Join 100,000 other workplace culture enthusiasts by signing up for the Make Work Better newsletter Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education. Get in touch with Bruce What do your typos say about you? What's the right medium to build connection with your colleagues? How did Shopify and Netflix reinvent their communication? How can any of us navigate a bulging calendar and overloaded inbox? Professor Andrew Brodsky gives...
Jan 23, 2025•35 min•Ep 201•Transcript available on Metacast Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education. Sign up for the newsletter Today's episode is an Avengers Assembled of podcasts about work. I join host Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis from the Squiggly Careers podcast, as well as Isabel Berwick from the FT's Working It and Jimmy McCloughlin from Jimmy's Jobs. We talk AI, asking payrises, RTO and much more. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrepeat . Hosted...
Jan 08, 2025•40 min•Ep 200•Transcript available on Metacast Michael Morris's book Tribal covers the codes that bond humans together. It has been shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award 2024. It came runner-up to 'Supremacy' by Parmy Olson. He explains that humans are inspired by peer codes, human codes and ancestor codes when it comes to their behaviour - and he gives plenty of insight of how we could build more tightly bonded groups in our own teams. Make Work Better: Resisting the Enshittification of Work in 2024 Become a me...
Dec 06, 2024•42 min•Ep 199•Transcript available on Metacast Everywhere we look we see someone who is outraged - and plenty of that anger makes its way to the workplace. The last time President Trump was in power it led to employees becoming more active - who knows if the same will happen in 2025. Karthik Ramanna talks us through the way to deal with outrage - and the actions that any leader can take to make the workplace a better place. His new book is out now. More about the Edelman Trust index Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrep...
Nov 26, 2024•40 min•Ep 198•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the newsletter Tiffany Gaskell outlines coaching as a route to transformational leadership Tiffany Gaskell is the co-author of Coaching for Performance , the top-selling guide to coaching first published by Sir John Whitmore the inventor of the discipline. It's curious to consider that there was a founder of coaching, and Tiffany takes me through the history of the practice, how it took hold and where it is today. There's a key consideration about the modern manager given to us by th...
Nov 14, 2024•36 min•Ep 197•Transcript available on Metacast Subscribe to the free Make Work Better newsletter Brigid Schulte is a journalist and writer who brings a reporter's ear for stories to her exploration of modern work. Over the course of a decade Schulte has talked to people about the impact their jobs has on their lives - and has explored any hope that we might be able to make this better. Her new book, Over Work and paints a hopeful image of how we might fix the toxic elements of our jobs. One of the examples is about Intel, who in 2013 experim...
Nov 05, 2024•35 min•Ep 196•Transcript available on Metacast Colin Ellis is a consultant and author who spends his time working with organisations to improve their culture. He's turned his attention to why some companies go bad in a new book Detox Your Culture . He talked me through what has gone wrong at the likes of ITV's This Morning, the CBI, The Ellen Show and Boeing. Sign up for the newsletter Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrepeat . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Oct 10, 2024•41 min•Ep 195•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the newsletter How can any of us build a more effective team? Owen Eastwood is one of the world’s most in demand performance coaches, with a focus on team culture & leading. Owen has worked with some of the most successful sporting sides in the world. He also works with corporate teams wrestling with similar themes. Last year I talked to Owen about his work on belonging and identity but I wanted to pick his brains on the biggest challenge for modern leaders - how to build a stronger ...
Sep 25, 2024•44 min•Ep 194•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the Make Work Better newsletter How important is a happy workforce? According to Mark Price, the former boss of Waitrose, it's the main thing that leaders should be thinking about. Make your workforce happy and the profits will follow. Mark's new book is Happy Economics . To prove it Mark cites his experience running the supermarket chain, when with a goal of workers happiness he made it the fastest-growing, most profitable supermarket in the UK. The original purpose of the John Lewi...
Sep 11, 2024•54 min•Ep 193•Transcript available on Metacast This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office You might think an episode about improv comedy might be a stretch for a podcast about making work better. But in fact as Kelly Leonard explains today the skills of improv comedy are the most important ones that will determine our success at work. Kelly helps to run Second City , the world's famous famous improv comedy club - he believes that improv skills can teach us about wha...
May 16, 2024•44 min•Transcript available on Metacast This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office In the 2000s a book calle d Fish! A remarkable way to boost morale and improve results became a bestseller. A small book, it was often used by companies accompanying a video of the same name. Together the two told a story of the culture of the fish market in Seattle, a noisy, bombastic place, but a place that was filled with joy. I first encountered Fish when a firm came to pitch to ...
