Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Come along to one of my free events in SeptemberWe all tell stories all of the time, but what makes a magical, memorable story? What pitfalls should we avoid? This was an issue that I was thinking about. Presentations are stories, and we deliver presentations every day.In my own investigation I found real value in the book by the storytelling organisation The Moth. I was beyond excited when I saw they were releasing a UK edition of the book. One of the authors Kate Tellers joins me to discuss The Moth's approach to making memorable stories. Kate is a senior director at The Moth, helping people transform into storytellers. But she explains something even more valuable, of how The Moth run workshops that allow colleagues to better connect with each other by sharing their stories with each other. How to Tell a Story: The Essential Guide to Memorable Storytelling from The MothCarolyn Martin's story about becoming a Catholic Sister (such a beautiful story)Josh Broder's story about being an extra in

Professor Sophie Scott is the UK's most recognisable neuroscientist, famed for her passion and her ability to excite interest in a complex field. Her new book, The Brain - Ten Things You Should Know is out now and I got in touch to discuss what any of us can learn about the brain. It's a wonderful discussion that included one detail that stopped me in my tracks.Listen to Professor Sophie Scott on our previous episode about laughterRoyal Institution Christmas LectureWhy we laughCover image by Hugging Face AI Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Lots of my favourite podcasts have gone on summer break, so I wanted to keep putting some episodes out. But maybe you don't want something that is too work related in the midst of the summer, so this is an episode that is more psychology and life than workplace culture. It's a lovely discussion with Max Dickins author of 'Billy No Mates'.I got so much from the book - and from the discussion. Max reflects on the geezerish persona he adopts with workmen in his house and wonders if it's a performance and if it is a performance is it by him, or the workman or both of them. He considers how for many men adult life becomes a process of refusing to demonstrate - and then refusing to experience - joy. As someone asked of him, 'what happened to these men'?The article that the episode is titled after is here - we discuss it in the show: “Men have no friends and women carry the burden”Max's book is available now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

To find out more about the workplace culture course go to the website or the book page.After recent episodes have made a case that the office might be on the way out, today is a voice who dares to say otherwise. Tom Goodwin is an active voice in media - operating somewhere between provocateur and consultant. He has been voted a top 10 voice in Marketing by LinkedIn, one of 30 people to follow on Twitter by Business Insider, and a 'must follow' by Fast Company. In the conversation we discuss how there's a danger that we might be turning our backs on something special in the office, 'dog mode' and how the best technology is the technology that we have available to us now.Tom's new book is a total rewrite of his first book Digital Darwinism. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you're a user of social media, whether Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn you'll have seen the work of today's guest.Sign up for the free Winning Workplace Culture course here if you prefer Fortitude.Get the Make Work Better newsletter hereLiz Fosslien is half of Liz and Mollie whose perceptive dissections of contemporary anxieties have won hundreds of thousands of fans. Liz talks through her process of creating these atoms of insight and how the response from viewers inspired them to write a new book about how to cope with the major emotions in our lives.A lovely warm summer conversation. You can follow Liz and Mollie on social media - or buy their new book Big Feelings hereNorrie Norrie Norrie Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A wonderful discussion that I think has got immense to richness to it. I chat to the boss of St John's Ambulance Martin Houghton-Brown (Martin on Twitter). I was struck with the power of the lessons about connection and identity - we often find ourselves throwing these terms around casually but Martin's testimony brings it vividly to life.Find out more about St John's Ambulance - become a volunteerDonate to St John's AmbulanceParkrun research: volunteers see a bigger health uplift than the runnersPre-order Fortitude and get a workplace culture course for free (before 8th July 2022)The book is about resilience - how we get it wrong, and where it really lies. There are a lot of mistakes made about resilience and increasingly our teams are getting fed up hearing us talk about it. Fortitude explores where resilience really lives.The early reviews on the book are sensational.Steven Bartlett said:‘This is a truly refreshing, captivating and important book that shifted my perception on a topic I thought I knew! A mu

