in silos, each department is a silo per se, right? We have a hierarchy going upward, and then of course, you have some people, your friends that you communicate with from other departments, and you're like, oh, my God, I didn't know that was happening, that you were working on that. As a business, you can set up your business so that collaborative spacing, the software that you use, the data storage, places that you use, how you exchange information, the soft spaces, the water coolers that you talk to and get soft information that is also very important, the face to face. So those are the things that we're missing now, when everyone's remote working. So that's why you find all these Organisational Psychologist HR people trying to understand how do you build engagement with people that they don't see each other face to face, because that piece is very important for the knowledge sharing, the tactic knowledge sharing that you need to do. So building little frameworks, it doesn't have to be strong policies and procedures, is just kind of influencing people that they need to share information here, and do some lessons learned here, doing a town hall. Underrated performance management, people do it to tick the box, that's one of the biggest systems thinking failures, is people just think it's about their performance, and their rating, and how they did. But if you do well, you can help that person understand that they're sharing objectives with somebody in another department, and if they actually collaborate, that actually builds the business faster, more efficiently, or whatever the milestones are, and getting these people to get outside of their own heads of what a performance management system does.

So it sounds like there are things you can do to help yourself to have a better relationship with ambiguity. But that also, it's a lot about the way that the business is built, and really changing some quite fundamental aspects to the business.

Right? You're just so busy that sometimes you just don't pay attention to where there's missed opportunities. I had an executive team that they all talk to each other multiple times a day, but they never met with the three other executives on a formal level, and they seem to get, got left out. And so it was just conversations, it never was strategic discussions until you kind of pointed out and go, wow, we've never had a formalised meeting in six months. No wonder we feel scattered.

Yeah, that's really interesting. And I think, you know, sometimes it might go the other way, as well, where there's lots of meetings, but there's never any actions from the meetings. I can see how your framework would help people to see where the holes are in what their existing practice is. So are you kind of freelance now going into different businesses doing consultancy? Or are you still working within an organisation?

So it was just recently I was working as a consultant. And that was yes, the performance and people arm. But my first client was a large scale insure tech company with this amazing executive team. And so I was kind of, I was the first person that they had hired as a consultant is because they were tech people, but they didn't, in the previous company they didn't really pay attention to HR, because the tech was selling the business, the business. But slowly they realised that just so many arguments were happening and conflict and they can't, you can't put your finger on it, it's incremental messiness. So they said, I think it's this, so please come in here and help us set up the structures. And they asked me to join them, and after the third time of being asked, I said absolutely, because it's an amazing team. But again, I'm in another startup, it's growing very fast, it's a little bit messy, hiring the people that can, you know, really think through that, and are comfortable in that space. So again, it's important that I'm interviewing people who have, I'm talking about their experiences, when was the last time you dealt with ambiguity? What was your thinking process going through it? And just seeing if people are reflective learners, because I think they, you need to learn those, of course other people, happy to have them on board who wants to learn and grow in a startup organisation is amazing as well.

That sounds like such a great fit for your expertise, because a startup, it does still have that flexibility to build the organisation around these principles that you know are really important. Whereas I can imagine that in some of the kind of big established corporates, it will be difficult to get the buy-in that you need to make some of the changes that you know are going to be really impactful. Is that your experience, have you done any consultancy with kind of more static organisations?

You know, it... you're right, absolutely, but I, one of the examples is you'll always run into stubborn people. With any, you know, anyone when I'm doing coaching sessions, and I'm giving somebody, what is this your second metrics, this is your evaluation? What do you think? It says here that you have strong opinions that rarely sweat? And they'll laugh, and they'll say, oh, yeah, of course, everybody calls me stubborn. So it's yourself moniker, right, of you own that. But again, being stubborn is okay, and having your own point of view, but I always tell them, if there's overwhelming evidence to suggest that there's probably another point of view, then maybe you've gotten yourself into a deep thinking rut. And you've held fast to something that's no longer relevant. So you run into that no matter what organisation you're in.

Yeah, of course, humans are humans, after all. So I think that there are going to be lots of people who are interested in reading your book. So it's called The Business of Ambiguity, is that right?

Yes, it is, almost like the Business of Psychology.

Yeah, I was like, this is a great synergy! So, well firstly, tell us where people can go to find the book, and to connect with you, because I think people are going to want to follow what you're doing.

Oh, excellent. Um, so the book was almost, it was, it was completed during the pandemic. And so I knew that not many people would be going to bookstores. So it is now launched in any digital bookstore platform, your favourite one in terms of Amazon or Goodreads, Target, Walmart, all of that, all those places that have a digital bookstore, that's where you can find it.

Oh, fantastic. And I will say I put it into Google and I found it everywhere, and it's got a really cool website as well.

Oh, yes, thank you.

So I'll put all those links in the show notes so that people can find the book really easily. And you've shared so much valuable stuff with us and it's really set my brain on fire, thinking about all of these things. But one thing I wanted to ask before we finish is what advice would you give for psychologists and therapists who are maybe starting out on their entrepreneurial journeys, and are feeling very uncertain at the moment?

Yes, so, well, I commend them for obviously taking that step because being an entrepreneur and having your own business is amazing. I think it would be one, let me do this in the spheres again, because that's just how I think, is be curious, okay, and open for new information. So always be asking and in the environment, put yourself out there, it's okay, failing at a few things is okay, you learn from your experiences. And then build your community. Build your tribe and seek out, the final strategy is, is harness the power of strategic networks or diverse networks. Seek out people who don't think like you.

Brilliant.

You don't have to pull in exactly, you don't have to implement what they say, but you'll gain some insights from that.

I think that's a really great piece of advice. I think it's all brilliant advice, but particularly that last point. It's very easy to only really talk to your echo chamber, isn't it? But one of the most valuable things that I learned when I started thinking about myself as a social entrepreneur, and joining some programmes for social entrepreneurs, was the actually, my accountant friend sees this whole issue completely differently from me. And it kind of woke me up to lots of assumptions that I was making that weren't necessarily true. So yeah, very, very powerful tool to do that. Thank you so much, Debbie, it's been really, really interesting, quite different for us actually, to really dive into the academics behind something. So I hope, I think people will have found that fascinating, and I know that I have. Is there any way that we can follow you on social media or is your website the best place?

So my, my website is Behaviours in Business. And then I think my instagram handle is the same, Behaviours in Business, and Twitter.

Brilliant, I will put all of those links in the show notes as well so that we can all start following each other. So yes, thank you very much. I really appreciate your time today.

Thank you very much for inviting me. It's been a pleasure.

Thank you for listening to this week's episode of the Business of Psychology podcast. If you share my passion for doing more than therapy, then make sure you come over and join my free do more than therapy Facebook community, where you can work on getting your big ideas off the ground with like minded psychologists and therapists. I'd also love it if you could leave the show a five star review wherever you listen to your podcasts. It will help more of the people who need it to find it. See you next week for more tips and inspirational stories to help you do more than therapy.