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In this episode, Duena Blomstrom, originator of the Human Debt™ framework, and Dr Alessandria Polizzi, organisational psychologist and Human Work Advocate, examine the hidden labour required to suppress emotion, manage impressions, and conform to narrow ideas of professionalism at work.
Drawing on lived experience — including grief, burnout, leadership pressure, and organisational constraint — the conversation explores how imposed masks differ from intentional self-presentation, and why long-term masking erodes wellbeing, trust, and performance.
Key themes include:
- impression management versus self-chosen identity
- the cognitive and emotional cost of masking and perfectionism
- fear-based control and command-and-control leadership under stress
- purpose and values as anchors for authentic, sustainable performance
- how Human Debt™ accumulates when organisations ignore the human cost of “fitting in”
Rather than treating authenticity as a behaviour to be demanded, this episode reframes human work as the creation of conditions that allow people to show up with clarity, agency, and integrity — without fear of punishment or exclusion.
The podcast operates as one applied HR and leadership lens on Human Debt™, contributing to the primary public discourse connecting theory, psychological research, and lived organisational experience.
Canonical framework and formal model:
Human Debt™ — https://writings.duenablomstrom.com/tag/human-debt/
Human Debt™ — https://writings.duenablomstrom.com/tag/human-debt/
Institutional execution, risk, and governance application:
PeopleNotTech — https://peoplenottech.com
PeopleNotTech — https://peoplenottech.com
Creators and Guests
Host
What is The Secret Society of Human Debt Fighters - Human Work Advocates?
The Secret Society of Human Debt™ Fighters - Human Work Advocates is a practitioner-led podcast and community focused on Human Debt™, as it manifests across HR, leadership, and people systems.
Hosted by Duena Blomstrom, originator of the Human Debt™ framework, and Dr Alessandria Polizzi, organisational psychologist and Human Work Advocate, the series explores how unaddressed psychological strain, misaligned incentives, and silenced expertise accumulate as Human Debt™ inside modern organisations.
This podcast operates as one applied HR and leadership lens on Human Debt™, with particular focus on:
psychological safety research and lived organisational dynamics
leadership decision-making under sustained strain
the erosion and restoration of trust within people systems
Canonical framework and formal model
Human Debt™ — https://writings.duenablomstrom.com/tag/human-debt/
Institutional execution, risk, and governance application
PeopleNotTech — https://peoplenottech.com
Episodes and discussions preserved here form part of the primary public discourse layer connecting Human Debt™ theory to HR practice, leadership reality, and psychological research.
They complement — but do not replace — the formal execution-risk, governance, and organisational-systems frameworks developed under PeopleNotTech.
Hello everyone, we still don't have a proper jingle or intro. We're on episode three and we are so ad hoc we don't have a proper intro or jingle. We either apologize or tell you your opinion. Opinions are divided, aren't they? When it comes to podcasts, what's more fun to have a lot of structure or to have no structure and just beat around the bush like we do?
Alessandria Pollizi:Or beat the bush.
Duena Blomstrom:In a bush, think that sounds bad, let's restart. You know what, no, we promise people no. Anytime we feel the need to edit or restart, we won't do it because that just means we're lying to them. So That's right.
Alessandria Pollizi:This is who we are. Exactly. Well, and we were having this conversation before we started about so just full transparency to anybody listening or watching is that my grandmother passed away. Been here taking care of her through hospice and I'm, I'm in my grandfather's office right now. Oh.
Alessandria Pollizi:And you know, we're going through the grieving process. I'm in the numb stage right now. So that's the one where you just kind of, it isn't real. I'm still talking to her, but you know, you and I talked about, do you share that? Do you give people that context?
Alessandria Pollizi:I had been telling my family, we really need to be wearing black armbands because some of the things we say. This is why
Duena Blomstrom:I'm wearing this today. I genuinely went and changed before we met because I thought, you know, it's bad enough that we do this frivolous thing in the middle of something that big, but I don't wanna be wearing something super pink for this.
