How the Office Can Boost Energy with Benjamin Laker (S3:E6)

Do you hate meetings? Those 30 or 60 minute blocks of time that chew up your day can be frustrating. Some companies have gone so far as to try eliminating meetings completely. But sometimes those meetings make a valuable impact on your work. So we’re asking: When do meetings do more harm than good? Benjamin Laker is a Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School and since the pandemic has led research around the effectiveness of meetings and meeting-free work days. Benjamin studies the societal impact of leadership and is the author of Too Proud to Lead and Closing the Service Gap. We talked to Benjamin about his research on meetings, the four-day work week and his ideas about how to reframe the way we think about the workplace when most meetings are now hybrid. Additional resources: Learn more about Benjamin Laker’s research at Henley Business School https://www.henley.ac.uk/people/professor-benjamin-laker Read Benjamin Laker’s articles in Forbes https://www.forbes.com/sites/benjaminlaker/?sh=69e287233352 Get Benjamin Laker’s most recent book Closing the Service Gap https://www.amazon.com/Closing-Service-Gap-customers-organisations/dp/1292444355 Read insights about how to create more inclusive workplaces www.steelcase.com/WBmagazine Get the latest workplace design, insights and research: www.steelcase.com/subscribe Work Better podcast is hosted by Chris Congdon. Produced by Rebecca Charbauski. Creative art direction by Erin Ellison and Emily Cowdrey. Technical support by Mark Caswell and Jose Jimenez. Digital publishing by Areli Arellano and Jordan Marks. Editing and sound mixing by SoundPost Studios.