Synopsis
A lively weekly podcast about happiness and work culture. Hosted by @brucedaisley. Logo by @emmahopkins
Episodes
-
The big return 1: making the call on what to do next
11/08/2020 Duration: 42minSubscribe to the newsletterHere's Dan's tweets that started this conversation.Today's episode is first of two episodes about the big return to work. It covers themes that I've covered in the newsletter over the last few weeks. What are other firms doing? How will they make their decisions. Over the 2 episodes I've chatted to stacks of people to get their views. Firstly I talk to someone who went on the record describing his company's approach.Dan Cullen Shute is the boss of advertising agency, Creature he tweeted a few weeks ago that he was getting the band back together every Wednesday and Thursday. I asked him his thinking behind this and his vision of how this will create a special place to work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Building resilience - understanding the human impact of work
07/07/2020 Duration: 54min"We think people want to be liked, but they need to be needed".A thoroughly stimulating discussion here - that I've allowed to run long because it's so interesting.I met a brilliant guy called Misha Byrne who worked for a company called NeuroPower. I was so taken with what he was talking about (applying neuroscience to work) that we arranged to meet up, and he brought Peter Burow, the founder of the company along.There's some wonderful stuff in this discussion:the important of Relatedness in teamshow we build affinity between people who might not initially see a connection with each other (in this case doctors from India and Pakistan)how good teams don't avoid conflict, they are comfortable with ithow resilience can be built in teams"We think people want to be liked, they need to be needed"The model that they use in their work is RELISH: Relatedness, Expression, Leading the pack, Interpersonal connection, See Progress and Hope for the futureWe talk a lot about Matt Lieberman's book, Social.Misha invites liste
-
What's the value of an office?
30/06/2020 Duration: 39min"Tuesday and Thursday, see you there. BOOM!"A lot of us are starting to long for human contact again and the office feels like a happy place to be. But what does the office of the future look like? I chatted to the brilliant Antony Slumbers (follow him on Twitter here). Antony is regarded as a visionary thinker in the real estate market and runs a course for you to learn to be the same.Antony is incredibly incisive:"in the same way we realised we didn't need a shop to go shopping we've realised we don't need an office to do work"."no company wants an office, they want a productive workforce"To get this and more sign up to the newsletter. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Fewer predictions, more experiments - what's next with work?
23/06/2020 Duration: 30minFirstly a conversation with David D'Souza the membership director of CIPD (incidentally is a fantastic Twitter follow).David talks about the choices available to firms right now:do we want to be famous for the new culture that we've created?or our actions going to be defined by reactive actions to bosses' whims?If you want to follow the Twitter list I mention you'll find it here.If you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.com Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Reinventing work: why you need to understand the 'self other overlap'
08/06/2020 Duration: 48minSubscribe to the Make Work Better mailoutI'm so excited about what is in the next few episodes. This is a short series of episodes about what we're about to lose with the end of office culture, and how we can build something new. If you like this please do share it.Today's episode has two great interviews. Later I’m going to hear from the frontline how firms are changing their use of technology by chatting to Adrienne Gormley, Head of EMEA at Dropbox.The first conversation is with Dr Emma Cohen, Associate Professor in Cognitive Anthropology at Oxford University. It went to see Dr Cohen before the lockdown and chatted to her in her office. Emma is going to teach you about the impact of working with other people. You're going to learn about how this impacts exercise and then about the self-other overlap. Over the next few episodes we're going to look at this more because understanding this is the secret of building new work. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Feeling ok - understanding work & stress
21/05/2020 Duration: 53minSubscribe to the Make Work Better mailoutSubscribe to Your Table's Ready PodcastVaried episode today, firstly for Mental Health Awareness week, two members of West Midlands Fire Service talk about stress at work and when it's ok to say you're not ok. Then later in the show a brief discussion with April Vellacott and Jez Groom who give us a brief glimpse of how to use behavioural hacks to improve work.Buy their book Ripple here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
The world's top culture doctor: Professor Frances Frei talks Uber, WeWork & more
