What makes an Awesome Office? Is it the culture? The leadership? Is it the office space itself? These are the questions that we set out to answer on this podcast from day one.

You’d be hard pressed to think of a more qualified person to provide answers than this week’s Awesome Office guest, Sara Mailloux.

As Hulu's Director of Workplace Experience, it’s Sara's job to provide the company’s 1,300 Hulugans with an environment that supports their culture and empowers them to perform at their best, day in and day out.

While Hulu does have an incredible, open workspace, Sara contends that it’s the people in that - not the space itself - that make an office truly awesome. The office is there just to empower the people in it to do great things. 

Sara was a delight to talk to in this episode. In it, she goes deep into the history of Hulu, and describes the ways she helps craft the right experience to keep the company on an upward trajectory.

Key Takeaways

• Sara describes the transitions that the Hulu workplace has undergone since its inception nearly a decade ago.
• Sara explains why she’s rarely at her desk, and tells us about the types of spaces she’s designed to encourage collaboration.  
• Sara tells us how she became the #2 employee at Hulu, and how an early foray in television production inspired a career-long love of experiential design and construction.
• Sara relays the story of how Hulu got the name “Hulu,” as well as how Hulu employees came to be known as “Hulugans.”
• Sara tells us the funnest thing about working at Hulu (which, it turns out, is also the most challenging).
• Sara explains Hulu’s “60/40” rule, and why she believes employees must drive their own career development.
• Sara explains what “Workplace Experience” means at Hulu, and why she’s dedicated her career to it.
• Sara explains the dilemma between trying to design for the individual vs. creating experiences for the team in aggregate.
• Sara names the types of spaces that she thinks every workplace should give their employees.
• Sara explains the role of constant and consistent communication in workplace experience.
• Finally, Sara tells us what companies can do to improve workplace experience, even if they don’t have a ton money to spend.

Links

• Hulu.com
• Sara on LinkedIn
• Gensler Architects
• Oregon Ducks Football

Recommended Reading

• The Three Marriages: Reimagining Work, Self and Relationship by David Whyte

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Sometimes, our brains are our worst enemies.

It's true - our biology predisposes us to react emotionally and perpetuate negative self-talk. For leaders, this leads to self-doubt, tension, and dysfunctional teams.

So what’s a leader to do?

Simple: outsmart your brain.

That’s according to this week’s awesome office guest, Dr. Marcia Reynolds, a world renowned organizational psychologist and leadership coach, and the author of the books Outsmart Your Brain and The Discomfort Zone.

Dr. Reynolds has delivered workshops in 35 countries and has presented at the Harvard Kennedy School, Cornell University, Edwards School of Management in Canada and Moscow School of Management in Russia.

In our conversation, she lays out a strategy for circumventing our over-protective brains, and reveals how we can change the way we communicate in order to maximize every conversation we have with our teams.

Marcia also recounts an incredible story about a particularly impactful conversation she had during a brief stint in jail during her rebellious youth.

We’re so humbled that Marcia shared so much with us. We know you’ll get a ton out of this interview - we sure did.

Key Takeaways

• Marcia explains why she thinks coaching is so beneficial, and the mindset that prevents a lot of business leaders from fully taking advantage of it. 3:58
• Marcia tells us why training by itself doesn’t work, and why real behavioral change requires ongoing conversations and accountability. 5:45
• Marcia describes the ideal cadence between a leader and a coach. 6:45
• Marcia explains why the most significant conversations are about challenging people to do more. 11:35
• Marcia explains the hazards of focusing on achievement and excellence in our upbringings, and what the missing piece for her was. 11:40
• Marcia tells us her journey into leadership coaching - including a conversation during a brief stint in jail that changed her life forever. 12:45
• Marcia explains how leaders can make deeper connections with their teams, despite the increased demands put on their time and energy, and why leaders should see it as an opportunity, not a burden, when team members come to them for advice. 14:24
• Marcia explains why she titled her book Outsmart Your Brain, and shares the number one mindset shift leaders need to make to improve on a daily basis. 16:43
• Marcia describes why curiosity is actually the most underrated emotion. 19:40
• Marcia explains the fundamental premise behind her book The Discomfort Zone, and why it’s so important to challenge people to become the best version of themselves. 23:40
• Marcia shares two stories about toxic cultures, and the approaches that each company took (to varying degrees of success).  34:20
• Marcia explains why we need to treat employees as partners, not as cogs in the machine. 38:25

Recommended Reading

• Outsmart Your Brain: How to Make Success Feel Easy by Marcia Reynolds, PsyD
• The Discomfort Zone: How Leaders Turn Difficult Conversations into Breakthroughs by Marcia Reynolds, PsyD

Links

• OutsmartYourBrain.com
• Contact Marcia: marcia@outsmartyourbrain.com
• Steve Piersanti, President and Publisher of Berrett-Koehler Publishers 

This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.

SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.

To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.

There's no doubt that today, Marcus Buckingham is a master communicator.

The entrepreneur and best selling author of First, Break All the Rules and Discover Your Strengths is one of the foremost experts on the topics of employee engagement and performance, and is a sought after speaker on these topics.

You’d probably never guess that he grew up with a debilitating stammer.

