Season 3 – Episode 36: The Myth, the Madness, and the Middle Manager’s Dilemma Work-life balance? Jimmy and James are here to dismantle the corporate fairy tale that you can magically split your life into two neat, equal halves. The hosts, both veterans of demanding jobs, long hours, and the occasional existential crisis, argue that the very term “balance” is a setup. Balance implies precision, equality, and a static state, but life (and work) is anything but. It ebbs, it flows, and sometimes it dumps a truckload of stress on your doorstep. So, what’s the alternative? Optimisation. Figure out what makes you happy: status, money, family time, or becoming an earth mother, and chase … [Read more...]
Career and Personal Growth
Get guidance on navigating career transitions, thriving in new roles, handling redundancy, and ensuring your work provides meaning and financial success.
Why Performance Reviews Make Companies Worse (And What Actually Works)…
Season 3 Episode 30: A Bad Idea That Refuses to Die Performance management systems: the corporate treadmill to nowhere. Organisations preach the gospel of improvement, then build systems so convoluted they’d make Kafka weep. Ratings are political, feedback is a weapon, and calibration meetings resemble gladiatorial combat. The result? A process so dark and detached from reality it should be a corporate snuff movie. Jimmy Barber and James Lawther aren’t here to sugarcoat it. They’re here to dissect why these systems fail: it’s because they’re designed by “Human Resource Professionals” who don’t understand humans. The hosts pull no punches: from the absurdity of ranking employees like … [Read more...]
Everything at Work Is Really About Status
Season 3 Episode 30: With Ceri Newton-Sargunar Ever wondered why your team’s brilliant technical expert turns into a bumbling fool the second they’re promoted? Or why your boss would rather launch a doomed rocket than admit a mistake? Welcome to the brutal, biological truth: status is the invisible force driving every decision, conflict, and ego in your workplace. In this eye-opening episode, Jimmy and James are joined by Ceri Newton-Sargunar—neuroscientist, chaos theorist, and self-proclaimed "ologist"—to dissect how our primal need for status (success, power, or virtue) shapes behaviour, from boardroom power plays to the quiet despair of middle managers. Ceri reveals why even flat … [Read more...]
Why You’re Doing Everyone Else’s Job (And How It Creeps Up on You)
Season 3 – Episode 29 Ever noticed how the most capable managers end up drowning in work that isn’t theirs? This episode of A Job Done Well dives into the maddening cycle of overworked employees who absorb tasks like a sponge—only to realise they’ve become the bottleneck, the scapegoat, and the office’s unofficial problem-solver. Jimmy Barber and James Lawther dissect why good managers fall into this trap: the ego boost of being the "heavy lifter," the fear of short-term chaos, and the delusion that this time the extra effort will be appreciated. From budgeting processes that mysteriously become your job forever to stepping in for incompetent bosses, they expose the absurdity of corporate … [Read more...]
How to Deal With a Bad Boss
Season 3 – Episode 026 Bad bosses: the office equivalent of a microwave with a broken timer. It either leaves your career frozen in the middle or burns it to a crisp, and you’re never quite sure which setting it’s on today. In this episode of A Job Done Well, Jimmy Barber and James Lawther dissect the scourge of the workplace: the boss who turns a dream job into a daily grind. With a mix of war stories, dry humour, and hard-won wisdom, they explore why a bad boss can overshadow even the most rewarding roles, and—more importantly—what you can do about it. From the hypocrites who preach morality while chasing bonuses, to the indecisive leaders who’d rather watch a business burn than make a … [Read more...]
- 1
- 2
- 3
- …
- 5
- Next Page »