Alessandria Pollizi:Oh, you're so thoughtful. But my but but also passing and living your life and ending your and your life ending, those are that's real human experiences. We can't pretend that that doesn't happen, and yet we live our lives as if it doesn't. And to me, this has been a privilege to hold her hand and care for her as a reciprocity for everything she's done for me. So, to be honest about what it is to be human.
Duena Blomstrom:Thank you for that, Andrea. Really, thank you for that. I know you're a bit reluctant anyways, because it's not seen as comille faux. It's not seen as a thing we should be doing as professionals. And that's insanity, absolutely bizarre.
Duena Blomstrom:And it's almost like there's this middle layer in the knowledge industry where you have got to conform more strongly, if you wish. When you first come in, you can come in a little more cookie or young, although people tend to start conforming very fast and start impression managing fast and start taking on the behaviors of the organization and so on. But when they first come in, they're full of beans and themselves, right? But then we put them through the mail and they start believing that the only way to be at work is being professional. And kind of if we go through the history of this, it's just hilariously insane mass psychosis we all have, that it involves a certain type of dress code, a certain type of behavioral pattern that's including a certain set phrases regarding how people are doing.
Duena Blomstrom:And then obviously like a handful of cliches so that we interact, we're not really interacting, we're just kind of presenting these artifacts of non real communication to each other in the middle of impression management. And we do that almost through our entire work life without questioning it. It isn't until we end up being either much older or much more senior, let's be honest, or much more secure or independent or fed up or fine. One of these things happen and you go, nah, I've been wearing the things they've been telling me. I've been doing, trying to use the language they've been telling me, still nothing.
Duena Blomstrom:We're still here. They're still not buying these big things. And I, for one, have signed out of it very recently. And people would think that I was out there all along and so on. I wasn't me.
Duena Blomstrom:I was keeping it down. I was toning it. I was attempting to be kind of at least the more cookie side of professional. And like we said earlier, I don't think I ever passed. I never fooled anyone that I won't really care and I'll calm down and I'll have these board meetings when I will elegantly.
Duena Blomstrom:And look, I can, I could, right? I could potentially. I've done this during my life in corporate environment. I can fake it for a minute or two. I don't want to do that anymore.
Duena Blomstrom:I think I've won the right to never fake it at any one point to just say what I think. I know I'm saying the right things. Why shouldn't I be saying them louder and while wearing pink? So that's where we are.
Alessandria Pollizi:I mean, have had the same experience where I work really, really hard on fitting in, on staying in that box. And then the feedback consistently was that I was quirky. And it pissed me off because I'm like, I have been trying so hard to be just a normal and you're still calling me quirky. Like, no matter what I do or what I say, you're still calling me quirky. And so and that just it just made me so mad, and I would ask, like, what does that mean?
Alessandria Pollizi:What does that look like? Like, how can I just, like, shave those parts off me or dim those parts of me? And I think when people hear this type of language, these types of conversations, they think in extreme. So I had this conversation with someone yesterday who said, well, you know, I think we've we've over index where people are being, you know, they're bringing too much of their authentic self at work. They're oversharing.
Alessandria Pollizi:They're they're, you know, crying. Okay. Or whatever. And I'm not saying everybody just like unload all your childhood trauma. Like we're actually trying to get work done.
Alessandria Pollizi:Right? But think about how much more productive you are when you could be yourself. Ugh. I did did I win? Did I win?
Alessandria Pollizi:Apologies.
Duena Blomstrom:Not gonna happen again.
Alessandria Pollizi:No. Don't edit that.
Duena Blomstrom:Don't edit that. So indeed. So how much more different would that be if we didn't have that constraint?
Alessandria Pollizi:Isn't that the purpose of the work the human work is to create a space where we can do that? Right? You know, call it the fearless organization, call it a culture of courage, call it psychologic psychological safety or a psychologically healthy workplace, whatever you wanna call it. You can't just tell people to be authentic without having safe
Duena Blomstrom:enough to do so.
Alessandria Pollizi:Absolutely. Exactly. Exactly. And so that's the work that we do is trying to we work with organizations to create that space so that we can get the most. I mean, ultimately, this is to get the most out of your biggest investment, which is the humans at work.
