The Business Philosopher Within You

About The Business Philosopher Within You

On this podcast, we help our listeners explore and unlock the Business Philosopher within them so that they can build a human organization that is high-performing, self-sustaining and scalable for generations to come. Our listers are business builders, organizational managers, team leaders and career professionals who want to build self-perpetuating, long-lasting business organizations, work teams and careers that last beyond themselves. Our conversations explore frameworks, ideas, strategies and tools that help us bring out the inner business philosopher in all of us. We have inspiring, often deep conversations with organizational leaders, business builders, career professionals, thought-leaders, teachers, artists and experts from all walks of life who help us get in touch with our inner humanness and the inner business philosophers who is waiting to be unlocked. Show notes: https://notes.awayre.com/podcast

Publisher

Bhavesh Naik

Category

business

Language

en

Explicit

No

First episode

13 Dec 2023

Latest episode

28 Oct 2026

Latest episodes

53 episodes in the feed.

1. 

   28 Oct 2026

   Employee Performance. The Way You See Your People Is How You Manage Them.

   Are your people lazy, or are they drained? This episode is about enlivening performance, the kind that makes people come alive at work, and what two Olympic figure skating champions, Tara Lipinski and Alysa Liu, can teach you about employee performance. Measuring performance as output over input is not wrong. "It built the modern economy. It works beautifully on machines." "The problem is that it followed us into our knowledge work." Gallup's research shows that fewer than 1 in 3 employees are engaged at work. "So that's more than 2/3 of your people performing below what they're capable of." It is not a capacity problem. The same person who does the minimum on Monday "rebuilds the car engine in the garage on the side." "The capacity is there, it's just that it's going somewhere else." In this episode, we explore why most management still looks at people the way an engineer looks at a machine, what friction is in a human being, how emotions tell you when it is high, what a leader can and cannot do about it and a conversation that takes a few minutes and starts to unlock the performance trapped in the 2 out of 3 who are not engaged. In this episode, we explore: Why "What Tara Lipinski found by accident, Alysa Liu turned into a discipline," and why it only looks like a revolt Why "the way you see your people is how you manage them" Seven faculties, and why traditional management trains the intellect, measures the behavior and leaves the other five idle Why emotions are the surface, and what is out of alignment underneath them Four questions to ask a direct report, and why the fourth "is the one that changes you" "Are your people lazy, or are they drained?" is not only a founder's question. It belongs to the manager who inherited a team that does the minimum, to the HR leader reading another engagement survey and to anyone who has watched a colleague come alive on a Saturday doing something nobody pays them for. It is also a question to turn around. "The way you see your own role and your own performance in it is how you'll manage yourself." If you want performance from your people that doesn't wear them out, this episode offers a place to start, and it takes one conversation. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters 0:00 What Alysa Liu Can Teach You About Employee Performance 0:35 What Do Tara Lipinski and Alysa Liu Have in Common? 1:55 What If Employee Performance Isn't What You Were Taught? 3:03 Can Four Questions Re-engage Your People? 4:33 What Did a 15-Year-Old Find by Accident? 6:21 What If You Chose It on Purpose? 7:31 Why Does It Look Like a Revolt? 8:40 Would You Manage a Person Like a BMW? 9:46 Are You Driving in Two Gears out of Seven? 10:42 How Do You See Your People? 12:26 What Is Friction in a Human Being? 13:34 How Do You Know When Friction Is High? 14:48 Does Your Work Drain You… or Bring You Alive? 16:01 Why Do the Four Questions Work? 17:50 What Drains You? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Episode Show Notes and Deep Dive 📚 https://www.awayre.com/underperforming-employees-not-lazy-drained/ (https://www.awayre.com/underperforming-employees-not-lazy-drained/) Follow Bhavesh Naik 🔗 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaveshnaik/ (https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaveshnaik/) Be a Guest 🦸♀️ https://www.awayre.com/business-philosopher-within-you-podcast-guest/ (https://www.awayre.com/business-philosopher-within-you-podcast-guest/) Take Founder Dependency Snapshot 📸 https://www.awayre.com/founder-dependency-snapshot/ (https://www.awayre.com/founder-dependency-snapshot/) Music by Yrii Semchyshyn (Thank You!) https://www.patreon.com/yuriisemchyshyn (https://www.patreon.com/yuriisemchyshyn)

2. 

