WARNING: INCLUDES THEMES OF SUICIDE AND DEPRESSION "I walked up and down Tottenham Court Road looking for a lorry to throw myself under" An episode going deep on mental health today. I chat to someone who has been brave enough to reveal their own breakdown and how they got to the verge of suicide. In a recent piece of research Deloitte surveyed 1000 UK employees, 55% say their colleagues are just as productive but 38% say that lockdown has had a negative impact on their wellbeing . Not long ago ...
Nov 23, 2020•1 hr 3 min•Ep 113•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the newsletter Today's episode is for anyone who is curious about how human's tick. Work ultimately is a practice of the brain and how our brain processes and reacts to things is a fascination to me. I have a friend who is studying neuroscience and a couple of years ago at someone's wedding I was chatting to him and said 'who should I be reading?' and he said the best voice in the field was a psychologist called Lisa Feldman Barrett . Sure enough I looked her up and her book How Emot...
Nov 16, 2020•49 min•Ep 112•Transcript available on Metacast What a truly wonderful conversation you're about to listen to today. Mo Gawdat is an expert on happiness and today's episode is a combination of philosophy and science - and it never fails to be stimulating to listen to every step of the way. This podcast used to be about happiness and work culture. And about 4 years I saw a captivating clip by Mo which went viral everywhere on the internet. I contacted him and finally here we are. Mo Gawdat was formerly the boss of Google X, the company's innov...
Nov 09, 2020•1 hr 4 min•Ep 111•Transcript available on Metacast "When I moved to New York City, I realised what it meant to be truly lonely for the first time. I had no consistent community — people who would wonder where I was if I didn’t show up. I was disconnected. At the time, I thought that I was the only one who felt this way… but I was VERY wrong.Turns out, loneliness is a huge issue in the United States. The average American only has one close friend, and 75% of people are not satisfied with their friendships". Jillian Richardson found that one of th...
Oct 19, 2020•50 min•Ep 110•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the newsletter. We're at part 3 of our series about community at work. Today's guest is one of the most respected community thinkers in the world, Casper ter Kuile , Fellow at the Harvard Divinity School and author of The Power of Ritual . His book is a practical guide to the way that communities come to life, not only is it practical it's also brilliantly written. I found myself annotating a lot of it and it's impossible not to learn from his wisdom on the topic. “Disconnection sour...
Oct 12, 2020•48 min•Ep 109•Transcript available on Metacast Today's episode is a further exploration of how firms will try to evolve their culture by hiring Community Managers. If you've not listened to last week's episode featuring Sarah Drinkwater pull up, back up and tuck in to that one first. Sarah said the person I should talk to is Abadesi Osunsade from Brandwatch - and so that's who we are talking to today. Abadesi's title is VP Global Community & Belonging at the 500 strong organisation. We talk about seeking to get better at Diversity & Inclusio...
Oct 05, 2020•44 min•Ep 108•Transcript available on Metacast Sign up for the Eat Sleep Work Repeat newsletter here. New podcast today - the first of four podcasts about what’s next with work - specifically how can we make work feel like a community again, especially when you’re hunkered down under the duvet trying to survive the November chill. Over the next few weeks I’m going to be chatting to some incredible guests. Today I kick off with Sarah Drinkwater who is a supreme community builder and now works for the Atomico fund. Some links to what we discus...
Sep 29, 2020•31 min•Ep 107•Transcript available on Metacast Can't Even can be ordered now AHP's original article in Buzzfeed AHP's newsletter is here Last year Anne Helen Petersen’s Buzzfeed article about burnout became a viral sensation, spawning a seemingly never-ending wave of ‘Year of Burnout’ headlines. Petersen’s writing triggered such recognition because she rooted it in the ordinary, in everyday experiences that were instantly relatable. She evoked her own life where industrious professional productivity (as a writer) was combined with a weary in...
Sep 10, 2020•43 min•Ep 106•Transcript available on Metacast Subscribe to the newsletter Today's interviewees: Bhushan Sethi leads PwC's workplace strategy business and Ben Waber is the CEO of workplace analytics firm, Humanyze. Read the Humanyze research about the way work has changed since lockdown. Here's the previous episode I recorded with Ben Waber. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrepeat . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Sep 07, 2020•26 min•Ep 105•Transcript available on Metacast I was fortunate to speak to Gary Hamel about his forthcoming new book, Humanocracy . He believes that the single most empowering (and profitable) thing that businesses can do is eliminate their creeping bureaucracy. He talks about how increasingly organisations are paralysed with red tape and bureaucracy. The end result is that they can’t get anything done. There are some clear examples of this from the recent past. He characterises the Microsoft era under Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer as b...
