Understanding wellness – the researcher helping us rethink the way we work A couple of years ago a piece of work was published that ended up getting headlines across the world. The academic paper – the work of Oxford University’s WillIam Fleming – found that workplace wellness programmes didn’t work. That meditation app, that burnout…
Danny Meyer is one of the most respected restaurateurs in the world. Beyond the success of the likes of Union Square Cafe, Gramercy Tavern and Shake Shack he’s also become famous for writing a book, Setting the Table, that has become an inspiration to hundreds of thousands of readers. The book is used as training…
Proper ding dong this week. I have a fabulously enjoyable back-and-forth with the brilliant Professor Rob Briner. At one stage Rob says: ‘If you tell someone – whose favourite thing is organisational culture – and you tell them it’s not a very useful idea – they don’t like it.’ Well, I felt seen. To be…
What if your co-workers actually think you’re great? In this episode, Bruce sits down with Dr. Gillian Sandstrom, a psychology professor and author of Once Upon a Stranger, to unpack “the liking gap” – the proven psychological phenomenon that causes us to systematically underestimate how much people like us. Discover why this social anxiety holds…
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…
“Why are we so fixated on the individual self? 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.” Professor Alex Haslam. Part one: Part two: These are the two…
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…
First of two episodes going deep on how AI is going to impact work – and consequently workplace culture. This week’s discussion is with Alexia Cambon from Microsoft. Alexia is Head of Research on Copilot & Future of Work. Last month her team released the Work Trend Index Annual Report. It’s one of the most…