Here’s what you’re admitting when you don’t develop your talent.

🐱 You’re admitting you don’t expect people to hang around very long.

🐱 You’re admitting you’re willing to let people just figure crap out on the job no matter how long it takes or how many mistakes get made.

🐱 You’re admitting that there’s nothing special about the work you do—any schmo off the street can jump in and deliver on day one.

🐱 You’re admitting you’re unaware of the cost of people figuring crap out on the job. Or the cost of high turnover. Or the cost of having an undifferentiated, commoditized work product.

🐱 You’re admitting that any messaging you have on your site or internally around building a strong culture is performative BS.

Karen Crane knows a thing or fifty about talent development. She is a coach and talent consultant who spent years helping ad agencies build award-winning teams.

And she and I share a frustration that so many agencies fall short in this area. F*ck around a find out seems to be the most popular training methodology.

And it’s a damn shame because the industry is filled with smart, clever problem solvers who are capable of designing a thousand ways to help people grow in their careers.

But… we’re too busy, it’s too expensive, clients are so demanding…. blah, blah, blah.

Sure. Yes. Understood.

Those are the exact reasons you need to do it. So you’re less busy on nonsense work and focused more on work that matters. So you get paid more, because you work on higher value projects. So your clients are happier, because your teams are delivering work at a level they never even thought was possible.

That’s what happens when you develop your talent.

Admit it: sounds totally worth it, right?

Welcome to the DesuckifyWork® podcast. The show where we cut through the BS and find ways to make work more fun, more human and less ridiculous. All of which makes your business more profitable, by the way.

(If you enjoy this one, please like, share, rate, review or subscribe to the podcast.)

Let the desuckifying begin.

You can follow Karen on LinkedIn. And check out her site at coachkarencrane.com and her Substack newsletter at karencrane.substack.com. They’re both filled with awesome stuff.

If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to help your teams bring their absolute best to work, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session. Type “meow” in the calendar invite and I’ll also send you a free DesuckifyWork® t-shirt!

Bye, everyone!

Bonus question from Karen to our audience:What does a desuckified workplace look like? What do you need to be unsuckified at work?

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

Imagine if we were more civil at work.

Not more polite. Politeness is BS. Civil. From the Latin, Civitas. Meaning citizen. A well-functioning member of society.

Societies work when we have hard conversations. When we bring a shared respect for our common humanity. When we’re willing to offend. And be offended.

This is not where we are right now. As a society or at work.

We avoid the hard conversations. We substitute through-our-teeth agreement for respect. We turn offense into passive aggression.

Layer that in with a culture that rewards a near-constant state of navel gazing and the results aren’t pretty.

Lexi Hudson knows we can do better. And she wrote a book, “The Soul of Civility: Timeless Principles to Heal Society and Ourselves” that tells us how.

It’s not about following a rigid set of rules. It’s about leaning into time-tested wisdom that has been at the center of great societal advances, from Ancient Greece to the modern civil rights movement.

Lexi’s translation for today’s world?

Be less like Larry David, angling for every scrap of ego-fuel we can find no matter the cost to others.

Be more like her grandmother, Margaret. A magnanimous soul, self-composed, generous, other-oriented and real.

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Welcome to the DesuckifyWork® podcast. The show where we cut through the BS and find ways to make work more fun, more human and less ridiculous. All of which makes your business more profitable, by the way. Today’s episode is a part of the ProHuman Series, in partnership with the ProHuman Foundation, where Lexi is an advisor.

(If you enjoy this one, please like, share, rate, review or subscribe to the podcast.)

Let the desuckifying begin.

You can follow Lexi on LinkedIn. And check out her Substack newsletter at civic-renaissance.com, an ongoing conversation on the power of civility to help us create the good life.

If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to help your teams bring their absolute best to work, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session. Type “meow” in the calendar invite and I’ll also send you a free DesuckifyWork® t-shirt!

Bye, everyone!

Bonus question from Lexi to our audience:What are the kinds of incivility that people are experiencing in the workplace right now and to what extent has that to do with being online and not in person in recent years?

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

Radical Moderation.

Sounds like an oxymoron. But it’s actually a way we can save our world and our workplaces from whatever the hell it is we’re all going through right now.

We’re in a low trust, high volatility time. And it affects everything. From the most horrific news headlines to the way we relate to the person in the desk across from us. Our armor is up. Which isn’t exactly conducive to conversation or collaboration.

Lauren Hall is an author, speaker, professor, university administrator and coiner of the “radical moderation” term. We talked on this week’s podcast about how embracing this mindset can help us connect more deeply with everyone in our lives.

It starts with avoiding binary thinking. Life is lived in the gray, no matter what your social media algorithms try to tell you.

From there, we need to understand issues in their full complexity.

To do that, we need to be curious and humble, especially when we’re confronted with ideas we don’t like.

Lauren gives one of the most incredible examples of someone who chose to embrace those ideals—Darryl Davis. A black man who has spoken with dozens of KKK members and influenced many to renounce their white supremacist views. His story is remarkable.

I don’t expect most of us to live up to the model of someone like Daryl. But man, wouldn’t the world be a better place if we tried?

Welcome to the DesuckifyWork® podcast. The show where we cut through the BS and find ways to make work more fun, more human and less ridiculous. All of which makes your business more profitable, by the way. Today’s episode is a part of the ProHuman Series, in partnership with the Prohuman Foundation where Lauren is an advisor.

(If you enjoy this one, please like, share, rate, review or subscribe to the podcast.)

Let the desuckifying begin.

You can follow Lauren on LinkedIn. And check out her Substack, The Radical Moderate’s Guide to Life (Lauren Hall). It’s the perfect antidote to our click-bait riddled feeds.

If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to help your teams bring their absolute best to work, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session. Type “meow” in the calendar invite and I’ll also send you a free DesuckifyWork® t-shirt!

Bye, everyone!

Bonus question from Lauren to our audience:Are you happy with the politics that we have now? Do you feel as though what's happening is serving our communities?

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