154. The Polycrisis at Work: Why Organisations Can’t Separate ‘Outside’ and ‘Inside’ Anymore

SPEAKER_00 0:03

This podcast is for people who know that the workplace can and should be better and are ready to do something about it. You will learn practical ways to change organizational cultures and human behaviour without buzzwords, without box ticking, without performative leadership. I am the boss of Prina Shark Consulting, working with executives, leaders and teams to create work cultures and environments that actually work for people. I am Prina Sharp. I specialise in organizational culture change and human behaviour change. I am all about making work better with people who give a damn. So if you think I can help, contact me via LinkedIn. I am here to help you to find decent ways to change the workplace. Let's do this. Hello and welcome to this solo episode of the Ways to Change Your Workplace podcast with me, your host, Brina Shah. And today I want to get deep with you and meaningful with you, deep and meaningful. I want to talk to you about the concept of polycrisis. I'm gonna explain what it is in a sec, but uh this this episode I think I'm gonna title The Polycrisis at Work: Why Organizations Can't Separate Outside and Inside Anymore. So I have been listening to a fair bit of music over the summer break, and one artist who I absolutely love is Maya, M-I-A, and there's a song that she sings called Marigold, and the lyrics in it just really truly speak to me. So I'm gonna read the lyrics out to you. I'm not gonna sing to you, but the lyrics are when times are difficult, we're gonna need a miracle. When things are critical, we're gonna need a miracle. The world's in trouble, cover it in marigolds. Cities in rubble, we all need a miracle. And then the song goes on. I highly recommend that you tune into it. But listening to that song got me thinking, and then I went to a conference last year and I learned about the concept of polychrisis. So here I am today, bringing you everything all in one. So today's episode is about something that many leaders and organizations are experiencing, but few are naming this properly. Work feels heavier, people feel more stretched, decisions feel harder, and even when things are going well on paper, there is this underlying sense of strain. This is not because people have suddenly become less capable, and it's not because organizations are doing something uniquely wrong, it's because we are living and working in what is known as a polycrisis. And here is the part that we can no longer ignore. Organizations cannot separate what is happening outside from what is happening inside anymore. The boundary has collapsed. I fail, like it collapsed a long, long time ago. What is happening in the world comes back into the workplace, and what is happening at work within the workplace goes back out into the world. We all know that. This is an obvious stuff, but let me expand. Today I want to talk to you about what that means for leaders, for organizations, and for how we design work that doesn't break people because the world is really on fire. So I want to first start off with explaining what a polycrisis is and why work is at the center of this. A polycrisis is not just multiple crises happening at once, it is when crises interact with and amplify each other. So these kinds of crises could be economic uncertainty, cost of living pressures, climate anxiety, political polarization, technological disruption, ongoing workforce situations, issues, and shortages, erosion of trust within institutions. These pressures do not arrive one at a time, they collide. So I want you just to take a second out when you're thinking about this, okay? In terms of your life, are you facing economic uncertainty? I think we all are within the world. We're definitely all going through a cost of living crisis, you can call it. We're all feeling something or the other in relation to climate change. Technologically, we are being disrupted every frigging day. I don't know about you, but my brain breaks. There's always something new to learn and something new to keep on top of. From a workplace perspective, you've got um shortages, it might be you know resourcing issues, it might be that someone brilliant in your team has just left, it might be that you're working with crappy people, who knows? Okay, political polarization. I'm not going to go into it, but there's so much happening in the world from a political perspective that is breaking many of our hearts. So, from your perspective, are you in a polycrisis or are you experiencing polycrises in plural? What are they? What's happening in your head? Just get to uh know what the polychrisis that you are feeling in your head and your heart are. Okay, because like I said, these pressures don't arrive one at a time, they collide, and don't they just? And work sits right in the middle of that collision because we go to work, most of us, five days a week. So there we are. Work is where time is consumed, work is where pressure converges, work is where power is exercised, work is where some of our identities are shaped, and work is obviously where resources are allocated. People experience the polycrisis through meetings, through your inbox, through rosters, through restructures, through performance conversations, and decisions about what matters. Which means that organizations are not neutral containers, you know. Um, they are active environments in shaping how we live through complexity, right? Workplaces are active environments in shaping how people live through complexity. I want to talk to you about the fact that the outside comes inside, and then the inside goes back out as well. So let's be explicit about this. People don't leave the world at the door when they enter your office. Financial stress shows up as fatigue, social division shows up as conflict or silence, climate anxiety could show up as disengagement, technological change can show up as fear or just apathy. When organizations pretend things do not belong at work, people are forced to fragment themselves. And fragmented people do not do their best thinking. I've been there and done that myself. I really want you to consider when you've been fragmented mentally and how that was for you within the workplace. Okay. But then there's a second loop that we talk about far less. What happens inside the organization actually does go back out into the world as well. Surprise, surprise. Burnt-out people go home depleted, poor leadership gets normalized, unethical decisions erode trust far beyond the organization. Workplace stress spills into families and