Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture

Has hybrid working been a disaster? Should we stop pretending and get back to the office? That is the claim of In-Person, a new book by Natalia Emanuel and Emma Harrington. I read the book with interest. Despite entering with an open mind, I wasn't wholly convinced by the evidence. The authors seem to be challenging fully remote work, rather than hybrid work. Additionally the whole book seems to come with an ulterior motive, intent on trying to score points rather than reflect on the best way to work. Natalia Emanuel agreed to chat with me to debate the evidence - it proves to be an engaging discussion. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A few people have asked me to do episodes on office politics and office interactions - one angle I wanted to look at that was through the lens of professional services firms. Laura Empson is a Professor at Bayes Business school having previously worked in professional services herself. She’s focussed on understanding the way that these firms work. Many professional services firms are a highly paid collection of partners who collectively own the firm. It means that the organisations are different to the version of work we are most used to. Rather than being low agency and low control they are high agency and are able to elect their leaders. I wanted to understand the impact that this had on the running of the companies - does the ability to elect leaders mean that politics takes place in public? Or does the overt nature of debate change the need for backchannel and gossip? We talk politics, collective leadership, identity, and also how to achieve elite performance in a collective organisation - whether there…

Our jobs have turned into the place where we’re told what to do: show up and follow orders. That was the finding of the latest cycle of the long-running Skills and Employment Survey. When asked, only a third of UK workers say they are given the discretion to decide how to do their jobs, a number that has dropped from two-thirds in three decades. When we hear this it’s hard not to think of the two other issues of contemporary work that have come to define the era: low engagement and low productivity. Professor Alan Felstead was one of the leads of the research and I asked him to explain the disappearance of workplace agency. Check out the workplace quiz: How Good Is My Job There's a full transcript on the website. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Bruce speaks with Daniel Susskind, economist and professor of business at Gresham College, about how AI is changing work, education, and the meaning of our jobs. Daniel's new book tackles AI and how we should prepare for the future. Predictions of the future have shown it is too uncertain to predict, so what can any of us do to ready ourselves? Susskind says that we should prepare by learning the basics while training on cutting edge technology. Above all else he believes we need to teach the essentials of character. We also discuss Ethan Mollick's posts on AI. AI2027 updated, Reddit post. AI2027 gives a positive vision of what is next. It's an important, timely discussion. The website has a full transcript and links to Daniel's recent lectures. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Danny Meyer is one of the most respected restaurateurs in the world, but beyond the success of the likes of Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Shake Shack he's also become famous for writing a book, Setting the Table, that has become an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of readers around the world. The book is used as training manual beyond the hospitality trade by businesses who want to be famous for providing strong customer service. Danny talks about service being a monologue, whereas hospitality is a dialogue. In his new book, What Could Possibly Go Right?, he updates his story. His first book documented many slips on the way to running a series of beloved restaurants; he was proud that he'd never closed an eaterie. The new book catalogues closures, missteps, Covid and an even an intervention by his leadership team when the culture of the business was on the wrong tracks. Danny tells Bruce that restaurants are the perfect space to watch culture on fast forward, and how anyone can learn lessons…

Proper ding dong this week. I have a fabulously enjoyable back-and-forth with the brilliant Professor Rob Briner. At one stage Rob says: ‘If you tell someone - whose favourite thing is organisational culture - and you tell them it’s not a very useful idea - they don’t like it.’ Well, I felt seen. To be fair I’d already acknowledged that I agreed on what he was saying that behaviours are more important than culture. Also I’m more than a culture fan, I promise. But it’s a sign that it’s an outstanding discussion. Rob’s key point was that the idea of culture is vague and subjective. Rob says that culture is ‘a description. So if you want to change something, you don’t change the description of it, you change the cause of it.’ He says we should be specific about what we're trying to change, not just wave our arms and mouth 'culture'. We discuss if an obsession with scale is the curse of modern business. How to build effective organisations. Why you should focus on being specific about culture. It's worth…

