Transform Your Workplace

What if the very success of your company is what eventually destroys it? Eric Ries, the mind behind the  Lean Startup movement, is back with a warning every founder, leader, and employee needs to hear. In his new book  Incorruptible: Why Good Companies Go Bad and How Great Companies Stay Great , Eric tackles the question he admits he failed to answer the first time around: once you build something...

What does it take to build a thriving, high-performance culture inside one of the fastest-growing tech companies in the world, without ever requiring a college degree to get in the door? Mandy Mekhail, Chief of Staff of People at ClickUp, went from teaching in a classroom to leading the people function at a 1,200-person global company, and her journey is anything but conventional. In this episode,...

If you think AI is just another productivity tool your business can bolt on to stay ahead, Shawn Busse has a wake-up call for you. In this riveting conversation, Brandon Laws sits down with Shawn Busse, founder of marketing firm Kinesis, keynote speaker, and one of the sharpest strategic thinkers in the business world, to unpack a truth that most leaders aren't ready to hear: AI isn't going to sav...

The labor market is unlike anything staffing veteran Krista DiGiacomo has seen in 24 years, and she's not mincing words about why. In this episode, Krista, franchise owner of Express Employment Professionals in Vancouver, Washington, joins host Brandon Laws to unpack the growing skills gap reshaping hiring today. From soft skills like punctuality and reliability, to hard skills like reading bluepr...

James Ferguson is back on the show to talk about his new book, Seek the Good and Celebrate, and the leadership framework that came out of 12 weeks of chemotherapy. He shares what it was like to lose his job, get a cancer diagnosis, and watch his wife go into early labor all in the same week, and how that experience rewired the way he shows up as a leader. We get into his CONFETTI model, the mindse...

Most companies don't think about employee mental health until something goes wrong and by then, it's already too late. In this episode, Brandon Laws sits down with Stephen Sokoler, founder and CEO of Journey and author of The Mental Health Advantage , to make the case for flipping that script entirely. Stephen shares his own transformative personal journey from a decade of rollercoaster habits to...

What if your company's biggest untapped competitive advantage isn't technology or talent, but well-being? In this episode, Brandon Laws sits down with Dr. Jennifer Posa, an organizational psychologist with 30 years of experience building well-being strategies inside some of the world's most demanding organizations, including Mayo Clinic, Johnson & Johnson, and the CIA. Jennifer shares her bold 202...

Only 21% of people globally are engaged at work. That number hasn't moved much despite years of attention, investment, and intervention. So what's going wrong? Aoife O'Brien is back on the show to talk about her new book, Thriving Talent, How Great Leaders Drive Performance, Engagement and Retention. After 20 years in corporate roles, a Master's in Organizational Behavior, and over 200 conversatio...

What if the employees struggling most in your workplace are actually detecting problems everyone else will eventually feel? Dr. Ludmila Praslova, organizational psychologist and author of The Canary Code, joins Brandon Laws to unpack why neurodivergent employees are often the first to feel workplace dysfunction and why that signal matters for everyone. From rethinking job postings and ditching "cu...

What if the secret to sustained business performance isn't strategy, efficiency, or even culture, but love? In this episode, renowned researcher and bestselling author Marcus Buckingham joins host Brandon Laws to discuss his new book Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business . Marcus makes a compelling, data-backed case that "love" isn't a soft concept. It's the most predi...

Most leaders get promoted because they're great at their job. But being great at your job and being a great leader are two very different things. In this episode, Brandon sits down with Margaret Andrews, leadership educator and author of Manage Yourself to Lead Others, to explore why self-understanding is the real foundation of effective leadership. Margaret shares stories from decades of working...

What happens when the labor shortage economists warned about finally arrives, AI reshapes entire industries overnight, and the economic outlook is anything but certain? Economist Dr. Bill Conerly joins Brandon Laws to break it all down. With over 1,400 speaking engagements and decades of experience advising business leaders, Bill brings a rare combination of sharp data analysis and plain-spoken cl...

In this eye-opening episode of Transform Your Workplace , host Brandon Laws sits down with Sarah Allen Benton , licensed mental health counselor, treatment program owner, and author of Understanding the High-Functioning Alcoholic: Breaking the Cycle and Finding Hope . Together, they unravel one of the most misunderstood issues affecting modern professionals and workplaces today: high‑functioning a...

