Eat Sleep Work Repeat - better workplace culture

A return interview with Dr Pippa Grange, a performance ("regenerative") psychologist who has worked with the England men's football team and who has earned the admiration of Brene Brown.I'm always excited to hear from the likes of Pippa, elite practioners who have earned the respect of the most respected high performers in the world.Pippa has a new book out, Life Reclaimed, which is a reflection on burnout, the need for overperformance and how to achieve balance in life. It's partly informed by her work with some of the most talented people in the world and certainly bears the trace of her own experiences with burnout.She also previews the BBC TV adaptation of Dear England featuring a character based on her.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I saw a post by Professor Rob Briner about the enigma of psychological safety, and in the replies it was discussed that in fact PS isn't so much an enigma, there's evidence that it is the output of group identity. It felt important to talk to Katrien Fransen about her work exploring this.This conversation (and the papers that led into it) were real penny drop moments for me.There's a full transcript on the website.Check out more:We spend a lot of time talking about Katrien’s paper: The impact of identity leadership on team functioning and well-being in team sport: Is psychological safety the missing link?We also discuss Unlocking the Power of ‘Us’: Longitudinal Evidence that Identity Leadership Predicts Team 5 Functioning and Athlete Well-BeingHer website focuses on the services that she and her colleagues provide for organisations.Katrien is the co-author (alongside former guest Alex Haslam and Filip Boen) of The New Psychology of Sport and Exercise: The Social Identity ApproachHere's Rob Briner's post about psychological safety being hard to reproduce on demand.More about Professor Katrien FransenI talk about a podcast featuring the boat race, you can check that out here.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Today's conversation is with Professor Benjamin Laker, someone I've long admired for his cutting edge work on the evolution of culture. His article on Meeting Free Days is probably the piece of research I've shared the most in the last 5 years.Laker is Professor of Leadership at Henley Business School, which is part of the University of Reading. As well as writing multiple bestselling books on work like Too Proud to Lead and Job Crafting, he's also published dozens of articles in HBR and MIT Sloan Management Review. He's worked with government helping to develop policy on work and it's evolution.I could have chatted to Benjamin about dozens of things but I specifically wanted to dive into a sensational piece he wrote in Harvard Business Review at the end of last year about changing culture inside of organisations.Full transcript on the websiteSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Daniel Coyle returns to reflect on what has changed since we last spoke. He's moved attention to an examination of what contributes to us getting a fulfilling experience from work - and life.We talk attention, community and the way that great teams demonstrate 'group flow'. We also delve into some research by Nick Epley that I've covered on the newsletter, that suggests we're terrible at predicting what will make us happy.If you like this check out the previous episodes with Daniel:Dan Coyle can fix your broken cultureThe Culture CodeSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I'm joined by Daniel Zhao, chief economist of Glassdoor, who talks me through their new rankings of the best places to work in 2026.It's an intriguing list, is a car wash really better than some of the most famous tech brands in the world?The ranking allows us to explore what we want in a job: culture, connection, progression and autonomy.Bad culture is 7 times more powerful driving quitting than salary: hear Charlie and Donald Sull talk about Glassdoor dataGlassdoor: Top US places to workGlassdoor: Top UK places to workFull transcript on the websiteSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Kevin Green is the Chief People Officer for First Group.He's set about reinventing the culture of the organisation from the ground up.I heard Kevin speak at an event last year was completely bowled over by the way he talked about culture and the way he was trying to build it. I think you'll love this discussion. There's a full transcript on the website.Also mentioned: Waitrose culture episode with Lord Mark PriceSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Dr Karen Bridbord is the author of a new book, The Relationship-Driven Leader that invites us to bring a psychologist's lens to our job and the relationships with those around us.Her perspective is to use psychology to understand the person in front of you to interpret the world through their eyes. If you’ve got a controlling boss or someone who behaves in a way that impacts your life she helps you unpick what’s going in their head. The Relationship-Driven Leader: Strengthening Connections to