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Inspire Club EP #13 - Emma Bridger
8 Plays4 years ago
In this episode we talk with Emma Bridger, Founder & Managing Director at People Lab
As one of the leading employee engagement experts, Emma is passionate in helping organisations design and create great experiences which help people truly be their best. As a previous lecturer in Psychology & Behaviour Change, Emma has combined her knowledge of Behaviour Change with her experience at companies such as EDF, RSA & E.ON to provide some amazing change.
In her chat with Ruth, Emma highlights the importance of wellbeing and how we should not look at it as something to fix but to strengthen for. On the personal side, we find out about Emma's love for music and what instrument she played in her band.
We hope you enjoy it.
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Transcript
Introduction to The Inspire Club
00:00:00
Speaker
Hello, hello, hello, hello, and welcome to our podcast, The Inspire Club, and welcome back to any of our previous listeners. I am your host, Ruth Dance, and I share the duties of hosting this podcast along with our team, Inspiring Workplaces, and you've probably heard, if you've listened to our podcast before, my co-host, Matt Manners.
00:00:22
Speaker
We really enjoy interviewing incredible people who are as passionate as us in creating inspiring workplaces and these people are from all over the world.
00:00:33
Speaker
For those of you that don't know me, I am the director of the Inspiring Workplace Academy, which is a professional development, coaching, training, MA, et cetera, arm of the business. And just like in the 1990s classic fight club, we do have one rule. And our one rule is that each guest must share a story of one person that has inspired them along the way, putting positivity out into that world and thanking someone who maybe have no idea.
00:01:02
Speaker
It could be a past colleague, it could be anyone really, maybe someone from the world of work, someone outside of work as
Meet Emma Bridger
00:01:09
Speaker
well. So I should probably let you know who our guest is for today. I'm really excited to be joined by Emma Bridger.
00:01:18
Speaker
If any of you haven't heard of Emma Bridger, here's a little bit of info on her. She is the founder and director of People Lab. People are one of the world's leading employee engagement and experience experts. And she is also, in my opinion, one of the most, maybe the most passionate person I've ever met about helping organizations design and create these great experiences
00:01:45
Speaker
which helps people to really truly be their best. Emma has so much experience and so many connections around the world. She's often my go-to person in fact. She came to this world and this field of employee experience probably through a more unconventional route. She was previously a lecturer in psychology
00:02:09
Speaker
but specialized in behavior change and then combined her educational background along with her business experience to go on and do amazing things. Emma is a conference speaker, she's an advisor,
00:02:25
Speaker
to a government task force group in here in the UK. She works with so many organizations and she's also been published in many industry journals. And probably the two biggest things that I will take my hat off to Emma for what she's done over the last few years is
00:02:43
Speaker
write and publish two amazing books. The first one is The Practical Introduction to Employee Engagement. It's a five-star rated book on Amazon, now in its second edition. And the second one, and congratulations, Emma, on the release of the book that's just come out, which is Employee Experience by Design, which has been out a few weeks now. So, Emma,
00:03:05
Speaker
all round not only have you got this incredible background you're just any an incredible woman and I'm just um in total awe of you and I'm so happy to have you on the podcast today with us so are you there Emma?
Emma's Inspirational Story
00:03:19
Speaker
I am here Ruth and I'm feeling really humbled by by that intro feeling like if you can see me I'm quite I'm quite red now I've gone a bit red but I'm yeah very humbled by that intro
00:03:28
Speaker
I'm delighted to be here and, you know, absolutely loving the work that you and the rest of inspiring workplaces are doing. So, you know, great, great job you're doing and really excited to see where you guys go next. So thank you so much for inviting me along. Oh, it's our pleasure to have you here. And I'm sure you're in so much demand with just a new book from release. So how is the new book going?
00:03:51
Speaker
Yeah, really well. We had a virtual book launch. We obviously wanted to have an in-person book launch, but it wasn't meant to be. But the benefit of a virtual book launch is lots of people can come along and celebrate with you that might not normally be able to be there. So we had that a few weeks ago and
00:04:08
Speaker
it's great we have over 100 people join us which was amazing blown away by the support and you know like you're saying people from all around the world able to kind of get involved this new way of working so it's done exciting and has some really lovely feedback so yeah it's all good so we're going really well thank you. Oh that is amazing and you're so right like we're able to touch
00:04:30
Speaker
further corners of the world that we wouldn't have even been able to, it would have been so far out of reach before, so being able to really work to create these incredible workplaces around the world is amazing. But I have to go to our very first question and our first rule of Fight Club, Inspire Club.
