Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education.Sign up for the newsletterToday's episode is an Avengers Assembled of podcasts about work. I join host Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis from the Squiggly Careers podcast, as well as Isabel Berwick from the FT's Working It and Jimmy McCloughlin from Jimmy's Jobs.We talk AI, asking payrises, RTO and much more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Michael Morris's book Tribal covers the codes that bond humans together. It has been shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award 2024. It came runner-up to 'Supremacy' by Parmy Olson.He explains that humans are inspired by peer codes, human codes and ancestor codes when it comes to their behaviour - and he gives plenty of insight of how we could build more tightly bonded groups in our own teams.Make Work Better: Resisting the Enshittification of Work in 2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Everywhere we look we see someone who is outraged - and plenty of that anger makes its way to the workplace. The last time President Trump was in power it led to employees becoming more active - who knows if the same will happen in 2025.Karthik Ramanna talks us through the way to deal with outrage - and the actions that any leader can take to make the workplace a better place. His new book is out now.More about the Edelman Trust index Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for the newsletterTiffany Gaskell outlines coaching as a route to transformational leadershipTiffany Gaskell is the co-author of Coaching for Performance, the top-selling guide to coaching first published by Sir John Whitmore the inventor of the discipline.It's curious to consider that there was a founder of coaching, and Tiffany takes me through the history of the practice, how it took hold and where it is today.There's a key consideration about the modern manager given to us by the Gallup Global Workplace Report, 80% of those who are engaged with their jobs say they've received direct feedback from their manager in the last week.This is a powerful insight but also poses a huge challenge - how can any of us find the time to observe and then feedback to every worker in our team. Tiffany explains that this is where a culture of coaching comes in, transferring the burden of observation from the manager to facilitating a socratic questioning approach. You can follow Tiffany on LinkedIn and the book is ou

Subscribe to the free Make Work Better newsletterBrigid Schulte is a journalist and writer who brings a reporter's ear for stories to her exploration of modern work.Over the course of a decade Schulte has talked to people about the impact their jobs has on their lives - and has explored any hope that we might be able to make this better.Her new book, Over Work and paints a hopeful image of how we might fix the toxic elements of our jobs.One of the examples is about Intel, who in 2013 experimented with a new initiative styled Freelance Nation to bring some of the upsides of gig work to a professional knowledge work environment. It proved hugely successful and yet they decided to scrap it.Buy Over Work Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Colin Ellis is a consultant and author who spends his time working with organisations to improve their culture. He's turned his attention to why some companies go bad in a new book Detox Your Culture. He talked me through what has gone wrong at the likes of ITV's This Morning, the CBI, The Ellen Show and Boeing.Sign up for the newsletter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for the newsletterHow can any of us build a more effective team?Owen Eastwood is one of the world’s most in demand performance coaches, with a focus on team culture & leading. Owen has worked with some of the most successful sporting sides in the world. He also works with corporate teams wrestling with similar themes.Last year I talked to Owen about his work on belonging and identity but I wanted to pick his brains on the biggest challenge for modern leaders - how to build a stronger team.Buy BelongingFollow Owen on LinkedInOwen talks me through his step-by-step approach to building better teams - starting with the toughest starter question that most teams never tackle.takeawaysDetermine whether a team is necessary for the desired outcomeClearly define roles and expectations within the teamRecruit talented individuals who can contribute to the team's successEstablish effective communication channels within the teamConsider the challenges of being part of multiple teams in the corporate world

Sign up for the Make Work Better newsletterHow important is a happy workforce? According to Mark Price, the former boss of Waitrose, it's the main thing that leaders should be thinking about. Make your workforce happy and the profits will follow. Mark's new book is Happy Economics.To prove it Mark cites his experience running the supermarket chain, when with a goal of workers happiness he made it the fastest-growing, most profitable supermarket in the UK.The original purpose of the John Lewis Partnership, as laid out by the very same John Lewis , was to uphold the happiness of the people who worked inside the organisation.Mark's new book is Happiness Economics. Mark's book makes the assertion that the quickest way to business success is to focus on creating happy employees.This is genuinely a brilliant listen - and one that you might benefit from reading the transcript of - you can get the transcript here.While I got real value from the book, I actually found the conversation even more enlightening. It challe

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeYou might think an episode about improv comedy might be a stretch for a podcast about making work better. But in fact as Kelly Leonard explains today the skills of improv comedy are the most important ones that will determine our success at work. Kelly helps to run Second City, the world's famous famous improv comedy club - he believes that improv skills can teach us about what we need in work going forwards. ** TRIGGER WARNING ** includes one brief mention of poetryCheck our Kelly's book Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeIn the 2000s a book called Fish! A remarkable way to boost morale and improve results became a bestseller. A small book, it was often used by companies accompanying a video of the same name. Together the two told a story of the culture of the fish market in Seattle, a noisy, bombastic place, but a place that was filled with joy. I first encountered Fish when a firm came to pitch to me when I was working in publishing. They told me that their culture was Fish. There are a few things that stood out from it. The idea of intentionally designing culture isn’t new but this seemed to be explicitly linking culture, emotion and mood. There were 4 principles of FishPlaybe theremake their daychoose your attitude Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeThis is the second episode about rituals - the first one is next to it in the podcast feed, it's an interview with Kursat Ozenc about how rituals can be used to create culture. This episode goes into real life examples.Claudia Wallace talks about Crisp Thursday (Connection)Andy Puleston talks about Pizza Meetings (Connection) and Leaving Speeches (Change)Dan Pink talks about Friday Night Experiments (Creativity)Biz Stone talks about Hack Week at Twitter (Creativity)Dr Heidi Edmondson talks about Ten at Ten (Performance)Heidi has a wonderful new book out - Darkness in the City of Light You can also hear the original episodes that each of these extracts came from by click the links above. I have to say that those whole episodes are worth revising. For example, Andy Puleston talks about how effective the culture was at Radio 1 when it was a series of affiliated tribes and he articulates the role that