Enhance Productivity and Wellness at Work Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Gen Z have been shaped by recessions, the pandemic, geopolitical instability, not to mention financial insecurity and world changing technology.That's the finding of the Edelman Gen Z Lab as told to me by the leader of the project Jackie Cooper. Most powerfully she explains that Gen Z's have a 'visceral need for safety' - that's financial, social, cultural and even physical.They respond to fear by asking questions and wanting to be heard, which older generations often misread as entitlement or disrespect for hierarchy.Politically, Gen Z is fragmented. Younger Gen Zs, especially boys/young men, are leaning more conservative and drawn to strong-man archetypes; older Gen Zs, shaped by Obama / BLM, are more idealistic about progressive politics. Algorithms and “TikTok-isation” amplify those splits.I was blown away to see Jackie Cooper from Edelman talk about the research that the company has done to understand the new generation of workers entering the workplace - I think you'll love this discussion. You can read the report hereFull transcript on the website.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Most company training is a waste of time that turns firms into bureaucratic sludge holes. That’s roughly the conclusion of today’s episode which is a conversation with Andre Spicer and Mats AlvessonThey have a new book out The Art of Less. Andre has been a guest a few times before - way back in 2018. This podcast is old. In 2018 this podcast was ahead of Steven Bartlett’s Diary of a CEO at the top of the podcast charts. (Andre talking about open plan offices)The idea that much of what companies do is related to their self identity, what the company aspires to be in the world - with the end result that it doesn’t achieve these things.Things we discuss:'The Death of the Corporate Job'how 'initiative-itis' is dragging down organisationshow training is corporate sludge that doesn't achieve its goalscorporate culture as an act of 'grandiosity'Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Jeremy Holt is a psychologist and leadership coach who has spent more than 20 years helping teams get better. Read his research about better team results.This episode is the third part of a series about the power of identity in teams. Listen to the other Eat Sleep Work Repeat episodes about identity.Jeremy posting about identityWatch the Lebron documentary More Than a GameJeremy's book For the Love of the GameSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This is the second part of an interview with Professor Alex Haslam, the world's leading voice on the study of social identity.You can hear the first part of this interview on the website.In this discussion we talk how social identity can help us understand leadership.Alex talks about the CARE model of leadership.C - Create the groupA - Advance the group (sometimes over themselves)R - Represent the groupE - Embed the group identity in everyday life for the groupIf you're interested in exploring Alex's recent contributions to discussions on leadership and culture these papers are a great place to start:Zombie LeadershipHuman Me-sources or Human We-sources - exploring leader narcissismAlex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group dynamics, leadership, and identity. Over the past three decades, Alex has helped reshape our understanding of how people think, feel, and behave as members of groups, and why social identity is central to motivation, resilience, and effective teamwork.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

“Why are we so fixated on the individual self? I think it was a big con. The individual self is a relatively modern invention. The idea that human psychology is about the individual self was really an analytical fiction that was devised in the 20th century.”This is the first part of a wide-ranging discussion with Professor Alex Haslam. He talks us why our group identities are so essential to us and define who we are as adults. He quotes his mentor John Turner who said, 'Social identity is what makes group behaviour possible'. By the time you've finished with this episode I'm sure you'll agree.Check out an utterly brilliant talk by Alex - consider this the best training you could send yourself on.Alex mentions his partner Cath Haslam, who is also a psychologist.Full transcript and notes are on the website - along with an Identity playlist of episodes. Alex Haslam is Professor of Social and Organisational Psychology at the University of Queensland. He is one of the world’s leading researchers on group dynamics, leadership, and identity. Over the past three decades, Alex has helped reshape our understanding of how people think, feel, and behave as members of groups, and why social identity is central to motivation, resilience, and effective teamwork.Alex is co-author of The New Psychology of Leadership and The New Psychology of Sport and Exercise, and his work has been applied widely—from health and education to business, politics, and the military. With over 300 research articles and multiple international awards to his name, Alex is recognised as a pioneer of social identity theory in practice, showing how a sense of “us” can unlock extraordinary human potential.