Inventium's CEO Michelle Le Poidevin on our secret weapon for recruitment, being a remote CEO, and working a four day week

Today's guest is Michelle (Mish) Le Poidevin. Mish has been the CEO of leading behavioural science and innovation consultancy, Inventium (the consultancy I founded and still work in) since May 2019. Mish is passionate about creating the environment and structures for people to do their best work. She has led (and learnt from!) many of Inventium's pioneering people practices such as the move to a holocracy structure, unlimited annual leave, and most recently, the four day work week and the compilation of the Australian Financial Review Best Places to Work list. She has also led the strategic transformation of Inventium and the development of new digital business models. She holds an MBA specialising in innovation and technology from The University of New South Wales (AGSM) and has been successfully working remotely full-time since 2018.

This episode is like a behind-the-scenes look at how Inventium functions and the various experiments we have trialled over the years to make Inventium an awesome place to work.

We cover:

• Why Mish loves being a “remote” CEO
• How working remotely helps Mish think upstream
• Carving out time for creative and strategic thinking
• Inventium’s Four Day Week experiment
• How Mish has reduced the amount of Shallow Work in her life
• The benefits of having a Virtual Assistant
• Working to your chronotype
• How we managed staff redundancies via Zoom during COVID
• The importance of bringing back routines to work during a time of uncertainty
• Why we fired all our managers at Inventium
• Mish’s biggest learnings in running a holocracy
• Inventium’s secret weapon for recruitment
• How we use OKR’s for setting company and individual goals
• Why we deliberately link OKRs to pay rises
• How we can replace water cooler moments in the remote working world
• How the idea for the AFR Most Innovative Companies list came about
• Inventium’s latest project: the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list.

Nominate your company for the AFR BOSS Best Places to Work list.

Connect with Mish on Linkedin.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

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