Eat Sleep Work Repeat

Professor Adam Grant is the most important business writer in the world - a man who says his study is focussing on how to make work suck less. Adam is author of books like Give and Take, Option B, Originals, he's also the host of a chart topping podcast on work culture called Work Life with TED. Adam Grant has been Wharton’s top-rated professor for seven straight years - his books have told over a million copies . Give and Take examines why helping others drives our success. Originals explores how individuals champion new ideas and leaders fight groupthink; Option B, with Sheryl Sandberg, is a #1 bestseller on facing adversity and building resilience. For more about Bridgwater read here http://uk.businessinsider.com/bridgewater-ranked-employees-by-performance-2018-3 The full episode is live on the website: eatsleepworkrepeat.fm Pre order The Joy of Work  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Around 12 months ago myself and Sue Todd created the new work manifesto. It was an attempt to start the debate about simple things that we can change. You can find it on the podcast website eatsleepworkrepeat.fm. It's had a briliant response, research companies have asked to help validate it, different professions like doctors and police have been in touch asking if they can adapt it for their working. Lots of companies have told me they've been trying it out with their teams. One person contacted me and offered to share the experience and learnings of the New Work Manifesto in their team. And that was Tom Kegode. I went down one lunch time a few weeks ago to meet Tom and his team at Lloyds Bank Group. Tom is an innovations programme manager who has helped share the new work manifesto across LBG. You're going to hear discussion of various parts of the manifesto and the way that people at Lloyds are trying to make work more positive and enjoyable. Round the table were Lloyds employees Sam, Kate, Miranda, Verica, Ben, Jess, Heather, Shirley, Alastair, Dave and of course Tom himself. If you're interested in using the New Work Manifesto it all on the website, it's not copyright. Use it, change it, remix it, edit it but whatever you do please hit me on linked in or via twitter to tell me how you got on. This is the last in the series. I'll be back after the summer with a stellar list of the people who have done the best research on work, laughter, philosophy and workplace creativity. if you want to hear those episodes you're best subscribing via your podcast app. I appreciate you listening. Please do get in touch.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Two practical case studies this week. Businesses who have pulled back the curtain to show how they brought Purpose and Autonomy to life. Brilliant examples of companies trying new things and having success from them. Rachel Bremer is the Communications Director at ASOS. She talks about how they re-energised 4000 young, ambitious employees to keep the business on an incredible growth path. Laurie Young is the Development Director of Thoughtbot. He explains that they made one change that allowed them to get 5 days work done in 4 days - and what happened next.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

I've wanted to do an episode on mental health for months. But to be honest I've felt really conscious of messing it up. I ended up chatting to the best journalist who writes about it and she suggested that we talk about it. Emily Reynolds is one of the sharpest writers in the UK, writing for publications like Vice, Wired, The Guardian, Stylist. Incidentally she also writes about mental health. Her book 'A Beginner's Guide to Losing Your Mind' is a very readable take on the realities of all sorts of mental health conditions. We talk about how MH impacts those who experience it, how people around them should take account and far more. Also along the way we discuss Emily's blog post 'An Incomplete List of All of the Men In The Media Who Have Wronged Me' which got consumed in the #MeToo movement. Follow her on the internet.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Lots of listeners have been hitting up my LinkedIn saying how can we make work better if we don't have a full-time permanent job. Emma Gannon might have the answer to their needs. Emma is a podcaster, writer, broadcaster, blogger... in fact she's the perfect example of the freelance, multi-hyphenate lives that more of us are living in 2018. A She describes how we can build careers out of freelance living and side hustles. How sometimes we can inspire ourselves and our own creativity with the things we do when we're not doing our main jobs. Emma's podcast, Ctrl Alt Del is a phenom and her new book The Multi-Hyphen Method is out now.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Quite a brainy episode today. Dr Richard Claydon is a someone who likes to question why we claim things - he's a natural challenger. He describes himself as a Transdisciplinary Behavioural Scientist and Ironist.   He writes some interesting (if a bit too long) things on Linked In that a few people sent to me. We had a brilliant chat for well over an hour but i've tried to edit it into something enlightening and digestible.   Richard says something that I've been thinking a lot. We shouldn't be worrying about company culture. Office culture or more probably team culture is the most important thing for us to be focussing on. Richard runs a company called Organisational Misbehaviourist   We talk about how the ideas of strategy and culture have an ongoing battle in business circles. In the 1980s and 90s there was a lot of talk about work culture - he explains that this was because the Japanese businesses that were idolised tended to seem to have a good culture.   Here's why I find academics have such a valuable contribution to this debate. Richard talks about the work of Professor Joanne Martin from Stanford University who spent time looking at whether you could observe a single culture in organisations. And the answer was you never could. Company culture is a nice story we tell ourselves but it's an illusion. When it's most aggressively implemented it leads to people pretending to go along with it with ironic attachment. What a fascinating idea   we talk about Project Aristotle which is a massive piece of work that Google did that looked at the best performing teams. The finding of that work was that the secret of good teams was psychological safety - people feeling comfortable in speaking up with no fear of punishment. Where people could be their complete selves.. This finding drew on the findings of Amy Edmondson - if you're interested in these things here's:   A TED talk by Amy Edmondson   Read more about Google's Project Aristotle here  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