00:04:51
Speaker
and I have to do this otherwise I will give myself a slap wrist. Share with me Emma a story of someone in the world of work who has inspired you and why have they inspired you?
00:05:09
Speaker
So I know this is dead cheesy, right, but I've got to say my dad. My dad is called Terry Davis and he has, he's retired now, but all of his life he worked for himself and
00:05:25
Speaker
Obviously, he's an amazing guy, he's my dad, but in the world of work, you know, I learned so much from him. I think the first thing is that, you know, he was actually a real feminist, he always brought me up to say, you can do anything that you want to do, Emma, you know, you put your mind to it, you can do it. And that was a really kind of key part of my mindset growing up, he instilled that kind of, I suppose, that ambition and belief.
00:05:49
Speaker
You know, I saw him, he had a number of different businesses, but I saw him work really hard, put the effort in. But I also saw him fail. You know, there was time when we were growing up when we actually lost our house because things didn't go so well for him. And I saw him pick himself up, dust himself off and
00:06:07
Speaker
kind of get on with things and you know and be very very successful again so I kind of learnt those sorts of lessons from him and I also saw him treat people really well you know people loved working for him he was a really generous man and I saw him you know great leadership skills saw him lead people really well and also give people a chance as well I remember
00:06:30
Speaker
the last business he had before he retired was a builder's and plumber's merchant's business in Birmingham. I remember I used to go and work for him on a Saturday as you do when you're a kid and I remember this young lad coming in and this sort of seat, well, he had my CV, I don't think, and he was just really desperate for a job. I remember my dad saying, okay, yeah, I'll give you a chance. This guy had been around loads of places and my dad was like,
00:06:51
Speaker
I'll give you a chance. And I saw this young lad kind of grow and develop over the years and end up kind of being the warehouse manager. And so I saw him nurture and develop people. So I know it's still cheesy, but I'm going to say my dad. Oh, Emma, that is so lovely. Does he know this?
00:07:10
Speaker
I don't know if he does, you know, I probably should tell him more often. I mean, you know, I do sort of sometimes share with him what I've learned from him, but yeah, I probably should tell him more often, definitely. Oh, that's amazing. And I'd like to interview your children on a podcast episode in a few years' time and say, who inspires you? And I reckon they'd say my mum. I don't think they would. They're at that stage where they're like massively embarrassed of like everything I do.
00:07:36
Speaker
Oh dear. We grow out of that stage, hopefully. Yeah, definitely. Definitely. Teenage years. Oh my goodness.
Purpose and PeopleLab
00:07:43
Speaker
Emma, what is your purpose? What drives you? What's your my why? Yeah, it's really interesting because going back to the story about my dad, whilst I really admire what he'd done, he also put me off
00:08:01
Speaker
ever wanted to run my own business because I sort of saw the blood sweat and tears and thought, it looks like a bit too much hard work. Not that I'm afraid of hard work, but the emotional side of it, you know. So I worked in house for many years, as you know, and while I was working in house, I observed firsthand, you know, companies getting it wrong, really badly getting it wrong with their people.
00:08:24
Speaker
And I just kind of had this real wake up call. It wasn't like an overnight thing, but over the course of years, I just thought, you know what, we're just at work. It's such a massive part of our lives. And it doesn't have to be, and it shouldn't be a miserable experience. And I'm sick of companies
00:08:40
Speaker
getting it wrong with their people. And I just felt like, you know, we know, right, I'm privileged to convert here, but we know when we get it right with our people, it's good for everybody, you know, people benefit, they thrive, they want to work with you, work for you, customers benefit, and the companies benefit. And I just thought, I can't sit back and watch this happen any longer. And so that's kind of what inspired me to start PeopleLab, that, you know, work shouldn't be a miserable experience, doesn't have to be a miserable experience. And that was kind of
00:09:08
Speaker
that's my why really is to help companies to get it right with their people so that people can thrive and be their best because I just think it why does it have to be such a crappy experience it shouldn't be so that's that's really kind of what drives me and gets me out of bed every morning oh that's amazing what's the best experience you've ever had then i'm sure there's some crappy ones like you're saying but what's the best experience
00:09:32
Speaker
Yeah, again, it's really cheesy. I've had a very lucky I've had lots of amazing experiences work and also lots of hilarious and tragic tales to tell as well. But something that always really sticks in my mind was
00:09:50
Speaker
Going back to my in-house days, I'm a real music lover, as people that know me will know this, and I used to be in bands, and I love music, and I'm passionate about music. I remember when I was working for a large energy corporate with lots of, you know, working with the senior team there, lots of white men of a certain age, all dressed the same.
