Inspiration for this month's episode has been Boeing's slow but steady slip from great engineering firm to hesitant choice for your next holiday flight. How the actions and words of a few people at the top drive the behaviours and decisions throughout the organisation. With real impact for customers and workers alike. Can organisations on a cultural decline be turned around? Do we as individuals also need to have a good look in the mirror? Join us for this episode for a few spiky views.
As always we quote some people much smarter than us. Here are the references from this episode:
- 'Ultra-Processed People - Why Do We All Eat Stuff That Isn’t Food … and Why Can’t We Stop?', by Chris van Tulleken (https://www.penguin.co.uk/books/45130...)
- '1,500 UK businesses have become B Corp certified, an increase of 50% in less than a year': https://bcorporation.uk/
- 'Quality Is Free', by Philip B. Crosby (McGraw-Hill Books, 1979)
- 'Humankind - A hopeful history', by Rutger Bregman, Bloomsbury Publishing - 'School for Moral Ambition': / moralambition

Our guest in this episode is Rebecca Cullum, who earned her stripes in leadership development in the IT and mobile phone sectors. Now operating independently, Rebecca supports leaders and their teams in establishing the culture, behaviours and mindsets that are required for 2024 and beyond. No surprises that these include being open to flexible working practices, encouraging learning and experimentation and accepting that what worked in the past may not work in the future.

Some of the references from this episode:
- Professor Saras Saraswarthy explains ‘Effectuation’, how serial entrepreneurs approach new ventures, including the principle of ‘Affordable Loss’: https://effectuation.org/hubfs/Video%...
- W.L Gore - the story of the organisation and the Four Guiding Principles, including the Waterline principle: We are all shareholders, and we will consult with the appropriate Associates before taking an action "below the waterline" that could cause serious damage to the long-term success or reputation of our enterprise.
- Manual Of Me: Explore and explain how you can work better together: https://www.manualof.me/

Our special guest on this episode is Henry Stewart, who not only named his company 'Happy', he helps other companies become happy too.

It took a Damascene epiphany for Henry to change from self-confessed micro-manager into a CEO who makes no decisions. Since then, Henry has transformed his company into one that not only practices what it preaches, it positively ploughs the furrow by experimenting with new ways of working and challenging accepted wisdom when it comes to creating effective, productive and most of all happy workplaces.
Henry and Happy are well-known for their programmes for leaders and organisations that want to create more joy at work. In this Punks episode we quiz him on his methods, his inspiration, his successes and his 'failures'.

Some of the references from this episode:
- Happy: https://www.happy.co.uk
- Semler, Ricardo. 2001. Maverick. London, England: Random House Business Books.
- Wiseman, L., & McKeown, G. (2010). Multipliers: How the best leaders make everyone smarter. HarperBusiness.
- Laloux, F. (2014). Reinventing Organizations: A Guide to Creating Organizations Inspired by the Next Stage of Human Consciousness. Brussels: Nelson Parker.
- MLA. Marquet, L. David. Turn the Ship Around! Portfolio Penguin, 2015.
- Stewart, H. The Happy Manifesto. Kogan Page, 2012
- Reed Hastings CEO Netflix Quote "At most companies, the boss is there to approve or block the decisions of employees. This is a surefire way to limit innovation and slow down growth. When the boss steps out of the role of 'decision approver,' the entire business speeds up and innovation increases." Taken from No Rules Rules: Netflix and the Culture of Reinvention By Reed Hastings and Erin Meyer
- Creating Joy at Work: 501 ideas for creating a happy, productive workplace Paperback – 25 Jun. 2023. Henry Stewart (Author) https://www.amazon.co.uk/Creating-Joy...
- The “Happy MBA” https://www.happy.co.uk/apprenticeshi...
- The Productivity Bltz https://www.happy.co.uk/leadership-an...

Our special guest on this first episode of 2024 is Geoff Marlow, well-known for his work with large organisations on getting them to become more innovative, agile and adaptive, and for the Five Fatal Habits he identified as key when organisations fail in their attempts to become more nimble.
Both in his education and his early career, Geoff realised that being empowered and encouraged to explore, experiment and learn suited him better than adopting so-called best-practices and (re)produce what others told him was best. It turned out this insight helped him greatly when organisations starting asking him for help to become more innovative and nimble.
In our conversation with Geoff we explore these career themes, his views on what makes the difference between inert organisations and adaptive ones, and on the detrimental role that large management consultancy firms play in keeping organisations from developing their own innovation muscle mass.

