Get Reworked

One of the most powerful, if not the most powerful, forces in a company is its culture. It's also one of the least understood.

In this episode of Get Reworked, Kevin Oakes, CEO and co-founder of i4cp, joins us to talk about his research into company culture and what he's learned about what makes good corporate cultures work. Those ideas are summed up in his recent book, Culture Renovation: 18 Leadership Actions to Build an Unshakeable Company. It's a timely conversation to have right now.

"The pandemic has changed almost every culture, like it or not," Kevin said. "So the question for companies is, do you want to sit back passively and allow that change to your culture just happen? Or do you want to proactively try to shape the culture you want for the future?"

In this episode, Kevin talks about how to succeed in culture change efforts. Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why most culture change efforts fail.
• Why it's important to think of culture work as a renovation vs. a transformation.
• How to include people at all levels in change efforts and identify influencers, energizers and blockers.
• How to keep up energy for culture change when we go back to the office.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk through how why the culture conversation is important right now and narrowly avert their own clash of cultures over the topic of oatmeal raisin vs. chocolate chip cookies.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at [email protected].

We're at an inflection point in our conversation about the office. For nearly a year now, many office workers have been holed up at home with a return to the office just a distant prospect. But with the arrival of COVID-19 vaccines, we can finally see the office again on the horizon.

But heading back to the office isn't as simple as getting a vaccine and re-starting the daily commute. Work has changed and so must the office. Ryan Anderson, vice president of global research and insights at furniture maker Herman Miller, joins us to talk about what he's learned from the last year of working from home and what our imminent return to the office means for how we work.

"The game has really been changed because for the first time, maybe ever, the attitudes among work team leaders and managers in 2020 shifted, in that a majority of them now do believe that work can successfully be done outside of the office," Ryan says.

In this episode, Ryan shares a bit about the history of office design and why now is a pivotal moment in the way we think about work. Highlights of the conversation include:

• How desktop computers became the center of office design and what to do about it.
• Why this is a moment to rethink work, not just the office.
• The three factors reshaping how we should think about office space.
• Tips for making the most of your home office environment.

Plus, co-host Siobhan Fagan reveals that she lives in a kind of Herman Miller museum and Mike Prokopeak shares why West Michigan is one of the best kept-secrets in the U.S. Listen in to find out more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at [email protected].

Can we all agree that scheduling a Zoom meeting or two doesn't necessarily make a team better? Hopefully that's not the only lesson we take away from the past year.

It's been a challenging time for work teams in many ways. Remote work pushed co-workers apart at the very moment they needed to come together to address the urgent business crises created by the pandemic. And while 2020 was a challenge, 2021 hasn't exactly gotten off to a great start either. Despite that, there are signs of spring amidst our winter of discontent.

The pressures of the past year pushed companies to adapt in ways that have the potential to create positive change in how work gets done, says Jen Dennard, co-founder and COO at Range.co, a collaboration software company. "There's such innovation in how teams work," she says. "And it's not going to be limited to just knowledge workers."

In this episode, Jen breaks down the state of teamwork at work and why she's optimistic about the future. Highlights of the conversation include:

• The important distinction between effectiveness and productivity.
• How team management has evolved in the face of prolonged crisis.
• What managers can do to better manage teams in a remote environment.
• How hybrid work reshapes how teams interact.

Plus, co-host Mike Prokopeak asks why work teams seem to be working despite all the challenges while teamwork in politics is so dysfunctional, and Siobhan Fagan works in a choice "I Love Lucy" reference. Listen in to find out more.

Have a suggestion, comment or topic for a future episode? Drop us a line at [email protected].

Work is a marathon and not a sprint. That's worth remembering as we take a look at the state of things following a tumultuous year. While the last year may have been hard on many organizations and individuals, it's important to take the long view. We may feel stressed, overworked and burnt out, but the crisis we're living through is actually an opportunity to re-imagine what work can be, says Mary Slaughter, managing director of people advisory services at EY.

The sense of isolation that we've all been through gives us an opportunity to reconnect with one another and be more purposeful in our relationships at home and at work. And for leaders, it's a chance to step back and think about how to be better.

"They've been equipped to have briefings with investors and analysts and the board of directors and to come in with PowerPoint decks that are filled with charts and spreadsheets and numbers," Mary says. "And just this understanding that emotion is a data point the same way that ROI is — it tells you something about the health and well being of your organization."

In this episode, Mary breaks down the state of our psychology at work. Highlights of the conversation include:

• What the last year of isolation and remote work has done to our emotional well being.
• Why the experience of working through the pandemic has the chance to create lasting change.
• How leadership is being redefined in a more humanistic and realistic way.
• How organizations can better support employees in the long term.