00:10:13
Speaker
And I decided I really wanted to do something different with them. And I was working on this big program to integrate three different businesses and bring them together. And I had, you know, it's very typical to do a load of communication around that. And we were doing some big events. And I remember saying to kind of the board at the time, you know, you don't know how it feels to be at your comfort zone, you know, everything is so, you know, you say jumper, people say how hard you've forgotten how it feels things to be difficult or uncomfortable, or, you
00:10:42
Speaker
you know, you've got how it feels to be unsure. And if you really want this change to work, you've got to kind of remember that. And somehow I managed to convince the the chief exec that to go with this crazy idea of flying in this guy and his his assistants to do a non verbal drum workshop at the end of a conference, which sounds a bit mental. And for that organization was completely the crazy idea.
00:11:09
Speaker
And nobody knew this was going to happen. At the end of this very straight, normal, classic kind of business conference, this guy that we flew in from South Africa walked on stage, all done through nonverbal communication. And at the same time, you know, we were giving out these kind of different colored tubes to this audience. This audience was, you know, 200 people, I said, very sort of very non-diverse demographic. And you could see them starting to get a little bit nervous, like, why are they handing me colored tubes? What the hell is going on? What's going on here?
00:11:38
Speaker
And this guy, they kind of held up the green tube and people around the room that had the green tube started to realise they were supposed to hold up their green tube and start banging it with a stick. Then he put the green tube down and held up the yellow tube. And so it went on. And just to see the faces of like, suddenly I'm at my comfort zone. I don't know what's going on. It feels quite uncomfortable.
00:11:59
Speaker
But over the course of the hour that this session ran for, by the end of the hour, 200 people banging these different colored tubes, the sign was just amazing. And they really experienced this whole idea of coming together for the greater good and the whole is greater than some of its parts. And they were just, they're like a different bunch of people. They were just, the inhibitions were down, they weren't behaving in the normal kind of corporate stiff way. They were getting really into it and they're all out of their seats. And it was like a really proud moment that,
00:12:29
Speaker
that A, the chief executive had had the balls to go with the crazy idea and that B, it actually worked. And it was really, I always remember that, it sticks with me to this day, the power of music to unite people and bring people together and have that really emotional experience. So that's probably one that really sticks in my mind. Wow, getting people just out their comfort zone to learn. I used to have a pack of those coloured tubes actually.
00:12:54
Speaker
Back in the days when I used to run training and workshops and we could see people and hand things out without worrying about passing things on to each other. I remember that. I'm trying to remember the name of them. I do remember those color tubes, but probably not on the same scale. But yeah, they were pretty good.
Wellbeing and Workplace Culture
00:13:13
Speaker
Emma, we've been talking at Inspiring Workplaces a lot with our community around what do we think are the key challenges or issues or priorities right now for
00:13:23
Speaker
businesses? What do you think are the what's the key priority for the workplace right now? Yeah, that's a good one. I think overwhelmingly the thing that is really, you know, the hottest topic really is going to be wellbeing. And it's something that's very close to my heart. I started my whole career in the field of wellbeing being health psychologists, you know, and really glad to see finally, you know, health and safety, health and wellbeing is kind of moving on from the
00:13:53
Speaker
the classic kind of like, let's just give people a bit of occupational health and the kind of classic medical model of fix it when it's broken. So yeah, we'll support people, but only when they're broken and they need it to the much more kind of like, you know, health promotion approach, which is how do we set people up and, and, you know, build mastering capability around wellbeing so that it doesn't get to that point, hopefully.
