The key to ensure employees grow — and stay — at an organization is creating a supportive environment where everyone can flourish. In this episode of Better Being, host Susan Fanning, Aon's Head of Wellbeing Solutions in Asia Pacific, talks to executive coach Tini Fadzillah, contributing author of The Purple Book of Coaching, about how leaders can develop both their task and relational skills to effectively support their teams.
Key Takeaways
Experts in this episode:
Susan Fanning — Head of Wellbeing Solutions, APAC, Aon
Tini Fadzillah — Executive Coach and Trainer
Key moments:
[09:33] Why organizations should be more like a village and develop a communal approach.
[12:41] Leaders who model wellbeing behaviors contribute to a more engaged and productive workforce.
[15:21] The importance of trust within teams.
Additional Resources
Aon Asia Mental Health Index Report
Soundbites:
Tini Fadzillah: "Can I trust you to reveal what's really going on in my heart and my head? Yeah. And trust meaning that you're not going to use it against me."
Tini Fadzillah: "We're better with a few brains working together versus one brain trying to figure everything out."
Intro:
Hi everyone, and welcome to the award-winning “On Aon” podcast, where we dive into some of the most pressing topics that businesses and organizations around the world are facing. This week in a special series on resilience called Better Being, we hear from Susan Fanning, Head of Wellbeing Solutions in APAC with her guest, Tini Fadzillah on wellbeing and the power of relationships.
Susan Fanning
Hello, and welcome to Better Being. I'm Susan Fanning and I'm Aon's Head of Wellbeing Solutions in Asia Pacific. What does that mean? That means that I work with organizations across Asia Pacific to improve the health and wellbeing of their employees.
And in today's podcast, we'll explore the profound impact that meaningful relationships have on our overall wellbeing — from enhancing our physical to boosting our emotional and mental resilience and improving our productivity at work.
According to Aon's Employee Sentiment Study, social interactions and engagements really matter, with one in 10 employees stating social life as the most impactful wellbeing area impacting their experience at work. To delve into this further, Generation Z is actually 66% more likely than all other generations to say that their social life has a significant impact on them.
With me today to discuss this is an expert in the field, Tini Fadzillah. Tini, based in Singapore, is a Newfield certified ontological coach and holds a master's certified coach credential from the International Coaching Federation. In addition to her coaching practice, Tini has recently contributed to the Purple Book of Coaching, where she explores the power of productive relationships for a well-lived life.
Thank you for being here today, Tini.
Tini Fadzillah
It's such an honor. Thank you so much for having me, Susan.
Susan Fanning
Our absolute pleasure. And in our discussion, we're going to explore how developing meaningful, strong connections can impact our wellbeing and help us to thrive both in a personal and professional set. So let's get started. Tini, how do meaningful relationships impact our overall wellbeing?
Tini Fadzillah
Okay, so if I just reference the Purple Book of Coaching, one of the distinctions that I offer is that everything happens in relationships. If you think about life, your life, listeners, is that everything happens from a relationship. And the question is therefore, what kind of relationships do you have and is it working for you? Great relationships have a huge impact on your wellbeing. Let's just start there.
So your capacity to connect. Your capacity to have great conversations. For example, in an organization or outside of the workplace, my capacity to share things that perhaps is weighing heavily on my shoulders. You know, I have a choice to hold onto it and process it myself in my own mind or if I have the capacity to connect and engage with you, for example, and we go out for lunch and we have a great conversation and I leave feeling a lot better, you know, maybe the problem I walked into lunch with, I leave and I go, “Actually, it's not as bad as I thought.”
Or I leave with better solutions or strategies. And so that's one of the big areas that I notice when I work with leaders and organizations, their capacity to come out of the loneliness of trying to [sort] things out themselves is huge.
Susan Fanning
I love that. And I love the reference to actually building relationships in our personal life and in the workplace. Because especially as we move to hybrid working, the boundaries have really blurred.
What do you see as the challenges people face in forming and maintaining relationships? And how can we overcome them? In particular, in Asia-Pacific, where the Aon TELUS Mental Health Index report uncovered that 82% of employees have a moderate to high risk of experiencing mental health issues.
Tini Fadzillah
From a coach's lens, right? Of course, there's a medical lens to this question. Yeah. I'm going to respond from a coach's lens. And in a coach's lens, you know, there's, and let me just talk about organizations. And I just want to highlight the sidebar on that is we reference organizations specifically referring to the workplace. However, if you think, if you take a bird's eye view on life: my family is an organization. My community is an organization.
