A meeting ends and your calendar moves on, but your brain doesn’t. We’ve all had that moment where we replay a comment, hear a different “tone” in an email, or walk into the next conversation with part of our attention still stuck in the last one. That lingering mental noise is more than stress, it’s a leadership and team performance problem.
I’m joined by organizational psychologist and author Dr. Liane Davey to unpack her idea of thought load: the invisible tax on performance created by rising cognitive demands, increasing emotional burdens, and declining energy reserves. We talk about why so many teams feel less than the sum of their parts, how unresolved moments turn into conflict debt, and why the biggest drain often isn’t the workload, it’s the human friction we don’t process.
Leanne shares a sticky metaphor and a practical playbook: when the dragon is breathing fire, it’s protecting treasure. Instead of grabbing a sword, a shield, or a bucket, we practice “opening the drawbridge” with curiosity using simple questions like “What’s at stake here?” and “What am I missing?” We also look inward at our own triggers, name what we’re protecting, and create zero-input space to metabolize conflict so it doesn’t follow us home.
If you want better workplace communication skills, healthier conflict, and less burnout, hit play, then subscribe, share the episode with one person, and leave a review with the most useful question you’re taking into your next tough conversation.
🌐 Connect with Liane:
• Website: http://www.lianedavey.com/
• LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lianedavey/
📚 You can purchase Liane's books on Amazon:
• Thoughtload: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1774586517/
• The Good Fight: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1774587408/
• You First: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1118636708/
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