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In late August 2021 Mark Aspden, CEO of Sport Hawkes Bay, a Regional Sports Trust in the North Island of Aotearoa NZ posted on LinkedIn. copy of an email he had recently sent to his staff. It was prompted by the tragic death of Olivia Podmore a well-known New Zealand high-performance cyclist and the impact her death had on many working in the sporting community. In it he noted the following: ‘what I do know is while our work in the community is important and makes a real difference, there is nothing we do that is so critical that any one of us should be sacrificing our mental health for it. NOTHING’.  This is a conversation about the link between workloads and wellbeing from a leadership perspective –the role of boards, management teams and funders – in walking the wellbeing talk. 

A conversation with Jeana Abbott about how individuals and organisations can prepare for new ways of working and why transitions are an important part to understand and leverage.  Jeana holds a master’s in psychology and has spent a career in human resource, workforce planning, recruitment and people and culture roles, in Aotearoa New Zealand and overseas. She has the INSEAD Executive Certificate in Global Management and is a Cartier Women’s Initiative Coach. 

Today I talk with Kim Coates a New Zealand industrial organisational (I-O) psychologist. Kim has over 20 years experience designing and delivering tailored development initiatives that help organisations understand how their people tick in order to bring out the best of them. During our conversation, we explore why as human’s we’re prone to relentlessly driving ourselves to do so much it becomes detrimental to our health, wellbeing and peace of mind and identify one question that in and of itself explains everything.

In this podcast, I chat with Joy Keene, Deputy Chief Executive (Operations) at Te Pou Hangarau Ngaio, IT Professionals New Zealand. As we navigate the breadth and depth of the world of IT I gain an appreciation for the role IT professionals play in our working lives, what makes their hearts sing, where their biggest challenges lie, and as consumers of the products and services they develop and support, how we can begin to help ourselves, freeing them up to do their best work. And in the course of our conversation, I discover the one thing technology can’t do for us.

Gone are the days of filing clerks. Technology has enabled self-sufficiency. As we drown in raw data and battle to own our time how can we organise our information and data so it’s quick and easy to find when we need it? As I listen to Col Fink, business advisor, leadership trainer, public speaking coach and tribe builder talk about why he became strangely enthusiastic about filing things I discover how strangely fascinating – and easy - it can be.

In this podcast, I talk with Alannah Irving, a practical visionary, explaining alternative models of work that allow people no matter their circumstances, to realise their potential - boss-less leadership, cooperative governance, participatory technology, impact entrepreneurship and collaborating with money. Alannah is the Chief Operating Officer of Open Collective Inc, the Executive Director of Open Source Collective and Open Source Foundation and the founder of Open Collective New Zealand.  Aotearoa NZ is privileged to have such an inspiring, intelligent, capable person making a difference here. 

When the status quo is no longer satisfactory change is an alternative. Paradoxically this means getting out of the comfort of that status quo and into the world of discomfort, and the sometimes, scary unknown. So not always easy.  The challenge of change in an organisational context is magnified because organisations don’t change, people change - one person at a time. A pad and pen recommended to capture insights, practical suggestions and best practice examples shared in this conversation with Jane Judd, Global President of the Change Management Institute, and all-round very good chick.

In this, the first episode of TimePeace, I talk with Clinical Psychologist Dougal Sutherland about the Psychology of Busy, what it means, why it occurs to the extreme and what can be done differently to mitigate the insidious impacts on individual, organisation and societal productivity, profitability and wellbeing. Dougal is the Manager of Victoria University of Wellington’s School of Psychology Clinic, and also a consultant for Umbrella, a business based in Wellington, New Zealand, helping organisations leverage the benefits of people wellbeing. I hope there is something in this conversation for you.