Transforming Work with Sophie Wade

Neil Miller, host of The Digital Workplace podcast, has been working remotely almost all his working life. Early years working overseas fostered his understanding of different work approaches and habits. Neil has significant expertise leading distributed teams, utilizing digital tools, and incorporating effective asynchronous work methods and practices, especially to reduce the number and length o...

David Nour, CEO of the Nour Group, brings his extensive expertise on applications of strategic business relationships to the challenges of 2022's marketplace uncertainties and work conditions. As a senior leadership and board advisor, educator, executive coach, and prolific, best-selling author, David shares his insights about the importance of reciprocity, empathy, and the exchange of value to tr...

As we wrap up 2021, there is much that we can learn, benefit from, and use to our competitive advantage in preparing for 2022. Much has changed since the pandemic started and the recent past—how we operated and acted over the last twelve months—provides us with some of the only available insights into how things have changed and examples of what worked and didn't. Sophie discusses what we experien...

YuChiang Cheng is the Chief Product Officer of Zwift, an online global fitness platform for cyclists, runners, and triathletes. YuChiang has spent his career trying to understand how to create meaningful online and hybrid connections, communities, and experiences for customers. At Zwift, responsible for all aspects of the Customer Journey, YuChiang explains how they try to discover and satisfy the...

Mikael Sorensen, the CEO of Handelsbanken UK, discusses the multinational bank's decentralized management system with a human-centric culture and core beliefs that drive value creation—emphasizing customers first and then branch employees. Mikael shares how the bank empowers and encourages front-line employees to make decisions and the critical importance of trust. He also emphasizes the necessity...

Gena Cox , Founder and CEO of Feels Human, is an industrial/organizational psychologist with expertise in measuring and supporting inclusive behaviors. She works with companies to build inclusive organizational cultures. Gena has deep understanding about human dynamics in the workplace and the critical role leaders play. This episode is how to create engaging and inclusive employee experiences whi...

Matthias Hollwich , Founder of HKWN Architecture, has long focused on designing buildings that foster human connection and generate positive emotions and memories. He describes his vision for the office of the future designed to create a more human experience, recognizing the cadence of workers' emotions, tasks, and other needs during the course of their workdays. Matthias explains how these offic...

Lisa Morton, CEO of Roland Dransfield, founded her PR agency in Manchester, England, combining entrepreneurial spirit, Northern grit, purpose, and values to build her company and expand nationally and internationally. Lisa explains her intentional emphasis on purpose and living her values daily which has been core for attracting and retaining clients and employees, while guiding all their actions...

Jeremy Fleming, the Founder and CEO of Stagekings, discusses how he evolved and grew the Australian event and theater staging business after a necessary radical pivot at the beginning of the pandemic. Re-applying everyone's crafts' skills to design, develop, sell, and distribute innovative desks, they engaged new customers online and used feedback to help expand the product range. Jeremy also shar...

Laurel Farrer, Founder and CEO of Distribute Consulting—a virtual organizational development consulting firm, is well aware of the rewards of transitioning long-term to remote working, and the risks, especially with hybrid models. As a 15-year seasoned remote worker, Laurel has identified the key factors that are critical for success and benchmarking goals for healthy virtual organizations. She sh...

Ramon Ray, founder of SmartHustle.com, has been involved in the small business sector for over twenty years as a serial entrepreneur, podcast host, author, and expert advocating for small business success. As a vocal participant and active contributor, he helps small businesses adapt to new marketplace dynamics—from developing meaningful client relationships to motivating and supporting employees....

Sacha Connor—Founder and CEO of Virtual Work Insider—was a remote work pioneer for The Clorox Company. Sacha explains how she transitioned to working 3000 miles away from HQ for eight years and became the first fully remote member of the Leadership Team of a $1 billion division. Sacha shares how processes were reimagined, what issues arose, what solutions were developed, as well as surprising bene...

This episode is about using sophisticated traditional marketing techniques to transform employees' apathy and ambivalence into engagement and enable change initiatives to succeed. Neil Bedwell is a Founding Partner of LOCAL where he applies his extensive expertise in consumer marketing to internal corporate audiences to effect lasting change. The key is understanding how culture impacts new initia...

