What happens when the immediate becomes more important than the longer term?

In Part One of my conversation with Dr Ryan Kemp, we explored how addiction can compress a person's experience of time — making the immediate reward feel much more compelling than what might matter further into the future.

In this second part, we take that idea into the workplace and the wider culture around us.

Ryan and I talk about the impact of addiction at work, the way drinking can become normalised, and how organisational cultures can reinforce short-term thinking and behaviour.

We explore what happens when we're constantly rewarded for immediate results - quarterly numbers, annual targets, bonuses and quick wins - and what that might mean for relationships, psychological safety and the longer-term health of organisations.

We also talk about something more practical: how can managers respond when someone is struggling with addiction without excusing harmful behaviour?

For Ryan, the starting point is relationship. If a relationship is built around fear and compliance, people are unlikely to have honest conversations about difficult things. Compassion, vulnerability and trust create a different possibility.

We finish by talking about values — and how reconnecting with what matters can help people move beyond the immediate and begin to see a longer-term direction again.

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• Listen to the first part of my conversation with Ryan
• Transcending Addiction by Ryan Kemp
• Connect with Ryan on LinkedIn

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[00:00:15] Ryan Kemp, clinical psychologist, addiction specialist, and author of [00:00:20] Transcending Addiction. In part one We explored addiction through the experience of time.

[00:00:44] We also chat about psychological safety, relationships between managers and their people, and the role of [00:00:50] compassion and values when we're trying to have difficult conversations

[00:01:10]

[00:01:16] Ryan Kemp: well, look, if you've got a culture, a heavy drinking [00:01:20] culture, let's take the city in London, right? Notorious for having a heavy drinking, and drug-taking culture, actually, quite honestly. seen enough of those people in my clinic room, so do [00:01:30] know that that's-- there's some truth to that.

[00:01:31] Ryan Kemp: Yeah. Look, that's gotta have impacts, and the impacts are not just that somebody, like we were saying earlier, might turn up to [00:01:40] work and not be, completely, able to function 100%, but also that the relationship to pleasure and reward also starts [00:01:50] to get somewhat affected. You know, we're all at work for reward, let's face it, on multiple levels. You know, we want our pay at the end of the month. Maybe we want our bonus at the end [00:02:00] of the year. we want that positive reinforcement we get from, from our colleagues, from our bosses, from our customers. So we are-- We're [00:02:10] there, you know, for the pleasure of that. But what happens if we derive that pleasure too quickly? What happens if we want those rewards [00:02:20] strongly and, and we, we sort of overemphasize that? W-what happens if we drive that into the way we structure our-- companies and, and, [00:02:30] and the profits they make? kind of short-termism which says, you know, "We've gotta, we've gotta hit the numbers for this quarter, this year," [00:02:40] cetera. That's gonna have repercussions throughout the organization. And of course, obviously then, if you've got everyone driving that sort of way, very [00:02:50] reward

[00:02:51] Ryan Kemp: you know, immediacy not able to kind of be honest with each other, not able to form really good, solid, [00:03:00] psychologically safe environments, what's that gonna be like to work in aft-after a while?

[00:03:25] And you know, your, your, metaphor of the one glass, two glass, whole bottle [00:03:30] thing is interesting, isn't it? Because we've all been there. We've all, we've all done it. I mean, I've-- You know, I have to admit, I like a drink, so I, you know, I've definitely fallen for that as well. But [00:03:40] it says something about the fact that we can have this little piece of banter about glasses of wine actually tells you that it's ubiquitous.

[00:04:08] And then in their [00:04:10] mid-40s, something happens, usually a triggering event, change, of roles or a divorce or ill- health or something, and suddenly [00:04:20] it's three bottles. And then they, then they're in trouble, and they can't, they can't get out of it on their own. So those are not people who, you know, are your [00:04:30] traditional sort of like, um, I don't know, you know, the, the sort of people we, we like to imagine addicts are living on the street, in crack houses and all that sort of thing. Actually, the [00:04:40] majority of people suffering addiction in this country are quite ordinary people

[00:05:13] And as you say, then who rises to the top?

[00:05:34] I recommend your readers just do a little, you know, looking into this. But if you take the companies that [00:05:40] were, the top companies on the stock exchange in 1900 versus say 1950 versus

[00:05:48] Ryan Kemp: almost all the [00:05:50] companies that were top in the-- in 1900 were gone by 1950, and, the ones that were top in 1950 were all gone by 1980. Companies come and [00:06:00] go, they have a lifespan and-- but the ones that have survived the longest are the ones that have built the best culture and usually are not immediacy-orientated. So they're [00:06:10] looking, to build good cultures and have long-term, gains. But they're usually not the ones, you know-- I think we can think of the ones that are top of the, top of the stock exchanges at the moment, [00:06:20] but will they be there, uh, long term?

[00:06:24] Ross: And it does speak to all those examples of companies collapsing, [00:06:30] scandals, malpractice,

[00:06:32] So that's what we see in the papers. But I would be willing to bet, and I'm almost certain about that, if you looked lower down in [00:06:40] that company, you would find toxic culture all the way down,

[00:06:43] Ryan Kemp: and the employees would not be happy employees. They wouldn't be, you know, probably not [00:06:50] altogether lamenting the demise of, of the organization, although obviously they would be worried about losing their jobs and their wellbeing, et cetera.

[00:07:10] Let's ban everything

[00:07:23] Ryan Kemp: Yeah, I, it, it doesn't work.