00:14:16
Speaker
And just to see the shift in emphasis from that kind of fixing to a much more strength-based approach of how do we build resilience? How do we help our people to thrive at work rather than just fix them when they're broken? I think it's been muted to my ears seeing that that's a priority now. And every time we talk about wellbeing or we put out content
00:14:37
Speaker
related to wellbeing and that seems to be jumped upon by people saying, yeah, we need this. And I think the one thing I would say though is, whilst it's really exciting there's been this movement, I've also seen that the downside of that is lots of people jumping on the bandwagon saying, hey, we do wellbeing. And I think you have to know quite a lot about the field to do it justice really. I think you need some background or partner with people that have that background to do it justice. So it's great to see, you know,
00:15:02
Speaker
is a hot topic, but I think just make sure that you speak to people that really do know what they're talking about, not just go, hey, yeah, we can run a resilience workshop, you know, because it seems to be the latest, the latest hot topic. So, but good to see the change being made. Yeah, good to see the change being made, but don't just do the tick boxes, just because you're on that bandwagon, don't just tick the boxes, because you could end up actually with maybe even deeper problems. Absolutely. Yeah, completely agree. Yeah. What's the best advice you've ever been given, Emma, and who gave it to you?
00:15:31
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. I think, yeah, I'm going to be a bit cheesy again. I'm going to talk about my husband this time. He's got loads of like one liners, which kind of like annoying, but annoying because they're really true. But I think the advice is like less practical and more like mindset. Like, you know, one of his piece of advice, which is so true is the darkest hour is before dawn. And it is dead cheesy, but
00:15:58
Speaker
I often come back to that when things feel really bleak, because they have over the last year. And when things go wrong for you, or you have one of those days where you drop the ball, and it's just like, actually, the sun's going to shine again. And I think that's a really great piece of advice, not even advice. I don't know if it's advice, is it? Maybe it's advice. But he's got loads of those that he comes out with. It'll be fine, and trust in the process, that sort of stuff. But the darkest hour before dawn, I think, is one that I always come back to, which just keeps me going when I feel really like, oh, goodness.
00:16:27
Speaker
When am I ever going to see the light again? So that's, yeah, I'll probably go to that one. Oh, that's lovely. Having a husband there, just giving you hope constantly, like don't give up, you know, the sun will rise again, the sun will rise again, that's them. That's amazing. Talking about wellbeing, and talking about darkest hours, talking about the last year, what are some of the things you do to help you to beat stress?
00:16:56
Speaker
Yeah, that's a really good question. It's the whole physician heal myself because like I said, I started off in health psychology, right? I was a lecturer at university and I worked in the field and I did lots of projects on this sort of stuff and I go out and I talk about this stuff. I know the theory, but every now and again, I realise that I'm not in a good place mental health wise and
00:17:18
Speaker
And I always tend to the work of Sean Acre, who is one of my, he's Ted Talk, if you've ever seen it, The Happiness Advantage, check it out. It's one of my all-time favorite Ted Talks. And he's an amazing professor of positive psychology. And what he does is he puts the ideas and the advice into really kind of like plain speak that's dead accessible. And I kind of follow his advice really, it's stuff that I know, but I forget about. And it's the classic stuff around, you know,
00:17:45
Speaker
take some exercise, meditate, gratitude, gratitude, you know, we know, absolutely help your brain to remember to look for the positive rather than just the negative. I've got something that I call a playlist, we have to talk about playlists in PeopleLab and my playlist is like a list of all the things that make me feel better like listening to music, so walking down to my office,
00:18:08
Speaker
along the seafront, taking in this sea, I'll say the ocean there, that's probably a bit grand, isn't it, for the English Channel, but you know, taking in the sea breeze and listening to music, making time to do the things that I love to do. And I always tend to find when I'm feeling a little bit like, oh, I'm going into, you know, not into a great place. And it's always certain tells for me, like I suddenly find it really hard to make decisions. And that for me is a real tell that I'm perhaps not where I should be mental health wise.
00:18:36
Speaker
And I look at my playlist, I think, you know what, guess what? It is obvious stuff, and I know this stuff, but I haven't been doing the things that I really should do that help me kind of to keep on top of my kind of mental health. And it's things like yesterday, you know, going for walks, spending time with people that I love, watching funny movies, reading good books, listening to music, going to see music, playing music, all those things. It's just making time for that sort of stuff. But I highly recommend checking out Sean's TED Talk because he just is the
00:19:05
Speaker
funny as TED Talk, it's 20 minutes long and he just gives really great advice in that so that would be my top tip there. Oh thank you Emma, we'll include a link to that TED Talk when we post your podcast online as well so we can make it nice and easy for everyone for all our listeners. We were running a workshop last week on
00:19:23
Speaker
leadership and how do we support leaders. What do you think is the most important quality we need in our leadership right now or in our leaders as individuals?
