Work, Upgraded: Recent Episodes
Lauren Dixon
Equipping leaders to succeed in the next industrial revolution by sharing actionable insights into the future of work. Our workplace technology is constantly being upgraded. Isn't it time our work caught up?
Progress updates matter, but they cause a lot of sludge. Listen in to hear about some alternatives: question-based updates and Hill Charts.
Links:
- Hill charts from Shape Up
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- LinkedIn
- Instagram
- Threads
Contact the show: lauren@workupgraded.com
If you're calculating the cost of your meetings like Shopify, you better also be thinking about the ROI and the root causes.
Links:
- Hill charts from Shape Up
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- Threads
Contact the show: lauren@workupgraded.com
The benefits of nuturing the talent you have in your team, rather than replanting talent in a new hire or consultant.
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- Threads
Contact the show: lauren@workupgraded.com
Increase your strategic acumen through attention to signal, not just attention to detail.
Links:
- Original LinkedIn post
- TutorialsPoint definition
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- Threads
Contact the show: lauren@workupgraded.com
Does your strategy raise more questions than it answers? It might be a mystery box strategy. Listen in on how to avoid mystery box strategies and define a clear strategy your team can actually act on.
Join the conversation:
- Connect with Lauren Dixon on LinkedIn
- Subscribe to Work Upgraded on Substack
Today’s article is a little different! I recorded a video for LinkedIn this week attempting to define Agile without comparing it to waterfall. In today's episode of the podcast, I share the audio from that video.
Links:
- Watch the video
- Subscribe to Substack
- Connect on LinkedIn
Today we discuss Blair Enns' Innoficiency Principle and how we can stop failing fast and fail better.
Links:
- 2Bobs on Innoficiency
- Blair Enns' article on Innoficiency
- 20%, the Marketing Procurement Podcast on Innoficiency
Follow Work Upgraded:
- Work Upgraded on Substack
- Lauren Dixon on LinkedIn
This week I'm discussing a common theme from the 9 barriers to innovation at professional services firms: utilisation and the PSF business model.
Links in this week's episode:
- What makes innovation at professional services firms unique from Work Upgraded
- The history of consulting at ConsultingQuest.com
Find more Work Upgraded:
Substack
Today we're joined by guest host, ChatGPT, to discuss innovation in professional services firms. Does it matter? How do we do it? Do we all need cross-functional teams and digital products? Find out ChatGPT's thoughts on this and more.
Learn more about creative problem solving and innovation in professional services firms:
Work Upgraded Substack
Find Lauren on LinkedIn
And ChatGPT at OpenAI
In our pursuit of high autonomy teams, have we lost the art of managing dependencies?
The article mentioned in today's episode: Agile Is Ruining Your Product by Matt LeMay
Follow Wizard Innovation Labs on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter for more
If you've ever helped prepare a strategy before, you've probably had a consultant use the "vision, values and mission" structure to define it. However, VVM on their own are not a strategy. This week on Work Upgraded we explore what strategy is and what role VVM plays in your strategic leadership toolkit.
Resources mentioned:
Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard P. Rumelt
Follow Wizard Innovation Labs on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter for more
The retrospective aka "retro" aka after action review aka many other names is one of the most powerful routines you can have to create a high performing team. Listen to this week's episode to find out why.
Check out the "Is your retro broken?" assessment at wizardinnovationlabs.com/retro
Follow Wizard Innovation Labs on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter for more
As a leader, it can be tempting to keep hiring for a certain personality and skillset that you find produces high quality work. But this can unwittingly lead us into 5 traps that prevent us building a truly high performing team.
Listen in to understand these 5 traps and what to focus on instead.
Follow Wizard Innovation Labs on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook or Twitter.
Have you ever tried to retro-fit other organisation's approach to business agility? Painful right? This week we talk to Ways of Working specialist, Nicolas Brown, about how business agility will impact the future of work, and how to get it right for your organisation.
Follow Nick -
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Twitter: @mbrown02
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LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/nicolasjmbrown
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Website: nicholasbrown.co.uk
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LinkedIn
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In this bumper episode with career coach Terry B McDougall, we cover some of the self-leadership essentials including:
- Having boundaries at work
- Leading your team to success and happiness
- The high integrity approach to politics
Find out more from Terry here:
Website: terrybmcdougall.com
LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/terrybmcdougall
Facebook: facebook.com/terrybmcdougall
Instagram: @i_am_coach_terry
Book: Winning the Game of Work
Podcast: Marketing Mambo
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Inspired by Good Strategy Bad Strategy by Richard Rumelt, this week I am discussing the dangers of substituting innovation for good strategy and what to do instead.
Do you agree or disagree? Tweet @WizardTeamLabs and let me know.
And follow Wizard Innovation Labs on all your favourite platforms:
Speaker coach Lisa Evans joins us to discuss how we can upgrade our public speaking. We cover the prevalence of public speaking in the workplace, what will happen to presenting in the future of work and practical tips for to nail your next presentation, even if it's a virtual presentation.