Aug 18, 2020•59 min•Ep 104•Transcript available on Metacast Subscribe to the newsletter What are other firms doing about returning to work? How can any of us work out the right thing to do? I chat to 4 more firms to hear their plans. Listen to conversations with Beth Marie Norbury from Babcock International, Tom Ellis from Brand Genetics, Richard from a big secret pharmaceuticals firm and Laura Pleasance from Captify. This is addition to Dan Cullen Shute last episode. Here's more on my survey I put out last week (from last week's newsletter) : We’ve alre...
Aug 14, 2020•32 min•Ep 103•Transcript available on Metacast Subscribe to the newsletter Here's Dan's tweets that started this conversation. Today's episode is first of two episodes about the big return to work. It covers themes that I've covered in the newsletter over the last few weeks. What are other firms doing? How will they make their decisions. Over the 2 episodes I've chatted to stacks of people to get their views. Firstly I talk to someone who went on the record describing his company's approach. Dan Cullen Shute is the boss of advertising agency...
Aug 11, 2020•43 min•Ep 102•Transcript available on Metacast "We think people want to be liked, but they need to be needed". A thoroughly stimulating discussion here - that I've allowed to run long because it's so interesting. I met a brilliant guy called Misha Byrne who worked for a company called NeuroPower . I was so taken with what he was talking about (applying neuroscience to work) that we arranged to meet up, and he brought Peter Burow , the founder of the company along. There's some wonderful stuff in this discussion: the important of Relatedness ...
Jul 07, 2020•55 min•Ep 101•Transcript available on Metacast "Tuesday and Thursday, see you there. BOOM!" A lot of us are starting to long for human contact again and the office feels like a happy place to be. But what does the office of the future look like? I chatted to the brilliant Antony Slumbers ( follow him on Twitter here ). Antony is regarded as a visionary thinker in the real estate market and runs a course for you to learn to be the same . Antony is incredibly incisive: "in the same way we realised we didn't need a shop to go shopping we've rea...
Jun 30, 2020•39 min•Ep 100•Transcript available on Metacast Firstly a conversation with David D'Souza the membership director of CIPD (incidentally is a fantastic Twitter follow). David talks about the choices available to firms right now: do we want to be famous for the new culture that we've created? or our actions going to be defined by reactive actions to bosses' whims? If you want to follow the Twitter list I mention you'll find it here . If you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.com Become a memb...
Jun 23, 2020•31 min•Ep 99•Transcript available on Metacast Subscribe to the Make Work Better mailout I'm so excited about what is in the next few episodes. This is a short series of episodes about what we're about to lose with the end of office culture, and how we can build something new. If you like this please do share it. Today's episode has two great interviews. Later I’m going to hear from the frontline how firms are changing their use of technology by chatting to Adrienne Gormley , Head of EMEA at Dropbox. The first conversation is with Dr Emma Co...
Jun 08, 2020•49 min•Ep 98•Transcript available on Metacast Subscribe to the Make Work Better mailout Subscribe to Your Table's Ready Podcast Varied episode today, firstly for Mental Health Awareness week, two members of West Midlands Fire Service talk about stress at work and when it's ok to say you're not ok. Then later in the show a brief discussion with April Vellacott and Jez Groom who give us a brief glimpse of how to use behavioural hacks to improve work. Buy their book Ripple here. Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrepeat . ...
May 21, 2020•54 min•Ep 97•Transcript available on Metacast If you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.com I've been chasing this conversation for over 2 years and I'm delighted today to talk to the world’s most sought after culture doctor: Frances Frei is the Red Adair of work culture problems. If something goes wrong at WeWork , Uber or Riot Games there’s one name you call… You’ll be thrilled to hear the brilliant, thoughtful interview Frances gives. She’s very clear answering: could Uber have kept Tr...
May 06, 2020•54 min•Ep 96•Transcript available on Metacast If you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.com Recorded live at Vidcon 2020 As we sit in a strange period of work, a slight distraction from the normal cycle with a discussion with two digital creators. Arron Crascall has almost certainly appeared in your feed on Facebook, Twitter or Instagram . He started using Vine when he was working at William Hill bookmakers and his content started to develop a bigger and bigger audience when he started us...
Apr 28, 2020•47 min•Ep 95•Transcript available on Metacast If you're interested in workplace culture you might like my newsletter makeworkbetter.substack.com This episode is about the power of diverse thinking. Our guest is the thinker, writer, commentator Matthew Syed . Matthew represented Great Britain in table tennis at the Barcelona and Sydney Olympics. He’s since gone on to the one of the biggest, most successful business writers in the UK with his books like Bounce in 2010, Black Box Thinking in 2015, a kid’s book You Are Awesome in 2018 and Rebel...
