Work For Humans

From an early age, John Truby knew that stories are not just something that happens on a page. Story is all around us. It structures how we interpret events, and even how we decide how to live. For John, story forms explain the way the world works. John is a screenwriter and the founder and director of Truby’s Writers Studio in Los Angeles, where he teaches novelists, screenwriters, and TV writers...

Dan Cable found himself in a situation that millions of people experience every day. He was doing his job, meeting company standards, and getting compensated for it, but he felt something was missing. He wasn’t growing, he wasn’t learning, and his work did not make him feel whole and alive. As a researcher and professor of organizational behavior, Dan knew he needed to make a change. By exploring...

If you’ve heard of the five love languages, you know that different people express and receive love differently. For years, we’ve implemented this knowledge within our personal relationships, but Paul White has found a way to apply them to work through his book, The 5 Languages of Appreciation in the Workplace. Paul is a psychologist, researcher, keynote speaker, leadership trainer, and best-selli...

From street theater performances to multimillion-dollar immersive experiences, Stacy Barton knows how to engage an audience. Through her work as a master storyteller, Stacy has learned how to use storytelling principles to design specific experiences for target audiences. Today, we discuss how to apply these principles to work design. Stacy has been creating multimillion-dollar immersive experienc...

Jeff Saperstein watched his father spend his life in a job that used only a tiny portion of his true capabilities. By day, Jeff's father worked as a postman, but in his spare time, he read deeply and broadly in the classics, and he was a national chess champion and master. That would've been fine if Jeff's father had been okay with it, but he really wasn't. Jeff resolved to liv...

In just three years, Darius Mirshahzadeh went from being a one-man show to having the 40th fastest-growing private company in the U.S. He was a 28-year-old CEO who brought his dream to life... until it hit him. He hated his company, and it was his fault. Darius realized that his organization didn’t reflect his core values, making limitless scale impossible. His journey to create a company grounded...

Dan Clein has fought corruption in communist Romania and dismantled mines in the Israel Defense Forces, but his latest mission is a covert one – to assist weak and defeated teams, creating his own army of capable and courageous managers. His newest book, The Unorthodox Manager , uses his unconventional experience to break the mold of what managers should be and teach us what management is really a...

In 2020, Roy Baladi was moments away from the Port of Beirut when it exploded, nearly costing him his life. Meanwhile, 2,500 miles away in the Netherlands, Eugène Van den Hemel met with struggling refugees to help connect them to a brighter future. An unexpected twist of events would eventually bring these two men together to help hundreds of underrepresented people find work, aspiration, and hope...

Ross Dawson’s mission in life is to advance human evolution – but he's facing a dilemma. How can humans evolve in the Information Age when so much misleading and distracting information surrounds us? By figuring out where to find value amid information overload, Ross became a globally-recognized futurist, creating better business strategies for companies like Microsoft, Coca-Cola, and Citiban...

Alice Fairfax was overjoyed when she landed the acting job at Disney World. There was just one problem. She needed to keep the attention of crowds and had no idea how to do it. Determined to learn the trade, she built up over 10,000 hours of performance experience. Along the way, Alice discovered the secret to engaging an audience, and it works across all domains – storytelling. Alice now helps br...

Thomas Bertels spent the last two decades as a Business Architect  helping struggling businesses solve structural problems: employee disengagement, inefficient teams, and low productivity. Whether working with a small company or a big player like PepsiCo, Thomas realized these issues stemmed from the same source – poor work design. This insight led Thomas to develop what he now calls motivational...

After becoming painfully aware that he cared more about the numbers than the well-being of his employees, Mark LeBusque began to question his management philosophy. An insight to start thinking of his employees like customers helped Mark breakout of the "employees as inputs to production" model that previously informed his thinking. With this shift in management style, Mark was able to l...

Too often business leaders are forced to choose between the needs of their company and the needs of their employees. It’s a lose/lose scenario leaving managers burned out and workers seeking other opportunities. At Work for Humans, we believe work can be designed differently. When managers are given the tools they need to design work their teams love, work becomes irresistible, employees passionat...

