How Work Actually Works

Most leaders think a performance problem is a people problem. Usually it isn't. It's a clarity problem. An environment problem. A leadership problem. The trick is knowing which one you're staring at before you start fixing the wrong thing. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen take performance management apart and rebuild it as something useful. Not the annual r...

Most of us don't say the real thing at work. We say the safe thing. The polished thing. The version that won't rock the boat. And the more we do it, the more the whole place starts to feel like theater. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen take apart corporate theater: the language we hide behind every day, and the LinkedIn posts that put it on full display. Al...

Most leaders think they’re coaching. But too often, they’re answering faster than people can learn. They solve the problem. They give the answer. They step in, clean it up, and wonder why everyone keeps bringing every decision back to them. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen talk about what coaching actually looks like in real life, not as a buzzword, not as...

The same workforce. The same equipment. The same town. One system produced absenteeism, low quality, and a factory GM had to close. The other system produced GM's number one plant. What changed wasn't the people. It was what the people were allowed to do, allowed to say, and allowed to care about. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen dig into the NUMMI story —...

Most people who say they do not have enough time are not really talking about time. They are talking about the way their week keeps getting taken from them. It happens slowly. A calendar fills up with meetings. Urgent things crowd out important ones. Other people’s priorities take over. And before long, you are moving all day, solving problems, putting out fires, and ending the week wondering why...

Most sales teams are built on pressure. Hit the number. Check the pipeline. Watch the leaderboard. And when the numbers slip, push harder. But what if pushing harder is exactly what's breaking the team? In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen sit down with Graham Nordin, VP of Business Development and Sales at Latitude Wines, a leader with 18 years of progressive...

People don’t stay because of one big thing. And they usually don’t leave because of one big thing either. They stay, or start to drift, based on three everyday experiences at work: Do I feel seen here? Do I feel like I belong here? Am I still growing here? In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen break down the three human conditions that shape whether people stay...

When trust breaks down, people don't just disengage. They adapt. They go quiet in meetings, cc: six people on every email, and stop asking questions they actually need answered. They trade truth for peace, ownership for CYA, and curiosity for safety — not because they're weak, but because they're surviving. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen unpack what happe...

Most meetings follow the same script. Someone builds a deck, reads the slides, asks "any questions?" at the end, and calls it a success if nobody pushes back. But getting through your slides isn't the same as getting through to your audience. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen break down the real difference between presenting and facilitating — and why borrow...

Every interaction moves people in one of two directions. Toward threat. Or toward safety. Most leaders don't set out to put their people on the defensive. But it happens anyway—in the meeting where someone gets publicly corrected, in the rumor that goes unaddressed, in the project that went to someone else without explanation. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hans...

There's a difference between resetting and reframing. Most organizations treat a new year or new quarter like a magic eraser—turn the page, set new goals, pretend last year's struggles disappeared. But people don't forget what they experienced just because the calendar changed. And that "fresh start" energy? It often feels more performative than real. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Jo...

There's a difference between being watched and being seen. Most workplaces have mastered watching—monitoring performance, tracking metrics, observing output. But seeing? That's the part that gets missed. And it's the part that actually matters. In this episode of How Work Actually Works, Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen explore five practical questions that help leaders move from surveillance to conn...

What actually makes people want to follow a leader? In this episode of How Work Actually Works , Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen break leadership down to its simplest—and most misunderstood—ingredients. Using an unexpectedly sticky metaphor (apple pie), they explore why leadership isn’t about confidence, competence, or ambition alone—and why those traits, without something deeper, often fall flat. T...

What happens when you stop trying to fix what's broken and start building on what works? In our first guest episode, Joe and KayLee welcome Tria Deibert, SVP of Culture and Team Member Wellbeing at Hackensack Meridian Health—and one of the most authentic leaders we know. Tria shares how she went from marketing executive to culture architect (with plenty of imposter syndrome along the way), and why...

Episode 5 opens with a surprise: Joe reveals the first physical proof copies of The Unmasking: Why We Hide and How We Find What’s Real—the moment the book finally becomes real (coming to Amazon December 9th) From there, Joe and KayLee dive into what the data finally proves about people and profit, including the 17-year Irrational Capital study showing how “culture-first” companies significantly ou...

Most teams aren’t quiet because they lack ideas — they’re quiet because they’ve learned it isn’t safe to speak. In this episode, Joe and KayLee dig into the MASK Framework™ — the four protection patterns people carry into work without even realizing it: Muting, Approval-Seeking, Security-Driven behavior, and the Kryptonite we hide to avoid looking weak. They break down why smart people hold back,...

For decades, leaders have been told to choose: results or relationships, performance or people. It’s a lie. In this episode, Joe and KayLee dismantle that false choice. From Bob Chapman’s “touch lives” philosophy to the cautionary tales of Wells Fargo, Uber, and the bankrupt studio behind Life of Pi, they show how success built only on metrics collapses — and how culture built only on heart can’t...

In this intimate conversation, KayLee Hansen turns the mic toward Joe Marques to explore the story behind his forthcoming book The Unmasking — Why We Hide and How We Find What’s Real . Joe opens up about the health scare that changed his life — and the five versions of his manuscript that taught him clarity doesn’t make life easier, it makes it unavoidable. Together, they unpack masks, mirrors, se...

Work is broken — and we’re here to talk about how to fix it. In this first episode, Joe Marques (Founder & Chief Creative Officer, Authentic Unlimited) and KayLee Hansen (Senior Director of Culture & Client Experience) share how their friendship, philosophy, and frustration with traditional “leadership talk” turned into a podcast about what really makes work work. From skeptical first meet...

Welcome to How Work Actually Works. Most people talk about how work should work. We're here to talk about how it actually works—the good, the messy, and what it takes to make it better. Join Joe Marques and KayLee Hansen of Authentic Unlimited for real conversations about leadership, culture, and what happens when you stop treating people and profit like competing priorities. Turns out, when you l...