CultureLab with Aga Bajer

What on Earth is frontalis? And why is it the most important part of human anatomy when it comes to forging authentic connections in the remote work environment? How can a corny catchphrase help a team accomplish more? What's a better alternative to brutal honesty when we want to speak the truth at work? What can leaders learn from Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelenskyy? And how can we harness the power of deep fun to improve our workplaces?  These are just some of the topics we discuss in this episode with Dan Coyle, the New York Times bestselling author of The Culture Code, and the upcoming title, The Culture Playbook. Tune in and enjoy. To join CultureBrained® go to tinyurl.com/culturebrained To access our free resources and materials on cultivating thriving cultures, click here: https://www.agabajer.com/resources/

Have you ever wondered what it would take to tackle some of humanity's most urgent challenges such as climate change, social inequality, armed conflicts or economic disparity? If you have, you're not alone. But not all of us think that THE institution with the highest capacity to create positive change in the world is business. My guest today, Carolyn Butler Madden envisions a world where business is not just about financial gain, but a powerful force for good, with the potential to drive profit through purpose. Her life's work has been to empower leaders to unlock the full potential of their organizations by embedding a meaningful purpose into the fabric of their business and brand strategies. With her book, "For Love and Money" earning the title of best Social Responsibility book in the Australian Business Book of the Year Awards, Carolyn's literary contributions have already paved the way for many businesses seeking a purpose-driven future. In this conversation, Carolyn shares fresh insights into how purpose-driven leadership can unlock potential and drive growth. You can follow Carolyn Buttler Madden on LinkedIn. You can find the transcript HERE. Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game. Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

Have you ever felt like you are not connecting with someone and the barrier that stands in the way is cultural? It might be that the jokes you crack don't land, the emails you send seem to miss the mark, or the way you lead meetings doesn't resonate with everyone in the room. It can be like trying to tune into a radio station but finding yourself between frequencies, where everything just sounds like static. This is a common experience in today's global workforce, where teams are more diverse than ever, spanning across different countries, cultures, and backgrounds. Andy Molinky is a psychology Professor at Brandeis University and an expert in the field of intercultural relationship-building. He recently published a new book, Forging Bonds in a Global Workforce and in this conversation, we are exploring how to forge bonds across cultures. You can follow Andy Molinsky on LinkedIn. You can find the transcript HERE. Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game. Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.

When was the last time you were genuinely playful at work? If you are like most of us, it might have been a while. We've been conditioned to believe that work and play don't really mix. Not only we've been taught to draw a clear demarcation line between work and play, we've also been convinced that work is somehow way more noble and more important that play. But what if truly great work couldn't happen without a healthy dose of play? What if, unless we can have fun with the work itself, at least occasionally, we can't really achieve greatness? Today's conversation with Gary Ware, the Founder of Breakthrough Play a keynote speaker, and author of the book Playful Rebellion: Maximize Workplace Success Through the Power of Play addresses these questions. Gary talks about the relationship of workplace productivity and play, play as the driver of innovation and performance, the eight play personalities and how we can integrate purposeful play into our workday. You can follow Gary Ware on LinkedIn. You can find the transcript HERE. Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game. Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE

Can you remember a time when it felt like things at work were unjustifiably and annoyingly hard? Maybe you had to read a 1000-word email that could have been just one paragraph, or had to attend a two-hour meeting that could have been an email. Or maybe you had to manually input data although the process should have been automated ages ago. The reality is that every workplace is clogged with this type of destructive friction—the time-consuming, and soul-crushing practices that drive us crazy and undermine our ability to achieve meaningful goals. I imagine that at the global scale, millions of hours must get lost every day to red tape, workarounds that shouldn't have to exist in the first place, and to misguided leaders who pile on needless complexity. My guest today, Professor Bob Sutton has been so fascinated by the friction we experience in organisations that he researched it for a decade. His work resulted in a book co-authored with Huggy Rao, The Friction Project. Bob Sutton is an organizational psychologist and Professor of Management Science and Engineering at Stanford University.  He studies leadership, innovation, organizational change, and workplace dynamics.  His main focus over the past decade is on scaling and leading at scale—how to grow organizations, spread good things (and remove bad things) in teams and organizations. In this conversation, Bob Sutton and I talk about how to identify good and bad friction in an organization and how to make the right things easier and the wrong things harder. You can follow Bob Sutton on LinkedIn. You can find the transcript HERE. Join the CultureBrained® Community– a one-of-a-kind virtual community for Heads of Culture, founders, and leaders who want to up their culture game. Check out more of our free resources 👉 HERE.