PODCAST · business
Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan
by Cathal Quinlan
The Better At Work podcast is your new best friend at work. It’s packed with honest, practical advice and science-backed techniques from a diverse range of guests to help you achieve betterness in your work, and life. Better At Work is for everyone striving to be better and feel better. Whether you’re ready to take your career to new heights, or battling with the daily grind, your host Cathal Quinlan is here to help. By drawing on insights from leading psychologists, neuroscientists and performance experts, and Cathal sharing his own successes and mistakes as a leader, the podcast delivers proven strategies, tools and science-backed techniques to help you achieve betterness in your working life, one day at a time, because when work is better, life is better. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
Episodes
-
Why Employees Don’t Want to Come Back to the Office | Dan Moscrop | Season 5
What makes an office worth coming back to? As businesses push for a return to the office, the bigger question is what people are coming back to. Somewhere that helps them work better, or somewhere to sit on video calls? Cathal Quinlan is joined by Dan Moscrop, founder of workplace experience…
more -
What to Do When a Team Member Keeps Letting You Down | Listener Questions
A team member keeps missing commitments. There is always a reason, the rest of the team is frustrated, and their manager is running out of patience. What should happen next? Cathal Quinlan and Annette Sloan work through Katie's question in this Listener Questions episode. They explore what might…
more -
Are You Listening, or Just Waiting to Speak? | Neil Mullarkey
A good conversation changes what you say next. Neil Mullarkey joins Cathal Quinlan to explore what improvisation can teach us about listening, leadership and working together. Neil is a comedian, communication trainer and author of In the Moment. From his early comedy partnership with Mike Myers…
more -
How to Say No at Work (With Respect) | Listener Questions | Season 5
Saying yes to one thing leaves less time for something else. So how do you decide what deserves your attention? In the first Listener Questions episode of Season 5, Cathal Quinlan and Annette Sloan revisit Caroline Webb’s interview and the ideas in her book Leadership Intelligence. Annette shares...
-
How to Lead Without Doing It All Yourself with Caroline Webb | Season 5
Season 5 starts with the guest who started it all. Caroline Webb is back, tackling a question every overloaded leader needs to answer: what should you stop doing yourself? Caroline joined Better at Work for our very first episode in 2022. Now she returns with Leadership Intelligence and a…
more -
Resilience Has a Ceiling | Better Moments #7 | Tasha Eurich
Toughing it out is not resilience. Chronic pressure without recovery drains people, and the ones praised for coping are often closest to the edge. In this Better Moment, organisational psychologist Tasha Eurich takes apart the bounce-back myth: why "what doesn't kill you makes you stronger" is...
-
How to Get Curious, Not Furious | Better Moments #6 | Smart Conflict
Conflict at work is not simply a choice between charging in and avoiding it. In this four-and-a-half-minute Better Moment, *Smart Conflict* authors Alice Driscoll and Louise van Haarst focus on two useful forces: conflict confidence, and the desire to get it right or be right. They explain why...
-
Hope Is a Strategy? | Better Moments #5 | Jennifer Moss
Hope at work is not optimism. It is a goal worth reaching, more than one credible route forward and enough agency to move. In this seven-minute Better Moment, burnout researcher and workplace culture strategist Jennifer Moss draws on Charles Snyder's hope theory to explain why hope is a practical...
-
The Four Things That Make Work Worth Doing | Better Moments #4 | Laura Gassner Otting
A good job is not the same for everyone. Laura Gassner Otting gives us four dials for working out whether a role actually fits: calling, connection, contribution and control. Calling is the force that pulls you forward. Connection is whether your work matters. Contribution is what the work gives...
-
AI Doesn't Destroy Jobs. It Destroys Skills | Better Moments #3 | Russell Beck
The loudest predictions about AI count the jobs it might destroy. Russell Beck says that is the wrong unit of analysis. Technology is very good at removing the scarce skill inside a job. Russell's example is a naval shipyard worker wearing an exoskeleton. The job remains. The work becomes safer....
