Subscribe
Share
Share
Embed
Creators & Guests
Host
What is The Secret Society of Human Work Advocates?
This idea for the forum and conversation space was born out of sheer frustration with the gap between HR and other departments that we encounter in our work at People Not Tech and Verdant Consulting every day.
Duena Blomstrom first brought up the concept of HumanDebt and its associated workplace horrors and mental health crisis it creates in her book People Before Tech: The Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age and has since worked tirelessly to democratise the need for regular Human Work in the workplace but it wasn’t until our teams came together to build a Psychological Safety ISO add-on for our Human Work Team Wellbeing Platform we realised we are coming towards the Human Work but from two different directions. Us at PeopleNotTech from the Agile/DevOps/Tech side of learning about humans, neuro-divergence, hacking high-performing cultures, being experimental and risk-thirsty, eternally irritated by the slow change and the good folk at Verdant Consulting having arrived at the same frustration coming from the other side, the HR side, the side who was mean to set-up and encourage the Human Work to begin with.
The Secret Society of Human Work Advocates welcomes every professional from any industry and at any level irrespective of job title or skillset as long as they agree the Human Work has to be done in the workplace for the well-being of the employees which leads to the success of the enterprise
We are searching for people who agree that:
Office and organisational structures of old are no longer fit for purpose;
Most organisations have a lot of Human Debt (defined as the equivalent of TechDebt and comprised of a collection of toxicity and ailments that have resulted from years of neglect and of treating people as resources;
The HumanWork (increasing EQ, 1-on-1s, Psychological Safety and good team dynamics, changing leadership, learning autonomy, etc) are mandatory to be performed regularly in today’s environment of necessary collaboration;
Come and start building the future of humans in the workplace with us to the day when our Society will no longer have to be Secret.
Duena Blomstrom (00:01.918)
We assume that jingle went and you just listened to us talking about technology and people from the HR perspective or rather from all of us who care about the human perspective. So welcome back to our Secret Society. Hi from the...
Al (00:10.721)
with that
Al (00:20.702)
Yes, welcome. And we're both on location right now, as you can tell from our quality video.
Duena Blomstrom (00:28.883)
The Canaries for me are a little bit not that glamorous for Al, I'm afraid, although many people, I've not been before, rather than to change planes, I hear it's absolutely stunning in Charlotte, is it?
Al (00:42.922)
No. It's fine.
Duena Blomstrom (00:43.942)
You alienate a good possible 40 buyers of something from Charlotte. I'd like all of the listeners of this podcast from Charlotte to shout out to Al and tell her that she is wrong. It is beautiful in Charlotte and they have software or our books or our philosophy and they really care about their people topics.
Al (00:59.03)
I'm sure.
Al (01:06.154)
Yeah, but all I think is the hotel. So, which has a little bit of a Vegas vibe, I will say. There's a lot of bling happening in this hotel room. But speaking of bling and things that are exciting, I wanna talk about your book.
Duena Blomstrom (01:09.57)
Yeah, failing that, yes, the hotel wasn't.
Duena Blomstrom (01:26.95)
Yay! Yes. I don't usually do that and I haven't done that with my other books, which is probably a dumb thing to do if you're going to write one. First piece of advice, if you're going to get yourself in the silly position of writing a book, just think about the fact that it's not the book that you're getting yourself in a position of. But an astounding amount of work around it. And if you're not prepared to do that one.
Al (01:28.606)
Hahaha!
Duena Blomstrom (01:55.402)
it's probably going to feel like a much more miserable experience than it should be. So I didn't know that on my first one or two. So it isn't until Techlet Culture that it really occurred to me that when it's super important that work, the research, the landing of the point in an uncomfortably middle of the ground way is worth it.
And my readers that would have read me years and years ago will know that I sound different maybe than this book does. It's a paperback for a reason, so you can bend it, put it behind your back and go to a park and still think about it while you're having a spliff in San Francisco. It's illegal in San Francisco, right? And so that...
Al (02:44.054)
It's also illegal in Massachusetts, so you don't have to go that far.
