Squiggly Careers

Meetings consume our hours and our energy at work, so we want to make sure they also increase our impact! This week, Helen and Sarah talk about practical ideas to increase the value of time spent in meetings for you and your team. They explore how questions create better agendas, how shorter meetings can force clarity and debate whether doing in the moment is better than accumulating actions throu...

In this week’s episode, Helen and Sarah discuss how data can support your career development. From strengths and values, through to possibilities and learning they suggest practical ways to improve your self-awareness by taking simple actions. More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 1.Sign up for PodMail, a weekly summary of the latest squiggly career tools: https://bit.ly/sc-podmail 2.Sign up...

This week, Helen and Sarah are talking about what it takes to stay organised. They discuss the difference between self-organisation and team organisation and how the two things need to work together if you're going to stick with your systems! They share things that have worked well for them and areas they are still working on and give lots of practical ideas to try out. More ways to learn about Sq...

How to present an idea so it makes sense to other people, and has the best possible chance to shine and stick. This week Helen and Sarah explore some different strategies for presenting ideas at work. Whether it's a small idea to improve a process or a big idea to do something differently, how we share our ideas makes a difference to their impact. They discuss practical tips to help you to share i...

Interviews open us up to new positions and projects but without practice, they can feel quite difficult to do. This week Helen and Sarah talk about their top tips for interviews to help you be at your best. They share practical ideas on how to prepare and show up with confidence in the conversation. More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 1.Sign up for PodMail, a weekly summary of the latest sq...

This week Sarah and Helen are talking about how to cage your confidence gremlins - the beliefs that hold us back. Together they talk about common gremlins that can mean we stall or get stuck in our careers and some of the 'foods' (people, past and places) that grow our gremlins. They share 3 ideas for how you can cage your gremlins so you can explore your potential and possibilities in a squiggly...

This week, Helen and Sarah explore how to spot the red flags that get in the way of your career success. They discuss short and specific ideas for action for 5 common career red flags including 'directionless development', 'enmeshment', and 'busy burnout'. Spotting and solving your red flags can help you get unstuck and navigate your squiggly career with clarity and confidence. More ways to learn...

In this weeks Ask the Expert episode Sarah talks to author and adjunct professor at Columbia Business School, Cheryl Strauss Einhorn about problem solving and how to make smart decisions. Sarah and Cheryl talk about 5 different problem-solver profiles and how these profiles provide useful perspective for improving your decision making skills. Together, they also discuss the importance of self-awar...

This week, Helen and Sarah are deep diving into the world of deliberate practice to explore how it can apply to what we do at work. Together, they talk about the process of deliberate practice and use their own examples to bring it to life. If you want to make your learning more intentional and your career development efforts have more impact, this week's episode should be a useful listen for you!...

In squiggly careers, if we want to be at our best at work, we need to punctuate our days with pauses. This week, Helen and Sarah talk about how adding long or short pauses into your day can help to increase your performance and productivity. From playing around with pauses in meetings to reflecting on your levels of 'space and speed', they discuss ideas for action that can prevent sameness and hel...

This week, Helen and Sarah are tackling a topic that's close to home. Having worked together for over 10 years, Helen and Sarah have learnt to bring their opposite profiles together to increase the impact of their work. It might not always have been easy, but over time they have learnt how much more effective they are when they bring the best of their introvert and extrovert tendencies together. L...

Starting from scratch is an important skill in a squiggly career and the more we use our ability, the better we get! This week, Helen and Sarah share 3 ideas for action to help you to find more ways to start from scratch and to feel confident doing it. They talk through the importance of taking an MVP approach, Scratch Stacking and Smart Copying. More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 1. Sign...

Whilst the idea of a brand new role can be appealing, the reality for most of us is that we are more likely to stay in our current job than leave to do something different. However, staying does not have to mean stagnating and this week, Helen and Sarah talk about how you can grow your role. They share 3 tried and tested actions that can help you to increase your opportunities and the variety of w...