Leadership Qualities and Productivity
00:19:38
Speaker
Yeah, that's an easy one for me to answer and it sounds dead, dead simple but I think if there's only one thing you do as a leader, listen, that's it. There's lots of other great stuff you can do of course but if you just
00:19:51
Speaker
actively listen to your people. For me, that will get you such a long way forward in terms of being a great leader because I think leaders often, they think they have to have all the answers and they think it's showing some sort of weakness if they ask great questions. I think just starting off by genuinely listening to people. I think we need to help people get better at listening and it sounds really obvious when I do coaching training,
00:20:16
Speaker
do quite a lot of listening. And to start with, people always say, well, yeah, you know, everyone thinks I'm a good listener, right? Oh, I'm really good at this. But once you kind of delve into a little bit more deeply, you realise that perhaps you're listening for the gap where you can make your next really clever point rather than genuinely listening to understand. And I always say to people,
00:20:34
Speaker
If you spend time listening to people and you don't feel a bit knackered at the end, you're probably not listening properly. So I think that's my top tip really, my one thing that I say, not just lead us all, obviously, to do better, myself included. Listening, true, deep, level vibe listening is really hard, I agree. Absolutely exhausting. I remember when I did my coaching qualification.
00:20:58
Speaker
I first had to be coached and I was like oh wow these coaches they get paid quite a lot of money for this stuff like wow really they don't really have to do much then when I went through the training on how to do it the reality is it's so hard to actually learn to listen properly like really listening at that level not listening for your waiting for your turn to speak like you say or yeah um listening true listening and not just teaching it but that practicing of it
00:21:29
Speaker
So, helping our leaders and helping all of us to learn how to listen and practice how to listen more. Emma, is there anyone you'd like to watch jobs with right now? Oh, I don't know. Right now, probably, I don't know, because everyone's having a tough time, aren't they? And I'm like, well, no matter what industry you're in at the moment, you sort of look at other people and think, well, I don't think I'd like to do that at the moment. But I think,
00:21:52
Speaker
I think, you know, pre-COVID in a previous life, I've said to mention the music thing and I used to be in a band and, you know, we actually back in the day in the 90s and, you know, we did have a record deal and we played Reading Festival a few times, all that good stuff. And I kind of felt like, you know,
00:22:10
Speaker
I don't wish because I don't see any point in having regrets and I absolutely love what I do but I'd kind of love to be in the music industry again for a day just on stage playing great songs you know. With the audience I assume.
00:22:25
Speaker
Yeah, a good audience, absolutely. Hanging out with my bandmates, you know, it's just to do that again for a day would just be amazing. It was just such a brilliant roller coaster ride of highs and lows being in a band, but it was great fun. And also, you know, again, you learn so many lessons from different parts of your life, don't you? And weirdly, it was dead helpful when I went into the corporate world, that experience of being in a band, you know, dealing with celebrities, because I quite often think that, you know, that the board and the senior people are quite like celebrities in an
00:22:54
Speaker
in organisations, aren't they? So yeah, but that's what I do. If I could go back to anything, I'd kind of go back and be in a band again. Be on stage, have an audience cheering at you. Yeah, loving the songs. Wow, wow. What was the name of your band?
00:23:09
Speaker
We were called Formula One and I played bass guitar and did some some backing vocals not not particularly well but yeah it was good fun. It's good work lasted. Wow we'll have to search for that Emma. How do you stay productive? You know we've talked about how difficult it's been over the last year. How have you kept yourself productive?
00:23:31
Speaker
Yeah, I think that again, that comes back to the psychology of this for me. So I mean, there's some like some tools that I use, obviously, you know, I'm a big fan of Monday, keeping me on target and all that sort of stuff. But actually, I think the way that I stay productive is to keep my wellbeing in a good place. You know, when
00:23:54
Speaker
think about what happens in your brain when you're feeling good about life and you have a positive experience and release lots of dopamine that switches on the learning centers in your brain. And when you're in that place, you're just loads better at everything you do. You're just primed to be really good at stuff. And I think that
00:24:12
Speaker
When you start to get, as we call it in psychology, in the grip, when you start to get a bit stressed and then your brain sort of starts to go into much more kind of tunnel vision, it's really hard to that kind of more creative, higher order, knowledge worker style of thinking and that's really hard to write a blog or
00:24:27
Speaker
you know, to think through what you need to do for a workshop, whatever it might be. So I think for me, being productive is about keeping my wellbeing in a good place and making sure that I'm having good experiences at work. And when I have a good experience, I'm just loads more productive. So I think it comes back to that piece, which again, Sean Aker talks about in his TED talks, that kind of covers that as well. Amazing. So look after yourself, look after your wellbeing and almost everything else that's into place.
