Let's Fix Work With Laurie Ruettimann

Don MacPherson is an entrepreneur who built a company called Modern Survey, which he successfully sold without laying people off or taking on debt. That's the American Dream. But Don’s not resting on his laurels. Growing up in a mining community, Don learned the value of work early and isn’t interested in status symbols like cars and clothes. He’s soon launching a new venture called 12 Geniuses focused on fixing the future of work for everybody. He’s here to talk about his journey in tech, how to be ruthlessly pragmatic with your finances, and how you can set yourself up financially for success. Ultimately, it's about enjoying your work. Don has a unique view of the world that you need to hear, especially if you want to retire early.  First things first: Don isn’t a Millennial tech bro. He’s close to 50 with a wealth of experience in customer service, technology, healthcare, employee engagement, and even truck driving. Don will tell you he isn’t a natural entrepreneur, but he is a risk taker. So much so he

According to JT O’Donnell, we’re pretty bad at job searching. After all, we aren’t in the business of finding jobs; our skills sets are DOING them. So, if and when you need to change employers, outside advice is invaluable. Today, Laurie and JT talk about why the old way of job searching is obsolete and how you can compete with other job seekers in a very crowded environment. Have you seen the George Clooney movie, Up in the Air, where his job was to lay people off? That was JT’s last corporate career. She laid off hundreds of people before leaving corporate America to start her own career coaching practice. JT saw the recession coming, so she was proactive and started a blog in 2008. When the recession hit, people needed an edge in finding jobs, and JT was there to deliver. Laurie has seen a lot of discrimination when it comes to landing jobs: ageism, sexism, racism. While it’s a common belief that work is broken, JT also believes that the job search is broken. People are going about it the wrong way becaus

Cy Wakeman is an international keynote speaker, business consultant, New York Times best-selling author, and psychologist. She helps people around the world ditch the drama and turn excuses into results. Naturally, Laurie is a total fangirl. Today, Cy and Laurie talk about how to get the best out of people, whether or not you really NEED leaders, and what the future of work looks like for all of us. Cy has a great strategy for getting clients in the door and to help them take all the negative energy at work and turn it around to positive results based on new actions: she gives her stuff away for free. The individuals who learn from her content then turn around and put the pressure on their leaders to bring her in to do work, and she gets great results. Cy has an interesting take on work NOT being broken. Work, she says, is our reality, and whether or not we succeed in it is up to us. Cy explains the parts of work that are lacking, from leadership to HR, and it all has to do with the people, not the construct

You’ve heard the saying, opinions are like… armpits, right? So is advice. Everyone has them and most of them stink, especially when it comes to careers. But Alison Green has some advice about advice for you; you’ve got to separate the good from the bad, and you have to pick your battles. Today, she and Laurie talk about crappy advice, what it takes to be a great leader, and what she wishes all managers knew. Bad advice isn’t limited to careers. It all stems from a much bigger problem: we think we know what’s best for another person and their life. We’ve all had jobs, and as a result, we all have opinions about how they should be. But the truth is, most of us have trouble acting on the advice we give AND receive. Alison even has a folder full of questions asking for her advice on topics where there IS no great answer, including farting at work. Seriously. Not all advice is crappy (pun intended). Every once in a while, we get a gem that can fix a situation or even change the way we think. Alison had one such p

Shawn Madden is made of fun. No, really. His company, Fun Corp, runs ‘friend building’ parties for small to medium sized teams and companies to help create real social connections and friendships that directly affect culture. Because his business is mostly fun and games, Shawn has a unique perspective on the workforce because he takes employees OUT of their normal habitat. You might be surprised at what he sees as a result. There are two ‘dirty f-words’ at work, fun and friends, and this is where Shawn believes that work is broken. People are almost afraid to be social at work the way they are in life, so they end up with a sharp divide, which Shawn explains as ‘Facebook is for friends, LinkedIn is for co-workers.’ Now Shawn claims that it’s science that it’s good to have fun at work, and he reveals why. You’ll often find that friendships at work can cause trouble, especially when it’s between a manager and an employee. But it’s really not that different than having falling-outs with your friends in life. Sh