William Hurst is all too familiar with the disasters that have resulted from tops-down governance. William has documented firsthand the chaos that ensues when decision-makers remain isolated from the realities of life on the ground in his decades of fieldwork in China and Indonesia. In this episode, Dart and William explore how companies experience similar problems when they try and optimize compl...

Steve Cadigan’s boss at Electronic Arts was not happy when he resigned after one year to pursue what he saw as the opportunity of a lifetime – the chance to lead HR for a budding startup called LinkedIn. Unbeknownst to him, Steve was at the forefront of a new era of work – the era of high turnover and low tenure where employees are constantly hunting for new opportunities. According to Steve, how...

Imagine that you have two applicants for the same job. One is an Ivy-league graduate who is book-smart and has average soft skills. The second went to a college you’ve never heard of but can read a room, present with confidence, and solve interpersonal team issues. Your choice likely depends on the role, but Jim Carrick-Birtwell believes the second applicant has something every business should wan...

Today we are featuring Fred Reichheld. Named by The Economist as the "high priest" of loyalty, Fred is the creator of the Net Promoter Score (NPS). More than two-thirds of Fortune 1000 companies have reportedly used the Net Promoter Score to measure customer experience including household names like Apple, Netflix, and Disney. According to Fred, however, the vast majority of companies ar...

When we think about the experience of work, one thing to consider is the space work happens in. And for many of us, the space we work in has changed since the pandemic, opening an opportunity for companies to rethink their approach to workspaces. Meet Jeremy Neuner. Jeremy is the former CEO and co-founder of NextSpace, one of the first coworking spaces in the world. During Jeremy's time at Ne...

In this episode, we are joined by Anu Gupta, a sought-after expert in breaking bias, behavior change, and well-being. For the last 50 years or so, companies have spent billions of dollars and billions of hours trying to address the challenges of bias, inequity, diversity, and inclusion. Noticing this, Anu’s curiosity led him down a path to figure out why these companies weren’t making any headway....

Picture two cafes that serve precisely the same coffee. The first cafe has friendly baristas, comfortable seating, free WIFI, and great music. In the second cafe, the employees are bored, the music is bad, and the WIFI is slow. Most of us would choose the first one. This is because our experience of a product goes far beyond the product itself - it's closely linked to the services that delive...

Today we are featuring Tim Goldstein. Tim is a Neurodiverse Communications Specialist, educator, and public speaker. He has a background in tech and has worked with name brands like Chase Bank, Macy’s, Citizens Bank, and many others. Tim's career took an interesting twist when he was diagnosed with autism at age 54. He has since gone on to become an advocate for neurodistinct employees – peop...

Donald Norman is perhaps the most influential design educator of all time. Don is often cited as the father of user interface design and user experience design. He is best known for his book The Design of Everyday Things  and is set to release a new book early next year – Design for a Better World . In his latest book, Don argues that design principles can provide solutions to many of the complex...

In this bonus episode, we are sharing Dart Lindsley's guest appearance on The Cutting Edge , a public radio show hosted by Santa Cruz's former mayor Tim Fitzmaurice. Tim and Dart discuss the genesis of Work for Humans, Dart's background and how it lead him to the management philosophy behind work for humans, the reimagining of work that is currently taking place worldwide, and much...

Work culture is changing, and it's changing fast. The old norms of toughing it out and sticking with a new job are fast being replaced by notions of employee autonomy and choice. A recent survey from the Muse found that 80% of active job seekers believe quitting a new job in less than 6 months is acceptable if it doesn’t live up to expectations. In the modern workplace, it is workers who are...

Two-sided markets are revolutionizing the way we do business, and in time, it may revolutionize the way we think about employees as well. Dartmouth Professor Geoffrey Parker has spent years researching and writing about platform business strategies that leverage two-sided markets like eBay, Airbnb, and Uber. Geoffery is the co-developer of the theory of two-sided markets, the co-author of Platform...