Paul Reid is the CEO and Founder of Trickle and a serial entrepreneur. He shares how his early employment experiences taught him to build trust-based, thriving cultures at his first two start-ups. Now, these learnings have been encoded into the software that powers his latest venture, Trickle. Trust—which is key for employee engagement, effective communication, and collaboration—is generally earne...

Laetitia Vitaud is an author and authority on the Future of Work and brings a European perspective with her experience living, lecturing, consulting, and doing research in France, the UK, and Germany. She has long been concerned about the unbundling of jobs and the impact on employees, especially women. In this episode, Laetitia shares her views on new employment dynamics and emerging options that...

Muriel Clauson brings a rich background in industrial and organizational psychology and psychometrics to the discussion about the importance of reorienting our employment focus from 'jobs' to 'skills'. As co-Founder of Anthill—which enables adaptive talent management with employee buy-in using talent-mapping software—Muriel explains how we can emphasize people and skills, since talent, not technol...

Matthew Bishop—author of Philanthrocapitalism, visiting senior fellow of the Brookings Institution and a founder of the Social Progress Initiative—discusses how we can begin to rethink, and reform, capitalism and better value all workers' contributions. As we plan to emerge from a period of extreme disruption, our economic framework needs to be reconfigured and the human capital of America assesse...

This episode Rob Tercek—author of Vaporized: Solid Strategies for Success in a Dematerialized World —discusses the reality of where we are, how to forecast appropriately, and plan strategically for 2021—understanding the opportunities and challenges. Rob poses questions to consider, identifies trends and advantages we can capture, as well as alerting us to dematerialization's impact and how to wor...

Simone Sloan—diversity and inclusion specialist, business strategist and leadership coach—discusses how to become an inclusive leader. Simone shares her own early discovery that leaders with transactional management styles cannot nurture the kind of inclusive community at work that they need to succeed and advance. Bolstering practice with study and research, Simone explains how to lean in and und...

Michael Ventura—Founder of Sub Rosa and author of Applied Empathy—discusses his process for integrating empathy practices in work environments. He recommends doing self-work first and attaining sufficient awareness to stimulate and present an empathetic self. For business situations, he emphasizes cognitive empathy which involves perspective-taking driven by inquiry, as well as identifying and unp...

Jeff Wald, founder and former CEO of WorkMarket, shares his data-rich perspective with authoritative clarity to discuss the evolution of the On-Demand Economy, including the impact of technology, regulation, and the pandemic on its future direction and potential. Jeff considers how new understanding about remote working affects opportunities for on-demand workers, what is the 'future of the firm',...

Karyn Twaronite, EY's Global Vice Chair of Diversity and Inclusiveness, explains the depth and breadth of diversity and how inclusiveness is at the core of a culture of belonging. She describes the importance of practicing empathy and being authentically and actively involved for nurturing these values. Karyn suggests what more we can all do to enable fully-supportive corporate environments.   Key...

Diversity and inclusion are best addressed with a multi-dimensional approach founded on empathy believes Siham Jaafar, President and CEO of 3D Consulting and Communications, whose training and consulting focuses on educational, law enforcement, and corporate audiences. Siham shares her perspectives and insights about how empathy-driven awareness increases our knowledge and decreases our fear of ea...

Mark Read, CEO of WPP, explains how strong cultural tenets help the organization connect with clients, support employees, and continue to innovate across the 100+ countries they operate in despite current circumstances. He emphasizes the importance of empathy for understanding evolving consumer behavior and workers' different situations, as well as for responding to the protests sparked by racial...

Jey Van-Sharp, Principal at MyÜberLife, is an expert on culture. Jey discusses our many cultures as fundamental expressions of how we understand the world and each other. He explains why we are experiencing cultural dissonance and discomfort right now and how to step outside our own cultural codes. Jey offers insights into how companies and brands can make important cultural shifts.   Key Takeaway...