Different ways of connecting

• If you enjoyed (or didn’t..) the listening exercise, it’s a very informal version of Nancy Klein’s thinking partnerships. Her version has more rules. You can find out more in this review or buy her book for deeper insight. I do a thinking partnership every week and credit it with improving my listening, thinking and depth of consideration into how I want to live my life. As a bonus, it’s cheaper than therapy.

• Before I did a training course on thinking partnerships with @Meg Peppin (you can find her on LInkedIn) I did an even more informal version 5 minutes each way per week with a colleague on the phone. You could try it?

• Alternatively The 36 Questions - the first set are appropriate for work and brilliant at unlocking connection between people very fast.

Stats on Work.

• Edelman Trust Barometer 2026 “insularity”

• The State of the Workplace 2026 report: Gallup tells you how many people in an average team are fully engaged, quietly seething, or wildly sticking forks in the printer.

• WEF Global Risks Report 2026.

• Microsoft’s Work Trend Index, 31,000 people in 31 countries. Pretty much anything you’re wondering about is here including lots on overwhelm.

• WEF’s Future of Jobs 2025 report is.

• YouTube fertility crisis “Birthgap” film.

Brain Overload

• The dawn of post-literate society by James Marriott

• My favourite book on stress is Rob Cross and Karen Dillon’s Microstress, the link is to an HBR piece.  Or see Rob on my vlog here. 

• Burnout vs Boreout.  On our vlog but also a short article here in Forbes.

• For the switch-cost effect and impact of diet, lifestyle, sleep etc. on concentration, read this Guardian extract of Stolen Focus: Why You Can’t Pay Attention by Johann Hari. The rest of the book is very accessible, my kids even enjoyed listening in the car. Actually, only one of them did but we take those odds in our house.

• As an illustration of how overload can live in organisations you can’t beat 'Careless People: The explosive memoir that Meta doesn’t want you to read by Sarah Wynn-Williams. Needless to say, Meta has banned her from publicising the book.

Better work

• Bosses are the weather.  We all look up with far more focus and attention than we look down (we are wired for survival). Here is an HBR article about how power and politics works in organisations.

• The AI-Savvy Leader: 9 ways to take back control and make AI work by David De Cremer

• A lot of what we’ve assumed about feedback is wrong, this long-read HBR piece explains how most negative feedback is more about us than them.

• This one explores the value of appreciation in terms of engagement.

• Zeynep Ton’s book ‘The case for good jobs’ is a must read for all those in the retail and service industries. You can watch her speaking here at the MIT Sloan Global Women’s conference.

• Variance on a theme but this Guardian piece on the gap between bosses and their teams is sobering.

Productivity (Minus the BS)

• The ‘Energy Tracker’ in Excel for anyone wanting to explore how their energy is being spent weekly/daily.

• The best book for perspective on productivity and time is 4000 Weeks by Oliver Burkeman.

• Energy Rising by neuroscientist Dr Julia DiGangi.  She sees every problem as a choice between two kinds of pain (this includes any negative feeling, irritation, stress, frustration, boredom etc.).

  • Familiar pain: keep doing what you always do, in this case agreeing to a task you don’t have time or energy for.

  • Or a more powerful pain: changing the dynamic by doing something that your brain sees as risky, but which is more rewarding and will increase your emotional power and energy.

  • This doesn’t mean black-and-white thinking or saying ‘no’ to everything. She encourages us to ‘feel our shake’, as when we lift heavier weights, and practice breaking familiar patterns.

• There are TONNES of books on creating better habits. If you only read one (and you haven’t already) make it Atomic Habits (the link is to his website). If you want my summary in a three-minute vlog, it’s here.

• Given that productivity is less individual and more collective than we used to think, this Atlantic article on the Anti-Social Century is a fabulous read.

• For thinking long-term and goal setting, Dorie Clark’s The Loooooong Game is useful. This is her on my vlog.

Gender and Work.

• You’d expect my bookThe Mother of All Jobs: How to have children and a career and stay sane(ish) to be top of the list, right? Or the Sunday Times cover story gives a good summary (if you have problems accessing it, we can send it to you).

• I love the work of Eve Rodsky, she analyses who tends to take which domestic roles in relationships. This is especially relevant for those with small children.