Working Better, Together.

Our first podcast of 2021 featuring David Donde, CEO Founder of Minimalist Chocolate and award-winning Truth Coffee. Read Full article > David Donde is the Founder of Truth Coffee Roasting, which specialises in sourcing and roasting some of the world’s most exclusive coffees. Truth Coffee was named the world’s best coffee shop by MSN Travel in 2013 & again by The Daily Telegraph in 2015 & 2016. In 2018 the FNB Coffee Magazine Awards nominated Truth for Best Café Design and Excellence in Coffee. Their steam-punk interiors by lauded designer Haldane Martin won a Golden Loerie award in 2016. With their well-known adage of “no sugar required”, David has applied his team’s combined expertise in coffee roasting to chocolate making with his most recent endeavour, Minimalist Chocolate. Minimalist chocolate contains no sugar and relies on the roasting process to bring out the sweet flavours in the cocoa beans. On the question of how he began Truth Coffee, David tells the story of how he needed a new in

Our first pandemic podcast featuring Carin-Isabel Knoop, Executive Director of the Global Research Group at Harvard Business School.   First published at www.get5.io/podcast Carin Knoop is the Executive Director of the Global Research Group / Case Research & Writing Group at Harvard Business School, supporting faculty research and the development of about one-third of the School’s case study output and other types of research. She is a published researcher and co-author of the book Compassionate Management of Mental Health in the Modern Workplace, published last year. Carin started attending HBS in 1992 to study her MBA, moving 10 metres from her dorm room to her office when she stayed on as a research associate. She explains that she came to HBS because she was interested in how organisations work, but fell in love with the academic side of things and decided to stay. On the question of who should be managing and measuring culture in an organisation, Carin argues that everyone in the compa

Full article published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/18-siobhan-mchale-culture-change-insider Siobhan McHale is an acclaimed culture transformation expert and global executive. She currently holds the title of Executive General Manager of People, Culture & Change at Dulux Group. She recently published her book, The Insider’s Guide to Culture Change, which walks readers through her four-step process to culture transformation. One of the ways she catalyses culture change in companies, is through role reframing. She explains how each of us wear many hats during our day (parent, spouse, sibling) and even take on many roles at work (boss, subordinate, peer), which requires shifts in our approaches and behaviour. She maintains that, in order to change the behaviours in your workplace, you don’t have to get people to change their personalities; you can reframe their role/s to shift their behaviour. What is company culture? Culture is the patterns of thinking & relating between the parts in the company,

We chat to Jane Garza (Managing Director of culture change company, NOBL) on the benefits of culture change. Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/17-jane-garza-organisational-sub-cultures-how-to-set-up-culture-team Jane Garza is the Managing Director of NOBL, a radical team of culture change experts whose mission it is to improve work and culture for more than 1 million people before they’re 10 years old. She worked in HR for 8 years before joining NOBL. She became interested in HR consulting, was moving to LA, found a position at NOBL and is now the MD of their LA team. HR is traditionally very reactive, which is good but can be exhausting in the long term. HR needs the opportunity to plan and exercise organisational skills. Culture has a big part to play in this. “At NOBL we talk about sub-cultures a lot. Culture varies from one department to the next.” She believes culture can be changed, but it does take time. It’s less like a turnaround and more like an evolvement. Most often Jane doe

Previously the MD and Talent Manager of Brighthouse (now known as This Way Up), Nadia has worked at Gitlab since 2017 simultaneously recruiting to scale the company from 75 to 767 hired team members and building up her career in People Operations at the company. She moved into a management position at Gitlab a couple of months ago. All 767 Gitlab employees work from home. It was decided from the start by the founders that the company would always stay remote. “If we say all-remote, we really mean it. We have no offices anywhere in the world.” How does Gitlab maintain a productive remote company culture? Nadia lists some handy tips and tools. When she interviews people in different countries, she can almost immediately tell if it will not work out depending on how open the person is to other cultures. As a global all-remote team, it’s imperative to be able to get along with people from diverse backgrounds. “We are non-political at work.” The Values-driven work at Gitlab is not only the responsibility of the ma

