CultureLab with Aga Bajer

Have you ever wondered what it would take to tackle some of humanity's most urgent challenges such as climate change, social inequality, armed conflicts or economic disparity? If you have, you’re not alone. But not all of us think that THE institution with the highest capacity to create positive change in the world is business. My guest today, Carolyn Butler Madden envisions a world where business is not just about financial gain, but a powerful force for good, with the potential to drive profit through purpose. Her life's work has been to empower leaders to unlock the full potential of their organizations by embedding a meaningful purpose into the fabric of their business and brand strategies.

With her book, "For Love and Money" earning the title of best Social Responsibility book in the Australian Business Book of the Year Awards, Carolyn’s literary contributions have already paved the way for many businesses seeking a purpose-driven future.

In this conversation, Carolyn shares fresh insights into how purpose-driven leadership can unlock potential and drive growth.

You can follow Carolyn Buttler Madden on LinkedIn.

You can find the transcript HERE.

Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game.

Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

Have you ever felt like you are not connecting with someone and the barrier that stands in the way is cultural? It might be that the jokes you crack don't land, the emails you send seem to miss the mark, or the way you lead meetings doesn't resonate with everyone in the room. It can be like trying to tune into a radio station but finding yourself between frequencies, where everything just sounds like static. This is a common experience in today’s global workforce, where teams are more diverse than ever, spanning across different countries, cultures, and backgrounds.

Andy Molinky is a psychology Professor at Brandeis University and an expert in the field of intercultural relationship-building. He recently published a new book, Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce and in this conversation, we are exploring how to forge bonds across cultures.

You can follow Andy Molinsky on LinkedIn.

You can find the transcript HERE.

Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game.

Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

When was the last time you were genuinely playful at work? If you are like most of us, it might have been a while. We’ve been conditioned to believe that work and play don’t really mix. Not only we’ve been taught to draw a clear demarcation line between work and play, we’ve also been convinced that work is somehow way more noble and more important that play.

But what if truly great work couldn’t happen without a healthy dose of play? What if, unless we can have fun with the work itself, at least occasionally, we can’t really achieve greatness?

Today’s conversation with Gary Ware, the Founder of Breakthrough Play a keynote speaker, and author of the book Playful Rebellion: Maximize Workplace Success Through the Power of Play addresses these questions. Gary talks about the relationship of workplace productivity and play, play as the driver of innovation and performance, the eight play personalities and how we can integrate purposeful play into our workday.

You can follow Gary Ware on LinkedIn.

You can find the transcript HERE.

Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game.

Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE

Can you remember a time when it felt like things at work were unjustifiably and annoyingly hard? Maybe you had to read a 1000-word email that could have been just one paragraph, or had to attend a two-hour meeting that could have been an email. Or maybe you had to manually input data although the process should have been automated ages ago.

The reality is that every workplace is clogged with this type of destructive friction—the time-consuming, and soul-crushing practices that drive us crazy and undermine our ability to achieve meaningful goals. I imagine that at the global scale, millions of hours must get lost every day to red tape, workarounds that shouldn’t have to exist in the first place, and to misguided leaders who pile on needless complexity.

My guest today, Professor Bob Sutton has been so fascinated by the friction we experience in organisations that he researched it for a decade. His work resulted in a book co-authored with Huggy Rao, The Friction Project.

Bob Sutton is an organizational psychologist and Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.  He studies leadership, innovation, organizational change, and workplace dynamics.  His main focus over the past decade is on scaling and leading at scale—how to grow organizations, spread good things (and remove bad things) in teams and organizations.

In this conversation, Bob Sutton and I talk about how to identify good and bad friction in an organization and how to make the right things easier and the wrong things harder.

You can follow Bob Sutton on LinkedIn.

You can find the transcript HERE.

Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game.

Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

Do you want to be more influential? For most of us, the answer is yes. Greater influence often translates to more power, enabling us to achieve our goals, drive change, and create positive impact.

