The Mode/Switch

Hey there, and welcome to The Mode/Switch, which helps you do more than cope when work’s a lot. This week, Chuck Gose joins the pod to explain how more managerial communication can diminish trust--and how to reverse that formula and repair managerial credibility. When confusion arises on your team, nothing feels easier than the strategy of increasing the volume of your communication. Another 858-w...

Elaine Howard Ecklund & Denise Daniels join the Mode/Switch Pod to help managers engage the sacred as a source of strength on the job. (You'll also learn to avoid missteps!) Since the everything in the world feels so peaceful right now, let’s bring up an easy topic: religion at work . I know, I know. But if you’re feeling of missteps about what your people hold sacred, this podcast is for...

No topic has evoked more F bombs in my research than workplace spirituality. In the late 2010s, I interviewed dozens of organizational leaders about mindfulness in their working communities. I was looking for practical spirituality . I kept finding obscenity. To be fair, these leaders were mostly dismissing woo-woo stuff. When it came down to it, they were sympathetic with genuine spirituality at...

Lyle Wells joins the pod to talk about how you, as a mid-level leader, can speak clearly with your team, yes, but also how you can get an actual hearing with your higher-ups. That's a question that drives the Mode/Switch podcast: how can mid-level leaders be seen, heard, and known by their higher-ups? The latest Gallup workplace polling suggests that managers aren’t being seen by their higher-ups....

Suzanne Rabicoff joins our intergenerational roundtable with two perspective‑switches that ease the pressure mid‑level leaders feel when mistrust becomes their problem to solve. When Jenni Field’s book argues that Nobody Believes You , how do you respond? Do you, as a mid-level leader, immediately take all the blame? This week’s episode of the Mode/Switch Pod eases up that self-blame, especially i...

Emily Stewart (of Business Insider) joins our intergenerational roundtable to urge grace towards the Boomers who keep their jobs past what your Gen Zs feel is the expiration date. I recently had to grind the stump of a fallen tree and wondered about the longevity of a nearby conifer. The arborist said (a little surprisingly) that I should leave it be. That still-standing tree came to mind this wee...

Dr. Meryl Herr joins the Mode/Switch roundtable to look beneath worker disengagement to uncover the reality of "work hurt." Her advice to managers? Work has probably hurt your team. But it's hurt you, too. Deal with that first. Meryl is an organizational researcher and nonprofit consultant who’s skilled at locating the hidden disappointments, buried devastations, and quiet disillusio...

Jay Johnson joins the roundtable to help you cope with difficult people on the job. He's used to working with corporate execs who have lost their way. (You can connect with him here , btw.) But in our conversation, he’s talking to people in the middle of organizations, people triggered by their higher-ups as well as by their direct reports. Here are some of the things the team asked him about....

Dr. Lola Adeyemo joins the pod to help you, as a mid-level leader, re‑engage employees whose life experience beyond the workplace is radically different from your own. A tough fact of organizational leadership. You’re a caring mid-level leader, but your immigrant employees might still feel uneasy about you. If that suggestion pokes you a little bit, I invite you to be curious about the irritation...

Karen Sergeant joins the pod to discuss misplaced fears about AI. These new tools can be scary, sure. But they can also make leadership miscommunication utterly visible and surprisingly reparable. A tree falls at work…does it make a sound? The question is partially inspired by a personal story. My family’s front yard Norway Maple fell in a winter storm just before New Year’s. Thankfully, nobody wa...

How do you equip workplace "follower-ship" without turning it into an excuse for toxic leadership? That question gets teased our in this episode's intergenerational conversation on the Mode/Switch with Rabbi Elan Babchuck . He helps you see that, if you’re frustrated with your workplace leaders, you may need to strengthen your follower-ship by sharing brave feedback from other employ...

Jenni Fields joins the pod to show why workplace effectiveness depends on likability, not on being liked. (Our Gen Z and Boomer discuss the the up and downsides of riz.) Some years ago, a manager cautioned me about my performance. I took the warning seriously, because I’d made some mistakes that confirmed what I took to be his poor opinion of me. Maybe he gave me the caution because he was genuine...

What if the best way to improve workplace communication is to do less of it, at least for a while? Ross Chapman joins the pod to explain why new rhythms of rest can do what more messaging never will. Workplace miscommunication is expensive. According to one Axios report , “Employees lose over a month each year dealing with ineffective internal communication.” Not hard to imagine, right? You know w...

