Episode 7
Prof. Dan Cable: How to be exceptional through empowerment
Available on these channels and more
If you’re an ambitious person, you’ll be working out what it takes to be exceptional at work (and everywhere). You’ll know that working super hard helps, but won’t be enough — and might eventually burn you out. Getting candid feedback on what you need to change is critical. It goes hand in hand with compassion, funnily enough. You’ll want to strive for something far better than you have, in order to work out how far your strengths take you. Only that way you’ll know how to fill the gaps.
Finding moments — for yourself and those around you — that activate the parts of your brain (your seeking systems) helps. And you’ll want a hand in shaping your career, team, organisation; after all, it’s pretty debilitating to be told what to do or to copy somebody else’s work. In this conversation Professor Dan Cable shares his research on how to inspire exceptional performance at work.
The best bits of these conversations are captured in my newsletter Flashes+Sparks.
Further resources
- Dan’s website.
- His podcast Squeezing the Orange of Social Science with Akin Omobitan.
- His latest book Exceptional.
“When change is done by me, I get inspired. When it’s done to me, I get debilitated.”
Professor Dan Cable, London Business School
VIEW RUNNING ORDER
02.49 | How to get ‘good changes’ to stick. |
05.19 | An experiment to avoid burnout. |
07.51 | Using Facetime as a proxy for somebody I can trust in a hybrid world. |
10.43 | The power of sharp feedback and compassion. |
13.05 | The danger of being overly focused on outcomes. |
16.01 | The paradox of empowerment and accountability. |
16.45 | How to scale culture evolution. |
23.45 | Finding ways to help people learn without feeling penalised. |
26.21 | The frustrations of a leader who wants a playbook. |
28.06 | The 66-day rule for habits. |
34.59 | Changes to his habits in the last few years. |
38.19 | The impact he’s looking to have on others. |

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