178: Rebecca Hinds: The Power of Intentional Work Design
Overview
This month, I’m exploring sustainability through the lens of leadership and how we can focus our effort to make work better for ourselves and those around us.
My guest today, Rebecca Hinds, is an expert on transforming the way we work to be more intentional, efficient, and effective. In our conversation, she urges us to resist functioning on autopilot or doing things “the way they’ve always been done,” and consider if our systems and environments are actually working for us and our teams.
Rebecca also shares key product design principles that can make meetings more valuable, why we need to be thoughtful about how much we collaborate, and touches on a few ways we can integrate AI that goes beyond simple efficiency.
This episode is an invitation to get intentional and invest time and effort into the design of how we work, meet, and collaborate.
Listen below or on your favorite podcast player.
More About Our Guest
Rebecca Hinds is a leading expert on work transformation and the future of work. Rebecca earned a B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. from Stanford University. In 2022, she founded the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, a first-of-its-kind think tank that conducts actionable research to help leaders and organizations navigate the growing challenges and changes of work. In 2025, she founded the Work AI Institute at Glean, where she leads cutting-edge research on how AI is reshaping work. Rebecca's award-winning research and insights are consistently featured in places like Harvard Business Review, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Forbes, Inc., and Time. Rebecca was a co-instructor for the 2025 CNBC Make It course, How to Use AI to Be More Successful at Work, and is the author of Your Best Meeting Ever—named a Next Big Idea Club “must-read” and praised by Adam Grant as “required reading.”
Listen to the full episode to hear:
What happens when an organization makes collaboration more visible and trackable for their staff
How hyper-fixation on efficiency impacts performance for teams and financially
Key metrics that anchor organizational change and get buy-in from stakeholders
A simple test for deciding if this really needs to be a meeting
Strategies for creating a more intentional culture around meetings
Learn more about Rebecca Hinds:
Resources Mentioned
Thanks for Listening!
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