Two things on the podcast today - at the end of the episode there is a discussion with former guest, Brian Elliott from Slack's Future Forum.Ahead of that I want to make an announcement about what I've been working on - with my new book Fortitude.Fortitude is an investigation into the elusive idea of resilience, a book that discovers that resilience is a area filled with mistakes, misdirection and over-promise. The book finds the true secrets of resilience.You can find out all of about the book here or you can receive my workplace culture course for free if you pre-order it now.The Future Forum book 'How the Future Works' is available now. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“There are two kinds of companies: One is going to embrace work-from-anywhere, and the second is in denial — I feel those companies will lose their workforce. You have to make a choice, as a leader, what kind of company you want to lead” (source)The words of today's guest have stayed with me for the last few months. I'm so delighted to talk to Professor Raj Choudhury from Harvard Business School who will possibly wake you up from a self-created illusion. He'll explain:why WFA is inevitablethe role that top talent have in redefining work for everyonewhy 25% is a magic amount of timewhy WFA presents a win-win-win solution for usI was so looking forward to this and it doesn't disappoint.Read Professor Choudhury's HBR cover article.Here is the audio clip I mentioned. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If you find yourself becoming interested in the magic of workplace culture one of the go to authors of the subject is today's guest, Dan Coyle.Dan's 2018 book The Culture Code allowed him to go deep with some of the most successful cultures in the world - in the arenas of business, sport and even the military. He's returning after the blazing success of the Culture Code with a book that gives more of the energy of that title but drawn into a workbook, The Culture Playbook - imagine something like a journal with prompts of what to write.He joined me for a discussion where we reflect on the challenges of the last 2 years and what any organisation should be thinking about as they set about creating a winning, forward-looking culture.If you like this sign up for the newsletter - Make Work Better - for a special announcement in 3 weeks Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We're going deeper into the evidence today with two brilliant guests. Anne Raimondi is COO of Asana who were smart enough to have started a major piece of research into how work is evolving just before the world turned upside down. We're also joined by the most in demand brain in the world right now, Professor Nick Bloom. Nick is Professor WFH, an economist from Stanford University who has been researching remote working for over a decade.Along the way we talk about how the biggest innovations in remote working are yet to come - and are coming from mindblowing places. We talk the changing expectations of Gen Z workers, why Nick doesn't believe we should be giving up our office just yet. We hear where the sweetspot of hybrid working is right now and why a little less freedom and a little more co-ordination is the order of the day.I was desperately trying to get Nick on the podcast and to land Anne Raimondi at the same time is a wonderful stroke of luck.Asana's Anatomy of Work Report 2022 is available here. You

Status is a fundamental need for humans.Such a fascinating discussion today. I recently read Will Storr's brilliant book The Status Game and was so taken with it I invited him on the podcast.He quotes Professor Brian Boyd when he says that we:‘naturally pursue status with ferocity: we all relentlessly, if unconsciously, try to raise our own standing by impressing peers, and naturally if unconsciously, evaluate others in terms of their standing’.In study after study it is found that our wellbeing depends on the degree that we feel respected by other people. One study found that the attainment off status of its loss was ‘the strongest predictor of long-term positive and negative feelings’ in subjects.I wanted to pick Will's brains to hear more of this - but also to understand how these mechanisms impact us at work. If you're interested in psychology or just a bit of people watching you'll love the reframing that this discussion provides for us. Along the way Will gives us the definitive take on why Will Smith s

This episode is greatly enhanced by reading the newsletter that comes with it. In today’s podcast I talk to two guests who have slightly different perspectives on how to fix the culture of the Met Police.Dr Megan O’Neill is Associate Director at the Scottish Institute for Policing Research. She has extensively studied the police and has worked closely with them - most notably helping to revise a stop and search policy that was found to be failing. She explains the challenges of the job, and how we should think about getting buy in to reform.Simon Holdaway is Professor emeritus of Criminology at the University of Sheffield. He joined the police after he left school and was promoted to sergeant. His study about the police has explored the culture of the profession and how themes of race could be more effectively tackled. While the police (and the Met) might not feel adjacent to your business there are critical lessons about cultural change.Four lessons of what good culture requires:Space - good culture can

Caleb Parker is one of the most intelligent commentators on the future of our workplaces (Twitter, his website) and this conversation with him did not disappoint. Caleb is the founder of a flexible workplace offering, Bold, but also host of a truly brilliant commercial real estate podcast called The Work Bold Podcast. I found Caleb's podcast via Antony Slumbers Twitter feed and it's become part of my weekly routine as it normally drops in time for my Sunday run. (BTW Antony was a former guest who shared with us the perspective of the commercial real estate sector early in the pandemic. I found the dialogue with Antony so rich that I wanted to seek another update from the sector.The second half of the discussion is especially strong. I ask Caleb to give the stump pitch for the office and his answer is stunning. He also shares a stark warning that 'bad culture is a bigger threat to the office than the pandemic'.Caleb also shares with us the perspective of his most inspiring guest on his own podcast - who outlin

Last year I did a few episodes looking to see how firms were tackling the return to the office (the return to work - THE PLACE) but they were all small workplaces. Organisations that could make nimble actions, I wanted to see how a big firm handled these things. I contacted Tom Kegode, the lead for Work:Lab at Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds employs 70000 people across hundreds of sites. It is logistically intense to make hybrid work for them.Tom is a brilliant bright leader intent on creating something sustainable and special in the bank. He is thinking of creating co-working in branches. He is leading best practice about different workstyles in an organisation that isn't mandating any rules. In classic egoless style Tom brought along his colleague Josh Reynolds who works in employee experience. You can find them both on Linked In here:Tom Kegode is the leader for Lloyds’ Work:Lab initiative.Josh Reynolds sits within colleague experience.Sign up for the newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for mor

