This is a repost of the social entrepreneurship announcement we made last week concerning offering the PeopleNotTech software on a team-by-team basis so that every team leader can start working on the Human Debt themselves and so that Human Debt Fighters have a way to show execs proof that employee happiness achieved through human work increases work performance. BTW, happy “Happiness at work” well all! Apologies if you’re a subscriber to both newsletters and see it twice! From hereon, we have to talk only book y’all because it’s only 6 days till it can drop on your porch!
Hi Team – This is the first time in my career that I obey a rule of old-school marketing in placing this big clear BUY NOW right here at the start but feel free to ignore it until you manage to read all this, then return and do it (or click the one I’ll try and recall to slap at the bottom:)
Firstly… Can we all agree on a “Don’t be a D!ck” universal list?!
Today, I was going to write (in two different tones with two different angles as regular service will return next week, please don’t unsubscribe!:) about the Grindr moment in the future #KnowledgeWorkerRevolt that I wrote about at times and how that reflects in particular in the industries most laden with intellectual and emotional burnout such as technology, academia, etc. In my view, this will create a loop of further uncertainty, as is already reflected in the current discussions of “mindset” vs. “execution” and “performance of individual” versus the fundamental idea of “team” and so on.
I was going to speak about the importance of a common language, make yet another plea for unity that all Human Work Advocates, Human Debt Fighters and Human Debt Preventers in and out of roles, in and out of energy and money and passion and care, still find enough reserves to all unite and agree on the big themes that matter which if I were pressed to haphazard on the content of I would say are:
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We are humans, not resources. We have feelings. We will not only display our emotions at work but learn to use them to power our continuous human improvement as we recognise that to be our USP advantage in the age of AI;
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We are humans with lives that matter to us. We will fit work around our lives not the other way around. That means you will give us full flexibility and an array of support and resources to support it as well as an outcomes, data and performance people-centric culture to thrive in;
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What you need of us – the hive mind potential, the flow, the innovation, the creation, the teaming, the technology and ideas – can not be done within Taylorist constraints of command and control without agility, full flexibility, autonomy and respect. We must collectively rethink the way we think of the “why”, “where”, and “how” of work and arrive at generative, healthy ways of putting teams and individuals at the centre;
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We know that some of this work demands even more effort and commitment from us, and we need to give ourselves self-care and our teams’ empathy and kindness before we can have the psychologically safe, empowering spaces of authentic high performance that we all crave;
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We will not be pressured, scared and micromanaged into doing tasks but expect to be on an ownership journey with the business to which we will contribute our authentic selves;
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We pledge to always point out when we see Human Debt in our path and try our best to practically do something against it!
I don’t know if it would be in those exact words or even if these are exhaustive, but they’re a darn good list for a starting point and a massive worry if we disagree on any!
This list alone is so fundamental that it’s barely a step above the proverbial “Don’t be a d!ck!” that sadly, as we know, doesn’t much work on its own, but we need to start putting something in stone when it comes to humans at work urgently.
Why “urgently”?
Because it seems we’re losing ground with our focus on humanity in the day-to-day business world. Less and less conversation is clear or filled with value. Fewer and fewer execs understand the connection between “fluffy” topics and big “debt mopping” to hard cash, and even fewer of us have the energy to fight.
So one of the topics we touch on in our pods today is how Grindr may have kicked off a long overdue knowledge workers’ revolution with their reaction to the return to the office imposition. We were going to show you how that ties into the bigger trends we see. What will happen is that the HumanDebt of some will explode while others will quickly understand the new rules of the game and thrive. That is the measure of the urgency. Developers tried to unionize and then walked out.
So, before we start talking only about the “Tech Led Culture” book and I pester you incessantly to read and review it on Amazon, and before it looks like I am diving deep into theory and organisation-blaming or leader-shaming or being too dogmatic about the ideas of what I am saying, let me put all our pockets where our mouths are, and announce that we are practically donating our software at near-cost to empower Human Work Advocates.
I won’t tell you in detail what it does to move teams to psychological safety and performance. This video is 4 minutes long, and it should be self-explanatory.
and
So, instead, let me start again.
“Hi, I’m Duena Blomstrom, I’m a Human Debt Fighter and an accidental social entrepreneur.”
Why “accidental”?
