How I Work

Latest Episodes:

GitLab's Head of Remote, Darren Murph, on how to create corporate culture when no one works from the office Sep 23, 2020

Show notes

My guest today is Darren Murph who is GitLab’s Head of Remote. If you have never heard of GitLab, it's the world’s largest all-remote company, with over 1,300 team members in 67+ countries with no company-owned offices. Darren has spent his career leading remote teams and charting remote transformations and authored GitLab’s Remote Playbook. Darren also holds a Guinness World Record as the planet's most prolific professional blogger, having published 10 million words.

In this chat, we cover:

How crisis-induced remote work is different from true remote work
Darren’s favourite tips from Gitlab’s Remote Working handbook
Why companies need to change their default to asynchronous communication
How to create a corporate culture in a remote working environment
The importance that values play in company culture
How to recruit for people who are suited to remote work
The key software that you need to make remote work, work
How to design for serendipitous moments when everyone works remote
How to replace water cooler conversations in the remote environment
How to have effective meetings - and more importantly - deciding when NOT to meet
Darren’s one page operating manual
Darren’s favourite gadgets
Companies that he looks to for remote working inspiration.

Connect with Darren on Linkedin and Twitter. Check out Darren’s personal operating manual, GitLab’s remote playbook, and Darren’s book Living the Remote Dream.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor Laura May Martin on how she manages her inbox Sep 21, 2020

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Google’s Executive Productivity Advisor Laura May Martin was on how she manages her inbox.

You can find the full interview here.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Shameless' Michelle and Zara on their process for making one of the most popular podcasts in Australia Sep 16, 2020

Show notes

My guests on today’s show are Michelle Andrews and Zara McDonald. Michelle and Zara are Melbourne-based journalists and broadcasters, aged 26. They met working as writers for Mama Mia, and in March 2018 launched Australia’s top pop-culture podcast Shameless, ‘for smart women who like dumb stuff.’ They now run Shameless Media and are the producers of three other highly popular podcasts.

Shameless has been downloaded over 10 million times and was crowned Australia’s Most Popular Podcast of 2019 at the Australian Podcast Awards. Michelle and Zara and their podcast have been written about in The New York Times, The Guardian, The Age and Marie Claire.

In this chat, we cover:

What goes on behind the scenes of making the Shameless podcast
Where they get their inspiration for content from
Their process for preparing for interviews
How they keep their podcast banter feeling fresh
How Michelle and Zara decide how much personal information to share with listeners - and what not to disclose
How they manage their time on social media
Why they deleted their 40,000+ member Facebook group
How they decide which projects to say Yes versus No to
Michelle and Zara’s guiding principle for key business decisions
How they deal with negative feedback
Their favourite podcasts
And much more.

Grab your copy of Michelle and Zara’s book The Space Between, follow Shameless on Instagram, join the Shameless Book Club, and listen to the Shameless podcast on Apple Podcasts.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: Finder.com co-founder Fred Schebesta identifying top talent Sep 14, 2020

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Finder.com co-founder Fred Schebesta was on how he identifies top talent.

You can find the full interview here.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BEST OF: Dan Health on curing himself from procrastination, solving problems before they happen, and the ideal time to seek feedback. Sep 09, 2020

Show notes

In today's BEST OF episode, my guest is Dan Heath. Dan is the co-author, along with his brother Chip, of four New York Times bestsellers: Decisive, Switch, Made to Stick, and The Power of Moments. The Heath Brothers’ books have sold over 3 million copies worldwide and been translated into 33 languages.

Dan is a Senior Fellow at Duke University’s CASE center, which supports social entrepreneurs.