In this episode of Working better, together, we chat to Melissa Hui from Context Leap on people + culture design. Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/15-melissa-hui-how-design-thinking-helps-hr Melissa is educated in social sciences & anthropology, but has worked most of her career as a designer. With 15 years’ experience in the tech sector, she’s worked with major companies like Google, Microsoft and CapGemini, as well as startups, with her expertise in strategy, product-service innovation & operationalization, digital transformation and experience design. She’s the founder of Context Leap, a people + culture consultancy in San Francisco that creates solutions for thriving workplace cultures, authentic leadership and empowered talent. “Performance as a concept is very limited and narrow… Culture sets the cadence for everything.” Melissa practices design-thinking in every aspect of her life; in finding solutions both for her own business and for clients. This comes with the belief that

We chat to Founder Coach, Dave Bailey, on how he helps CEO’s move their companies from scale-up to success. First published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/14-dave-bailey-what-it-takes-ceo-scale-up-companies Timestamp notes: 0.23 — Dave introduces himself. 1.00 — How Dave got into the Coaching business. 2.59 — What is Dave’s №1 regret? 3.12 — Dave’s coaching process. 3.39 — When is a good time to get a coach? 5.00 — Why every startup needs a Chief of Staff. 10.55 — The bias against HR. 14.23 — What to look out for when hiring a Chief of Staff. 18.10 — Dave’s view on company culture. What stops companies from innovating? 23.25 — How to increase self-knowledge. 30.50 — An average day for Dave. 31.56 — What is Dave reading? From Impossible to Inevitable (Ross & Lemkin), The Success Formula (Andrew Kakabadse), books about mental models. His best recent read is Attached: The Science of Adult Attachment(Levine & Heller). 35.00 — Software he uses daily? Productivity tool: Rev.com (audio transcription). Automa

We chat to Dr Paul White, experienced psychologist & speaker, and co-author of book The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/13-dr-paul-white-5-languages-of-appreciation-in-workplace Dr Paul White is a psychologist, author, keynote speaker, leadership trainer & consultant who has been helping organisations like Microsoft and SHRM“make work relationships work” for the past 20 years. He co-authored The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace: Empowering Organizations by Encouraging People with Dr Gary Chapmanand based the work on Dr Chapman’s revolutionary and popular The 5 Love Languages. Their book has recently been republished with new insights added from Gallup and other current research into employee engagement and happiness. Dr White’s work is all about helping people in organisations give the kind of appreciation that helps individuals flourish in their roles — whether they respond best to words of affirmation

Tom Haak, Founder and Director of the HR Trends Institute, tells us how he became an HR trend watcher, and what’s happening in HR today. Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/12-tom-haak-hr-trends-today Tom Haak has always worked in HR. Based in the Netherlands, he worked his way up from a trainee to a senior position at Phillips Electronics, went on to other multinational companies like Aon and KPMG and later took the position of global HR Director for Arcadis, a leading global natural and built asset design & consultancy firm. He founded the HR Trend Institute in 2014. Tom transformed himself into a trend-watcher and reads, speaks & breathes HR trends. The HR process is in need of a gear-change — Tom suggests the following for speeding up talent management & recruiting, ultimately creating a system where the right candidates will present themselves to you: Use analytics (more evidence-based and therefore more objective). Use technology (We have a lot of data at our fing

We chat to Claude Silver on how she brings the humanity back into HR as the Chief Heart Officer at Vayner Media. Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/11-claude-silver-bringing-humanity-back-into-hr In her almost 5 years of working at Vayner Media as their Chief Heart Officer, Claude Silver (Publicis London, Garageband.com) has assisted in growing the VaynerX parent company from 389 to 650+ employees while retaining their family-first culture. “I think culture really needs to stem from the top, and then it is all the people who create and are responsible for cultivating this culture on a daily basis.” Claude created “Culture Champions” in the various offices; people who are collaborative, who ‘get’ the company’s culture, those who always choose to be the least in the situation. In other words, people who are trustworthy, who do not micro-manage & who are great at making people feel welcome and slotting them into the culture. “We need to bring the humanity back into HR.” Time

