DesuckifyWork®

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 life. And on how we should be running our businesses.

Instead of thinking of companies as simply places to make money, she sees the potential for something much bigger. And better.

Imagine if we created organizations that were medicine for a sick society.

Bold? Yes. But so is skydiving in a chicken suit.

If we follow through on Asmara’s vision, we can expect businesses to:

🐱 Protect and encourage health in all forms: financial, personal, mental and structural

🐱 Provide timely, tangible, transparent education

🐱 Empower autonomy by providing meaningful engagement and support

🐱 Avoid toxic systems that force individuals to internalize structural shortcomings within the organization

TLDR: We’ll desuckify work by putting trust in people to do more than they think they’re capable of.

That would certainly be a new experience for most of us. Let’s follow Asmara’s lead and give it a try.

You can follow Asmara on LinkedIn. And keep an eye out for her upcoming site, paradigmplayground.com. I can’t wait for it to go live.

You shouldn’t wait to check out my site and my Substack newsletter. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session.

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider asking Santa if you can borrow his sleigh so you can deliver DesuckifyWork® t-shirts, socks and mugs to all the not so good boys and girls that make work way more painful that it should be.

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #medicineforasicksociety #businessculture #changetheworld

To watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

I’ve been trying to embrace the idea of experiments lately. Treating decisions as test and learn opportunities instead of my usual m.o. of assuming I’ll be stuck with the consequences of every decision for eternity.

I recommend this approach to a lot of my clients. Figured I might as well take my own medicine.

So, here’s my latest experiment. A new podcast format I’m calling “MicroPods.” Each one 30-minutes(ish) or less, going deep on one topic.

In this episode, I’m speaking with Professor M.S. Rao, a brilliant human who has written over 50 books, over 300 academic papers and too many articles to count. He’s also the founder of MSR Leadership Consultants, with a goal of training one million students as global leaders by 2030.

He’s keeping up this pace even after experiencing a stroke that has left him with decreased mobility and other significant impacts on his day-to-day life.

It was an honor to speak with him about what he calls “Soft Leadership.” An approach whose time has come, in my opinion.

The gist? It’s a human-centric form of leadership that emphasizes partnership to get stuff done instead of traditional hierarchical methods.

Want more than the gist? Listen to Dr. Rao and he’ll fill you in.

Once you’ve listened, I’d love your POV on this experiment. Let me know what you think!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #softleadership #advertising #adagency #experiments

If you’d like to watch on YouTube, please click here.

To bee or not to bee. That is the question.

Siobhan McHale—author, influencer and change leader—has the answer.

To be the best humanity can be, we should be more like bees.

How can that be?

The hive mind is key. Embracing this bee-like way of being can help us solve the biggest challenges we face as humans.

We’ll be a lot better off if we can learn to follow the LENS model of bee behavior:

🐱 Look beyond current circumstances

🐱 Experiment with changes on a small scale

🐱 Nudge the system towards change

🐱 Strengthen the emerging change

Siobhan does such a brilliant job explaining how this framework elevates our Group Intelligence (GQ)—the newest form of observable intelligence that can help us transcend the seemingly impossible.

It’s helped the bees pull of one of the world’s most amazing comeback stories—adding more than 1 million colonies in the US alone from 2017 through 2022.

Imagine what it can do for us.

—————

You can follow Siobhan on LinkedIn. And check out her book “The Hive Mind at Work” on Amazon. The buzz is pretty big on this one… sorry, couldn’t help myself.

I also can’t help telling you about my site and my Substack newsletter—check ‘em out if you can. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session.

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider going to the gym, doing the heaviest set of squats you can imagine, and screaming “I’m desuckifying my glutes” with every torturous rep.

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #thehivemind #organizationalchange #bees #groupintelligence

To watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

The squeeze is real.

We all feel it. Faster, faster, faster. More, more, more. React, respond. React, respond. React, respond.

The machinification of humanity is in full force. And we feel powerless to resist.