-
Why most companies don’t actually have a strategy | Better Moments #2 | Roger Martin
Most companies can show you a plan. Far fewer can explain the choices underneath it. In this Better Moment, Roger Martin strips strategy back to what it actually is: what you do, not what you say. He explains why a list of initiatives is not a strategy, how the question “What would have to be...
-
What it takes to build a career you LOVE | Better Moments #1 | Helen Tupper (AmazingIf)
Welcome to Better Moments! Small but mighty snippets from our best episodes. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
-
The Best Workplace Advice From 30 Episodes | Better at Work Season 4 Finale
Cathal and Annette close out season four together in London, in person for once. The four ideas from 30+ episodes that actually changed how they work: Laura Gassner Otting's four Cs of a fulfilling career, Zach Mercurio on the mattering deficit, Colin Fisher (The Collective Edge) on teams and...
-
The Strategy Framework That Took Sephora to 16 Billion | Listener Questions | Better@Work S4 Ep 34
The final listener questions episode of Better at Work, Season 4. This week is Cathal and Annette closing out the season's questions before next week's wrap, with the stories that stuck with them and a look ahead to Season 5. Annette shares the story of Pauline Wald, a banking executive who…
more -
PART 2 | The World's #1 Strategy Thinker on Why Planning Isn't Strategy | Roger Martin
Roger Martin is the world's number one management thinker, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, and strategy advisor to the CEOs of P&G, Lego, Ford and American Express. He is our final guest of the year, and we have split the conversation in two. In part one, Roger takes apart what…
more -
The World's #1 Strategy Thinker on Why Planning Isn't Strategy | Roger Martin | PART 1
Roger Martin is the world's number one management thinker, former dean of the Rotman School of Management, and strategy advisor to the CEOs of P&G, Lego, Ford and American Express. He is our final guest of the year, and we have split the conversation in two. In part one, Roger takes apart what…
more -
Listener Questions: Why Your Office Feels Wrong + Helping a Partner Who Can't Stop Working
Annette is in London! She and Cathal are finally in the same studio for this listener questions episode. First up, Annette's three takeaways from Cathal's conversation with behavioural scientist Leidy Klotz, author of In a Good Place. The headline: every workspace has to meet three psychological...
-
The 3 Things Every Office Steals From You | Leidy Klotz
Most workplaces obsess over paint colours, open-plan vs closed offices, and how many days people should be back at their desks. They skip the only question that actually matters. This week Cathal sits down with Leidy Klotz, engineering professor and behavioural scientist at the University of...
-
Why Doing Everything at Work Means You Finish Nothing | Listener Questions | S4 Episode 29
Q&A episode: Annette synthesises Wendy Smith's both/and thinking, Cathal reflects on Bob Geldof's recent speech on empathy in leadership, and we answer Lou's question on preparing for her first competency-based interview. Following last week's conversation with Wendy Smith (Both/And Thinking:...
-
Why Smart Leaders Stop Making Clear Choices | Wendy Smith
Wendy Smith is a management professor at the University of Delaware and the co-author of Both/And Thinking, a book translating 25 years of research into practical tools leaders can apply immediately. In this conversation: - Why workplace tensions are a feature, not a bug - What most business...
-
Pet Shop Rabbits, Hope, and Big Career Moves | Q&A with Annette
Annette's back with three takeaways from last week's Jennifer Moss episode that genuinely changed how we think about hope at work. Plus a listener question from Paul, an Australian who's been working in Dublin for 7-8 years and is now moving the family home to Melbourne while weighing a career...