   14 Oct 2026

   Are They Buying You or the Company You Built? | Cat How

   Are clients buying you, or the company you built? Every founder's taste is part of what the first clients buy. Cat How does not pretend otherwise. What she is working out is whether HOW+HOW needs her there, or only prefers it. Cat founded HOW+HOW with her husband Roger in 2020, after building and selling an e-commerce business for designer makers and running a set of coworking spaces for creatives. The agency now has a team of about 25 across studios in London and Los Angeles. It is a certified B Corp, it publishes every salary tier to the whole team, and it will not take workfrom oil and gas companies. Before any of it, Cat was a design critic for a national newspaper. She has since served as jury president for D&AD. In this conversation, we explore the difference between a founder-centric company and a founder-dependent one, the questions Cat asks herself to tell which she is running, what happened when she and Roger proposed taking their own name off the company, and the habit her creative directors keep asking her to drop. In this conversation, we explore: "Is my point of view written down anywhere, or does it only exist in my head?" The questions Cat asks herself about her own company Why "it isn't how present you are, it's whether my presence is required or just preferred" What happened when the founders wanted their name gone and the team said no Why an agency built on its founder's taste is proud not to have a house style The interview question about a mistake that hurt someone, and what it reveals about ego Why every salary tier at HOW+HOW is pinned in the company Slack "Are clients buying you, or the company you built?" is not only a question for agency founders. It's also a question for anyone whose expertise is what the client thinks they are paying for, in a consultancy, a practice or a firm with their name on the door. And it's worth asking if your team has ever waited a day for you to look at something they could have decided themselves. If you're building a company you hope will outlast you, this conversation is about the line between a company that carries your point of view and one that cannot move without it. CHAPTERS 00:00:00 Are They Buying You or the Company You Built? 00:02:57 Who Are You to Judge Someone Else's Work? 00:09:12 Would You Publish Everyone's Salary? 00:12:25 How Much of You Should Be in the Brand? 00:18:53 Would Clients Still Buy If You Weren't Making the Sale? 00:20:35 Is Your Presence Required… or Just Preferred? 00:24:52 Would You Take Your Own Name Off the Company? 00:28:45 How Does Your Taste Reach Your Newest Hire? 00:31:31 Would You Hire Without Reading a CV? 00:37:17 Is It Ego… or Do They Just Care? 00:42:24 Could Someone Else Do What You Do? 00:45:31 What's the First Thing You'd Let Go Of? 00:48:44 What Would Your Future CEO Wish You Had Done? 00:52:50 What Does Nobody See From the Outside? 00:59:08 What Keeps You Grounded When Everything Moves? 📚 Deep Dive, Show Notes and Reference Reading: https://www.awayre.com/founder-centric-founder-dependent-cat-how/ Connect with Cat How 🔗 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/cat-how-0499b9149/ 🌐 HOW+HOW: https://how.studio/ Connect with Bhavesh Naik 🔗 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaveshnaik/ 🌐 Website: https://www.awayre.com/ 🎞 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@business.philosopher The Business Philosopher Within You Podcast 🎬🎙️📖 Website: https://www.awayre.com/business-philosopher-within-you-podcast/ 🦸♀️Be a Guest: https://www.awayre.com/business-philosopher-within-you-podcast-guest/ Explore how self-awareness can help your build a self-sustaining organization that outlives you: 🧙♂️ https://www.awayre.com/hire-a-fool/ Take Founder Dependency Snapshot 📸 https://www.awayre.com/founder-dependency-snapshot/ Music by Yrii Semchyshyn (Thank You!): https://www.patreon.com/yuriisemchyshyn

3. 

