Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture

Today’s guest is regarded as one of the most influential management thinkers in the world largely because he considers themes and human behaviours that others avoid discussing. Jeffrey Pfeffer is Professor of Organisational Behaviour at Graduate School of Business at Stanford University. He’s author of books like Management BS, Power and most recently Dying for a Paycheck and it’s the last two books that we mainly discuss in today’s chat.Read Dying for a Paycheck and PowerJeffrey mentions this New York Times article about the stress of someone in the legal profession.His book Power has become a global best seller largely because it is a manual for the Machiavellian. It’s a modern day version of Niccolò Machiavelli’s 16th century book The Prince. It’s not that Pfeffer believes this is what we should behave like to be our best selves but rather if we don’t behave like this we’re going to be exploited.In the course notes for Jeffrey's stanford class on power he says that "insufficient sensitivity to and skill coping with power have cost Stanford graduates promotions opportunities and even their jobs".Fundamentally the mistake we’re all making according to Pfeffer is believing that the world is fair. I know I’m guilty of this. Whether you watch US politics or British politics but I certainly find myself looking at current events thinking that a reckoning will come when the good guys will win and sort things out. Spoiler alert. The good guys don’t win. And the source for that point is history.Pfeffer's belief is that in business they don't win so arm yourself. He believes that leaders often ascend to their position not through an innate goodness but because they understand the rules of power.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Read more on the Good Jobs StrategyPre-order the Joy of WorkIf you like this the easiest way to get it is to subscribe on Apple podcasts - give us a rating while you’re there.Zeynep Ton is a Professor of Operations Management at the MIT Sloan School of Management.She studies the retail sector and the way that some firms have invested in paying more and doing more for their workers. She studied firms like QuikTrip, Trader Joes, Mercador in Spain - she found that firms that treat their workers better achieve better results. Quik Trips profit is double the retail average - all of her firms are more profitable and show consistent growth. And this is work that needs doing in 2012 The Independent reported that only 1 in 7 British supermarket workers earned a living wage. We’ll talk about how they make their jobs happier but the key parts are they make some key decisions upfront (1) offer less (2) standardise and empower their teams (3) they train their workers to do all of the jobs and (4) they operate with slack - with spare capacity.When I studied Zeynep's work - and even more so when I chatted to her I thought there's something in this that every single company can use.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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-2018-3The full episode is live on the website: eatsleepworkrepeat.fmPre order The Joy of WorkSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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 hereSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more 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.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sir Cary Cooper, a leading expert in organizational psychology and health, shares insights on fostering a positive workplace. He tackles the dangers of presenteeism and emphasizes the need for work-life balance. Discussing empathy and communication in teams, he highlights how emotional intelligence boosts collaboration. Cary addresses the global mental health crisis and the necessity for empathetic leadership. He also explores cultural challenges, such as overwork in Japan, emphasizing the critical role of management in transforming work cultures.