It’s Not the Workload, It’s the Thought Load with Dr. Liane Davey
The Remarkable Leadership Podcast
Release Date: 07/01/2026
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info_outlineHow much of your team’s struggle is really about the work and how much is about everything else? In this episode, Kevin talks with Dr. Liane Davey about why the real challenge many teams face isn’t simply workload, but “thought load”. Liane defines this as the rising cognitive demands, emotional burdens, and depleted energy reserves that make work feel heavier than it may appear. She explains how multitasking, constant urgency, oversized meetings, unclear priorities, and poor energy habits quietly drain performance and create more rework, stress, and burnout. She also shares practical ways leaders can help, including replacing urgency with true priority, creating space for focused work, taking real breaks, managing emotions rather than ignoring them, and modeling healthier boundaries.
Listen For
00:00 Introduction & today's topic: thought load vs. workload
01:38 Introducing Liane Davey, the "Teamwork Doctor"
02:48 Why Liane wrote Thought Load
04:01 The big idea: it's not workload, it's thought load
05:31 Why this problem is bigger now than ever
09:13 The myth of multitasking
11:42 Sense of urgency vs. sense of priority
13:19 Busy vs. productive vs. effective
16:34 Restoring your energy: waterfalls, wells, and cracks in the cup
20:51 Why breaks are for winners, not losers
22:30 How leaders unknowingly transfer thought load to their teams
25:16 Can AI help manage thought load?
28:46 One thing organizations can do: shrink teams, strengthen communities
31:04 What Liane is reading right now
32:06 Where to find Liane and her work
33:05 Kevin's closing challenge: now what?
Liane's Story: Dr. Liane Davey is a New York Times bestselling author of You First: Inspire Your Team to Grow Up, Get Along, and Get Stuff Done, The Good Fight: Use Productive Conflict to Get Your Team and Organization Back on Track, and her latest, Thoughtload: Manage the Madness and Free Your Team to Do Great Work. She is an Organizational Psychologist, CEO advisor, and sought-after keynote speaker with more than 25 years of experience researching and advising teams on how to perform at their best. Known as the “teamwork doctor,” she works with teams from the frontlines to the boardroom, across industries and around the world, from Boston to Bangkok. Through her work with hundreds of teams, including 26 Global Fortune 500 companies (and counting), she has developed a practical, research-backed approach to solving the challenges that prevent teams from working effectively together.
https://www.linkedin.com/in/liane-davey-2574911/
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