Most company training is a waste of time that turns firms into bureaucratic sludge holes. That’s roughly the conclusion of today’s episode which is a conversation with Andre Spicer and Mats Alvesson

They have a new book out The Art of Less. Andre has been a guest a few times before - way back in 2018. This podcast is old. In 2018 this podcast was ahead of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO at the top of the podcast charts. (Andre talking about open plan offices)

The idea that much of what companies do is related to their self identity, what the company aspires to be in the world - with the end result that it doesn’t achieve these things.

Things we discuss:

• 'The Death of the Corporate Job'
• how 'initiative-itis' is dragging down organisations
• how training is corporate sludge that doesn't achieve its goals
• corporate culture as an act of 'grandiosity'

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Holt is a psychologist and leadership coach who has spent more than 20 years helping teams get better. Read his research about better team results.

This episode is the third part of a series about the power of identity in teams. Listen to the other Eat Sleep Work Repeat episodes about identity.

Jeremy posting about identity

Watch the Lebron documentary More Than a Game

Jeremy's book For the Love of the Game

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the second part of an interview with Professor Alex Haslam, the world's leading voice on the study of social identity.

You can hear the first part of this interview on the website.

In this discussion we talk how social identity can help us understand leadership.

Alex talks about the CARE model of leadership.

C - Create the group

A - Advance the group (sometimes over themselves)

R - Represent the group

E - Embed the group identity in everyday life for the group

If you're interested in exploring Alex's recent contributions to discussions on leadership and culture these papers are a great place to start:

• Zombie Leadership
• Human Me-sources or Human We-sources - exploring leader narcissism

Alex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group dynamics, leadership, and identity. Over the past three decades, Alex has helped reshape our understanding of how people think, feel, and behave as members of groups, and why social identity is central to motivation, resilience, and effective teamwork.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Why are we so fixated on the individual self? I think it was a big con. The individual self is a relatively modern invention. The idea that human psychology is about the individual self was really an analytical fiction that was devised in the 20th century.”

This is the first part of a wide-ranging discussion with Professor Alex Haslam. He talks us why our group identities are so essential to us and define who we are as adults. He quotes his mentor John Turner who said, 'Social identity is what makes group behaviour possible'. By the time you've finished with this episode I'm sure you'll agree.

Check out an utterly brilliant talk by Alex - consider this the best training you could send yourself on.

Alex mentions his partner Cath Haslam, who is also a psychologist.

Full transcript and notes are on the website - along with an Identity playlist of episodes.

Alex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group dynamics, leadership, and identity. Over the past three decades, Alex has helped reshape our understanding of how people think, feel, and behave as members of groups, and why social identity is central to motivation, resilience, and effective teamwork.

Alex is co-author of The New Psychology of Leadership and The New Psychology of Sport and Exercise, and his work has been applied widely—from health and education to business, politics, and the military. With over 300 research articles and multiple international awards to his name, Alex is recognised as a pioneer of social identity theory in practice, showing how a sense of “us” can unlock extraordinary human potential.

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon Gilbody talks loneliness at work

• The Loneliness of the American Worker - Wall Street Journal
• Make Work Better on loneliness
• More on solving loneliness
• Loneliness in teams
• Derek Thompson on elective isolation

Professor Simon Gilbody is a psychiatrist and clinical epidemiologist at the University of York. His work specialises in 'taking a population approach to mental health', trying to understand the aspects of modern life that contribute to how we feel.

I was impressed by a talk that Simon did with the Financial Times on the topic of workplace loneliness.

In our discussion Simon reflects on the toll of loneliness, how workplace loneliness can leave us with invasive thoughts, and what to do about it.

Some links we discuss:

Dr Lucy Foulkes - I really enjoy her TikToks, I think I gave a shout out to her book on adolescents a few weeks ago.

Red Cross Report on Loneliness

Thank you to Mary Howarth at University of York for helping to arrange the discussion.

Transcript on the website

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This sponsored episode is brought to you by Deliveroo for Work

Spencer Walker is the global director of Deliveroo for Work.

The podcast has returned several times to the idea of food as a cultural trigger, something that catalyses connection and allows cohesion. We explore that idea further this week with Spencer Walker who runs Deliveroo For Work the workplace service provided by the delivery firm.

The Deliveroo Feeding Employee Engagement Report

I mention a book by Robin Dunbar and Samantha Rockey, it's this: The Social Brain - Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, Robin Dunbar. They talk about giving curry to bond teams (because the sharing plates require people to pass them around). Hear them talking about it here.

Deliveroo for Work

The Deliveroo Feeding Employee Engagement Report

More about food, rituals and culture 

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Delighted to post this small conversation with Nick Shackleton-Jones. Nick posts brilliantly witty rants on TikTok that are just the best things I hear about work and the futility of bureaucracy.

TikTok is a fame machine and if creators drop a banger they can end up reaching a vast audience. Nick has posted some content about work, neurodiversity and philosophy that has had millions of views.

It was his take on why middle aged men wanted to return to the office that I put in the newsletter last week and made up the reason why we chatted but there’s so much more to this - not least him talking about adaptive behaviours and masking for people on the spectrum.

Great listen. If you don’t use TikTok then I’ve given a selection of his best posts below:

Nick on LinkedIn

Shackleton Consulting

Nick on TikTok - this is the good stuff

Best posts to check out:

• Middle aged men don't get on with their wives
• The original on middle aged men
• What I miss about corporate
• More of what he misses about corporate (on company values)
• Adaptive processes for neutrodivergent people
• Pedestrian bell
• Chase difference

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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.

If we shifted our focus from the individual to the collective how different would our results at work be?

I'm joined by Colin Fisher who explains that great teams are the most important contributors to great outcomes at work. The problem is that for many of our teams they are equal to less than the sum of the parts. Groups get bigger and bigger and stop being effective. Managers avoid having discussions about trimming teams down - and it leads to failure.

Colin's new book The Collective Edge breaks down the ingredients of forming good teams.

Colin Fisher is a professor at UCL School of Management

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s been a while since I revisited a conversation on offices and how our physical workspaces are evolving. Disruption has made the property business hugely raise their games. With 20-25% of Gen Z workers self reporting having issues of neurodivergency the office is trying to prove that it's still the centre of great workplace cultures.

I chatted to Susan Carruth, a partner a 3XN, an architecture firm who is pioneering thinking about the needs of occupants and Mike Wiseman Head of Campuses at British land.

For more details on the 2FA project mentioned and British Land's campuses.

As discussed: 12% of US mortgage backed office deals are 'delinquent' right now

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month the FInancial Times published an article by John Burn Murdoch in the form of an analysis of personality data, specifically looking at what are styled the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.

Typically these five factors are regarded as a statistically reliable way to measure personality. Unlike approaches like Myers Briggs these factors prove consistent over time and psychologists took a view that much of the variance of human personality can be understood using these factors. Interestingly these factors also prove predictive for other outcomes. Conscientiousness for example predicts academic success and job performance, neuroticism can predict mental health issues.

To discuss it I'm joined by Nick McClelland, Nick is the CEO of Byrne Dean

The original article by John Burn Murdoch (archive version)

Newsletter discussion on the data

Discussion between John Burn Murdoch and Derek Thompson

Christopher Ferguson questions the effect size

Jay Van Bavel talks about the effect size of the data

Alex Haslam points out the questions that lead to the conscientiousness scores

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Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.