Professor Lynda Gratton is one of the world's leading experts on business and the future of work. She's on speed dial with the top CEOs and is a regular at Davos and the World Economic Forum. Her HBR cover article about 'doing hybrid right' has been the navigation guide to the last two years for many firms, and she's turned her thinking into a brand new book, Redesigning Work. She shares with me the questions she's asking of leaders in her MBA course and where she thinks work will go next. Along the way she also gives a shout out to her article about management in the remote era.If you like this sign up for the Make Work Better newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Two outstanding conversations trying to make sense of what is happening around work. Firstly I chat to Brian Elliott who leads the Future Forum, a group led by Slack. they released a new report surveying workers in the UK, US and other major countries. Here are the topline findings - but the conversation goes way beyond this.UK knowledge workers are most likely to say they want flexibility in where they work (81%)60% of UK knowledge workers are more open to changing jobs in the next year69% UK knowledge workers say they want to work hybrid - 58% are currently doing soBrian also gives a shout out to Donut - a tool to build serendipity.Then I speak to one of the most respected thought leaders in making sense of the future of work, Julia Hobsbawm is the sought after intelligent voice when it comes to future of work discussions. She chairs the Demos 'Workshift Commission. Her new book, The Nowhere Office is a confident reflection about how we can tackle the future - it’s out for pre-order now. We talk a

 As we start a new year considerations about the jobs we do have never been more prominent. One headline this year has already suggested that up to three-quarters of us might be considering changing jobs. Intriguingly money doesn't appear to be in the top five reasons to make a change.I wanted to understand what was going on here, and what any of should be doing about it. Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis are the UK's most respected careers coaches. Their first book The Squiggly Career is a perennial bestseller, and has become adopted into the lexicon of how we talk about a renegotiated relationship with our careers. Their TED Talk has received millions of views. They have a new book out, You Coach You, which offers practical coaching for anyone curious about changing their career. Some of their suggestions - like job scanning - will help you reorientate what you want from your job - and how you can achieve it.Whether you're thinking about changing work - or just have friends who are considering it - this is

Pre-order DisconnectedAt this time of year I find myself listening to more podcasts I’ve released two episodes this week. One is a truly brilliant discussion about how simple decisions can transform workplace culture. And the second is not really about workplace culture but is a stimulating reflection on the way we’re living .A couple of years ago I loved Jia tolentino’s Trick Mirror which was a sparklingly intelligent reflection on the way that the internet is evolving. And along the same lines is a brand new book, Disconnected by Emma Gannon. Emma is increasingly accomplished in multiple fields, she’s a novelist, a non-fiction writer and also an incredibly successful podcaster with over 10 million listens to her podcasts.She’s written a new book which comes at a time that a lot of us are considering renegotiating relationship with our phone. But how can be not lose what we love about our devices which increasing our connection to those around us - a great discussion.Along the way we also talk about her

How did thinking about workplace culture increase the profitability of firms?I was doing some thinking for some businesses over the last few weeks and the work of one person sprung to mind. Zeynep Ton is a professor of operation management at MIT Sloan School of Management. She found herself looking at the challenges that some businesses had with high employee turnover. They were losing a lot of people. It was causing their service to suffer - it was also costing them a lot of money training and recruiting people. Sounds familiar?From this it lead to another understanding. Some organisations by thinking about and planning the employee experience of work create jobs that were less stressful and more rewarding. It struck her that quite often companies don’t want to make decisions or create limitations for fear of upsetting customers. But in the process they become more muddled for customers and less rewarding for employees.Zeynep goes on to say that the firms who think about these things and set about crea

Over the last few weeks the newsletters that have achieved the most resonance were related to having a friend at work. For many of us our favourite jobs were enhanced by having a desk buddy - or a group of friends we could laugh with. But for many people their experience of work is increasingly lonely - maybe they had friends when they were in the office but that experience has transformed in the last two years. Yes, we've managed to get our jobs done, maybe our domestic life has even improved but work just feels a little more isolated and joyless.How big an issue is this for us? Noreena Hertz is here to persuade you this silent spread of loneliness has wide reaching consequences, both for our organisations and for our societies.In a brilliant and wide-ranging discussion we discuss why loneliness matters and what any of us should be thinking about to make our experience of work more complete. If you enjoyed this then this week's newsletter covers adjacent themes: sign up herePhoto by Lowie Vanhoutte on Unspla