Duena Blomstrom (02:47.354)
I did, in Massachusetts and San Francisco can use this feature, but we can't in Germany, we can't in England. But what I wanted to get to is the technology is a cute, double-edged sword here, if you wish. Not cute, but a double-edged moment in our lives, I think. Where we are in the evolution of humanity is a really tiny bleep. It's...
moment where our habits at work with the machine change, they don't really mean anything, but to us, this sudden change from various regimes, various states of aggregation of nature, to where we saw potential death knock on the door of most of us, to where most of us have had
lagging around in various ways and the various denominations. And yet we have to present in a very different way in an environment. What it is to me is we now live a life in the workplace where we have to present a uniform and a mask. And we have to, it isn't an option. It isn't...
Helping anyone in the business environment, it's not necessary, but we call it civilization. We like to believe that that's what gives us performance, but really it's this unquestioned set of uniforms and masks that we have to present as a profession before we are taken seriously or given access to power or allowed to sit with a big voice or whatever it is. But I want us to question all these things at this time because ironically technology
that has made us go super fast is now gone as fast as it can before humans slow down and fall back into their human ways. I say that because if you start dissecting our world of work today, what you see is that one, you have to be super technology astute, but you also have to be ready to create technology. You have to be more human than anyone has ever expected that task to ever be.
Duena Blomstrom (05:06.626)
So we always thought to create technology can be in a corner and not be so. That was wrong is my contention in the book. So we'll see if you guys agree with it or not.
Al (05:18.078)
Yeah, but ironically, now we're looking at the creation of technology not coming from humans and coming from robots from AI. And even I read a dissertation last week, because that's the kind of nerd I am, let's go to the real source about a future in which AI is actually leading people because it's better able to make decisions.
Duena Blomstrom (05:28.85)
That's right.
Duena Blomstrom (05:37.807)
I'm gonna go.
Al (05:47.61)
And the dissertation was about how that would impact the psychological health of those employees and then what would need to be done. I mean, the dissertation is basically following the breakdown.
That's, that is so troubling.
Duena Blomstrom (06:06.046)
That's insane. We were talking about mitigation of the risk. Wow.
Al (06:13.042)
So troubling to think, yes, absolutely, absolutely. But yet, what do we expect leaders to be? Do we expect leaders to be human? We expect them to have this mask of professionalism. We expect them to be superhuman, to have no feelings, to have no bad days, to say the right thing. I mean, all make the right decision. All of these pressures we put on leaders were essentially trying to create
Duena Blomstrom (06:13.714)
So good. So good, yeah.
Al (06:42.006)
robots where robots can't exist.
Duena Blomstrom (06:45.978)
Or they can, but I won't be this human.
Al (06:49.818)
I mean, it's terrifying, right? So if we think about it, as opposed to what you do.
Duena Blomstrom (06:56.13)
Who is we though? Who is we? Who is your we? We think about it. We are terrified. Who is we?
Al (07:03.878)
I think, well, you and I for sure, but I mean, I terrified of what?
Duena Blomstrom (07:11.006)
Who is we that's even seeing it or even understanding they should be terrified? Who is panicking to the degree that we should? Because I mean, it's, right? And Dave, bless him. And I'm sure another five people. And thank you very much, guys. I know there's about a couple hundred people that are subscribed to this podcast. I'm no way dissing them.
Al (07:18.274)
fair.
You and I.
Al (07:32.662)
Yes, and my feel, I mean, look, there are people, that's why we built this podcast, was because we want to go and find them. That's right.
Duena Blomstrom (07:38.55)
What's the secret society? We're small, is all I'm saying. The secret society, all of us, the tens of thousands that we might be. We're tiny. We are no one. We're a drop in the world of work. And the world of work is stuck in wrong structures that are actively destroying their humans. It is a tragedy at work that's happening right now. Thinkfully, I think. I'm seeing.
beautiful signs that humanity will not be overcome by this and then they will just stop having workplaces because I genuinely believe that many players will eliminate themselves over the next five to 10 years with the wrong workplace quality. Take themselves out of business, go out of business, they may not continue to be competitive, not be as sustainable as they would like to be. Because
Al (08:21.742)
When you say eliminate themselves, you mean the companies will go out of business.