James Doty is a neuroscientist who has spent his career trying to demystify the power of the brain. He's a Clinical Professor of neurosurgery at Stanford University and founder and director of the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education. If you watch his TED Talk you're going to fall in love with James, a gentle thoughtful guy. He is the New York Times bestselling author of Into the Magic Shop: A Neurosurgeon's Quest to Discover the Mysteries of the Brain and the Secrets of the Heart.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sir Cary Cooper is a psychologist - 50th Anniversary Professor of Organisational Psychology and Health at the Manchester Business School, University of Manchester. He founded Robertson Cooper - a business which is collection of psychologists and wellbeing experts intent on helping people have a good day at work. Everyone I've met there is just brilliantly inspiring too - which I guess shows good people hire good people he's a brilliant follow on Twitter too @ProfCaryCooper  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Sam Conniff Allende has spent his career building a youth marketing agency. Now he's concluded that the way to inspire younger workers is to channel the energy of the Golden Age of Piracy. In a fun discussion of pirates old and new Sam explains how the world would be a better place if we all tried to be a bit more pirate. Sam's book Be More Pirate is published on 3rd May 2018. You can follow him on Twitter @SamConniff and @BeMorePirate  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Dr Amanda Goodall is a Senior Lecturer in Management at Cass Business school. I don't normally do stuff on leaders. There's enough leader lit out there. So I actually came upon Dr Amanda Goodall's work when I was looking at something else. I encountered her work when I was reading about the effect of our bosses on us.  Bad bosses are the worst thing at work. Amanda's research says we'll ask twice as much money to work someone who we can't stand. It's way more important than anything else. When someone resigns they resign from an individual not a firm.  So then she asked in her research what makes a good manager. She found that statistically people who are the best at management are those who were actually best at the original job. She believes hospitals should be run by doctors. Companies that make tech products should be run by people who build tech products. Football teams should hire someone who was the best footballer.  You might think of exceptions and her widely cited work says your examples are outliers.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Who's Elvis round here? There was a time when answering that question would have earned you a nice cheque from the National Enquirer. The second part of a spotlight on Thought Leaders - the gurus who are challenging the status quo. Chris Barez-Brown is a best selling author, speaker and culture change consultant. …….He says: "We train businesses to manage change" As he describes, Chris provides immerse experiences to improve the culture of leadership teams. These things don't come cheaply - one company told me they'd spent over a million pounts Chris talks about something called 'talk it out' that is really interesting. I held this episode back because I was going to do a whole episode about the power of walking because a scientist called Marily Oprezzo who has done a paper on this - I may come back to Marily soon! Always feel free to connect to me on Linked In. Follow us on Twitter @EatSleepWkRpt  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Two episodes here listening to some of the people who are challenging, provoking and questioning the status quo. Tom Goodwin Exec VP at the media agency Zenith in New York. He's the head of innovation down there. But on the web is where Tom is a player. He is Linked In's number 1 influencer in the marketing field. That accolade will set you back 560,000 followers.  How did he end up there? Well Tom wrote a tweet (or series of tweets) that developed a life of their own. https://techcrunch.com/2015/03/03/in-the-age-of-disintermediation-the-battle-is-all-for-the-customer-interface/ Tom has responded to his internet renown with a new book Digital Darwinism - Survival of the Fittest in the Age of Business Disruption that's out now.   See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

A brilliant live discussion from Ad Week Europe on the scientific value of laughter - and how to bring it back to work. Featuring Professor Sophie Scott, broadcaster Geoff Lloyd and sitcom writer Paul Coleman. Hosted by Bruce Daisley and Sue Todd. All episodes are live at EatSleepWorkRepeat.fm. Please like and subscribe.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Inside the rituals of two happy businesses. Over the last couple of months a few people have come up to me to tell me stories about things their companies do. Firstly Andy Puleston - a Radio 1 alumni - came up to me and chatted to me about some of the things they did during the Andy Parfitt reinvention. Pizza meetings, heroic leaving speeches and lots of private offices filled with eclectic music and chat. I've let this run on because I found it fascinating. Ask me one time how I applied to get a job at Radio 1. Had an interview with Andy Parfitt and everything. Ah well. Secondly we talk to Claudia Newman - Head of New Business at Young and Rubicon. She tells me about Crisp Thursday and their Start the Week meeting. I loved this chat.  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

The Culture Code is the best book on work culture likely to be published this year. From Daniel Coyle author of the Talent Code, an international bestseller that cracked the formula of individual success. In the subsequent 5 years he's immersed himself in the best teams in the world - Navy SEALS, sports teams and some of the most creative companies in the world (including Pixar and IDEO). Now he's ready to share the remarkable output of his work. Coyle's book gives clear guidance of what anyone who runs a team or works in a team should do.   A full transcript is on the website: eatsleepworkrepeat.fm  See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.