00:24:51
Speaker
Absolutely, yeah. You've got a lot of small energy, haven't you? When you're feeling good about yourself and life and what you're up to and just be more innovative, more creative. You can write a blog in half the time. And I think when you're in that stress place, everything just takes 10 times longer because you're just not on your game. So yeah, keeping yourself in a good place, I think, helps me to be more productive.
00:25:14
Speaker
Yeah, that's so interesting. I often have that conversation where people are like, particularly now, not everyone, but many people are working at home. And in my husband's case, for example, not leaving the house for a week, and having that conversation around, go and take two hours to do something for your well being, it will take you half the amount of time to get that work done in the afternoon. Absolutely.
00:25:37
Speaker
then it will take you four hours instead of eight hours. But sometimes it can be difficult to make that case. People are still measuring themselves or being measured on input rather than output.
00:25:51
Speaker
And that can be a real challenge. Right, I'm going to change up the pace a little bit and I'm going to find out a bit about you. And I think I know you quite well, Emma, but we'll see. You have done teaching, training, conference speaking, writing white papers, lecturing, you have written books. But if you could be a teacher right now, what subject would you teach?
00:26:14
Speaker
Oh, that's a great question. I think I have to go back to psychology and positive psychology. I still do a little bit of, don't get me wrong, I'm not a teacher. I actually did a little bit of teaching very early on in my career at A level and realised I was rubbish at it, I'm no teacher. But I obviously lectured for many years and I still do do, I did a
00:26:36
Speaker
a lecture recently, a guest lecture for City University and absolutely love it. I love it when people start to make the connection and have those little light bulb moments. So I think positive psychology and neuroscience is something I'm really passionate about and helping people to understand
00:26:54
Speaker
you know, in our world of inspiring workplaces and engagement and experience, helping people to understand what actually goes on behind the scenes in the brain. I think it's that exciting and I get very passionate about that. So that's the area that I would love to teach to help people to get better at this stuff by using the sort of the psychology and the science to underpin what they're doing rather than just doing something because it kind of feels like the right thing to do. Amazing. Are you an early bird or a night owl?
00:27:22
Speaker
Do you know what? All of my life I've been a night owl and then I don't know if it's like Covid or just the age I'm at but I'm starting to become more of an early bird. Like most days now I sort of wake up before my alarm goes off which is completely new for me. So I'm starting to embrace
00:27:42
Speaker
more of an early bird. I mean, my early is not most people's early. So my early is like, you know, waking up at seven o'clock, whereas I know real early birds are up at like five o'clock and stuff. That's the middle of the night for me. But yeah, used to be a night owl, bit more of an early bird now. I'm a 5am, but that's certainly not by choice.
00:27:59
Speaker
That would be twin one-year-olds for you. Oh, bless you. Oh, so you're changing. You were in that, but you're changing. Right, Emma, we know you're a huge music fan, music player. So I don't know if you can even attempt to answer this question, but what is your favourite album?
00:28:20
Speaker
Favorite album ever of all time. That's really hard. Oh, I can't answer that. It's really hard. What are you listening to? What is your go-to music right now then?
00:28:30
Speaker
Oh, okay, that's that's easy. That's
Emma's Personal Interests
00:28:32
Speaker
easy. I have tried to those sort of top 10 albums, as you can imagine, but they changes weekly. But at the moment, I've got some really dear friends of mine, who are in bands that we toured back in the day. And they've just done this really cool little project, I think they call themselves the Judas project.
00:28:50
Speaker
And they've kind of recorded kind of remotely doing their various kind of laying down the various tracks remotely. And it's all kind of about lockdown life. So they're on Spotify, so check them out on Spotify called The Judas Project. So they've got one of the tracks is called Kiss the Pangolin, because if you remember at the beginning of the
00:29:10
Speaker
COVID thing, there's this whole thing about pangolin to spread it. And one of them is called lockdown buzzcut. That's pretty self-explanatory. One of them is I think it's called optional paralysis, which is that whole, we're all massive Netflix aficionados now, but you kind of go onto Netflix, I think this is the weekend and you look on it and there's just so much choice, you just go, I don't know what to watch.