Falon Peters joins the pod to discuss how organizations not only wreak change but design it for flourishing. Our crew is open to her ideas but skeptical as well (and, ok, fatigued). Here's a lead-up to the show: When you jerk people around in a workplace—through layoffs and policy revisions, e.g.—you’re not just reshuffling columns on a spreadsheet. You’re intervening on a biota . Think of a b...

A heckuva lot of Gen Z folks are lying on their resumes these days. But then, 47% of Americans, according to a NORC-AP poll , are “not very” or “not at all” sure they secure a good job. In a job market like this one, lying’s not just a Gen Z thing. The Mode/Switchers—Ken the Boomer, David & Craig the Xers, Emily the Xennial, and Madeline the Z—agree on this at least: fibbing’s an intergenerati...

Karen Swallow Prior helps us Mode/Switchers engage career shock and organizational change with the wisdom of some permanent things. In the 90s, I thought that a career was a decently stable reality. In the 2020s, I no longer think that way. And I bet you don’t either. That vocational skepticism prompted our intergenerational team to ask Dr. Karen Swallow Prior , author of the new book You Have a C...

Angela Gorrell addresses decision fatigue on the pod this week. Listen to this episode to find your way back to gumption. You don’t have time for this podcast. You have 105 other emails just this morning, and you have 44 minutes till your next thing. (Make that 43 minutes.) But maybe you should skim it? Or maybe you should finalize this afternoon’s agenda? (Why did you schedule that meeting for 3:...

Hey there, and welcome to the Mode/Switch! This week, we make sense of Gallup’s ⁠shockingly low job disengagement numbers⁠ . It's tempting to ask, "Are people just lazy?" or "Are jobs just pointless?" But to improve worker engagement, we need better questions. Lee C. Camp of the celebrated ⁠No Small Endeavor⁠ podcast joins our roundtable this week to transform how we invest...

In the surging currents of generative AI, our work-culture team talks with Olajumoke Fatoki. She says the future of work is human. We have much questions. The world’s most powerful companies are pouring oceans of dollars into large language models and their data centers—and the rest of us tread water and hope for toeholds. I feel giddy, and I’m not alone. A recent BCG report notes that worker’s mo...

This episode discusses art in the intergenerational workplace. Our team found the topic extra interesting, because three of the four of us had just moved into blank new offices. Our big finding was that the art you hang on your walls can cost your workers cognitive wellbeing, especially if it's visually gaslighting. We learned that term from our guest Dr. Vasu Tolia, a former pediatric gastroe...

If not, you need more psych safety. Tom Geraghty joins our roundtable to show you how to create workplace conditions where interpersonal risk, bold laughter, and a good cry are all fully possible. Tom Geraghty spent the first four years of his life in silence. That experience of speaking disability led him to his now international work helping companies cultivate psychological safety, which is, as...

This week, executive coach Allison K. Williams joins the Mode/Switch Pod to help you discern how much of your private stuff it's okay to disclose at work. Can I start with a slightly boozy story? Yesterday I skipped lunch for a day too full of meetings to stick a fork in a salad. And then, at the day’s end, I joined my wife and a couple of friends for Detroit-styled cocktails. I can’t hold muc...

Psychotherapist Dana Skaggs joins our intergenerational pod to discuss the wisdom of boundaries in the workplace. Well hello there—and happy Tuesday! Welcome to the Mode/Switch Pod, a biweekly roundtable on work-culture questions. Our intergenerational team equips you to do more than cope when work’s a lot! This episode asks why boundary-setting’s so tricky , especially in the workplace. Do you wi...

Susan Collins joins the pod to find subtle cracks in leadership styles in today's intergenerational workplace. There’s a reason our podcast team’s intergenerational. Without multiple perspectives, you can’t make sense of the subtle patterns in today’s dynamic workplace. But sometimes the subtlest patterns are your own. Welcome to the Mode/Switch Pod, which comes out every other Tuesday to make...

What happens before the "change" isn't just a women's issue. Welcome to an intergenerational roundtable where we help you do more than cope when work’s a lot. If you’d rather not listen to this conversation in your email inbox, no problem: just whip out your phone and hit follow on The Mode/Switch Pod on Spotify or Apple Podcasts. And by “we,” this week I’m introducing…. Emily Bo...