DesuckifyWork®

If you’re an introvert, you’re going to love Rhonda George-Denniston . You’ll also love her if you’re an extrovert, because she’s awesome. But man, she really sees introverts in a way that the world needs. Rhonda is the Chief Learning & Development Officer at TBWA\Worldwide . She also founded Curiosity Connections , an “un-networking” space that brings people together in a way where everyone feels...

She wrote about leadership and sales. But it’s really a book about living. Jeanne Sparrow , this week’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast is the author of “ Fearless Authenticity: Lead Better, Sell More and Speak Sensationally. ” She is a delightful human, a masterful storyteller and has (inadvertently?) mapped out the path to a more joyful life. The key? 🐱 Knowing yourself deeply and connectin...

If you’ve ever been to the theater, you’ve witnessed a masterclass in communication. Each character demonstrating their ability to get what they need (or not) from each other. Creating harmony or sparking conflict. Influencing, irritating, arousing, amusing. All done for the benefit of us, the audience. Complete strangers making us care about the outcome of a make believe situation we knew nothing...

I worked 26 years at ad agencies and never knew there was a thing called Learning & Development (L&D). Like an actual team dedicated to the growth of the people who work there. Huh. It had been my understanding that learning was a thing that happened by having your work pissed on repeatedly, forcing you to come back with so many new ideas that one might actually squeak through unscathed and you’d...

Ad agencies are good at 3 things: 👏 Building brands👏 Driving sales👏 Making employees so miserable they would prefer to be literally anywhere else, almost as soon as they are hired. (Hence the industry-wide 33% turnover rate) The James Agency in Scottsdale is quite good at the first two. But has failed miserably at the third. Many of their folks have stuck around for over ten years. The CCO has...

Quick, are you a meerkat? A chimp? A snow leopard? A wolf? No, I’m not high. I’m talking about the 4 belonging personas developed by Dan J. Berger , today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast. This may be the most important work anyone is doing right now. We are in the midst of a belonging crisis, fueled by social media, egged on by COVID and reinforced by our own lack of clarity on how to make t...

From overseas battlegrounds to overseeing booze regulations to fighting human trafficking and cleaning up county government, Bentley Nettles has been a busy man. Oh, and he wrote a book , because of course he did. The book captures a leadership philosophy honed over the course of his impressive career. As a Brigadier General (JAG) in the Army, Executive Director of the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Com...

Work sucks? Maybe it’s not you. Maybe it’s the model you’re working in. Carlos Musquez came to this realization after 30+ years in the ad business. And he’d love it if you didn’t have to wait so long. He invites you to ask a very simple question. When was the last time you were really proud of your work? And if the answer is, “it’s been a minute,” ask yourself why? It might be time for something n...

No one lies on their deathbed and says, “I wish I was more productive.” But maybe they should. Because productivity is making progress towards our priorities. Towards the things that actually matter. That’s the definition shared by Sarah Ohanesian , today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast. At work, that might mean doing something we’re passionate about, or finding meaning where none seems to e...

I thought I had a bold mission, to desuckify work. Then, Maria DeLorenzis Reyes shows up and hits me with a Devil Went Down to Georgia throw down: “Sit down in that chair right there and let me show you how it’s done.” Her mission: to change the world of work forever. Okay, okay. I’m listening. How do we do that, exactly? Maria has some thoughts: 🐱 Be vulnerable. This is a huge superpower for lea...

Baba Booey . The childish taunt of a crude shock jock or the cultural glue that helped build one of the world’s most successful media empires? Yes. The Leadership Lessons of Howard Stern is a provocative book from Michael Kublin , today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast. Michael is an entrepreneur, author and founder of PeopleTek —a leadership coaching and development company. He’s also one of...

Life gives us enough hard crap to deal with. Why would we add more to it, on purpose? Because that’s how we grow. Today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast, Luis Velazquez , should know. Luis was diagnosed with a brain tumor over 20 years ago. He was crushed. Angry. And at one point, suicidal. Everything he had every right to be. Today, he is an incredibly successful executive coach, working wit...

If you stacked every sold copy of The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People , it would reach over 757 miles high. That’s about 550 miles higher than the International Space Station. The air so thin, molecules almost never run into each other, flying solo until they fall back to earth or get lost in space for eternity. Perfect time for a good book, no? There’s a reason over 40 million copies have bee...

