Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan

Roger Martin is the world's number one management thinker, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, and strategy advisor to the CEOs of P&G, Lego, Ford and American Express. He is our final guest of the year, and we have split the conversation in two.

In part one, Roger takes apart what most people get wrong about strategy. We begin at his father's kitchen table, where an animal feed company and one unbreakable rule taught him more about business than Harvard did. From there he lays out the idea at the heart of his book Playing to Win: strategy is not a long planning document, it is a set of interrelated choices that compels a customer to act.

He explains why only 10 to 15% of big companies actually have a strategy, why the rest end up with a laundry list of initiatives, and how the strongest leaders set a clear outcome and then trust their people to find the way there. Along the way: the Strategy Choice Cascade, why strategy has to be made at every level of an organisation, and the difference between micromanaging and what the military calls commander's intent.

Part two is coming soon.

Book: Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works, by Roger Martin and A.G. Lafley.

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Annette is in London! She and Cathal are finally in the same studio for this listener questions episode.

First up, Annette's three takeaways from Cathal's conversation with behavioural scientist Leidy Klotz, author of In a Good Place. The headline: every workspace has to meet three psychological needs. Agency, growth and connection. They get into why hot-desking quietly erodes all three, the simplest confidence trick going (visit the room before a high-stakes meeting), and how to improve a workspace when no renovation budget is coming.

Then a question from listener Helen, whose husband is working around the clock. She can feel them losing connection, and he keeps telling her the same thing: you don't understand, I don't have a choice. Cathal and Annette have both been close to this one, and they share practical ways to help without trying to fix.
Plus: Annette's Camino de Santiago walk, two black toes and all.

Next week: Roger Martin, author of Playing to Win: How Strategy Really Works.

Got a work dilemma for a future episode? Get in touch at betteratwork.net
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Most workplaces obsess over paint colours, open-plan vs closed offices, and how many days people should be back at their desks. They skip the only question that actually matters.

This week Cathal sits down with Leidy Klotz, engineering professor and behavioural scientist at the University of Virginia. Leidy is the author of SUBTRACT (translated into eight languages) and his new book IN A GOOD PLACE breaks down the three psychological needs your physical surroundings either feed or starve: agency, growth, and connection.

They cover:
- The nursing home study where control over your space changed survival rates
- Why refugees in "half-finished houses" recover faster than those given fully built homes
- The boss who accidentally locked his team out of the only good conference room
- What the negotiation research says about arriving 20 minutes early
- The single most damaging mistake organisations make when designing workplaces
- Why space is one of the only things in your life you can actually change

Leidy Klotz, PhD is a behavioural scientist and engineering professor at the University of Virginia. His research has been published in Nature and Science. Before academia he played professional soccer and designed schools in New Jersey. His new book IN A GOOD PLACE: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive is out now.

Find Leidy: leidyklotz.com

New episodes of Better at Work every Thursday, 7am GMT. Real talk on work, careers, and how to make work actually better.
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Q&A episode: Annette synthesises Wendy Smith's both/and thinking, Cathal reflects on Bob Geldof's recent speech on empathy in leadership, and we answer Lou's question on preparing for her first competency-based interview.

Following last week's conversation with Wendy Smith (Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions to Solve Your Toughest Problems), Annette walks through the takeaways that stuck with her. The Fab Four: assumptions, boundaries, comfort, dynamics. The two metaphors at the heart of Wendy's framework: the tightrope walker who splits attention and chops between competing priorities, and the mule, the integrated both/and solution that's stronger than a horse and smarter than a donkey.

Cathal and Annette get into why so many of us end up tightrope walking at work without meaning to. The "stop starting, start finishing" trap. The way leaders accumulate priorities until everything is urgent and nothing is finished. And why complexity, the thing most of us instinctively dread, can actually be a source of energy if you have the right framework to meet it with.

Then a swerve into Bob Geldof's recent awards speech on empathy and what's gone missing in global leadership. Cathal pulls the thread: the both/and case for caring about people and running a business well. They're not in tension.

The listener question this week comes from Lou, who's preparing for her first ever competency-based interview and has no idea where to start. Annette lays out the framework:

→ Prepare 5 examples from your career, things you're genuinely proud of
→ Cover real range: a difficult stakeholder, a deadline crunch, an unsolvable problem
→ Structure each one with situation, action, outcome
→ Connect each example back to your core skills and values
→ Practise out loud, to camera or to a mirror, so the interview isn't the first time you've heard these words in your own voice

Plus a look at what's coming next week: Leidy Klotz, author of Subtract, on his new book In a Good Place: How the Spaces Where We Live, Work, and Play Can Help Us Thrive.

Got a career dilemma you'd like us to tackle in a future Q&A? Head to betteratwork.net.
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Wendy Smith is a management professor at the University of Delaware and the co-author of Both/And Thinking, a book translating 25 years of research into practical tools leaders can apply immediately.

In this conversation:

- Why workplace tensions are a feature, not a bug
- What most business schools are getting wrong about leadership
- The difference between a dilemma (where you choose) and a paradox (where you don't)
- Four types of paradox every leader faces: learning, performing, organising, belonging
- The three traps of either/or thinking: rabbit holes, wrecking balls, trench warfare
- Why King Charles got both sides of the US Congress on their feet
- The X-on-the-hand habit that made Wendy a better listener (and a better leader)
- A preview of her next book on anxiety and finding comfort in the discomfort

Wendy's biggest invitation: notice how often the tensions in your life present themselves as either/or. Then ask one question. What if it's both?

Featuring callbacks to previous Better at Work guests Jennifer Moss and Amy Gallo. Recorded with Wendy in Philadelphia.

Got a career dilemma? Send it in at betteratwork.com

NEXT WEEK: Q&A with Annette on this episode and listener questions.

Making your work life better, one conversation at a time.
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