06/05/2020 Duration: 53minIf you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.comI've been chasing this conversation for over 2 years and I'm delighted today to talk to the world’s most sought after culture doctor: Frances Frei is the Red Adair of work culture problems.If something goes wrong at WeWork, Uber or Riot Games there’s one name you call… You’ll be thrilled to hear the brilliant, thoughtful interview Frances gives.She’s very clear answering:could Uber have kept Travis Kalanick and solved their problems?what’s horrifically wrong with 360 appraisals?what is the first action she takes when she goes into a firmcan anyone be the agent for change in culture?her feeling on the importance of purposeFrances and her wife are the authors of a brand new book called Unleashed which recounts their experience at Uber, WeWork and more. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Beating burnout - learning from the YouTuber experience with Arron Crascall & Elle Mills
28/04/2020 Duration: 47minIf you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.comRecorded live at Vidcon 2020As we sit in a strange period of work, a slight distraction from the normal cycle with a discussion with two digital creators.Arron Crascall has almost certainly appeared in your feed on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram. He started using Vine when he was working at William Hill bookmakers and his content started to develop a bigger and bigger audience when he started using strangers as participants in his clips. Clip 1, clip 2.Elle Mills has been described as the John Hughes for the YouTube generation and as 'the celebrity every YouTuber wants to be'. She creates fully rendered films that are appointment to view content. She's also been incredibly candid about the toll that creating has had on her. Here's when she turned her mum's house into a frat house , when she lived without the internet, her coming out video was a break-out smash, a slumber party with her brother and all his exes.Ti
-
Diversity and creative thinking - the power of rebel ideas (with Matthew Syed)
15/04/2020 Duration: 42minIf you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.comThis episode is about the power of diverse thinking. Our guest is the thinker, writer, commentator Matthew Syed.Matthew represented Great Britain in table tennis at the Barcelona and Sydney Olympics. He’s since gone on to the one of the biggest, most successful business writers in the UK with his books like Bounce in 2010, Black Box Thinking in 2015, a kid’s book You Are Awesome in 2018 and Rebel Ideas: The Power of Diverse Thinking in 2019.Rebel Ideas has just come out in paperback this week. If you enjoyed this episode please do share it on social media and get in touch via the website, I’d love to hear from you. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Work Undone: what happens now? A discussion with Prof Dan Cable
23/03/2020 Duration: 54min"Purpose is something that can be found but cannot be given"For this episode I talk with London Business School professor Dan Cable about what work is going to look like in the future as we contemplate the fall out of coronavirus and homeworking. Clearly a lot of firms aren't going to make it through this completely unprecedented situation and to some extent maybe these discussions might seem like first world problems. The intention is to help us understand how we can use this moment to make work better - never waste a good crisis - as we say in the show.You can talk about this episode - and more - on our new forum.Follow Dan on Twitter.Dr Laurie Santos' happiness course and podcast.Dan's book Alive at Work is a firm listener favourite.Find Dan here in gif form.Listen to Dan's podcast hereREAD: Dan talked about a paper saying bosses think less of workers they don't see. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
A career of kindness - Christie Watson on nurse's lives
19/03/2020 Duration: 43minYou can talk about this episode - and more - on our new forum.Well what a strange time we’re living through. I don’t what I can say that hasn’t already been said. So to some extent this episode is a distraction - something interesting to listen to from a profession that is always in our highest regard in times like this but too easily forgotten in easy times.Christie Watson is a trained nurse who spent 20 years working in hospitals across London. She’s an Incredible testament to never allowing your creative spark to die. She explains to me how she wrote her first book - an award winning novel while studying a course in creative writing and working as a nurse - and also being a single mother. The novel won the immensely prestigious Costa Book Award (a prize she didn’t know she was nominated for). Brilliantly she had to Google the prize when she got called to say she’d won it.Her book The Language of Kindness: A Nurse's Story is a remarkable tale of a job right in the heart of anxious families wh
-
Inside the 4 day week
10/03/2020 Duration: 46minJoin tens of thousands of listeners by signing up for the newsletter now.Second episode on the 4 day week. We go deep with someone who made the 4 day leap, Andrew Barnes' firm Perpetual Guardian made the shift to 4 days. He explains why some workers never told their partners, why others felt it transformed their experience of work and he gives the clear way to make a 4 day experiment work at your work.If you're interested in going shorter one of the best ways seems to be to try a summer experiment - maybe from May to September - so now is a good time to start the preparation. If you try it please get in touch to share your experience!Read the PDF of these episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
The 4 Day Revolution: Harder, better, faster, *shorter*