What if we stopped resisting and started delegating? Feeding our most hated work to the machines, creating process for the stuff that saps our soul, leaving more room for what makes us truly human?

This is Alane Boyd’s superpower. As co-founder of Workday Ninja, she helps teams automate drudgery, systematize repetitive tasks and climb out of the oppressive grind to do the best work of our lives.

The key to all of it? Finding the right tools for the job.

We get this so wrong in the ad industry, so often. We slap new tools like duct tape onto our sickly systems, hoping they will magically heal what ails us.

Alane prefers a saner, more strategic approach. Carefully studying the way a company works to determine the right solution.

We talked about:

🐱Using AI to reduce tedious work by up to 40%, freeing up time for creative and strategic tasks

🐱The importance of consistent company-wide processes vs. individual methods that lead to chaos

🐱And how to create a systemized approach to onboarding for the 84% of small businesses who are not ready for an employee's first day

I had to look up onboarding in the dictionary because I’m not sure I’ve ever experienced it in my 25 plus years in the ad agency world.

Want to make that world less crazy and more creative? Listen to Alane.

—————

You can follow Alane on LinkedIn. And check out her site at workdayninja.com. It’s loaded with tools, tips and training to help agencies get out their own way.

My site and my Substack newsletter are loaded with cool stuff too—check ‘em out if you can. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session.

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider shaving your eyebrows and penciling in Desuckify above one eye and Work above the other. Don’t forget to add the circle-R, unless you want the US Patent and Trademark Office all up in your business.

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #systems #process #delegatethedrudgery

NOTE: We shared this post earlier in the week without the podcast audio link. Apologies for the mistake. Here is the updated post with the embedded episode.

Her name is Renee, 

which rhymes with play, 

which is something she believes we should do every day. 

She’s this week’s DesuckifyWork® podcast guest. 

She knows when we play, we’re at our best. 

We’re creative and alive, energetic and wise

We communicate better, less lows and more highs

Our mental health improves

We get into more grooves

We find more meaning, our soul approves

So how does this help me at work, you might wonder?

We create agency and develop more trust in each other. 

We get curious about what makes each of us tick,

We cut through the BS and enjoy healthy conflict.

We need more third spaces, more room to play,

To reimagine what it means to be an adult, let’s listen to Renee. 

—————

You can follow Renee on Instagram and TikTok @theplayrxcure. And check out her site at theplayrxcure.com. She has some awesome resources to help you bring more play into your life. And if you’re in the Phoenix area, keep an eye out for her in person play workshops. 

Speaking of play, my site and Substack newsletter are pretty fun too—check ‘em out. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session. 

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider consider traveling to Gotham, buying the bat signal from the police department and reconfiguring it to send up an alert when you’re in need of emergency work desuckification. 

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #play #creativity #redefiningadulthood

If you would like to watch this episode on YouTube, please click here.

Is Rex Sikes the most interesting man in the world? 

He’s in the running, in my book. He’s a true renaissance man—an actor, author, educator, master hypnotherapist and a seemingly endless source of insight about the human condition. 

And lucky for us, he is this week’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast. 

We talked about how we can embrace our humanness more fully in the workplace to create the kind of culture where people thrive and make a difference. 

Some key takeaways:

🐱 Play and experimentation are vital for learning, creativity, and breaking out of limiting patterns 

🐱 Collaboration and cooperation, rather than competition, lead to better outcomes in work and life

🐱 Small, incremental changes can lead to significant transformations over time

Rex encourages each of us to experiment and play in our work life and see where it takes us. And to have fun along the way. None of this works if we don’t enjoy the experience. 

Good news… our guest next week will take us on a deeper dive into the world of play and how it can help us completely reimagine what it means to be an adult. 

For now, let’s sit back and enjoy Rex’s fascinating perspective on the world. 

You can follow Rex on LinkedIn. And check out his site at rexsikes.com. Also, be sure to grab a copy of his new book—Life on your Terms: Create the Life YOU Want! 