[00:07:27] Ryan Kemp: you know, we, we've had experiments of this [00:07:30] and of course, um, prohibition in, in the United States in the 1920s is the most famous example of this. But actually prohibition was tried in actually quite a [00:07:40] few countries. quite a few European countries tried it. what tends to happen is not surprising is that people still want to drink, so they find ways to [00:07:50] get alcohol. and it's of course supplied by, uh, criminals mostly. So you get a growth in criminal behavior, which is not good. Same for gambling. [00:08:00] despite the fact that, um, gambling is not, widely problematic, there is a small group of people who are really determined to gamble and if it's, if it's illegal, they will find ways to do [00:08:10] it. So I think all the evidence suggests that best way to handle this is to have controlled access to [00:08:20] substances and to, and to certain behaviors like, like gambling, on the flip side, I'll-- I think there's also quite a lot of evidence that if you flood a [00:08:30] particular place with new opportunities to, to say gamble.

[00:08:58] Ross: when

[00:09:41] In fact, you know, it's a little bit of a joke now that you would always have a ga-- a, a bookmaker on almost any stretch of, of shops in the UK now. [00:09:50] And then, of course, they allowed, these, machines into, into these bookmakers that were like these, uh, very high-speed roulette, and you could play roulette very [00:10:00] fast, and they were very addictive, and very problematic. And a year or so ago, the regulation around that was improved. So we, we're yet to see the impact of that. [00:10:10] But as this has grown, you've seen the growth, in the number of problem gamblers in the UK. The internet is another place where it's really [00:10:20] problematic, and we should be looking carefully. Not just that you can go online and, and find an online casino that's probably based in Kazakhstan or [00:10:30] some, uh, deregulated place, so it can't, the sort of authorities can't tax it properly, et cetera, et cetera. But also now we are building [00:10:40] games with gambling-type parts to them, are hooking in really young children into, into this, way of thinking and this way of being rewarded. That's [00:10:50] quite scary, and I, I really think we should, as a culture, be having a real think about that and whether we regulate to take out those intermittent [00:11:00] reinforcers which are part of, these games, because of the effects they have on young, young minds and young, people who are gonna behave in different ways. And then, of course, they [00:11:10] get lured into, online betting, which all seems nice and innocent, and then slowly, slowly you build a problem

[00:11:20] Ryan Kemp: This is a cheery conversation

[00:11:38] Ryan Kemp: Good question I think [00:11:40] the only way you, you really get into an honest conversation with anyone around addiction, because it's a highly stigmatized, [00:11:50] shameful behavior, is to have established a good relationship.

[00:12:06] relationship

[00:14:46] Ross: I do believe building that rapport and as a, as a leader and a, [00:14:50] a manager, expressing vulnerability can be so powerful. And I've seen you do this in, in workshops and, sessions with, with people where you, [00:15:00] where you are open and honest and, and role modeling that for, for the organization, which I think is so important So Ryan, you know I have a strong [00:15:10] ACT-based perspective. Is there a way that values can play a part in supporting addicts?

[00:15:18] Ryan Kemp: Yeah, absolutely. I think it's a, it's a [00:15:20] critical dimension that's, um, not really paid much attention to by, by the theory, by the literature, et cetera. In fact, I've just written a, a chapter for [00:15:30] a book that's coming out early next year where I describe addiction or addicts as having what I call a, a values void. I thought that was a [00:15:40] catchy phrase when I, when I first wrote it, but now I regret it 'cause it's quite hard to say. But essentially what I'm getting at is that, you know, before people become [00:15:50] addicted, they've got a sense, a set of values or the way they live their lives. We all do. Sometimes it's more... more explicit and we- we're aware of it. Sometimes it's more implicit and we, we [00:16:00] only discover it if we think about it. But when you take drugs or drink or you know, get over-involved in gambling, et cetera, you start to [00:16:10] make that behaviour that substance, the value of your life, and acquiring it and reacquiring it [00:16:20] surviving all the ups and downs of that life. It all centers around that drug of choice, whether that's a, a behavior or an actual substance. And what [00:16:30] over time, because of addiction really takes time, it's not something you, you get addicted and you're dealing with it in two or three weeks or months, it's usually years or decades, is [00:16:40] that you lose your sense of your own values. And what I've discovered when I try to do this work, ACT-type work with [00:16:50] people in recovery, is that they really struggle to articulate their values, or they say things that are kind of obvious but not [00:17:00] really real So they'll th- say things like, "Oh, my family are my, top priority." But you can, you can tell actually that that's [00:17:10] plainly obvious not, not true anymore because of a whole lot of things they've done. So it's quite hard work to, to get into how do you reclaim maybe those old [00:17:20] values and really, know, make them again the values you're living your life by or find some new values that actually [00:17:30] matter to you now.

[00:19:03] Ross: And the values can give someone that glimpse of the longer-term picture rather than that really [00:19:10] habitual path of the least resistance, the short-term, attractions.

[00:19:25] A, a new song and why?

[00:20:07] Ross: Lovely. Thank you. And Would you have a takeaway for [00:20:10] the P supers, Ryan?

[00:20:35] try to look inside and, um, think about those, those moments when you've been [00:20:40] compassionate to yourself and given yourself a break, and think equally about how you can bring those values, your own values, to play there in that moment with that, [00:20:50] person who's struggling, and that will be the gateway to, to having those honest conversations

[00:21:07] Ryan Kemp: You know, it's been fun. Thanks, Ross

[00:21:58] Ross: As ever, thanks for [00:22:00] listening, and thanks for sharing People Soup with others. You're helping us bring real conversations about work, leadership, and being human to more people. Until next time, [00:22:10] look after yourselves, Peace Supers, and bye for now.