00:29:31
Speaker
And then the most recent one, I think it's called Brighter Days Ahead or something and it's like a really lovely uplifting track. So I'm listening to those tunes quite a lot the moment because they're very applicable for our current times and they're really lovely songs.
00:29:48
Speaker
But in terms of known artists, it's a little bit indie, but Jane Weaver's got a new album out. I don't actually know what it's called, but I've listened to that quite a lot as well. Check out Judas Project and Jane Weaver on Spotify. Those will be my two recent finds. I'm going to search them now, actually.
00:30:05
Speaker
Has anything funny, I mean, anything exciting or funny happened to you recently? I know you've been in the UK, like, particularly in the area that you live, it's been pretty strict lockdown for a while, like, you can't really go many places, but has anything funny happened?
00:30:24
Speaker
That's really tough. Nothing really springs to mind. It's one of those where you speak to people and you're like, I've got nothing to update you on because nothing's happening. It's like a roundhog day.
00:30:41
Speaker
And there may be a few funny stories, but they're probably not shareable on the podcast of things that have happened with my kids that they'd be really mortified if I shared. So I daren't share those. Okay, shall I move on? Yeah, let's move on. Let's move on. What's your favourite film? Oh, again, that's really, really hard. I
00:31:05
Speaker
It's funny, I've been revisiting lots of brilliant films because I said I've got two teenagers in the house and one nearly teenager and one of my oldest son's doing film studies and my daughter who's 15, she's really into films. So it's been a real treat kind of rediscovering like classics with them, like going through like the Tarantino catalog, for example, and you know, classical films with them and revisiting them, that's been really exciting.
00:31:32
Speaker
I think, I mean, I haven't probably got a favourite film, but going back to that funny, the funny piece and the music piece, I think one of my go to films to cheer myself up is Spinal Tap. So if you've ever seen Spinal Tap, but if you haven't, it's like a sort of
00:31:48
Speaker
sort of fabricated rock band made at Rockbank or Spinal Tap follows them when they're sort of you know they've been big and now they're not very big anymore and they're sort of doing this sort of farewell tour or something like that and it follows their sort of their tour and it's just it's just hilarious and most of the sort of the funny moments of the tour are based on actual real life kind of rock star moments the things that really happen so there's this one that I really like which is where
00:32:15
Speaker
they sketch out on a piece of paper that they have this idea of having a Stonehenge on stage with them and they sketch out but they kind of get their feet and inches mixed up and the Stonehenge arrives it's absolutely tiny and it reminds me of you know back in the day when it was in-house doing things like you know communications and all those amazing stories you'd have of those sorts of moments again with the celebrities in the world of work tend to be the
00:32:42
Speaker
you know the board and the executive team some of them are cool celebrities and some of them really aren't and you know them sketching out ideas for conferences and they sketch it out and I have had a few Spinal Tap moments with people I've actually worked with where we've kind of delivered what they wanted and they hadn't really been very clear about it. Things have turned up as like the wrong side or the wrong thing you know so lots of great Spinal Tap moments but I always think that you know
00:33:04
Speaker
at some point it'd be great to do sort of an anonymous book of us all sharing those funny stories from our days of like corporate world and some of the crazy things we've been asked to do all the funny things that happened to us and all of our sort of spinal tap moments but yeah spinal tap is one of my favorite movies and spinal tap moments I love that I love that thing yes Emma let's get this book printed
00:33:25
Speaker
I've got two questions for you. First one, these are my two final questions. Where is the best place in the world? I know we haven't been very far over the last year or so, but where is the best place in the world you've ever been to?
00:33:42
Speaker
Oh, yeah, that's really hard, Ruth. It's like, how do you pick one place? Do you know what? When people always say to me, you know, I'm lucky that I've traveled with work and also, you know, personal all over the world in my life, and I love traveling. Who doesn't, right? But
00:34:00
Speaker
And I was, one of my kind of top travelling moments, I was really lucky that I got, I went into railing as a lot of people of my age did, I'm 50. So a lot of people my age didn't think around the world couldn't afford it went into railing. And I went into railing the year after the Berlin Wall had come down. It was the first time you could go into Eastern Europe without visas. And obviously,
00:34:21
Speaker
way before Google and internet. So me and my friend trundled off around Europe and we went to, for the first place we went to was Berlin and we did East Berlin, which is amazing. Then we went to Prague and we had zero idea what to expect because we'd never seen photos and we didn't really know what it was going to be like. And obviously now anyone's been to Prague, it's like, oh my God, it's amazing. And I just remember walking, you know, getting off the sort of the train and getting into sort of the center of Prague and just being blown away by the beauty.