Duena Blomstrom (08:36.262)
the wrong workplace policies now are going to be undoubtedly make or break. And I think they're going to be so at the snowball effect and quickly. I've seen, by the way, let me give you one piece of good news from the UK last week. Nationwide, paid Mrs. Susan, I don't remember exactly her second name, this is, please take it with a grain of salt, go do your own research, not yourself, but anyone else listening to this if you like, but I can give you in big lines what happened.
and nationwide had to pay compensation for having unfairly dismissed an employee who had been Jane or Sue or I don't know Jane, let's say Jane F. who had been wrongly dismissed from work from home, hybrid position and forced into a return to the office.
position and when she fought against this they have dismissed her upon having done so. That was an unfair dismissal. A judge agreed with this and awarded her 370,000 pounds I want us to take a moment and take that in.
Al (09:43.389)
Wow.
That's impressive.
Duena Blomstrom (09:48.65)
a judge paid or agreed that someone is owed compensation for unfair dismissal for having changed someone's contract that was initially hybrid, not work from home, like there are 20% of new contracts out there for the technology space, hybrid. And then when the conditions change and to return to the office.
that condition was unfair dismissal and was warranting 370. That same judgment at Twitter would have cost what amount?
Al (10:24.902)
Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom (10:28.742)
So yes, it's a problem, some of us are lucky, but I would like to also draw our attention to, I'll be honest, it is because it's news, I can be honest, which is I've known nationwide in their journey towards the future of work. They are very adamant. They could be presenting this secret society for the most part. I've met four or five people who should be podders. I've met 50 of them who could be doing this podcast like you and I.
Al (10:28.958)
More.
Duena Blomstrom (10:58.582)
all their hearts are in the right place. They're working on the most out there ways of work in a green environment. Sometimes when you daydream, maybe you should be on a boat and that's when you should click on this button for nationwide thank you very much policies while they fired this woman. Yeah, I want us to take that in. Those things are both true. Yes, there are pockets. Yes, superhuman advocates are attempting it, but equally
Al (11:15.924)
Mm-hmm.
Duena Blomstrom (11:28.05)
This is why she's been fired. This still happened. Precident existed, it's a legal problem. Let's think, let's hope.
Al (11:35.606)
And how many people have experienced that, right? Who don't have the means to follow that through to its conclusion of legal action.
Um, yeah, but back to it, back to it. Meandering our way through. How do we use tech to help the conversation though, as opposed to get in the way.
Duena Blomstrom (11:49.595)
Exactly.
Duena Blomstrom (11:55.595)
Right, right, can I just...
Duena Blomstrom (12:00.37)
to have the conversation. Why are we? So whether it's tech or not, whether you're in an environment of work where you're working in technology or not, it doesn't really matter. Let's face it, these concepts are completely common across all areas. And I want to be very clear with this when I wrote this, it's maybe the first time that I wrote for all industries and for all sizes of organizations. This is not...
written for the corporate world only. This is probably just as necessary to a business leader starting today and wanting to start with humans in mind first, with the human work at the center of their enterprise. Whoever wants to start with putting their foot forward with no human debt should probably figure out how to audit it, should probably figure out how to get the most important tenants of teamwork in their organization, should catch enough.
and knowledge and enough feelings for the place to start right. So it's still in this book because I wanted this to speak to everyone, even if they pick it up in an airport, I wanted everyone to be left with something. Now, many of the things that I discuss here, I try to bring them back to a concept and not to the actual action. We all have to remember that right after COVID, a lot has been attempted and tried, trialed and POC'd in the world of work, right?
It was a time of great openness, you would have thought, we've turned the page and the human work will be happening flourishingly, which would be the, what is it, is that the good world? What's that one where she goes to heaven and everyone is living in these incredible quarters? The good place. You would have thought workplace was gonna be the good place, no less because some people were putting those stamps on it, but it wasn't.
