EP 240
Starbucks’ CEO fail, toxic superstars and Dubai’s Wolf of Wall Street? PLUS! Is Maslow's hierarchy a myth?
· 47:11
- `2:15` Story 1 — Breadcrumbing at work - `7:37` Story 2 — Starbucks' "fabricated empathy" problem…
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Every episode, newest first. Click any timestamp on an episode page to jump straight into a chapter.
Showing 91–120 of 330
EP 239
Why your founder's culture dies at 50 employees (And what to do about it), with Work Futurist, Josh Levine
with Josh Levine · 41:11
Josh joins Al and Leanne to explain why your founder's culture has an expiration date — and it arrives sooner than you think. He breaks down the physics of cultural breakdown, why most values end up as expensive wallpape…
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EP 238
Mr Beast on hiring A-players, digital hangovers and risky workplace humour. PLUS! Are tall people really more successful?
· 52:30
- `8:21` Story 1 — Is workplace humour too risky? - `13:38` Story 2 — MrBeast's "vibe check" hiring trials…
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EP 237
Is hybrid the worst of all worlds? With Professors Ina Purvanova and Alanah Mitchell, authors of The New Workplace"
with Ina Purvanova, Alanah Mitchell · 53:23
Ina and Alanah join Al and Leanne to share their research on nine distinct work personas — from "officers" who never want to leave the office, to "avatars" who live entirely online, to "integrators" trying to bridge both…
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EP 236
Office frogging, A.I. workslop and Deloitte's awkward pay gap. PLUS! Are lefties really more creative?" - This Week in Work, 30th September 2025
· 53:21
- `2:30` Story 1 — Office frogging: Gen Z's job-hopping trend - `7:45` Story 2 — Workslop: AI's productivity problem…
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EP 235
How to make work work for you, with Isabel Berwick, best-selling author of The Future-Proof Career
with Isabel Berwick · 47:13
Isabel rejoins Al and Leanne to celebrate the paperback release of her bestselling book *The Future-Proof Career*. They dig into the "accidental manager" crisis — how people end up leading teams with zero training — and …
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EP 234
Job hugging, Microsoft meltdowns and career regrets. PLUS! The truth about white noise and your brain - This Week in Work, 23rd September 2025
· 47:42
- `2:24` News Roundup — "Job hugging": the new quiet quitting? - `7:53` News Roundup — Arthur Brooks on career risk and regret…
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EP 233
The 1st HR leader who didn't carry a gun: Meet Amy Bouque, Chief People Officer at Kelly Services
· 44:14
Picture this: you're in your mid-twenties, walking into a Detroit manufacturing plant for your first day as head of labor relations. Your job involves firing at least one person every single week. And you discover you're…
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EP 232
CEO scandals, September resets and 1000 days of ChatGPT. PLUS! The rise of rage-baiting, with Vanessa Judelman
with Vanessa Judelman · 56:41
Then, in our Hot Take, executive coach Vanessa Judelman joins us to unpack **rage-baiting** — the online provocation tactic that's quietly creeping into leadership styles. She explains why sarcasm and "poking the bear" m…
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EP 231
When HR goes rogue, with former Adidas VP of HR, Tony Cooke
with Tony Cooke · 46:11
That's exactly what happened at Adidas, where Tony Cooke was running HR. His "waggish" approach — using humor, personality, and genuine humanity — was so effective that HQ kept stealing his initiatives and rolling them o…
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EP 230
How to Stand Out Without Burning Out (Truth, Lies & Work x Nerd Journey)
· 42:00
- `0:02` Intro — part two of the Nerd Journey conversation - `1:49` Being in the team: role clarity and standing out…
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EP 229
This Isn’t Working: What Business Gets Wrong About People and Profit, with Meghan French Dunbar
with Meghan French Dunbar · 53:44
Meghan joins Al and Leanne to challenge the banana-hoarding billionaire mindset — why we celebrate exploitative leaders and what that says about our values. She shares how one of her best hires started with an unexpected…
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EP 228
How to Plan Q4 Like a Psychologist (and Actually Stick to It)
· 53:26
- `[2:55]` Exercise 1 — STOP: a mindfulness reset - `[9:32]` Exercise 2 — Three Good Things: gratitude with science…
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EP 227
Why Doing One New Thing Every Week Could Change Your Life, with behavioural scientist Patrick Fagan
· 42:37
Patrick Fagan spent a year doing something completely new every single week. From joining cults to attending cuddle workshops, from My Little Pony conventions to colonic irrigation, he pushed himself into the uncomfortab…
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EP 226
Ranking the Wildest Workplace Stories of 2025 (So Far) - Summer Sessions Episode 4
· 53:27
Some get an A+. Some fail spectacularly. All of them get a grade. - `0:02` Intro — Summer Sessions continues (and the rosé is out)…
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EP 225
The ‘Ta-Da’! Philosophy: Why Fun Could Save Your Workplace, with Joel Zeff
with Joel Zeff · 47:32