-
We Can't Yoga Our Way Out of Bad Culture & The Newest Burnout Research | Jennifer Moss
Three years ago, Jennifer Moss came on Better at Work and gave us a line that stuck: we can't yoga our way out of a bad boss. She's back. New book. Sharper take. Jennifer is a burnout researcher and workplace culture strategist whose new book Why Are We Here? Creating a Work Culture Everybody…
more -
Tesla's Secret to Creativity, A Listener Breaking Under Retail Burnout, and Cathal Finally Gets New Glasses
What if the colleague who drives you up the wall is the one your organisation can't afford to lose? Cathal and Annette are back for a listener-questions special, picking up where last week's conversation with David [surname TBC], former Head of Design at Tesla, left off. The idea that stuck…
more -
The Ex-Tesla Designer On Why Your Best Ideas Keep Dying At Work
For 14 years, David Imai was a Design Director at Tesla, helping shape every car the company put on the road. Before that, GM and Opel. Today he advises the startups building the future of transport and robotics, and he's obsessed with one question: why do the best ideas keep dying inside big...
-
Culture Isn't What You Think It Is: Marcus Collins Takeaways + Why Retail Workers Are Struggling
In this week's listener questions episode, Cathal and Annette revisit three powerful ideas from their conversation with Marcus Collins. First, Emile Durkheim's sociological definition of culture, and why Marcus uses it: culture isn't something we create as individuals, it creates us as social...
-
Why Culture Is the Most Powerful Force at Work (And How to Actually Change It) | Marcus Collins
Why Culture Is the Most Powerful Force at Work (And How to Actually Change It) | Marcus Collins What if the biggest thing shaping your experience at work isn't your manager, your workload, or your pay, but something most organisations can't even define? In this episode, Cathal sits down with…
more -
Your Team Is Too Big (Here's the Ideal Size) | Listener's Questions
Your team might be too big to do its best work. In this week's Q&A, Cathal and Annette unpack their takeaways from Colin Fisher's research on what makes great teams. The number that stuck: 4.5 people. That's the ideal team size for real collaboration. They dig into why most leadership meetings…
more -
The Hidden Reason Your Team Isn't Working | Colin Fisher
Colin Fisher went from touring the world as a jazz trumpet player to becoming one of the leading researchers on group dynamics at UCL. His new book, The Collective Edge, reveals why the structure around your team matters more than the talent inside it. In this episode, Colin shares the surprising...
-
Regretting a Career Move? Here's What to Do | Better at Work Q&A
She left her job for a direct competitor. Six months in, she wants out. This week's Q&A tackles a listener career dilemma that most of us have lived through — that sinking feeling when your new job isn't what you expected. Amy's dealing with a culture mismatch, missing processes, and tanking...
-
Getting Fired to Harvard Business Review: Project Management Revolution | Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez
Antonio Nieto-Rodriguez got fired for trying to bring project management to a top consulting firm. Today, he's the most published expert on project management in Harvard Business Review and a Thinkers 50 global authority. His new book "Powered by Projects" makes a bold claim: Every organization…
more -
When Your Team Member Hates You + A Thank You Email That Went Viral | Listener Questions
Q&A episode answering a tough leadership question from Emer, plus Annette's takeaways from Laura Gassner-Otting. IN THIS EPISODE: Thank You Email Goes Viral: Cathal's email praising his daughter's teacher went around the whole school. Miss Smith said "You'd be surprised how little that happens."...
-
Why Following Your Passion is Bad Advice | Laura Gassner-Otting on Defining Your Own Success
Laura Gassner-Otting (Wall Street Journal bestselling author) joins Cathal in the London studio to challenge everything we think we know about success. This is Laura's UK/Ireland podcast debut, recorded at Christmas after a mulled wine with incredible energy. IN THIS EPISODE: The Four Horsemen of...
-
Q&A: Work as a "Friend Factory" + Burnout Advice You Can Use Tomorrow
Q&A episode with Annette's top takeaways from Russell Beck + critical advice for dealing with burnout at work. IN THIS EPISODE: Annette's 3 Takeaways from Russell Beck: 1. The Rise of Artist Engineers (STEM → STEAM) Why creativity and art matter more than ever in the future of work. Drawing as a...