Al (13:46.37)
Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom (13:54.186)
never got there at all. Like, if anything, once we go back into our huts in the good place, there were a lot of demons inside and no one was prepared and no one knew how to do it. And no, there was no going back to a place like that. Whoever is telling you so is wrong because looking, thinking a long lens, COVID was a few years, but the effects we're feeling in the workplace were
Al (14:02.112)
Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom (14:19.226)
Yes, we tried some things, but now our fears and our inabilities and our dysfunctions and our crisis of leadership and our crisis of mental health and emotional intelligence are keeping us back. Now that we are there to deliver on any of these things, to make them a habit, to put them as part of our practice, to stop just talking about self care, make it part of who we are, stop just talking about teams, make them important, be a leader who actually has empathy, even if that means that someone has to.
burn your toes once every day. By the way, there's none of that in the book. I'm hoping that happens at the Burning Man. Whatever it is that takes for you to define that performance, you should want to have that performance because you're that engaged, because you have enough of that magic, in enough teams that you are psychologically safe with and you create with and that you can be human with. And the really big hilarity and irony for me is, whatever you said earlier is true.
Al (14:52.546)
Hehehehe
Duena Blomstrom (15:18.426)
we should be absolutely afraid that machines are coming after our jobs. It's like a bad sci-fi. I kept seeing this. It is like a moment. If this is that time when the humans have to go back to the cave and get all human, look at each other, pat each other on the back. There might be a closeup of a tear, whatever shit it is, get that going and then go the fuck back out there. Because if we keep going back going like, no, I'm fucking smarter than you. I can do projects faster than you. Oh, no. Back to the cave.
Al (15:25.087)
It really is.
Duena Blomstrom (15:47.942)
You got anything else because until we come out with now I can hive mind, now I can feel in ways that your metal can never, we don't need to keep wanting to be leaders. So I think your report is perfectly spot on. So then how do we prepare to still be in this conversation? Or maybe we don't need to, are they going to feed us? I'd be very happy to just have ideas in the chat all day long, but something is going to happen, is it? They're going to make us do the physical painting because that's the only thing they don't want to.
Al (16:17.006)
I think, look, I think I was trying to think of a metaphor and here's one that's really poorly thought through, which is if you think about COVID as we were dropped from the sky and we tried to fly and now we're not being dropped and we're being asked to do it from the ground up. We don't have the skills necessarily, as I was talking to you before, on how to human.
on how to do this in a way that isn't about us being part of a machine. So I have concepts that seem great, but I don't know how. And we have a system that was built on very dysfunctional behaviors that are unproductive for the human condition that create human debt. And we don't have the skill, we don't know what else to do. It's like...
You know just that we don't know what we don't know piece and so I know where I want to be But we haven't equipped people with the skills. I think work like your book these conversations Talking about and teaching people There are not only Better ways to behave and to respond but actually more productive to business Think skills and competencies that you employ
Duena Blomstrom (17:37.91)
Yeah, yes. And you and that easy to get in all honesty. So if you just kind of go run through the table of contents, and I sort of got them, I'm of a mind to never post anything else other than from the book, other than from the intro or the table of contents, intro table of contents, like, yeah, go to that, go to that, go to that. Because I just like, for the last year that I couldn't have talked about it, there have been hundreds of instances where we talked about the fourth day week where we talked about hybrid where we talked about
burnout, we talked about the crisis of leadership of mental health, what are nonlinear workdays, all those things have been in the news continuously and I couldn't really point to anything. But what I've tried, I genuinely will get our listeners through the pain of listening to the words of the table of contents. The reason I would do that for is because you're free to stop listening to now, but I fear I'm performing a public service because you will pull up.
Promise yourself you'll read it and you won't. So I'll do this now and I'll do this on another podcast if it is necessary. But this book is about the new paradigm of the workplace. So we're discussing the story of the workplace so far. Is the business culture accidental by design? I spent some time defining cultures. Is culture a collection of good behaviors? Is culture intentional or accidental? And can it be designed? How does human debt relate to culture? You guys know I have an obsession with.
the Human Debt topic, which by the way, as I've been notified by my publisher, I should tone down multiple times anytime during the writing of this book for evident reasons. Culture changes hard. Who is the keeper of culture in an organization? Good culture versus toxic culture? How do you measure good culture and who does? What is the Human That audit method? What does it take to both create and maintain good culture? How can culture be tech led?
