Making friends, and creating slack
With Bruce Daisley, best-selling author, podcast host, and public speaker
I was interested in workplace culture, right from when I was doing jobs in bars and restaurants, because you really notice it there. You notice really quickly from your first shift…”Am I looking forward to these people becoming my friends?” Because sometimes you joined somewhere, and it's just such a lovely phase that you're like, I can't wait to be part of their in-jokes, I can't wait to be sort of laughing and joking like these people are.
There’s so much thinking and writing out there about purpose, and workplace culture, and leadership. But sometimes that means we stop connecting emotionally with what it really means to have a job that you enjoy, and that nourishes your life.
Our recent interview with Bruce Daisley was a reminder of some of those basic, human principles of being at work.
If we are looking for solutions to modern workplace problems, perhaps they all start with the very human questions.
How do we make people’s individual experiences of work better?
How can they get to know and enjoy the company of the people around them?
Bruce has been deep in this space for years, both as a reader and more recently as a podcast host, best-selling author and public speaker. His books the Joy of Work and Fortitude are both essential reading in this space, his podcast Eat Sleep Work Repeat is packed with fresh perspectives, and his latest free deck Presence is also a real eye-opener.
This interview is packed with great ideas and examples, but three particularly interesting thoughts we’d like to put on your radar…
Is a big workplace really ever going to be one community - or is it more productive to think about micro-communities?
If community is really important (and it almost certainly is), maybe it should be someone’s job to nurture it…?
Maybe what actually people need most from us as modern leaders is space, time, and ‘slack in the system’…
This interview covers all kinds of other areas, including:
Where Bruce found his initial curiosity about workplace culture
What he learned from working at Google and Twitter
Why food is such a powerful force in the physical workplace
Why friendship is such an important part of modern work
How micro-communities come together to make a whole
Why we need to build in slack for people and communities to thrive
The full interview is for our paid subscribers only - but for a £10 this month you can watch this, our full back catalogue of expert interviews, access all of our frameworks, and get advance access to our upcoming events and training sessions.
Enjoy!