Frank Vos — Businessman, Author, Coach Mentor, Beyond Burnout

And once again, it is what's involved. It is so good to have you along with us. Got a great guest on this particular show. Somebody who kind of I think has experienced what a lot of people have experienced, but had the courage to write about it and to talk about it and to look at some solutions. Who is he? He is Frank Voss. And he is the author of Beyond Burnouts, What to Do When Your Leadership Comes Under Fire. Welcome Frank, great to have you with us. - David, it's a great pleasure. Thank you for having me on. - Wonderful stuff. Now I first sort of saw you when you were on LinkedIn. I saw you publishing bits and pieces on LinkedIn. And I thought, this sounds like a very interesting man. And then before I knew it, there was the book that landed on my desk. And I thought, okay, this is just gonna be the story of what happened to you. And I was pleasantly surprised to find that it's the story and it's a bit of a guide as well. So let's start off then, Frank, if you don't mind with your story, because you arrived here. How old were you when you got to South Africa? - I just turned 21. I just finished my own trick. I took a little bit long. Holland said the trick is also six years, but it took me eight.

And thereafter I immediately jumped on a plane to South Africa and visited my family. So I was still, and I came to look for adventure. - Okay, and then you mentioned that when you got here, you were hoping that people in the hospitality industry and a couple of other things that you would, they would snap you up, but not initially. - No, it was, of course, I think the Dutch have a reputation for being overly courageous. I send out a very, very short CV to the people in the big groups like Sun International at the time, insurance companies and in particular advertising agencies, 'cause that's where my initial interests lie. But indeed I had no response whatsoever. And I was staying with my uncle at the time. And he said, look, Frank, there are three things. You can either pack your bags and go home, or you can go and study full-time, or you can come and work at my factory and then we'll take it from there. And the first two were simply no option. I mean, I left for the good reason. I didn't want to go back. Studying, I let's say that after eight years then at high school, I wasn't particularly interested in that either. So I ended up on a factory floor and what was then Bob Lechke in the north of the Pretoria, I referred to it today still as a bit of a hellhole.

It's a very, very hot place, very industrial, not very kind to people that work hard, the environment is harsh, but I got a very, very good grounding. You might well know that family can be family, but when you work for them, they're not necessarily the best players, but they gave me a great, great education. So I spent nine years in the family business and studied at night and I got my tertiary education, qualification in sales and marketing, developed those skills and enthusiasm and passion. And then the business got sold and I got sold with the furniture as it were and became part of large corporate. And that was my first baptism of what this big business is like. And as I write in the book, it wasn't quite what I thought it was. Of course, big business is great if you are a shareholder or a director, but when you are just floating around in middle management, it can be rather tough. So the environment was, I felt a little bit stressful even though I was a young man at the time. Yes, I learned a lot, but it was tough. I worked under some of the best leaders that I've met, but I also worked under quite a bunch of really, really bad bullies. And eventually I was forced to leave. I looked for another position.

And then I happened to be brought into contact with a international company with a local subsidiary that was looking for the new general manager. Yeah, and I've been at the opportunity and I was fortunate enough to get it. And that's how my early years as a Dutch boy started off in South Africa. - Wow, and you mentioned that you got this experience, you were working at these companies. Then you ended up as the general manager there that you mentioned. And then you stuck there for a while, didn't you? What happened during that time? Because I think that is very important for us to sort of set the scene for what happens in the book. - Yeah, this is, as you mentioned, the kickoff and the motivation for the book. I stayed with the subsidiary for literally 21 years over two decades. And from GM, I became CEO, the business grew considerably. And there, of course, I learned an awful lot. I learned a lot about the trade, I learned a lot about people. And of course, I learned a lot about being a leader myself and growing a small business to, let's say, a nice medium-sized business. Then of course, over the two decades had its ups and its downs. As an importer, it was, of course, extremely tough because the rant kept on dropping and our prices kept on rising.

