THE NEW WORK PLAYBOOK

Listen to Understand

The Reflection Episode on Deep Listening In this episode: * A difficult conversation played twice, once with a manager who performs all the right listening moves and misses what matters, and once with a manager who listens to understand. * Why the difference between them comes down to intention, not technique. * Practice one, the intention check: catching the competing goals that quietly run a conversation before it starts. * Practice two, four moves for asking better questions: open instead of leading, what instead of why, the three-second pause, and the follow-up. * How both practices build deeper listening, and stronger connection, at work and beyond it. Connect with me: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/annett-tnwp] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/thenewworkplaybook] Website [https://thenewworkplaybook.com/] Sources: Brooks, A. W., and John, L. K. The Surprising Power of Questions. Harvard Business Review, May–June 2018. Schein, E. H. Humble Inquiry: The Gentle Art of Asking Instead of Telling. Berrett-Koehler, 2013. Eurich, T. What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It). Harvard Business Review, 4 January 2018. Covey, S. R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press, 1989. Episodes referenced: The Talking Reflex

The Talking Reflex

Listen to Understand, Not to Reply In this episode: * The gap between how well managers think they listen and how heard their people actually feel. * The three forces behind it: the limits of self-awareness, the lack of honest upward feedback, and a culture that trains leaders to present rather than receive. * Why active listening so often becomes a performance without the intention to understand. * What deep listening actually does, drawing on Itzchakov and Kluger's research on high-quality listening. * The talking reflex and its cost, and why the counter-move is to ask great questions. * How power, organisational culture, and now AI undermine our capacity and willingness to listen. * Why listening to understand is becoming one of the most valuable qualities a leader can bring. Connect with me: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/annett-tnwp] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/thenewworkplaybook] Website [https://thenewworkplaybook.com/] Sources: Itzchakov, G., and Kluger, A. N. The Power of Listening in Helping People Change. Harvard Business Review, 17 May 2018. Eurich, T. What Self-Awareness Really Is (and How to Cultivate It). Harvard Business Review, 4 January 2018. Zenger, J., and Folkman, J. What Great Listeners Actually Do. Harvard Business Review, 14 July 2016. Covey, S. R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People. Free Press, 1989. Zao-Sanders, M. How People Are Really Using AI in 2026. Harvard Business Review, 1 June 2026. Episodes referenced: Authenticity Theatre The Power Paradox

Would They Tell You?

The Reflection Episode on Psychological Safety In this episode: * Why your reaction to questions, concerns, mistakes and problems matters. * Recovery moves for when your reaction, or someone else's on the team, lands badly. * How to run sessions that turn AI mistakes into collective learning. * Why rewarding the fastest AI adopters quietly trains people to stop questioning the output. * The one principle underneath it all, and the two questions to ask yourself about your own organisation. Listen to the main episode first: Psychological Safety - The Cost of Our Silence. Next episode: The practice we all need to train more - Listening with the intention to really understand. Connect with me: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/annett-tnwp] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/thenewworkplaybook] Website [https://thenewworkplaybook.com/]

Psychological Safety

The Cost of Our Silence In this episode: * The Romance of Leadership bias and why coverage of bad bosses misses the responsibility of those who follow them. * Sarah Wynn-Williams' Careless People and Karen Hao's Empire of AI — what they reveal about leadership at the edge of what humans can navigate well. * The Nokia case study from INSEAD: how a culture of fear, driven by the top and kept alive by the people underneath, produced calibrated silence as survival behaviour and destroyed the company. * Google's Project Aristotle and the five dynamics of team effectiveness. * Amy Edmondson's foundational research on psychological safety, and what her recent work on AI adoption surfaces about trust ambiguity and workslop. * The 3M contrast: what learning-mode AI adoption looks like in practice, and why modelling fallibility builds psychological safety. * Why how we handle AI adoption is no longer a management decision but a leadership decision. Connect with me: LinkedIn [https://www.linkedin.com/in/annett-tnwp] Instagram [https://www.instagram.com/thenewworkplaybook] Website [https://thenewworkplaybook.com/] Sources: Vuori, T. O., and Huy, Q. N. Distributed Attention and Shared Emotions in the Innovation Process: How Nokia Lost the Smartphone Battle. Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 61, Issue 1, 2016. Edmondson, A. C. Psychological Safety and Learning Behavior in Work Teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, Vol. 44, Issue 2, 1999. Seth, J., and Edmondson, A. C. How to Foster Psychological Safety When AI Erodes Trust on Your Team. Harvard Business Review, 4 February 2026. Google re:Work. Guide: Understand Team Effectiveness. Duhigg, C. What Google Learned From Its Quest to Build the Perfect Team. The New York Times Magazine, 25 February 2016. Wynn-Williams, S. Careless People: A Cautionary Tale of Power, Greed, and Lost Idealism. Flatiron Books, 2025. Hao, K. Empire of AI: Dreams and Nightmares in Sam Altman's OpenAI. Penguin Press, 2025. Farrow, R., and Marantz, A. Sam Altman May Control Our Future — Can He Be Trusted? The New Yorker, April 2026. ManpowerGroup. 2026 Global Talent Barometer: AI Use Accelerates as Worker Confidence Falls and Job Hugging Takes Hold. Eatough, E., Ferrazzi, K., and Smith, W. : Why AI Adoption Stalls, According to Industry Data. Harvard Business Review, 17 February 2026. Writer. 2026 Enterprise AI Survey. Episodes referenced: The Confidence Trap The End of Why Authenticity Theatre

Authenticity Theatre

The Closing Episode to Season 1 In this episode: – Why "be more authentic" became one of the most repeated and least useful pieces of advice in leadership. – How the field reached for an already-individualised idea of authenticity and ended up with a focus on self-awareness. – The difference between self-referential and relational authenticity. – Why the constraint most leaders are operating under is not an individual flaw but an organisational failure. – Robert Sutton's research on the cost of bad bosses, and why those costs almost never get measured. – A walk-back through the six foundational topics of Season 1 and what each one helps us resist. References in this episode: Robert Sutton The No Asshole Rule: Building a Civilized Workplace and Surviving One That Isn't (2007) Robert Sutton Good Boss, Bad Boss: How to Be the Best… and Learn from the Worst (2010) Bill George Authentic Leadership: Rediscovering the Secrets to Creating Lasting Value (2003) Jon Billsberry "Whither authentic leadership? From essentialist essence to constructionist reconstruction" in Management Review Quarterly, December 2025 Episodes referenced in the walk-back: We Are Losing Respect The Power Paradox The Confidence Trap The End of Why Trust: The Broken Spine Daring to Care