The Being Human Podcast with Richard Atherton

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ Late last year, my guest this week, Mark Creighton, CEO of Avado, listened to a proposal from his CTO to bring the Agile practices into his management team. Although a bit sceptical, Mark accepted the challenge. They shifted from a 90-minute weekly management team meeting to a daily stand-up, plus an end-of-week retrospective. This tweak to their practices had a significant impact on Mark's leadership style. It was also instrumental in their successful navigation of the COVID crisis. In this episode, we talk: - Agile for Management - Leading with vulnerability - Saving 50% of planned redundancies - What the COVID recovery should really mean Enjoy! To your humanity, Richard Links:  Avado's webiste

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ In this episode, we talk with Garland Vance, author of 'Gettin' (un)Busy' on: - The secret to purpose, productivity and peace - Elon Musk: examplar of un-busyness? - Transitions and batching - Taking a sabbath - Wisdom in business Enjoy! To your humanity, Richard Links: Garland's website

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ My guest this week, Csaba Toth arrived in the UK from Hungary in 2004 with enough money for a couple of nights in a hostel. After a stint in hospitality, Csaba co-created a highly successful table-booking start-up. But despite his academic training in personality differences, he was unable to resolve his issues the CEO, which ultimately led to him leaving the business. This spurred him to create Global DISC, a powerful assessment tool endorsed by John Mattone, coach to the late Steve Jobs. In this episode, we talk: - The difference between inclusion and diversity  - Why gender, age and ethnic diversity won’t necessarily drive company performance - The Global DISC approach and how it differs from other personality tests  - What we mean by cognitive diversity and why it matters - Why achieving inclusion can take intensive self-work and team development Enjoy! To your humanity, Richard Links: Global DISC

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ This episode's guest is Nick Bloom, a fellow Brit and professor in economics at Stanford. He's been an avid researcher in remote working since 2014.  Pre-COVID likely only 8% of employees worked from home. Nick expects this to be 40% in the aftermath of the pandemic, an extraordinary transformation of economic life. In this episode, we talk: - What Nick learned studying working from home at 'China's Expedia' Ctrip - The optimum set-up for home working - The shape and drivers of inequality in today's society - How lockdowns may be driving inequality - The future for capitalism Enjoy! To your humanity, Richard Links: Nick's research

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ On 14 January 2018, as he attempted to board a flight to London, my guest this week, Marek Zmyslowski, felt a hand on his shoulder from the Polish customs agents. His business partner in Nigeria had bribed the local police to get him placed on Interpol's Most Wanted List. This is just one of many extraordinary incidents during his adventures in building start-ups in Poland and Africa, including co-founding 'The Amazon of Africa' Jumia. We talk: - Defending accusations of being a 'white saviour' - His fight with the Nigerian justice system - His lessons building software teams - How to stay resilient - How we must reform capitalism Enjoy! To your humanity, Richard Links: Chasing Black Unicorns - The Book

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ A conversation with Wharton scholar Robert Meyer on his book 'The Ostrich Paradox'. In this episode, we talk: - Why we fail to learn from past disasters - The biases that stop us making investments for the long term - How we can use herding and other biases in our favour - How we must change our approach to managing risk - The truth about ostriches Enjoy! To your humanity, Richard Links: The Ostrich Paradox Robert's profile at Wharton

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ My guest this week on Being Human is Tanmoy Goswami, who holds that rare distinction of being the world's only 'Sanity Correspondent' for, well, The Correspondent. He is a passionate advocate for us talking more openly about mental health. He first got on my radar with his article "From the myth of meritocracy to the rise of bullshit jobs – it's time we admit work doesn't make us happy" in which he lays out how our workplaces can not only make us unhappy but send us to an early grave. Yes, things must change. We talk: - Moving away from the language of war in business - Living with depression and anxiety - What we really mean by recovery - What we must change about our workplaces - The dark side of mainstreaming the mental health conversation Enjoy! To our humanity, Richard  Links: Tanmoy's profile on The Correspondent Tanmoy's Twitter

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ Author and speaker Daniela Sieff is a former student of evolution under Richard Dawkins. She has turned her attention to trauma and its impacts. She brilliantly articulates the way adverse events and conditions shape our lives and how we can emerge from a Trauma World. In this highly personal conversation, we cover: - The definition of trauma - Daniela's own turning point in her facing her past  - Healing versus curing trauma - How society ignores the magnitude of child abuse, neglect and its effects - How we can heal and why therapy works Enjoy! To our humanity, Richard Links: Daniela's website Daniela's mailing list

Phil Driver, author of 'From Woe to Flow', dives into strategic development and sustainable living. He shares his journey from urban life to a rural permaculture lifestyle in New Zealand. The conversation highlights innovative strategies for collective decision-making and the essence of community engagement. Phil reveals how to simplify complex strategies, tackle common issues in meetings, and navigate accountability in project management. He emphasizes that the post-COVID world demands not a return to normal, but a deeper connection to community and shared wisdom.

> Sign Up For Our Newsletter: http://www.firsthuman.com/being-human-newsletter/ This episode's guest, Michael J. Gelb, has published 17 books, including 'How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci' and 'The Healing Organization', which he co-authored with recent guest Raj Sisodia. He takes the view that our intellects are highly malleable, even into later life, and by using specific exercises, we can better integrate our left and right brains to enhance our reasoning and creative powers.    In this conversation, we take a tour through three of his books, from 'How to Think like Leonardo da Vinci', the 'The Art of Connection', landing at 'The Healing Organization'. The underlying theme is one of embracing all of our humanity, as individuals and in our organisations.  We talk: - How to think like Leonardo da Vinci - The power of curiosity for unlocking creative potential - The Indra's Net metaphor for consciousness - The need for 'whole-brain thinking' in economics and in life - Why "Healing Organizations" are part of the megatrend for capitalism Enjoy and have a great weekend! To your humanity, Richard