But what I'm trying to say here is that it was, for me, at the same time, an incredible stimulating environment, but also a highly stressful environment. And that is, I think, one of the reasons why my career ended. And I'm not sure if you want to go there now, David, but I more or less became one with that organization. And I think a lot of CEOs can identify with that, that if you stay enough long enough with a company you really, really buy into it, you make it your own, you live it and you breathe it, you sleep it. Yeah, you become one and then after 21 years, over those last couple of years, we had some changes in senior management overseas. And suddenly the board that I had grown up with who were extremely supportive and sympathetic and caring changed and people changed and there were new generations that came through. And suddenly I found myself at odds with my leadership, who I always deeply admired. And yeah, and then from one day to the next, my career ended and it came completely unexpected, completely sudden. And yeah, I had to step out of my business and that was, yeah, I was 51 at the time and David, you know, 50s are a great age, but it's not a great age to suddenly find yourself out on the street.

- Yeah, absolutely. Let's talk about that a little bit more because just the impact of what happened to you during that period of time. And you mentioned, and somewhere in the book, you use the analogy of this mirror that you look in and the people that see you, the way they see you and the way you see yourself becomes a very different animal. And of course, as you mentioned, and I've been down this road as well in your 50s, you suddenly end up having to reinvent yourself and do something new. So let's talk more about that when we come back. This is what's involved. My special guest is Frank Voss. He is the author of Beyond Burnout, What to Do When Your Leadership Comes Under Fire. We'll be back in just a bit. And we're back with my special guest, Frank Voss, Beyond Burnout, What to Do When Your Leadership Comes Under Fire is his book. It's a great book. It's quite raw though. And you don't seem to hide very much. I must say, Frank, so we got to the stage just before the break where suddenly you were unemployed. You'd been put out on the street and it wasn't even something that you saw coming. And I think those are the things that always really mess us up. If it's suddenly something that happens at 8 a.m.

on a Wednesday morning and it comes out of left field, those are the problem things. Talk to me about that. - Yeah, of course that in itself, the sudden departure must have had a prelude and I can of course talk about the falling victim to circumstances, company politics or whatever, but that wasn't really after I did a lot of soul searching after my sudden departure and I'll get back to that. But one thing was for sure that in all those years, I did accumulate a lot of stress. And although like everybody else, I had the old ailment and the old knee grain and the odd few days off, there was no doubt that in the background, a lot of my faculties were simply not as productive as they were. And one of the important ones is the fact that stress over a long period of time slowly but surely eroded my ability to interact positively at all times with people to really see situations for what they were and see myself for what I was. And now I'm alluding to the word emotional intelligence. And what happened was is that the frame force that I saw every morning going to work, sometimes a bit betraggled, sometimes a bit tired and sometimes extremely bouncy, simply wasn't the frame force that for instance, my staff would see or third parties that I would interact with.

And this so-called distance between the frame that I saw and the frame that others experienced became at times problematic. But of course, one is, one simply doesn't see that because that mirror is just showing you and you can't see that your mirror is actually becoming full, you know, what shall we say, becoming cracked, becoming flawed. In other words, when I was told that I'd grown distant of my organization, I at first simply didn't know what to say, but that was given as the reason where the company really thought it would maybe be, you know, as I said, great to know, to part ways. I had to just investigate later what happened, but if we may touch upon directly what happened afterwards, David, and as you say, I'm trying to be honest here because I think that the honesty must hopefully resonate with the die-hard CEOs that are out there, the leaders that are also getting a little bit battle-hardened on the stress that are really facing incredible obstacles, especially today under COVID. Now, it's simply that we can get alienated and stress has that effect upon us. One of the greatest symptoms of stress is alienation. And of course, as we all know the term burnout, I think burnout is a degree of the amount of stress one endures.