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeKursat Ozenc is a product designer who he teaches at Stanford university, He teaches on the subject that we can all learn from which is the idea that culture can be designed. The specific tool he uses to design culture is the creation of workplace rituals. Kursat's Substack newsletterKursat's first book is here and the second, on virtual meetings is here.The reading list for Kursat's course is hereKursat’s book includes the suggestions that: ‘The rituals in our life show what we care about’. Critically then creating rituals demonstrate what our culture values.Kursat gives five use cases for rituals: For changeCreativityPerformanceConflictCommunityIf you like this episode you'll also like the episode that accompanies it - which goes into depth about specific rituals that companies have used. Listen to that episode here.A full transcript of the episode is at the website. Hosted on Acast. Se

Flow is the state of being in which people become so immersed in the joy of their work or activity “that nothing else seems to matter.”Presence is to be in a flow state of connection with others.Here’s the last discussion about the Happiness TrackSign up for the newsletterEmma’s new book SovereignHBR: The Best Leaders Have a Contagious Positive EnergyHBR: Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More ProductiveToday is the first of series of podcasts about an idea that needs more consideration in our workplaces. The idea of presence.Emma Seppala is a psychologist and lecturer at the Yale School of Management – she also runs the Women’s Leadership program there. I first spoke to Emma about 6 years ago when I came across her book the Happiness Track. The hypothesis of that book was in many ways the sweet spot of this podcast: the notion that if you make workers happy then they do their better work. Emma had a new book out this week called Sovereign and it felt like a great reason to have a new conversati

To receive the newsletter and the forthcoming Presence project sign-up hereToday’s top episode goes to the heart of an issue that a lot of people raise with me.They say ‘where do you start when changing a culture’.To some extent it’s what the episode about the hospital trust in Barking was about, going in and changing the culture of a huge organisation.I saw one of today’s guests Darren Ashby speak at an event - talking through the specifics of how his company Business Four Zero tried to change the culture of Tesco. Business Four Zero are one of a group of organisations who work with leaders to change company culture. I know there’s a few of these firms. I attended a dazzling event by one firm called Scarlett Abbot in this field about a month ago. Darren is joined by Atif Sheikh as they talk through the specifics of what they did with firms like Electronic Arts, Aviva and Tesco. They’ve turned some of their work into a book which you can buy here.Some of the things that stood out for me:What’s the number

Isabel Berwick is a writer and podcaster who focusses on the evolving state of modern work. I’ve celebrated her podcast Working It many times here (here’s her specials on the 4-day week for example, or her special on meeting-free days was essential listening). I love its ability to react rapidly to the biggest news stories of the moment and to drop a snackable episode midweek.I talked to her about her opinions on modern work, going deep on the rapidly changing world of employment and where we’re going next.Isabel has a brand new book out, The Future Proof Career, which she says is for everyone who doesn’t read books about work but wants to be better at navigating it.Recent episodes you might have missedThe importance of trust at work - and why it's on the declineCharles Duhig on how to be a supercommunicator in your job (and your home life)Can improvements to culture fix a broken NHS trust?The Big Ange effect at Tottenham HotspurFrances Frei on the importance of training managers Hosted on Acast. See acast.co

How should most of us think about the differences between Employee Experience and Employee Engagement.I first spoke to Emma Bridger, who is the author of a well respected book on this topic and the founder of the EX Space, a learning community focussed on raising the bar in the Employee Experience field.Then I picked the brains of Melanie Wheeler who leads People Communications at Sutherland, a firm widely recommended to me as outstanding in Employee Experience.Get in touchSign up for the newsletter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Charles Duhigg’s bestseller The Power of Habit was the definitive guide to building and sustaining successful habits.His new book, Supercommunicators, grapples with the knotty topic of creating successful interactions with others.It’s a thorough and dazzling read that has many applications for the way we work (and how we live our lives).We talked about:the single biggest thing that builds psychological safetywhy moving conversation out of small talk into deep discussion proves more satisfying than we expecthow teams should use 'who are we' conversationshow we should think about three different types of conversation (are they looking to be helped, hugged or heard?Read an extract of Charles' book here Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Many of us have worked in environments that provided bonuses or rewards for success. Maybe they took the form of team rewards or individual incentives, or end of year profit-share schemes. But do these rewards achieve what they are designed to?Professor Uri Gneezy is the world's foremost expert on the science of incentives - and he comes with a huge warning about what such schemes actually achieve.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is today hosted by Bruce Daisley, Ellen Scott and Matthew Cook.Sign up to the newsletter Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This week's Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley, Ellen C Scott and Matthew Cook.Roll up roll up as this week we talk the major trends in work and workplace culture and the big stories of the last month.Including:Wellness programs don’t work - in TikTok form, or in Matt’s post on LinkedIn Research from Oxford University looking at the (in)effectiveness of workplace wellbeing interventions at an individual levelChronoworking GymclassgateEllen on Gen Z workersFewer and fewer of us want to go out in the evenings or weekendsThe dystopian prospect of AI interviews Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I was flattered to be invited to visit the NHS trust of Barking, Havering and Redbridge last year. I spent an afternoon meeting the team and seeing the place in action.It was an inspiring question that CEO Matthew Trainer was asking: 'can we improve the results by making it a better culture?'What does that look like? And how is going for them?Matthew Trainer's CEO note at the end of 2023Video: Inside the TrustFill in the form: Consider my firm for a future podcast Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.