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/10-richard-shotton-actions-vs-behaviour We chat with Richard Shotton, author of “The Choice Factory”, experienced media planner & behavioural scientist and founder of Astroten media consultancy. Richard Shotton started his career as a media planner working with brands such as Coke, Lexus and comparethemarket.com before he found his passion in applying behavioural science to business problems. He writes about the behavioural experiments he runs for publications such as Marketing Week, The Drum, Campaign, Admap and Quartz. His first book, The Choice Factory: 25 Behavioural Biases that Influence What We Buy, is aimed at marketing & advertising practitioners, but is rooted in social psychology and how people make everyday decisions. These principles are easily applied to the office environment, where people’s behaviours shape the organisational culture. People do not act more rationally in the workplace — they are just as influenced by biases & their

Breegan works with growing startups to implement clearly defined cultural values, an onboarding programme unique to the company, and sustainable, authentic hiring practices. She has also worked in large companies like Amazon and Snap Inc. (the makers of Snapchat). When it comes to company culture, Breegan thinks that startups have somewhat of an advantage to large organisations, since you start with a ‘clean slate’ — having a smaller team of people who are deeply passionate about the same thing (app, product, service), without the history, red tape & bureaucracy that burden larger organisations. Oftentimes startups also hire a core team of experienced people who have learned some valuable lessons at previous companies they’ve worked at (read: what not to do). This means there’s a great opportunity to grow a more intentional company culture in the startup environment. That doesn’t necessarily mean that one environment is better than the other — startups just have more risk involved and therefore employee r

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/8-rob-stokes-treat-employees-like-adults Rob Stokes is an investor, entrepreneur & speaker who is passionate about business and education. He sits as a non-exec Director on the boards of BrandsEye, Openbox, Happy Flats and CloudOne.mobi. Rob founded the digital agency Quirk in 1999, one of South Africa’s earliest, most award-winning and now largest digital agencies, with five offices across Africa and in London. The company was acquired by WPP in 2014 and then became Mirum Africa in 2016. Nowadays Rob heads up Red & Yellow, the Creative School of Business (they are also the new co-organisers of DisruptHR Cape Town). Inspired by books such as Maverick by Ricardo Semler and How to Fail at Almost Everything and Still Win Big by Scott Adams, Rob grew his successful startup Quirk on the principles of treating employees like adults; giving them the freedom to work flexible hours & measuring their productivity through performance and output rather th

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/7-themba-chakela-new-world-of-work In this episode of our Working better, together. podcast, Themba Chakela joins us for a chat around the state of HR and the “new world of work.” Themba wears many hats (check out his LinkedIN profile), but is currently the new People and Culture Director for Go-To Market at global IT company, Dimension Data (founded in 1983 in SA). As a well-educated and experienced HR practitioner, Themba gives us some great insights into the HR landscape, as well as what the future may hold. He believes that middle management plays a bigger role in organisational culture and employee retention than we realise. “What you need to think about now [in HR], is how do you get people to engage with an organisation from a head, heart and hands perspective…” Themba argues that the golden egg for your company could be in unlocking the secret to great middle management. As a manager, you should be setting the tone for robust, candid conversatio

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/6-richard-mulholland-why-innovation-requires-the-right-culture Richard Mulholland is a highly regarded business thinker, innovator and speaker. He authored his book Legacide: Why legacy thinking is the silent killer of innovation (with another book on the way!), is an avid blogger and vlogger, writes for Longevity and Destiny Man and besides recording a weekly podcast on CliffCentral, he also lectures a bit at The Cape Graduate School of Business (GSB) and the Gordon Institute of Business Science (GIBS). Richard kicked off his career as a rock ‘n roll roadie, operating lights for bands such as Iron Maiden and Def Leppard. He went on to start SA’s largest presentation firm, Missing Link, and then co-founded SA’s first perspective lab, 21Tanks. In this episode of Working better, together., Rich chats to us about his fascinating career and his thoughts on innovation in business. We’ve put down some notes below