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Simon Gilbody talks loneliness at workThe Loneliness of the American Worker - Wall Street JournalMake Work Better on lonelinessMore on solving lonelinessLoneliness in teamsDerek Thompson on elective isolationProfessor Simon Gilbody is a psychiatrist and clinical epidemiologist at the University of York. His work specialises in 'taking a population approach to mental health', trying to understand the aspects of modern life that contribute to how we feel.I was impressed by a talk that Simon did with the Financial Times on the topic of workplace loneliness.In our discussion Simon reflects on the toll of loneliness, how workplace loneliness can leave us with invasive thoughts, and what to do about it.Some links we discuss:Dr Lucy Foulkes - I really enjoy her TikToks, I think I gave a shout out to her book on adolescents a few weeks ago.Red Cross Report on LonelinessThank you to Mary Howarth at University of York for helping to arrange the discussion.Transcript on the website Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

This sponsored episode is brought to you by Deliveroo for WorkSpencer Walker is the global director of Deliveroo for Work.The podcast has returned several times to the idea of food as a cultural trigger, something that catalyses connection and allows cohesion. We explore that idea further this week with Spencer Walker who runs Deliveroo For Work the workplace service provided by the delivery firm. The Deliveroo Feeding Employee Engagement ReportI mention a book by Robin Dunbar and Samantha Rockey, it's this: The Social Brain - Tracey Camilleri, Samantha Rockey, Robin Dunbar. They talk about giving curry to bond teams (because the sharing plates require people to pass them around). Hear them talking about it here.Deliveroo for WorkThe Deliveroo Feeding Employee Engagement ReportMore about food, rituals and culture Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Delighted to post this small conversation with Nick Shackleton-Jones. Nick posts brilliantly witty rants on TikTok that are just the best things I hear about work and the futility of bureaucracy.TikTok is a fame machine and if creators drop a banger they can end up reaching a vast audience. Nick has posted some content about work, neurodiversity and philosophy that has had millions of views.It was his take on why middle aged men wanted to return to the office that I put in the newsletter last week and made up the reason why we chatted but there’s so much more to this - not least him talking about adaptive behaviours and masking for people on the spectrum.Great listen. If you don’t use TikTok then I’ve given a selection of his best posts below:Nick on LinkedInShackleton ConsultingNick on TikTok - this is the good stuffBest posts to check out:Middle aged men don't get on with their wivesThe original on middle aged menWhat I miss about corporateMore of what he misses about corporate (on company values)Adaptive processes for neutrodivergent peoplePedestrian bellChase differenceGet the newsletter here Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

If we shifted our focus from the individual to the collective how different would our results at work be?I'm joined by Colin Fisher who explains that great teams are the most important contributors to great outcomes at work. The problem is that for many of our teams they are equal to less than the sum of the parts. Groups get bigger and bigger and stop being effective. Managers avoid having discussions about trimming teams down - and it leads to failure.Colin's new book The Collective Edge breaks down the ingredients of forming good teams.Colin Fisher is a professor at UCL School of ManagementSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

It’s been a while since I revisited a conversation on offices and how our physical workspaces are evolving. Disruption has made the property business hugely raise their games. With 20-25% of Gen Z workers self reporting having issues of neurodivergency the office is trying to prove that it's still the centre of great workplace cultures.I chatted to Susan Carruth, a partner a 3XN, an architecture firm who is pioneering thinking about the needs of occupants and Mike Wiseman Head of Campuses at British land.For more details on the 2FA project mentioned and British Land's campuses.As discussed: 12% of US mortgage backed office deals are 'delinquent' right nowSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Last month the FInancial Times published an article by John Burn Murdoch in the form of an analysis of personality data, specifically looking at what are styled the Big Five personality traits: openness, conscientiousness, extraversion, agreeableness, and neuroticism.Typically these five factors are regarded as a statistically reliable way to measure personality. Unlike approaches like Myers Briggs these factors prove consistent over time and