Joel joins Al and Leanne for a summer session on why fun isn't a distraction — it's a leadership tool. He shares the story of getting fired from his newspaper job and ending up on a loading dock playing harmonica for the…
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EP 224
How to protect your people (and yourself) in uncertain times (Truth, Lies & Work x Nerd Journey)
· 46:46
They dig into what happens when you're expected to lead a large team in a flatter organization, why more than half of managers aren't equipped with the skills they need, and the practical steps you can take to protect yo…
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EP 223
Why small talk is exhausting (according to science), with Associate Professor John Michel
with Associate Professor John Michel · 44:26
John Michel joins Al and Leanne to reveal what his research discovered when his students started digging into coworker socializing: awkward small talk doesn't just make people uncomfortable — it leads to emotional exhaus…
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EP 222
Ask old people! Answering Reddit’s funniest nostalgia questions - Summer Sessions Episode 3
· 55:13
- `0:06` Intro — welcome to Summer Sessions - `0:52` Back in our day… the AOL era begins…
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EP 221
Is chasing success making you unhappy? With Carolina Lasso, former Google and AmEx high-flyer
with Carolina Lasso · 43:25
What followed was a six-month mental health sabbatical, a solo journey across Italy, India, Kenya and beyond, and a radical redefinition of what success actually means. Carolina joins Al and Leanne to unpack the "achieve…
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EP 220
Remote Work Roulette: the best (and worst) places we’ve ever worked - Summer Sessions, Episode 2
· 54:48
- `0:02` Intro — welcome to Remote Work Roulette - `3:12` New Zealand: beautiful, expensive, and maybe not for working…
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EP 219
What is holiday anxiety - and why can’t we switch off? With clinical psychologist, Dr Elaine Smith
with Elaine Smith · 41:23
Dr. Elaine Smith joins Al and Leanne to unpack holiday anxiety: why we can't switch off, why even one reply to a work email on leave reinforces the cycle, and how to set boundaries that actually hold. She breaks down the…
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EP 218
The F-ckup Files: Our biggest work (and life!) failures. Summer Sessions, Episode 1
· 52:32
- `4:17` The Disaster Files — Leanne's demotion story begins - `10:50` The call: three options, none of them good…
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EP 217
What makes a better boss? With The Economist’s Andrew Palmer, host of Boss Class Podcast
· 45:46
The answers are rarely what you'd expect. The best leaders don't try to win the room — they create space for others to think. Trust is built slowly and breaks fast. There's no single "right way" to lead, but there are pa…
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EP 216
The intruder paradox, hiring extremes and return-to-office pressure. PLUS! Should you ever admit you’re planning to quit? With Becky Simms
with Becky Simms · 55:27
Al and Leanne dig into the "intruder paradox," unpack a viral hiring post that promises A-players through tough-love recruitment theatre, and explore why the mere *threat* of return-to-office mandates is denting UK worke…
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EP 215
How to lead with confidence, not control. With law firm CEO, Tim Lupinacci
with Tim Lupinacci · 38:46
Tim joins Al and Leanne to share how he's flipped traditional leadership on its head — leading through vulnerability, service, and personal values in a sector that's famously high-pressure, high-burnout, and historically…
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EP 214
The wildest overemployment scam in tech history. PLUS! Fake empathy, nepo hires and salary secrets, with Rameez Kaleem
with Rameez Kaleem · 56:53
Al and Leanne break down the most outrageous employment heist in recent tech history — a software engineer who collected salaries from dozens of Silicon Valley startups simultaneously — and what it reveals about the futu…
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EP 213
How to manage a genius, with Steve Roest, CEO of PocDoc
with Steve Roest, PocDoc · 44:06
Steve joins Al and Leanne to share how he turns his so-called "weakness" — being the non-technical founder — into a leadership superpower. He explains why you don't need to be the smartest person in the room to lead bril…
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EP 212
Can toxic cultures really change? Inside BrewDog, NatWest and secret burnout. PLUS! Why do wellbeing leaders have to be perfect? With Matt Smeed
with Matt Smeed · 58:56
Matt Smeed joins Al and Leanne for this week's Hot Take to argue that wellbeing leaders are held to impossible standards. Other departments get to try, fail and iterate — but when it comes to wellbeing, the bar is sky-hi…
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EP 211
How To Get Anything You Want At Work (The BATNA Method), with Richard Birke
with Richard Birke · 34:14
Richard joins Al and Leanne to break down the BATNA method (Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement) — the psychological framework that world-class negotiators use to walk into any conversation with quiet confidence. …
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