The Human Debt of Tech at Work
Humans aren’t just resources…
But we’ve been treating them like they are. We sat down with Duena Blomstrom, author and Human Debt expert, to unpack what happens when companies prioritize speed, systems, and output over emotional wellbeing—and how to fix it. If your workplace is running on burnout, blurred boundaries, and broken trust, this conversation is the reset you didn’t know you needed.
Your Work Friends Podcast: Human Debt with Duena Blomstrom
Humans aren’t just resources…
But we’ve been treating them like they are. We sat down with Duena Blomstrom, author and Human Debt expert, to unpack what happens when companies prioritize speed, systems, and output over emotional wellbeing—and how to fix it. If your workplace is running on burnout, blurred boundaries, and broken trust, this conversation is the reset you didn’t know you needed.
Speaker 1: 0:00
I'm wondering if you can explain it to our listeners like a five-year-old. What is human debt?
Speaker 2: 0:07
To five-year-olds it would be difficult because they would have to assume that the enterprise is an honest place where good things should have happened. So I can't do that, but I can explain it to a 35-year-old.
Speaker 1: 0:19
Let's do it, let's do it, let's do it. What's going on, mel, hey, hey, how's it going?
Speaker 3: 0:39
It's good. It's good. I cannot believe we are almost a month away from fall.
Speaker 1: 0:45
I know we are 40 days left of summer, though Plenty of time. Did you get your beach day in? Not a day.
Speaker 3: 0:53
I did get two hours, but Robbie and I are planning a trip to Block Island, which, for those of you who don't know, is off the coast of Rhode Island. It's gorgeous, and that will be our beach day, hopefully at the end of this month. How about you? Very nice, very nice.
Speaker 1: 1:09
We are taking a trip up to Mount Rainier, which, yeah, I don't know if anyone else does this. We've lived in Portland for about four years now and I looked at a map the other day and was like wow, mount St Helens is like an hour and a half away, never been. Was like wow, mount.
Speaker 1: 1:24
St Helens is like an hour and a half away. Never been right. Mount Rainier, super close like these, beautiful, you know experiences and we're just like we want to go to JCrew this weekend. So like, yeah, we are. So we rented like a cool cabin. The Airbnb market around Mountain Towns is just stunning. I mean funny. Also, you can you can rent someone's trailer, you can rent a yurt, you can rent, you know, a cabin that looks like it's totally set up to be instagrammable, that kind of stuff I've always wanted to stay in a yurt.
Speaker 3: 1:54
I don't know what it is, I'm like same such a fun tent I'm not a camping person.
Speaker 1: 2:00
I love to hike and be outdoors and I want to be in a room with a whack, yeah a yurt is the nice middle ground.
Speaker 3: 2:06
It's like a nice middle ground between a tent and a house.
Speaker 1: 2:10
Yeah, yeah. Do you think you could just buy a yurt on Amazon? You could buy anything on Amazon.
Speaker 3: 2:15
I know, like Timu, I've not ordered anything from Timu, have you?
Speaker 1: 2:19
No, but I really want to just to see what comes. I do too.
Speaker 3: 2:23
You know what it makes me wonder. I have the funniest story when my niece was going through this donut obsession for like ever, as you do, as you do, and I saw this donut chair on Amazon and I thought it was like a person-sized donut chair and then she got it for her birthday and it was a chair for her cell phone. So I imagine this shopping experience at Timo is kind of like me not paying attention to the dimensions of her donut chair.
Speaker 1: 2:51
That's why I want it. That's why I want it. Like, did you just spend $150 on a thing for yourself?
Speaker 3: 2:55
Yeah, it was like the dumbest thing ever, yeah, oh that's funny, god, I love shit like that. Yeah, I'm a big fan.
Speaker 1: 3:02
Mystery packages, mystery packages. Aren't you a big fan of, like the mystery bags, like $5, what's in the bag. It could be anything Like such a sucker for that Huge.
Speaker 3: 3:12
Where do people get those? You know like those mail bins, like unclaimed mail, and then they just buy an entire pallet.
Speaker 1: 3:25
I want to in on a palette with you Nordstrom returns, amazon returns. What do you get? What are you going to get? Yeah, oh, we got to do this. Yeah, when we make our first million, we'll get a palette.
Speaker 3: 3:31
We'll do a live unboxing.
Speaker 1: 3:35
It's irregular jeans. We have 45 packs of irregular jeans. These are our dreams $501 sunglasses. Yes, oh God, I love every minute of it. Well, no, we talked to someone super duper cool this summer.
Speaker 3: 3:53
Oh, yes, duena, I love her. Yeah, yeah, tell us about Duena doing things that don't take care of their people and their employees. And her whole discussion was on how to recognize if you have human debt. Every organization, just like tech debt, has human debt, and she was addressing ways that you can recognize it and ways that you can address it. It's a really interesting concept that we need to start talking about more. And she's done a million other things. She has a podcast called Mero Spicy at Work Tech, not People is a book that she's written. She's a keynote speaker. She's just an overall powerhouse.