I went through several ones of those burnouts and each time the alienation from my staff came to the fore, fatigue came to the fore, performance or lack thereof came to the fore. And as I stepped out of my job and had to look in that mirror long and hard, I had to admit that this departure had a few reasons and it wasn't just, you know, falling victim to, you know, changes at the corporate environment. But also, I think as you indicated, this was a very, very painful process. And if I tell you that the first chapters of the book where I outline my story, my life story, these chapters took an awful long time to write and they were at times traumatic. And even now, many, many years later, I have difficulty at times talking about it because it was such a profound experience. And today, David, I think in our close circle of friends and even beyond, we are meeting so many people that are finding themselves suddenly out of jobs that I feel so deeply for them because this is profound and it's been measured that the impact of losing one's job, whatever way of fashion, rates as strongly as losing a loved one or going through a painful divorce. Well, you know, when you're 50 and you're being put through a tough time, then you would say that one is, you know, hardened and experienced, they have to deal with it.

At least that's what I thought. So when it happened, I was actually a little bit released because the amount of pressure that had built up was significant and my home life also was taking strain. So I sat back and thought, well, you know, let me go and think about this all. I left financially on a good note, which I very much appreciated at the time from the company. So I had time, but David, what I didn't expect is to actually fall into a hole. And it was a deep, dark hole where the last thing I really ever thought of was that Frank Foss was defined by his position as CEO. I always thought that I wasn't, I always, I thought I was modest about that particular effect. But suddenly I realized that indeed that identity I had lost and I was now wandering around this Frank Foss and nobody found me, nobody really interacted with me when it comes obviously to business. And it was very, very strange. And what I did was I knee jerked and it's something that I want to warn people about that find themselves in a similar traumatic situation is that knee jerking should be the last thing we should do. My knee jerk consisted of finding employment because I was actually petrified at the thought of after having worked for a paycheck for 30 years, not to get a paycheck was just so alien and such a mountain that I just jumped back into the job market only to be confronted by the harsh fact that, you know, when simply when you're over 50 and you have a wide scale as that of a CEO in particular with a specialization, let's put it that way in sales and marketing.

Yeah, I then realized there are literally thousands of guys out there in South Africa right now that, and then that are struggling with the situation that there is just very little work for them. What was perhaps worse than this is that those people that I used to deal with and in particular headhunters that always looked for star for me were the ones that I thought I'd build up strong relationships with that when I contacted them and I thought, well, this is gonna be really easy peasy. They know me, they know my reputation, my record, they'll find me a job in no time. And suddenly these headhunters barely picked up to the phone when I called them, whereas they even said, you know, take Frank, sorry, man, sad story, but send as your CV. And as a man, you know, at the height, at the kind of remuneration that I was, I thought that, you know, when you're gonna take 20% of my package, you know, to find me a job, surely you wanna see me and have a cup of coffee and allow me that courtesy. And I was confronted with the fact that even that courtesy wasn't allowed to me. And then it just hit home, it just hit home that Frank Foss was Frank Foss. And as you say, I had to go through a process of transformation.

Unfortunately, I just couldn't get there myself. And I think that I'm trying to really share this very difficult time with the readers because I really want to impress upon them that you can fall so deep into this hall of, in my case, also deep depression, that you actually tend not to seek help. And I think that a lot of us, and I've been actually speaking to a lot of CEOs since my book has been published, that recognize the situation and share with me the notion that they had sought help earlier whilst being in this situation. They probably would have been able to transform themselves like I've been doing over the last couple of years, because yes, we have to reinvent ourselves when people don't want you for your skills and the competence that you have displayed over all that time, you'll have to find a new competence. And that was the simple but very cruel fact. - And I can imagine that that kind of thing, and I have a limited experience with that, nothing like yours, but suddenly you end up in a world where prior to you not being employed, you had relevance. People cared, people came to you, people sought out your advice, you were seen as a mentor, and then it literally changes overnight.