Elisa Camahort Page co-founded BlogHer, later became the CCO at SheKnows Media after they acquired BlogHer, and is now a writer and consultant. Entrepreneur, speaker, conference leader, and blogger, Elisa has the type of bird’s-eye view of work the rest of us can only dream of. Laurie and Elisa talk about the disconnected workforce, the gig economy, and the rise of those brave souls who are daring to be their whole selves at work. Elisa has a unique view of why work is broken. Have you ever noticed that the higher up someone gets in the management chain, the more disconnected they become from what they did before? That disconnect turns into a fundamental lack of empathy. But here’s the kicker – that lack of empathy goes in BOTH directions. Elisa has been at the top of the management chain, and she approached the problem of empathy directly. If you’re an aspiring entrepreneur who is looking for a partner or co-founder, you know it isn’t easy. Elisa has some very practical advice for finding the right person:

Robert Sutton is a Professor of Management Science and Engineering and a Professor of Organizational Behavior (by courtesy) at Stanford University. He co-founded the Stanford Technology Ventures Program (STVP) and the Hasso Plattner Institute of Design (which everyone calls “the d.school”). He’s also a Ph. D., but he doesn’t like to be called Doctor, or even Robert. His latest book is called The Asshole Survival Guide: How to Deal With People Who Treat You Like Dirt, and that’s what he and Laurie talk about on today’s episode. Bob and Laurie both think the management landscape is broken, and according to Bob, managers tend to make two major mistakes. First, they overestimate their own value. In practice, this means that the more they micromanage employees, the more highly they'll rate their employees’ performance, whether they actually perform better or not. Second, managers don't know when to back off. It’s true: when an authority figure is in the room, it has a stifling effect – and Bob reveals why leaving

Sam Weston is attempting the impossible: trying to educate our lawmakers about technology and its effect on the workforce. Okay, maybe it’s not impossible, but so far, it’s been an uphill battle as automation and artificial intelligence have continued to take jobs from people who need them. There’s no support for those people, and Sam’s mission is not just to raise awareness; he aims to help those lawmakers by giving them context with awareness, and a plan to make things better. Sam was born in New Zealand and began his career in politics there, but it wasn’t long before he came to the US to become a political consultant. From there, he stepped into PR and then into an Internet agency where he participated in the early days of the Internet and saw its impact on business. The Internet has been great for business. We all know this. But there’s a hidden truth that no one wants to talk about. Businesses have been growing but it’s at the expense of employees, and the Internet explosion threw fuel on the fire. Con

Laurie gets emails all the time with the same question: ‘Should I quit my job?’ She admits right off she might not be the best person to ask; she’s not exactly driven to work. Despite that, she’s been in the HR world for the past 25 years and she’s seen it all. Laurie begins with the first answer she generally gives: Yes. Quit your job. Here’s why. Let’s get one thing straight. You don’t write in asking if you should quit your job for no reason. You’re asking because you WANT to quit your job and you want permission to do it. But in today’s society, we’re expected to ask for advice, to get consensus and validation. Consider this your green light. Stop asking and just go for it. There’s another group of people who actually love what they do but they’re embroiled in wage gaps, #MeToo issues, terrible bosses, and bad work environments in general. It doesn’t seem fair that they have to quit their jobs, but Laurie has some tough love that you need to hear. Maybe your job is craptastic and the only reason you’re i

Has your company tried to implement leadership training that ended up doing absolutely nothing for the leaders or the employees? If so, you’re not alone, and it’s because they’re missing a key component in what makes a great leader: accountability. Today’s guest, Vince Molinaro is an expert on the subject. In fact, he wrote the book on it, The Leadership Contract. He and Laurie talk about the 5 behaviors of accountable leaders and ways to fix a disengaged, broken workforce. Vince Molinaro is a thought leader and consultant, and author of the fantastic book, The Leadership Contract. We all have our stories about work and the leadership we experienced, some good and some bad. But some of them are just lukewarm. Dead and dull, the daily grind, even in sectors where the work itself is life-changing. Vince shares the story of his time at a company like that, and the heartbreaking reason why the turnaround his mentor and leader spearheaded ended up failing and the toxicity that was behind a curtain. This experienc