It's true: for the first eleven years of his life, this master wordsmith and public speaker couldn’t speak.

So what changed?

That’s precisely what we dive into in this week’s episode - overcoming the challenges that hold us back from becoming exactly who we want to be. Marcus tells us the incredible story of how we was able to overcome his speech impediment, and the lessons that he carried with him throughout his life and work.

Marcus also shares a simple trick for finding your strengths, and why we should look more at our past successes than our failures.

Key Takeaways

• Marcus explains how he came to be a public speaker, despite a childhood stammer.
• Marcus shares how he overcame his stammer, and relays the lesson that he’s carried with him ever since.
• Marcus points out that while failure can be instructive, you can only repeat and scale success by focusing on past successes.
• Marcus explains why the more you realize how unique - and, ultimately, alone - you are, the more you can actually contribute to and connect with others.
• Marcus describes the discipline he discovered that enables him to collect the feedback that life gives us, and where most people go wrong when it comes to this.
• Marcus clarifies the distinction between “non-strengths” and “weaknesses,” and describes how our non-strengths actually become weaknesses.
• Marcus shares a simple trick to help you find your strengths (see Love it/Loathe It bonus exercise).
• Marcus describes the one thing he loathes more than anything else, and how to turn your strengths into weaknesses.

BONUS EXERCISE: Loved It / Loathed It

In today’s episode, strength-finding expert Marcus Buckingham shares a quick and easy strategy for discovering your strengths. It works like this:

• Take a piece of paper and draw a line down the middle. On one side write “Loved It,” and the other write “Loathed It.”
• As you go through your week, reflect daily on the things that you looked forward to, that made time speed up, that energize, or that may have made you a little tired, but that you want to do again. Those all go in the “Loved It” category.
• Now think about everything you do that you put off, that makes time drag on, or that leave you completely drained and exhausted. Those go in the “Loathed It” category.
• Before long, you’ll have a clear picture of your strengths. The beauty of this method is that it’s not abstract - these are actual tasks, functions, or activities that you actually perform during your week.
• Now summarize your findings using specific action verbs (again, nothing abstract).
• For Marcus, these words were “interview” and “mingle” - he found that he loved interviewing people, but absolutely loathed mingling.

Recommended Reading

• First Break All the Rules: What the World’s Greatest Managers Do Differently by Marcus Buckingham
• Discover Your Strengths by Marcus Buckingham
• Other books by Marcus Buckingham
• Just the Way You Are: How Heredity and Experience Create the Individual by Winifred Gallagher
• An Intimate History of Humanity by Theodore Zeldin  
• Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind by Yuval Noah Harari

Links

• The Marcus Buckingham Co. https://www.tmbc.com/
• @mwbuckingham on Twitter
• @marcusbuckingham on Instagram
• Arsenal Football Club

This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.

SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.

To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.

When you think of innovation hotbeds, you might think of places like Austin or LA. Ten years ago, maybe it was San Francisco or Brooklyn.

I’m guessing the words “Sherwood Park, Alberta, Canada” don’t immediately come to mind.

Well, not yet, anyway. Especially if this week’s Awesome Office guest Daniel Matishak has anything to say about it.

Daniel is the co-founder and CEO of Mindable, a marketing optimization company that specializes in activating niche communities in the personal development space. The company has been able to grow into a massive, 8-figure marketing juggernaut based out of - you guessed it - Sherwood Park, Alberta.

How have they pulled this off? One strategy that has paid off is a mostly remote workforce, that enables the company to attract top talent not just from their own backyard, but from across the globe.

There are, of course, challenges that come with a dispersed team like Mindable’s. Namely - how do you maintain the right culture when more than half your staff never sets foot in the office?

That's really what this interview is all about.

Key Takeaways

• Daniel talks about his entrepreneurial beginnings at age 19, and why he’s chosen to stay in Canada throughout his nine year career.
• Daniel shares how went about building a business without an idea for one.
• Why the business world is seeing more venture-backed internet marketing businesses - and will continue to.
• Daniel shares Mindable’s competitive advantage, and it’s not what you might think.
• How to maintain the right culture when the majority of your workforce is remote.
• The advantages of starting a company in a place like Sherwood Park, Alberta.
• Daniel walks us through the thought process behind his company’s newly redesigned office space, and shares the quirky features that have enabled Mindable to maintain a great culture.
• Daniel explains why he feels culture is so important and relates a story about how Mindable overcame one of its lowest moments - when they lost roughly half their business.
• Daniel talks about how he combats self doubt, and why he thinks egos kill companies.

Links

• Mindable
• Daniel on LinkedIn
• @DanielMatishak on Twitter
• Daniel on Instagram
• Trello
• Kolbe Score
• Edmonton Oilers

Recommended Reading

• The Hard Things About Hard Things by Ben Horowitz

This is episode is brought to you by the snack geniuses at SnackNation.

SnackNation is a healthy office snack delivery service that makes healthy snacking fun, life more productive, and workplaces awesome.

To try a free SnackNation discovery box (featuring 15 delicious snacks your team will love), visit get.snacknation.com/ao. You'll also receive a complimentary copy of the 2016 Ultimate Guide to Creating An Awesome Office.