# Employee voice and the beliefs Leanne holds dear

- **Episode:** [17](https://agents.truthliesandwork.com/episodes/17.md) (2022-12-20)
- **Type:** other
- **Tags:** employee-voice, engagement, beliefs
- **Time:** 33:15–36:54 (start 1995s)
- **Listen:** [https://truthliesandwork.com/17?t=1995](https://truthliesandwork.com/17?t=1995)

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[33:15] Leanne Elliott: I think the concept of employee voice can be challenging for some people. And I know we talked about this quite a bit with Stefan a couple of episodes ago. I think there's a conception with employee voice that you have to do everything your team says, or you have to act on every piece of feedback that you get. And that's not the point. The point is creating an environment where people can speak up. And making sure when they do that they feel heard, because that 1 in 10 thing that you hear about that you otherwise wouldn't have may be the one thing that saves your business or saves your biggest customer or saves somebody from leaving. The other 9 might just be a case of acknowledging it, thanking them for their point of view, and explaining why right now that's not gonna be possible. I think there's a view that we need to bend over backwards, that coaches need to be this this kumbaya moment of everyone's happy and everyone's fulfilled and everyone's— yeah, of course. But, you know, the reality is the reason that that works is because there's mutual benefits for everybody. Having an engaging culture doesn't mean that you have to bend over backwards and do everything your employees say. It's creating an adult-to-adult environment, an adult-to-adult relationship. So I think fundamentally, I'm not sure people necessarily disagree with the values I hold. I think they may misunderstand some of the intent behind those values. But ultimately, I'm a business psychologist, emphasis on business. My role only exists if businesses exist, and businesses only exist if they make money
[34:56] Al Elliott: You're saying that people don't necessarily agree with you. One of the things which is your trigger words is the word fluff. So how would you react if a listener said all you're saying here is just psychological fluff?
[35:08] Leanne Elliott: Um, one, why are you listening, friend? I'm not sure this is the podcast for you. No, it's, it's science, isn't it? It's psychology, is the science of people. It's the science of human behavior. Um, and it's empirical. There's data. We conduct studies to understand how people behave and what impact those behaviors have on the commercial outcomes of a business. Um, so yeah, it's— I don't know, maybe, maybe there wasn't an element of fluff to, to some people and culture practitioners. Um, but I think if you genuinely want to create an environment in which people aren't burning out, in which people can sustain their role for a long period of time, that do feel fulfilled, um, then why wouldn't you nurture that? Because it's going to have a positive impact on your business. It's science, it's data, it's, you know, that's, that's what it is. And I think if it's fluff, my, my guesses would be that you are either accidentally doing these things and not realizing you're doing it, so therefore these interventions, these types of interventions fluffy, or you're on the brink of burnout and so are the rest of your team. Or I guess maybe you've worked with people before where it hasn't been very effective. But I think that's the point. You know, we work— Oblong, we work with people on interventions that we measure. We measure the impact 6 months later. We measure the impact 12 months after that. If there isn't a positive shift in the wellbeing of your employees and the performance of your business, then yeah, it was fluff. That intervention failed
[36:50] Al Elliott: Yeah
[36:51] Leanne Elliott: But it isn't fluff because there is an impact