Flexible, Hybrid and Remote Working

Podcast Episode 141: SMART Work – with Jo Owen

6th December 2021

3,504 views

4 min read

This Episode: `SMART Work – with Jo Owen`

This week, Lucinda is joined by special guest, Jo Owen, the author of ‘Smart Work: The Ultimate Handbook for Remote and Hybrid Teams’, to talk about this fantastic new resource, as well as why the concept of managers needs to change, and how we can better motivate people through a new way of viewing leadership.

Key Takeaways

We expect managers to motivate their teams, but this is a flawed concept. You cannot tell people to be happy and motivated. These things come from within.
Change is more effective when it is embedded in rhythms and routines. Indeed, it is about constant analysis of what is taking effect, and incrementally changing patterns based upon the effects we are observing.
If we change the nature of the discourse around motivation, to how we can create, systemically, the conditions of motivation, then we are much better placed to find success.
Everything is harder when performed remotely, but this is actually good news. Lastly, managers are being forced to re-examine procedures and systems and actively improve them.

Best Moments

‘If you can re-engage teachers, you’re going to succeed’

‘Instead of telling managers to be motivational, all you can do is put in place the conditions where the team will rediscover their intrinsic motivation’

‘You’ve linked both mastery and growth with very supportive relationships’

‘The first person to discover how to motivate via email will make a fortune!’

About The Guest, `Jo Owen`

Jo is one of the leading social entrepreneurs in the UK. He founded Teach First which is the largest graduate recruiter in the UK. He is the founder or co-founder of seven other NGOs in education and re-offending. His charities have a combined turnover in excess of £100 million annually.

Jo is also a multi-award winning author and speaker who practices what he preaches about leadership. He is the only person to win the CMI Gold Award four times for his books which have been published in over 100 editions globally. His titles include How to Lead, Tribal Business School, Mindset of Success and Global Teams published by the Financial Times. His current book is Smart Work, on hybrid working, published by Bloomsbury in September.

He was previously a partner at Accenture, and started his career at P&G in brand management.

Lastly, his career highlights include getting sued for $12 billion; building a business in Japan; starting a bank; becoming the best nappy salesman in Birmingham and putting the blue speckle in Daz.

Some relevant links:

About The Host

Lucinda Carney is a Business Psychologist with 15 years in Senior Corporate L&D roles. Lucinda also has a further 10 as CEO of Actus Software where she worked closely with HR colleagues helping them to solve the same challenges across a huge range of industries. Certainly, it was this breadth of experience that inspired Lucinda to set up the HR Uprising community to facilitate greater collaboration across HR professionals in different sectors, helping them to ‘rise up’ together.

“If you look up, you rise up”