And then we go straight into the organisational crisis, which Allessandria and I have talked to you multiple times before, the crisis of leadership, the crisis of mental health, and lack of engagement and EQ crisis. And each of them, the four of them, I would say, because to my mind, the lack of engagement is a different one than the lack of EQ, but they're connected, obviously. And obviously I go through that, what do we call engagement, right? Is it happiness, is it satisfaction, is it thriving, is it belonging, is it just?
Duena Blomstrom (19:56.702)
call it what you will, call it the magic of you sometimes get at work. And I'd be fine with that. Then we go a little bit through the psychology of tech teams. Not enough, I'd say that if I ever make myself forget of how painful this is, I'd go a lot more into that. And then I were talking about making the new ways of work work, which means what is agility? What are the new ways of work? So many people are like, what is agile and what is agility, right? What are the differences between those? Then...
What do agile teams mean? What does agile management mean? Because these things do need a very different type of work paradigm than you've ever done in a command and control structure, right? And then there's a conversation on belonging, diversity, DEI and psychological safety, DEI and belonging. DEI is a strategy for happy employees, which is to my mind, the smartest thing you could ever do. I don't understand why it's not being pushed.
how to, DNI and neurodivergence, only two pages of it. Let me tell you, if I wrote this book after I came out as AUADHD, there would have been a lot many more pages than that. But then there's this bit about obviously remote, hybrid or office-based. And to my mind, it's about redefining outcomes and performance, that's how you know which. And the only real answer, by the way, I'll...
save you the pain of having to discuss it, the only real answer to my mind is work from anywhere, at any time, and anything less than that, anything less than that concept of core flexibility that you work around is probably going to come bite you. But this is about productivity, paranoia, the effect of the pandemic, the stress and burnout of leaders who micromanage. And let me tell you, it's a lot higher than those that don't. So for that alone, you should just look at servant leadership as an anti-burnout technique.
Just a short one. Present days versus passion and productivity and high performance, which if you were a leader, I'd be very worried about. Burnout and the work-life balance, the four-day week and self-care, types of knowledge work and burnout, because burnout exists around the world, but it's manifesting in different ways sometimes. The idea of work-life balance, and if I wrote it today, I think, I would have felt different because I've been through another burnout since I finished this, so I would have been even more bullish on...
Al (21:46.2)
Mm-hmm.
Duena Blomstrom (22:15.41)
Do life first and work around it second, however way you can. Forget all of the corseted ideas and attempt that. But I don't want to sound like Mr. Get 10 jobs, please. Anyhow, then there's an entire chapter of ghosts. And I think I encourage you to go through this. What is breaks and time of work versus what is nonlinear work? And what is your normal rhythm and flow? Like.
really important that you start getting to those conversations with yourself as a leader in particular. Then there's a little bit of a conversation on the four-day working week as the experiment looked like at the time of this book, which was good. And then there are other measures, protected times, rules like one remote, all remote, which are very simple things to do in the workplace just to kind of keep a hybrid, equal, good place to work. Then I've spent a long time talking about
an honest audit on human debt, because you have to do it. That's not, I never say that anyone can be excused from that. Any leadership team worth their salt who still has anything in there has to sit down and go, if I ever felt it, if I know what the hell she means with this human debt thing, I need an audit. I need to bloody check. I need to look. I just... We need to look. Maybe there's not much.
Al (23:33.47)
We need to see. Yeah. Absolutely. Ha ha.
