PPG Professional Member Spotlight: Playful Rebellion Book (Bob Hurling)
Bob Hurling is a Registered PPG Professional Member and Certified Positive Psychology Practitioner from the UK who graduated from the Level 5 Diploma Positive Organisational Psychology in 2023. Below is an interview with Ola Hardbattle on his recent book titled, Playful Rebellion.
Tell me more about your book – what was your intent and who were you hoping to reach?
I wanted to capture the absurdities of corporate life without simply moaning about them. My intent was to show how insights, humour, and psychology can help us navigate the mess. The audience is anyone who has sat in a meeting and thought, “Surely this can’t be the best way to spend my time!?”, from early-career starters to seasoned leaders.
What led you to choose the fictional and lived-narrative format, rather than a more academic style?
Because working life never really fully shows up in research reviews. It plays out through characters, conversations, and everyday frustrations. Writing as a fictional narrative gave me the freedom to tell truths without pointing fingers, and to slip in the mechanisms and insights from research without readers feeling like they’d been cornered in a lecture.
Do you see humour purely as entertainment, or also as a psychological intervention?
Both. Humour is a pressure valve. It helps us distance ourselves from stress, build bonds, and spot the ridiculous in the supposedly serious. There’s plenty of research showing it buffers against burnout & recent research suggesting you can even train people (Korock et al., 2025). So it entertains, but it also heals and connects.
Who is the lead character, Bob, and which shifts of character does he experience?
Bob is a version of me, though not always the flattering one. He begins as a dutiful insider, trying to play by the corporate rulebook. Gradually he drifts into mischief, realising that carefully chosen acts of rebellion can achieve more than blind compliance. His main shift is from trying to reform the whole system to quietly reworking small parts of it from within. The other characters are drawn from real people, and the events are based on things that actually happened. Ex-colleagues who’ve read it say the fiction feels uncomfortably realistic!
How important is joy in corporate organisational life?
Vital, yet too often underestimated. We treat joy as a bonus, when in fact it’s the fuel for resilience, collaboration, and creativity. Without it, organisations slip into compliance and mere survival; with it, they gain the energy to change. The challenge is to foster genuine joy rather than impose ‘enforced fun’ (Tzioti et al., 2025).
What advice would you give to someone starting their career in a large corporate organisation?
Take the work seriously, but not yourself. Notice how things really get done, which is usually different from the formal processes. And remember that careers are marathons, not sprints, protect your curiosity and sense of humour, they’ll carry you further than ambition alone.
What positive cultural shifts might be on the horizon for corporate workplaces?
I’m hopeful about two things: more honest conversations about wellbeing, and the slow dismantling of presenteeism. If the pandemic taught us anything, it’s that being visible isn’t the same as being valuable. A culture that respects energy and trust may finally be coming through.
When did you decide to explore Positive Psychology and why?
I first came across Positive Psychology at a British Psychological Society conference in the late 2000s, hearing Alex Linley talk about strengths. That led to some work together showing that focusing on strengths brings better outcomes (Wood et al., 2011). I then made the rather bold attempt to convert the whole company, before retreating to the more realistic task of shaping my own team into a more positive experience.
More recently I completed a Level 5 Positive Organisational Psychology Practitioner course with the Positive Psychology Guild, which was great fun with Claire and Reece (course trainers). I keep up to date through Google Scholar, which feeds both my curiosity and my practice.
Where do you see the next big opportunities in Positive Organisational Psychology Practice?
The opportunity is to embed ideas like strengths, flow, and meaning into the way teams run meetings, manage projects, and even write emails. The micro-moments of everyday work matter more than training sessions. Implementation is more important than theory; because even people who know what to do often don’t do it.
What advice would you give to students of Positive Organisational Psychology?
Stay grounded. Read the research but test it against messy reality. Organisations are never as clean as case studies suggest. And keep your sense of mischief; it helps you spot better ways of working and stay resilient when things get tough.
Could you share any practical tips for Positive Psychology Practitioners who want to write a book?
Don’t try to write an academic paper in disguise. Tell stories. Use characters. Let the reader feel both the frustration and the humour. And above all, don’t wait until you feel ready. Start writing and let clarity emerge as you go. It’s far easier to refine words on the page (or on a screen) than to wait for perfection to materialise in your head.
What is next for you professionally? What are you excited about or looking forward to?
I’m enjoying early semi-retirement, which means I get to choose projects that matter. Right now, that means helping businesses think differently about happiness and indulgence, and working with others to design experiences that genuinely lift people’s lives. Some of those lessons made their way into my book: https://mybook.to/PlayfulRebellion
Is there anything else you would like to add?
Change doesn’t have to be brash or loud. Sometimes the most powerful act is a quiet refusal to accept the pointless as inevitable. That, and the occasional well-timed joke, can change more than you’d expect.
References:
Tzioti, E., Montgomery, A., Spiliou, M., Mouratidis, C., Chalili, V., Maliousis, I., & Lainidi, O. (2025). Fun at work, job engagement, and burnout: A Meta-analysis and Narrative Synthesis. Cogent Psychology, 12(1), 2492453.
Korock, L., Ullmann, E., & Scheel, T. (2025). Effectiveness of work-related humour trainings: Humour use, humour styles and well-being. Human Resource Development International, 1-29.
Wood, A. M., Linley, P. A., Maltby, J., Kashdan, T. B., & Hurling, R. (2011). Using personal and psychological strengths leads to increases in well-being over time: A longitudinal study and the development of the strengths use questionnaire. Personality and Individual differences, 50(1), 15-19.
About Bob Hurling
Bob Hurling is a consumer psychologist, researcher, and speaker with over 35 years’ experience working in a global multinational company, where he specialised in turning complex behaviour into meaningful insights, and occasionally turning meetings into something useful.
Known for combining psychological depth with practical application, Bob has helped teams around the world understand what truly drives behaviour, engagement, and experience. He has authored over 40 academic publications and has held Visiting Professor roles at several universities, sharing his passion for research that actually matters.
Now ‘partially-retired’, he continues to consult, write, and speak on the things that make work, and life, a little more human.
You can find more about Bob’s work, philosophy, and gently subversive takes on insight at www.bobhurling.com