Sarah O'Connor is a journalist for the Financial Times who specialises in writing about work and the evolution of our jobs. Over the last year or so that has meant a lot of reflection about AI job displacement. In her new book, We Are Not Machines, Sarah reflects on how technological change is reshaping the workplace - and the invisible enshittification it often brings with it. Sarah has a strong message: firstly that we should have more belief in the unique strengths of human labour, and secondly that individual agency is the most important differentiator in our favour. It's a brilliant conversation that gives a flavour of her book. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kate Murphy is the author a new book called Why We Click. It combines the very latest research into interpersonal synchrony - how we form bonds with others. It's an intriguing read - at times compelling, at times challenging. I chatted to her to understand 'the bad apple effect' and her take on whether we need face-to-face communication at all costs. There's a full transcript on the website. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Gillian Sandstrom is a researcher whose work explores her fascination with our conversations with other people - whether colleagues, friends or strangers. She’s just published a fabulous new book ‘Once Upon A Stranger’. Her work says that we often have a ‘liking gap’ when we talk to people - we think they like us less than we like them - even if they are work colleagues. It turns out not to be true - our co-workers like us more than we realise. It's a brilliant discussion - and potentially a prompt for you to change how you live your life. This week's newsletter is about talking to colleagues. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

A return interview with Dr Pippa Grange, a performance ("regenerative") psychologist who has worked with the England men's football team and who has earned the admiration of Brene Brown. I'm always excited to hear from the likes of Pippa, elite practioners who have earned the respect of the most respected high performers in the world. Pippa has a new book out, Life Reclaimed, which is a reflection on burnout, the need for overperformance and how to achieve balance in life. It's partly informed by her work with some of the most talented people in the world and certainly bears the trace of her own experiences with burnout. She also previews the BBC TV adaptation of Dear England featuring a character based on her. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I saw a post by Professor Rob Briner about the enigma of psychological safety, and in the replies it was discussed that in fact PS isn't so much an enigma, there's evidence that it is the output of group identity. It felt important to talk to Katrien Fransen about her work exploring this. This conversation (and the papers that led into it) were real penny drop moments for me. There's a full transcript on the website. Check out more: We spend a lot of time talking about Katrien’s paper: The impact of identity leadership on team functioning and well-being in team sport: Is psychological safety the missing link? We also discuss Unlocking the Power of ‘Us’: Longitudinal Evidence that Identity Leadership Predicts Team 5 Functioning and Athlete Well-Being Her website focuses on the services that she and her colleagues provide for organisations. Katrien is the co-author (alongside former guest Alex Haslam and Filip Boen) of The New Psychology of Sport and Exercise: The Social Identity Approach Here's Rob Briner's…

Today's conversation is with Professor Benjamin Laker, someone I've long admired for his cutting edge work on the evolution of culture. His article on Meeting Free Days is probably the piece of research I've shared the most in the last 5 years. Laker is Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School, which is part of the University of Reading. As well as writing multiple bestselling books on work like Too Proud to Lead and Job Crafting, he's also published dozens of articles in HBR and MIT Sloan Management Review. He's worked with government helping to develop policy on work and it's evolution. I could have chatted to Benjamin about dozens of things but I specifically wanted to dive into a sensational piece he wrote in Harvard Business Review at the end of last year about changing culture inside of organisations. Full transcript on the website Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on…

