Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture

Sign up to hear more about Radix Big Tent Rory Sutherland is one of the most respected brains in the advertising industry, a man whose early endorsement of behavioural economics helped popularise the nascent science. He's also a regular writer for The Spectator and Vice Chief of Ogilvy Group. Rory joins me to interview to talk about my new book, Fortitude , which has become a Sunday Times Bestsell...

Lots of discussion right now about firms trying to kick start their workplace culture. I wanted to explore conversations with leaders who were leading experiments in how to make things feel different. In what prove to be a pair of candid conversations I talk to two firms who are asking the question if workplaces can be more motivated by trying to vary the ingredients. John Sill tells us how his fi...

Come along to one of my free events in September We all tell stories all of the time, but what makes a magical, memorable story? What pitfalls should we avoid? This was an issue that I was thinking about. Presentations are stories, and we deliver presentations every day. In my own investigation I found real value in the book by the storytelling organisation The Moth. I was beyond excited when I sa...

Professor Sophie Scott is the UK's most recognisable neuroscientist, famed for her passion and her ability to excite interest in a complex field. Her new book, The Brain - Ten Things You Should Know is out now and I got in touch to discuss what any of us can learn about the brain. It's a wonderful discussion that included one detail that stopped me in my tracks. Listen to Professor Sophie Scott on...

Lots of my favourite podcasts have gone on summer break, so I wanted to keep putting some episodes out. But maybe you don't want something that is too work related in the midst of the summer, so this is an episode that is more psychology and life than workplace culture . It's a lovely discussion with Max Dickins author of 'Billy No Mates'. I got so much from the book - and from the discussion. Max...

To find out more about the workplace culture course go to the website or the book page . After recent episodes have made a case that the office might be on the way out, today is a voice who dares to say otherwise. Tom Goodwin  is an active voice in media - operating somewhere between provocateur and consultant. He has been voted a top 10 voice in Marketing by LinkedIn, one of 30 people to fol...

If you're a user of social media, whether Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn you'll have seen the work of today's guest. Sign up for the free Winning Workplace Culture course here if you prefer Fortitude. Get the Make Work Better newsletter here Liz Fosslien is half of Liz and Mollie whose perceptive dissections of contemporary anxieties have won hundreds of thousands of fans. Liz talks through her pr...

A wonderful discussion that I think has got immense to richness to it. I chat to the boss of St John's Ambulance Martin Houghton-Brown ( Martin on Twitter ). I was struck with the power of the lessons about connection and identity - we often find ourselves throwing these terms around casually but Martin's testimony brings it vividly to life. Find out more about St John's Ambulance - become a volun...

Two things on the podcast today - at the end of the episode there is a discussion with former guest, Brian Elliott from Slack's Future Forum. Ahead of that I want to make an announcement about what I've been working on - with my new book Fortitude. Fortitude is an investigation into the elusive idea of resilience, a book that discovers that resilience is a area filled with mistakes, misdirection a...

“There are two kinds of companies: One is going to embrace work-from-anywhere, and the second is in denial — I feel those companies will lose their workforce. You have to make a choice, as a leader, what kind of company you want to lead” ( source ) The words of today's guest have stayed with me for the last few months. I'm so delighted to talk to Professor Raj Choudhury from Harvard Business Schoo...

If you find yourself becoming interested in the magic of workplace culture one of the go to authors of the subject is today's guest, Dan Coyle. Dan's 2018 book The Culture Code allowed him to go deep with some of the most successful cultures in the world - in the arenas of business, sport and even the military. He's returning after the blazing success of the Culture Code with a book that gives mor...

We're going deeper into the evidence today with two brilliant guests. Anne Raimondi is COO of Asana who were smart enough to have started a major piece of research into how work is evolving just before the world turned upside down. We're also joined by the most in demand brain in the world right now , Professor Nick Bloom . Nick is Professor WFH, an economist from Stanford University who has been...

