Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants with Jennifer Moss
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
Release Date: 02/28/2025
Manage Yourself to Lead Others with Margaret C. Andrews
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
After receiving harsh feedback about her lack of self-awareness despite strong business results, embarked on a deep exploration of leadership through philosophy, psychology, and management studies. She ultimately developing her MYLO (Manage Yourself to Lead Others) approach for other leaders, which led to her writing her new book, Manage Yourself to Lead Others: Why Great Leadership Begins with Self-Understanding. Caroline and Margaret talk about the practical steps for identifying the leader you want to become, managing emotions and difficult situations, navigating...
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Discover How to Combat Bias in Recruiting with Jenn Tardy
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
In this episode, Caroline talks to , a diversity practitioner and human resources expert about how to promote workplace diversity amid current DEI backlash. Jenn has worked with organizations like Gap Inc., Red Bull, Harvard, and the US Chamber of Commerce. Rather than offering generic advice, she provides actionable insights for combating hidden biases at every stage of the talent lifecycle—from finding and attracting candidates to engaging and developing employees. Her new book, The Equity Edge: How Addressing Bias in Recruiting and Retention Drives Success, serves as both a strategic...
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Epic Disruptions with Scott Anthony
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
, a clinical professor at Dartmouth's Tuck School of Business, joins Caroline to talk about eleven pivotal innovations that changed business and the human experience. From gunpowder, to the printing press, to Julia Child's cookbook and now generative AI, Scott tells the stories of how these innovations changed the world. Rather than simply celebrating these inventions, Anthony reveals the underlying patterns of how disruption actually occurs and spreads through society. More from Dr. Scott Anthony: Book: More from Caroline Dowd-Higgins: ! . .
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The Lasso of Truth with Josephine Palermo
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
Caroline sits down with , an organizational psychologist and executive coach, to talk about how women should reconsider everything they think they know about power in the workplace. Josephine is the author of the new book Rising to Feminine Power: The Lasso of Truth, which talks about how current power structures aren't working and how women especially can bring a new kind of leadership to the workplace. Josephine talks about the science behind feminine power and how we uncover the hidden barriers that may be holding you back from stepping into your authentic power. ...
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Working Well with Lesley Cooper
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
On this episode, Caroline talks with , a management consultant with over 25 years of experience in employee well-being. She's the founder of , an award-winning consultancy that helps companies manage workplace pressure to facilitate growth and development. Her new book, , addresses the persistent problem of workplace well-being despite widespread support systems. The book tackles the harsh reality that employees often fear speaking up about workplace pressure due to concerns about consequences, creating a culture sustained by fear rather than openness.
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The Life-Changing Solution for Reducing Employee Stress, Improving Well-being, and Working Smarter w/ Juliet Schor
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
This week, Caroline talks to Juliet Schor about the case for the four day work week. , and has gained widespread recognition through national media appearances and her viral 2022 TED Talk "," which has been viewed over three million times. Caroline talks to Juliet about her latest book, , which is the first large-scale study of the four-day work week based on her four decades of work research. The book demonstrates how companies like Kickstarter, Bolt, and Basecamp have successfully eliminated the fifth workday while maintaining productivity and dramatically improving employee well-being,...
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Learn the Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication with Andrew Brodsky
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
On this episdoe of Your Working Life, Caroline talks to , an award-winning business professor and management consultant at The University of Texas at Austin's McCombs School of Business. Andrew specializes in virtual communication and workplace technology, and wrote a new book called "PING: The Secrets of Successful Virtual Communication". He and Caroline talk abbout his actionable framework for mastering modern workplace interactions across all communication platforms. Social Media/Links: Read ' Music credits for this episode: Week Thirteen by Ben von Wildenhause, Free...
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The Power of No in a World That Demands Yes with Dr. Sunita Sah
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
is an award-winning professor at Cornell University and an expert in organizational psychology. She leads groundbreaking research on influence, authority, compliance, and defiance. A trained physician, she practiced medicine in the United Kingdom and worked as a management consultant for the pharmaceutical industry. She currently teaches executives, leaders, and students in healthcare and business. Dr. Sah is a sought-after international speaker and consultant, advisor to government agencies, and former Commissioner of the National Commission on Forensic Science. Her multidisciplinary...
