Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan

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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Annette's back with three takeaways from last week's Jennifer Moss episode that genuinely changed how we think about hope at work. Plus a listener question from Paul, an Australian who's been working in Dublin for 7-8 years and is now moving the family home to Melbourne while weighing a career change.

In this Q&A:

- The Admiral McRaven "make your bed" reminder
- FOBO (fear of becoming obsolete) and the five-step Gallup framework for compassionate leadership in the AI era
- Why scheduling time for learning is the part most leaders skip
- "Hope is not a method" vs. "hope IS a strategy": Annette's full reframe
- The four-part hope framework: goals, pathways, personal agency, agency for others
- Paul's question: how do you survive an international move AND a career pivot at the same time?
- The both/and move that changes the maths on midlife career transitions

Annette tells the story of the Post-it she kept on her monitor at one of the toughest jobs of her career: "Hope is not a method." Years later, Jennifer Moss reframed it for her. Hope is a strategy when you build goals, pathways, and agency underneath it. Without those, it's just wishful thinking with better PR.

For Paul, and anyone considering a big move plus a big career shift at the same time, the advice is the both/and: contract while you network, build foundations while you research, and don't try to do all the big rocks at once.

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

NEXT WEEK: Wendy Smith on Both/And Thinking. You're going to love it.

Making your work life better, one conversation at a time.
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Three years ago, Jennifer Moss came on Better at Work and gave us a line that stuck: we can't yoga our way out of a bad boss.
She's back. New book. Sharper take.

Jennifer is a burnout researcher and workplace culture strategist whose new book Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everybody Wants is her third on this space and one of the most useful Cathal has read this year.

In this conversation:
→ Why hope is collapsing at work, especially for under-25s (the World Happiness Report numbers are bleak)
→ Charles Snyder's hope theory and why agency is the piece most leaders miss
→ Why a compliant team isn't a loyal team, it's a team where hope is dying
→ The real cost of layoffs to the people who stay
→ Phobos and the 1 in 2 stat on AI anxiety from Microsoft's Work Trend Index
→ Why most micromanagers are frightened, not malicious
→ The 5-step compassionate leadership framework for AI transitions
→ Why "I'm an ally" framing has made diversity work fragile, and the reframe that fixes it
→ Optimal distinctiveness: fitting in and standing out at the same time
→ Three things leaders can do this week

Jennifer references Adam Grant, Lindsay McIntyre (formerly of Microsoft), Amy Gallo, Claudia Goldin, Robin Dunbar, and case studies from companies including Patagonia and Bright Horizons.

Find Jennifer at jennifer-moss.com and on LinkedIn.

Better at Work is hosted by Cathal Quinlan. New episodes every Thursday 7am.

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