And suddenly the identity and then the sort of skills and knowledge that you had becomes to a large degree in that context, irrelevant. People, that's like out of sight, out of mind. And I can imagine the shock of that, because that must be a terrible thing. As I said, I've experienced a little bit of that, but clearly nothing like you've done. What are your thoughts in terms of that? Can we look, when we come back, can we look a little bit further and deeper into what your journey was and how you've now reinvented yourself? And to all intents and purposes, you've found your purpose and you've found happiness now. So there is light at the end of the tunnel. It doesn't always have to be the bank manager with a torch. So this is a good thing. We'll talk more, Frank, when we come back. And we're back. This is what's involved with my special guest, Frank Foss. He is the author of Beyond Burnout, What to Do When Your Leadership Comes Under Fire. Now, the whole aim of this book is to relate Frank's story, as I understand it, but also to give you a bit of a roadmap and to give you some suggestions as well as what you could do to avoid this. And it's not just for CEOs of huge companies. If you run your own business, even in your life.

And this is something that we've discussed many times on the show that one of the impacts of COVID is it's leading to us becoming more empathetic, more human. And the whole concept of emotional intelligence is becoming way more important. So Frank, a little bit more about your journey. There you were, rock bottom. You were out of a job, out of a career that you'd literally given your life to. And you were suffering from depression. What did you do? How did you start? What was your process? - I was actually, they were fortunate enough to be picked up by a friend who I obviously shared some of my experiences with. This is just the smallest side, but if you find yourself in a similar position of real, a lot of stress, a lot of pressure, I think it is important that we learn to share and that we really are open about our vulnerability. But in any event, this dear friend of mine also happened to be a coach and was kind enough to take me under his wings. And there I learned a very important thing that is coming through as a big red thread through the book. And that is that this stress that we've talked about, the stress that led to certain animation, the stress that led to a certain two-faced strength is something that not just comes from work pressure or overall pressure in your life because pressure can be extremely healthy, as you know.

But what we really discovered on this journey of transformation is that, A, I had to do some self, some deep self-reflection. And I know that a few people will roll their eyes and say, "Oh my goodness me, where are we going with this?" But no, it is important to know yourself really deeply well and ask yourself some tough questions and in particular talk or think about what it is that you really wanna do. And I think like most people, David, I think we all wanna contribute. And whether that is selling apples or being a doctor, I think that doesn't matter. It is really about finding purpose. And through the coaching journey, I actually discovered that when I really investigated myself and my sense of being deeply, is that you have to align your passion and your interest, your skill set, your experience with what it is that you wanna do. And of course, we are not all fortunate enough to do that. But if we can just be aware that if we are put in a position where we have to reinvent ourselves, I think that this is an absolute number one priority. This was really something that I had to work through. And it took me some time, sure, but I had a very patient coach. But I discovered that at the end of the day, what I really wanted to do is help people that find themselves in similar positions where stress has taken over their lives, where prolonged stress that is not managed well enough can really affect one's emotional intelligence.

And with that, the essence of being a human being, I think, as in the capability of interacting with others, of doing the right thing, of being adaptable and flexible to changing circumstances and so on. I was fortunate enough to at first combine it with my skill set. And of course, my skill set was business. And I thought that at first and my coach supported the notion that perhaps we should look at that first and foremost and see if I could help people in business. And at the same time, also apply the newfound skills

in helping people, coaching people, mentoring people and making sure that they would handle their life. And there I ended up with a very nice occupation and I became an independent business and management consultant. At first, that seemed to really bring fresh air and shown a new light onto my situation. But at the end of, not at the end, at the moment, that just wasn't all. I, as the more that I consulted, the more I realized that the hard skill in consulting, which is to help companies, you know, get into a better situation financially or to grow or whatever, that always revolved around people and not necessarily people out there, but really people inside the organization. So although I'm still consulting, because I really enjoy it, I have really focused now on the people component and the people component comes back to what we've talked about is getting into healthy organization, getting into healthy and motivated staff. Nevermind motivated leaders. And that is where I find myself now. And the compiling this book has in itself been a journey where I've said, look, it's one thing of sharing my story. And there's one thing of putting out and exposing it to boo, because at the end of the day, let's be very honest there, especially at bottom level, it is simply still not, simply still not done to admit that you're not coping with stress in your life.