While you’re in the grabbing mood, grab your phone or laptop and check out my site and Substack newsletter. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session. 

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider buying a bar and creating a drink called the DesuckifyWork®, made with whiskey, RC Cola and a splash of pureed Skittles. Garnish with a thin mint cookie if you’re feeling frisky. 

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #leadership #play #creativity

If you’d like to watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

Some of the world's best communications companies have some of the worst internal communication you'll ever witness.

I spent over 25 years at ad agencies and have experienced this not so delicious irony firstand, many times.

We make assumptions, seeing our peers as avatars for what we need done instead of as beautifully flawed human beings working towards a shared goal.

We sit in silos and judge through our tainted lenses. Account sucks. Creatives are babies. Production is out to kill our dreams. And strategy is, well, just kinda strange, no?

And then we wonder why projects break down, meetings turn into finger pointing fests and everyone goes home frustrated to families that are forced to deal with the worst versions of ourselves night after night.

We can do better.

Here's me, talking about how we might do that in this very special, solo episode of the DesuckifyWork® podcast. I hope you enjoy.

And if you're so inclined, let's set up a free half hour coaching session and see what solutions we can come up with, together.

If you enjoy this episode, please like, share, rate, review, or consider raising a herd of llamas and training them to drive so they can travel around the country and spit on every un-desuckified workplace they find. There's a free pair of our cushioned-bottom DesuckifyWork® socks for anyone who captures video of said llamas in action.

Bye, everyone!

#executivecoaching #desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #advertising #adagencies #adagencyculture #communication

If you’d like to watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

We need more joy in the world. 

And despite what some may think, there is no joy fairy waiting in the wings to spread that beautiful feeling over all of us like pixie dust. 

Joy is an act of creation. And it’s on each of us to do the creating. A smile here, an atta boy there, a joke in the middle of a dreadful meeting there. 

It can also come from reliable WiFi, a well brewed cup of coffee or a roll of paper towels that actually tears along the damned dotted line like it’s supposed to.

You know, the stuff brands do, when they do what they do well. 

Yes, brands create joy. But people create brands. And one ad agency in New Orleans, PETERMAYER, is uniting its people to unleash brand joy. Leading that effort is their CEO Michelle Edelman, today’s guest on the DesuckifyWork® podcast. 

This isn’t some fluffy, feel good, BS. It’s deep work, based on research with thousands of consumers across dozens of brand categories.

Michelle and I dug into all of it during our conversation: 

🐱 First, we defined joy—as moments of uplift that, when accumulated, lead to increased life satisfaction. 

🐱 Then we talked about the need to help brands connect to everyday moments of joy in consumers' lives. Many are already out there creating it, they’re just not getting credit for it. 

🐱 And, perhaps most importantly, we discussed the internal culture shift PETERMAYER has set in motion to embody this joy-focused brand promise in everything they do. 

That can mean tailoring benefits based on employee life stage, implementing performance evaluations based on value alignment or creating a safe space for conversations around big life-impacting events in the world. It can also mean simply acknowledging personal milestones outside of work—like adopting a new cat!

Michelle will be the first to share that this is all a work in progress. But it’s work worth doing. And I feel a bit more joyful knowing it’s work her team is doing. I hope more folks follow their lead. 

You can follow Michelle on LinkedIn. And check out PETERMAYER’s site at peteramayer.com. While you’re there, be sure to dive into the Insights section—it’s chock full of good, joyful stuff. 

My site and my substack newsletter are pretty joyful too—give ‘em a look-see when you can. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session. 

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #joy #brandjoy #adagencyculture 

If you’d like to watch the episode on YouTube, please click here.

Bob Dylan. Taylor Swift. Sam Cooke. Klaus Meine.

And now, Kristen Lisanti.

What unites these four songwriters and this one executive coach, speaker and trainer?

Change. From the personal to the political to the cultural and corporate, change is a constant theme in our our lives. And we don’t always like it. (He says, as he prays to the gods of gravity to delay the inevitable melding of face and torso for a few years longer.)