Duena Blomstrom (23:40.546)
And then kind of company why, what's your personal why, what's your, how are you gonna change behavior to increase performance? Because once you've done this audit, once you've checked, once you checked and you've gotten to this bottom line of honesty with your people, with your other departments, with your, we don't do any more of this shit. We don't speak a certain way, we don't dress a certain way, we don't lie, we don't fake, we don't, we just work together. We try to get as close to startup level of, let's get this shit going as we can.
and we do right by each other under these rules. Can we just fucking restart under those terms? I don't understand why isn't there a bloody company restart, refresh, whatever crap you wanna call it, at every level of every company in the world, mandatory by the legislator once a year. Why doesn't the world hand organizations? Yeah.
Al (24:27.586)
Fear. Was that a question? Is the answer is fear. The answer is fear.
Duena Blomstrom (24:33.514)
Anyhow, that's what's in the book you guys anything you can think of in terms of human work EQ human that psychological safety modern leaders and if you want to have an ISO and the whole and the Tech led culture that's people winning is in here. I know you probably won't read it all but go to the chapters You need okay buy it and go to the chapters you need start there and if it resonates Come talk to us. We have a hell lot of stuff that we've been putting out for free literally hundreds of things for free
We know you don't look at them because we've been measuring this. You don't look at them not because you don't care. We know that as well because we know you. You don't look at them because you're time poor, you're energy poor, you're fed up. Reading some more about what the truth is not useful. But this thing has how to's. It has do this, do this, do this please. Yes. And I think just start.
Al (25:20.158)
It's the how-to part. Right. Because reading about the problem is just going to increase the depression and the burnout. Right? That's just gonna, that's like, you know, having to continuously be reminded of how bad things are or the situation in which you feel powerless. So I think what's helpful is when we can give people tactics. And actually, if we can start with acknowledging
Duena Blomstrom (25:30.287)
Right.
Al (25:49.23)
that you are not alone in having feelings, that we all have them, we just haven't been taught what to do with them. And so even within those contexts, right, of taking, understanding yourself so that you know what you can, and understand your organization, like the audit gives you that insight. Here's what I can tell you, an HR professional most likely might say, which is,
Number one, I already do an engagement survey. So I know how people feel. I don't need another one to, and this is the biggest one. We, we do surveys, but then we don't take actions. And then that has blowback on me as the HR professional. So, um, it's that I don't know what action, right? I don't know what action is going to come up and that's scary. So why would I, why would I ask?
Duena Blomstrom (26:32.262)
That is my dream, yeah. Yeah? Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom (26:41.542)
Yeah, yeah, very true. I know why I look you and I both know we've had talked about this for hundreds of years and I no longer am ashamed of my social entrepreneurship journey. It is what has happened to me. I have ended up wanting to make the world better by accident and then I have ended up apologizing all the time when the world didn't want the better thing. I have done. I read this in the book a little bit to a degree. It's just what's happened. So
And what's getting me though is it's not even that we're closer. It's not like the paparazzi were downstairs when we've launched this today because it's not a big deal. We can just carry on. And the reality of it is this is a book for us that are still around for the next 30 years. This for our kids is going to be like, oh, is that how it went? That particular point...
Al (27:31.148)
Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom (27:37.542)
50 years ago, what? That's cute. That's not all what our work like looks like. But if you want to be involved in what their work like looks like, let's bloody read it now and try and get somewhere by then.
Al (27:39.159)
Yeah.
Al (27:48.306)
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it's that what I really enjoy about your writing and it is one, lots of passion, but two, practicality of, and very motivational, right? Inspirational of like, yeah, we can do this. Because I think what happens, we get into these.
Duena Blomstrom (28:07.514)
You and I both know what you're doing, but you've been telling people the same thing for as many years. Your passion is exactly right there as well, because it is not difficult. It is taking enough.
Al (28:11.996)
Bye now.
Al (28:18.708)
That's the big secret! It's not hard! Why is it so scary?
Duena Blomstrom (28:25.326)
Why is it so scary? I think that's the question, you're right. Shall we all ask?
Al (28:29.598)
And my hypothesis is because we're afraid of ourselves. We're afraid, feelings are scary.
Duena Blomstrom (28:37.534)
I think it's because the people who are genuinely afraid at a molecular level of losing their existence, their source of subsistence, I think when they hear our conversation on feelings, our conversation on human work, our conversation on how much they need to be doing, it sounds to them pretentious, self-serving, and insane to have the luxury to discuss feelings. I've been there, I've lived through hundreds of limit situations myself.
