Olivia: Your company is likely paying every employee for over two hours of work each day that they don't actually do. And it's not because they're lazy. It's because they're stuck in drama. Jackson: Whoa, hold on. Two and a half hours a day? That sounds impossible. That's like a whole part-time job dedicated to just… complaining? Olivia: Exactly. It's a multi-million dollar problem hiding in plain sight. And it's the central premise of a book that completely flips modern leadership on its head. Today, we're diving into No Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Drama, End Entitlement, and Drive Big Results by Cy Wakeman. Jackson: Cy Wakeman. I’ve heard her name. She’s become a huge voice in leadership circles, but her approach is known for being pretty… direct. Olivia: It is. And what makes her perspective so unique is her background. She wasn't a traditional business guru. She started her career as a family therapist. She spent years helping people deconstruct the unhelpful stories they tell themselves. Jackson: Ah, so she brought that therapeutic lens into the corporate world. Instead of just looking at spreadsheets and org charts, she's looking at the narratives running inside people's heads. Olivia: Precisely. She argues that most workplace problems aren't about the circumstances; they're about our reaction to the circumstances. And that's where this massive, invisible cost comes from. Jackson: Okay, I'm intrigued. So where does all this drama even come from? I thought good leaders were supposed to have an open-door policy to deal with this stuff, to listen to their people. Olivia: That’s what everyone thinks. And that’s exactly where Wakeman says the problem begins.

Olivia: Wakeman tells this fantastic story from when she was a new manager. Fresh out of HR training, she was told the key to being a great leader was an "Open-Door Policy." The idea was to be available, let employees vent, because venting is supposedly healthy. Jackson: Right, that’s Management 101. Show them you care, let them get it off their chest. Olivia: So she did it. She put a sign on her door, made herself available. And people came. They came in droves. They'd ask for "just a minute" and stay for 45. They’d vent about their coworkers, about policies they couldn't change, about things that had almost no basis in reality. Jackson: Sounds exhausting. But were they at least leaving happier? Olivia: That's the twist. They would finish their long vent session, and then deliver the killer line. They'd look at her and say, "Please don’t do anything about this. I just wanted you to be aware." Jackson: Oh, no. So it was pure performance. They didn't want a solution; they wanted an audience for their drama. Olivia: Exactly. She realized her office hadn't become a hub for problem-solving; it had become a portal for drama. She was spending hours a day just absorbing negativity that led to zero productive outcomes. She calls this "emotional waste." Jackson: Emotional waste. I like that term. It’s like a hidden leak in a company’s resources. You don't see it on the balance sheet, but it's draining everything. Olivia: And it has a real, quantifiable cost. Her research, done with The Futures Company, found the average employee spends 2 hours and 26 minutes per day in drama. For a hypothetical company with 100 employees earning $30 an hour, that's a loss of over $1.7 million a year. Jackson: That is staggering. So it's like there's a hidden 'drama tax' on every single paycheck. The company is paying for work, but a huge chunk of that time is being consumed by ego-driven stories, gossip, and blame. Olivia: And leaders are often the biggest enablers. When an employee comes in to vent, the traditional response is sympathy. "Oh, that sounds so hard. I'm so sorry you have to deal with that." Wakeman argues this is the worst thing you can do. Jackson: Wait, why? Isn't that just showing empathy? Olivia: She draws a sharp line between sympathy and empathy. Sympathy is colluding with their story. You're basically saying, "Yes, you are a victim, and your suffering is justified." Empathy, in her view, is acknowledging the emotion but not the story. It’s saying, "I can see this is frustrating for you," and then immediately redirecting them back to reality and their own power. Jackson: So instead of "poor you," it's "I see you're struggling, now what can you do about it?" Olivia: Exactly. Because the moment you validate the victim story, you've fed the ego, you've fueled the drama, and you've just contributed to that multi-million dollar emotional waste bill. Jackson: Okay, I get the cost of drama. It’s a huge, invisible drain. So the standard solution from most HR departments would be to boost employee engagement, right? Make people happier so there's less to complain about in the first place. Olivia: You would think so. But that’s the next piece of conventional wisdom Wakeman absolutely demolishes.