10/03/2020 Duration: 31minFirst of two new episodes on one theme. Until coronavirus swept the world the discussion of 2020 was about the future of work being based on working less to achieve more. There are two episodes on this today.Firstly former guest Alex Soojung Kim Pang talks about the research celebrating the benefits of working shorter (his book on the same subject came out this week). He spent the last 3 years going into firms that are using shorter working to build retention, productivity and creativity. He gives a clear roadmap of why you should consider working shorter, what the pitfalls are and what you could see as the benefit.The next episode looks at a case study of a company that went 4 days to improve productivity. What did they do and how did it work out?Download the PDF of this episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Inside Microsoft's cultural reinvention
03/03/2020 Duration: 43minWhen the biggest company in the world slipped from its throne how did a new CEO try to rescue it using culture. What did Satya Nadella do? How did it succeed, how did it fail? What can any of us do to change our company culture?Download the PDF of the episode's lessons.This episode draws on the outstanding paper by Herminia Ibarra, Aneeta Rattan and Anna Johnston from London Business School.Here's the famous cartoon about Microsoft (vs other tech firms of the time) Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Why should anyone listen to you? The power of messengers
05/02/2020 Duration: 51min"We used to think 'the medium is the message', now we know that the messenger is the message".Stephen Martin was the co-writer of one of my favourite books, Yes! so I was thrilled when I saw he had a new book, Messengers. He agreed to come on and talk about both books. How important are superficial aspects like appearance in our credibility. What is the one thing that we should do to make people like us more?We discuss decision architecture, how any of us can influence others and the constituent parts of the choices that we all make.Stephen - and his co-author, Joseph Marks are two of the most fascinating experts to help us interpret the complexities of trust and how we can foster a warmth in our own communication. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Thinking about work - a discussion with Alain de Botton
29/01/2020 Duration: 52minHere he is, the philosopher king. Alain de Botton is the man that wrote philosophy books that sold like airport thrillers. He's sold millions of books reflecting on life, work and happiness.We share a wonderful discussion about what role work can fulfil in our lives, where education is going wrong and how we can use psychology to help diagnose the challenges of our problem colleagues.Alain's two new books from The School of Life are How to Get on With Your Colleagues and How to Think More EffectivelyYou can follow him on Twitter.School of Life has over 5m subscribers on YouTube. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
What next in your career?
13/01/2020 Duration: 48minJoin tens of thousands of listeners by signing up for the newsletter now.Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper are the creators of the Squiggly Careers podcast - and the authors of a brand new book, The Squiggly Career. If you're wondering what to do with your life Sarah and Helen might be the best person to help you find the right answers for you.This episode answers questions about what we should expect from our jobs - and the where happiness at work lives.Helen mentioned the values episode of their podcast and you'll find it here. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Let's talk about flex... flexible working
06/12/2019 Duration: 28minHot topic right now. Annie Auerbach talks about her way of working flexibly and explains how all of us could be living a life we love.Annie is the author of Flex. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
What's stopping you from doing your best work ever?
28/10/2019 Duration: 44minWhat's stopping you from you doing your best work ever? That's the question that Aaron Dignan (working at his culture consultancy, The Ready) asks the companies he meets. Often the biggest barrier to us doing our best work is often our own attitude and mindset - and Dignan takes us step by step into his process. Aaron's book Brave New Work, is out now.Also mentioned in this episode:Johann Hari's TED Talk Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
Talking teams - an interview with Pippa Grange - head of team & culture at the England football team
09/10/2019 Duration: 56minRecorded at the Good Day at Work event in Manchester, hosted by Robertson Cooper.During the last World Cup, as we gradually started believing in the prospects of a team whose members had surprised us with their humour, work-rate and calm demeanour there was a wonderful newspaper article that garnered lots of attention about the secrets of their transformation.The piece introduced us to one of the people responsible for overhauling the mindset of the England squad. Previously players for the national team had always worn the heavy expectations upon them like a stiff and weighty leather overcoat. In the recent past those called up (like Raheem Sterling) have commented that the pressure created by fan aggression has stiffled players’ ability to express themselves creatively.The nation was collectively astonished to see a very different England mentality this time round. And, as The Guardian article showed, Dr Pippa Grange was one of the people responsible.It was a great honour to interview Pippa a