Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture

I’m often asked asked which company cultures I admire, especially as I tend to be critical of the culture inside tech firms. It’s easy to have good vibes in small firms but organisations who manage to deliver good culture at scale are the ones I’m most interested in. I often call out Nando’s or Octopus Energy.I was delighted to get the chance to talk to the CEO of Octopus Energy Group, Greg Jackson. I’ve often reflected that the best cultures seem to be codified and made explicit, but Octopus’s culture isn’t really defined by formal values, Jackson doesn’t pin it down to three or four words. Instead the culture has a vivid feeling but is loosely articulated, a tangible mix of trust, autonomy and a shared mission.Cultures are often defined by what they’re against as much as what they are for. Many companies give a laundry list of desirable attributes they strive for. There’s an organisation at the end of my street that has ‘excellence’ and ‘respect’ on its windows, but would any business claim to be built on mediocrity or disrespect? Aren’t they just given? Sometimes these things are called the Pillars of Character. Yes, we have integrity here, but how does that help you work here?For businesses these pillars are useless for creating differentiation. Jackson’s approach at Octopus stands apart from that, he takes issue with common norms elsewhere. Researching for the conversation I listened to one interview where Jackson talked about the absence of back-to-back meetings in his day. He said:First of one thing I do that I think is unusual is I don't pack my day with meetings. I'm religious about having lots of time outside meetings because in the one hour that someone wants to have a meeting, I can make 10 phone calls or I could drop by the desks of half a dozen team members and I can be available for people to deal with what's going on that day. So one thing for me is your time is far too precious to let it get soaked up on other people's meeting requests. It's quite funny when I got a new PA, she came from a very large software company and I said, ‘I've got a lot of meetings tomorrow’. And she said, well, where I used to work, my job was to pack from 8 AM to 5 PM every day, hour by hour by hour. And I was like, Whoa, how does that person get any thinking time? How does it get any, any time to reset? And how does it get to do anything proactive that changes the world?After the conversation, which was recorded live on stage near Guildford, someone came up to me. ‘My son works at Octopus,’ he said. Here we go, I thought. ‘Every single word he said up there is true. He says he wishes he’d joined there years ago’.Links:Greg on High Performance podcastTranscriptMake Work Better newsletterTake a listen, I’d love to hear your thoughts.

This is the second episode this month about AI and the implications for our jobs.Two weeks ago I went along to a huge event run by Workday down in North Greenwich. Workday, their partners and their customers took to the stage to talk about applications of AI that are coming to their platform. As part of the event I was able to run a discussion with a couple of voices from the company who are helping businesses navigate the challenges that AI presents to us. Sign up for the newsletterMore about Workday ElevateI was joined by Jerry Ting. Jerry is the founder of Evisort and now teaches at Harvard Law School and is a senior leader at Workday. And the other contributor was Angelique de Vries Schipperijn, she's the EMEA president for Workday. The conversation was fascinating for me in a few ways, firstly we can be so daunted about what AI represents in our jobs and this seemed simple and easy to understand, but secondly because as I mentioned last week the conversations I got from the audience suggested that there’s a lot of businesses who have barely started their own journeys.Look, here’s the challenge of the moment, I think the conversation at the event described a future that we have the agency to participate in. It seems real and like something we can connect with, but also everyone who came up to me afterwards anxiously told me that their organisations are doing nothing at all. That’s why I got so much value from this conversation. I think inverted commas “doing AI” feels scary and huge whereas incorporating it into some of the things we’re already going feels possible and easily achievable.  I need to declare that this is a promoted episode in the sense that Workday is a client that I was working with at this event and have worked with before, but critically it was a conversation that I’m delighted to be sharing here. I want to give a shout out to Hollie Benneyworth at Workday who has worked so hard to make this happen.You can find a full transcript for this on the website.

Sign up to the newsletterFirst of two episodes going deep on how AI is going to impact work - and therefore workplace culture and dynamics.This week is with Alexia Cambon from Microsoft. Alexia is Head of Research on Copilot & Future of Work. Last month her team released the Work Trend Index Annual Report. It’s one of the most important pieces of insight into how our jobs will change. Their previous reports have been interesting going deep into how people are experimenting with AI but this year’s is different. It articulates a version of work that most of us aren’t yet ready for.P&G research: Having an AI assistant doubles a worker’s output, proving as effective as having a real teammateAlexia mentioned that the research was performed by Karim R. Lakhani. The paper itself.Conor GrennanJaime TeevanMore about marathoner Katherine Switzer

"There's this concept called inbox zero, where everyone tries to get to their inbox down to zero. But I would suggest that a more noble pursuit is that of calendar zero".I chatted to Howard Lerman this week. I was blown away by this discussion - it captured exactly what is wrong about current work, and why back-to-back meetings are going to lead to many organisations missing the opportunity of this vital moment.This is an essential listen - about where work is imminently going and how Howard's philosophy is building his fascinating new product Roam to serve the company of the future.Explore Roam, follow Howard.Read all about the way that work is about to change in the newsletterThe AI 2027 predictions are the wake up call we didn't know we neededMicrosoft explains why we need to ready ourselves for the reinvention of workKonstantine Buhler on 'always on' Full transcript on the website

The next two podcasts I see as a piece with each other, today is about meaning the next one is about mattering. Collectively I feel they present serious substance about the foundations of good culture.Read Meaningful Work Read the latest newsletterThere’s some overlap - the authors today,Tamara Myles and Wes Adams, have done research with next week’s guest Zach Mercurio. One of today’s guests Tamara Myles said one of the most powerful questions you can ask to measure engagement at work is to ask ‘does your manager care about what is going on in your life?’Today is about meaning, and I feel it gets to grips with questions of purpose. Why sometimes purpose doesn’t seem to create an impact in an organisation - and other times really makes it hum.The authors describe meaningful work as work that provides community, helps us contribute to something that matters, and challenges us to learn and grow.For full show notes go to the website.

Sign up for the newsletterSomeone posted on LinkedIn that the podcast had died. Or I had died. But he is risen! I'm back with a great discussion, powerful in its simplicity.Psychologists Dr. Patricia Grabarek and Dr. Katina Sawyer have created a guidebook for anyone who wants to make things better for their teams. In it they suggest that managers need to set the tone for our colleagues. Yes, of course I hear you say but it's so often something that the hectic buzz of work distracts us from.As workplace wellness is in decline they suggest that it's time for managers to step up and be the creators of great culture, even if that might be pushing against the tide.Leading for Wellness is out now.

Join 100,000 other workplace culture enthusiasts by signing up for the Make Work Better newsletterInterested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education.Get in touch with BruceWhat do your typos say about you?What's the right medium to build connection with your colleagues?How did Shopify and Netflix reinvent their communication?How can any of us navigate a bulging calendar and overloaded inbox?Professor Andrew Brodsky gives us a field guide to communications and tells how we should be rethinking how we message.Andrew's new book Ping is out in February.

Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education.Sign up for the newsletterToday's episode is an Avengers Assembled of podcasts about work. I join host Helen Tupper and Sarah Ellis from the Squiggly Careers podcast, as well as Isabel Berwick from the FT's Working It and Jimmy McCloughlin from Jimmy's Jobs.We talk AI, asking payrises, RTO and much more.