-
Stop Worrying About AI. Start Worrying About THIS Instead | Future of Work 2030
You won't lose your job to AI in 2026. You'll lose it to someone who knows how to use AI better. Russell Beck (author of "The World of Work to 2030" - Leadership Book of the Year) breaks down what's changing in the workplace and how to stay ahead. IN THIS EPISODE: - Why AI collaboration beats AI...
-
Christmas Episode 2025: Help Annette Ban the Word 'Problematic' | Better at Work 2025 Wrap-Up
Our final episode of 2025! Cathal and Annette wrap up the year with takeaways from last week's Smart Conflict episode - plus Annette has a hilarious problem: she can't stop saying the word "problematic." In this Christmas special, we review key lessons from Alice Driscoll and Louise van Haast's...
-
Smart Conflict: How to Have Hard Conversations at Work | Louise van Haast & Alice Driscoll
Louise van Haast and Alice Driscoll, co-authors of Smart Conflict: How to Have Hard Conversations at Work, join Cathal in-studio for a masterclass in navigating workplace conflict. This is our first in-studio episode with 4-camera setup - and it looks stunning. If you've ever avoided a difficult...
-
Stuck in a Grad Program That Feels Too Narrow? Here's What to Do | Listener's Questions
A listener on a graduate program asks: "I'm not learning what I expected. The role feels narrow. I want to be an entrepreneur. What should I do?" Cathal and Annette tackle this question with practical advice that applies to ANYONE feeling stuck in a narrow role, not just graduates. Plus: Cathal...
-
How to Build Your Personal Brand (Even If You're Terrified) | Carlii Lyon
Carlii Lyon helped me start this podcast 5 years ago. Today, she's sharing her journey from terrified first-timer to leading personal branding expert—and her new book "Courage to Be." If you've ever felt too scared to put yourself out there, this conversation will change how you think about...
-
Why I Started Better at Work (And Where We're Going Next) | Listener Q&A with Cathal Quinlan
You asked, we answered. In this special listener Q&A episode, co-host Annette turns the tables and asks Cathal the questions we usually ask our guests.This is the story behind Better at Work: why it started, what we're building, and where we're going next.💡 KEY INSIGHTS:"People invest so much…
more -
How to Return to Work After a Career Break (Even If You Feel Stuck) | Julianne Miles
Taking a career break doesn't mean your career is over. In this episode, Julianne Miles—chartered psychologist, MBE recipient, and author of Return Journey—shares her proven 5-stage framework for returning to work after time away. Whether you've taken a break for childcare, caregiving, health...
-
Listener Questions: How to Start a Career Change (When You Don’t Know Where to Begin) S4 E6
A listener wrote in with a big question: “Where do I even begin with a career change?”In this episode, Cathal and Annette share practical advice on how to identify your unique talents, reconnect with your passions, and take small, meaningful steps toward work that matters.They also reflect on the...
-
The One Thing Every Employee Needs (But Never Gets) | Zach Mercurio | S4 E5
Only 30% of people feel like someone at work cares for them as a person. The lowest it's ever been.Zach Mercurio refers to this as a mattering deficit. And you can't solve it with perks, programs, or engagement initiatives. You can only solve it through daily interactions where people feel...
