Interested in how skills could enhance your business? Check out the short film I made with the Department for Education.

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Today'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.

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Michael Morris's book Tribal covers the codes that bond humans together. It has been shortlisted for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year award 2024. It came runner-up to 'Supremacy' by Parmy Olson.

He explains that humans are inspired by peer codes, human codes and ancestor codes when it comes to their behaviour - and he gives plenty of insight of how we could build more tightly bonded groups in our own teams.

Make Work Better: Resisting the Enshittification of Work in 2024

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Everywhere we look we see someone who is outraged - and plenty of that anger makes its way to the workplace.

The last time President Trump was in power it led to employees becoming more active - who knows if the same will happen in 2025.

Karthik Ramanna talks us through the way to deal with outrage - and the actions that any leader can take to make the workplace a better place. His new book is out now.

More about the Edelman Trust index

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Tiffany Gaskell outlines coaching as a route to transformational leadership

Tiffany Gaskell is the co-author of Coaching for Performance, the top-selling guide to coaching first published by Sir John Whitmore the inventor of the discipline.

It's curious to consider that there was a founder of coaching, and Tiffany takes me through the history of the practice, how it took hold and where it is today.

There's a key consideration about the modern manager given to us by the Gallup Global Workplace Report, 80% of those who are engaged with their jobs say they've received direct feedback from their manager in the last week.

This is a powerful insight but also poses a huge challenge - how can any of us find the time to observe and then feedback to every worker in our team. Tiffany explains that this is where a culture of coaching comes in, transferring the burden of observation from the manager to facilitating a socratic questioning approach.

You can follow Tiffany on LinkedIn and the book is out now.

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Brigid 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

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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.

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How 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 Belonging

Follow Owen on LinkedIn

Owen talks me through his step-by-step approach to building better teams - starting with the toughest starter question that most teams never tackle.

takeaways

• Determine whether a team is necessary for the desired outcome
• Clearly define roles and expectations within the team
• Recruit talented individuals who can contribute to the team's success
• Establish effective communication channels within the team
• Consider 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.

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How 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 recognition
• Information sharing
• Empowerment
• Wellbeing
• A sense of pride
• & Job satisfaction

Mark's company is WorkL. You can take their surveys and see their data on that link.

Key takeaways

• The happiness of employees is crucial for driving productivity and increasing profits
• Managers play a vital role in creating a positive work environment and should focus on training, recognition, and coaching
• Leadership 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.

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This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office

You 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 poetry

Check our Kelly's book

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This episode is part of the Presence project: Presence: Fixing culture starts with your calendar, not your office

In 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 Fish

• Play
• be there
• make their day
• choose your attitude

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