Speaker 1: 4:52
Talk about a renaissance woman that's out there just doing good.
Speaker 3: 4:55
Yeah.
Speaker 1: 4:56
And has done good too. Right, human debt is one of those things where, if you don't know the term, when you have her explain what it is, what happened to me is like oh, I have felt this, I know exactly what this is, when you feel like the reciprocity and the relationship with your organization is off balance massively. I loved talking about what it looks like and feels like with her, but also, and probably most importantly, what can we do about it as organizations and, most importantly, as individuals? Because it starts with us one-on-one.
Speaker 3: 5:30
One-on-one we're humans at the end of the day, we're humans. I'm only human. Sorry for the woo-woo everyone. That's who we are. I love everything about this. She's just fantastic. So we hope that you get a lot out of this episode, folks, and let us know what you think. Here's to one-off Welcome friends.
Speaker 3: 6:14
We are super excited to welcome Dwayna Blomstrom. She is the author of Emotional Banking, people Before Tech, the Importance of Psychological Safety and Teamwork in the Digital Age and an upcoming book called Tech-Led Culture. She is also an international keynote speaker, the co-founder of Tech-Led Culture People, not Tech companies that are really offering a human work platform, providing a framework to usher in a new tech-led culture of humanity in the workplace. She is one of the top voices on LinkedIn. She has an amazing newsletter that I follow the Future of Agile, as well as Chasing Psychological Safety. She's also a podcaster, like us. She's the co-host of NeuroSpicy at Work, which I'm excited to listen to.
Speaker 3: 6:58
The Secret Society of Human Work Advocates the People in Tech podcast, tech-led Culture and, married to Tech Duenna, that's a lot. So we just want to say wow, you've accomplished quite a great deal in influencing the working world in general in a very positive way. I love that you're calling out how we need to prioritize humanity in the workplace. Tell us, how did you get started in this space? What really inspired you to get started in this space?
Speaker 2: 7:29
Oh, only that. Let's see, that's an easy one to start with. We should have started with the harder ones. I don't think I've had any kind of inspiration. I didn't want to get started in this space at all. I don't know really many people that woke up going. I shall be in this space. So I think, like all of us, I just happened into it. I happened to see what looked to me like vast injustices and I had to do something about them.
Speaker 2: 7:56
I don't think I ever chose anything and I don't know if I might ask you what is this path we're talking about? What exactly have I chosen? Because if you ask me, none of the things have really been the ones that I've necessarily went after, but the things that have happened to me. I hear this a lot from other people that are AUADHD and have worked in the business world. I feel like careers have never been designed. We just fell where we fell and then we put all of our passion into something, learned all of the things, possibly got bored with that particular topic and moved on to the next.
Speaker 2: 8:32
Industry Happened to me a couple of times. I would say I started in psychology, obviously, but then I very quickly moved into business and did kind of technology and got excited when the internet boomed, when the financial technology side of things boomed, and learned everything there was to learn about it. But then the more I I put my head into it, the more I realized these are bigger human issues and I had to get my head out of the small holes. I was so pleased tinkering in, like every other autistic person that I have employed in my life not everybody else and yeah, I didn't choose anything. It's become a vocation, more than a day-to-day nine-to-five.
Speaker 3: 9:15
Yeah, that makes sense. I can totally relate. Francesca and I often talk about how we fell into our roles and then you just become the expert while you're doing it and quickly get bored and move on to the next. What's the next thing? So that makes total sense to me.
Speaker 2: 9:30
No one I don't believe wakes up at five and goes. I desperately want to be the uh back-end developer of apis. It's not a life-saving. It's very hard to attach the meaning to it, but we find other things at work that do that and I don't think there's anyone in the workplace that's not hundred thousand percent burning for something.
Speaker 1: 9:54
It's an interesting. People feel that. They feel that either that line between I'm not passionate about my work, but I'm doing this for the money and I'm doing this to bring home a paycheck, or they're burning out or they're feeling all of the impacts of the way that organizations are set up. And one of the concepts you talk about is human debt, and I love that. I'm wondering if you can explain it to our listeners like a five-year-old. What is human debt?
Speaker 2: 10:24
like a five-year-old. What is human debt To five-year-olds? It would be difficult because they would have to assume that the enterprise is an honest place where good things should have happened. So I can't do that, but I can explain it to a 35-year-old.
