This Working Life

The CEO is retiring, your team leader is moving interstate, your key IT architect has been poached by a competitor. How do you keep an organisation running smoothly without people who can step up into key roles? 

The answer lies in careful succession planning. Here's how it works.

The answer lies in careful succession planning. Here's how it works.

Guests:

Donald (DJ) Schepker,  Associate Professor, Research Director at Centre for Executive Succession, Darla Moore School of Business, University of Southern Carolina 

Melissa MacGowan, Strategic People and Culture leader, executive coach 

Dealing with sweaty palms, talking for too long, and fumbling your answers are all possible scenarios that can kill off your chances of getting the job.  

So how can you prepare yourself and perform in a way that gives you a solid chance of landing the role? 

Guests:

Dave Wolovsky, Career coach, Effortwise consulting 

Annique Teycheney, Careers Counsellor 

An anti-diversity, equity & inclusion rhetoric is gaining steam in politics.  So why is there resistance to “DEI” in the workplace? 

Are there ways to improve implementation of programs so that everyone is on the same page? 

Guests:

Colin D. Ellis, global workplace culture expert and author, Detox Your Culture 

Michelle Lim, organisational culture, intersectional DEI and ethics specialist, and Director, Asian Australian Professionals Collective 

Lily Zheng, workplace strategist and consultant, author, Reconstructing DEI 

From AI to DEI, we’re looking at the year ahead, and what’s on the agenda for organisations and employees. 

What are you picking up at work that might be signalling a future change at work? And how can you prepare for it? 

Guest:

Dr Ben Hamer, futurist 

It’s time to plan for the changes you want to make at work this year. What are you trying to do differently, and how are you going to make that happen? 

Learn how to understand your behaviours and form new habits to improve your work life. 

Guests:

Dr Kelvin Wong, clinical psychologist and senior lecturer, Swinburne University 

Dr BJ Fogg, behaviour scientist and creator of the Tiny Habits method, Adjunct Professor, Stanford University 

 You can find recipe cards for Tiny Habits here. 

Are you feeling ready to tackle another year at work? Or are you a little detached and uninspired?  

Many of us are kicking off the new year by asking, ‘why are we here’ ?! So what is it about the culture of work that’s leading to that feeling ? And what can we do about it? 

Guest:

Jennifer Moss, workplace culture strategist, author, Why Are We Here: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants

Friction is everywhere - from our systems to our relationships at work.

But there’s good news - not all friction is bad and if you know how, you can be a friction fixer.

Robert (Bob) Sutton is Professor of Organizational Behaviour at Stanford Business School and co-author of The Friction Project. He takes us through the different types of friction and how we can fix it.

Meanwhile, we hear personal stories from a few This Working Lifers about how they tackled friction in their jobs - thanks to Hamish Thompson, Kate McCallum, and Yashika Nayyar.

This story was first broadcast on 4 February 2024.

Our childhood phantasy careers (different to fantasy with an ‘f’) help uncover our unconscious motivations and can unlock job satisfaction in our careers. Here’s how to figure out yours.

Guest: Paul Harvey - Lecturer and Executive Coach at the INSEAD Business School

And thanks to Afrouz, Karen and Ryan for sharing their stories.

This story was first broadcast on 19 May 2024

It’s estimated we make up to 35,000 decisions every day so how can you make better decisions at work? 

Before you start drawing up pros and cons lists, listen to this episode to hear how you can make decisions with less stress and a lot more satisfaction - from small everyday ones, to big ones like changing career.

Guests:

• Dr Ellen Langer - Professor of Psychology, Harvard University. Author, The Mindful Body.
• Dr Janneke Blijlevens - Senior Lecturer in Experimental Methods, RMIT University
• Dr Adrian Camilleri - Associate Professor of Marketing, University of Technology Sydney Business School
• Brigitte Duclos - Counsellor 

This story was first broadcast on 11 February 2024

Have you ever been in a room with a leader who has you hanging on every word, and leaves you feeling inspired? 

Some would say that person has  ‘executive presence’.  But what do they have really?  And are the qualities that make employees willing to really listen to and follow a leader, changing?

Guests:

Colin James, speaker, lead facilitator, executive coach, author, How to Influence Anyone, Anywhere, Every Time

Megumi Miki consultant in leadership, culture and diversity and inclusion, author, Quietly Powerful 

This story was first broadcast on 11 August 2024