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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:
Hello everyone and welcome back to our conversations on the Secret Society for Human Work Advocates and Human Death Fighters Pod. Long title we know, not precious with the title. We're not precious with anything. With the things we're precious with are that we end up agreeing on the things that need happening. And we're gonna talk to you quite a bit about this today. So hi, Alessandra. Thanks for being
Al:
high.
Duena Blomstrom:
here and keeping me in check.
Al:
And thank you for doing the same. Well, I appreciate
Duena Blomstrom:
Well,
Al:
that.
Duena Blomstrom:
you're very easy and pleasant to keep in check because you have all the facts and the clarity and I get so emotionally dysregulated, but I can't do it. So it's good to have you. One of the things that we were going to talk to you guys about this particular episode is, and it doesn't need to sound too official, we don't have all the things worked out. It's not a big announcement. We're just keeping you posted as we go. trying to put together some form of human work initiative. You've worked that out by now since you're listening to us, obviously. We're trying to do so in particular, because we think the lever for change will be HR professionals that will be able to drive this package of change home. And we think they need a lot of support. That's why we put ours together. But we're also super conscious that the problem of, the topic of human work in the workplace more and more, I don't know what a good word is, urgent, really. It's urgent. It's problematic now. It's not going to be, maybe we can talk about it next year. It's not going to be a priority for when we have more money or more time or after we've retired. It's problematic now. What we have now today is a world of work that is completely unprepared to deliver on the things that we are needing out of it. So we wrongly blame the results on the... society on we don't blame the results on our productivity and so on. What we're looking at is a much bigger problem at the core of how we do work. And to change the core of how we do work, we have to go back on these tenets that we take for granted, the no emotions at work, the have to be set down so I can look over your shoulder imperative, the I don't care about you health to take care of. All of those things need to be reversed. What we encompass and what we call the human debt needs to be eradicated. And if we agree that it is there and we agree needs to be eradicated, then we have to find a way to do it together. We said this many times. We've all been in this industry so long that we are many times tired, we are many times desperate, we are many times feeling like it's useless like we're battling windmills. And it feels like we have it right and everyone has it wrong and we are against each other and there's only five bucks to go around and there's only five execs that even care and the rest of them are listening to McKinsey. What do we do? So if we come from this place where we feel there's not enough change, then we will have this scarcity and we will attempt to make proprietary methods. I propose to us that we have done enough with our proprietary methods. I think we have all, gone as far as we could. We've all tried what we strongly believed were delivers of change. I know tens, maybe hundreds of people that have come up with valuable and incredibly important human ideas that should have become the norm in the workplace and they haven't. So I think we need to work out why they haven't and we need to work out what has stopped us. And we are coming to the place where all of this work is flourishing if you wish, in a moment of convergence of ideas. But unfortunately for all of us, and this is where the kicker is, it's doing so at a time where the execs no longer have the patience to see it happening or to get the proof points or to see those tries that HR was putting together or to listen again when you tell them that 89% of the team care about psychological safety and they don't have it and they are unhappy, right? So when that happens and these people no longer will listen. doesn't matter how much work we've put into it. It doesn't matter how much money we've put into it. It doesn't matter who you are. If you're the Huffington, the New York Times, if you're someone who wrote about psychological safety, any of the four of us that did, or if you're someone who just found out about psychological safety yesterday and made an ebook out of it, I don't care who says what. It's not even about money. It is though thoroughly about concept and about agreeing. on what the value of the human work is and what it contains. What are the to-dos? What do we need to arrive at? What can we all keep to? So I think we need to start with language. I think we need to start with what do can we safely agree on? And I'll take you back, maybe Alessandra can help us a little bit. We were just reading a study that was talking about quite this issue, how the key to... to making things, big things happen
Al:
Thank
Duena Blomstrom:
is
Al:
you.