Speaker 2: 10:37
Let's do it, let's do it and there's probably different explanations to a 25-year-old, a 35-year-old, a 55-year-old and so on, but for everyone we should have done right. As employers, we should have done a set of things. As organizations, we should have come to the table in a certain fashion when we offer whatever it is that we offer in this contract of work, and those things haven't happened. So I'll expand in a second. It's every time that the organization hasn't done the things that they should have done and by those taking care of their employees in monetary and emotional fashion. So, for instance, all the things that most organizations will tell you they have but they don't really have. All of your failed dni programs. All of your stages of leadership with no explanation. All of the times when they should have been respectful to the conversation and the communication and never happened. All of the times when we promised our people a promotion and then we forgot, as if it never really was going to materialize anyways. All of the times when we presided over unpleasant and bullish behaviors, because think of a wrong in the workplace and think how it has never been addressed and think that will become your debt as an organization, because the more of these instances that you have as an organization where you have failed your people. Most of these are not going to be recorded anywhere, but they will exist in something like the, and I never thought about it until right now, but it's almost the antithesis of culture. It's an anti-culture vessel in the back of everyone's mind going. These motherfuckers have effed other people up. It may not have been me, but it has happened here. You know.
Speaker 2: 12:35
What happens is you then sit on an organization that has a debt and you can decide to pay it off and start treating your people better, figure out what they hate you for and when, and then make them love you again, or you can decide to ignore it, which is the case for a vast majority of most enterprises today. You can pretend it's not a problem. You can better your retention programs instead or put more money in position. I don't know what else we're doing than that, if I'm honest. So if you as an organization decide to not pay off this human debt, what happens eventually is that you become unviable. I believe that they will not be around. I'm not saying we should never get debt, right? If I'm talking to particularly your listeners must be Americans. You're fine with that. Question is when do we start paying this off?
Speaker 1: 13:23
Yeah, it was super fair. When I was growing up, my parents always talked about this idea of reciprocity and relationships. Right, Even on a one-to-one level. You are going to have moments where you're going to withdraw from the emotional bank account and you're going to have moments where you're going to have to deposit in the emotional bank account, and sometimes it's going to be uneven, but ideally, in the long arc, you have a balanced bank account. And this is one of these concepts where I feel like this happens on an individual level To your very good point. It happens on an organizational level and you feel it. You feel it, that's right.
Speaker 2: 13:57
Yeah, everyone knows it Exactly that I'm saying and what you said, that when you said you feel it. We know what we're all about, everyone knows. And it's that email we didn't answer. It's that person. We told them to have themselves in a corner because they weren't their fault, it was the bloody system or whatever. It's that time when we didn't keep a promise. It's that time when we didn't help a friend or we let them fall on a sword, becoming debts that you carry. As a human, workplace should care about those bits, because I'm not a different human, but outside of that, we're not entities that exist. Why would the workplace as well that claims it has regulated method in which it will not, if you over, do that to you is my question. So I'm on a work path with human debt in general, but the one at work is just shameful if you ask me I am curious about, on an organizational level, what are they supposed to do?
Speaker 2: 14:56
Fair question. It's massive. What is anyone supposed to do?
Speaker 1: 14:59
I don't know. Yeah, be cooler, be a nicer person. I don't know. Don't be a dick.
Speaker 2: 15:04
I'm a dick. That is the answer. But regulating against dickery is not the answer. Making people genuinely not biddicks is probably the answer. And if they genuinely wanted to do something, then there would be no employee that wasn't through a level of Communist Party from 1955, re-education camps of what the bloody hell an emotion is, because that's the level we need to get our leadership through before we will be able to engage with this very new generation that speaks emotions like that.
Speaker 2: 15:37
And if you are in a leadership position or you are engaged in teamwork and you haven't had it that to me doesn't recommend you to exist in the workplace at all, because what they're using, and what we're all using, is this lack of education to say I don't quite know, we don't quite engage like that at work. So, in between the armor of professionalism and this insanity of I don't know much about emotions I'm not a psychologist how am I supposed to engage any better? What happens is we cannot communicate and we cannot collaborate at work and we sure as fuck cannot lead anybody. That's the problem we have. If you're losing money anywhere the workplace you're losing on the fuckers you're keeping who are lying. You don't have emotions. If we're going to keep them. We can't just flush these people out.
Speaker 2: 16:22
I remember starting in the business world and everyone telling me to not worry in banking. We don't need to change all the systems In time, we'll just replace them with the people and everything. Come on, these guys only have one more board meeting. The amount of times I heard that you'd be surprised. That's not the way to be doing life. I am not supposed to wait anyone out to die because it's uncomfortable for me to speak about real things.
Speaker 1: 16:46
We hear it all the time, though All the time. He's not going anywhere. Blah, blah, blah, Like it happens all the time.
Speaker 2: 16:53
But people are using it as excuses.
Speaker 3: 16:56
Yeah, they absolutely are.
