Don’t settle for the crumbs, ask for the whole damn cake

I spoke at an online event where I got really clear and honest about why I do the work I do.

It was a lovely event, curated to showcase some brilliant female business owners and entrepreneurs and lots of kind people showed up to take part.

My topic was boundaries and difficult conversations.

Which I have now renamed the cake conversation.

Because you deserve more than just crumbs.

Especially in your work. And this applies to everyone. If you work for yourself or you work inside an organisation.

I shared some lessons and some thoughts about how strengthening your boundaries can help reduce or eliminate difficult conversations. Especially within our worlds of work.

And isn’t it true that we teach what we most need to learn?

Failure to place healthy boundaries for myself was the thing that led me to massive burnout and career pivot.

This is not uncommon for recovering people pleasers like me.

But when did we all become so accustomed to working so fast, so hard, with so little recovery time that we all just decided that fire-fighting in a permanent state of crisis and reactivity was, well, normal.

And that boundaries clearly and intentionally placed around our time, our health, our capacity to be kind to ourselves and others and our ability to protect our own mental health, became things we have to fight to get rather than being normal operating procedures?

It's not normal. And it's not safe.

For people or for organisations.

When time is short and money is tight, and targets are BIG, how do leaders think differently about creating workplace conditions for good, rather than reverting to being Dark Triads, wielding outdated leadership lessons from a long long time ago, likely in a galaxy far away (or the 1980’s as we like to call it)?

In business, nothing happens without people. They are our most precious resource.

But humans are so much more than just resources. And too often we see leaders forgetting this and crushing people in the name of “growth”. And they are not always up for sharing their cake either.

Or, you may get a piece but you might not be allowed to eat it too.

So I always find it funny when leaders then seem surprised that their people may choose to leave the table, when all that’s being served to them is crumbs.

Maybe it's time to change the recipe?