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/5-gangs-of-ballet In this fifth episode of Working better, together., we chat to Brad Klynsmith, the lead singer and manager of Durban-based band, Gangs of Ballet. Gangs of Ballet was formed in 2011 when Brad wanted to play bass in a band and persuaded his brother to be the drummer. The band was an almost instant success and started building momentum from their very first live show, going on to playing big shows and winning music awards including the MTV Africa Music Award for Best Alternative. They recently played their last show and have since disbanded to follow separate career paths — Brad will be studying abroad soon and pursuing other business goals. Some key learnings from Brad (whether you are wanting to start a band or a business): 1) You work for momentum, and momentum creates success. 2) There’s a big difference between doing it for art/fun, and doing it as a career. 3) Say no to sponsors you don’t relate with. Invest your relational time in b

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/4-lemon-radically-fresh-take-on-leadership In this episode of Working better, together. we chat to Brett Johnson, an impactful leader, Silicon Valley consultant and author of 10 books, one of which is the well-known LEMON leadership. 0.37 — Brett explains how LEMON leadership came about. 1.02 — More about Brett and his impressive career working with companies such as PricewaterhouseCoopers, CSC, Google, Apple and KPMG. 3.36 — What are the biggest challenges you see leaders facing? 5.19 — Brett shares a story of a leadership situation he had dealt with at CISCO. 6.50 — LEMON leadership dynamics are needed in each company for success. We need teams, not the cult of the individual. 8.20 — Oftentimes, other types of leaders are not duly recognised for the value they add, such as Organisers or Networkers. 8.50 — Discussion around what kinds of recognition/reward works for different leadership types. 13.39 — What Brett does every day & software tools

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/3-colombo-coffee-tea-portrait-of-collaborative-company-culture In this episode of Working better, together. we chat to Geoff Noble, one of the Noble Brothers, who bought over the legendary Durban-based café & coffee reseller, Colombo Coffee & Tea. "Colombo has become synonymous with coffee in Durban." Geoff talks about how and why he got into the Coffee industry (considering his education and background in Corporate Finance), the challenges and rewards of "creating different income streams" whilst running a consultancy business on the side, as well as how they went about creating and maintaining a collaborative company culture with his new "inherited team." He also shares some key learnings on working with people in an industry that is highly competitive, fast-paced and as much driven by people as it is by the product itself. "We hire for personality, the rest we can teach." Timestamp notes: 2.53 — Geoff tells us about the coffee he prefers. ☕

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/2-lee-watts-travelstart-recruitment-story We chat to Lee Watts, Business Partner (People Team) at Travelstart, on how this “startup” became 300+ staff strong. Conceived in Sweden, Travelstart first opened its doors in 1999, as the brainchild of Travel visionary Stephan Ekbergh. In true start-up fashion, Sweden’s first online travel agency was run from an old coffee roastery in the town of Helsingborg. Nearly two decades, plenty of learning, growth and one African immigration later, Stephan still heads up Travelstart, which is now based in the Cape Town CBD. Lee is of the opinion that in terms of (human) resources and “drive-towards entrepreneurial spirit,” African tech companies seem to be about 18 months behind the international tech market, but are starting to catch up! “Speed is the ROI of execution.” In this podcast, Lee gives a breakdown of the methodology Travelstart has employed in recruiting over 180 people in only 2 years, as well as how cultur

Originally published at https://www.get5.io/podcast/1-bailey-kropman-how-to-set-vision-values-in-high-performance-company Welcome to our first episode of Working better, together! In this episode, we chat to Bailey Kropman, who is the Head of Talent and Organisational Performance at Superbalist. Superbalist.com is South Africa’s biggest and trendiest online shopping destination for fashion and apartments. Bailey takes us through how she has impacted the growth at Superbalist — which was literally a startup when she joined 3 years ago. We discuss her learnings of blitz-scaling from 5 to 150 employees, whilst retaining the high-performance startup culture. We also discuss retaining the culture by intentionally setting up the vision and values and continuously getting buy-in from leadership, as well as the rest of the company. Hope you enjoy! If you have any feedback, comments, ideas or suggestions, please get in contact with us on twitter @giveahi5 or email us on podcasts@get5.io.