Mark McCartney showed up to facilitate a C-level team in Berlin on the hottest day of the year, drenched in sweat, and opened by pointing out his own stain marks. They laughed. The room shifted. That's Mark — someone who left a 15-year finance career, spent a year in Peru, and has since asked 300+ people the same question: what is a good life?

We got into why real vulnerability isn't the rehearsed trauma story but the small, mundane thing you say in the moment that reminds everyone they're sitting with a human. We talked about boundaries as a source of connection (not walls), why agreement is overrated in teams, and what happens when senior leaders can't admit they're overwhelmed even though it would be weirder if they weren't.

Learn more about Mark McCartney:

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

Sometimes, just sometimes, the rules are there to be broken. Because when you dare to break them, miracles and moments of beautiful humanity could be waiting just on the other side.

Rotem Kazir was trained never to let her coaching clients know anything about her. Keep distance. Stay neutral. That's professional. Until a founder she'd coached for two years said something that broke the rule for good.

She's spent 20 years working with startup founders — first in HR, then on the VC side, now as a coach — and what she keeps seeing is that the performance breaks down at the exact moment people need each other most. One founder walked into his board meeting and said he didn't know how to take the company forward. The room shifted from performance review to actual problem-solving. He went on to raise $100M. We talked about why that almost never happens, when vulnerability is strategic versus reckless, and why she now opens meetings with "What's hard?" instead of status updates.

Links to learn more about Rotem Kazir:

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

Jon Berghoff walked into a room of C-level executives from billion-dollar companies and noticed they'd all filled the back rows first. He spent two hours debating whether to say something. Then he got on stage and asked them to move to the front. The looks he got said: nobody has ever told us where to sit. Three Fortune 50 companies in that room ended up hiring him.

Jon is the founder of Xchange and one of the most in-demand facilitators in the world. He also spent five years running global conferences in a suit on top and barefoot on the bottom. We talked about why that's not a gimmick — it's connected to something he's learned about nervous system regulation and what happens when the person holding the room is actually relaxed. We got into the inner work behind facilitation, why the moments that go sideways are the ones that build the most trust, and what it actually costs to keep performing a version of yourself the room didn't ask for.

Links to learn more about Jon Berghoff:

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

Early in her career, Tieren Scott was told she needed to sound more "bubbly" when presenting. Her manager pointed to a colleague in the room as the example. Tieren's natural voice — grounded, measured, clear — wasn't the problem. It just wasn't the default. That moment taught her something black women in America already know: professionalism was never a neutral standard.

Tieren has a doctorate in organisational leadership and a decade of experience as an instructional designer and coach. We talked about what it actually costs to mask every day — adjusting your tone, reading the room before you've even opened your mouth, teaching your kids to do the same. She was honest about the exhaustion of it, and honest about the risk that comes with stopping. This conversation changed something for me: the freedom to be "unprofessional" is itself a privilege. Not everyone gets to drop the mask and call it brave.

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

A software engineer fired a test missile and watched it cartwheel into the ocean. He looked at the code and thought: that looks like what would happen if I hadn't loaded all the microcode. Did I load the microcode? Oh God. Did he tell anyone? No. So they fired three more. Same result. He was too afraid to speak up. That, says Mike Parker, is what professionalism encodes: fear dressed up as competence.

Mike spent 35 years in consultancy before founding his liminal coaching practice, and he's been thinking about where that fear comes from — Taylorism, factory floors, a management culture that treats "I don't know" as a career threat. We talked about why daydreaming might be the most productive thing a knowledge worker can do, how asking "why" gets read as insubordination, and what his mother once told him about the word "amateur" that reframes the whole conversation.

Links to learn more about Mike Parker:

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

Jillian Reilly was young, running a multimillion-dollar AIDS programme in Zimbabwe, and supposed to give a diplomatic speech to a room of religious leaders. She sat through the procession, looked at her script, and decided she couldn't do it. What she did instead nearly sent the US government officials behind her into damage control mode.

Jill went on to write a bestselling book called The 10 Permissions, and this conversation is really about where that idea was born. We talked about the invisible rules we follow without questioning them, why "am I allowed?" is the most exhausting question to carry through a working day, and what she learned in Zimbabwe that took her decades to put into words: nobody is coming to give you permission.

Links to learn more about Jillian Reilly:

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The 10 Permissions Website

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

Welcome to Unprofessionalism! My shiny new podcast, a provocation in the making, and the place to challenge everything we’ve been taught about being professional.