Daniel Coyle returns to reflect on what has changed since we last spoke. He's moved attention to an examination of what contributes to us getting a fulfilling experience from work - and life. We talk attention, community and the way that great teams demonstrate 'group flow'. We also delve into some research by Nick Epley that I've covered on the newsletter, that suggests we're terrible at predicting what will make us happy. If you like this check out the previous episodes with Daniel: Dan Coyle can fix your broken culture The Culture Code Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm joined by Daniel Zhao, chief economist of Glassdoor, who talks me through their new rankings of the best places to work in 2026. It's an intriguing list, is a car wash really better than some of the most famous tech brands in the world? The ranking allows us to explore what we want in a job: culture, connection, progression and autonomy. Bad culture is 7 times more powerful driving quitting than salary: hear Charlie and Donald Sull talk about Glassdoor data Glassdoor: Top US places to work Glassdoor: Top UK places to work Full transcript on the website Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Green is the Chief People Officer for First Group. He's set about reinventing the culture of the organisation from the ground up. I heard Kevin speak at an event last year was completely bowled over by the way he talked about culture and the way he was trying to build it. I think you'll love this discussion. There's a full transcript on the website. Also mentioned: Waitrose culture episode with Lord Mark Price Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Karen Bridbord is the author of a new book, The Relationship-Driven Leader that invites us to bring a psychologist's lens to our job and the relationships with those around us. Her perspective is to use psychology to understand the person in front of you to interpret the world through their eyes. If you’ve got a controlling boss or someone who behaves in a way that impacts your life she helps you unpick what’s going in their head. The Relationship-Driven Leader: Strengthening Connections to Enhance Productivity and Wellness at Work Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gen Z have been shaped by recessions, the pandemic, geopolitical instability, not to mention financial insecurity and world changing technology. That's the finding of the Edelman Gen Z Lab as told to me by the leader of the project Jackie Cooper. Most powerfully she explains that Gen Z's have a 'visceral need for safety' - that's financial, social, cultural and even physical. They respond to fear by asking questions and wanting to be heard, which older generations often misread as entitlement or disrespect for hierarchy. Politically, Gen Z is fragmented. Younger Gen Zs, especially boys/young men, are leaning more conservative and drawn to strong-man archetypes; older Gen Zs, shaped by Obama / BLM, are more idealistic about progressive politics. Algorithms and “TikTok-isation” amplify those splits. I was blown away to see Jackie Cooper from Edelman talk about the research that the company has done to understand the new generation of workers entering the workplace - I think you'll love this discussion. You can…

Most company training is a waste of time that turns firms into bureaucratic sludge holes. That’s roughly the conclusion of today’s episode which is a conversation with Andre Spicer and Mats Alvesson They have a new book out The Art of Less. Andre has been a guest a few times before - way back in 2018. This podcast is old. In 2018 this podcast was ahead of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO at the top of the podcast charts. (Andre talking about open plan offices) The idea that much of what companies do is related to their self identity, what the company aspires to be in the world - with the end result that it doesn’t achieve these things. Things we discuss: 'The Death of the Corporate Job' how 'initiative-itis' is dragging down organisations how training is corporate sludge that doesn't achieve its goals corporate culture as an act of 'grandiosity' Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on…

Jeremy Holt is a psychologist and leadership coach who has spent more than 20 years helping teams get better. Read his research about better team results. This episode is the third part of a series about the power of identity in teams. Listen to the other Eat Sleep Work Repeat episodes about identity. Jeremy posting about identity Watch the Lebron documentary More Than a Game Jeremy's book For the Love of the Game Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the second part of an interview with Professor Alex Haslam, the world's leading voice on the study of social identity. You can hear the first part of this interview on the website. In this discussion we talk how social identity can help us understand leadership. Alex talks about the CARE model of leadership. C - Create the group A - Advance the group (sometimes over themselves) R - Represent the group E - Embed the group identity in everyday life for the group If you're interested in exploring Alex's recent contributions to discussions on leadership and culture these papers are a great place to start: Zombie Leadership Human Me-sources or Human We-sources - exploring leader narcissism Alex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group dynamics, leadership, and identity. Over the past three decades, Alex has helped reshape our understanding of how people think, feel, and behave as members of groups,…