So, for whoever is listening to this, absolutely we're referring to the workplace. However, everything we're saying is going to be extremely relevant for areas beyond just the workplace. All right. So let's just start there.
Now through the coach’s lens, I'm going to say that the first thing I would say is different people have different capacities to relate. If I'm new in an organization, for example, and I'm a little shy, right? And I'm not so good at meeting new people. It's not that something's wrong with me. The way I frame it through a coach's lens is that it's a skill or a habit or a muscle that I'm just not that good at. This is not a big deal.
And so it's to be able to step back and notice what's the muscle I can get better at. For example, the capacity to start a conversation. And the work that I do with people is sometimes even scripting these conversations because I have some clients who are, you know, that's their superpower. They relate [to?] ducks in water. And there are some people who are like, what, you want me to talk to another human being? And so this is not a problem. It's okay. And so treat it like muscles. And for those of you who work out, it's like, wanting to develop your biceps and going to the gym and saying, okay, I just need to lift those weights, reps, increase my reps and frequency. That's all.
And one day you're going to notice you'll just get better at it. Right? So, the first thing I would say to your question, Susan, is to just recognize what are you good at and what are you not so good at? Not like a criticism, but like a, how do I improve? Okay. So that's one thing.
If you're a leader or a team lead in an organization, demonstrating to your team is a great way to also encourage relating. And so demonstration could look like, let's say I'm the team lead, if I get feedback, that's really tough to swallow. How I relate to it and how I relate to the person who gave me feedback is just going to be a demonstration to my team.
How I give feedback or solicit feedback is also another great way. Encouraging non-task or non-work-related engagements is also a great opportunity because one of the formulas, which you'll see in my chapter in the book, is the formula that insists that for peak performance, challenge or task plus relationship is critical.
Right? So if I just enhance that a bit. If I'm a leader and all I do, and I'll exaggerate, right? If all I do 100% of the time is challenge my team, just challenging, pushing the boundaries: “It's not good enough. We can do better.” What that creates is either resistance or it creates compliance. Compliance meaning: “Yes, boss. Okay, boss. I'll do it, boss.” But whether I do it or not is a different story. I'm just saying yes to get this person off my back, right?
Now that's not going to maximize my team's performance. Just creates this kind of mood, right? On the other hand, if I do a 100% relating, right? I know what people did on the weekend. We hang out, but there's no task or no challenge. People aren't growing. And that's one of the reasons why people leave organizations. Attrition rates go up because I'm not growing.
So, it's critical that both of these things exist. And so, to answer your question, that's one of the things that I'm going to focus on leaders, but everyone has their role, right? So to be effective in an organization is to really have access to both my task muscle — task or challenge muscle — and also the relating muscle. Because if you get it that I'm on your team, let's say it's you and me, right? Yeah.
I'm on your team and you get it that I care about you, which is part of relating. If I challenge you, it's going to be received in a very different way than if you don't get it, I'm on your team. There'll be less resistance. And some times, as I've experienced, I can be pretty tough, but people get it that I'm, I'm, we're having this conversation because I know you can do better.
Susan Fanning
Yeah. And is there anything in terms of different that you see in Asia Pacific? Because you've lived and worked in many countries across Asia.
Tini Fadzillah
Anything different regarding capacity to relate?
Susan Fanning
Yeah, and in terms of how people approach forming and maintaining relationships, especially in the workplace.
Tini Fadzillah
You know, I'm going to reference, I'm going to go outside of the workplace for a moment. So I currently live in Singapore. I'm originally from Malaysia, lived in Indonesia, just to give a context of what I'm about to say. There is a culture, certainly in Malaysia, certainly in Singapore. I'm going to say Indonesia, maybe even Thailand as well. There's a communal approach to life.
And the difference, the evolution of this is historically, we call it “Kampongs,” which is villages. And the idea that what has a village thrive is that people, there's interaction amongst different households and it's like one huge family. There's good news and bad news to that. That's a different podcast.
And now there's an element of that comes into the workplace, which is this communal approach. However, I'm going to say that it's more the evolution of modernization that has people and maybe even the technical era. in this technical age, right? Where people are much more comfortable being between themselves and their devices.
And so I'm saying that might be eroding a little bit. However, I hesitate to say that it's gone because how I live, I live in an apartment and there's still a communal approach because a lot of people, including us, leave our front doors open. If you're living in a different culture, the front door is left open. There's still a gate on the front door.