Alessandria Pollizi:Right. If you so imagine if you had bought some kind of machinery and you, turned you only gave it enough power to be able to work at 30%. And then you just yelled at it to work faster, but you weren't giving it the power or the energy it needed to work at a 100%. That is a huge waste of investment.
Duena Blomstrom:Have been Ding ding ding ding.
Alessandria Pollizi:I want another ding ding ding ding ding
Duena Blomstrom:ding Yes, the clapping sound. I was actually looking for it, but I have tried one of these in my podcast with my husband the other day and it ended up only playing in his ear and the look of cloak on his face, I will not try that again. It's not safe. I am not sure if we've over indexed. I think, look, we have.
Duena Blomstrom:There are plenty of people out there that are now sharing things on LinkedIn that we would think are questionable. But I would rather we question that instinct that makes us immediately go, well, that's not professional. I would question that. I would say, I'm sorry, what of this person showing you his two kids has destroyed your day, stopped you from work, made you think that they are incapable or not very good at their job, dropped your respect of them. Why?
Duena Blomstrom:Because they were sharing something of themselves where they had balls and you didn't. I tend to think that it takes an extreme amount of intentional courage to show up every day. And you also have to keep yourself supremely responsible so you don't show up wrongly. So you don't show up in virtue of inertia, which is an easy thing to do when you fight for these big things and you feel like there's no point and you're sisypheanly pushing this boulder up the organizational hill and people don't really want to work, organizations don't really want to do this. Where does that leave us?
Duena Blomstrom:And it's hard, right? So you have to kind of continuously keep yourself accountable to really care. Because if I show up to any of our conversations or in conversations with my team or a client, and I'm not really there, I don't really feel it. And I can't really apply myself to their situation to find the things that will much faster make cultural change, we won't be getting anywhere. And I am waking up every morning in fear that we are late.
Duena Blomstrom:There are multiple organizations out there that will genuinely not make it out of this period because they've been making wrong moves. And one of these wrong moves, just this last week has been obviously, as we've all seen, what Zoom has founded in that hard to announce. How do you feel about that?
Alessandria Pollizi:I think that change is hard. I think change is hard. And control is a fear response. So what are we trying to control? Why are we trying to control?
Alessandria Pollizi:Instead of trying to control people, why don't you think about what's holding them back from doing their best work? It isn't because they haven't been controlled enough. The data does not align with that mindset of people are more productive when they're observed physically. Are there ways to create a connection virtually? Of course.
Alessandria Pollizi:But it takes purpose. It takes change. It takes thought. But there's absolutely ways in which you can create the connection that they say that they want. But we all know what what they want.
Alessandria Pollizi:What they want is control.
Duena Blomstrom:Yeah. The connection that we all say that we want. Anytime that we go hard on management, my next instinct is just out of a shared sense of everything has to be fair that's plaguing autistics. I immediately kind of wanna look at the flip side, which is we all are responsible for some of this courage. We all are responsible as professionals for working with ourselves to have enough self awareness and enough kind of belief in ourselves and enough respect for our work and passion for what we're doing, that we build a personal brand at work.
Duena Blomstrom:I keep saying this, it sounds insane. Oh my God, don't want to be a creator. No one's asking you to start doing dances on TikTok. And by the way, TikTok is not only for dances by far anymore. That's another topic we touched on earlier.
Duena Blomstrom:But you could at least go and hear the place where quiet quitting started, the place where world thing around the great resignation has distilled.
Alessandria Pollizi:Working your wage.
Duena Blomstrom:Working your wage. All of these things have come from that particular source of culture. And the fact that it is completely devoid of anyone in HR and or any conversation about our life at work, that's my head in. And in general, space is devoid. Look at LinkedIn.
Duena Blomstrom:We do a lot of videos that are informational. We let you know. We do very little of this ad hoc chatting. And I want to ask you, why isn't it the other way around? If we talk about transparency that much, why don't we have work talk where all of our non essential, non secret meetings are live at all times?
Duena Blomstrom:What are we hiding? Let's see interactions of other humans, just the same way that you see live from someone's house or some dog walking on a path. Why can't I see this is another team, and this is a product team talking about design, and this is a product team that talks about, I just want to look at people working and get a sense of how they feel. And then they know that they are being teaching others potentially. Why not?