I am a HUGE fan of Dan's work and we cover a lot of ground in this interview, including:

The importance of trying to solve problems before they happen - and why this is so hard to do
How Dan thinks about coming up with titles for his books
Why he saw the title of his new book, Upstream, as incredibly risky
The value in focusing on recurring irritants to focus upstream thinking
Why Dan tracks his time, and the changes this lead to in his life
How tunneling gets in the way of solving problems
How Dan overcame his procrastination tendencies
The importance of momentum in writing
The pros and cons of not working with his brother Heath for writing Upstream
Dan’s approach to soliciting feedback and the ideal time to seek it
Where Dan’s book ideas come from
What makes a great business book
How Dan develops the frameworks for his books
The strategies Dan has written about that have had the biggest impact on his own life.

Find out more about Dan at Heathbrothers.com and grab a copy of Upstream here.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

The three letter word that will dramatically improve your day Sep 07, 2020

Show notes

This episode looks at a simple word that will dramatically improve your day. Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes. Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

BEST OF: Amazon executive Paul Migliorini on banning PowerPoint decks, using frugalilty to drive innovation, and trying to always say yes. Sep 02, 2020

Show notes

In today's BEST OF episode, my guest is Paul Migliorini. Paul leads the Amazon Web Services business across Australia and New Zealand - a role that he has been in for the last four years. Prior to joining AWS Paul held leadership roles in Asia and Australia with BT, Motorola, Regus and Ernst & Young, most recently as the CEO for Regus ANZ and Regional Managing Director for South Asia at BT.

I was keen to speak to Paul because I have heard a lot of things about Amazon’s culture and ways of working that fascinated me. And there is nothing better than being able to get an insider’s perspective on how it all works.

So if you have ever wondered what goes on behind the scenes of one of the world’s fastest growing and most powerful companies, I think you’ll love my chat with Paul.

We cover:

How Paul has dramatically changed his mobile phone behaviour
Amazon’s 14 key leadership principles
How being frugal leads to innovative
The importance of “two pizza teams"
Why leaders at Amazon do more coaching rather than managing
Why input measures matter more than output measures
The two types of decisions that can be made at Amazon and how this impacts decision-making speed
The importance of disagreeing and committing to decisions
How strong opinions are encouraged at Amazon
How Amazon identifies people who will fit with the culture during the recruitment process
The 50% test that Amazon use in their recruitment process
Why Powerpoint is banned at Amazon
The critical role of long form narratives at Amazon
Why the first 15-20 minutes of meetings at Amazon are spent reading
Why Amazon create fictitious press releases for products that don’t exist
Amazon’s working backwards process
Why Paul sees it as his job to say yes to as many requests as possible.

Learn more about Amazon's Summit, check out career opportunities at Amazonand connect with Paul on Linkedin.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

My Favourite Tip: Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner on scheduling time for spontaneity Aug 31, 2020

Show notes

My favourite tip from my chat with Fox News anchor Harris Faulkner was on scheduling time for spontaneity.

You can find the full interview here.

Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.

Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

SEEK's Managing Director, Kendra Banks, on how her leadership team make their most important decisions Aug 26, 2020

Show notes

My guest today is Kendra Banks, the Managing Director for Australia and New Zealand at SEEK. If you live in Australia, you have probably used SEEK at some point in your career, and for overseas listeners, SEEK is Australia's number one employment marketplace.

Kendra has had an amazing career and has worked in senior marketing roles at Coles where she was General Manager, Customer Insight & Coles Brand and also in London at Tesco. Kendra holds a Masters in European Politics at the College of Europe, where she was a Fulbright scholarship recipient. Prior to this, Kendra completed a Bachelor of Economics and Mathematics at Yale University.

We cover:

What it was like moving from working from home once a month to every single day
How Seek has changed the timing and length of regular meetings in the virtual world
Tools that Kendra uses to see how her messages are landing in all-staff meetings
On having retrospectives to optimise meetings
Balancing virtual schooling three kids with trying to work
Managing staff who are trying to juggle homeschooling with work
Providing unlimited carer’s leave
The importance of coming back to purpose to drive motivation
How Kendra manages her own stress
How Kendra has deliberately chosen to take the riskier path for her career
Strategies Kendra uses to make good decisions
How Kendra’s leadership team approach decision-making
The best and worst career advice Kendra has received
Kendra’s peer support group and the role they play in her life