And we can have very nice chats and we can talk about the programs and we can talk about training and leadership programs. But at the end of the day, especially in large corporations, it's just not there to say that, you know, that you're succumbing to stress because it's considered as a weakness. And that is something that in this book, in this journey, I needed to expose. And first of all, I needed to expose myself. So this whole thing about stress in workplace has gotten a lot of my attention now, a lot of my focus. And of course, in my consulting work, I'm being confronted literally daily with this issue. And that's why it has become such a big part of this book. That is why the introduction is what it is. And it is to really say to people, look, this is a real condition. It is something that can be addressed as long as you can own up to the fact that you are under stress, own up to the fact that when you look in the mirror, there might be a possibility that it's not quite what other people see and that you can address this and that it's not impossible to do so. And that you don't have to stand on your head in the yoga studio to get where this you need to be. - I like that because that's often the misconception is I have to do more.

I have to do yoga or I have to go out and hit the gym more or whatever, not necessarily. I think a lot of this is what I would term an inside job. Now, just in terms of that, one of the parts of the book that fascinated me, and I hope I get it right, is this Japanese philosophy of Ikigai. And that's essentially, if I understand the translation correctly, it's about finding your purpose. - Yes, and the Ikigai is something really a concept that summarized what I spoke about earlier, your inner alignment. And that is really about bringing your natural passion, your inherent skillset, your aptitude, and your interests all together in order to find purpose and meaning. And that in itself is what we call happiness. That is something that brings forward happiness. In other words, to come to what I refer to in the book as an inner alignment to say, let's do this introspection. Let's understand myself. Let's do what I need to do for the society at large. And for, of course, for myself and my family. This purpose, this meaning, if I can express that through my profession, through what I do, since I spend a third of my life working, then of course, I make a meaningful contribution to my own happiness.

And if you're not happy, then of course you can't perform. If you're not happy, then everything else falls by the wayside. And if I may slightly digress, as you said, the Ikigai is just a beautiful summary of all of this. But what the book also talks about is that what we maybe not understand is that it is so important that at the end of the day, after this introspection and after thinking about what it is that you're supposed to do here on Earth, is that we align this with our career and that today's society is simply not very much geared towards this kind of drive. And I have met too many people that have thought that the higher they climb the ladder and the more material possessions they can gather, the happier they will get. And yes, of course, we all know that material things don't bring happiness necessarily. But what I try to expose is that by climbing this ladder and by really putting yourself in a situation to a point where you can't handle your responsibilities, you are actually really putting in a tremendous amount of stress on you. And with that, of course, I think you're putting yourself in a position where personal demise, health, demise is just around the corner. Hence, I think career alignment is incredibly important with your inner alignment.

And I've just addressed the Institute of Marketing Management to talk to students and say, listen, guys, you can be studying now. And it's great that I really hope that you're studying something that it is that you want to do, not what your parents want to do, or what you think society wants you to do. Because remember now, you're going to be doing this for a long time. So this is really important. And when I say in the book that leadership is something that comes under fire when you are under pressure, I literally mean it. And that is that in today's times, in particular with COVID, and I think in a country like South Africa, diversity in the workplace is incredible, incredibly complex and demands so much from a leader. In other words, what we tend to forget is that there are different sexes, different cultures, different races, different politics, different religion, different nationalities, different social classes that we all throw together in a 100 square meter area that we refer to as Lafa's order, a small factory floor. And now we expect a leader to manage this. And one thing is to manage it with the hard scale and the processes and the procedures and what have you. And we are all hopefully able and competent.