But we love those songs about change for a reason. They are partners in our quest to make sense of the impermanent.

And so is Kristen.

We are in the midst of a high-Richter shift in the world of work. AI, global disruption, 24-second news cycles… all putting us in a constant state of cortisol intoxication.

There are no simple fixes. The way forward, according to Kristen, is to embrace complexity, an awkward, sweaty group hug with the unknown.

And to realize that, in the midst of all that chaos, leaders actually have more power than we think.

🐱 We have the power to shift from a "to me" mindset to a "through me" mindset when it comes to change. When change happens to me, I’m a victim. But when I allow it to move through me, it’s easy to see where I can step into my power and make a difference. And I can invite others to share in that power, multiplying our impact.

🐱 We have the power to build a healthy, high-performing culture in our workplaces, by creating a balance between psychological safety and meaningful challenge. It's not an either/or, but a dance between the two.

🐱 We have the power to model the change we want to see. The curse of leadership is that nothing changes until you do. That is also the gift of leadership. And we can embrace that gift with small steps. At least until we’re ready to take a bigger one.

This power can move us beyond the suffocating realm of the transactional into the wide open possibility of the transformational.

I like the sound of that. Maybe I’ll write a song about it.

You can follow Kristen on LinkedIn as well as Instagram. And check out her site at kristenlisanti.com, where you can explore her radiant change methodology and the power of transformational leadership.

If you like the idea of transformation, you should also explore my site and my substack newsletter. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session.

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider dating a famous musician and convincing them to write a song called “desuckify work you big, friggin’ jerk” that shoots up the charts to number one and lands this show on the Hot 1,000 list of podcasts to consider while making your cat breakfast.

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #change #transformation #leadership

If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, please click here.

Two thirds of the global workforce is disengaged. That’s about 2.3 billion people feeling “meh” or much worse about their work. The cost of that disengagement is about $9 trillion, annually. 

Good thing we don’t have any significant problems to deal with that could benefit from some of that lost cash. 

If we did, we might pay more attention to those engagement numbers. Maybe even make a big deal out of them. Put them front and center in our political debates, perhaps. Ha, a fellow can dream, right?

Or we could do what Julie Jungalwala is doing. Julie has made it her mission to unlock human potential, so we can take on the immense challenges we face in the world and help all of us feel more connected to and fulfilled by our work. 

Easy, right?

Well, Julie has some pretty awesome ideas on how to make this happen. And we dove into a whole slew of them on this week’s episode of the DesuckifyWork® podcast:

🐱 First, embrace your inner scientist—be curious, run small experiments, and make choices based on your learnings, even if they feel uncomfortable at first. This builds the muscle to take bigger steps towards the work you truly want to do. 

🐱 Second, be vulnerable, especially if you’re a leader. Talk about areas where you are seeking growth so you invite others to feel safe doing the same. 

🐱 And third, help your team connect the dots between the work they do and the organization's broader vision and strategy. When people understand how their work contributes to the bigger picture, they go all-in, and that energy is infectious. 

Julie dives into all of this and so much more during our conversation. I came away feeling inspired and energized about the future we can create together. I think you will too. 

You can follow Julie on LinkedIn. And keep an eye out for her soon to be launched site, humanpossibility.com. It will be amazing, because Julie is amazing.

I think my site and my substack newsletter are pretty amazing as well. I’m on a mission to make work suck less and I’d love for you to join me. Want to make that desuckification happen ASAP? Let’s set up a free half hour coaching session. 

If you enjoyed the episode, please like, share, rate, review, subscribe or consider hitching a ride on one of Elon’s rockets and beaming this show towards the galaxies with the highest likelihood of life. We’re underperforming with our alien audiences right now and could use some help. 

Bye, everyone!

#desuckifyworkpodcast #desuckifywork #executivecoaching #advertising #adagencies #creatives #humanpotential #possibility #fulfillmentatwork

If you’d like to watch this episode on YouTube, please click here.