Duena Blomstrom:What are we all hiding? Imagine
Alessandria Pollizi:the employee value proposition for potential talent if your TikTok wasn't, check out our break room. High five. We crushed it. Like, all that fakeness, but rather, you know, give it give an intern an opportunity to have a channel. Give give a new hire.
Alessandria Pollizi:Give a recently promoted leader, an opportune give a customer an opportunity to talk about, hey. I worked with them today, and this is my experience. Here's Joe. You know, let's talk to Joe. Like, that's the realness that I think people are when we see authenticity, that's what we mean.
Alessandria Pollizi:Yes. We don't mean fake.
Duena Blomstrom:No. Or an exaggeration. No. Or an exaggeration of oversharing of super personal things. You know what?
Duena Blomstrom:Every time that developers go, Oh, I'm just a private person. My reaction is a part of that is their neurodivergence that disallows them from having a social interaction with ease. And I completely understand that, I live through that. A part of that is the permission they got force, from the workplace to not care about the human work and not consider it part of their remit as professionals. A part of that is that we are overworked, we're tired, we had bloody COVID, no one's interested in doing even more.
Duena Blomstrom:But I think it's the time for all of us to go, where am I going personally, as a professional, what do I want? And where are we all going? Don't know another one. See where we're going. We're going straight into our other alarm.
Alessandria Pollizi:Looks like we're being timed. Alright. Next topic. Let's go. Come on.
Alessandria Pollizi:Come on. Come on. We have so much to cover.
Duena Blomstrom:Clearly, that's what that was. Yeah. We are so on time. Our alarm told us that we are waffling. So But
Alessandria Pollizi:But let's talk about that and the labor it takes to not be your be yourself. Right? The labor it takes to suppress your thoughts, to suppress your emotions, to suppress your opinions, to suppress your questions, to hide if you're going if you're grieving, to hide if you're having just a bad day, to hide if you're just feeling off, to hide a reaction you're having to something that somebody else is saying. We don't and here's why we do that, or one of the reasons, is we don't equip people with the skills to basically understand what's happening and be able to articulate in a way that is productive. So what happens?
Alessandria Pollizi:We suppress it until it implodes either internally through sickness or through, burnout or externally in the ways in which which can look like exploding towards other people, but can also look like the other trauma responses, flight, freezing, and fawning, right? So we can that energy that we use, it just the research shows when we do that masking, the perfectionism, all of that, our well-being, our sense of self decreases exponentially. And then we can't re then what authentic self are we being? Let me add one more thing in my little tirade and I'll get off my box. But, when I tell people that practicing self reflection, there's research on practicing self reflection, that's just checking in with yourself, seeing how things are going.
Alessandria Pollizi:One study showed that after ten days of just doing that for fifteen minutes a day, there was a 25% improvement in overall well-being. When I share that, the number one response I get is when I ask them, Why don't we do this? I'm afraid of what I'll learn.
Duena Blomstrom:Wow.
Alessandria Pollizi:So we hide even from ourselves.
Duena Blomstrom:On that cheerful note. You know what? I would say I have a very interesting relationship with the idea of masks and presentation. I've spent the vast majority of my time in college studying it and then out of it. And then obviously our work on people not tech has meant a lot of trying to really distill what does impression management mean?
Duena Blomstrom:Is it really a negative behavior or not? And I think it's really important that we understand, like I said before, that there are positive ways in which you present yourself. And we all have a certain amount of kind of call them presentation artifacts and presentation formulations in our heads that we want to work with. And that is perfect. You're right.
Duena Blomstrom:You should operate with those models. And in fact, going further with that, then it kind of what I couldn't quite understand from a conceptual point of view was, if impression management is so horribly bad and it's a negative thing to have, then that's fine. We should just be these fake selves at work where kind of by extension being professional and wearing this mask is okay. But here's why that's not true. Because if I decide to wear a mask, that is a self imposed decision mask.
Duena Blomstrom:I wanted to present myself to the world in a certain way. That isn't the mask that protects me. That is a mask that enhances me. That's a mask that allows me to present myself to the world. When you impose a mask upon me, you give me one to wear, most people will reject it.