Plus co-hosts Mike Prokopeak and Siobhan Fagan alternate being glass half full and half empty when it comes to the future of work, and break down their takeaways for leadership during this great transformation. Listen in to find out more.

Organizations are stuck. Far too often, they think about work in a mechanical way that limits their ability to adapt and rapidly innovate.

As we've discovered over the last year, work is an ever-evolving experience, says Paul Miller, CEO of Digital Workplace Group. And that requires an organization that can evolve alongside it. Digital transformation is part of that story, but it's not all of it.

We're not just moving into a digital age but into a "living age," Paul says, and the next chapter calls for companies to think of themselves not as machines but rather as a living and breathing organism.

In this episode, Paul and his colleague Shimrit Janes share the insights from their new book, "Nature of Work: The New Story of Work for a Living Age." Highlights of the conversation include:

• Why we need a new, nature-based vocabulary to talk about work.
• How to move from a hierarchical, mechanistic structure to a more agile, organic one.
• Why organizations can't ignore politics and ignore the society and environment around them at their own peril.
• The unifying power of purpose beyond mission and vision statements.

The journey from factory to forest is a gradual one, but the past year of transformation has planted the seeds of organizations' future, Paul and Shimrit say.

Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak talk about what the Wood Wide Web is and use an embarrassing number of puns to set up today's episode. Curious? Well, don't make like a tree and leave just yet. Listen in to find out more.

When it comes to employee experience, everything changed in 2020.

Primarily in-person work experiences became remote. Side conversations became Slack channels. Conference calls and staff meet-ups became Teams meetings. We have a decentralized workplace like we've never seen before.

It's a unique point in human history, says Dion Hinchcliffe of Constellation Research. In the past, separate departments would have different approaches to employee experience. To IT, it was about technology. To HR, it was about people and culture. Everyone now is on the same page.

In this episode, Dion breaks down the state of employee experience and shares his insights on how to manage the 2021 workplace. Highlights include:

• How the evolution of customer experience shaped employee experience.
• Why failure to transform will lead to certain collapse.
• The importance of working out loud for greater productivity.
• Why remote first should be the default mode of business going forward.

There's no set answer but lots of opportunity, Dion says. Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak wonder when they'll get the new COVID vaccine. Spoiler alert: Not soon, but that's just fine. Listen in to find out more.

The last year has given us a lot of baggage to unpack. 2020 saw the rapid adoption of digital workplace tools and a fundamental rework of our concept of how work gets done. Fortunately, Sam Marshall is here to help.

Sam has seen a lot in his 20-plus years in the digital workplace. In this episode, he brings some much-needed clarity to our messy reality and unpacks what it all means as we head into the uncharted territory ahead. Highlights include:

• Why you can't just buy your way to digital workplace transformation.
• What remote and hybrid working means for the way business operate.
• How shadow IT operations can be a source of agility and innovation.
• How the digital workplace is breaking down barriers between the office and the front line.

The bottom line? It's the dawn of a new era. Don't squander this opportunity to remake work. Plus, co-hosts Siobhan Fagan and Mike Prokopeak explore why we're not all that different from baboons when it comes to our work behavior. Listen in to find out more.

Employee motivation traditionally took one form: You do X and I pay you Y. This approach worked pretty well, up to a point. But as organizations grow in complexity so too does the work, and what is asked of the workforce. That makes such transactional incentives less effective.

"There needs to be … a reason why people participate in that work other than payment," said Rachel Happe, co-founder of The Community Roundtable. Rachel believes communities create the kind of commitment that goes beyond the salary or the benefits package to inspire employees to "willingly engage rather than get forced to engage."

In this podcast conversation, Rachel explains why communities are not only central to management but also the organizational operating model of the future. Plus, she makes the case that joy and work are not mutually exclusive. Podcast co-hosts Mike Prokopeak and Siobhan Fagan ask if this is blasphemy or a fresh approach to the 9-to-5. Listen to find out.

In March 2020, legions of workers trudged into the office much like they had been doing for months, years, and even decades in some cases. They went home that evening and haven't been back.

Things haven't been the same ever since. Within the short span of days, we undertook a massive experiment in new ways of working and we haven't looked back. In episode 1 of Get Reworked, Reworked editors Mike Prokopeak and Siobhan Fagan talk to researcher Sarah Kimmel, who shares exclusive data on the state of digital transformation and provides a snapshot just how successful we've been at navigating this workplace revolution and what still lies ahead.