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 on mediocrity or disrespect? Aren’t they just given? Sometimes these things are called the Pillars of Character. Yes, we have integrity here, but how does that help you work here?

For businesses these pillars are useless for creating differentiation. Jackson’s approach at Octopus stands apart from that, he takes issue with common norms elsewhere. Researching for the conversation I listened to one interview where Jackson talked about the absence of back-to-back meetings in his day. He said:

After the conversation, which was recorded live on stage near Guildford, someone came up to me. ‘My son works at Octopus,’ he said. Here we go, I thought. ‘Every single word he said up there is true. He says he wishes he’d joined there years ago’.

Links:

Greg on High Performance podcast

Transcript

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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. 

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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 there’s a lot of businesses who have barely started their own journeys.

Look, here’s the challenge of the moment, I think the conversation at the event described a future that we have the agency to participate in. It seems real and like something we can connect with, but also everyone who came up to me afterwards anxiously told me that their organisations are doing nothing at all. That’s why I got so much value from this conversation. I think inverted commas “doing AI” feels scary and huge whereas incorporating it into some of the things we’re already going feels possible and easily achievable. 

 I need to declare that this is a promoted episode in the sense that Workday is a client that I was working with at this event and have worked with before, but critically it was a conversation that I’m delighted to be sharing here. 

I want to give a shout out to Hollie Benneyworth at Workday who has worked so hard to make this happen.

You can find a full transcript for this on the website.

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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

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"When I moved to New York City, I realised what it meant to be truly lonely for the first time. I had no consistent community — people who would wonder where I was if I didn’t show up. I was disconnected. At the time, I thought that I was the only one who felt this way… but I was VERY wrong.Turns out, loneliness is a huge issue in the United States. The average American only has one close friend, and 75% of people are not satisfied with their friendships".

Jillian Richardson found that one of the most relatable things that any of us can do is confess to others that we're lonely. Freshly arrived in Manhattan she found the paradox of big cities is that we can be alone while surrounded with others. Her response was to create the Joy List - a list that once set about connecting people across New York with other like minded individuals and now sets about connecting anyone virtually.

The Joy List has become a phenomenon recommended by Esther Perel, Priya Parker and many more. She's also the author of Unlonely Planet.

Jillian gives us her 5 rules of community - and cautions that while communities can exist in the workplace we should be cautious about trying to get everyone into the same community at work. She also talks about her 'Ask' and 'Offer' walls as a device to bring teams together.

Peter Block: "Community requires a concept of the leader as one who creates experiences for others. Experiences that in themselves are examples of our desired future".

If you're thinking I'd love Jillian's help she offers her services professionally both as a course and as personal coaching. If you want to hire her she's willing and able to take that on you can contact her here.

Jillian mentions the Ritual Design Lab.

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We're at part 3 of our series about community at work.

Today's guest is one of the most respected community thinkers in the world, Casper ter Kuile, Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School and author of The Power of Ritual. His book is a practical guide to the way that communities come to life, not only is it practical it's also brilliantly written. I found myself annotating a lot of it and it's impossible not to learn from his wisdom on the topic.

“Disconnection sours the sweet things in life and makes them nearly unbearable”

Casper previously wrote a free book with Angie Thurston is at Harvard Divinity School called How We Gather which was a wonderful exploration of how post religious (secular) groups were creating get togethers that seemed to be inspired by the religious communities that went before them. Casper's perspective is wonderful, so respectful of religion even though he sits outside of it.

This series of episodes has been about understanding how our organisations can shape a sense of belonging in us, especially when we're no longer physically together.

I feel like the episodes are a journey. No one has professed to know the answers and there's plenty of cautionary notes. I'm certain anyone trying to shape community in their work will come away with plenty of thoughts after this. Not least that Casper says that it goes strongly against the spirit of community that someone in a community can fire someone else. Community is built on safety. 

In the podcast I also talk about a previous episode on rituals and you can find that here.

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Today's episode is a further exploration of how firms will try to evolve their culture by hiring Community Managers. If you've not listened to last week's episode featuring Sarah Drinkwater pull up, back up and tuck in to that one first. Sarah said the person I should talk to is Abadesi Osunsade from Brandwatch - and so that's who we are talking to today. Abadesi's title is VP Global Community & Belonging at the 500 strong organisation.

We talk about seeking to get better at Diversity & Inclusion, giving voice to teams (and applicants) and how to build community in organisations who are no longer together.