But delving into the strategies and tactics of influence can leave us feeling uneasy. Words like “manipulative,” “sneaky,” and “coercive” come to mind. Zoe Chance explains this reaction this way: “The idea of influence has been corrupted by tacky, greedy people using tacky, greedy tactics to sell used cars, to promote sponsors’ products on social media, and to get us to buy now, while supplies last!” This is exactly why Zoe champions a different approach.

As a distinguished behavioral scientist at Yale School of Management, Zoe empowers smart and kind individuals to harness influence effectively. Her role at Yale involves guiding executives and teaching the highly sought-after MBA elective, 'Mastering Influence and Persuasion.' Her students achieve remarkable feats: they raise funds for charities, win political seats, kickstart successful startups, initiate social movements, save lives, and drive a culture change. And so can you. Tune in to learn how.

You can follow Zoe Chance on LinkedIn

You can find the transcript HERE.

Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game.

Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

So, here’s an interesting question: What does it take to actually build teams that are highly effective in this brave new world of work? And what's the relationship between making work better for people and the outcomes that organizations can achieve? Unlocking productivity is just a piece of the conversation that we dive into in today’s rich exploration with Brian Elliott.

You can follow Brian on LinkedIn

You can find the transcript of our conversation HERE.

Click here to learn more about the 👉  CultureBrained®– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game.

Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

Stacey Gordon is an expert on DEI and workplace bias and the author of “Unbias - Addressing Unconscious Bias at Work”. In this conversation, she shares her personal journey, offering unique insights from the experiences that shaped her understanding and approach to DEI work.

There are many misconceptions surrounding diversity hiring, and the essence of true inclusion and we face them head on. We also talk about the transformative power of empathy and storytelling in creating a culture where everyone can thrive.

This episode is a must-listen for anyone looking to understand the deeper layers of DEI and its impact on organizational success. Tune in for a thought-provoking conversation that challenges the status quo and provides practical tips for fostering an inclusive culture.

To join CultureBrained®, go 👉 HERE 

To access our free resources and materials on cultivating thriving cultures, click 👉 HERE 

Work relationships can be hard. The stress of dealing with difficult people dampens our creativity and productivity, and degrades our ability to think clearly and make sound decisions.

Too often we grin and bear it as if we have no choice. But you can only endure so much —there's your sanity to consider, and your career.

This is why, we are thrilled to have Amy Gallo joining us, the best-selling author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People) the HBR Guide to Dealing with Conflict, a how-to book about handling conflict professionally and productively.

Tune into this week’s episode, as we delve into workplace conflicts and tensions, exploring how they can be harnessed for cultural transformation and become opportunities to connect.

To join the CultureBrained®Community go to tinyurl.com/culturebrained

To access our free resources and materials on cultivating thriving cultures, click here: https://www.agabajer.com/resources/

In this Deep Dive Aga and Shani delve deep into a topic that has fascinated Aga for almost a decade – what drives people to do their absolute best work. Over the years, she's posed this question to more than 3000 individuals and discovered something truly unexpected: peak performance at work is often closely linked to one surprising factor - having fun.

But not the kind of fun associated with ping-pong tables and office parties. Instead, it's all about deriving genuine enjoyment from the work itself.

Join Aga and Shani in this illuminating conversation as they explore the concept of "Deep Fun" and its profound impact on workplace performance. 

To join CultureBrained® with a 25% discount (until end of November) go to tinyurl.com/culturebrained

To learn more about our accreditation program, go to tinyurl.com/accreditationprogram

To access our free resources and materials on cultivating thriving cultures, click here: https://www.agabajer.com/resources/

Many companies aspire to be industry disruptors and innovation leaders, but only a handful can genuinely claim those titles. What sets them apart?

We're zeroing in on PepsiCo—a company that's nailed it when it comes to creating an environment where people excel. According to their Chief Design Officer, Mauro Porcini, the secret sauce is love, empathy, kindness, and generosity.

So tune into this week's episode of the CultureLab where we dig into the nuts and bolts of innovative cultures.

To join CultureBrained® with a 25% discount (until November 15th) go to tinyurl.com/culturebrained

To learn more about our accreditation program, go to tinyurl.com/accreditationprogram

To access our free resources and materials on cultivating thriving cultures, click here: https://www.agabajer.com/resources/