Chances are you’ve already seen the Gender Equity Iceberg, and today, Laurie talks with Adrienne Murphy, Ph.D., of Dimitry|Murphy & Associates. Adrienne is a wicked smart psychologist, business leader, and consultant who works with professional women to align their jobs with their values. But what’s more is that Adrienne helps these women find their voice, develop their careers, and break through glass ceilings. Even so, her common-sense approach to careers and life can help men, too. Adrienne doesn’t just believe that work is broken. She has proof. She held a focus group filled with professional women who have opted out of the workforce and instead, spent their time doing ‘meaning-making’ work. These are the types of women, along with first-time professionals, are the focus of Adrienne’s work. When Adrienne works with these women, she has two primary things to teach. First, your career is an asset, just like your portfolio. Second, if you want to be something more than a director, you need to know yours

Katrina has a unique way of fixing work. She’s blazed a trail into nearly uncharted territory with an audacious goal: to take high volume, low retention jobs and make them not suck. She’s not afraid of a challenge; one of her clients hires people for split-shifts to work with small children. We love kids, don’t get us wrong. But it’s not always easy to work with a group of someone else’s kids. So, Katrina wants to help people find the right job, not just any job. It’s not all on the employee to find the right job, which is why Katrina focuses on teaching the employers what that phrase means. Katrina rounds out her list of places that suffer from high turnover rates. Have you ever held one of these jobs? And if you’re the one hiring for these positions, well. You’ll want to take notes. How does Katrina help these employers? She explains some of the first things she does when she comes in to consult with a company. First among them is taking a psychological profile of the top, most successful, employees in the

So far no one has challenged Laurie on her premise that work is broken. Until today. Eric Barker is the author of the bestselling book, Barking Up The Wrong Tree, and he believes that issues with managing people and organizing them to accomplish things is a perennial challenge. In fact, he doesn’t believe work is broken because it was never fixed in the first place. Dive in with Laurie and Eric in this stimulating conversation about the state of work. Eric explains why he doesn’t think work is broken, and it’s because he believes it was never fixed in the first place. From technology changes to cultural changes, work is a perennial problem, and you might be inclined to agree with him on this point. Aside from loving the title of his book, it was also Laurie's favorite non-fiction book of 2017. She asks him a pointed question about success. There are many misconceptions, so you might want to check your own beliefs about what success at works really means. Is it the quality of work? Is it the quantity? Does su

What is the future of work? Katie Augsburger is the Founder and Partner of Future Work Design, an organization that wants to smash the patriarchy and decenter whiteness. Okay – before anyone starts bristling about being pushed out, that’s not her intent. Katie has some amazing ideas of how helping those with least access can benefit all employees. Katie has two answers to the question, ‘How do you fix work?’ The first one is pretty cheeky and involves smashing things, but the second one takes a deeper look at the design of work. But first, she shares a story of walking into a women’s bathroom and finding a row of urinals. We’re told as women to lean into the systems, but they aren’t built for us. Part of what Katie does is to break systems. She talks about how she doesn’t try to get rid of white men; she’s trying to make room for women. If you haven’t heard of the ‘curbside’ effect, then you need to listen to the analogy. Using her theory of the curbside effect, she comes into companies with a radically diff

Ben Brooks was THE guy in HR. He had it all, but then he left it all to became an entrepreneur. Today Ben and Laurie talk about how coaching, whether it’s with a coach or on your own, can help you fix yourself AND your work. Not sure what life coaching is or why it matters? They’ll answer these questions and more in today’s episode. Ben talks about this ‘arranged marriage’ to corporate America, and how it really didn’t fit with his ideas of innovation and making things better. In fact, one of his peers told him point blank: he had outgrown a 50,000-person company. Ben shares what a gift that message was. Ben took a little time before beginning his journey into entrepreneurship, and what finally changed his mind about it was a name tag. Would he choose unemployed, entrepreneur, or employee? After a week among entrepreneurs, Ben realized he’d found his tribe. Ben did what a lot of new entrepreneurs do: he started without a real business plan. He reveals what he learned about business plans, what his first litt