Speaker 1: 16:57
What's fascinating about this, though, is that, when you look at all of the research about great leadership, great team dynamics, innovation, engagement, it harkens on those things that people are emotionally intelligent, that they do make space for things like psychological safety, like that they understand their own limitations, and all of those things make for great performance, but it also means that you need to get your own shit together. Do you understand how you operate? Do you understand where your pitfalls are? Do you understand how you need to flex for your team? And vice versa? I think our leaders in organizations that grew up with my joke is, they grew up with this like Shackleton view of leadership, which is I'm strong, I have no emotions, I'm going to just push my way through, as opposed to really thinking about what works to lead people through what we're going through, what we're about to go through.
Speaker 2: 17:52
And.
Speaker 1: 17:52
I know Mel's probably so sick of hearing me say this, but there is not a person on the planet that has led through what we're going through and what we're about to go through. When you think about the speed of business, when you think about AI the amount of wars happening cultural and on the ground. When you think about AI, the amount of wars happening cultural and on the ground it's too much for a lot of people and to deny your humanity in that versus to lean into it, is not the right move.
Speaker 2: 18:15
But we have done it in the workplace for the last X amount of years. We need such a blank slate reset. You asked me earlier what needs to happen. What needs to happen is everyone needs to shut down, come back with a new plan. That's what needs to happen.
Speaker 3: 18:29
In addition to blowing up the workplace, people need to blow up the concept of what work means in their life. Right, there's a reset that needs to happen on a personal level as well as the organizational level.
Speaker 2: 18:43
You hit the nail on the head Disconnect between what work can and is and should be. It's not even a genuine, open conversation. Big concepts are up in the air. Who am I? What is work? What is the point of me as a human? What if your worth as a human is never about how much money you make?
Speaker 2: 19:01
What if we start remunerating people on being emotionally intelligent or remunerating people on being kind intelligent or remunerating people on being kind or taking up someone else's work for a second instead, because we haven't taught them the right things, in particular men, the same men that we are upset at.
Speaker 2: 19:17
How very dare they be a shithead and whatever shit. We put them there and we said all you need to do is tell me what to do and then I will execute on it. And no, that isn't, isn't the ask? The ask is that you check yourself, that you sit with being uncomfortable, that you understand your emotions, that you communicate efficiently, that you care about me. Those are the asks. With that said, there are companies out there, there are enterprises out there, there are combinations of people out there and groups that have gathered in a way that allow them to see each other, that allow them to get psychological safety to be real teams to go real fast, and those are the people that will get us out of the workplace if we don't want to also match them, not AI or anybody else. So literally, being a human is the only USB we're going to be asked to bring.
Speaker 3: 20:07
Yeah, we don't have anything if we don't have our humanity. We just talked about AI, and one thing we do know is that maintaining our humanity and bringing our full human selves is going to be more important than anything. So you talk a lot about tech debt. What is tech debt?
Speaker 2: 20:34
That's easier when you write code, when you're heart of heart as a programmer. That you could have potentially written it a little bit better is the only way to put it. You could have tested it more or you could have double checked something. But what has been prized in the software development world has always been speed of delivery. So the first answer you get off of Google is the one you get in. I'm joking, it's not quite that easy, but it takes a little bit more than that to be a programmer, but not a whole lot more, let me tell you.
Speaker 2: 21:01
That said, it's a natural thing to incur technical debt as you write, because if you write code fast, some of it won't work, some of it will get old, some of it will need a rewrite. What happens when you have a lot of this code that's not brilliant accumulating, is that you have to do a full rewrite of your code base, and anyone in technology knows that's the kiss of death for any CTO or any team attempting to exist. So you don't want to get to a place where you have to throw away everything you've written. When it comes to tech debt, it comes to bite you and your system stops working if you don't start fixing it. So the same way that they're supposed to be going back and fixing bits and pieces of that tech debt where it will make sense, so that the entire thing doesn't crash, that is how I'm saying we should be doing it in terms of human debt in the enterprise and let's start in the emotional intelligence, because it is an emergency. I I was desperately afraid of this in the ending of all my books. If we are to take a leaflet from the tech industry, we'll have to change culture everywhere else, because in the tech industry, by hook or by crook, we've invented this crap called agile, and this crap called agile means many things to many people, but what it essentially means is that you have some autonomy and you have some goodwill. That's what it means, and when you have those two things, you do things with other people. That's literally all that it means.
Speaker 2: 22:20
And because you cannot make technology as an individual contributor anymore, they have had to produce the thing. Let me tell you where else it didn't wasn't needed. Everywhere else, because the workplace is still made of a hundred billion individual contributors. So in the technology side, if you don't collaborate, you don't end up with any code. If you don't do the pair programming. You don't have the thing that's being paired properly On the other side. If your workplace is horrible and your workmate is an asshole, you still do it. You still show up to not take any blame for anything and to be the hero and to deliver the project. We have workplaces that are carried by millions of desperate, adulting individual contributors. The workplace doesn't exist. The workplace and the business place is a lie. We don't have that. We just have some conventions that we are happy to avail ourselves of for different reasons. So those are the ones we need to get to, because they are not something to be proud of to leave the next generation.
