In this episode of the Unfucking Work Podcast, Michelle Minnikin and James interview Alex, who shares insights into their journey of realising the flaws in the traditional approach to work and life. Alex discusses the importance of living intentionally and mindfully, rather than on autopilot, and reflects on the pivotal moments in their life that led to this realisation. She also explores the concept of post-traumatic growth and how personal tragedies can accelerate our journeys towards self-discovery and fulfilment.

Alex shares her perspective on finding a balance between work and personal life, as well as her upcoming venture into coaching. She emphasises the importance of authenticity and self-awareness in personal and professional development, encouraging listeners to reflect on their desires and strengths.

Key Points:

1. Realising the flaws in the traditional approach to work and life.
2. Embracing intentional living and mindfulness over autopilot.
3. Exploring the concept of post-traumatic growth and its impact on personal development.
4. Finding balance between work and personal life.
5. Venturing into coaching and helping others unlock their potential.
6. The significance of authenticity and self-awareness in personal and professional growth.
7. Reflecting on individual desires and strengths to guide decision-making.
8. Using analogies like houseplants to illustrate the importance of environment and support systems in personal growth.

Tips for Listeners:

• Take time to reflect on what you enjoy doing and what makes you happy.
• Consider seeking coaching or mentorship to explore personal and professional growth opportunities.
• Focus on authenticity and self-awareness in decision-making and goal-setting.

Find Alex:

Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alexandra-couzens/

Website - https://www.alexandracouzenscoaching.co.uk/

About Work Pirates:

The Work Pirates Unf*cking Work podcast is for people who want to unf*ck the workplace. Whether you're a People Professional, a Business Owner or Leader or you're simply looking to make work a better place to be, then, the Unfucking Work podcast is for you.

Hosted by James Eves and Michelle Minnikin of Work Pirates.

Climb aboard and join us on our mission to unfuck work for all.

In this podcast, we managed to get the authors of some amazing books in the same place, at the same time, after much wrangling! Jon Alexander and Sam Conniff join James Eves and Michelle Minnikin.

We talk about:

• Realising the limitations of power and influence in creating positive change.
• Consumerism, disillusionment, and finding a new story.
• Embracing uncertainty and collaboration in leadership.
• Ideas, teapots, and democratising workplace innovation.

Jon Alexander is the author of CITIZENS: Why the Key to Fixing Everything is All of Us - a book that seeks to reframe the moment in time we're living in as one of huge civic opportunity, not just crisis and collapse, and in doing so opens up a world of possibility for organisations and leaders across sectors and across the world.

He also co-founded the New Citizenship Project, a strategy and innovation consultancy that aims to shift the dominant story of the individual in society from Consumer to Citizen.

Jon's Links -

https://www.jonalexander.net/

https://www.linkedin.com/in/jon-alexander-11b66345/

Sam Conniff is the author of Be More Pirate and co-author of How to be more Pirate.

His current passion is his social experiment - Uncertainty Experts. His work revolves around:

• Turning Uncertainty into Opportunity
• Inspiring Innovative Leadership
• And Navigating Change; Making & Breaking Rules

Sam's Links -

https://www.samconniff.com/links

https://www.linkedin.com/in/samconniff

We've also bagged a 15% off discount code for our community with the code UFWPOD -Unf*cking Work x Uncertainty Experts

You can also watch this podcast on Youtube - Watch this on youtube - https://youtu.be/EZFB8Cg4Nck

Find out more about us at www.workpirates.com

Rebecca Cullum is a consultant working with leaders and teams to rewrite and build innovative and future-focused team culture. Her heart is for courageous, human, and creative leaders with engaged and thriving teams.

Rebecca has two decades of experience in industry-leading tech and telecoms organisations. Her experience ranges from managing high-profile projects, supporting executive teams, building leadership teams, and leading culture change.

For the last 8 years, she has worked directly with leadership teams on building culture, engagement, and performance. Her experience has given her a passion to re-imagine our ways of working, challenge expectations and disrupt the status quo.

Being both strategic and action-orientated in her approach, she has a track record of turning workplace challenges into specific, achievable goals. As a trained counsellor she also brings a valuable level of insight into her client work. She is a unique mix of energy, passion, challenge, determination and compassion.