Duena Blomstrom:
having common language. We know that. It's not news to anyone, right? If we don't have the exact same definition of words, projects become increasingly more complicated because we have to reassess definitions all the time, right? So instead of that, successful projects start with one common definition of the things we're going towards, right? Ideally, they start with one common reassessment of the values in... if you're agile and so on, but if you don't do any of that, at least agree what do we call a spade, right? So speaking of this, there's been a study not long ago from the Berkley's, from Berkeley, I don't know the details as usual, I can't remember one name or one piece of study unless I see it. But when you look at it, it goes to the point that we don't as human beings even call in our minds the notion of a penguin the same thing, meaning This is obviously oversimplified, but meaning when I say penguin, to my mind, it might mean something entirely different in ways that you wouldn't even consider than you. We think it's a very common topic, right? Because we all can kind of understand what are the actual differences. But when we come to talk about the penguin, if we believe that they are different types of penguins and... we're referring to their colours and their characteristics, when instead we're talking about some other animal, that is our problem in the industry. Let's agree on a penguin. I'll be off my long horse, let's just see what they're saying. So why does this matter?
Al:
Well, I think one of the things to kind of add on to this is that there's tons of studies about how each of us envisions things differently, right? So we have different experiences, different backgrounds, we have different contexts. So I've done this with Apple, like picture an Apple in your head. And there's kind of like, is it a green Apple, red Apple? Is it sliced? Is it whole? Is it black and white? Is it color? Do you just have like the concept of apple-ness? Do you have a flavor? Do you come up just completely blank and see the word? So these are all things on how, just how our brains are wired differently because those synaptic pathways, those are established as we, as our brains develop. However, and that's a reminder from Alexa.
Duena Blomstrom:
It's all right. So if we let kids and dogs into the video, we surely can allow an AI entity.
Al:
Yes, exactly. Well, so speaking of, so I think it's important for us to be clear about language. However, what I don't think is helpful, and this is what has come up for me a lot, is in the folks who are passionate about doing this work, spending our time arguing with each other about definitions, terminology, like Now we're just now we're being ridiculous. And what we do is we're creating like, I think of like the Tasmanian devil and bugs bunny, like we're just like going around and creating this, we're making things murkier and cloud more clouded for people in role to say, just tell me what it is, why it is, what I can do and how it will make the business better so that I can get the investment of resources, both financial and time, um, to
Duena Blomstrom:
and mindset
Al:
make.
Duena Blomstrom:
and the resource of the mindset.
Al:
and advocacy, right? That's definitely a resource. One thing I want to go back to, which is what you mentioned earlier, we've talked before about, which is the concept of urgency and the poignance of this moment in time within the context of human evolution, human growth, human culture. Multiple things are converging at the same time, okay? Number one, we had kind of the existential crisis, I would call it, of the pandemic. Yes, and we see the ripple effect that has had. You ain't seeing nothing yet because
Duena Blomstrom:
up soon.
Al:
climate change is actually a bigger threat to our mental health and ability to navigate challenges and is an existential crisis. But AI is an existential crisis. So if we think, oh, well, this was just because of COVID and now people need to change, et cetera, we have trauma-informed workers who experienced the trauma of the pandemic during the time their brains were developing who will be coming into the workforce in great numbers. So they are bringing that with them, coupled with the acceleration of climate change and the impact that has on our our psyche collectively, and then of course, the, you know, inclusion of AI, taking things to another completely different level. And that's assuming all the stories about aliens are wrong. So when we think about the future, it cannot be based on the past because we've never experienced
Duena Blomstrom:
this
Al:
what
Duena Blomstrom:
before.
Al:
we've experienced. Exactly. And let's add to that the intellectual weight of the amount of data we process every day. And I think I've mentioned this before, it is more in one day than we experienced in our entire lifetimes 100 years ago. And our brains evolved for 200,000 years with that. Those are the brains we have. So. To think we can just go back to the good days, which I have is problematic on multiple levels, anytime that is said, to reveal the politics over here in the US. Then if instead of trying to give clarity, we start debating about is it psychological safety, is the psychological health and safety, is it this, is it that? We're wasting our time. We're really wasting our time and we're not creating a distraction by infighting,
Duena Blomstrom:
We're doing it ourselves, yes. And it's, I wanna make clear that we're not saying we can't disagree. I wanna make sure that we say we should disagree. I wanna make sure we say, but let me tell you something. If we feel like we're leading this and we are, okay, let's stop. Oh, I don't know, my imposter syndrome, meet your imposter syndrome, and we don't know if we're quite the influence, and I'm sure the world is bigger than just us. We can say that all we like if we want to be modest, but realistically, unfortunately, because it's such a void of conversation, and there is such a void of people being willing to put themselves forward and tell the world exactly how they feel, we are one of the few people that are out there speaking, whether we like it or not. And if you don't like it, I have a solution for it, which is to join the conversation, which
Al:
Right.