Speaker 2: 23:24
You feel it in the ether, what we hear from folks who are still in corporate, consistently it's just like I know that the people that are blessed and still in and for a long while it was they're going to be out, weren't they? But now I'm telling you that the out is out. These people are the outliners now, the people that are convinced that what existed come back. The same exact structure, the same exact. The same exact structure, the same exact conversation, the same exact fears of being authentic. No one's going to notice I don't quite understand anything. No one's going to notice I'm not quite engaging humanly properly. That's not happening anymore and I am genuinely worried for anyone who thinks we're wrong and we'll all calm down.
Speaker 3: 24:03
It won't. It feels like it's just going to amp up. I'd love to hear, especially with all this talk of AI. I'm wondering what your point of view is on how employers and employees, during this change, can get ahead of the human debt side of things. What can they do? Because we know the tech change is here and increasing. How can they get ahead of that human debt when it does start?
Speaker 2: 24:26
happening. I want to believe that, as society, we'll be at the place that we can go. Not everybody needs to show up to work, and not everyone needs to have a nine to five job. Everyone else can go read or make paintings. There is no need for jobs to be created. We don't need to fear AI. If AI shows up and AI takes all our jobs, that's brilliant. Then we all can lazy about. That's not going to, unfortunately, happen in our lifetime. It would be nice, it would be great, but not going to happen. So what will happen is, though no one will be employable if you don't bring yourself to work every day.
Speaker 2: 25:05
I remember when I was in college, I wrote a thesis on always being on, and I was like, so proud of myself. All you need to do is always being on, and I was like, so proud of myself. All you need to do is always be on, and then you'll be so focused and so in flow. Everything will be fine, literally. I remember my professor going God, this is not. This is not going to work. You're going to have to go back to the drawing board because you're describing ADHD. Can you go back home and calm down? But so I'm not saying that everyone's going to like me, right, not everyone can be on, but you're like don't mask a hundred percent, you can't mask forever exactly that.
Speaker 2: 25:40
Yeah, so when we say mask, we mean in the workplace in particular. When we say it in in a private fashion, we just mean that those of us that are not neurotypical spend our entire lives attempting to be like the neurotypicals. Possibly, if you ask me, we should just ask for the neurotypicals to try more to be like us. But that's just me. But we do that. We attempt to pretend we are neurotypical.
Speaker 2: 26:05
But that happens at work as well, when people mask their true emotion and they employ a process called impression management, which is essentially attempting to appear in a certain fashion in front of your peers. But when you do that, you are not authentic, you are not genuinely giving your opinion. You are are attempting to control the narrative in a fashion that will not help a team function, so it's not a desirable behavior. When you're attempting to create a team dynamic, it's really not a desirable behavior in any fashion other than when people want to wear pink. It's the only impression management I'm fine with is for pretty. Anything else is not for pretty and it's for hiding. Should not exist either in personal or workplaces, simply because it makes our lives harder and it makes other people suffer.
Speaker 3: 26:58
Yeah, absolutely. I couldn't agree more. I'm so happy to hear the discussions had started around bringing your authentic self to work and workplaces trying to really create spaces where that's okay. No one's getting it 100%, but the fact that some workplaces are even trying to do that and foster that is so incredibly important.
Speaker 2: 27:22
So it's good to see, I say this a lot the organizations that do have psychological safety are not the organizations that are chasing it. They're the organizations that have built it to begin with and then have guarded it. Guarding it is an everyday work. Let's be honest. The work that is needed of humans at work is the same work that's needed of us every day, with our spouses, with our children, with our parents, with our friends. The same work. Be honest, be kind, be always putting yourself into somebody else's shoes. Same way. Does anyone want to do it, even at home? No, we're equals to our own family. Why would we extend that kind of kindness to strangers at work? So, the more that the world implodes, the more that we are afraid we're dying, the more that we are in defense mode, the less psychological, the less a team, the less a workplace the less there's any point to this conversation.
Speaker 1: 28:19
I think about this a lot. I've been on a journey the last several months around how do I want to reimagine my life and how I live my life? One of the North Stars is am I doing this out of love and to be a better version of myself for other people, for myself? Or am I doing this out of ego? And this idea of this constant pull of? Is this out of love or is this out of ego? And sometimes you want to do things out of ego. I get that. But for the most part I'm trying really hard to have a very simple vision of do it out of love, even if it doesn't make sense, even if it's not good for my career. It's out of love Because at this point I don't know what else to do, and as I'm listening to you when I'm feeling like, is that kind of the mantra that we all need to be? Not that I, that's all.