I haven’t set out to be one; I only “fell into it”. As I said many times lately, I have a NeuroSpicy brain, and that means I’ve done a lot – I’ve intimately gotten to know organisations of all sizes across industries and geographies as I travelled from FinTech to Tech and from Efficiency and Performance to Agility and Culture and even DevOps and Product. This same neurospiciness ensures I can’t stop noticing wrongs. I can’t then shut up about them. As you may have noticed:) Or be diplomatic enough to use company politics but that’s another story for my Captain’s log memory lane 🙂 And I certainly can’t stop wanting to do something about them. What was the wrong in question? People were suffering at work in structures unfit and unkind. AKA HumanDebt.
The day I thought of the term is when I became a Social Entrepreneur, but it is only now, years, books, software solutions, sweat and tears later, that I worked out I HAVE to right this wrong. It isn’t something I could walk away from. It isn’t even something that any of my teammates or any of the other Advocates, Fighters and Preventers can walk away from. Once you see the HumanDebt you can’t unsee it. Or ignore it. Or do nothing about it for too long.
This moment is pivotal for my work and for me as an entrepreneur because after nearly 5 years and 5M, I’ve realised the accident in question is the case, and I realised that at a time when the world may well need it the most.
“O’rlly, the world needs you, eh? Dillusions of Grandeur, anyone?”
There’s too much Human Debt, and humanity is too tired in the world of work to figure out how to get out of it and move towards Tech Led Cultures therefore I need to help so here it is, a mission statement and all:
“As a social entrepreneur concerned with the moment in the business world where confusion and lack of knowledge and value are starting to immediately reflect in a lower quality of life through mental and social unsafe environments, I am giving every team a chance to become a Human Debt Fighter or Preventer themselves by fixing their own Human Debt and getting their own team bubble more human, higher performing and having more Psychological Safety, a sense of purpose and emotional closeness for a nominal monthly fee of 50 GBP/63USD/59EUR for teams of up to 12 (and 300/ 375USD/345EUR for up to 10 teams) by giving them access to our (always-work-in-progress) Dashboard that creates the data, the space and the knowledge for them to self-analyse, take action and grow.
By doing so, I feel like we can all have a shot to become hands-on Human Work doers and Human Debt fighters, so I am distributing this challenging task to you all; it’s in your hands to change it bottom-up while I keep holding Execs accountable and away from #CorporateBollox and #LockedInExec syndrome and make them embrace #AuthenticLeadership and #NeuroSpicy -ness and get themselves some #teaming because they deserve safety too. Here, have my baby. Help me help us all!”
The TL;DR:
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If you have a people problem in your team of any kind – Go to https://www.techledculture.com/technology to buy it.
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If you’re an HR Human Debt Fighter who can’t show the value of human work by your own humans and executives then – Go to https://www.techledculture.com/technology to buy it.and create your own internal social proof before you build a business case – then come show us, we love empowering true HR Human Debt Fighters in role the most!;
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If you’re a Team Leader, an Agile Coach, a Scrum Master, a dev-come-Manager, a CTO a COO, a new leader, a veteran who could have always used a tool to assist with the human work or someone who has been fighting organisational HumanDebt alone so far – this is good news and it will be transformational in making your team come along -Go to https://www.techledculture.com/technology to buy it., then make it a success and use it as a POC on our behalf in your enterprise so we can come help you be a more efficient Human Debt Fighter
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If you’re someone just starting out – in new enterprise pockets with maybe lesser Human Debt, or if you’re building a company right from the ground up with a winning Tech Led Culture that’s People-Centric from the start, aka a Human Debt Preventer – Go to https://www.techledculture.com/technology to buy it.
Once you’ve bought it, used it and helped your teams feel and create better psychological safety, closer emotional relationships and more effective ways to learn and grow together by making it part of your regular human practice, then help us show those results.
I need to be translated.
I’m learning I owe some of the frustration to my own obstinance to remain loud, bullish and uncompromising in wording and principles so I’m introducing here the result of that learning – the first Tech Led Culture PODers “translating” it for the HR and the Tech/Agile community.
The goal is that we get as many teams as possible to start opening up to the ideas that we all know are common sense in terms of treating humans at work with respect and care so they give us their best work; if you are part of these two communities, listen to their messaging and spread it around, not mine then please and DO get in touch with Dave Ballantyne and Allessandria Polizzi, SPHR, PhD – both are genuinely the best people to guide you as they were YOU not long ago.
BUY NOW! (I didn’t, I had to edit:))