Abadesi mentions Square's Rise program. This is the scheme that ensures there's always one minority candidate at the last stage of each hiring process. You'll find more details on it here. (note I couldn't find it on the UK website so maybe stay on the US site when it asks if you want to move).

Here's Abadesi's book and the other organisation she's part of The Hustle Crew.

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New podcast today - the first of four podcasts about what’s next with work - specifically how can we make work feel like a community again, especially when you’re hunkered down under the duvet trying to survive the November chill. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be chatting to some incredible guests.

Today I kick off with Sarah Drinkwater who is a supreme community builder and now works for the Atomico fund.

Some links to what we discuss!

I mention that Gary runs Wonder - this is their website

Follow Sarah on Twitter

Sarah's Medium post

She mentions Jason Fried's book Rework (my own book

The Interintellect

Q Anon - great piece on how one woman felt enveloped by the community (before she twigged it was all nonsense)

Q Anon - outstanding Reply All when they pretty much work out which crackpot is behind it. Created by a crackpot, weaponised by the GRU.

The Sunrise Movement - love these kids

Image by Shane Rounce on Unsplash

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Can't Even can be ordered now

AHP's original article in Buzzfeed

AHP's newsletter is here

Last year Anne Helen Petersen’s Buzzfeed article about burnout became a viral sensation, spawning a seemingly never-ending wave of ‘Year of Burnout’ headlines. Petersen’s writing triggered such recognition because she rooted it in the ordinary, in everyday experiences that were instantly relatable. She evoked her own life where industrious professional productivity (as a writer) was combined with a weary inability to get things done in her private life.

She initially thought there was something wrong with her. Googling for other people relating their aversion to getting sh!t done domestically, bills sitting unpaid, registrations unfiled, postal votes uncast, chores uncompleted. She realised it wasn’t personal, it was systematic. The way we were living was driving us to a constant feeling of being emotionally & physically spent.

Relatedly, it was sad to read of the passing of David Graeber this week. As an academic he was an unexpected icon of progressive politics but more than anything he was someone who invited us to revisit our preconceived ideas about how society functioned. Graeber had mused in his book ‘Bullshit Jobs’, wondering what had happened to the 15-hour week that in 1930 John Maynard Keynes had predicted by the end of the 20th century. He wondered whether it was indeed possible but societally we might have to reorganise the world of work to achieve it. Insurgent thinking for many, but there are echoes of this conjecture in Petersen’s book. Some of her thoughts might find resonance with frazzled younger workers wondering why they won’t be free of their student loans until 2045 and looking at house prices simmering away at 10 times their salary.

AHP reminds us that despite a whole genre of self-improvement literature that tells us that our personal actions can resolve burnout - or that, come on slouch, you need to be grittier, we need to point the finger at the actions of our firms, not ourselves. Ultimately she suggests that our casual acceptance of the way we’re working is having a toll on our psyche that can’t be easily unspun by productivity hacks and meditation apps. As Taylor Lorenz notes on the jacket, the book “is a compelling exploration of… how an entire generation has been set up to fail”.

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Today's interviewees: Bhushan Sethi leads PwC's workplace strategy business and Ben Waber is the CEO of workplace analytics firm, Humanyze.

Read the Humanyze research about the way work has changed since lockdown.

Here's the previous episode I recorded with Ben Waber.

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I was fortunate to speak to Gary Hamel about his forthcoming new book, Humanocracy.

He believes that the single most empowering (and profitable) thing that businesses can do is eliminate their creeping bureaucracy.

He talks about how increasingly organisations are paralysed with red tape and bureaucracy. The end result is that they can’t get anything done. There are some clear examples of this from the recent past. He characterises the Microsoft era under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as being one where opportunity after opportunity was passed because the organisation was so heavily bureaucratic. Satya Nadella has freed the organisation from a lot of this – with evident results.

Hamel proposes a series of questions that help you diagnose the extent of bureaucracy in your company - and you can read more about this here: read more

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What are other firms doing about returning to work? How can any of us work out the right thing to do? I chat to 4 more firms to hear their plans.

Listen to conversations with Beth Marie Norbury from Babcock International, Tom Ellis from Brand Genetics, Richard from a big secret pharmaceuticals firm and Laura Pleasance from Captify. This is addition to Dan Cullen Shute last episode.

Here's more on my survey I put out last week (from last week's newsletter):

We’ve already heard loud and clear that workers don’t want to return to the old days but we’re starting to hear more about firm ordering workers back to their seating plan. L’Oreal US saw some unwelcomed attention this month when they told workers that if they didn’t come back ASAP they needed to authorise the firm having access to their private medical records.