Speaker 2: 29:00
That's all. That's all and it's. They should have started with what you started and they should end with what you're ending now, which is what when you started, you explained you there's reciprocity in there's a rupture and repair and there's a reciprocity, and when you fuck people up, you then have to come back up and put more in that. That's how you do repair. You put more that coin from bloody dr phil's jar, if no one knows any other reference, you would remember dr phil's love jar, if nothing else. Or some people might remember vick's from the Orange County Housewives they all had the love jar like that. Have a fucking love jar and stop taking shit out of it instead of putting crap into it, because you'll fuck up your life and your work life.
Speaker 2: 29:42
I think it's the easiest advice, but we all know that it reduces all the way to don't be a dick, the method to not be a dick, I think, and to minimize those instances when you go for the ego instead of the love. I don't know if it's any good, but it's an intense daily pressure. I will tell you that these days I just have to go. What do I think is the right thing to do? What do I genuinely believe is the right thing to do and, like you say, you won't always do it. Sometimes you'll be like, fuck, the right thing to do. I've been doing the right thing continuously. My significant statement is the right thing to do.
Speaker 3: 30:17
Okay, go fuck it up, but some days and most days you would have tried, and it's a handful of questions, some are yet. They can be yes or no, but the hope is it's your. Whatever your immediate reaction is to this question or your immediate answer, I will tell you that you're giving palpitations to people who are AUADHD.
Speaker 2: 30:55
No, I'm joking, I'll be fine.
Speaker 3: 30:56
I'm sorry, I'm joking, I'll be 100% fine, I'm curious now Go ahead In terms of human debt, because you've seen examples of who's really fucking it up and who's doing it really well. Who do you feel is getting this right?
Speaker 2: 31:15
It's getting it right. Google started by doing it right. That's why they came up with the idea. They sort of found it at the same time that Amy has repopularized it. It's not something that Amy Edmondson has come up with, it's not something that Google has come up with, but psychological safety will forever be intrinsically connected to Google. That doesn't make Google a psychologically safe company today, necessarily. They have pockets of amazingness and pockets of absolute shit, like everyone else, but, with that said, they are an absolute good company to look at.
Speaker 2: 31:44
The second example I have and it's surprising to most people is fucking Amazon, and it's Amazon corporate. It's Amazon corporate working practices. Let's put it that way. I look at what they're doing in terms of collaboration internally, where we make software, and it's insanely smart. It's probably the only place where you have good acknowledgement of the fact that work doesn't happen like we thought it does. A famous example is the fact that they use written memos that they all bloody read first before the conversation starts. So we all have the same bloody context Very, very basic.
Speaker 2: 32:22
And then, lastly, and most interestingly so, somewhere around March, jeff Bezos came out after eight billion years where we thought he died or something. He was busy being in love. Some of us used to be back in the day, and so he came back saying we are doing no structured meetings anymore. I'm sorry, what we know when we show up, we know what we show up for. And then I remind everyone that they have to do mind wandering, which, yes, I can just see all the wondering which, yes, I can just see all the um, various developers going oh my god, now what mind wandering. They want my feelings to wander somewhere as well.
Speaker 2: 33:01
So completely get it why. It's woohoo for some people, but it's a hundred percent the truth. You only come in to get an answer when you've had five minutes of mind wandering, and what most work meetings manage to do, which is insane, is attempt to fit a little bit of mind wandering in the. And what most work meetings manage to do, which is insane, is attempt to fit a little bit of mind-wandering in the middle of an insane work meeting. And because he doesn't have an exact end time, it allows people to actually be creative and try to apply themselves to a problem. These are execs at Amazon, so maybe we get people treated like execs at Amazon and then we let their minds wander. How about that?
Speaker 3: 33:34
Can companies afford to ignore this human debt?
Speaker 2: 33:39
Companies are non-existent. There is a real of a concept organizations and companies are just as serious as Santa Claus has been saying this for 10,000 years. They cannot afford it, but they don't care because they can't care or afford or do anything. They don't exist as a thing. I I keep saying this to the child anytime he gets up in arms about corporations there isn't this thing. This thing doesn't exist. The thing you're upset against does not exist. There's no five people that have sat down and decided this and are gonna do this.
Speaker 2: 34:10
Things happen in the business world in virtue of inertia and in virtue of the taxation episode. We're in a movie that's not being ran by a company. So no, they can't afford it, but they don't care that they can't afford it, and more and more companies are going to drop off and the ones that won't. At the end of the day, we all know which we started talking about. The bloat companies are practically an extended social service. These days. They know they've not audited which of their teams is doing anything after a certain size right? Big organizations know that they are half paying the state by keeping these people that are useless. It's an insane model. Hopefully we'll walk away from it one day. If we don't't, they will simply stop being viable. I think when they are up against companies that are doing whatever they can to do better yeah, this is more moving to a personal side of things.
Speaker 3: 35:06
What are you reading and or listening to right now that you're really excited about?