If you want to learn more from Lisa, you can find her at:
- Website: speakingsavvy.com.au
- Podcast: speakingsavvy.com.au/podcast
- LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lisaevansspeaker
- Facebook: linkedin.com/in/lisaevansspeaker
- Instagram: instagram.com/lisa_evans_speaker
Hear more from Lauren Dixon:
- Connect on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/laurenbdixon
- Career Coaching: laurenbdixon.com/career-discovery-call
- High Performing Teams Consulting: wizardinnovationlabs.com
- Follow the podcast: instagram.com/wizardinnovationlabs
- Follow Lauren: instagram.com/lauren.dixon.writes
Does innovation always have to be a complete overhaul of everything you know? I don't believe so, and neither does John Saunders. Today on Work Upgraded I'm joined by John Saunders, executive coach and author of The Optimizer. We discuss the power of incremental change to transform your team, and how to get started with incremental change at your organisation.
You can find more from John:
- The Optimizer by John Saunders
- Website
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This week on Work Upgraded we briefly cover off on what the "iron triangle" of project management is and why we should use time budgets on everything from our to do list to our multi-million dollar projects.
Tweet @WizardTeamLabs to tell me which item on your to-do list needs to have a time budget applied.
And follow Wizard Innovation Labs on all your favourite platforms:
This week we are joined by Kris Grant, CEO of ASPL Group, discussing practical ways to apply neuroscience in leadership.
You can find Kris on Instagram @krisgrant_aspl and LinkedIn
And you can also find ASPL on Instagram @asplgroup and LinkedIn
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Does big data really help us make better decisions in business? Is the endless pursuit of more data worth it?
Join us on Work Upgraded to discuss this, and how we can extract more knowledge from data, without having to gather more data.
- Find more on the tools referenced in this discussion on our Instagram
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Freelancing and contractors will be a big part of the future of work. On this episode, I interview Indiana "Indy" Gregg about how to create an exceptional team that includes freelancers and contractors.
Indy is the founder of Wedo, a global platform making freelancing even easier. And Indy has also built a team of high performing freelancers to build the platform, so she knows her stuff! Listen in to Indy's insights on how to include freelancers in your team.
Find out more about Wedo at:
- getwedo.today
- YouTube
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Download the whitepaper on the 9 Essential Skills to Lead in the Future of Work here
Today we're exploring the trending topic of systems thinking and 5 ways you can start using it at work today.
Check out the career growth giveaway here or over on Instagram.
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Work Upgraded gets an upgrade as we welcome our first guest, Lynn Yap, author of The Altruistic Capitalist. Lauren and Lynn talk about how being purpose-driven as an organisation is essential to thriving in the future of work.
You can find Lynn at:
Her website: altruisticcapitalist.com
Instagram: @altruisticcapitalist
Facebook: The Altruistic Capitalist
Or email her at: lynn@altruisticcapitalist.com
Some of the stories Lynn mentioned:
Adidas x Allbirds
Adidas x Carbon
Measuring Stakeholder Capitalismfrom the World Economic Forum
As always, you can follow Wizard Innovation Labs at:
This episodes explores the most important lever leaders can use to create and sustain high performing teams: identity.
Mentioned in this episode:
Atomic Habitsby James Clear
Leaders must be able to have these 7 hard conversations to build a high performing team
Are organisations every in a truly fixed stated? And is organisational change every truly done? We discuss this, and how we can build in adaptability to our organisations in today's episode.
The big debate for desk-based jobs is Remote vs Office vs Hybrid, but for us this represents an opportunity to intentionally design collaborative work instead of relying on colocation to facilitate collaboration.
Today we discuss how digital transformation isn't the thing that wil define our future of work, analogue transformation is.
Today we're exploring how we can introduce more fun into work while still getting stuff done.
Links for things mentioned in today's episode:
Lego Serious Play: https://www.lego.com/en-us/seriousplay
Crazy 8's: https://designsprintkit.withgoogle.com/methodology/phase3-sketch/crazy-8s
10-for-10: https://www.workshopper.com/post/the-ultimate-10-minute-brainstorming
Today we break down Peter Drucker's famous adage "Culture eats strategy for breakfast" and talk about how we can create culture-proof strategies in the final episode of our Strategy mini-series.
In the fourth episode of our strategy mini-series we discuss how interpreting strategy is a part of everyone's role.
Today we continue the strategy mini-series by discussing when we should be looking at our strategies.
Today we reflect on one of the biggest objections to strategy: does it limit our ability to be experimental and opportunistic?
In this, the first episode in the mini-series on Strategy, we discuss why we often put the cart before the horse when creating organisational strategies.
Today we discuss how drawing a new org chart doesn't equal organisational transformation.
Read the TACSI article here: https://tacsi.org.au/journal/function-over-form/
Our hourly rates need to factor in that WHAT we're working on is as important as HOW LONG we're working on it.
Considering how we can actually shift the dial on our organisational culture by bringing that intent into our everyday work routines.
You can check out Ben from Thoughtful Leader at his website here: https://www.thoughtfulleader.com/
Unpacking how we can use diffuse thinking to be more creative at work. "Learning How to Learn" on Coursera: https://www.coursera.org/learn/learning-how-to-learn
In trying to fit everything into our day, we forget that some meetings should probably stay meetings.
Today we talk about the missing dimension from the Eisenhower Matrix.
Links:
Eisenhower Matrix/Principle/Box explained by James Clear
The Win Without Pitching Manifesto by Blair Enns
What can we learn about motivation at work from an anit-litter campaign and the world of digital marketing? Listen in to find out.
Links:
- Made To Stick by Chip and Dan Heath
- Expert Secrets by Russell Brunson
Today we explore how we can apply product thinking, even if we aren't digital product builders.
Links from today's episode:
- Product Thinking by Julie Zhuo on a16z
Reflections on some of the barriers that prevent teams turning their organisation's strategy into action