   23 Sept 2026

   Psychological Ownership. Why Your People Don't Feel It the Way You Do.

   Can you give someone ownership, or can you only invite them to find it? This episode is about psychological ownership, the feeling that something is yours, and why it is stronger than the legal kind. Equity, options, profit sharing, a bonus tied to the numbers. None of it is a mistake. "Those things are fair. They're often the right thing to do. And let's face it, in a lot of companies, they're long overdue." They are also all outside the person, and the feeling we are after is inside them. Here is the stake. "I don't think the performance you're looking for is outside your company waiting to be hired. I think much of it is already there." It is sitting in people who could bring far more than they currently bring, and what is missing is often not effort. It is the relationship they have with the work. In this episode, we explore what happens inside a person when something becomes theirs, why that changes how they think, feel and behave, why the usual ways of manufacturing ownership do not work, and one twenty minute conversation you can have this week with a single direct report. In this episode, we explore: Why "a share certificate is a legal fact" and nobody has ever defended one the way they defend themselves What actually happens inside a person as "this is mine" quietly becomes "this is me" Two questions to ask a direct report, in the order that makes them work Why "you're not collecting answers, you're watching what happens to them" How the same ownership that makes somebody formidable can make them territorial, defensive and unable to hand anything over "Can you give someone ownership, or can you only invite them to find it?" is not only a founder's question. It belongs to the manager whose team does the job and goes home, to the executive who cannot work out why a capable group is only half present, and to anyone who has watched someone treat a side project or a parent teacher organization as though the place were theirs. It is also a question to turn around. You legally own your company. Do you psychologically own it the way you did in the first year? If you want people who think, feel and act more like owners, without becoming possessive or territorial, this episode offers a place to start that has almost nothing to do with money. A note on the term. Bhavesh arrived at "psychological ownership" independently, in his own work, without exposure to the research. The same term had already been in use in organizational research since the early 2000s (Pierce, Kostova and Dirks, 2001). What he presents here is his own, original thinking. ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Chapters 0:00 Why Your People Don't Feel Ownership the Way You Do 0:33 Who Acts Like the Place Is Theirs? 1:11 What's Your Biggest Problem? 2:59 Do You Need All the Answers? 3:34 What If Money Were Off the Table? 5:29 What Are You Actually Watching For? 7:01 Can Equity Create Ownership? 8:07 Does This Feeling Have a Name? 9:29 Do You Still Own It the Way You Did in Year One? 10:21 What Happens When Something Becomes Yours? 11:52 When Does Mine Become… Me? 13:22 Formidable… or Territorial? 14:43 What Changes When You Can See It? 16:48 How Can Two Odd Questions Do Anything? 18:37 Who Asks You the Questions? 19:16 Where Is the Performance You're Looking For? ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ Episode Show Notes and Deep Dive 📚 https://www.awayre.com/psychological-ownership-why-employees-dont-act-like-owners/ Follow Bhavesh Naik 🔗 Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bhaveshnaik/ Be a Guest 🦸♀️ https://www.awayre.com/business-philosopher-within-you-podcast-guest/ Take Founder Dependency Snapshot 📸 https://www.awayre.com/founder-dependency-snapshot/ Music by Yrii Semchyshyn (Thank You!) https://www.patreon.com/yuriisemchyshyn

Who has been a guest on The Business Philosopher Within You

Names identified in recent episode analyses. Showing up to five guests.

• Fabiana Lacerca-Allen
• Joanne Lockwood
• Jonathan Schneider

Reach and audience

Public platform figures. Ratings count people who left a rating, not total listeners.

YouTube views

15,831

Score snapshot 15 Sept 2025

Apple Podcasts (US)

5.0 / 5

2 ratings

Spotify

5.0 / 5

3 ratings

Podcast Authority Score: 43 / 100

A composite of feed quality, social presence, YouTube performance and engagement. Read the methodology.

Quality

46

Social presence

0

YouTube

72

Engagement

27

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Based on episode analysis; this does not confirm that the show is currently accepting guests.

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