Speaker 2: 35:12
I I'm really excited about brushing up on my Spanish, which has been a lot better than I thought it was. I am surprised every day when one of my team doesn't know something and I'm like that means X and they're like, can you stop just flaunting your Spanish? So I do need to learn some proper grammar. So that's what I'm reading continuously. I'm trying to catch up on Spanish. Proper grammar. So that's what I'm reading continuously.
Speaker 2: 35:34
I'm trying to catch up on spanish and, if I'm also honest, I'm reading the most I can about the effect of being a leader and a neurodivergent leader in the workplace who has teenagers and children who are alphabet mafia.
Speaker 2: 35:51
It's a really important bit that I think we have completely neglected. We've just started a new podcast called tears of dopamine, and it's literally just us talking to other parents of trans and gay kids who have had to themselves go through major and horrendous things. I can't begin to tell you and I won't because I let them tell their story Most of them will have their voices covered because they have exact jobs that they are desperate to keep, but some of them have been willing to give us their courage and use their voice and their professional standards. So you'll hear professional standing. So you'll hear of a few names, but the rest of us, the rest of us that have these kids that we are just trying to keep alive and happy, and have never talked to each other about it, shame on us, and shame on us for not opening the conversation from here on. So we have to start working on it. Let us know if you need any.
Speaker 3: 36:49
I love that. It's so important to have that community just to start the conversation and to support one another through it. What are you most excited about for this next year?
Speaker 2: 37:15
about and I'm not taking that in any trivial fashion after having been acquiring some ptsd last year and after having seen my child go through horrible things, it's a big deal for us and we've worked really hard at re-establishing our mental stability, like I say, and our therapist would be very proud if we could just uh, be happy for a minute.
Speaker 3: 37:31
Yeah, yeah, it's important. We appreciate you and all the work you're doing Duana.
Speaker 2: 37:36
Thank you so much, you guys. It's been an amazing opportunity. You guys Both beautiful, beautiful humans and souls Really appreciate you. I don't know if you're a hugger, but I'm hugging you.
Speaker 1: 37:44
I'm so excited.
Speaker 2: 37:45
I can't wait to actually genuinely hug you guys, because I cannot wait to hug you.
Speaker 1: 37:50
Truly, I I cannot wait to play a game. I look forward to it. I will look forward to it. Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work friends.
Socioeconomic Status Impacts to Work
Class isn’t invisible…
It shows up in how we speak, how we network, how we navigate work—and who gets hired. In this episode, we sit down with Brayden Olson, co-founder of Almas Insight and author of Twilight of the Idols, to expose how socioeconomic status silently shapes career access, confidence, and opportunity. From college applications to job interviews, we unpack the unspoken class system baked into our workplaces—and what it will take to finally level the playing field.
Your Work Friends Podcast: Socioeconomic Impacts to Work with Brayden Olson
Class isn’t invisible…
It shows up in how we speak, how we network, how we navigate work—and who gets hired. In this episode, we sit down with Brayden Olson, co-founder of Almas Insight and author of Twilight of the Idols, to expose how socioeconomic status silently shapes career access, confidence, and opportunity. From college applications to job interviews, we unpack the unspoken class system baked into our workplaces—and what it will take to finally level the playing field.
Speaker 1: 0:00
the most significant determinant of someone's future is how much money they were born into, and it's not even close. So when you compare it to race and gender and sexual orientation and all of the other statistics that we have invested a lot of infrastructure in protecting for it doesn't even come close to the amount of advantage that people are experiencing based on wealth inequality.
Speaker 2: 0:40
Hey friends, we're excited because we have Brayden Olson with us. Brayden has had a long and successful career in the tech and human development space. In 2022, they became the co-founder of Amis Insight Inc. A company backed by Learn Capital that quickly and objectively measures human capability at scale. In 2019, they joined Deloitte as the Enduring Human Capability Center of Excellence lead, leading a team of passionate people about better understanding of human potential and how orgs can be even more effective by fostering that human potential. That's also where I had the pleasure of working with Brayden. Brayden also has a very deep background in game design. He was an NSF grant recipient for work in this field and has designed games to better understand human behavior. He worked with to pass legislation relevant to economic inequality the Washington Jobs Act in Washington State and he received a pen from the governor. So, brayden, welcome to the podcast. We're so happy to have you here. You've had quite the journey, so we'd love to just hear about your journey. Tell us more about how you got started in this space.
Speaker 1: 1:52
My pleasure to be here, so great to be with some fellow Deloitte alumni. The way I like to talk a little bit about my journey. It's always easy to talk about the end state or the successes or the accomplishments. I really like to get the message out there. The reason I'm here today has a lot to do with where I came from.
