The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast

Welcome to The Culture Nerds - A Leadership Podcast

Simon Thiessen & Kirralea Walkerden

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Welcome to the podcast formerly known as Authenticity, Transforming Workplace Culture.

We decided we need a freshen up and let's face it. The old name was a bit stiff and starchy. So we looked for something fun, something that described the pod, and something suitable for the hosts.

We totally nerd out on leadership and culture - which is why we are good at them. And Simon is obviously a nerd. Kirralea, less so at least according to her.

You'll still get the same mix of strategies, tips, tools and anecdotes, all based on the lived executive experience and lessons learned from working with thousands of clients around the globe. And, we'll have some fun while we do it.

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Thanks to our Podcasting producer, Josh at
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Thanks for listening!

Speaker 1:

Before we get into today's episode, we want to acknowledge the privilege of living and working on Aboriginal land and we pay our respects to the elders, past, present and emerging. Hello listeners. Towards the end of last year, simon and I were having a discussion around what the podcast looked like and what direction we wanted to head in going into 2024. And one of the thoughts that we had was the name was a little bit boring, boring, boring. Someone says and look it, really it says what we're about authenticity and we thought you know what I think we need to. We think we need to make it a little bit more fun, a little bit more of a reflection about who we are and what we're about. And part of it came about when we were looking at some copy for some of our emails and our marketing and it just was staring in front of us like what we are, whether we wanted to see it, or not.

Speaker 2:

So, karen, we have these alter egos, don't we? We do, we love to think we're sort of pretty cool and pretty with it, as we and you have quite correctly pointed out to me that if you've got a claim, you're cool there, for you are not, but we like to think we're pretty cool when we go out there and we work with groups and we help organizations and we have those conversations. But we do have these alter egos, don't we? We do, we have the scenes peddling away in the background. We're just these couple of nerds who just love workplace culture and who love leadership and just wallow in that stuff.

Speaker 1:

So our new name for the podcast, starting from right now, is the Culture Nerds Leadership Podcast.

Speaker 2:

Which just says who we are and what we do.

Speaker 1:

Exactly, and we're very much about having a joke and having fun and, I guess, taking the piss out of ourselves a little bit along the way, and that's very much about what the name suggests. As much as we have a bit of a laugh about us being the culture nerds, it is something that we really enjoy doing and we are really passionate about, and we truly love working with our clients and we love recording these podcasts on the topics that we record on, and so we felt that that is a little bit, I guess, a little bit more fun.

Speaker 1:

A little bit reflective of who we are and what we're about. So we are the culture nerds, and this is what the podcast will look like this year. There is some other changes come in, simon. Did you want to talk about those?

Speaker 2:

Yeah, well, look, we're going to keep it. And before I do, just, I had some experience working as an executive in a leadership, you know, childcare organization and one of the things that their philosophy was around play-based learning for children, and the first thing that occurred to me when I worked, walked in there, was what we can't possibly do then that unless we have play-based work and I'm a really big believer in play-based work, of hopefully exactly what people get on this podcast is a lot of really solid substance that we're professional, we know what we're doing, but just, we like to have a good time doing it and we don't take ourselves in seriously, so you can be professional and have a good time at the same time. That's play-based work and that's what we want the podcast to be. Some of the changes we're going to be more punchy and so I'll keep this short in the spirit of that.

Speaker 2:

We're only going to have guests where and we've had some great guests over the last year but we're going to have less guests because we want the episodes to be shorter and when we have a guest, they're going to be someone who's going to bring amazing value. We're going to have a lot of content, a lot of the stuff that we share with organizations when we're out there working. That we're going to package into short episodes. And one more thing that I'm really passionate about, and this is the nerd in me I was writing a blog the other day and it just occurred to me how much I could hear it in my head as I was writing it.

Speaker 1:

You could hear your own voice inside your head.

Speaker 2:

Which is scary. It's like hearing myself on the piece.

Speaker 1:

Simon thought you know what would make this blog better if I was speaking it.

Speaker 2:

I really like to argue with you, but it's true, I actually don't mind who speaks it. But I know a lot of our listeners are time poor. Yes, you can flick something on in the car, but you might not have time to read a blog. So we're also going to have some episodes that throw in here and there, which will be. I wanted to call them talking blogs, but Kira Lee advised me that that was just too nerdy, that crossed the threshold. So they'll be called our audio blogs, but listen up for them. If I write a short blog, it might be three or four minutes. If it's a longer blog, it might be 10 minutes, which the one I recorded earlier this week was. So that's you know. That's what you've got to look forward to, Welcome to the culture, nerds listeners.

Speaker 2:

Welcome to the culture nerds. Tell us what you want us to record and we'll do it in short, sharp, punchy ways, but really looking forward to a new, refreshed year of the pod under a great new name and a name that just describes us.

Speaker 1:

One more say than the other. No, just joking.

Speaker 2:

It describes us One of the things called the other, and one of us is nerdy.

Speaker 1:

We'll leave that to the listeners to work out.

Speaker 2:

See you in the first episode, which will drop very soon. In the meantime, stay authentic.