So what are other firms saying is going to happen next? I got just under 100 qualitative replies to the survey; from pharmaceutical companies to start-ups, charities to defence contractors. The replies detailed different approaches from companies as they try to work out how to act next. The main headlines were:

• Amongst all firms ‘normal’ has been postponed until 2021 - everything at the moment is being framed as interim. 2021 is when firms are expecting to be able to jump start their new culture.
• Just over two-fifths of firms (42%) have told workers they won’t be expected to return to offices until 2021 if they don’t want to. (26% back from September/October onwards, 31% already phasing some return of workers back to the office from August). This finding is consistent with the straw poll that Digiday performed across publishing and media companies.

Some of the most interesting quotations showing the spectrum of positions:

"[an organisation that went from 4 floors to 27 seats] It’s amazing how many of the things people said couldn’t be done from home could once COVID hit. We’re looking at a total rethink on workspaces and what the future looks like - a place for social interaction and collaboration with the ethos that work is something you do not somewhere you go… there’s no going back”

“We issued a survey to understand what our people feel comfortable with, and on that basis have told everyone no one will be asked to work from the office if they prefer not to for the rest of the year”

[We got everyone back to the office in mid July] “we're an office based business and we need to get used to being back in the office as we can't work from home together. No plans announced on long term flexibility but lots of employees are asking (as are new hires)”.

“The success of working from home, and the fact that so many staff have said they now want more flexibility, has lead [the organisation] to put one of our office buildings up for lease. So a full 5 day return to the office for everyone wouldn’t even be possible”.

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Here'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.

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"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 teams
• how 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 it
• how 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 future

We talk a lot about Matt Lieberman's book, Social.

Misha invites listeners to drop him an email you can do that here. Peter's book is here or you can read it for free here.

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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 is out now.

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"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"

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Firstly 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.

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I'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.

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Varied 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.

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I'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 firm
• can anyone be the agent for change in culture?
• her feeling on the importance of purpose

Frances and her wife are the authors of a brand new book called Unleashed which recounts their experience at Uber, WeWork and more.

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Recorded live at Vidcon 2020

As 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.

Tickets for Arron's live tour are on sale now.

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This 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.

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"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 here

READ: Dan talked about a paper saying bosses think less of workers they don't see.

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You 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 while retaining professional distance. I was interested what the job of nurse was like.

We talk about privilege - mainly mine that I found her book so eyeopening about areas that i was oblivious to.

It’s a beautiful account that has become a best seller because of the sympathy that runs through it. In one episode chrissie washes the hair of a recently deceased patient so that the smell of the burning that killed them won’t pollute the family’s last moment

Christie's book A Language of Kindness.

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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.

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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

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First 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?

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When 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)

Full transcript on the website

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"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.

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Here 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 Effectively

You can follow him on Twitter.

School of Life has over 5m subscribers on YouTube.

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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.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Hot 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.

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What'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

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Recorded 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 at the Good Day at Work event in Manchester in September 2019. The event was fully sold out, such was the interest in the outstanding line up of speakers.

Pippa spoke of:

• the importance of cultural moments
• the very first thing she does to build a winning culture
• what it’s like to be in that room before a huge game
• the realities of being a woman in the man’s world of sport
• the single thing that is way more important than positivity
• how a big (stressful) adventure can lead to wellness

The conversation was outstanding. Pippa is outgoing from the FA as I write this – I can’t wait to see what she does next.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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Today’s episode is about Uber. Its based on a brilliant book that stacks of people have found themselves tearing through in one sitting over the last couple of weeks, It’s a book called Superpumped by Mike Isaac. If you’ve heard Mike talking about the book, this chat will be different because we’re just going to focus on the culture of Uber. The question for me was ‘would Uber ever have been as successful if their culture wasn’t so psychopathic and secondly could someone else adapt Uber’s culture a little to be slightly less blatant in their evilness and get away with it. 

On today’s episode. A brilliant discussion with Mike Isaac about the culture at Uber. I’m not supporting anything at all they did but there are certainly aspects of that you can’t help but think are brilliant. Travis Kalanick took people whose previous job had been running coffee stores and gave them whole cities to run. Giving people autonomy produced incredible, incredible results. The question then becomes - could you have got rid of the bad consequences by managing it better. And that is the question.

Mike Isaac is a New York Times writer and the author of the brand new best selling Superpumped.

