This Working Life

Saying "yes" too often can leave you feeling overwhelmed and perhaps a bit resentful. You might hear yourself saying "yes of course I can" when your inner voice is screaming "no!"

Here's how you can say "no" more often at work, without feeling rude, and what it can do for you and your team in the long term.

Our image and expectation of a good leader is changing, and increasingly we're needing them to use both their head and their heart in making decisions.

Leadership expert and author Dr Kirstin Ferguson argues that the art of this type of leadership is knowing what is needed when. So what does this balancing act really look like?

We've seen the Great Resignation, Lying Flat in China and Quiet Quitting. And now we're hearing murmurings of another movement that some are calling 'Anti-Striving'.

So what exactly is it? And what will making peace with feeling less ambitious bring us in the long-term?

We've all had to work with 'that' difficult person that we just clash with. It's tense. It's stressful. And it's exhausting.

So, do we have to get along to do our best work? Or is it in our best interests to make peace and move on? And how can we best do that? The solutions might surprise you.

When we make a mistake or fail at work we might want the earth to open up and swallow us whole. But what makes a fail ‘right’ and how can we talk about it at work?

Amy Edmondson is a Professor of Leadership and Management at the Harvard Business School. Renowned for her world-leading research into the concept of psychological safety, a crucible movement in the 1990s helped her understand our relationship with failure and how we can better embrace it at work.

In her new book Right Kind of Wrong, Amy explains the three archetypes of failure and which ones help us fail in the right way.

We know curiosity is good for us and our work, but few of us actually feel it day to day. So what’s causing this gap?

We find some answers and solutions so you can feel more curious in your work and career.

From loud chewing to breathing and keyboard tapping, many of you have your pet peeves when it comes to sounds at work that drive you to distraction.

But for some of you, it’s a disorder that can cause extreme reactions like anger, panic, and fear. It’s called misophonia and in this episode you’ll understand exactly what it is, how it impacts people at work and what you can do about it.

“If I can just get to Christmas, fall over the finishing line, it’ll all be fixed.”

Sounds about right, but unfortunately it’s not true.

In this episode we’re diving into why we’re feeling so tired, how it’s impacting our work and what we can do about it while avoiding the ‘Great November’ disease.

“Fiction seems to do something in our brains that nonfiction doesn't.”

What was the last book you read? And did you know it gave you something more than just some relaxing downtime?

It turns out that books, especially fiction, can develop key skills needed for our careers.

Book and short story recommendations mentioned:

• Poseidon, Franz Kafka
• The Helpline, Katherine Collette
• Out of Sheer Rage, Geoff Dyer

How do we go from wanting to do something to actually doing it, and doing it well?

According to Organisational Psychologist and Professor Adam Grant, we need to tap into our hidden potential and hone our character skills.