Status is a fundamental need for humans. Such a fascinating discussion today. I recently read Will Storr's brilliant book The Status Game and was so taken with it I invited him on the podcast. He quotes Professor Brian Boyd when he says that we: ‘naturally pursue status with ferocity: we all relentlessly, if unconsciously, try to raise our own standing by impressing peers, and naturally if unconsc...

This episode is greatly enhanced by reading the newsletter that comes with it. In today’s podcast I talk to two guests who have slightly different perspectives on how to fix the culture of the Met Police. Dr Megan O’Neill is Associate Director at the Scottish Institute for Policing Research. She has extensively studied the police and has worked closely with them - most notably helping to revise a...

Caleb Parker is one of the most intelligent commentators on the future of our workplaces ( Twitter , his website ) and this conversation with him did not disappoint. Caleb is the founder of a flexible workplace offering, Bold, but also host of a truly brilliant commercial real estate podcast called The Work Bold Podcast. I found Caleb's podcast via Antony Slumbers Twitter feed and it's become part...

Last year I did a few episodes looking to see how firms were tackling the return to the office (the return to work - THE PLACE) but they were all small workplaces. Organisations that could make nimble actions, I wanted to see how a big firm handled these things. I contacted Tom Kegode , the lead for Work:Lab at Lloyds Banking Group. Lloyds employs 70000 people across hundreds of sites. It is logis...

Professor Lynda Gratton is one of the world's leading experts on business and the future of work. She's on speed dial with the top CEOs and is a regular at Davos and the World Economic Forum. Her HBR cover article about 'doing hybrid right' has been the navigation guide to the last two years for many firms , and she's turned her thinking into a brand new book, Redesigning Work . She shares with me...

Two outstanding conversations trying to make sense of what is happening around work. Firstly I chat to Brian Elliott who leads the Future Forum , a group led by Slack. they released a new report surveying workers in the UK, US and other major countries. Here are the topline findings - but the conversation goes way beyond this. UK knowledge workers are most likely to say they want flexibility in&nb...

 As we start a new year considerations about the jobs we do have never been more prominent. One headline this year has already suggested that up to three-quarters of us might be considering changing jobs . Intriguingly money doesn't appear to be in the top five reasons to make a change . I wanted to understand what was going on here, and what any of should be doing about it. Helen Tupper and...

Pre-order Disconnected At this time of year I find myself listening to more podcasts I’ve released two episodes this week. One is a truly brilliant discussion about how simple decisions can transform workplace culture. And the second is not really about workplace culture but is a stimulating reflection on the way we’re living . A couple of years ago I loved Jia tolentino’s Trick Mirror which was a...

How did thinking about workplace culture increase the profitability of firms? I was doing some thinking for some businesses over the last few weeks and the work of one person sprung to mind. Zeynep Ton is a professor of operation management at MIT Sloan School of Management. She found herself looking at the challenges that some businesses had with high employee turnover.  They were losing a l...

Over the last few weeks the newsletters that have achieved the most resonance were related to having a friend at work . For many of us our favourite jobs were enhanced by having a desk buddy - or a group of friends we could laugh with. But for many people their experience of work is increasingly lonely - maybe they had friends when they were in the office but that experience has transformed in the...

What can we learn about what is going to happen next with work by chatting to the leaders of the sector that supplies our workplaces? You might think very little. There’s certainly no shortage of people in the commercial property sector who have been intent on suggesting that we need to go back to the rat race of all office/all the time. But in that space there are some visionaries who are helping...

Oliver Burkeman was a productivity geek. He was the guy trying to get it all done. He was that person, convinced he could optimise living to get the most out of life, writing about it in a wry, detached way in a Guardian column. In this episode we talk about his pursuit of elite productivity - but also what it taught him about the ultimate goal of managing one's time. A truly brilliant discussion....

Sign up for the newsletter Over the last few weeks I've been intrigued with the firms who have chosen to bite the bullet and ditch their office. What are their philosophies about getting colleagues together in person? How do they think about recruiting? What software tools do they use? What made them make the leap? First up I talked to Camilla Boyer who plays a leading role at making the culture a...