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If you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.comMarcus Buckingham is a research who has specialised in debunking some of the lies that pervade our jobs. His discoveries are eye-popping. Company culture can't be measured, 'OKRs' (goals) never work and much more. It's a compelling and entertaining listen.

Get in touch to tell Bruce what you thought - or leave us a review at Apple podcasts.

Eat Sleep Work Repeat is part of #PODSTRIKE.

Buy 9 Lies About Work

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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.

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On this week's pod, David Gasca and Steven Rogelberg explain how you can fix your meetings to make work less miserable.

Firstly David Gasca outlines the Silent Meeting Manifesto. In the world of work we're surrounded with very little scrutiny of the norms of meetings and emails, in that context David's work helps reinvent one of the immovable pillars of work. Download the Amazon Kindle version here. Try a silent meeting and tell us how you get on.

Then we spend time with the meeting doctor, Steven Rogelberg (author of The Surprising Science of Meetings). He tells us about 'Magic Time' and more.

Our sponsor is Perkbox - the best platform to manage employee benefits.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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In 2007 as Barcelona were looking to replace their manager they were faced with a difficult challenge. They decided if they were to move on with a strong sense of sustainable success they needed to think about the culture they wanted to build.

They drew up a list of criteria for how they wanted to choose the manager. Interestingly most of the list didn't mention football. Damian Hughes, Professor of Organisational Psychology at Alliance Manchester Business School goes on to explain the Barcelona approach to the challenges they faced.

Professor Hughes gives a 5 state model of culture. That was the work of James Baron and Michael Hannan at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business. Buy The Barcelona Way

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How did Jurgen Klopp build a culture that has caught the attention of everyone in sport. Including interviews with Klopp, Liverpool players and leading management psychologists we discover the 4 secrets of Klopp's culture at Liverpool (data, a simple plan, inclusivity, psychological safety).

You’ll find episodes, transcripts and other good stuff on the website EatSleepWorkRepeat.com.

Best articles to read more:

BEST READ: New York Times on Liverpool and data

Melissa Reddy interview

A look at Klopp

How to improve engagement

Data and Liverpool

WATCH: How Jürgen Klopp made Liverpool BELIEVE again

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In 2015 Anita Williams Woolley and colleagues published some groundbreaking work understanding the 'collective intelligence' of teams.

They asked 'can we judge the cognitive power of a certain group of people?'

The answer was that yes, they could and also there were certain things that helped predict this collective intelligence.

Professor Woolley explains the part that gender plays in this team intelligence and then gives you a test that you can take to help predict collective intelligence in your own teams. Anita's work is fascinating and immensely thought provoking. Is it time to change your team?

You can take the Reading the Mind in the Eyes test here.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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A lot of people have asked me if I’m going to do an episode on the importance of play.

One of the challenges of the word play is that its such a broad word and its associations aren’t always helpful when it comes to bringing everyone with us but today's guest I think shows what an incredible thing it can be.

Heidi Edmundson is an emergency medicine consultant in the Emergency Department at the Whittington Hospital. She wrote this article in the Guardian in January: I introduced fun to the lives of A&E staff. The laughter was infectious

We explore themes of how you turn individuals into a team? This inspirational senior doctor recognised that exercises her team did on their downtime seemed to energise and inspire them - and made them more connected. I think you’ll end up wanting to read more of the theatrical exercises that Heidi used to help forge a tightly bonded team?

Here is a full guide to Forum Theatre and its games.

This goes deep - can playing games with each other be a simple way to remind ourselves of each other’s humanity where that empathy seems to be a super power that helps us do a better job?

I loved this discussion so much - you can keep up with Heidi here on her Twitter.

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James Bloodworth lived undercover working in Amazon warehouses, care homes and clocked up hours as an Uber driver to see the realities of modern work for millions of Brits. It makes for a fascinating glimpse at the lives of people who often get ignored from the privilege of the open plan.

James' compelling book Hired is out now.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

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This week I talk to Josh Krichefski (CEO, Mediacom UK) and Liz Fosslien (co-author of No Hard Feelings: Emotions at Work and How They Help Us Succeed).

Josh explains how they put mental health on the agenda on his firm by starting an honest, open discussion on it. Then we talk to Liz who gives us a users' guide to emotions at work. What can we do to make work a most empathetic way.

The Seligman model we discuss is the '3Ps'. Personalisation, Pervasiveness and Permanence.

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What if the way we've created work was built around the things that men prefer. Sue Unerman makes the compelling case that the workplace has evolved to serve male skills - and that this isn't good for the workplace and it isn't good for workers.