This week Sarah talks to futurist, speaker and author April Rinne. Together they discuss what we need to unlearn and relearn to get better at navigating change in our squiggly careers, skills you can develop to support you during career change and practical ideas for action when creating a portfolio approach to careers. Find out more about April's work here: https://aprilrinne.com/ More ways to le...

This week, Helen and Sarah use reflection questions to discuss their impact and insights from the year. If you're a regular listener, you'll hear what happens behind-the-squiggly-scenes and if you're new, you'll get some coaching questions to end your year with and set 2024 up for success. Download the podsheet with the questions at www.amazingif.com and read Helen and Sarah's latest Harvard Busin...

This week, Helen talks to musician and author James Sills about how singing can be used to create connection in teams. Together they explore the insights in James' book 'Do Sing' and his experiences of working with teams all over the world. As part of Amazing If's 'teach a team to sing' campaign, at the end of the episode you'll also hear a squiggly sing-a-long with the Sales team at Cochlear. Mor...

This week, Helen and Sarah explore what to do when guilt is getting in your way. They discuss the four types of guilt, moving from your 'shoulds' to your strengths, understanding circles of control, influence, and concern and lots more practical ideas for action to transform your relationship with guilt. All of the actions are summarised in this week's PodSheet - head to https://www.amazingif.com/...

This week, Helen and Sarah are focusing on the quick things you can do to invest in your career development. If you want to accelerate your learning, rapidly increase your impact, boost your career community and get some fast feedback, this episode has got lots of ideas to help! All of the actions are summarised in this week's PodSheet - head to https://www.amazingif.com/listen/ to download. More...

This week, Helen and Sarah talk about the biases that can hold your career development back. They explore the issues that affinity bias, confirmation bias and recency bias can cause, sharing their own experiences of these at work. They then talk about how to increase your awareness of these biases and what actions you can take if you think they may be getting in your way. There are lots of useful...

his week Sarah talks to Harvard Professor Amy Edmondson to explore the concept of intelligent failure. Together they discuss why not all failure is born equal, why some types of failure are how we make progress and the importance of learning over knowing. To dive deeper into Amy's work we'd recommend reading her new book Right Kind of Wrong - the science of failing well (her other book, The Fearle...

This week, Helen and Sarah are talking about strategic thinking - what it means, why it matters and how you can develop the skill at work. They discuss some useful strategic questions that you can apply to your career and some tried and tested frameworks that can help you zoom out and structure your thinking. To read the PodSheet that goes with this episode head to https://www.amazingif.com/listen...

This week, Helen and Sarah talk about the importance of creating clarity at work and the techniques and tactics you can practice to do it. They discuss how to use clarifying questions and the role of a clarity co-pilot to reduce confusion in conversations and communications. More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 1.Sign up for our Squiggly Careers Skills Sprint: https://bit.ly/scskills-sprint...

It's a special episode this week, recorded at Squiggly Careers Live on October 17th. In this recording, you'll hear Helen and Sarah talk to Anna Whitehouse (aka Mother Pukka), Lucy Aylen (Founder of Never Fully Dressed) and Peter Komolafe (financial expert). Together they discuss how to build communities, the things which drain and drives you and your how your mindset influences your approach to f...

This week, Helen and Sarah talk about the factors that contribute to a high performing team. They dive into Patrick Lencioni's work on the Five Dysfunctions of a Team and share ideas for action to help you address common issues that impact teams. If you feel like your team would be 'even better if.....', this episode will be a useful listen. More ways to learn about Squiggly Careers: 1.Sign up for...

This week Helen and Sarah talk about pressure and the tipping point between productive pressure and pressure that negatively affects your performance. They discuss how different types of pressure (anticipated and unanticipated) and your sense of control of a situation (high and low) affect the most useful response you can take. They share their own high pressure moments and different ideas for act...