Duena Blomstrom:
is to... come debate us, which is to come chat to us and tell us what's wrong and what's right and what you see, because we need more penguins and we need to agree on a common penguin. And here's the other thing, if we are going to agree that we are leading, like I was saying, and we are leading the conversation, then we have to admit we are in this project of, if you think of the project of eliminating human debt and making tech-led cultures that are healthy, psychological, safe and different and happy. workplace, if that's our to do, and we can agree that that's our to do. And, and we can agree to every word in it. I don't know what it is, but if it is around that, yeah. Then I need us to agree on the to do, and I need us to agree on the principles and the definitions. And then I need us to fiercely disagree on how I need us to fiercely disagree on what we're telling execs and what we're not telling execs. And I need us to fiercely disagree and agree eventually commit. Uh, what is it? Come disagree and commit. to how do we actually end up moving this in the world of work now? How do we land these big changes? Because we are the ones in charge of them. Let's face it, no one else
Al:
Yeah.
Duena Blomstrom:
is. We are at the end of the day, still the people that are in charge of people. So all of these techies that are running around, all of these execs that are running around, some of them are amazing and they are better than people in HR. But most of them are at the level that they do not see this. They do not see. the dialogue on fluffy topics that you've been talking about and I've been talking about and they've been talking about and everyone's been in around us has been talking about for the last 20 years. We've been saying the same things. Don't be an asshole. Emotions matter. Look at your humans, make them happy, make them healthy. If you want them to be productive and performant. It's not brain surgery. We all agree. That's what we're trying. How we're doing it and what we're calling what is where we are letting our execs down. Because if we keep... disagreeing in public if we keep disagreeing on stupid shit if we're honest like is it safety of this kind or is it safety of that kind? Amy herself has talked about how psychological safety is more magic than science It fucking is you can better believe it is more magic and you can get some science into it and get some science into it quick And then get some people who can manage the magic. That's what you need
Al:
Yes.
Duena Blomstrom:
to do in life It's not difficult, but you they're not gonna listen to us that that's what they need to do because we told them it's complicated, because we gave them these decks where those flourishing words are floating, because they are still reading the state of enterprises report that came from some big mammoths last week. And in it, they're just telling them it's important to keep being vulnerable and keep the dialogue open, whatever that means. So they'll do
Al:
It's
Duena Blomstrom:
that.
Al:
the whatever that means, right? It's the moving to action. So we can debate. I'm not actually interested in debating whether or not we should care about humans. If you don't think we should care about humans, let's see how
Duena Blomstrom:
Come
Al:
that
Duena Blomstrom:
on, come
Al:
works
Duena Blomstrom:
on.
Al:
out for you. So that's cool. You'll catch on eventually, but move out of the way of everybody else.
Duena Blomstrom:
for everybody. Let's just focus on the people that get it, I suppose.
Al:
If you don't get it by now, like you haven't been paying attention. Like that's, that's
Duena Blomstrom:
But if we feel like everyone gets it, right? And if we don't agree,
Al:
Then
Duena Blomstrom:
there
Al:
what's
Duena Blomstrom:
are so
Al:
in the
Duena Blomstrom:
few
Al:
way?
Duena Blomstrom:
of us that do.
Al:
What's in the way? And that's why we did the Secret Society of like, what is in the way? How can we help?
Duena Blomstrom:
But this
Al:
We
Duena Blomstrom:
is
Al:
move it
Duena Blomstrom:
in
Al:
up.