“Why are we so fixated on the individual self? I think it was a big con. The individual self is a relatively modern invention. The idea that human psychology is about the individual self was really an analytical fiction that was devised in the 20th century.” This is the first part of a wide-ranging discussion with Professor Alex Haslam. He talks us why our group identities are so essential to us and define who we are as adults. He quotes his mentor John Turner who said, 'Social identity is what makes group behaviour possible'. By the time you've finished with this episode I'm sure you'll agree. Check out an utterly brilliant talk by Alex - consider this the best training you could send yourself on. Alex mentions his partner Cath Haslam, who is also a psychologist. Full transcript and notes are on the website - along with an Identity playlist of episodes. Alex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group…

Simon Gilbody talks loneliness at work The Loneliness of the American Worker - Wall Street Journal Make Work Better on loneliness More on solving loneliness Loneliness in teams Derek Thompson on elective isolation Professor Simon Gilbody is a psychiatrist and clinical epidemiologist at the University of York. His work specialises in 'taking a population approach to mental health', trying to understand the aspects of modern life that contribute to how we feel. I was impressed by a talk that Simon did with the Financial Times on the topic of workplace loneliness. In our discussion Simon reflects on the toll of loneliness, how workplace loneliness can leave us with invasive thoughts, and what to do about it. Some links we discuss: Dr Lucy Foulkes - I really enjoy her TikToks, I think I gave a shout out to her book on adolescents a few weeks ago. Red Cross Report on Loneliness Thank you to Mary Howarth at University of York for helping to arrange the discussion. Transcript on the website Sign up to the Make Work…

This sponsored episode is brought to you by Deliveroo for Work Spencer Walker is the global director of Deliveroo for Work. The podcast has returned several times to the idea of food as a cultural trigger, something that catalyses connection and allows cohesion. We explore that idea further this week with Spencer Walker who runs Deliveroo For Work the workplace service provided by the delivery firm. The Deliveroo Feeding Employee Engagement Report I mention a book by Robin Dunbar and Samantha Rockey, it's this: The Social Brain - Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, Robin Dunbar. They talk about giving curry to bond teams (because the sharing plates require people to pass them around). Hear them talking about it here. Deliveroo for Work The Deliveroo Feeding Employee Engagement Report More about food, rituals and culture Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy…

Delighted to post this small conversation with Nick Shackleton-Jones. Nick posts brilliantly witty rants on TikTok that are just the best things I hear about work and the futility of bureaucracy. TikTok is a fame machine and if creators drop a banger they can end up reaching a vast audience. Nick has posted some content about work, neurodiversity and philosophy that has had millions of views. It was his take on why middle aged men wanted to return to the office that I put in the newsletter last week and made up the reason why we chatted but there’s so much more to this - not least him talking about adaptive behaviours and masking for people on the spectrum. Great listen. If you don’t use TikTok then I’ve given a selection of his best posts below: Nick on LinkedIn Shackleton Consulting Nick on TikTok - this is the good stuff Best posts to check out: Middle aged men don't get on with their wives The original on middle aged men What I miss about corporate More of what he misses about corporate (on company…

If we shifted our focus from the individual to the collective how different would our results at work be? I'm joined by Colin Fisher who explains that great teams are the most important contributors to great outcomes at work. The problem is that for many of our teams they are equal to less than the sum of the parts. Groups get bigger and bigger and stop being effective. Managers avoid having discussions about trimming teams down - and it leads to failure. Colin's new book The Collective Edge breaks down the ingredients of forming good teams. Colin Fisher is a professor at UCL School of Management Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s been a while since I revisited a conversation on offices and how our physical workspaces are evolving. Disruption has made the property business hugely raise their games. With 20-25% of Gen Z workers self reporting having issues of neurodivergency the office is trying to prove that it's still the centre of great workplace cultures. I chatted to Susan Carruth, a partner a 3XN, an architecture firm who is pioneering thinking about the needs of occupants and Mike Wiseman Head of Campuses at British land. For more details on the 2FA project mentioned and British Land's campuses. As discussed: 12% of US mortgage backed office deals are 'delinquent' right now Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month the FInancial Times published an article by John Burn Murdoch in the form of an analysis of personality data, specifically looking at what are styled the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism. Typically these five factors are regarded as a statistically reliable way to measure personality. Unlike approaches like Myers Briggs these factors prove consistent over time and psychologists took a view that much of the variance of human personality can be understood using these factors. Interestingly these factors also prove predictive for other outcomes. Conscientiousness for example predicts academic success and job performance, neuroticism can predict mental health issues. To discuss it I'm joined by Nick McClelland, Nick is the CEO of Byrne Dean The original article by John Burn Murdoch (archive version) Newsletter discussion on the data Discussion between John Burn Murdoch and Derek Thompson Christopher Ferguson questions the effect…