May 16, 2024•25 min•Ep 191•Transcript available on Metacast This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office This is the second episode about rituals - the first one is next to it in the podcast feed, it's an interview with Kursat Ozenc about how rituals can be used to create culture. This episode goes into real life examples. Claudia Wallace talks about Crisp Thursday (Connection) Andy Puleston talks about Pizza Meetings (Connection) and Leaving Speeches (Change) Dan Pink talks about Frida...
May 10, 2024•32 min•Ep 190•Transcript available on Metacast This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office Kursat Ozenc is a product designer who he teaches at Stanford university, He teaches on the subject that we can all learn from which is the idea that culture can be designed. The specific tool he uses to design culture is the creation of workplace rituals. Kursat's Substack newsletter Kursat's first book is here and the second, on virtual meetings is here. The reading list for ...
May 10, 2024•35 min•Ep 189•Transcript available on Metacast Flow is the state of being in which people become so immersed in the joy of their work or activity “that nothing else seems to matter.” Presence is to be in a flow state of connection with others. Here’s the last discussion about the Happiness Track Sign up for the newsletter Emma’s new book Sovereign HBR: The Best Leaders Have a Contagious Positive Energy HBR: Proof That Positive Work Cultures Are More Productive Today is the first of series of podcasts about an idea that needs more consid...
Apr 24, 2024•39 min•Ep 188•Transcript available on Metacast To receive the newsletter and the forthcoming Presence project sign-up here Today’s top episode goes to the heart of an issue that a lot of people raise with me. They say ‘where do you start when changing a culture’. To some extent it’s what the episode about the hospital trust in Barking was about, going in and changing the culture of a huge organisation. I saw one of today’s guests Darren Ashby speak at an event - talking through the specifics of how his company Business Four Zero tried to cha...
Apr 16, 2024•52 min•Ep 187•Transcript available on Metacast Isabel Berwick is a writer and podcaster who focusses on the evolving state of modern work. I’ve celebrated her podcast Working It many times here ( here’s her specials on the 4-day week for example , or her special on meeting-free days was essential listening ). I love its ability to react rapidly to the biggest news stories of the moment and to drop a snackable episode midweek. I talked to her about her opinions on modern work, going deep on the rapidly changing world of employment and where w...
Apr 09, 2024•38 min•Ep 186•Transcript available on Metacast How should most of us think about the differences between Employee Experience and Employee Engagement. I first spoke to Emma Bridger, who is the author of a well respected book on this topic and the founder of the EX Space , a learning community focussed on raising the bar in the Employee Experience field. Then I picked the brains of Melanie Wheeler who leads People Communications at Sutherland, a firm widely recommended to me as outstanding in Employee Experience. Get in touch Sign up for the n...
Mar 27, 2024•33 min•Ep 185•Transcript available on Metacast Charles Duhigg’s bestseller The Power of Habit was the definitive guide to building and sustaining successful habits. His new book, Supercommunicators , grapples with the knotty topic of creating successful interactions with others. It’s a thorough and dazzling read that has many applications for the way we work (and how we live our lives). We talked about: the single biggest thing that builds psychological safet y why moving conversation out of small talk into deep discussion proves more satisf...
Mar 07, 2024•41 min•Ep 184•Transcript available on Metacast Many of us have worked in environments that provided bonuses or rewards for success. Maybe they took the form of team rewards or individual incentives, or end of year profit-share schemes. But do these rewards achieve what they are designed to? Professor Uri Gneezy is the world's foremost expert on the science of incentives - and he comes with a huge warning about what such schemes actually achieve. Eat Sleep Work Repeat is today hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen Scott and Matthew Cook . Sign up t...
Feb 21, 2024•53 min•Ep 183•Transcript available on Metacast This week's Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen C Scott and Matthew Cook . Roll up roll up as this week we talk the major trends in work and workplace culture and the big stories of the last month. Including: Wellness programs don’t work - in TikTok form , or in Matt’s post on LinkedIn Research from Oxford University looking at the (in)effectiveness of workplace wellbeing interventions at an individual level Chronoworking Gymclassgate Ellen on Gen Z workers Fewer and ...
Feb 06, 2024•45 min•Ep 182•Transcript available on Metacast I was flattered to be invited to visit the NHS trust of Barking, Havering and Redbridge last year. I spent an afternoon meeting the team and seeing the place in action. It was an inspiring question that CEO Matthew Trainer was asking: 'can we improve the results by making it a better culture?' What does that look like? And how is going for them? Matthew Trainer's CEO note at the end of 2023 Video: Inside the Trust Fill in the form: Consider my firm for a future podcast Become a member at https:/...