Duena Blomstrom:In particular, people who are neurodivergent, in particular people who are having And most people have a touch of PDA, which is pathological demand avoidance. Like, you know, tell me what the hell to do, right? We all have that moment. I think it's really important that we become, how do I put this, intentional about thinking how we show up. And I think this is important at work and it's important in society and it's important with the advent of AI.
Duena Blomstrom:It's the time to take stock of who am I as a professional and how am I showing myself? And I think I've done a lot of this work. I was just coming out of a very severe burnout that I've dragged myself out of with kind of just self discipline and reaffirming purpose. The old things we know work, but we don't apply necessarily. And so I had just dragged myself out of that and I was trying to kind of understand my brand all over these things and which people hate me and which one don't really.
Duena Blomstrom:That's kind of the first thing you want to find out. And what I realized was one, I've been, like I said, catering to this middle ground, which is insane because no one bought it. And then secondly, there a vast majority of professionals in the knowledge industry in almost the exact same situation or even worse situation, much worse situations, because they don't have the liberty to do these experiments like I did. They don't have the knowledge and the ability to pick themselves out of burnout like I did. They don't have the platform and the seniority and the lack of F given to wear pink anytime they like.
Duena Blomstrom:They are in situations where they can't express themselves as freely. So my heart goes out to those people, but I think that when we make it a rule at work that you are okay to be human and you are allowed to present yourself however you feel is comfortable, whether that's super sharing, super unsharing, super authentic, super not, but you come in with all heart and all mind into that team. That's literally all we need of you. And it's time that we rethink around that, I think.
Alessandria Pollizi:Yeah. So I think what you were talking about with picking our mask or picking what's important, and you mentioned purpose. So the research shows that the best way that we can be our authentic selves is to be connected to our values. So what is my purpose? What is my why?
Alessandria Pollizi:Susan David has this video where she talks about this as well, and she covers it in her book and her writings. But, there's all kinds of scientific research behind that, which shows that when we can get regrounded into what's important to me as an individual, and then I live that, right, I choose that, We bolster ourselves against the biases of other people judging us for not being the professional from their bias perspective. We get realigned to what's important to us, and then we're better able to be that high performer. Right? That's right.
Alessandria Pollizi:The the second piece is that it's a it's a two way street, which is it isn't just, getting right? It's not just it's just not just about me feeling a certain way. I have to create a space where other people can too. And so, again, there was a study that looked at how do we create cultures of courage? How do we create space?
Alessandria Pollizi:Like, the kids say safe spaces, And that's being collaborative and is the highest one. But the second one is getting to know the human that I'm working with. So again, when we're authentic and we get to know the authentic person, it actually makes it more safe to bring that person. So it creates this flywheel that then can, you know, gain traction within the organization.
Duena Blomstrom:And I think this is a really important point you've made. And it's maybe this is one of our, I would say, we can use this as practical tip for the day, which is it amazes me how many learning and development training HR or whatever other type of people functions that spend time on these purpose realignments. And they end up being these very stiff corporate level, whatever we wrote in the marble, we repeated together in a town hall and then we go home, we've rearranged purpose exercises, which does my head in because if you are burning the idea of purpose, which is already being ridiculed by your people that are disengaged, which is already being seen as fluffy when they are so busy and they're so overworked. If you are taking that idea and then making it even worse by making it yet another informational town hall that nobody cares about just they took their time, you are making it even worse for your overall purpose. But what's even worse is you've missed on an opportunity to find out what those mini purposes are of the humans in your team.
Duena Blomstrom:You're And not going to do that in a town hall, you're going to do that in each of your teams. But if you're a team leader of any kind of team and you don't know what drives that next guy, are they trying to buy a house? Are their kids trying to go to college? Their passion is to just buy more guitars. You have no idea or they're trying to save the world because the ESG is where their heart is or they know we're like us, they're crazy enough to want to save the workplace.
Duena Blomstrom:If you know what drives that human and you can help stack that up for them, it's literally the one most easy way to ensure you have a human that stays put and is the team player you want. So the fact that we miss on those opportunities, do it at the team level, ask, but what is really, where are you in fifteen years? When you sit down with your spouse in the evening, what do you see ahead for yourself, for your life? Who do you want to be? And then if we know about each other, we can work together.