Rebecca brings an entrepreneurial spirit into her consultancy work. Before her corporate career, she was the co-founder of a coffee shop at the age of 22. She successfully bid for funding, managed a building re-fit and established the coffee shop as a hub in the community.

We talk about:

• The need to future-proof teams by focusing on building behaviors and mindsets, rather than just technical skills.

• Why building a learning culture is crucial for future-proofing teams.

• How creating an environment where failure is celebrated rather than punished fosters a culture of experimentation and continuous improvement.

Find out more about Rebecca:

https://www.rebeccacullum.co.uk/ or on LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/rebecca-cullum/

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com or follow us @WorkPirates.

Find out more about Good Girl Deprogramming at https://www.michelleminnikin.com/ and the book is available to buy now in all major book retailers.

Paula Gardner of Scarlet Thinking is a business psychologist, Human Givens psychotherapist and executive coach working with businesses and their employees around visibility, stress, overwhelm and getting needs met in the workplace. With a background of previously running her own PrRand marketing company, Paula advises and consults around creating businesses where everyone feels visible, vital and valued.

We talk about:

• The importance of recognising and addressing human needs in the workplace

• The nine key human needs and the significance of understanding and fulfilling these needs for employee well-being and engagement

• Creating a fulfilling and productive work environment

Find Paula

• On her website - https://www.scarletthinking.com/human-givens-consultancy/

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com or follow us @WorkPirates

Alex Barker is a speaker, facilitator, writer and community builder. And a Pirate Captain.

She's the Co-Author of How to Be More Pirate, the sequel book to Be More Pirate, and Captain of the ever-growing community.

She's also an advocate of helping women find their voice, to become more influential, powerful and effective speakers, negotiators and decision-makers.

We talk about:

• How she advocates for empowering women to enhance their influence, power, and effectiveness in various roles, including as speakers, negotiators, and decision-makers.

• Disconnection between an organisation's stated values and true motives often leads to organisational gaslighting.

• The significance of rest as an initial step when facing workplace challenges, as taking a break can help individuals gather their thoughts and energy.

Find Alex

On her website - https://alexbarker.co.uk/

On Be More Pirate - https://www.bemorepirate.com/

On Linkedin - https://www.linkedin.com/in/alex-barker-46745471

On Twitter - https://twitter.com/AlexandraBarke1

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com or follow us @WorkPirates

#17 - Vanessa Raath - Unf*cking Work

This month James and Michelle speak to Vanessa Raath about unf*cking work.

Vanessa is globally renowned for her contributions to the international Sourcing Community. She has delivered Keynotes across three continents and has trained teams based from Auckland to Seattle.

Vanessa launched her Talent Sourcing Training business in early 2019 and has not looked back. She is a qualified teacher with experience in both agency recruiting and internal talent acquisition (she loved both roles!). She now gets to combine her love of empowering others to do better, with her passion for recruiting through her own Online Academy.

She loves it when her training delegates experience that 'light bulb' moment as she knows that she has just changed someone's career, for the better.

When Vanessa is not doing research for her training, recording content or delivering a Keynote, you can find her at the Beach or in the South African Bushveld, taking photographs.

In this episode we talk about:

• The need for companies to consider individual preferences and circumstances when determining work arrangements.

• Why managers should possess the skills to effectively manage remote teams.

• The need to embrace and learn how to use AI tools rather than fearing their impact on job security

Find Vanessa

On LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/vanessaraath/

On Twitter - https://twitter.com/Van_Raath

On Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/van_raath/

On YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/@Van_Raath

On Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/vanessa.raath.3/

On her website - https://academy.vanessaraath.com/

Read Vanessa's Guest Blog - https://www.workpirates.com/post/unfucking-work-with-vanessa-raath

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com or follow us @WorkPirates

#16 - Matt Ballantine - Unf*cking Work

This month James and Michelle speak to Matt Ballantine about unf*cking work.

Matt is a sociologist and technologist who has worked managing and leading technology teams in organisations across the public and private sectors for the last 30 years, including the BBC, Microsoft and Reuters.

