I remember years ago Tom Peters raging on about the importance of design. And, as usual with Tom, he was right on the money.  Because content and knowledge is now ubiquitous and free, design becomes absolutely critical to adding value and creating something of worth.  It’s no longer content and then some token thought about design.  The design is a significant part of the content.

That’s why I’m so delighted to have spoken to John McWade. For decades he’s been at the forefront of design in publishing.  He currently publishes the brilliant Before & After magazine, which on a regular basis shares practical tips on graphic design. In doing so, he’s drawing on experience that started when he was the very first user of Aldus PageMaker – a program that grew up to become Adobe – and he founded the first desktop publishing company.

In our conversation we cover

• the genius of Apple and their design (and it’s not just their cool gadgets)
• how John knows when a piece of work is complete
• the starting point for any project – design-led or otherwise – and the big question you need to ask
• a fundamental principle of design which you can use in planning everyday life, not just a magazine cover
• John’s three word mantra for brilliant design – and for that matter, Great Work

You can connect with John at www.BAMagazine.com

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Listen to my interview with John McWade

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

I have two shelves put aside for my iconic Great Work texts. These are reserved for the books and the authors who I think have written something timeless and significant in how we can show up and do the work we should be doing.  Peter Senge’s there.  So is Peter Block.

And both these guys point to today’s guest, Robert Fritz, and say he’s a giant in this field. Actually, he’s a giant in two fields.  He spends some of his time working with large organizations.  And he spends some of that time as a composer and creator in the arts field, both making music and making films.  You can see the dual focus by the titles of his books.  One, The Managerial Moment of Truth.  Another, Your Life as Art.

In this wide-ranging discussion we talk about

• How Robert frames Great Work – be true to yourself – and what that real means
• The fact that organizations are amoral – what that means, and in particular what that means to you as a member of that organization
• Why “problem solving” is so seductive for managers – and how it gets in the way of Great Work
• The fundamental design of organizations, why that matters and what their real purpose is (it’s not “shareholder return”)

You can connect with Robert at www.RobertFritz.com

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Listen to my interview with Robert Fritz

Follow Michael Bungay Stanier/@boxofcrayons on Twitter

I’m Australian, and Australians seem to be wanderers.  Maybe it’s because we suffer from a “tyranny of distance” – which means that when we do travel, we don’t just do it for a week or two, we do it for years.  That’s why about 70% of bar staff in the UK are Aussies, with a similar percentage for ski instructors in Europe and Canada.

I’ve done my own share of living in different countries, but I’m put to shame by Grahame Maher, currently CEO of Vodafone Qatar.  In his time with the company he’s lead the Australian, New Zealand, Swedish, Czech and now Qatar organizations.

So he brings to this conversation a unique mix of loyalty to one company, but the perspective of living and working in many countries.  Even better, he is (in his own words) “a small business guy who never wanted to work for a big organization” and a baker by trade.  Intrigued?  You should be.

In this conversation, we look at:

• The tactics he used to move the Vodafone brand in New Zealand from 2% recognition to 96%
• The power of mission and values to drive Great Work
• What happened when an engineer accidentally turned off the network for 600,000 people’s phones
• How stories can carry the DNA of success (and why the right words matter)

Listen to my interview with Grahame here

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.

Years ago when I worked for an innovation company, one of our clients was KFC. Now, the first thing that happened was the day after I was hired to run this project, Mad Cow Disease hit the UK and KFC’s sales doubled overnight.  I tried to take credit for that.

And the second thing that happened was that we went to check out the competition.  A new chain selling chicken had just arrived from South Africa, Nando’s.  And it was good. It was very good.

Julia Claydon’s been part of that leadership team from almost the very start. She’s seen the chain grow from five stores to almost two hundred, with well over four million pounds turnover a week.

Part of their success is how they don’t treat this as a “McJob” for anyone in the organization. In out conversation she talks about the strategies they’ve used to successfully grow and keep people doing work that’s meaningful and engaging – part of the recipe for success, no doubt.  Listen on to hear:

• a story where corporate values actually mattered, and weren’t just an ignored laminated poster
• a story where the humanity and skills of the front-line staff are fully recognized
• the unique structure by which feedback is passed from front-line to the senior leaders of the organization

It’s a terrific, behind-the-scenes tour of a growing organization.

Listen to my interview with Julia here

The interviews are all between 25 and 30 minutes long.
You can either download them here as mp3s, or go to iTunes, type in “Great Work Interviews” and you’ll see them all there.