What should you do when someone on your team is struggling? Most leaders default to jumping in and solving the problem. But that instinct, while well-meaning, can do more harm than good. In this episode, Brandon Laws sits down with Lacey Partipilo, VP of Client Success at Xenium HR, to talk about how leaders can uncover what's really getting in the way of their people's success. They dig into the...

In this compelling episode, Brandon Laws sits down with Sharon Gai , author of How to Do More with Less: Future-Proofing Yourself in an AI-Driven Economy . Sharon shares eye-opening stories—from witnessing AI compress weeks of work into seconds at Alibaba to her global perspective on how human roles are rapidly evolving. Together, they explore the widening gap between people who embrace AI and tho...

📋 Episode Description What happens when an HR director reaches her breaking point during a global pandemic — and decides to cope by making memes? For Jamie Jackson, it became a movement. With over 3 million combined followers across her Instagram channels Humorous Resources and Millennial Misery , Jamie has turned the unfiltered reality of workplace life into one of the most relatable communities...

Most leaders think delegation is about getting things off their plate. Brad Federman, author of Never Delegate Again , argues it's actually one of the most powerful — and most misused — tools for growing your people, your company, and yourself. In this episode, Brad joins host Brandon Laws to challenge the outdated models that have shaped how leaders hand off work, and introduces a new framework b...

What happens when the people leading your organization are silently falling apart — and no one has a system in place to help them? Psychologist and author Melissa Doman returns to Transform Your Workplace to pull back the curtain on one of the most overlooked conversations in the workplace: leadership mental health. In her new book Cornered Office: Why We Need to Talk About Leadership Mental Healt...

Most leaders say they value trust. It shows up in mission statements and team meetings. But when trust breaks down, few can explain why performance slows, collaboration frays, or innovation quietly disappears. Dr. Paul Zak doesn't treat trust as an abstraction. As a behavioral neuroscientist with over 25 years of research, he studies trust the same way an engineer studies load-bearing structures....

Most of us think burnout only hits people who hate their jobs. Psychologist and bestselling author Guy Winch says the opposite is true. In this episode, Guy joins Brandon to unpack the hidden ways work takes over our lives, from the autopilot trap and procrastination to evening rumination and self-neglect. Drawing from his new book,  Mind Over Grind: How to Break Free When Work Hijacks Your Life ,...

Are your meetings indistinguishable from 1940s wartime sabotage tactics? You're not alone. In this episode, Rebecca Hinds, author of Your Best Meeting Ever: Seven Principles for Designing Meetings That Get Things Done , reveals why corporate meetings have become the single most dysfunctional practice in modern organizations—and how to fix them. Brandon and Rebecca explore a radical idea: what if w...

Perfectionism can look like "high standards," but in real life it often turns into burnout, bottlenecks, and teams that overthink everything. In this episode, Brandon Laws sits down with Jason F. McClennan , author of  The Magic of Imperfection , to unpack his  three-quarter baked philosophy : a practical way to ship smarter, get better feedback, and unlock innovation without lowering the bar. Jas...

Brianne Mees, CEO of Tender Loving Empire, shares how a people-first background in psychology and social work shaped the culture of a retail brand built to champion artists, makers, and small businesses. Brianne walks through the company's growth from a scrappy early storefront to seven locations (including airport stores), the toughest leadership decisions during the pandemic, and why mission ali...

In this episode of Transform Your Workplace , Brandon Laws is joined by Nae Hakala, HR Business Partner at Xenium HR, for a thoughtful and practical conversation about leadership, empathy, and building workplaces that truly support people. Nae shares her career journey, from managing creative teams early in her career to supporting organizations through complex and often difficult people challenge...

Compensation is one of the most sensitive and misunderstood topics in the workplace, and one of the most consequential. In this episode, host  Brandon Laws  sits down with Nicole Blevins to unpack what compensation structure really means, why informal pay decisions stop working as organizations grow, and how leaders can approach pay with more clarity, fairness, and confidence. Nicole explains how...