Together, we’ll be peeling back the limitations of professionalism, on a mission to restore our humanness and bring joy, defiantly, back to work. You’ll hear stories from scientists, artists, entrepreneurs, and true masters of their craft as we question the very construct of professionalism, its silent expectations, how we can break free, and seek to be unprofessionals in all that we do!

But first, join me from the very beginning. In episode 000, we’ll journey from the birth of professionalism to its existence in the age of AI, and why the only sustainable thing left for us to be is our real, brilliant, unfiltered selves.

Find out about:

• The history of professionalism, its construct, and why it has become such a paradox
• The wonderful guests I’ll be interviewing in the coming weeks, and the topics we’ll be exploring
• The Unprofessionalism book I am writing alongside the podcast, and the research that has led me here

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

And that’s a wrap, folks! After 355 brilliant, beautiful, mind-opening conversations about facilitation, life, and everything in between, I can now confidently say that I have found the magic ingredients that make workshops work.

Join me, myself, and I for a final farewell episode of Workshops Work, before I retire this guise of the podcast from the airwaves. I reflect on the beautiful journey of almost 7 years, where my curiosity has led me, and why it’s now time for the start of something new.

Next week, Workshop Works shapeshifts into a new chapter, a new direction, a new podcast! Unprofessionalism is set to air on the 7th January, as I begin to explore the real stories, shadows, and inspirations that can help us to celebrate our most human, unguarded selves.

But for now, a wholehearted thank you for being a part of this journey with me.

Find out about:

• The evolution of the Workshops Works podcast
• Why my curiosity has shifted from that of the facilitator, to that of the participant
• The new Unprofessionalism podcast – what it’s about, and what you can expect
• The podcast club that I am hosting, to deepen our facilitation learnings together

Connect with me:

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• Join the Podcast Club on Substack by subscribing to the workshops work Substack: https://substack.com/@myriamhadnes/posts

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

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High-stakes diplomatic missions, peacekeeping, and intergovernmental meetings are inherently protocolised spaces. So what happens when facilitation is invited to show up in all its newness, threatening the sensitivities, the power structures, and the familiar dynamics?

After a longstanding frustration with the way meetings were run, Tigist Hailu found her way to facilitation. As a regional diplomacy, peace and security, and strategic communications expert serving at the African Union, United Nations, and now IGAD, she discovered that it is possible for creativity to be invited into the room of diplomacy: softly, quietly, tweak by tweak.

She joins me for the final ever interview of the Workshops Works podcast, as we explore the conditions that allow people to get vulnerable, build trust, share their ideas freely, and return to their humanity.

Find out about:

• The role of facilitation in diplomatic spaces and intergovernmental meetings
• How to shift outcomes thoughtfully, despite the limitations of hierarchy and protocol
• How to bring humanity into these spaces through the use of questions, openings, tone, and pacing
• The importance of intuiting group dynamics to shift the room towards openness

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Links:

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Connect to Tigist Hailu:

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You can now find the podcast on Substack, where your host Dr. Myriam Hadnes is building a club for you to find fellow listeners and peers: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/

Brave work is messy work. It’s an invitation into the dōjō – to be humbled, to get vulnerable, and leave behind what you thought you knew.

Life-long learner, executive coach, culture consultant and facilitator, Dr. Dauv Evans joins me this week to journey beyond safety into the brave space arena. Together, we explore what it takes to build these spaces: the intentionality, the rules of engagement, and the assumptions we must leave at the door to have courageous conversations.

From power imbalances, to conversations on race, Dauv shares his work in helping people to grow together and exist outside of their comfort zone, with generosity and passion. A rich, practical conversation about how leaders can show up with humility when it’s needed most.

Find out about:

• What braves spaces are – and why people must be invited into them
• How constructive discomfort can facilitate deeper connection, meaningful learning, and cultural change within organisations
• Why leaders must navigate people’s varying levels of risk tolerance with care
• How to use power positively to facilitate a brave conversation for the better

Don’t miss the next episode: subscribe to the show with your favourite podcast player.

Links:

Watch the video recording of this episode on YouTube.

Connect to Dauv Evans:

Brave Space Leadership Cohort Interest Form

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If you miss the "workshops work" podcast, join us on Substack, where Myriam builds a Podcast Club with monthly gatherings around old episodes: https://myriamhadnes.substack.com/