But you have to force yourself because you're not future proofing yourself by going, I have something more important right now and my emergencies and my priorities are different. I'm just trying to keep my head above water. These are more important things. Just sit down with yourself on your best night that you can and ask what you're afraid of and guarantee that work. There will be things that you can work on and we can help and hope.
Al (29:30.634)
Yeah, and you don't have to, you can just start with you. Like you said, you don't have to start with, like, you know, opening up everything and just spreading it all over, right? Some of us do that, unfortunately, just naturally, but you don't have to do that. You can just focus on you for you. And the data shows that just focusing on self-compassion, self-reflection will make a huge difference in how you work with others.
Duena Blomstrom (29:37.534)
Thank you.
Al (30:00.458)
So even just starting there, but that's really, I think a lot of what's holding people back is the fear of the unknown.
Duena Blomstrom (30:11.834)
I think what you're asking of them is probably a step that's going to be, like I said before, I think this change in the workplace, in the mentality towards the human work is going to come either very suddenly through something super dramatic socially, which is in my view not impossible, or very clearly and like in a fashion that you will see differently obviously in hindsight, but it will be because we've started to see...
this notion of respect into it and this notion of what I owe myself as a professional. And I think that's maybe a higher level of self-actualization that to my mind comes after the work on the team. So if you want to ease yourself into the human work, because what Alessandra is talking about, it's harder, let's be honest. When you have to keep yourself accountable as a human to your human work, that's the higher level. It's not easy, it's not pleasant, no one's there to clap. You have to do this.
habit things that are difficult, that are a bit silly, you don't quite wanna talk to anyone about them, but if you don't do them, you know you're screwed. So that's kind of the life of an executive that self help. And that by the time they get there, they have to have agreed that yes, this crap is necessary for me to be a top performer. I need to stop being silly. That's a big step. And I'm simply suggesting ease yourself into that step with your team. Do some of these things like our actions in the playbooks.
that are not that cringe. They're a bit cringe, but they're not horrible. Because let me tell you, when you have to keep yourself accountable every morning, that's a lot more cringe and more horrible. So.
Al (31:50.23)
me. How about this? I'd love to hear from the listeners. Where would you start? Right? I guess the point is just start, just start somewhere. Read up on the history of work and how it got to where we are. Read up on what's actually happening in organizations that do it differently. Use all the resources that we are providing. Right? Exactly. And then just try one thing. Just try one thing.
And maybe next time we can talk about, huh?
Duena Blomstrom (32:20.39)
and then tell us an anonymous.
Duena Blomstrom (32:25.714)
How about, we forgot this idea that we kept telling them, how about if then after they tried that one thing, even if nothing else, they tell us the anonymous story of how it went. If nothing else, you would have a conflict with other people going, same, I feel that same way. And how important is that at a time like this?
Al (32:35.058)
Exactly.
Yes.
Al (32:43.114)
It's so important. So important.
Duena Blomstrom (32:46.862)
Well, thank you for giving me the opportunity to talk about the book. I hope people read it. There's a bunch of stuff like if you read it and leave a review, you'll get a free membership to all of our resources on Tech Like Culture because we know you have your heart in the right place and you need these works. And some of the resources are plays, some of the resources are videos and theoretical articles. We know you're not going to look at half of these, but who knows when you can use one in a presentation to your boss.
So with all our heart, come tell us, you've left a review and you're getting a membership. If you want to chat about any of the humanizing, whether it's, you know, kind of what we do here, trying to help on the HR side, on these pods, what it is, what to do on the technical side, on the people and tech side of things, just chat to us. We're still talking to various amazing people who are going to come join us on the...
We have a couple of good names to announce by the end of this month you're going to love. But all of them have one thing in common. They want less human debt and they want all of us to do better, feel more and be more human. Thanks so much. See you next week.
Bye!
Duena Blomstrom (34:05.87)
I'm gonna stop it.