So people just don't walk in, but people come over. It's like an invitation. If you need anything, just pop by. Or when you're walking down the corridor back to your home, like I do with my groceries and I see Auntie Jane at her living room, I go, hey, good morning. And so there's that vibe, right? And so, you know, there's that element, the kind of village, there's a terminology in Singapore and Malaysia that it refers to this. And I think there's that element that still exists in certainly in the south-east Asia context.
But you know, I think the challenges that people in an organization face, I think are still very similar. Yeah. I think the challenge of reaching out, the challenge of giving feedback, receiving feedback, getting support is, I think it's similar.
Susan Fanning
I think a lot of things can be similar, but it's understanding that local context and where somebody's frame of reference might be coming from. And so it's interesting that you say that in terms of how that works in organizations. So how can organizations support their employees in developing better social connections? Because we know that leaders who model wellbeing behaviors and create a supportive environment contribute to a more engaged and productive workforce.
And again, we saw from the Aon Employee Sentiment Study that senior colleagues are significantly more likely to thrive compared to mid- and entry-level employees. What can organizations do?
Tini Fadzillah
So there's two parts to my response. One is for organizations, leaders, to create opportunities for engagement within teams beyond just the task, but also inter-function, for different functions to come together. What's really nice about the work that I do is I work with organizations. So the design of it is it's a training and then we do coaching, right? And people from cross functions come together, get to know each other, and really realize that the struggles that people have are actually really similar. But when I'm in the workplace, a lot of people feel they need to show an image or a front to show that I'm on top of it, I'm good, I don't need support.
Well, when the vulnerability shows up, then there's space for contribution. There's space for me to ask myself, how can I contribute to this other person? And contribution, and we're naturally, as human beings, we're naturally wired to support. We're naturally social animals. And when we're not, I really believe that it's one of the ingredients for longevity, right?
So, this is one of the, they have a few bullet points, what's going to support the health and mental wellbeing with longevity. Communities are one of the key ingredients and it helps people to thrive, right? Versus just survive this job, for example, but just really enjoy it in good times and bad. So, I'm not saying it has to be happy, happy, joy, joy all the time. Even when things are down that I know that there's a group of people who I can count on to be honest with me and say: “Dude, that meeting, meh. How you showed up. I’d do something else.” But I know that it comes from a place of care versus a place of attack. And so, for organizations to support that kind of engagements, that kind of communication.
Susan Fanning
The authenticity of that ability to be vulnerable and to be honest with someone is actually takes a lot.
Tini Fadzillah
It takes a lot in the beginning. And I think underneath it is this element of trust. Can I trust you to reveal what's really going on in my heart and my head? Yeah. And trust meaning that you're not going to use it against me. And so, when communities, organizations, teams can really have kind of conversations…Again, I come back to the fundamental, is I get it, you're on my team, relating. Then I can have these conversations that remove the burden off my shoulder. And sometimes the burdens that people carry, which leads to the mental breakdown or burnout, or the buzzword now is psychological safety, right? Where people feel safe is because I feel like I'm alone and there's no one I can talk to.
Oftentimes, and it happens with any of us, all of us, is I'm holding on to what I perceive as a breakdown. I call my girlfriend up, hey, Susan, this is what just happened. I just need your point of view. And you go: “Oh, that's actually really normal. It happens to all of us. And here's how it…”
And suddenly what I perceived as a breakdown, aha. I see through a different lens and it's not as stressful. Or I have new strategies that I didn't think about before. We're better. We're better with a few brains working together versus one brain trying to figure everything out.
Susan Fanning (16:39)
But I think also in what you said is that in companies, maybe some companies focus quite a lot on the hardware that somebody needs, but then there's also the heartware. Because you spoke about the brain and the heart. How you need both of them. And so, if we in terms of them look at for organizations, how can they look at measuring the quality of those relationships and their impact on wellbeing?
Tini Fadzillah
Yeah, know, referencing the hardware and the heartware, which I love. I steal that.
Susan Fanning
I thought I stole that from you.
Tini Fadzillah
Awesome, oh my God. Okay. So I would say that there's two, two ways to measure. Whenever I work with leaders and we're coming up with declarations, we talk about results, measurable, right? Tangible. What by when. So that's one measure of success. And I'll elaborate on that in a moment.
And then there's the other part that a lot of us will forget, which is fulfillment. And so if you turn this into a grid, if the horizontal line is the measurable results, that's a horizontal line and the vertical line is level of fulfillment. I'm going to call it a game worth playing. So what's a game worth playing here is where I can accomplish high results and high fulfillment.