Have you ever effed something up so badly you’re not sure if anything will get better ever again? Laurie has. In this candid, bonus episode, she shares her biggest failure – a product called GlitchPlan that was supposed to help you do pre-mortem on a situation. What’s that? Laurie explains the concept and talks about how she’d been doing it herself for a lifetime. It was a sure thing, or so she thought. Laurie explains what the concept of pre-mortem is and shares some very painful moments in her past where she was forced to use it to make life-changing decisions. It’s one of her core mantras: if you can see it, you can beat it. Laurie and her partner pulled together a team of 5, all of whom were experts, but all of whom were also employed elsewhere. Except Laurie. That was the first indicator of failure. Laurie talks about what her life was like being a CEO of a company whose employees weren’t engaged. But the employees weren’t the only ones to blame. Laurie talks about how she failed them. One of the next i

Maybe you despise work. Maybe you’re apathetic about it. Or maybe work would be bearable if it weren’t for that one co-worker who always… You get the picture. Most people aren’t passionate about their cubicles. We’ve had some interesting guests over the past few weeks, and today, Laurie shares her takeaways from those conversations and some of her own theories on how to fix work, starting with one very important thing: to fix work, you need to fix yourself. Stop living in your head and comparing yourself to others. You ARE going to face things like institutionalized racism, sexism, ageism and more, and that’s terrible. But you can’t let that force you into your own mental prison. If you’re going to fix yourself, you need to live in the present and live mindfully. You need to be an active participant in your own life. Scott Stratton, the author of UnMarketing, was Laurie’s first guest, and he was fearless in burning down his corporate career. The lesson to take from him is that when your job is killing your s

Wanna know why work sucks? Ask Àine Cain. She’s a careers and employment reporter for Business Insider, and her experience covering multiple workplaces gives her a unique insight into what makes a great – or terrible – place to work. From the #MeToo movement to the gig economy, and lotus-eaters to a robot invasion, Laurie and Àine talk about the current state of work and its future. Are there still great places to work? Yes, but don’t be lured by ‘perks’ companies. Àine explains what they are and why they create a culture of complacency and wasting away. According to a Gallup poll, nearly 70% of employees aren’t engaged at work, and naturally, these employees blame their managers. There’s an argument there to be made, but Àine points at two of the major themes she sees frequently, and it’s not managers. What makes a place great to work at? Àine has a lovely acronym to explain what companies are doing right. CCE – co-workers, compensation, engagement. She explains what each of them means. The #MeToo movement

Most recruiters are lazy. Things are broken, great talent is slipping through companies’ fingers, and no one is doing anything about it. Is it because they don’t want to, or because they don’t know how to? Today Laurie talks to ‘America’s Best Recruiter,’ Tim Sackett. Tim answers the most common questions he gets from talent recruitment managers including how he would fix recruitment for them. Laurie asks a very pointed question: can recruitment be fixed or does it need to be changed from the ground up? According to Tim, there’s no single answer. Maybe it’s just a tech or metrics measurement problem. Perhaps it’s the company’s brand or even their performance management. Tim dispels some major myths about why recruitment and retention are broken and it’s NOT candidate experience. That’s a made-up concept. So is employee experience. If you disagree, you need to hear Tim’s example from the movie Jerry McGuire. Are you the kind of boss you need to be? If so, the candidate and employee experience fall into line n

With all the wisdom out there about creating a great culture at work, you might think companies would have it well in hand by now. Unless you actually work in one of those companies. Creating a great culture at work isn’t as easy as it sounds. Sometimes it’s up to you to be the change you want to see. This week's guest Amanda Hite explains how to be the change at work. One of the best things companies can do is to treat their employees like humans who have lives, families, responsibilities, and interests. At the same time, knowing this can also open people up to other difficulties. Amanda shares the story of being offered a promotion as long as she promised NOT to talk about her LGBT lifestyle. When you look at different companies across the globe in terms of culture problems, you see themes emerge. Amanda shares some of these themes, the most prevalent being the generational gaps and how quickly the world is changing. The old regimes are threatened by the highly intelligent younger generation stepping in. L