Duena Blomstrom:
the way we're keeping it real. This is what's in the way. In the way is the language that we're using. In the way is the fact that we're all chasing the same buck. In the
Al:
Mm-hmm.
Duena Blomstrom:
way is the fact that we think you can only have one voice on this human shit because there's not a serious topic. So it's not a lot of budget going around. And in the way that even the big, and then because we are in these positions. We let these other companies that are leading execs in thinking tell them the wrong things. We
Al:
Yeah,
Duena Blomstrom:
are
Al:
well,
Duena Blomstrom:
genuinely,
Al:
let's talk about that.
Duena Blomstrom:
so let's talk about that. What are the wrong
Al:
Yeah,
Duena Blomstrom:
things this week, right?
Al:
I definitely
Duena Blomstrom:
This week,
Al:
want
Duena Blomstrom:
we'll
Al:
to
Duena Blomstrom:
talk
Al:
talk
Duena Blomstrom:
about
Al:
about
Duena Blomstrom:
it.
Al:
this.
Duena Blomstrom:
Let us look at them because they are quite interesting. There's a teaser video coming up about this soon from my side, I hope. I don't know where she should be soon back, I hope. Anyway.
Al:
I love that my computer just completely collapsed.
Duena Blomstrom:
I think that's McKinsey for you. That's what they did.
Al:
It's under the volume of you and I pounding the table.
Duena Blomstrom:
By the way, guys, for those of you that are on a podcast, there was an interruption there after I started talking by myself for a second, which
Al:
Ha ha!
Duena Blomstrom:
I wouldn't have been able to tell.
Al:
But
Duena Blomstrom:
But if
Al:
that's
Duena Blomstrom:
they cut
Al:
totally
Duena Blomstrom:
it nicely,
Al:
out of focus.
Duena Blomstrom:
Alessandra dropped off the screen for a second because she was helpfully attempting to put something of McKinsey's on the screen. So let's try
Al:
Yeah,
Duena Blomstrom:
again.
Al:
I just I got an off snap. So there you go tech led organizations. Before we go Yeah, so I think what's important for, for people who are interested in this work and interested in moving this forward in their organization, to look at what's coming out and then layer, I guess we're having to at this point layer over. What does it mean to be human in this context? Now, last year, we had a lot coming out that was identifying mental health
Duena Blomstrom:
Yeah.
Al:
and human work
Duena Blomstrom:
Great.
Al:
as business critical, right? We have banks here in the US who are going to start evaluating the mental health of the workforce as one of the figures in assessing evaluation of the company,
Duena Blomstrom:
Yes.
Al:
right? In the US we have to the North and South, national requirements for having psychologically healthy workplaces. and our surgeon general published guidelines almost a year ago. So if we think we can just keep measuring the things we've done in the past and life is good, then we're sadly mistaken.
Duena Blomstrom:
Thanks for watching.
Al:
I'm gonna try to close some things. I know, I have my opinions. All right.
Duena Blomstrom:
I love that Al is telling you these things guys, because you have to realize that she is you. I am not you. I've never been in HR myself directly, right? I've led people from all other sides of the organization and I think it's easier. I think it's much easier to lead people outside of HR in a sense. I didn't have to battle if I knew that this concept is what makes my product go faster. That's what we did.
Al:
Right. Well, so here, this is not an HR initiative. This is a business strategy, right? This is a, it has to be in concert with the organization. It cannot be a standalone, just like I take issue with HR being called people in culture. That's, as you would say, bollocks, HR does not bring culture.
Duena Blomstrom:
culture, you can't,
Al:
Absolutely
Duena Blomstrom:
yeah.
Al:
not.
Duena Blomstrom:
Almost
Al:
Absolutely
Duena Blomstrom:
the same
Al:
not.
Duena Blomstrom:
insanity as making someone in charge of innovation.
Al:
Yes!
Duena Blomstrom:
You do culture here, you do innovation here, and if anyone is getting any slower, the beatings will continue like they said in the morning.