Now, what does fulfillment mean? Fulfillment means software. Then there's joy, there's growth, there's contribution. This is the heartware, right? Who did I become as a result of that? And who did other people become as a result of that? And so this is just a few examples, but the fulfillment piece is the soft, is the, right? The non...
Susan Fanning
Very strong person to person.
Tini Fadzillah
Absolutely. For some people, the fulfillment is ambition. Is to access the mode of ambition. For some people, it's, my God, I've been doing this for 50 years. I want to access the mode of peace. And so again, from a coach's lens, I'm listening to what's the key to unlock this particular person. It is very different to your point. So, what are the ways to measure it? I would say, obviously, are they achieving the results that they want? People who are declaring things and not achieving it impacts who they are, impacts their self-worth, impacts, you know, I'm going to say a lot of it is self-worth. A lot of it is, can I do this? Right? So results is one area to take a look at.
Susan Fanning
It's got an impact how they turn up in the workplace as well.
Tini Fadzillah
Absolutely. But if we take a step back and just we're just focusing on results, right? Yeah. Let's say I'm working with someone who is not achieving their results. We take a step back. Let's take a look at: has this been the case from day one? Or have they been a superstar and something happened and then it changed? And so there's lots of investigation that we can do. And what support did they put in place that could have helped them get out of it? If they're managing a team, what's their relationship with the team? I mean, this is such rich territory. Are they empowering their team? Are they taking it all on themselves? I was just working with someone yesterday, actually, really fun guy, really, really very senior. And he says, I'm a real nightmare with my team, knowingly, right? And I'm like “Oh but this guy I'm talking to right now, you seem really fun.”
And he's like, “oh, I only do this outside of the workplace.” Okay. And so the work that we're doing is how do you bridge, how do you bridge your being and your competence, bring it all into the workplace so that you can create connections. You can create a place that's fun. You can create a place where I grow. And so for a lot of people who struggle with generating the results they want, because he ends up doing it himself because his team leaves, right? Attrition rates really high.
And so it's how do you engage? How do you create a team game that helps everyone thrive? Right? So that's one way. That's one element of it. The other element of it is how do you nurture the fulfillment? How do you flourish in the workplace? And so, you know, there's lots of things you can, and again, it's customized. Different people will need different things to access their fulfillment. Have the conversation with someone.
Have the conversation with yourself. Journal it. Right? That's another way you can do it. Identify what are you passionate about? For the sake of what do you even do the work that you do? What is the impact you want to have? And my favorite metaphor or analogy is ask the question, if you're 100 years old sitting on your rocking chair and you're looking back on your life, my intent, the work that I do, what drives me is so that people don't say: “I should have, I could have, I wish I did.” But rather “Now that was an awesome life.”
And so that's the North Star. What do you need to put in place with who, what support is going to support you to get to that awesome life after defining it?
Susan Fanning
I love that because it's the definition of what's an awesome life and then the charting of the plan and in terms of how do we work with others to achieve that because we can't really do any of that. So I think then for organizations and how they're measuring that it is as you said there is there's some hard measurements in terms of what's getting done, but then there's a lot of soft measurements, which again, can come through data and information that people have, but also getting feedback from employees and systematically gathering that I think is really important.
Tini Fadzillah
Well, can I just add, a leader in an organization, is also to be open to leveraging on this idea of feedback, right? So, organizations will oftentimes do these surveys, employee engagement surveys, et cetera, et cetera. And very well. Yeah, all of it. Really look at the data and see what trends are happening because that data is really a reflection.
I know I'm singing to the choir. But not pointing fingers and say, what's wrong with you guys, but let's really take a look at what's the playground that we are creating and are people thriving? And you know, it's like, it's cyclic, right? So there's going to be good days or good years or bad years. Not a problem. Feedback is great information to inform us. What do we need? What do we need to pay attention to?
Susan Fanning
I love that. And I think that is a wonderful place for us to end the conversation. Thank you so much for joining us today, Tini.
Tini Fadzillah
Oh it was my pleasure. I get to talk about what I love.
Susan Fanning
I know and you get to talk to me who you love as well. That's it for our show for today. Thank you for listening.
Tini Fadzillah
Thank you everyone.
Outro
Thanks for tuning into the latest episode of On Aon. If you enjoyed this episode, don't forget to subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. And be sure to visit Aon.com to learn more about Aon.