The People Impact Podcast

So many people in this world do not perceive themselves as creative, and yet our creativity is the primary tool that we use to navigate change. You are actually being creative, every day. David Chislett helps us understand how creativity is our primary tool for embracing change and unlocking new possibilities in our lives. David is a change pilot: he helps people and teams activate behaviours and...

Let’s get honest about FOFO. No, not fomo, the fear of missing out (not even jomo, the joy of missing out). We’re talking about FOFO: The Fear Of Finding Out. The fear of finding out what’s actually going on. The fear of finding out what’s actually going on rather than how it should be happening according to all of your policies and procedures and theories and rule books. As helpful as they’re mea...

A great way to improve the quality – and effectiveness – of your conversations is to have more coach-like conversations. In this episode we give you five essential skills and tools that will change the quality of your conversations, your work communications and interactions. The simple fact is, if you treat people like children, they will behave like children but when you treat people knowing that...

In a world where societal expectations for men – to be strong, confident, composed, capable – are still prevalent, it can be challenging to break away and courageously embrace authenticity. Life coach Yaniv Shein works mainly with men, facilitating men's groups for youth and adults. In this new episode he shares his philosophy on ‘what it means to be a man’ and the challenges men face in findi...

Be intentional about inviting everyone to speak in your group meetings and reap the reward. Yep, that’s the gist of this episode. It’s that simple. To help you start and keep doing this, we talk about how and why this works – and how to make it a habit. Work results are better when people get to introduce themselves: research shows that when medical team members introduce themselves by name in an...

Are you still feeling the lingering effects of the pandemic? We dive back into this topic as we noticed how much our earlier episode about Pandemic Fatigue still brings up for our listeners. We’re still finding our way, going from languishing to lingering. It may seem like we’re expected to go back to normal, but we can’t. We’re in a different place. It’s like we have dug a tunnel and come out on...

Ruben Brave loves exploring the unknown, with a curiosity that drives him to a wide variety of places and an innate talent for generating visions for the future. His story involves serial tech entrepreneurship: having set up several tech companies across Europe, Ruben has always been ‘one of the geeks’ (and a Spider-Man fan). Another side of him is fatherhood, living in Amsterdam, with roots in a...

Ageing is the one thing we all share in common, if we’re lucky enough to have a long life. But is this on your radar for improving the diversity and inclusivity of your teams? This is a conversation with Mary Jane Roy , who is into her 50th career year. Her career – so far – has spanned from being a nursing officer in the Canadian Armed Forces to a corporate career and independent consulting. It w...

How do you distinguish between constructive behaviour and people pleasing? You may notice it in other people, and how they interact. And then there’s discerning your own people pleasing behaviour. People pleasing in teams can become a disadvantage because managers and team members don’t get the feedback and information that they need. Look at this as energy spent. Suppressing how you really feel e...

When you’re the first DEI role in an organisation, not only are you starting a job from scratch, so is your employer: often they don’t yet understand what your role is. It’s not a plug and play situation but a new function inside an organisation without a lot of legacy to stand on. Moreover, expectations of what this work is like are often different than the reality – for both the DEI professional...

Holiday magic is made by women. The holiday season would be a lot less magical without the work that mostly women do to create it. In homes and in organisations, creating happiness for other people. It’s an additional mental load, without us realising that it is. At this time of year, most of us are dealing with end-of-year workload: having budget meetings, wrapping up performance reviews, alignin...

This is what makes Quiet Quitting such a drag. People that Quietly Quit can become a huge slower-down of the change that you need in the current environment. A roadblock to collaboration, creativity, innovation and any forward momentum. But Quiet Quitting is not the problem. It points to something else that is the actual problem. Let us give you a fair perspective on quiet quitting. Why are people...

Grief will show up in your life, whether your own or for people around you – including people at work. That friendly sounding invitation to ‘bring your whole self to work’? It includes grief. Maaike Roseboom experienced a huge and sudden personal loss. Lisa was her HR manager at the time and they got to know each other at an intense level. Maaike’s personal journey dealing with grief and returning...