Sue Unerman is the Chief Transformation Officer at Mediacom, and also the author of two widely acclaimed books. We discussed her book (written with Kathryn Jacob) The Glass Wall

Follow Sue on Twitter.

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Jim Collins is one of the most respected business writers in the world. With his books Good to Great and Made to Last he became the observer of great companies and what made them special.

He's just published a new book which is a supplement to Good to Great (pssssst, read GTG first).

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Dave Trott is a creative director, copywriter, and author. A colossus of advertising who has been awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award by D&AD.

I chatted to him at the IAB Leadership Summit in St Albans.

It's not a talk about work culture as such - just a fascinating chat with someone whose job it was to be creative for a living. Dave's latest book Creative Blindness is a riot of colourful stories and lively lessons. Follow Dave on Twitter.

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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 world Individuals have a choice in shaping the team's identity and should be selfless and committed to the team's purpose and desired outcome.
• A high-performing team is one where individuals consistently perform at their best and have a culture of excellence.
• The environment plays a crucial role in enabling or disabling team success, and teams should create an environment that fosters innovation and energizes individuals.
• Teams should regularly reflect on their environment and identify and eliminate factors that hinder performance.

For a full transcript see the website.

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Today we’re chatting to the MD of the innovations company IDEO, Sue Siddall to hear how they bring the power of telling stories to life in their organisation. In addition we’ve got a legend of workplace study today. William Kahn was responsible for creating two of the big concepts of positive workplaces. He coined the concepts of both psychological safety and employee engagement.

William Kahn is Professor of Organisational Behavior at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business. He received his BA in Psychology from Clark University and his doctorate in Psychology from Yale University.

Sue Siddall tells us about 'Story Night' at IDEO. Sue is the UK MD of IDEO - a company who often provide inspiration to other organisations when they are thinking of fixing their culture.

If you like this, sign up for the New Work Now mailer here.

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If you’ve not already subscribed there’s a weekly email that goes out with the podcast. This week's includes a brilliant article on how small teams seem to be more radical, there’s a couple of discussions about Professor Adam Grant’s work and there’s a really good article on laughter in teams.

The laughter in teams article is from some research that NASA is looking at when it comes to casting their first expeditions to Mars. NASA looked at the success of different teams in isolation in Antartica. And it seemed that when there is a joker in the team, someone gifted in the art of lightening the mood it helps the overall morale of the team. I found this one fascinating, in The Joy of Work i talk about the successful Cambridge Boat race team in 2008 whose performance was transformed from a losing practice tie to winning boat race performance when they promoted a funny colleague to the boat. They felt that even though this wasn’t the best performing athlete they all felt themselves to be in a better mental state when he was present.

This is really neglected as a component of a happy team and if you’ve read The Joy of Work you’ll know I’m obsessed with it.

And it leads on to today’s guest. Robert Provine’s 2000 book Laughter is a real page turner of research about one of the most enjoyable but least studied aspects of modern life. He has also gone on to cover laughter - and other human behaviours in his 2013 book Curious Behaviour - Yawning, Laughing, Hiccupping, and Beyond. Provine is the world’s expert on the subject. When we talked to Professor Sophie Scott in the live episode on laughter at work this time last year she mentioned professor Provine several times, and he’s also been the consultant for products like Tickle Me Elmo.

There’s some fascinating discussion. Laughter seems to signal a couple of things, safety and play. He makes a really interesting point at the end about the current state of politics being filled with the opposite of laughter - which is fear and anger

There was an interesting exercise a few years ago (and this was called out in Dan Lyons book lab rats) the exercise was conducted by Dan Ariely looked at the data from Great Place to Work. Ariely wanted to see if they had anything that correlated with stock data, to see if it would give you good investment advice to put money in good culture companies. Great Place to Work has been running since 1981 and each year has surveyed thousands of workers. Ariely looked at the data they had gathered.

There was one factor that leapt out. But it was an odd thing. It was safety. Companies where people consistently reported feeling safe at work tended to outperform the stock market average, sometimes by 200%. It applied to physical and emotional safety. The other factor that seemed to correlate was companies that had a strong sense of welcome.

If you listen to Professor Provine laughter would be in service of making all of those things stronger. What follows is the science of laughter, why we laugh and what it does. I hope you enjoy it.

Robert R. Provine, is a neuroscientist and Professor of Psychology at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. I called him on the phone to pick his brain

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Thanks to Penguin Random House here's a free extract of a couple of different parts of The Joy of Work.

You can buy the full audiobook here.:

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