That's OK. But to manage these people into a motivated workforce is really a tall order. And yes, we like to talk about the boss that's giving us a hard time. And if there's anything stressful at work, it's the boss. I do think that as an employee, we also need to look at ourselves. And let's get back to that mirror. That mirror is not reserved for people in leadership positions or people that are doing incredibly important things all the time. This mirror is for all of us. And we must ask ourselves, are we being a good support of COVID? Because the interesting part is that I get it over the years from my research is that as much as bosses are blamed for unhappy employees-- and yes, that's a fact-- employees can make bosses' lives almost impossible. In the book, I allude to a number of events that happened during my career where staff have done the things that you think, why on earth would they have done this? And my big mistake was that I internalized some of these events where employees really crossed the line. Again, internalizing issues at work, of course, is a sign of a lower emotional intelligence. But never mind that. I think employees also must understand that bosses have really a lot to manage besides their jobs.

And employees also have to understand that their colleagues also come to work with a lot of stress themselves. In other words, let's just accept that today's work environment, especially with COVID, has become really challenging for all. And that by just accepting this notion, and by just being aware, and by just being more communicative with your colleagues, to have more discussions, a little bit more personal about people's situations at home, I think we need to try and lower the stress levels in organizations. We mustn't forget that stress runs in what we refer to, and you'll notice, David, as an open loop system. In other words, if your colleague comes to work grumpy or really miserable, then it wraps up on the entire office. If a colleague comes to work nice and bouncy, because they've had a great evening on a great weekend, it can lift the spirit in an entire office. In other words, besides the fact that we must be aware that we live today in a world full of diversity, we must also accept the fact that emotion-- emotion comes to the fore when we are stressed, and that we must be aware of the fact that emotion wraps up immediately on every human being around us. So David, this is a complex situation.

It is indeed, and it's not something that we can sort of just cover quickly in sort of 40 minutes and go, OK, there we go. We've given you the solution. However, a lot of the solutions are in the book, OK? We'll talk more to Frank, and we'll wrap it up when we come back. Frank Foss, who is the author of Beyond Burnout, What to Do When Your Leadership Comes Under Fire, will be back in a bit. And we're back. It is What's Involved, my guest is Frank Foss. Beyond Burnout, What to Do When Your Leadership Comes Under Fire is the book that he has just recently released. Before we went into the break, I was sitting in our thinking, that is the most amazing thing. And as I mentioned earlier, this is coming more and more to the fore. In this industrial age that we used to live in, we were, as employers and as employees, it was all about process, process, process, process. There was no humanity in it. You were very much a number. And let's be honest, that old way of doing things, it's still entrenched to a large degree in our country, but that system is broken. It's just it's not working anymore. And this concept of emotional intelligence and being able to get yourself into that place where you have a little time to process and to choose your response as opposed to what you mentioned earlier, these knee-jerk reactions.

So the book is absolutely vital. And I reckon it's recommended reading for anybody that's in business in any way, shape, or form, whether you're a one man show or CEO of a multi-million dollar corporation. So Frank, where are you now in your life? Because as I said earlier, and it sounded to me like you're certainly a lot happier. It sounds like you've found your purpose. So you're now consulting. Am I correct? Yeah, I'm still because I really enjoy business. I spend most of my life in business. So it gives me great joy to assist businesses as such. I look in particular at organizational health. I look at employee engagement. I look at these red flags of stress. I really believe, and it's simple, is that a leader that feels good in his skin and that is under control or has his emotions under control, has his stress levels under control, can really have a huge positive effect on his workforce. So that covers one part of my personal passion and interest. But the other one has become exactly this. The book is a culmination, and it's part of the transformation. It's been a journey. And I really enjoy more and more of sharing what I have researched, what I have experienced. And I have become a thought leader on this particular subject of emotional intelligence, of good leadership, of stress management.