For more details on the research, articles, blogs and other sources mentioned:
- Geoff Marlow: https://www.geoffmarlow.com/
- Plowden Report: https://education-uk.org/documents/pl...
- Max Plack’s quote “A new scientific truth does not triumph by convincing its opponents and making them see the light, but rather because its opponents eventually die, and a new generation grows up that is familiar with it.” In Scientific Autobiography and Other Papers, (1949), as translated by F. Gaynor, pp. 33–34, 97 (as cited in T. S. Kuhn, The Structure of Scientific Revolutions). Translation revised by Eric Weinberger. Via Wikiquote at: https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/Max_Planck
- The Principles of Scientific Management, Frederick Winslow Taylor, Dover Publications Inc. 1909, ISBN 13 9780486299884
- The Fifth Discipline: The Art & Practice of the Learning Organization, Peter Senge, Cornerstone Publishing, 1990, ISBN 0-385-26095-4

Are you struggling with a toxic, overbearing boss, to the extent that you have sought professional help to deal with it? If so, you're not alone. In this episode, our Punks reflect on a recent study that identified one-third of workers requiring therapy to deal with their work situations. Why is that? Are you perhaps one of those bosses? And how could this be overcome?
Sources mentioned:
- Article about workers with toxic bosses requiring therapy and the Sunday Scaries. https://africa.businessinsider.com/ca....
- It links to the Harris Poll - Toxic Bosses Survey https://theharrispoll.com/wp-content/....
- Colin's post on Sunday Scaries: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/colinn...
- AntiWork Reddit https://www.reddit.com/r/antiwork/
- 'OpenAI staff threaten to quit en masse unless Sam Altman is reinstated’ article https://www.theguardian.com/technolog...
- Steve Glowinkowski's book "It's behaviour stupid! What really drives the performance of your organisation, 2010" talks about a longditudinal study looking at health markers in relation to the quality of management.
- HBR article "What Makes Leadership Development Programs Succeed" refers to the enormous spend on leadership programmes, yet only 10% are effective: https://hbr.org/2023/02/what-makes-le...

In this episode our Punks discuss Ben's ambition to create a progressive MBA programme, one that leaves the formulaic traps of established MBAs for dust and prepares the leaders of the future with the skills that the 2020s demand. After all, with large parts of the workforce working flexibly, AI looming large over everyone, and Gen Z entrants to the labour market no longer interested in climbing the corporate ladder, traditional leadership skills (whatever they are) no longer fit the bill.
Listen to our mavericks' debate on the subject and let us know what key skill you would want to be tought at a thoroughly modern MBA.
Colin's quote is from Geoff Marlow, the full version of which is “a future-fit organisation is one where sense making, decision making & action taking are tightly coupled, rapidly and repeatedly iterated, deeply embedded and widely distributed throughout the organisation.” For more context, Geoff suggests the following edition of his newsletter, although it doesn’t include this exact phrase https://geoffmarlow.substack.com/p/fr...

Special guest in this episode: Charles Towers-Clark, writer of "The WEIRD CEO" (and the CEO of the title).
Artificial Intelligence has gone mainstream lately, with ChatGPT and other tools now firmly in the public eye. Years ago, Charles concluded that in order to prepare his company POD Group and its workforce for the advent of AI, a radical rethink of how work is organised was called for. And so he went about introducing concepts of autonomy and self management to his company. What it takes to do this well, he summarised in the menomonic WEIRD (Wisdom, Emotional Intelligence, Initiative, Responsibility and Development).
In this Work Punks episode we quiz him on his learnings and what he - in hindsight - would have done differently. We touch upon a new definition of a company's assets, and why 'purpose' is so fundamental. We also delve into his current research, since leaving POD, and what AI might mean for our children's career choices.
Work Punks are Colin Newlyn (Decrapify Work), Ben Simpson (VitalOrg) and Paul Jansen (Trust Works).

Also available as a webcast at https://youtu.be/i1Trt1Z4zAo?si=WNq3Ask1aacVsY90

This week we wrestle with the issue of holidays. We all agree that we need holidays and they have a postive impact on our health and our performance, yet there are very mixed messages from employers. We discuss different norms in US and Europe, whether people should decide for themselves how much holiday they take (the Netflix approach) or should we be insisting they take the holidays they are given. We look at how organisations consider holidays and whether they allow for them in their planning and their expectations on employees. The issues around holidays are a microcosm of the bigger debate around the demands made of employees that are causing distress and burnout. Holidays can be a balm but they are not the solution to that.

This is also avaialble as a webcast at https://youtu.be/UVvNg-7wxjQ