Sign up for the newsletter A couple of years ago, I was surrounded with so many happy Spurs fans that I bought into the euphoric buzz they were giving off. Ange Postecoglou had brought the smile back to Tottenham supporters. I chatted to Charlie Eccleshare from The Athletic about the cultural reinvention that the Australian manager that enacted. Reader, the Big Ange story didn't end well as a result a lot of fans of other clubs regularly message me asking about the episode, or my opinion of Postecoglou's demise. It was while I was joking about this one time that today's guest got in touch. Dan Jackson is a former Aussie Rules footballer who now acts as General Manager at Adelaide Football Club. He got in touch suggesting that I might be unfair backtracking on the support of Ange, challenging me to reflect on 'how the world's premier football competition has such little respect for building genuine high-performance culture?' He said 'I'm sure you'd agree it takes time and a lot of focused effort to change and…

I’m often asked asked which company cultures I admire, especially as I tend to be critical of the culture inside tech firms. It’s easy to have good vibes in small firms but organisations who manage to deliver good culture at scale are the ones I’m most interested in. I often call out Nando’s or Octopus Energy. I was delighted to get the chance to talk to the CEO of Octopus Energy Group, Greg Jackson. I’ve often reflected that the best cultures seem to be codified and made explicit, but Octopus’s culture isn’t really defined by formal values, Jackson doesn’t pin it down to three or four words. Instead the culture has a vivid feeling but is loosely articulated, a tangible mix of trust, autonomy and a shared mission. Cultures are often defined by what they’re against as much as what they are for. Many companies give a laundry list of desirable attributes they strive for. There’s an organisation at the end of my street that has ‘excellence’ and ‘respect’ on its windows, but would any business claim to be built…

This is the second episode this month about AI and the implications for our jobs. Two weeks ago I went along to a huge event run by Workday down in North Greenwich. Workday, their partners and their customers took to the stage to talk about applications of AI that are coming to their platform. As part of the event I was able to run a discussion with a couple of voices from the company who are helping businesses navigate the challenges that AI presents to us. Sign up for the newsletter More about Workday Elevate I was joined by Jerry Ting. Jerry is the founder of Evisort and now teaches at Harvard Law School and is a senior leader at Workday. And the other contributor was Angelique de Vries Schipperijn, she's the EMEA president for Workday. The conversation was fascinating for me in a few ways, firstly we can be so daunted about what AI represents in our jobs and this seemed simple and easy to understand, but secondly because as I mentioned last week the conversations I got from the audience suggested that…

Sign up to the newsletter First of two episodes going deep on how AI is going to impact work - and therefore workplace culture and dynamics. This week is with Alexia Cambon from Microsoft. Alexia is Head of Research on Copilot & Future of Work. Last month her team released the Work Trend Index Annual Report. It’s one of the most important pieces of insight into how our jobs will change. Their previous reports have been interesting going deep into how people are experimenting with AI but this year’s is different. It articulates a version of work that most of us aren’t yet ready for. P&G research: Having an AI assistant doubles a worker’s output, proving as effective as having a real teammate Alexia mentioned that the research was performed by Karim R. Lakhani. The paper itself. Conor Grennan Jaime Teevan More about marathoner Katherine Switzer Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on…