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Embracing Uncertainty with Margaret Heffernan
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
produced programmes for the BBC for 13 years. She then moved to the US where she spearheaded multimedia productions for Intuit, The Learning Company and Standard&Poors. She was Chief Executive of InfoMation Corporation, ZineZone Corporation and then iCast Corporation, was named one of the “Top 25” by Streaming Media magazine and one of the “Top 100 Media Executives” by The Hollywood Reporter. The author of six books, Margaret’s third book, Willful Blindness: Why We Ignore the Obvious at our Peril was named one of the most important business books of the decade by the...
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The Flexibility Paradigm with Manar Morales
Your Working Life with Caroline Dowd-Higgins
is a national thought leader and visionary on building human-centered workplace cultures at the intersection of diversity, flexibility, and well-being. As the Founder & CEO of the , Manar is on a mission to empower organizations to unlock their full potential by creating inclusive environments, implementing effective flexible work strategies, and prioritizing holistic employee well-being. A sought-after speaker, author, and trusted advisor, Manar brings a wealth of expertise from her background as an employment litigator and adjunct faculty member at Georgetown University. She is the...
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Jennifer Moss episode:
The music used in this episode was Senility by Jangwa from Free Music Archive (CC BY)
Jennifer Moss specializes in future-focused leadership development, expertly balancing employee well-being with performance. As an award-winning writer and internationally acclaimed keynote speaker, she specializes in transforming workplace culture using data-driven leadership strategies. Her book, The Burnout Epidemic tackled employee burnout and was among Thinkers50's "10 Best New Management Books for 2022."
Book: WHY ARE WE HERE: Creating a Work Culture Everyone Wants by Jennifer Moss (Jan)
Website: https://www.jennifer-moss.com/why-are-we-here-book
Questions/topics for discussion:
1. Your title asks a big, existential question - what is its significance and how does it relate to worker sentiment today?
2. Your previous books covered happiness at work and then the burnout epidemic at work. What is the thread that connects these three topics? They relate to health, happiness and high performance.
3. You write that work is “fundamentally broken.” How did we get here?
4. Your book comes out right around the five-year anniversary of the Covid-19 pandemic but you barely mention it in the book - was this on purpose? Why?
5. Your book covers a lot of ground, and you’ve broken it down into three parts. Can you briefly outline the key areas of work that leaders must approach differently?
6. Let’s dig into the first area: hope. You write that we’re experiencing a surge of hopelessness - particularly amongst Gen Zs - that is deeply affecting organizational future readiness. Please explain.
7. We can’t talk about the state of work today without talking about flexibility and return-to-office mandates (with Amazon being the elephant in the room). Why are we still having these battles, five years after the pandemic disrupted where people work?
8. If RTO mandates aren’t the way forward, what is? How can leaders give employees the freedom and flexibility they want while also meeting organizational goals?
9. You also dig into the topic of generational bias at work – not just “ageism,” but also bias aimed at younger generations. Why is there so much division between generations at work right now, and how is it affecting the workplace?
10. What’s the key to overcoming this generational bias?
11. We’re in the midst of a huge backlash against DEI programs, and you write in your book that DEI strategies aren’t working. What went wrong, and what’s the path forward?
12. In the section on DEI, you write that it needs to become more inclusive of people living with disabilities and those who are neurodivergent. What does this look like in action and are there companies doing it right?
13. Your book points to stark data showing that women are breaking up with work. What’s driving them away from the workforce?
14. And yet, we’ve been talking about helping women break the glass ceiling for decades. Why haven’t we made more progress toward gender parity at work? What needs to change?
15. AI is a huge priority for companies, and it’s also a source of anxiety for workers. What did you learn from your interviews and research about how AI is impacting workers?
16. How can leaders navigate this AI anxiety and FOBO (fear of becoming obsolete) that their workers are experiencing? And what will happen if leaders don’t proactively address it?
17. Let’s talk about the loneliness epidemic at work - how did it come to be, and how is it impacting both individual workers and organizations?
18. Community, as you write, is the antidote to workplace loneliness. How can leaders build community and foster workplace friendships?
19. You write that rediscovering happiness at work starts with purpose. How do you define purpose, and how can organizations operationalize it?
20. Is there a company that’s getting all (or most) of these things right?
21. What is your biggest hope for the future of work?
All social media links:
- https://x.com/jennifermossinc
- https://www.linkedin.com/in/jenleighmoss/
- https://www.instagram.com/betterworkinstitute/