Al:
So, all right, so this is the 10 most significant shifts in the organization. This is called the state of organizations in 2023 by McKinsey. And so where we want to look at this is let's look at this through the lens of
Duena Blomstrom:
Let's just read
Al:
what actually
Duena Blomstrom:
those 10 maybe, just to give people a context. Just listen to the wording of those 10 and then listen to the... This is actually what I tell my team. It's a growth hack, if you wish. Let's not call it a hack, which is if you're looking at a big stuffy, looks like you've seen it before, report. You have to start getting faster eyes, which is... try to understand, try to put your bias aside altogether, because these are coming from big companies, and then try to find the things that you resonate with last. So try to look at all the things, take them in, read the words of the titles first out loud. And I think that's going to give you a good idea.
Al:
Well, what's interesting, so where I go, so that's your approach, where I go is the, what's the action to take? Like, I don't need all this other stuff,
Duena Blomstrom:
What
Al:
right?
Duena Blomstrom:
did they say we should
Al:
AI
Duena Blomstrom:
be doing
Al:
can write
Duena Blomstrom:
here?
Al:
that.
Duena Blomstrom:
What is it?
Al:
I look for words like by doing, by doing, by doing. So to be able to, organizations can respond by like that. I go right to the end of like,
Duena Blomstrom:
So
Al:
okay,
Duena Blomstrom:
what so
Al:
sure.
Duena Blomstrom:
what are the ways what are we?
Al:
So
Duena Blomstrom:
Yeah.
Al:
what, so what exactly? But like this one, of course hits home for me because
Duena Blomstrom:
I'm sorry to interrupt you horribly, but this is, I think, very important. I think maybe I'll put the marker if I ever learn how to make a marker. My technology is not as good as it should
Al:
Oh,
Duena Blomstrom:
be.
Al:
oh, I can, look at, boom.
Duena Blomstrom:
I did it too. I said that depreciatingly and I made the marker, of course. Don't be
Al:
Okay.
Duena Blomstrom:
listening to what I say I can't do. But so what I think is really important is... Now I don't have it, obviously, but you just said it now, that we have to get to where... we look at it and we go like, what's there to do? And I think no one should be allowed to put one piece of thing out, one piece of thing out, an ad, press release, a blog, a podcast, without it having a reference, a strong point of view, or a to-do list.
Al:
Yes,
Duena Blomstrom:
And don't
Al:
I call
Duena Blomstrom:
tell me
Al:
to
Duena Blomstrom:
that
Al:
action.
Duena Blomstrom:
these guys have references because they have references, but you know what I mean. Either it has a new reference you've never found, it's a thing you've never discovered, or it has a strong point of view. or it has a motherfucking this is what you need to be doing. And this thing,
Al:
Yes,
Duena Blomstrom:
in my opinion,
Al:
and as a result,
Duena Blomstrom:
neither.
Al:
therefore, yeah, as a result, therefore, this is where you are in. You and I are in agreement about let's go do work and what's in the way. Right.
Duena Blomstrom:
What's hilarious is that this morning I've had, if anyone's listening to this, that wasn't that, I've had this argument with someone in the agile community who was potentially equally frustrated with the lack of actual work and to-dos. But the reality there is they were against the mindset, but you can't take one without the other. We talked about the mindset for the entirety of the beginning of this podcast. We've been working on this mindset, all of us, for so long. These execs have to come to where they deliver. And this is what they're gonna read so they understand how they will deliver. Let us see.
Al:
Let me talk I want to talk about resiliency and I want to get your point of view on the number two Obviously, we can't go through all of them in our little 30 minutes, but maybe this will be a two-parter or whatever but this is Organizing for speed giving power to your people and developing a culture of continuous living. Okay. Okay
Duena Blomstrom:
We agree
Al:
what?
Duena Blomstrom:
with absolutely everything over there, don't we?
Al:
Yes, exactly so but how but how
Duena Blomstrom:
Where is,
Al:
right
Duena Blomstrom:
where does,
Al:
how
Duena Blomstrom:
and more to me,
Al:
right?
