Chris Duffy is an award-winning podcaster, comedian, and television writer. He hosts the podcast How to Be a Better Human and you can find his comedic TED talk, “How to find laughter anywhere” online. He is the author of Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

It sometimes seems like someone with a good sense of humor does everything a bit better. Perhaps leadership is no different – but it’s not about landing jokes. In this episode, Chris and I explore why everyday humor is all about paying attention and generosity.

• Humor might not make the list of top leadership competencies, but it helps you perform every other competency better.
• A good sense of humor is inherently generous.
• Effective humor isn’t landing the perfect joke or being the center of attention. It’s noticing the humor is everyday work and bravely calling attention to it.
• The first pillar of cultivating humor is simply being present.
• Start with times you are least present and most zoned out. Zero in with a “new bathroom” frame of mind.
• Celebrate the bad stuff and find humor in it. By doing so, you inherently help people appreciate excellence.

• Humor Me: How Laughing More Can Make You Present, Creative, Connected, and Happy by Chris Duffy (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• How to Engage With Humor, with David Nihill (episode 235)
• Get Better at Deep Listening, with Oscar Trimboli (episode 408)
• How to Genuinely Show Up for Others, with Marshall Goldsmith (episode 590)

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Phil Le-Brun is an executive in residence at Amazon Web Services and a former corporate VP and international CIO at the McDonald’s Corporation. He is a sought-after speaker and has been featured in Harvard Business Review, The Wall Street Journal, and The Guardian. He is the co-author with Jana Werner of The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

Most of us have gone through some version of a reorg. A lot of leaders have also implemented their own reorgs. Sometimes they work. Many times, they don’t. In this conversation, Phil and I discuss what goes wrong with reorgs and how we can do better.

• Organizations traditionally looked like the tin man from The Wizard of Oz: perfectly planned, many interchangeable parts, not flexible.
• An octopus organization adapts, works independently to serve the larger whole, and is innately curious.
• A reorg that starts with an org chart misses the complex organic connections you are unlikely to fully understand.
• Prioritize structural stability while building internal flexibility.
• Nurture the complex informal human networks that deliver value.
• Be honest about objectives and communicate a reorg early.
• Engage people by starting with smaller-scale change. Clarify the problem to be solved instead of the structural “answer.”

• The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation by Phil Le-Brun and Jana Werner (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• How to Get the Ideal Team Player, with Patrick Lencioni (episode 301)
• How to Approach a Reorg, with Claire Hughes Johnson (episode 621)
• How to Help Employees Handle Tough Moments, with Anthony Klotz (episode 777)

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For the past 25 years, Liane Davey has researched and advised teams on how to achieve high performance. She is the author of You First and The Good Fight and is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review. She is the author of the new book Thoughtload: Manage the Madness and Free Your Team to Do Great Work (Amazon, Bookshop)*.

We all love to hate our task lists. However, we can do a lot better with just a bit of strategy. In this conversation, Liane and I explore how to make our task list work for us instead of against us.

• Often it’s not really the workload that’s crushing – it’s more so the thinking about all the workload. That’s what thoughtload is.
• The problem with a to-do list is that everything goes on it. Thus, to-do lists are terrible for managing your attention.
• Instead of one task list, keep a limited amount of tasks on three priority lists.
• Category 1 list: your most important outputs and outcomes.
• Category 2 list: what you do to help others achieve their most significant outcomes.
• Category 3 list: administrative stuff.

Four questions determine what gets on your lists:

• Important (an activity that will add value to a key output or outcome)?
• Urgent (something with growing negative consequences if you wait)?
• Targeted (a task that no one can do as efficiently or effectively as you)?
• Essential (core to creating the critical value, not just a nice-to-have)?

• Thoughtload: Manage the Madness and Free Your Team to Do Great Work by Liane Davey (Amazon, Bookshop)*

Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required).

• The Scientific Secrets of Daily Scheduling, with Daniel Pink (episode 332)
• Align Your Calendar to What Matters, with Nir Eyal (episode 431)
• How to Take Back Your Evenings, with Guy Winch (episode 783)

Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.