communities. Work is one of the most powerful social systems that we have in our current world, which means that organizational choices actively shape the polycrisis and not just respond to it. Okay. So I don't think the well-being initiatives are the only answer. They're brilliant. I'm really glad that workplaces are actually doing things from a well-being perspective, but we need to expand. Okay. This is where many organizations get stuck. They respond to a polycrisis with you know an email to all staff with counseling services, resilience training, well-being campaigns. These supports definitely do matter, but they're not enough. Because they help people to cope with stress, they don't remove the sources of stress. Now I know from a workplace perspective, you know, you don't have control over everything, and you definitely cannot remove sources of stress. But if the organization normalizes overload, rewards constant urgency, tolerates shitty behavior, creates role ambiguity, and runs on perpetual change, then well-being becomes a way of asking individuals to absorb your systemic failures. This is not care, that is displacement. The real work to do is on structural systems and issues. So you're asking, what am I gonna do? How am I gonna deal with this? So, what leaders need to do differently, leadership behavior becomes amplified in a polycrisis. Small actions land heavily, and silence speaks loudly. So here's what leaders could do differently. Number one, move from certainty to sense making. Stop pretending that certainty exists. Instead, name what is known, name what is not known, and explain how decisions will be made. Anchor your people in principles, not promises. Sense making builds trust and false confidence destroys it. So please remember that, leaders. Number two, resist the urge to over control when a crisis happens or when there's stuff happening. I know I go to control mode because we're lacking control. But under pressure, leaders also tighten the grip. So it could be things like more approvals, more oversight, and less autonomy for their teams. This actually increases stress and actually slows down thinking. People definitely need clarity and agency, not micromanagement. Okay. Number three, name reality even when it's uncomfortable. Okay, people already know when things are hard. Naming it builds credibility, avoiding it breeds cynicism. So honesty is stabilizing. Number four, leading with moral clarity. So under strain, your values are really tested. Who gets protected? What behavior is tolerated? What trade-offs are made is what I'm asking you. So your team culture or your organizational culture is really definitely revealed in these moments. And number five, model sustainability visibly. If leaders reward burnout, burnout becomes the norm. So please leave on time, set your boundaries, prioritize properly, learn how to say no respectfully. These are the leadership acts that we need more of in the time of polycrisis. And then workplaces. What do workplaces need to do differently from our perspective of the polycrisis? So let's talk about organizations. Because leadership alone cannot fix broken systems. So number one, redesign work for sustainability. Ask what has been added without being removed? Where is urgency being manufactured? Where is recovery missing? Endurance is not a long-term strategy. It's a shitty short-term strategy as well, by the way. Number two, strip out unnecessary complex complexity. So audit your approval layers. Is there reporting duplication? Do you have legacy processes which are just crap and people don't even know why they're happening? Are there conflicting systems within your workplace as well? In a polycrisis, unnecessary complexity is really harmful. So number three, I want to talk to you from an organizational perspective, is to reduce role ambiguity. And this is really important because ambiguity drains energy. So clarify accountability, authority, people's decisions rights. What good actually looks like, articulate that. Clarity reduces conflict and burnout and that mental funk that happens when we are dealing with multiple crises. Number four, this is a big one, and organizations don't do this enough. So, number four is design change with recovery built in. Constant change without consolidation breaks trust. So pause, land the change and remove something before adding more. Okay. Number five, treat leadership capacity as a system issue. If leaders are overwhelmed, your system is frigging failing. So reduce the contradiction, stop rewarding overwork, support prioritization. Number six, we have to create real voices and not performative consultation. So voice means feedback that leads to action. Transparency when you feel like not sure what to do here. Share what you're thinking. Respectful challenge without punishment. So voice really restores dignity. This essentially is all about meaningful work. Meaningful work in a polycrisis is not about passion, it's about fairness, it's about agency, it's about dignity, it's about contribution, and it's about sustainability. When organizations get this right, people think better, teams collaborate more effectively, leaders make clearer decisions, culture becomes the stabilizing force, and that stability flows back out into the world as well. So I want to close with asking you a few questions. This polycrisis or polycrises are not temporary. The question is not how to return to normal. The question is what kind of organization are we choosing to be in a world like this? So the world is on fire, therefore, what kind of organization are you trying to be? What comes from the outside will keep on coming inside. And what happens inside will keep on going back out. The responsibility is not to fix everything because you really can't. It is to stop making it worse. That's how we make work meaningful. If you're going through a polycrisis, as many of us are, I feel you, I see you, I hear you, my friend. Please remember that you're not alone. If you need to get in touch with me, my details are in the show notes. If you need to get in touch with anyone at work, please do so. Do not hold it in and tell people what's happening and tell people what support you need because you are your number one ally. I wish you all the very best, and I will see you in the next episode. If you like this episode, check out the show notes and sign up for my newsletter. That will help your workplace to be less shitty. It's full of novel ideas, good food for thought. And if you like this episode, pass it on to at least two people who will benefit. 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