Red Flags, Green Flags: Modern Psychology for Everyday Drama

• Title: Red Flags, Green Flags: Modern Psychology for Everyday Drama
• Author: Ali Fenwick
• Published by: Michael Joseph
• Where to find it:  https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/458024/red-flags-green-flags-by-fenwick-dr-ali/9780241653685

Whether they’re familial, workplace or romantic, relationships are often hard to navigate. More than ever, people are turning online to search for the answer to their relationship dilemmas, and that’s where they find?Dr Ali Fenwick, Professor of Organisational Behaviour and Innovation at?Hult International Business School. 

Dr Fenwick, known to his millions of followers on social media as?@moderndaypsychologist, or ‘DrTikTok’, shares his expertise in human behaviour to his global audience in a creative, humorous way. Much like he does in his classroom at Hult, he engages his followers and helps them better understand the psychological, social and contextual factors that influence human behaviour, well-being, and performance. 

Dr. Fenwick is also the Founder and Director of the Dr Fenwick Lab for Human Behaviour and Technology which helps businesses and start-ups, as well as education, and government agencies to develop and deploy behavioural and data science solutions to solve problems and generate positive business and societal outcomes. 

His latest book, ‘Red Flags, Green Flags: Modern Psychology for Everyday Drama,’ was published on 11^th?April 2024. 

We sat down with him to find out more. 

Can you tell us about the inspiration behind your new book? What motivated you to write it?

Sharing insights about psychology, well-being, and relationships online was a way for me to provide knowledge and tools to a much wider audience than an MBA classroom. Through social media, I got to learn what people really care about, what their worries are in today’s world, and how difficult they find it to foster strong and healthy relationships in various domains of life. This inspired me to provide answers to the many questions people have using a behavioural lens to explain modern-day relationships and thinking. 

This quickly became a hit online, and many people loved my unique perspective and delivery. However, a 15-second video can only go so far, and so writing the book was a way for me to go deeper into the topics that people care most about to provide more insights, tools, and learning. The chapters I wrote are data-driven, meaning that they are based on my most viral content and the themes my global audience wants to know more about.? 

Caring about people’s concerns and relationship challenges and wanting to address them using the latest thinking is what inspired me the most to write this book. If I can help others to be and do better, then we all can help to make this world a better place. 

What are the key takeaways or main ideas that readers can expect to find in your book?

1. Making the right assessment of social interactions

It is important to identify healthy and unhealthy behaviour. It can help you to minimise the drama in your life.  However, in a world where social norms and the way people treat each other are rapidly changing, it can prove difficult to make a fast assessment of the situation, leaving many people in doubt about what is acceptable behaviour and what is not.  Using a behavioural lens, my book Red Flags Green Flags helps to make the right assessment when trying to identify healthy (green flags) and unhealthy behaviours (red flags) in others (and in oneself).  

2. Process to help unpack behaviour and improve decision-making 

Besides the red and green flag indicators, the book also offers frameworks to help the reader become more aware of their own thought processes, promoting more introspection and thoughtful decision making.  

Finally, due to global uncertainties, the influence of mobile devices, and changing social norms, people are finding it hard to form deep emotional connections with others and increasingly difficult to deal with challenging interpersonal situations – preferring to swipe right on someone than tackle a problem head-on to find a solution. 

Red Flags Green Flags helps people to become more critical about their evaluation of others and themselves, and be willing to participate in more enduring relationships.

Who is the target audience for your book, and how do you believe it will benefit them?

I address 24 red flags in the book which cover five specific domains: work relationships, friends, family, dating, and long-term romance. I wouldn’t say there is one specific audience I am targeting. The target audience is larger in terms of interest but the common theme throughout the book is?how to better understand modern relationships and how to use behavioural psychology to improve them. The target audience therefore can be working professionals, singles or single moms, couples, students, entrepreneurs, and government officials. It’s very broad. 

“In a professional context, Red Flags, Green Flags helps employees and managers better deal with the interpersonal drama at work caused by organisational politics, a bad relationship with a supervisor (and vice versa), mental health, and competing motives”

The book benefits the readers in three ways. First, it is a modern-day behavioural manual to help decipher relational drama in various relationship settings. Second, it helps the reader to improve decision-making and become more introspective. And, third, the book serves as a tool to help the reader foster deeper connections with others and become a better version of themselves.

What do you think makes this topic particularly relevant or timely in today’s business world, or for the years ahead?

Red and green flags have become popular terms in today’s culture, popularised through TV drama shows and social media. Everyone understands what red and green flags are – they’re fairly universal so people can easily relate to them. The red and green flag phenomenon started in the dating scene but has steadily expanded to other areas of life such as work. 