Ever try to hold a beach ball underwater? You can do it for a few seconds, but it takes a shocking amount of effort. And that sucker will pop back up (and maybe nail you in the face) soon enough. That’s what our emotions are like. Especially at work. Where we try to stuff ‘em down all day long like good, rational girls and boys. Except we’re not rational. We’re human. Highly emotional meat bags un...

If you grew up when I did, you had two big fears: 🙀 Quicksand🙀 Imposters Both were everywhere, apparently. From Gilligan’s Island to Scooby Doo to random movies of the week where someone pretending to be someone else inevitably tied up the good guys and had them neck deep in a soupy death trap. Fast froward to today and quicksand is nowhere to be found. But imposters have simply relocated. From...

1+1+1+1+1=The solution to almost everything. This is the promise of collective intelligence. And it’s a promise that Lorraine Margherita articulates beautifully on this week’s episode of the DesuckifyWork® podcast. Collective intelligence: 🐱 Combines individual talents, skills, stories, and ambitions into something greater than the sum of their parts🐱 Is activated by clarifying team purpose, rol...

Wanna make work suck less? Start asking weird questions. Like, totally bizarre, off the wall stuff like: 🙀 Do you understand what I’m asking you?🙀 What does productive mean to you?🙀 What does it mean to be on time?🙀 What does success mean to you?🙀 What assumptions are we making? Nuts, right? It’s so weird to ask these basic, foundational questions about how we communicate with each other. The...

You want to make work suck less? Get a good night’s sleep. Poor sleep affects:🙀 Productivity🙀 Relationships🙀 Attention to detail🙀 Decision-making It also leads to long term health issues like diabetes, dementia and cardiovascular disease. Thankfully, today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast is here to help. Zander Keig is a licensed clinical social worker who leads organizational well-being...

What is psychological safety? We hear the term thrown around a lot these days but I’m not sure we’re clear on what it means. 🙀 It’s not the absence of stress or conflict. 🙀 It’s not emotional bubble wrap, protecting us from our feelings 🙀 It’s not a lack of responsibility or accountability It’s quite the opposite, actually, according to Dennis DiMaggio , today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podc...

Would you rather be a victim or have a career your love? Being a victim is easy. 😿 We play the job application lottery day after day, praying for the big jackpot… or even just a politely written “no thank you.” 😿 We lament the lack of job security while doing little to make ourselves stand out 😿 We get jealous of those who have better “luck” than us instead of getting curious about how they mad...

In a world obsessed with how AI will impact our workplaces, we’ve overlooked a bigger challenge. How we bring more humanity into them. It’s a problem we’ve struggled with since work became a four letter word. Work is supposed to suck. It’s supposed to be drudgery. It’s certainly not supposed to a place where you can experience love and human connection. That would be crazy. Right? 🐱 People suppor...

A hearty, desuckified welcome back to Judy Cirullo , who previously shared her wisdom on episode 13 of the DesuckifyWork® podcast. She’s here today to talk about something that many of us spend a lot of energy trying to avoid—difficult conversations. Judy is an expert on this topic—as the founder of Grow Strong Teams she helps business owners and execs create cultures rooted in trust and accountab...

Creatives should be given way more opportunity to make a meaningful impact. On client business and on the world. This is the magic wand wish from Ashley Rutstein , today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast (originally aired live on 12/11). Ashley is a freelance creative director, copywriter and the creator of @stuffaboutadvertising, with over 117K followers on TikTok (!) and nearly 25K on Instag...

Age is just a number. Yeah, I know, I call BS on that too when I’m sitting at home nursing my aching back as I wonder if I’ll ever touch my toes again. But Willie Pietersen has other ideas. At 88 years old, this former lawyer and CEO is a professor at Columbia’s graduate school of business, recently published his second book and consults with some the world’s biggest and best-known organizations....

What if we did something new every day? Could be something small like putting your socks on in the opposite order, or something huge like going skydiving in a chicken suit. This is what Asmara Kazmi has been doing for the past three years. Well, not the chicken suit part (I think), but she has been trying something new every day for over 1,000 days. And it’s given her a whole new perspective on li...