This is our 100th episode! In fact, we’re triple celebrating, with four years of this podcast and over 10.000 downloads.  These 100 and 4 and 10K have let us create a rich portfolio of topics, guests and perspectives for you, on the impact that you (can) have on real people in your organization. That’s 10K+ reminders sent out that people are real people, in the workplace. 10K+ additional pers...

Sometimes moving forward looks like standing still. So many more people than usual are picking up on big shifts going on, beyond our day-to-day practical things. It can be a floating feeling of unease that signals those bigger picture developments, or specific things that weigh on your mind.  Zoom out and look at the bigger picture, at the water we’re swimming in.  The world feels very c...

Toxic workplace culture: this is what you can do about it, and why you want to. Let us take you from the experience of it (check our previous episode) to the big picture. Over the past 10 years, workplace culture has generally become more toxic. Research* has specified the main markers of toxic workplace culture: Non-inclusive Unethical behaviour, lack of integrity Disrespectful Abusive management...

“I went from being this courageous person, willing and loving to challenge the status quo, to feeling I have to be compliant and I need to placate. It was a black hole that sucked me in, and I didn’t realise it was toxic.” “At what point did you recognise that?” “Well, when I hit my burnout.” This People Impact podcast episode gets both personal and insightful about toxic workplace culture, a meat...

Seeing that lightbulb moment happen when people realise that they can be better as individuals in their organisations, *and* their organisations can be better, by really living into diversity, equity and inclusion - that is what lights James McKim up. James recognizes that organisations want to be diverse for social justice reasons, because it’s the moral thing to do. At the same time, DEI drives...

When your reference point for how to be a leader comes from the leaders, managers and bosses you’ve had up to that point, that’s a really hit-and-miss affair. First-time leaders going through the rollercoaster of getting their new role frequently follow up their “Woohoo!” with “… now what?” Mick Spiers , founder of The Leadership Project, inspires leaders to challenge the status quo of what it mea...

The biggest and best kept secret of life is… aliveness :) Sure, there’s being alive, your heart beating and your body breathing, that’s no big secret. But aliveness, that’s about feeling connected to the essential realness of your life and the tingle of possibility in the world around you. Feeling the sunshine. Listening to music. Being immersed in a fascinating read. Taking an intentional break....

We need to be talking about racism without people of colour present.  The work Valerie Spain does - and the way that she does it - is pretty special. Valerie is a certified coach and antiracism educator, DEI consultant and group facilitator, particularly focusing on white people doing the inner work of racial justice and of developing an action plan. Affinity groups and employee resource grou...

Life is messy. It’s a messy time to be alive in this world, with so much going on. Predictability is on the decline. Some (including us) would even call it a trend towards chaos. This is a long-term thing. As Dutch Professor (in Sustainability Transitions) Jan Rotmans noted, “We are living not in an era of change, but in a change of era.” You can’t keep your head down and wait until it’s over. You...

Wellness is about effective, healthy habits for life. Your life, all sides of it. Your workplace has a huge impact on your wellness, and vice versa: an organisation will run so much better when team members are well. Tarin Calmeyer makes this clear from various angles. She is a corporate wellness specialist, the founder of Remote Team Wellness, a multipassionate and multidimensional human being, a...

The hierarchy of the classic pyramid org chart has very little added value for clients and, moreover, focuses your competitive spirit on beating your colleague to get the promotion, instead of on “we’re going to win or lose together”. So, Simon Dixon worked out a better way. When Simon set up Hatmill, a specialist logistics consultancy, “The starting point was doing the opposite of doing the stuff...

Sometimes a new beginning can mark a bigger shift, from the old you to the new you. “Wait a minute. I changed my mind. But I’ve always done it this other way. Won’t I be labelled inconsistent, erratic, unpredictable or unreliable, if I suddenly change?” Sure, but it’s your life. You get to make your choices. It makes sense that with new information may come a change of mind: knowing what we know n...