00:34:50
Speaker
and that was a very exciting time and also something that I kind of feel like it's really hard now for younger generations to have those kind of amazing spontaneous kind of reveal moments because they can always look everything up before they ever get anywhere, right? So that sort of sticks in my mind but
00:35:10
Speaker
going back to the questions where people sort of say, where would you like to live? I kind of always say, there's nowhere else I'd rather be than the UK, because being passionate about music, we rule the world when it comes to music, I think. And, you know, in any given time in the UK, on any given night, you can always go see amazing live music. And the amount of bands I've seen on the way up that are hugely famous now, you know, not not because I'm big or clever, just because I'm
00:35:37
Speaker
and you just catch these brilliant bands who, years down the line, you go, wow, I saw them. I remember singing Nirvana in Manchester. There's like 50 people in the audience. I remember singing Oasis when, you know, they were a tiny little, you know, signed band in Manchester. And so for me, there's nowhere else I'd rather be, but I love to travel and go see different places, but I think you can't beat the UK if you're passionate about music. You can't beat it, no, absolutely. And my final question for you, Anna, and this is the staple one, this is the big one.
00:36:05
Speaker
Who would you like to nominate to come on Inspire Club?
Future Inspirations
00:36:10
Speaker
Oh, that's a really good one. Oh, that's a good one. Have you guys have Perry Timms on yet? I think we have. Oh, well, there you go. So you're already ahead of the curve. Perry's really inspiring. So if you had him on already, but people haven't listened to his podcast, go and listen to his podcasts, he's done inspiring. There's a
00:36:35
Speaker
guy that we've been working with, one of the things that we really found actually writing, so myself and my co-author, Belinda Ganaway, when we were writing EX by design, absolutely blown away by the generosity of the community to
00:36:50
Speaker
you know, give us interviews, give us their thoughts, help out. And it definitely made for, you know, a way better final product in the book than it would have done if just been like, you know, me and B and our ideas. And someone that really springs to mind is a wonderful chap called Damon Deena. Hadn't heard of him. He's, he was head of employee experience or director of employee experience at IBM.
00:37:13
Speaker
he's hugely inspiring and hugely generous with his time. He's come along to know about sort of webinars and what have you and very inspiring guy and he's someone that you know recently has inspired me and also someone else who I've been very inspired by is a lady called Helena Clayton who does a lot of work around love and leadership which I think is a really kind of brave and interesting idea to look at the you know
00:37:43
Speaker
how love could and should feature at work and with leadership. And she's someone that I've recently been very inspired by. So check out her work as well, but she's awesome. So those are the two that sort of spring to mind. Thank you. Well, that's three in Coding Perry. So we haven't released Perry yet, but we will be having a podcast recording of Perry. So that one's on the radar and then the other two. So we're coming for you.
00:38:04
Speaker
Helen and Damon, did you say? Damon, Damon. We're coming for you to be guests on Inspire Club. Wow, Emma, thanks so much. And I knew you were big into music, and I didn't know you had a record deal, so I thought I knew you. And then I've just even found out even more about you today. I don't know if this woman, if there's any talent you don't have, to be honest, Emma.
00:38:27
Speaker
A mother to three children, a lecturer, an author, an incredible consultant and coach, and also a band member with a record deal. I mean, incredible. We've got so much to check out from The Judas Project to TED Talks to all these people to check out. So thank you so much, but thank you for sharing. I really, I always enjoy chatting to you even more so when we get to record it and share it with everyone else.
00:38:53
Speaker
Oh likewise Ruth, it's always a pleasure to catch up with you and thank you so much for inviting me to join the podcast and yeah always love catching up with you and absolutely loving the work that you guys are doing, it's brilliant. Amazing, thank you Emma and thank you to all of our listeners here at Inspire Club. We'll be back again very soon with our next episode. If there's anyone that you would like to listen to or anyone you'd like us to go and target then do
00:39:19
Speaker
let us know and in the meantime there's a heap of new content, videos, guidebooks and everything that we're publishing to help you in creating inspiring workplaces all over the world. So thank you again to Emma, thank you to our listeners and we'll hit here, see, speak to you soon!