psychologists took a view that much of the variance of human personality can be understood using these factors. Interestingly these factors also prove predictive for other outcomes. Conscientiousness for example predicts academic success and job performance, neuroticism can predict mental health issues.To discuss it I'm joined by Nick McClelland, Nick is the CEO of Byrne DeanThe original article by John Burn Murdoch (archive version)Newsletter discussion on the dataDiscussion between John Burn Murdoch and Derek ThompsonChristopher Ferguson questions the effect sizeJay Van Bavel talks about the effect size of the dataAlex Haslam points out the questions that lead to the conscientiousness scoresSign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Sign up for the newsletterA couple of years ago, I was surrounded with so many happy Spurs fans that I bought into the euphoric buzz they were giving off.Ange Postecoglou had brought the smile back to Tottenham supporters. I chatted to Charlie Eccleshare from The Athletic about the cultural reinvention that the Australian manager that enacted.Reader, the Big Ange story didn't end well as a result a lot of fans of other clubs regularly message me asking about the episode, or my opinion of Postecoglou's demise. It was while I was joking about this one time that today's guest got in touch.Dan Jackson is a former Aussie Rules footballer who now acts as General Manager at Adelaide Football Club. He got in touch suggesting that I might be unfair backtracking on the support of Ange, challenging me to reflect on 'how the world's premier football competition has such little respect for building genuine high-performance culture?'He said 'I'm sure you'd agree it takes time and a lot of focused effort to change and build a good culture - two things that don't appear to be given any focus in most EPL teams'.I loved the pushback and immediately got in touch to have a conversation with him. We talk both about Postecoglou (and whether we did him dirty) but also about how he is part of a team that tries to build strong long-term culture in his team.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

I’m often asked asked which company cultures I admire, especially as I tend to be critical of the culture inside tech firms. It’s easy to have good vibes in small firms but organisations who manage to deliver good culture at scale are the ones I’m most interested in. I often call out Nando’s or Octopus Energy.I was delighted to get the chance to talk to the CEO of Octopus Energy Group, Greg Jackson. I’ve often reflected that the best cultures seem to be codified and made explicit, but Octopus’s culture isn’t really defined by formal values, Jackson doesn’t pin it down to three or four words. Instead the culture has a vivid feeling but is loosely articulated, a tangible mix of trust, autonomy and a shared mission.Cultures are often defined by what they’re against as much as what they are for. Many companies give a laundry list of desirable attributes they strive for. There’s an organisation at the end of my street that has ‘excellence’ and ‘respect’ on its windows, but would any business claim to be built on mediocrity or disrespect? Aren’t they just given? Sometimes these things are called the Pillars of Character. Yes, we have integrity here, but how does that help you work here?For businesses these pillars are useless for creating differentiation. Jackson’s approach at Octopus stands apart from that, he takes issue with common norms elsewhere. Researching for the conversation I listened to one interview where Jackson talked about the absence of back-to-back meetings in his day. He said:First of one thing I do that I think is unusual is I don't pack my day with meetings. I'm religious about having lots of time outside meetings because in the one hour that someone wants to have a meeting, I can make 10 phone calls or I could drop by the desks of half a dozen team members and I can be available for people to deal with what's going on that day. So one thing for me is your time is far too precious to let it get soaked up on other people's meeting requests. It's quite funny when I got a new PA, she came from a very large software company and I said, ‘I've got a lot of meetings tomorrow’. And she said, well, where I used to work, my job was to pack from 8 AM to 5 PM every day, hour by hour by hour. And I was like, Whoa, how does that person get any thinking time? How does it get any, any time to reset? And how does it get to do anything proactive that changes the world?After the conversation, which was recorded live on stage near Guildford, someone came up to me. ‘My son works at Octopus,’ he said. Here we go, I thought. ‘Every single word he said up there is true. He says he wishes he’d joined there years ago’.Links:Greg on High Performance podcastTranscriptMake Work Better newsletterTake a listen, I’d love to hear your thoughts.Sign up to the Make Work Better newsletter or check out the best ever episodes at the website.Eat Sleep Work Repeat is made and hosted by Bruce Daisley. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.