-
Listener Questions: Our Biggest Takeaways From the Tasha Eurich Episode (+ Your Questions) | Better@Work S4 E4
Annette and Cathal sit down to debrief last week's episode with Tasha Eurich—and it got real. Her research on why resilience is a limited resource, the concept of "grit-gaslighting," and the three biological needs we're all trying to meet completely shifted how we think about stress and burnout.…
more -
"What Doesn't Kill You Makes You Stronger" Is Backwards | Resilience Expert Tasha Eurich | S4 E3
Tasha Eurich spent 5 years studying resilience - interviewing hundreds of people, reviewing 1,300+ scientific articles, and analysing the 52 most cited resilience studies. What she discovered will change how you think about stress, burnout, and "powering through." In this episode, Tasha reveals…
more -
Listener Questions: Quick Fire Q&A + Helen Tupper Takeaways | Better@Work S4
Welcome to our first-ever Listener Questions episode on Better@Work! Hosts Cathal Quinlan and Annette Sloan are back for Season 4 with your new favourite format. Real workplace questions, real talk, and actionable advice. In this episode: Quick-fire get-to-know-you round with Cathal & Annette…
more -
Why careers aren't ladders anymore (and what to do instead) | Helen Tupper
Today we welcome Helen Tupper, CEO of Amazing If and co-author of the No.1 Sunday Times Business Bestseller The Squiggly Career: Ditch the Ladder, Discover Opportunity, Design Your Career. Helen has built her career across leadership roles at Microsoft, Virgin, and BP, and today helps millions of...
-
Overcoming Burnout with Daisy Auger-Domínguez
In episode 45, we welcome Daisy Auger-Domínguez, a trailblazing executive dedicated to building vibrant and supportive cultures. Her new book “Burnt Out to Lit Up: How to Reignite the Joy of Leading People” offer practical strategies for overcoming burnout. With decades of experience driving...
-
How To Fix Toxic Work Culture with Colin D. Ellis
In episode 44, we welcome workplace culture expert Colin D. Ellis, an award-winning keynote speaker and the best-selling author of Culture Fix: How to Create a Great Place to Work and Detox your Culture: Deliver results, retain staff, and strengthen your organisation's reputation. Colin and I...
-
Bridging the Gap between Employers & Gen Z Employees with Sinead D’Arcy
In episode 43, we welcome Sinead D'Arcy, an early talent & employer brand marketer who partners with organisations on their early talent strategy across the full 360 employee experience from attraction to selection, onboarding, ongoing development, retention & off-boarding. Sinéad does extensive...
-
Using Behavioural Science to Influence Behaviour Change with Mike Daniels
In episode 42, we welcome behavioral scientist Mike Daniels, co-founder of the Behavioural Architects - a global insight, research and strategic consultancy organisation. Mike and I discuss: The difference between knowing and applying behavioural psychology principles Why the first step to...
We're indexing this podcast's transcripts for the first time — this can take a minute or two. We'll show results as soon as they're ready.
No matches for "" in this podcast's transcripts.
No topics indexed yet for this podcast.
Loading reviews...
ABOUT THIS SHOW
The Better At Work podcast is your new best friend at work. It’s packed with honest, practical advice and science-backed techniques from a diverse range of guests to help you achieve betterness in your work, and life.
Better At Work is for everyone striving to be better and feel better. Whether you’re ready to take your career to new heights, or battling with the daily grind, your host Cathal Quinlan is here to help.
By drawing on insights from leading psychologists, neuroscientists and performance experts, and Cathal sharing his own successes and mistakes as a leader, the podcast delivers proven strategies, tools and science-backed techniques to help you achieve betterness in your working life, one day at a time, because when work is better, life is better.
Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.
HOSTED BY
Cathal Quinlan
Loading similar podcasts...
Frequently Asked Questions
How many episodes does Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan have?
Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan currently has 68 episodes available on PodParley. New episodes are automatically indexed when they're published to the podcast feed.
What is Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan about?
The Better At Work podcast is your new best friend at work. It’s packed with honest, practical advice and science-backed techniques from a diverse range of guests to help you achieve betterness in your work, and life. Better At Work is for everyone striving to be better and feel better. Whether...
How often does Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan release new episodes?
Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan has 68 episodes. Check the episode list to see recent publication dates and frequency.
Where can I listen to Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan?
You can listen to Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan on PodParley by clicking any episode. We provide an embedded audio player for direct listening, and you can also subscribe via your preferred podcast app using the RSS feed.
Who hosts Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan?
Better At Work with Cathal Quinlan is created and hosted by Cathal Quinlan.
URL copied to clipboard!