And in the book, I also try to explain what stress is about, how it works, and why these so-called stress management methods can actually work. I also stress in the book how you can rebuild your emotional intelligence if it has been coming under pressure. In other words, there is a lot of light at the end of this tunnel if you find yourself in this particular tunnel, David. Wonderful stuff. As I said, we are wrapping it up. Frank, the book available online and in good bookstores, I assume? At the moment, we've got it published online, direct. It's available from our website. We have it both in E format, in all the popular formats, the E-Mobi, the E-PUB, the Kindle, the PDF. And we have it available as a softcover that can be ordered directly from our website, www.fosconsulting.co.za. OK, thank you. So Fosconsulting, V-O-S, Fosconsulting.co.za. That's where you can get the book from. That's brilliant. Frank, if you were to be put on the spot now and asked to give somebody who's listening, who may be on the fence about whether they're experiencing the stress and burnout or not, what would that piece of advice be? It is, I think, about there are four things to understand. A is we need to acknowledge the fact that we might have a problem.

And as I use an analogy of the flu, we must take our temperature. And that will take some self-reflection. And then if maybe we need to go to a GP to a doctor and have ourselves simply test it and make sure that our symptoms are not just symptoms, but more than that. And then, of course, if that is the case and we find ourselves in that situation-- and I'm sure we all know-- then there is the simple thing about developing your emotional intelligence. And that is really not that difficult. Then we go into practices like mindfulness that we talked about a little bit earlier. We talk about anger management in particular. We talk about doing mental exercises and, of course, living a healthy life. I think those four are pretty much understandable when it comes to emotional intelligence. But again, the book will cover that in detail. Then as I have experienced, coaching can be an extremely powerful tool to get your life on there where you would like it to be, to get your health where you would want it to be. Because coaching-- and I myself have always been a little bit suspect of the term "life coaching" because it sounds so dramatic. I'd rather stay with the coaching. But coaching helps us to analyze situations from completely different angles.

I mean, at the end of the day, stress is caused by two things. A, we perceive a threat. We are not exactly sure how big it is. And we are not exactly sure if we are able to cope with it. In other words, perception is one of the biggest, biggest causes of stress. And coaching helps you to shift perceptions. Coaching helps you to either reframe a threat or to avoid a threat, bypass it, or simply accept a situation. And then, of course, I have learned-- and some people call me old fashioned, but I think neuroscience is pretty much clear about it. If we can just get our time under control, then you will find that life becomes a lot less stressful. In other words, time under control doesn't mean necessarily time management in the sense that we know it or what I'm going to do when. Although, of course, that is important and to prioritize. But it is really allowing the brain time to think. And if there's anything that people are not aware of, is that it is not about allocating 15 minutes to a task. It is about allocating 10 minutes uninterrupted to a task. If our brain can focus, we can fix it. Our brain is incredibly powerful. And there are other interesting tools, David. Our senior practitioner, NLP, neurolinguistic programming, hypnosis, there are many tools that can assist you in exactly what I'm trying to say, as in allowing your brain uninterrupted time to think and to focus.

And with this, it is really not about how much time you've got, but making it quality time. And here, I am maybe, again, called old fashioned. But I see that mobile communication is a major threat to our lives in general. Although, cell phones, smart watches, and soon we'll see the smart glasses, are incredible, powerful instruments, and have done incredible good for the world as a whole, we must also not forget that they are the only things that we wear on our body 24 hour days besides underwear, I hope. And that they are constantly interrupting our train of thought. And never mind our social skill, as in seeing telephones ring at funerals and in church. But we just need to be aware of the fact that we cannot think for just two minutes without getting a message or the phone ringing. And we need to be able to switch off. And if it means switching off 15 minutes a day every morning, when we look at our priority list and get going, then that is what it needs to be done. I am particularly strongly in the book on email etiquette and how we handle an email because email seems to be swamping everybody in business. Never mind the boss sending you instant messages. That is also becoming a pain.