Since June 2022 he has been an Engagement Manager at Equal Experts. He usually also has at least a couple of side projects on the go at any given time.

In this episode, we talk about:

• The lie that all problems can be solved by technology

• Human-sized organisations and all the things that go wrong when people increase beyond that number.

• And why performance management processes are the devil incarnate!

Find Matt and PlayCards here: https://stamplondon.co.uk/, Matt on LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/mattballantine/ and Equal Experts here: https://www.equalexperts.com/

Matt's Blog on the Work Pirates Website - https://www.workpirates.com/post/unfucking-work-with-matt-ballantine

Find out more about the Milgram experiment - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Milgram_experiment

Find out more about Human - https://www.we-are-human.co.uk/

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com or follow us @WorkPirates

This month James and Michelle speak to Grant Duncan about unf*cking careers.

With a career spanning both executive search and consumer media industries, Grant brings significant experience from these worlds of consumer media and content where he has worked with some of the world's biggest companies to build their senior teams. These are sectors that were disrupted early on by digital, so he has also developed expertise in advising organisations across all sectors on how to navigate the leadership challenges and opportunities of digital transformation. Before joining Korn Ferry, Grant worked at a global search and leadership advisory firm where he led the U.K. TMT (Technology, Media and Telecommunications) and EMEA Digital Transformation Practices. Prior to working in executive search, he spent 25 years in the advertising industry, latterly as CEO of Publicis Groupe's U.K. operation. Grant is the author of Looking Beyond the Car in Front, which guides both senior and mid-career business executives in taking a more assertive and strategic longer-term approach to career choices. Grant is a Patron of the Royal Television Society and Fellow of both the Marketing Society and the Institute of Practitioners in Advertising. Grant holds an MA from St Andrew's University and is a graduate of the INSEAD Advanced Management Programme.

In this episode we talk about:

• How we need to be more conscious about managing our careers and not having always to follow the obvious paths to success

• Not having to be good at everything and know all the things when you're a leader

• Trying to find work that is fulfilling and meaningful to you.

Find Grant at his website - grant-duncan.co.uk and get social with Grant on FaceBook, Twitter or Linkedin

And - grab a copy of his book, Looking Beyond the Car in Front, at all good bookstores!

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com or follow us @WorkPirates

This month the Work Pirates are speaking to Cathryn Barnard about unf*cking recruitment at work. Cat is a partner and co-founder at Working the Future, a consultancy helping business leaders both make sense of the future of work and build easy-to-implement, people-centred, future-proofing strategies.

With a previous career in workforce planning spanning three decades and experience of growing her own successful businesses, Cat recognises the criticality of human connection and relationship in accelerating team engagement and performance.

In this episode we dive into:

• Why it's essential to prioritise investing in your team and recruitment processes so that people feel secure, taken care of and are allowed to thrive in the workplace.

• How Cat sees the world of work post-2008 crash and what can be done to make sure work is about passion, not just transactions.

• Feeling down about the world of work? Learn how Cat harnessed her LinkedIn community to create meaningful connections about collective action, climate change and making work less f*cked!

Find Cat on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cathrynbarnard/

Remember, if you want to hire a Work Pirate, get started at https://www.workpirates.com/ or follow us @WorkPirates

Links:

• Period pain - https://qz.com/611774/period-pain-can-be-as-bad-as-a-heart-attack-so-why-arent-we-researching-how-to-treat-it
• Menstrual Leave - https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/2023/02/17/spain-paid-menstrual-leave-countries/

How does light affect you at work?

In this episode of Unf*cking Work, the Work Pirates sit down with Neina Sheldon, journalist, coach and Founder of Make Light Matter, a platform that supports individuals in managing the health impacts of light to improve their wellbeing.

Neina shares her personal experience and interest in light nutrition and chronodiversity, dating back to her diagnosis with seasonal affective disorder in 2003.

The discussion also touches on the importance of understanding the impact of light on our health and wellbeing, the benefits of sunshine breaks at work, and more. Tune in to this enlightening conversation and learn how to un*fck your workday with light!

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Michelle's LinkedIn post about being asked 'are you a leader?': https://bit.ly/3K9e8oh

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Connect with Neina Sheldon on LinkedIn.