Organisational life is becoming increasingly complex with the advent of AI and the many social and structural changes organisations are going through (diversity & inclusion, sustainability, digital transformation, and multiple generations to name a few). These changes impact employee expectations about work, which affects how engaged and committed employees feel in the workplace.  

Misunderstandings about the importance of work to different generations also is a cause for a lot of drama nowadays. Not to mention how high-pressured environments, toxic cultures, and organisational politics contribute to bad behaviours and mental health issues at work. 

Red Flags, Green Flags helps employees, managers, and leaders better understand the causes of most common workplace drama and how to better deal with the interpersonal stressors which emerge from these developments. 

Finally, new workplace phenomena like quiet quitting and workplace ghosting are starting to emerge. Managers and leaders can benefit a lot from the Red Flags Green Flags book by learning more about workplace trends, why they happen and what you can do about them.

Please could you share some practical tips or strategies from your book that readers can immediately apply to improve their business or career?

There are various tips I can share from the book. I will focus here primarily on workplace-related tips. 

• Today we need to do more with less. However, it is also important to learn to set boundaries at work to prevent burning out. Here is an effective communication strategy you can use when receiving too many work requests from your boss, “I am happy to take on this extra project. But before I do that, could you help decide which of my other projects I have on my to-do list can be de-prioritised so that I can deliver all my projects on time?”?The book provides various communication strategies to help both employees and managers better communicate with each other. 

• For managers, learning how to create a strong sense of belonging in the workplace is important to help people feel safe, included, and willing to perform. A great way to build a stronger sense of community is through the strategic use of identity in the workplace. Examples of identity usage at work are portraying strong organisational values, having an elevating purpose, leadership role-modeling desired behaviours , or being more diverse and inclusive in how you hire and promote talent. Studies even show that being highly identified with the organisation can also enhance one’s emotional and mental well-being. 

• Finally, I have a whole chapter dedicated to organisational politics. Though often seen as something negative which should not be talked about,  my book positions organisational politics as a set of skills every employee and manager needs to learn to successfully navigate relationships at work (in a positive way) and as a way to address political attacks when they happen. I propose the Five P’s framework to break down organisational politics into five distinct skill sets: Power, Personal Management, Politics, Personal Reputation, and Partnerships.

Can you discuss any specific case studies or real-world examples from your book that illustrate its principles in action?

Green Flag Example 

To illustrate the importance of well-being and psychological safety in the workplace, I give the example of the World Bank Group in my book.  

The World Bank Group shows dedication to creating an environment that normalises discussions about mental health at work and understands the challenges of creating a psychologically safe environment for people in different countries around the world, as psychological safety can mean different things to different people. 

Their policies and practices serve as a great example of how an organisation can engage in learning conversations with its stakeholders and aim to create a work environment where people feel safe and a sense of belonging (no matter where they are in the world). 

Red Flag Example 

In my book, I argue that we should stop using the?‘see this company as your family’?analogy as a way to create a fake sense of loyalty at work. Your company is not your family even though you might see your colleagues as ‘besties’. Also GenZ employees dislike the term as they have very different values and expectations about work compared to older generations. 

Demanding unwavering loyalty can make some highly committed employees behave in?unethical ways?or fail to report wrongdoings in the workplace to protect the company.  

For example, in 2015, Volkswagen was?found guilty?of rigging car pollution-detection software to pass government emissions tests. The company Chairman said during a press conference that the emissions scandal was caused by a chain of different wrongdoings internally and a broken work culture tolerating rule-breaking. Dysfunctional families exist in the real world and the dysfunctional family culture also exists in organisations. Even when appropriate checks and balances are in place, the culture, and within it, the tolerated behaviours, can prevent people from doing the right thing. 

How does your book add to/expand existing discussions on this topic?

Red Flags Green Flags provides a unique perspective to everyday drama; be it at home or at work. First of all, modern-day phenomena are discussed which helps the reader better understand new emerging behavioural trends and ways of thinking. There are not many books on the market that describe these recent trends in various areas of life, which I believe is a huge contribution to the existing literature and discourse.  

In addition, I provide a behavioural perspective, using modern psychology and unique behavioural frameworks and tools, to unravel the drama. Red Flags Green Flags adds and expands the existing discussion of everyday drama using a behavioural lens.

Finally, what book(s) written by another author would you recommend as essential reading for your audience and why?

My audience is generally interested in human behaviour and the (unexpected) psychology which underlies it. I would therefore recommend the following books: 

• Surrounded by Idiots by Thomas Erickson 

• The Laws of Human Nature by Robert Greene 

• Think Again by Adam Grant 

• Thinking Fast and Slow by the late Daniel Kahneman 

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