Jackson: Hold on, every leadership book I've ever read, every conference I've ever heard of, says employee engagement is the holy grail. High engagement equals high performance. Are you saying that's all wrong? Olivia: Wakeman argues it's a deeply flawed, and even dangerous, assumption. Her most provocative statement is this: "Engagement without accountability creates entitlement." Jackson: Wow. That is a controversial take. Unpack that for me. Olivia: She says the whole industry around employee engagement is built on a few dangerous myths. The biggest one is the idea that it's the leader's job to create a perfect environment so that employees will bestow the "gift" of their engagement. Jackson: The gift of their work? That sounds so passive-aggressive. Olivia: It is! It positions the employee as a customer who needs to be catered to, and the leader as a concierge trying to fulfill their every need. This leads to what she calls "Vickie the Victim." Jackson: Vickie the Victim? Okay, tell me about Vickie. Olivia: Vickie is the low-accountability employee. When you ask her for feedback on an engagement survey, she complains about the parking, the quality of the coffee, the fact that her boss doesn't praise her enough. Her focus is entirely on what the company can do for her. Jackson: I think we've all worked with a Vickie. Olivia: Then you have "Deb the Driver." Deb is the high-accountability employee. When you ask Deb for feedback, she talks about how to better serve the customer, how to streamline a process, how to remove an obstacle that's preventing her team from delivering results. Her focus is on adding value. Jackson: Okay, I see the difference. Deb is thinking about the mission, Vickie is thinking about herself. Olivia: Right. And yet, traditional engagement surveys give Vickie's opinion the exact same weight as Deb's. Leaders then spend millions trying to fix the things Vickie complained about—better coffee, more parking spots—while completely ignoring the real business-driving feedback from Deb. Jackson: So you end up optimizing for the complainers. And the more you give them, the more they demand. That's the entitlement trap. Olivia: Precisely. Wakeman shares a brilliant story from a behavioral health unit. They surveyed employees, asking what would make the workplace better. One group, the low-accountability employees, asked for free scrubs, better food from drug reps, and in-house daycare. Jackson: All personal perks. Olivia: The other group, the high-accountability ones, asked for a new printer to prevent medication errors and a change to ICU visiting hours to better support patient families. One group was focused on their own comfort, the other was focused on the mission. Who should you listen to? Jackson: This sounds a bit harsh, though. Is she just blaming the employee? What if the company really is the problem? What if the pay is unfair or the management is genuinely toxic? This approach feels like it could be used to shut down legitimate complaints. Olivia: That's the most common critique of her work, and it's a fair question. She's clear that this doesn't apply to illegal or unethical behavior—harassment, safety violations, those are different. Her point is about the vast majority of day-to-day operational "suffering." She argues that suffering is optional and self-imposed. Your circumstances are not the reason you can't succeed; they are the reality in which you must succeed. Jackson: So it’s a radical call for personal ownership. Stop trying to perfect your reality and start getting better at dealing with reality as it is. Olivia: Yes. And that completely changes the role of a leader. You stop being a manager of circumstances and you become a coach for the mind. Jackson: And that's the pivot. Instead of trying to fix the environment for the employee, Wakeman says the leader's new job is to fix the employee's thinking about the environment. Olivia: Exactly. It’s a shift away from what she calls "Change Management," which she thinks is an obsolete concept.