Duena Blomstrom:
I think it's important that we also map them. That's another trick I give my team. Map them. Map, have you heard this before? What is it? Is it emotional intelligence? Call it fucking emotional intelligence then. What is this? Is it resilience? Call it resilience. Is it psychological intelligence? Call
Al:
Great.
Duena Blomstrom:
it that. Is it what
Al:
Yes.
Duena Blomstrom:
are they saying we should be doing? Coming less or more into the office? Caring more or less about our mental health? Talking to our leaders more or less? What are the things?
Al:
Mm-hmm.
Duena Blomstrom:
Right? So
Al:
Right.
Duena Blomstrom:
bring it down to that. What have they?
Al:
Yep, absolutely. So this just does not give me a lot to work with. So what I would add here is investing in building resilience as a competency, not a judgment. So, and the difference between that is, and this is my problem with EQ and how I've seen it implemented, again, personal, is that it's not about assessing whether or not you have it, it's about helping you build the skills to develop
Duena Blomstrom:
There's
Al:
it
Duena Blomstrom:
nothing
Al:
because
Duena Blomstrom:
to
Al:
these
Duena Blomstrom:
assess.
Al:
are
Duena Blomstrom:
There's
Al:
skills.
Duena Blomstrom:
nothing to assess when it comes to EQ, from my point of view. That's everything to keep refreshing the mind
Al:
to foster
Duena Blomstrom:
involved.
Al:
because at least in the US we don't learn about how our brains work and how to navigate the
Duena Blomstrom:
And what are
Al:
emotions
Duena Blomstrom:
the names of
Al:
in the
Duena Blomstrom:
the
Al:
mental
Duena Blomstrom:
Al:
health.
Duena Blomstrom:
emotions that is literally if look, if I were president of the universe and someone said, fine, you solve all EQ of everyone, then I'll be like, right. Everyone then. These are our emotions and this is how you know, you have a feeling. And this is how you know other people have a feeling. And this is why you should care. And now go do it.
Al:
Yes, but also, and here's what you do when those are no longer helpful, right?
Duena Blomstrom:
Yes!
Al:
Here's how you recognize when those are. So we don't build those skills, those are resiliency skills. And it's been proven that when I increase my resiliency skills, and this is studies have been done around resiliency training, not assessing if someone has it or doesn't or whatever, then we can increase performance, outcomes, quality. retention, I mean the impact is huge. So don't disagree with strengthening resilience. I don't think it's part of increasing speed. In fact, increasing speed often undermines resilience, but that's my opinion on number one.
Duena Blomstrom:
I think you should have an opinion on all of them. And I also think they all, like I said, consolidate. If you draw a line, an imaginary line over the first three or four, they all mean you should have structure and clarity or whatever. If you draw a line over the last three, they all mean you should have impact and purpose. If you draw the very middle, you should have psychological safety, resilience and enough empathy and EQ to exist as a leader. These are not new concepts. Call them what they want. Call them what Google has called them. Call them what... other specialists have called them, do not introduce other things to make execs go more fluff, more things. I don't know what they are,
Al:
Right.
Duena Blomstrom:
but make them into a KPI. Copy and paste this wording, because if it's not copy and pasted like that, it's not like McKinsey said, and I don't know if it's right or wrong. When you're going
Al:
Ha ha.