And then another trap that we are falling into because of modern technology is the fact that we all now have this incredibly powerful desktop application software. I'm thinking of Excel and Word and PowerPoint, where we are as leaders, as managers. And even as just good employees, just given a false sense of superiority and empowerment that we can all do it ourselves. And we end up doing work and burying hours and hours of time and building beautiful spreadsheets and beautiful presentations, but actually not getting our own job done or to just think for just a moment. And then the final one about time and allowing you time to think is the fact that we seem to be living with a screen. And if you walk into any modern day office today, David, you don't find people having a conversation. And I'm just talking now on the COVID protocol, of course. But people are all sitting behind screens. And I'm sure they're working or maybe Googling. But the point really is that when we want to lead people, when we want to be there, then we have to be there in person. And yes, I'm painfully aware of the additional complication of remote working. And there, I am also very critical. But regardless, I believe that if we as managers, as leaders, want to reduce stress, we need to reduce stress in the organization.

And that cannot be done without social interaction because at the end of the day, human beings are social. And that calls for real active social contact with leaders and staff, in particular in COVID times. In other words, if I go and quickly, if I may, to go through those steps of getting yourself time and attention and focus, it is really about, once again, being honest at work, saying to yourself, am I coping with my workload? That means work pressure. Am I coping? Yes, I know. Or am I simply not skilled or experienced enough to deal with my workload? And do I need to acquire additional skill, which is always possible? Then it is really about reprioritizing. Yes, indeed, let's do those first things first every morning without notifications, without opening emails, without picking up phones. Let's be careful on how we communicate by electronic means. And now I'm talking about email, which is such a swamp for many people in business. Again, we need to learn to disconnect. We need to give ourselves quiet time. We need to disconnect, in particular, from social media during working hours because that can be so distracting. And then those people that are around us, people that work for us, we really need to learn again to allow them to think.

And it means that-- I mean, David, you mentioned structures and processes. And we live in a new era where the fourth and even the fifth Industrial Revolution is upon us. And we're talking about emotional intelligence. We need to really allow our staff to do what it is they need to do. And we need to stop micromanagement. Micromanagement being a sign of being very much stressed. We need to give our people our confidence. We need to give them this empowerment, but also, of course, control measures. And then those that have the benefit of management teams when we talk at larger companies, it is very much the same. We must take the temperature. We must let our management team look in the mirror. And for that, we have incredibly great instruments called employee engagement surveys, where you can call in an HR specialist company that will actually survey your staff anonymously and will give you feedback on how they are experiencing your organization, their experiencing strategy and direction, and how they are experiencing you and your team. That is, at times, painful. But it can also be incredibly helpful for you to take your human resources policies to reevaluate the way that you're dealing with your staff and to get your management team really right behind you and follow the strategy that you've plotted out.

And then, of course, it's so simple. But if you go into Google and you look for how many self-help books are being published-- and mine, you could argue, is one of them-- there are literally millions of them. But the problem with them is that you read them once, and then you don't do anything with it. So the final step in really taking back control is if you do seek help, be it a book, be it a consultant, be it a coach, be it a friend, whatever, then let's then also do it and follow the advice. And it may be listen again and read the book again. There's no point putting yourself through these wonderful courses. And two days later, you're back to your old self and you're answering phone calls and doing emails all day long without doing your job, David. And that is really what I'm trying to get across. Wonderful stuff. Well, Frank, unfortunately, we're out of time, so we're going to have to leave it there. But thank you so much for taking the time out and having a chat to us. The book is available online. You can go to phosconsulting, V-O-S, consulting.co.za. Find out more about Frank, his work, and you can get the book there either in a soft cover or in electronic format. Once again, Frank, thank you so much.

I wish you all the best going forward, and I hope this book becomes the best seller it deserves to be. Thank you very much, David, and what a wonderful platform. It's great to have spoken to you in your audience. Thank you. There we go, wraps it up for this part of what's involved. As I said, Frank Foss, my guest there, go and check the book out beyond burnout, what to do when your leadership comes under fire. To each and every one of you, take care, look after yourselves, and thank you for listening.