Olivia: The whole field of change management is built on the idea that change is hard and that people naturally resist it. Leaders are taught to manage this resistance, to soothe people's fears, to go slow. Jackson: Like the five stages of grief, but for a new software rollout. Denial, anger, bargaining for your old login… Olivia: Wakeman says that’s nonsense. She has this incredible line: "Change is hard only for the unready." The problem isn't the change; it's the lack of readiness in the people experiencing it. Jackson: That reframes everything. So the leader's job isn't to make the change easier, it's to make their people stronger and more adaptable. Olivia: Exactly. It's a shift from Change Management to "Business Readiness." She tells a story about a big pharmaceutical company that decided to move from a traditional cubicle farm to a modern, open-plan office to foster collaboration. Jackson: A classic corporate change. I can already hear the groans. Olivia: Of course. And the reactions were predictable. Some people were excited, but many were skeptical or outright hostile. They worried about noise, distractions, loss of privacy. So Wakeman's team surveyed employees before and after the move. Jackson: What did they find? Olivia: They found a direct correlation. The employees who were already tech-savvy, who had large internal networks, who kept up with industry trends—the "ready" ones—found the transition easy and even invigorating. The employees who were less skilled, more isolated, and attached to the old way of doing things found the change incredibly difficult and blamed leadership for it. Jackson: Ah, so it wasn't the open-plan office that was the problem. The variable was the employee's pre-existing level of adaptability. Olivia: Precisely. The change simply revealed who was ready for the future and who was clinging to the past. A leader's job, then, is to invest in closing that readiness gap before the change even happens. Jackson: So it's not about making the change painless. It's about making your people so resilient and adaptable that they can handle any change thrown at them. Olivia: Yes! And the tool for this is not a new policy or a new program. It's a simple question. This is probably the most powerful tool in the entire book. When someone is spinning in drama, blaming others, or resisting reality, the leader asks: "What would great look like right now?" Jackson: "What would great look like right now?" That's a powerful question. It cuts through the noise. Olivia: It does. It forces the person to stop narrating the problem and start envisioning a solution. It yanks them out of their ego-driven victim story and into a state of accountability and action. She tells the story of a nurse at a medical center who was furious because the electronic medical records were wrong, and she had just explained the wrong surgical procedure to a patient, who was now hysterical. Jackson: Oh, that's a nightmare scenario. I'd be furious too. Olivia: She stormed back to her supervisor's office, venting about the admissions team, the doctors, the flawed system. The supervisor just listened calmly and then asked, "I hear you. Tell me, what would great look like right now?" Jackson: And what did the nurse say? Olivia: The question stopped her in her tracks. She paused, and then said, "Well... great would be me going back in there, admitting the mistake, comforting the patient, and making absolutely sure she gets the right care and feels safe." The supervisor just nodded and said, "Good. Then go be great." Jackson: Wow. No blame, no coddling. Just a call to greatness. The nurse went from being a victim of the system to the hero of the story in a single moment. Olivia: That's the essence of No Ego leadership. You don't manage the drama. You bypass it with a call to accountability.

Olivia: So when you put it all together, it's a powerful chain reaction. First, you have to recognize and stop the bleeding—the incredible cost of emotional waste that's draining your organization. Jackson: Right, the 2.5 hours a day. You have to make the invisible tax visible. Olivia: Then, you have to stop feeding the entitlement monster. You break free from the engagement trap by realizing that accountability is the true driver of results, not just making people feel happy. Jackson: You start listening to Deb the Driver instead of Vickie the Victim. Olivia: And finally, you embrace your new role as a leader. You're not a change manager or a therapist. You're a readiness coach. You build a team that isn't just reacting to the present, but is actively preparing for what's next. Jackson: It’s a fundamental shift in responsibility. The leader is responsible for delivering reality, and the employee is responsible for dealing with it. Olivia: And the tool to bridge that gap is the powerful, ego-bypassing question. Jackson: So for a leader listening right now, someone who is drowning in that emotional waste and feeling like a concierge for their team's feelings, what's the one thing they can do tomorrow to start applying this? Olivia: It's simple, but not easy. The next time an employee comes to you with a problem they are framing as a drama, resist the urge to solve it or sympathize with it. Just listen, and then ask them that one question: "What would great look like right now?" And then just be quiet and see what happens. Jackson: Let them find their own path to greatness. I love that. I'm also really curious to hear from our listeners on this. The book's ideas are pretty polarizing. Have you seen "emotional waste" in your workplace? Do you think the focus on engagement has gone too far? Let us know your stories. We'd love to hear them. Olivia: It's a conversation that needs to be had. This is a call to a more adult, more accountable way of working together. Jackson: A workplace with no ego. It sounds like a dream. Olivia: This is Aibrary, signing off.