Duena Blomstrom:
to end up in those situations, you're going to see that it matters. The wording of these things that goes in matters. So equally, this is a, how do I put this, a double-edged sword for us as well, right? We've been looking at the work that McKinsey has been putting out for a while. I want to be very clear. When we named them, we did that because we think this is very important and we're ready and willing to name people whose ideas we'd like to debate publicly from here on. And I'd like to say, this is never to say they are crap. They are a reputable institution for a reason. They have amazing thinkers, which is even more reason why we should keep them to high scrutiny. And whenever they put out something that is bollocks, we say that. And let me tell you, there has been some bollocks. There has been bollocks on the developer productivity that has been put out by them. That is genuinely harmful to some people who, if there is a potential for someone somewhere to deepen their mental state situation, to be in a worse health situation because of something you put in a report, you should be taking steps for that not to happen. And if you're, the thing you put in doesn't even... help this immense goal, but it's just kind of to say that productivity is important to please some people, then you really should be concerned with what you put out. But more importantly, after you said that, you said that you collated some things and made some ebooks about discovered Google's project Aristotle nine years later, then discovered Amy six years later, you're, oh my God, these things do go together. Like these people have been telling us, oh, look, they're not stupid. These four things are the same. Then we can have No shit, Sherlock. We're not here to say McKinsey has been looking at us and took our shit. I don't care about that at all. What I care about is you guys that are in situ. You're not going to... It doesn't matter who says what now. Okay, let's be honest. Long term, who says what? If you look at 30 years, what will I say, what you say, what you listen to this year, next year, where you're going to be employed, doesn't matter. But our kids are going to be working in the new world of work that we are making today and whether they are flexible. whether they are being valued and respected and they have psychological safety and magic in their team, whether they love their lives or not will depend on what we have done today. And letting reports like this go out and letting execs go like, well, the shit said, you go ahead and do some innovation and some culture and I'm going to get these people back into the office so they do them with us, you know, because we like that. If that happens, our kids in 30 years are going to still live in an even shittier world. that they already, let's face it, are this generation that's very introspective. They are very concerned with how it all feels for them. And we, I don't think are giving them, it is not even about molly coding them. They are right to be asking for some things. There are things that these generations are demanding, like common sense and respect and care about their neurodivergence or whatever else, that should have been there from the beginning, dead serious. But then we don't have the world of work that maps that. and it doesn't even map to the outcomes or trying to get business-wise. So what we
Al:
That's
Duena Blomstrom:
have
Al:
right.
Duena Blomstrom:
is not fit for purpose.
Al:
Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. Yes.
Duena Blomstrom:
No, that's my two-parter because I'd like to show how they mapped to Aristotle and they
Al:
I do
Duena Blomstrom:
should
Al:
too.
Duena Blomstrom:
look at themselves.
Al:
I do too. And I'd like to talk about how you can you can still use this, but with a human centric
Duena Blomstrom:
Yes.
Al:
human debt approach
Duena Blomstrom:
Translated
Al:
that is based
Duena Blomstrom:
for your
Al:
on data,
Duena Blomstrom:
execs. Translated.
Al:
translated into action. And so I think in our next time, let's talk about what are the specific actions I can take that are going to move forward a more healthy and thriving organization and all of the business outcomes that come with So I think that that's our next session.
Duena Blomstrom:
Yeah, and so that it isn't just a teaser, I can give you the TLDR, which is it's going to entail a lot of human work. It's going to entail you taking your human data away one way or another, and it's going to entail uncomfortable stuff that's going to move you further. But we have some tools to give you. We have some ideas of what works for others. More than happy to just throw them your direction. We have genuinely... Look, this is not the play to get your email addresses. I have email address, you have email... Everyone has email addresses up the wazoo. It's not a problem. And this is not a play to reach more people. We're not interested in reaching loads of people. We're only interested in reaching the human debt fighters that we can go, here's
Al:
That's
Duena Blomstrom:
another
Al:
great.
Duena Blomstrom:
thing you can use. And because of that, you have to remember when we talk to you on here, this is not a commercial play. We're not trying to present ourselves any which way. We're just trying to give you resources. Those are free. Most of the shit we've written is free. Most of the shit we've said is free. Happy to give you access to the software in ways you've never seen that can show your execs what the power of people doing work means, you name it. But none of it is so we make money. All of it is so we move the world to a place where we can all make money in a decent way and in a human
Al:
in a different
Duena Blomstrom:
and
Al:
way
Duena Blomstrom:
high performing way.
Al:
and ironically, make more of it in a healthier way because all of it ties together. Business performance and mental health of workers are clearly hard lined together.
Duena Blomstrom:
and with
Al:
All right. With
Duena Blomstrom:
you.
Al:
that.
Duena Blomstrom:
See you next time for our rants, desperation and resources. Bye!
Al:
I love it.