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Subscribe to the free Make Work Better newsletterBrigid Schulte is a journalist and writer who brings a reporter's ear for stories to her exploration of modern work.Over the course of a decade Schulte has talked to people about the impact their jobs has on their lives - and has explored any hope that we might be able to make this better.Her new book, Over Work and paints a hopeful image of how we might fix the toxic elements of our jobs.One of the examples is about Intel, who in 2013 experimented with a new initiative styled Freelance Nation to bring some of the upsides of gig work to a professional knowledge work environment. It proved hugely successful and yet they decided to scrap it.Buy Over Work

Colin Ellis is a consultant and author who spends his time working with organisations to improve their culture. He's turned his attention to why some companies go bad in a new book Detox Your Culture. He talked me through what has gone wrong at the likes of ITV's This Morning, the CBI, The Ellen Show and Boeing.Sign up for the newsletter

Sign up for the newsletterHow can any of us build a more effective team?Owen Eastwood is one of the world’s most in demand performance coaches, with a focus on team culture & leading. Owen has worked with some of the most successful sporting sides in the world. He also works with corporate teams wrestling with similar themes.Last year I talked to Owen about his work on belonging and identity but I wanted to pick his brains on the biggest challenge for modern leaders - how to build a stronger team.Buy BelongingFollow Owen on LinkedInOwen talks me through his step-by-step approach to building better teams - starting with the toughest starter question that most teams never tackle.takeawaysDetermine whether a team is necessary for the desired outcomeClearly define roles and expectations within the teamRecruit talented individuals who can contribute to the team's successEstablish effective communication channels within the teamConsider the challenges of being part of multiple teams in the corporate world Individuals have a choice in shaping the team's identity and should be selfless and committed to the team's purpose and desired outcome.A high-performing team is one where individuals consistently perform at their best and have a culture of excellence.The environment plays a crucial role in enabling or disabling team success, and teams should create an environment that fosters innovation and energizes individuals.Teams should regularly reflect on their environment and identify and eliminate factors that hinder performance.For a full transcript see the website.

Sign up for the Make Work Better newsletterHow important is a happy workforce? According to Mark Price, the former boss of Waitrose, it's the main thing that leaders should be thinking about. Make your workforce happy and the profits will follow. Mark's new book is Happy Economics.To prove it Mark cites his experience running the supermarket chain, when with a goal of workers happiness he made it the fastest-growing, most profitable supermarket in the UK.The original purpose of the John Lewis Partnership, as laid out by the very same John Lewis , was to uphold the happiness of the people who worked inside the organisation.Mark's new book is Happiness Economics. Mark's book makes the assertion that the quickest way to business success is to focus on creating happy employees.This is genuinely a brilliant listen - and one that you might benefit from reading the transcript of - you can get the transcript here.While I got real value from the book, I actually found the conversation even more enlightening. It challenged some things I believed and I found myself reflecting on it for the day afterwards. I think there’s a clarity in the conversation that the book lacks at times - I think it’s the challenge of books to be honest. We’re so used to ideas being visually backed up that when we’re paging through 200 pages of words the emphasis is often lost. Maybe they work best together.Mark has a clear 6 stage framework for making a happy, productive workforce laid out in his compelling new book Happiness Economics.Reward and recognitionInformation sharingEmpowermentWellbeingA sense of pride& Job satisfactionMark's company is WorkL. You can take their surveys and see their data on that link.Key takeawaysThe happiness of employees is crucial for driving productivity and increasing profitsManagers play a vital role in creating a positive work environment and should focus on training, recognition, and coachingLeadership should involve setting a clear plan, making employees feel valued and important, and maintaining optimism about the future.Well-being initiatives should go beyond tokenistic measures and address underlying issues in the work culture. Employee happiness is crucial for workplace culture and productivity.The six key drivers of happiness at work are reward and recognition, empowerment, sense of pride, line management, career development, and job satisfaction.Implementing these drivers effectively can lead to improved well-being, productivity, and business performance.Building a positive culture is essential, and companies should focus on measuring and improving employee happiness.

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeYou might think an episode about improv comedy might be a stretch for a podcast about making work better. But in fact as Kelly Leonard explains today the skills of improv comedy are the most important ones that will determine our success at work. Kelly helps to run Second City, the world's famous famous improv comedy club - he believes that improv skills can teach us about what we need in work going forwards. ** TRIGGER WARNING ** includes one brief mention of poetryCheck our Kelly's book

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeIn the 2000s a book called Fish! A remarkable way to boost morale and improve results became a bestseller. A small book, it was often used by companies accompanying a video of the same name. Together the two told a story of the culture of the fish market in Seattle, a noisy, bombastic place, but a place that was filled with joy. I first encountered Fish when a firm came to pitch to me when I was working in publishing. They told me that their culture was Fish. There are a few things that stood out from it. The idea of intentionally designing culture isn’t new but this seemed to be explicitly linking culture, emotion and mood. There were 4 principles of FishPlaybe theremake their daychoose your attitude

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeThis is the second episode about rituals - the first one is next to it in the podcast feed, it's an interview with Kursat Ozenc about how rituals can be used to create culture. This episode goes into real life examples.Claudia Wallace talks about Crisp Thursday (Connection)Andy Puleston talks about Pizza Meetings (Connection) and Leaving Speeches (Change)Dan Pink talks about Friday Night Experiments (Creativity)Biz Stone talks about Hack Week at Twitter (Creativity)Dr Heidi Edmondson talks about Ten at Ten (Performance)Heidi has a wonderful new book out - Darkness in the City of Light You can also hear the original episodes that each of these extracts came from by click the links above. I have to say that those whole episodes are worth revising. For example, Andy Puleston talks about how effective the culture was at Radio 1 when it was a series of affiliated tribes and he articulates the role that buildings play in shaping cultures. Each episode teaches something special. Andy Puleston is now Director of People & Culture at Circulor, an award winning technology business.

This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your officeKursat Ozenc is a product designer who he teaches at Stanford university, He teaches on the subject that we can all learn from which is the idea that culture can be designed. The specific tool he uses to design culture is the creation of workplace rituals. Kursat's Substack newsletterKursat's first book is here and the second, on virtual meetings is here.The reading list for Kursat's course is hereKursat’s book includes the suggestions that: ‘The rituals in our life show what we care about’. Critically then creating rituals demonstrate what our culture values.Kursat gives five use cases for rituals: For changeCreativityPerformanceConflictCommunityIf you like this episode you'll also like the episode that accompanies it - which goes into depth about specific rituals that companies have used. Listen to that episode here.A full transcript of the episode is at the website.