Apr 15, 2020•43 min•Ep 94•Transcript available on Metacast "Purpose is something that can be found but cannot be given" For this episode I talk with London Business School professor Dan Cable about what work is going to look like in the future as we contemplate the fall out of coronavirus and homeworking. Clearly a lot of firms aren't going to make it through this completely unprecedented situation and to some extent maybe these discussions might seem like first world problems. The intention is to help us understand how we can use this moment to make wo...
Mar 23, 2020•55 min•Ep 93•Transcript available on Metacast You can talk about this episode - and more - on our new forum. Well what a strange time we’re living through. I don’t what I can say that hasn’t already been said. So to some extent this episode is a distraction - something interesting to listen to from a profession that is always in our highest regard in times like this but too easily forgotten in easy times. Christie Watson is a trained nurse who spent 20 years working in hospitals across London. She’s an Incredible testament to never al...
Mar 19, 2020•44 min•Ep 92•Transcript available on Metacast Join tens of thousands of listeners by signing up for the newsletter now. Second episode on the 4 day week. We go deep with someone who made the 4 day leap, Andrew Barnes' firm Perpetual Guardian made the shift to 4 days. He explains why some workers never told their partners, why others felt it transformed their experience of work and he gives the clear way to make a 4 day experiment work at your work. If you're interested in going shorter one of the best ways seems to be to try a summer experi...
Mar 10, 2020•46 min•Ep 91•Transcript available on Metacast First of two new episodes on one theme. Until coronavirus swept the world the discussion of 2020 was about the future of work being based on working less to achieve more. There are two episodes on this today. Firstly former guest Alex Soojung Kim Pang talks about the research celebrating the benefits of working shorter (his book on the same subject came out this week). He spent the last 3 years going into firms that are using shorter working to build retention, productivity and creativity. He gi...
Mar 10, 2020•31 min•Ep 90•Transcript available on Metacast When the biggest company in the world slipped from its throne how did a new CEO try to rescue it using culture. What did Satya Nadella do? How did it succeed, how did it fail? What can any of us do to change our company culture? Download the PDF of the episode's lessons. This episode draws on the outstanding paper by Herminia Ibarra, Aneeta Rattan and Anna Johnston from London Business School. Here's the famous cartoon about Microsoft (vs other tech firms of the time) Become a member at https://...
Mar 03, 2020•43 min•Ep 89•Transcript available on Metacast "We used to think 'the medium is the message', now we know that the messenger is the message". Stephen Martin was the co-writer of one of my favourite books, Yes ! so I was thrilled when I saw he had a new book, Messengers . He agreed to come on and talk about both books. How important are superficial aspects like appearance in our credibility. What is the one thing that we should do to make people like us more? We discuss decision architecture, how any of us can influence others and the constit...
Feb 05, 2020•52 min•Ep 88•Transcript available on Metacast Here he is, the philosopher king. Alain de Botton is the man that wrote philosophy books that sold like airport thrillers. He's sold millions of books reflecting on life, work and happiness. We share a wonderful discussion about what role work can fulfil in our lives, where education is going wrong and how we can use psychology to help diagnose the challenges of our problem colleagues. Alain's two new books from The School of Life are How to Get on With Your Colleagues and How to Think More Effe...
Jan 29, 2020•53 min•Ep 87•Transcript available on Metacast Join tens of thousands of listeners by signing up for the newsletter now. Sarah Ellis and Helen Tupper are the creators of the Squiggly Careers podcast - and the authors of a brand new book, The Squiggly Career . If you're wondering what to do with your life Sarah and Helen might be the best person to help you find the right answers for you. This episode answers questions about what we should expect from our jobs - and the where happiness at work lives. Helen mentioned the values episode of thei...
Jan 13, 2020•48 min•Ep 86•Transcript available on Metacast Hot topic right now. Annie Auerbach talks about her way of working flexibly and explains how all of us could be living a life we love. Annie is the author of Flex . Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrepeat . Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information....
Dec 06, 2019•28 min•Ep 85•Transcript available on Metacast What's stopping you from you doing your best work ever? That's the question that Aaron Dignan (working at his culture consultancy, The Ready ) asks the companies he meets. Often the biggest barrier to us doing our best work is often our own attitude and mindset - and Dignan takes us step by step into his process. Aaron's book Brave New Work , is out now. Also mentioned in this episode: Johann Hari's TED Talk Become a member at https://plus.acast.com/s/eatsleepworkrepeat . Hosted on Acast. ...
Oct 28, 2019•44 min•Ep 84•Transcript available on Metacast 
