We-ness: The secret cause of Psychological Safety

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.