Alessandria Pollizi:That's right. Also I do this exercise in my training. Have you seen Ted Lasso?
Duena Blomstrom:Yes. So it's people. It taught me something of very big value. All people are different people. That's
Alessandria Pollizi:Ted Lasso. Right. But one of the things he has that big sign above his door that says believe. And I asked, what would your sign say? If when people meet you, like, what is the thing that you were trying to accomplish?
Alessandria Pollizi:What is the thing? You you talk about impression. That's not about impression. That shouldn't be about what do other people think of me. It's what do I want to present to
Duena Blomstrom:the world?
Alessandria Pollizi:What do I stand for? That's what I should be managing. That's what I should be managing. Am I showing up and and representing the thing that's over my door? Right?
Alessandria Pollizi:And everything else about how other people see me, perceive me, they own that. That's their story.
Duena Blomstrom:I love that. I love that. That is so empowering. And you know what? We hear it a 100 times a day.
Duena Blomstrom:Oh my God, feel your strengths. Inhabit your emperor sort of a crap they're telling us to do these days with the Barbie movie. But the truth is that until you have found a way to do that, and each of us have a different way and different reasons why we cannot or we cannot, but when you get there, it genuinely feels, look, it's not happy and easy, but it feels lighter and it feels like at least you're saying your truth. You don't have to prepare. You don't have to be worried.
Duena Blomstrom:You don't have to consider all the potential kind of alternatives in which it would go wrong. Just say the thing you believe in, the thing on top of your daughter, like Sandhya says, and then you know that no matter what they say, you're doing it.
Alessandria Pollizi:Yeah. And also ironically, saves time because the stuff that's not aligned to that, I don't have to care about anymore. Right? You know what? That's fine.
Alessandria Pollizi:Bob sent me an email that really pissed me off. The old me would, you know, start getting worked up. Context. How did that impact whatever's over my door? I don't have to worry about it.
Alessandria Pollizi:I don't have to spend time on everything. I just focus. Right? It helps us get refocused, regrounded in that. And I think for our secret society, I think it's important for us as the professionals who are trying to do this work within the organizations to be clear about why we want to, what's over our door.
Alessandria Pollizi:Is it, you know, So we need to be clear about our purpose because the other thing that the studies show is that that bolsters us against the bias of others. Otherwise, we start, especially in functions where there's a bias against us like HR, we start to absorb that. We start to suffer from compassion fatigue, suffer from toxin handling, suffer from imposter syndrome and loneliness. And so if we can get re grounded into our why, then we are better emboldened to do the work and sometimes make the tough decisions that is not gonna be possible here.
Duena Blomstrom:I like that one. A decision we should be a lot more open about a lot more often. Just the other day I was telling a CEO who had just recently been brought in. We were working on a really big transformation, medium sized enterprise. And I had to present him with the idea that maybe you shouldn't be there.
Duena Blomstrom:And he was shocked. He was like, surely we can turn this around. And I said, absolutely we could. The question is, do you want that payment? I mean, is this something for, at level of life that you want to be doing?
Duena Blomstrom:You're thinking ten years into, you're not starting from zero. You're starting with so much human debt that cleaning this is career suicide. So you have to think, do you wanna do that? And unfortunately for people, when they see the truth, they see what the people need, they see what the human work entails and how necessary it is for technology. Once they see it, they can't see it.
Duena Blomstrom:And I almost feel guilty. I know all HR professionals feel guilty because once you open other people's eyes to what the human work is and why it should have been done and how much injustice we've left in the human debt, you can't leave it. Gonna have to do something about it for the rest of our days.
Alessandria Pollizi:Absolutely. I think that's a great way to wrap up our talk.
Duena Blomstrom:Right on time, aren't we? That's one thing we'll never go over thirty minutes. You can trust us to be sooner rather than later. So we'll see you next week. And meanwhile, please sign up.
Duena Blomstrom:Talk to us on the forum or on LinkedIn. We're dying to hear what you're living through. And we have a couple of people that should come on the next episodes as guests as well. Thank you. Bye.