"There's this concept called inbox zero, where everyone tries to get to their inbox down to zero. But I would suggest that a more noble pursuit is that of calendar zero". I chatted to Howard Lerman this week. I was blown away by this discussion - it captured exactly what is wrong about current work, and why back-to-back meetings are going to lead to many organisations missing the opportunity of this vital moment. This is an essential listen - about where work is imminently going and how Howard's philosophy is building his fascinating new product Roam to serve the company of the future. Explore Roam, follow Howard. Read all about the way that work is about to change in the newsletter The AI 2027 predictions are the wake up call we didn't know we needed Microsoft explains why we need to ready ourselves for the reinvention of work Konstantine Buhler on 'always on' Full transcript on the website Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat…

When Zach Mercurio’s new book, The Power of Mattering, arrived on my desk I devoured it. It’s the most essential book about workplace culture that I’ve read in a couple of years. Read a full transcript and notes on the website. Read more : Wall Street Journal: The Power of Mattering at Work Order the book: The Power of Mattering Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

The next two podcasts I see as a piece with each other, today is about meaning the next one is about mattering. Collectively I feel they present serious substance about the foundations of good culture. Read Meaningful Work Read the latest newsletter There’s some overlap - the authors today,Tamara Myles and Wes Adams, have done research with next week’s guest Zach Mercurio. One of today’s guests Tamara Myles said one of the most powerful questions you can ask to measure engagement at work is to ask ‘does your manager care about what is going on in your life?’ Today is about meaning, and I feel it gets to grips with questions of purpose. Why sometimes purpose doesn’t seem to create an impact in an organisation - and other times really makes it hum. The authors describe meaningful work as work that provides community, helps us contribute to something that matters, and challenges us to learn and grow. For full show notes go to the website. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever…

Sign up for the newsletter Someone posted on LinkedIn that the podcast had died. Or I had died. But he is risen! I'm back with a great discussion, powerful in its simplicity. Psychologists Dr. Patricia Grabarek and Dr. Katina Sawyer have created a guidebook for anyone who wants to make things better for their teams. In it they suggest that managers need to set the tone for our colleagues. Yes, of course I hear you say but it's so often something that the hectic buzz of work distracts us from. As workplace wellness is in decline they suggest that it's time for managers to step up and be the creators of great culture, even if that might be pushing against the tide. Leading for Wellness is out now. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Join 100,000 other workplace culture enthusiasts by signing up for the Make Work Better newsletter Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education. Get in touch with Bruce What do your typos say about you? What's the right medium to build connection with your colleagues? How did Shopify and Netflix reinvent their communication? How can any of us navigate a bulging calendar and overloaded inbox? Professor Andrew Brodsky gives us a field guide to communications and tells how we should be rethinking how we message. Andrew's new book Ping is out in February. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education. Sign up for the newsletter Today'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. Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. 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 Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. 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 Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for the newsletter Tiffany Gaskell outlines coaching as a route to transformational leadership Tiffany 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…

Subscribe to the free Make Work Better newsletter Brigid 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 Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. 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 Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for the newsletter How 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 Belonging Follow Owen on LinkedIn Owen talks me through his step-by-step approach to building better teams - starting with the toughest starter question that most teams never tackle. takeaways Determine whether a team is necessary for the desired outcome Clearly define roles and expectations within the team Recruit talented individuals who can contribute to the team's success Establish effective communication channels within the team Consider the challenges of being part of multiple teams in the corporate…

Sign up for the Make Work Better newsletter How 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…

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office You 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 poetry Check our Kelly's book Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. 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 office In 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 Fish Play be there make their day choose your attitude Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy…

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office This 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…

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office Kursat 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 newsletter Kursat's first book is here and the second, on virtual meetings is here. The reading list for Kursat's course is here Kursat’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 change Creativity Performance Conflict Community If 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. Sign up to the…

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 Track Sign up for the newsletter Emma’s new book Sovereign HBR: The Best Leaders Have a Contagious Positive Energy HBR: Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive Today 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…

To receive the newsletter and the forthcoming Presence project sign-up here Today’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…