Jan 29, 2024•57 min•Ep 181•Transcript available on Metacast We often overlook the fact that trust is the basis for all good culture. I called out some of the remarkable data on this in the Work In 2024 deck. In Slack’s August 2023 survey of over 10,000 global office workers, trust was the top determinant of employees’ productivity scores. Employees who felt trusted were 2X as productive as those who didn’t. They were 30% more likely to put in extra effort at their jobs. If we don’t feel trusted we’re twice as likely to say we’re looking for a n...
Jan 17, 2024•42 min•Ep 180•Transcript available on Metacast The role of managers are pivotal in our working lives but most managers aren't trained or prepared for the responsibilities that they are given. When we look at the research from Gallup about burnout and why people hate their jobs managers are regarded as having the biggest responsibility. Half of people who say they don't rate their manager say they are looking for jobs. So what can we do to make our relationship with our managers better? I chatted to Anthony Painter from CMI. Download the Work...
Jan 10, 2024•32 min•Ep 179•Transcript available on Metacast Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen Scott and Matthew Cook . Sign up to the newsletter We talk through the hottest topics in work: New research says that bosses think going part-time signals the end of career ambition Radio 5 Live's Nihal Arthanayake says he feels alienated as the only brown face in a sea of white at his workplace Bill Gates advocates for the three-day week but doesn't detail who he thinks is going to pay for it Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/ea...
Dec 12, 2023•36 min•Ep 178•Transcript available on Metacast Professor Frances Frei is the biggest brain in the field of workplace culture and I was delighted to get another opportunity to talk to her. She explains the one thing that firms should do to fix their cultures (spoiler: train their managers), why she thinks inclusion is a more important element of culture than just diversity. The previous episode with Frances Frei Frances and Anne’s podcast Fixable Frances’ and Anne Morriss’ new book Move Fast and Fix Things Sign up for the newsletter Qu...
Nov 07, 2023•40 min•Ep 177•Transcript available on Metacast Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen Scott and Matthew Cook . Sign up to the newsletter Is toxic culture driving your team away? If you’re someone whose job it is think about culture, or maybe you’re a boss who has tried to communicate values to your team then today’s episode is an essential listen. Donald Sull and Charlie Sull are a father and son research team who have discovered extraordinary insights into values and what they look like in the real world. Here are some art...
Nov 02, 2023•41 min•Ep 176•Transcript available on Metacast Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen Scott and Matthew Cook . Sign up to the newsletter This week we go deep on the latest news about work. ITV tell staff to declare ‘friendships’ Moderation staff at Facebook are suing over PTSD BBC staff given help for stress levels 'We Had To Remove This Post' - brilliant novella by Hanna Bervoets Oobah Butler ’s Amazon show on Channel 4 Reddit anti work Reddit r/LateStageCapitalism Matt’s final comment about having orgasms to boost product...
Oct 24, 2023•42 min•Ep 175•Transcript available on Metacast Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen C Scott and Matthew Cook . Sign up to the newsletter This week we go deep on the latest news about work. We discuss: Two thirds of bosses expect a return to the office by 2036 KPMG CEO survey David Foster Wallace - This is Water commencement speech Shonda Rhimes “Whenever you see me somewhere succeeding in one area of my life, that almost certainly means I am failing in another area of my life” 80% of remote workers claim to have two jobs ...
Oct 17, 2023•41 min•Ep 174•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the newsletter What Ange Postecoglou changed at Spurs in his first 100 days: ‘The mood has been transformed’ Charlie writes about the oratory of Ange Postecoglou Last week I read something wonderful about the culture of Tottenham Hotspur, I contacted the writer and it felt like it was worth putting out quickly. We’ve got a couple of podcast recorded with Matt and Ellen so we’ll be back for a fuller episode next week. Ange Postecoglou has been the manager of Spurs, Tottenham Hotspur, ...
Oct 05, 2023•34 min•Ep 173•Transcript available on Metacast Eat Sleep Work Repeat is hosted by Bruce Daisley , Ellen C Scott and Matthew Cook . Ellen is away this week - we were working hard to squeeze an elite guest in. Amy Edmondson is the most renowned organisational psychologist in the world. In other words she's looked to more than anyone else for the answers of how to fix work. In this in depth discussion she talks us through what she understands by psychological safety, how any of us can create it and what she believes the best team structure is t...
Sep 29, 2023•46 min•Ep 172•Transcript available on Metacast 
