- How do other people think about Great Work?
- What’s inspired them? What challenges have they overcome?
- What wisdom would they offer you about how to find, start and sustain Great Work?
- What are their Great Work stories?
For the past year I’ve been interviewing some great people on their take on Great Work. I’ve talked to business authors, like David Ulrich, David Allen, Marshall Goldsmith and Jim Loehr. I’ve spoken to the heads of learning in organizations such as Dell, General Mills, ING Bank and Nokia. I’ve spoken to leading bloggers in the worlds of business and in “life management.” I’ve spoken to writers and social innovators and futurists and… well, I’ve spoken to lots of really cool, opinionated and interesting folk.
And their interviews are all available free, in MP3 format. Click on the interview link to listen to each one, or right-click it (control-click on Mac) to download the MP3 to your computer and listen to it later.
Each interview is approximately 20 minutes long.
Go find someone who’s got an opinion you want to hear and get their take on Great Work. New interviews added every month, so check back or subscribe to the RSS feed to hear more. And now you can download the interviews from iTunes. Just go to the iTunes Store, and type Great Work Interviews in the search box. There they are! Or go to the App Store and get the free App for Great Work!
One of the giants in the self-development world, Leo Babauta. His blog Zen Habits is read by over 150,000 people, and with good reason. It’s practical, wise and committed to helping people create a better life for themselves through simple productivity. He’s also the author of The Power of Less, a best-selling book which helps declutter your life on every possible level.
I’m thrilled to say Leo has contributed a piece to my new book, Do More Great Work.
In this interview Leo and I talk about:
- How he balanced two jobs (and a family with six children) to launch Zen Habits
- Leo’s core planning tool – and it’s about having fun
- Why starting small is the most powerful way for getting big
- The secret to leaving behind a bad habit and taking up a more positive, new one.
You can follow Leo on Twitter at @zenhabits and read his work on his blog.
If you enjoyed this interview, you’ll also enjoy my conversations with:
Posted on February 8, 2010
My first job, when I finally stumbled out of university, was with a small creativity and innovation company. It was pretty fantastic – sort of a ‘Fast Company’ company before such a thing existed. And we truly felt that we were in the vanguard for making innovation and its attendant skill creativity important in organizations.
But vanguard? No, not really. Roger von Oech – now he was in the vanguard. He started his company Creative Think back in the mid 1970s and his book A Whack on the Side of the Head is a classic in the creativity field.
In this interview we talk about:
- The power of persistence, and some of the early struggles to get creativity seen as something that matters within organizations
- The importance of embedding creativity into the structures of your organization
- The role of the warrior in helping creativity flourish
- And a certain activity that can increase your ability to be creative (And David Rock agrees.)
You can follow Roger on Twitter at @RogerVonOech and on his website.
Posted on February 5, 2010
There are very few books I find myself endlessly recommending to others. One of them is Michael Watkin’s The First 90 Days. It does a fabulous job at addressing that real and pressing challenge: How do you flourish in your first days in a new job or role, knowing that those first 90 days will make and break your longer-term success?
Michael’s been both an academic and a practitioner, so he brings both heart and hands into this conversation. We talk about:
- The aHa! moment when it became clear that the challenge of transitions would be Michael’s own ‘Great Work’
- The power of focus, and what number is “too many” for your A-list of priorities
- A simple but powerful tactic to stay ‘on task’ once you’ve defined your priorities
- The danger of the comfort zone – and the role of delegation in making a difference
- What “improv” has to do with success.
You can learn more about Michael’s work on his website.
Posted on February 4, 2010
Krishna De’s tagline is “Bring your brand to life” and she takes this message to individuals and organizations around the world and both on and off line. She comes with dirt under her fingernails from working in organizations. Krishna was the youngest person on the Guinness Board and the first woman, and she has worked in three continents and 30 countries. She really brings a wealth of international expertise, gusto and experience to this conversation about branding and also about great work.
In this interview we talk about:
- Why stability is as important as risk as the foundation for Great Work
- What dealing with the threats from the mafia taught her about Great Work
- How to become CEO of your own career – and what support structures you might up in place to allow that to happen
- How to rail against the threat of a mediocre life
You can follow Krishna on Twitter at @KrishnaDe and on her blog.
Posted on February 4, 2010