Speaker 1: 2:11
My educational journey was hard so I didn't have money for school. I had to get basically a government program that helps Washington students go to school, basically get their associate's degree through community colleges first before going on to a four-year degree. I had to overload all my classes. I ended up graduating with my four-year degree 18 months after I graduated from high school, working in the school cafeteria and I barely made it right. I was on two-thirds merit scholarship, public subsidy, the whole thing. We'll get into it, but it's part of why I care about this stuff so much.
Speaker 1: 2:47
I went through a period where every day was looking at my bank account and thinking did I get another overdraft fee? Can I afford to eat this meal? There was a time before getting financing for my first company where I was like I don't have money to eat, I can't go get a sandwich and I always want to make the point my parents did absolutely the best for me that they could. There is nothing that they didn't do for me that they could do, so I don't want that to get mixed at all. The fact that I went on to become an author and a researcher and an entrepreneur at all is something that I am grateful for every day, and that was a hair's breadth from never happening. So that's the way I like to tell my journey and why I care about this stuff.
Speaker 2: 3:35
Yeah, it's incredibly important and powerful right, because that's what's really powering you behind all of this initiative and it makes sense. It's tough. We've been there, francesca, and I talk about it often that early, early days of just the struggle bus when you're getting started and it being really difficult. And I have a very similar background to you, brayden, so for me your work is also really important. I just think giving people the opportunity that you had to really struggle to find is incredibly important. We're here today to talk about socioeconomic bias. You've written a book about it. You've built technology to help eliminate it. What is socioeconomic bias? Explain it to someone like they're five. What is it at the most basic definition level?
Speaker 1: 4:19
Yeah, I'll say it personally and then I'll say it more technically. When I went through that process I just described and I said I was so close to none of these things ever happening, I went back and I did the numbers and if I had been two years younger, the increased cost of tuition would have meant that none of this would have ever happened in my life. I would have ran out of money for food before I became an entrepreneur and anything subsequent to happen to that. So what socioeconomic biases mean is, you know, put you in the same role that were, but a couple of years later and all of a sudden you become a different person. You can't make it. Those doors closed for you.
Speaker 1: 4:59
This is an active and progressive issue. Now, in a more general sense, society can be structured so that an individual's fate is based on their contributions or on their endowments, in other words, what they bring to the table and what they do for others, or what they started with. And socioeconomic inequality is what kind of a culture do you want to live in? One that's a feudalist culture you're inherited into whatever your life is going to be, or one where your ambition and capability and talent are what drive those outcomes?
Speaker 2: 6:05
no-transcript. Something that really hit me hard was that story that came out about celebrities who were paying for their kids to get into those prestigious schools when they didn't have the merit or do the work to do it. And you just think, oh my God, that's just so unfair to so many people that these little kind of backdoor entries into these institutions exist even.
Speaker 3: 6:38
But Mel, the Full House mom's daughter, was an influencer, so we could talk a lot about being on the rowing team and I wrote at UConn, so I was like even that's fake.
Speaker 2: 6:47
It made me so angry, but so I just. I really think this is such a critical topic because it does. It starts in in the education space, which we know. Education and higher education isn't the only path to success right in the world today. However, that is a big path to success and opportunity, and when there's five padlocks to get through those doors, you can't even get into the workplace because it starts with the education piece. So it's just yeah.
Speaker 1: 7:19
Can I give you an unfun?
Speaker 2: 7:19
fact. Oh, please do, please share.
Speaker 1: 7:23
This is unfortunately an unfun one, but so I was doing a little research on this recently myself. I was talking with someone who's from a different generation and we were talking about what's changed, and he'd gone to Harvard himself and he was aghast to know that now there's this industry built around graduate advisors. And you would think what's a graduate advisor? Oh, if you get your master's, you have a graduate advisor who helps you get ready for your PhD. No, these are private graduate advisors. Use them for applying to master's programs or undergraduate programs, and they're admission officers that then sell their services to help you prepare your essay, your extracurriculars, what clubs you should say that you belong to, exactly what to say in your application. What they're looking for and what they promise is for $25,000, 90% or higher rates of acceptance into your top three schools of your choice. So, regardless of merit or background or current level of education, they can get 90% of the people they help, or above, placed in one of their top three schools in the world.
Speaker 2: 8:30
That's the system, unreal, because they're admission counselors and they have that network. How is that not a conflict of interest?
Speaker 1: 8:37
Yeah, so it's admission counselors who just left the admission board and it is a conflict of interest and the implication is but they don't have any insight today. They're not in touch with the colleagues that just rolled into the admission office. I don't believe that personally, especially with those rates of success. But that is the idea, is that it's not quite illegal because they are not currently the admission officers.
Speaker 3: 9:01
I like to frame that under hashtag bullshit.
Speaker 2: 9:05
Unreal, 100%, all right and we know this is rampant in education but say you made it through those hurdles. You have your education. Now You're ready to go out into the working world. How does this show up in the workplace?
Speaker 1: 9:19
I'm going to answer that, but I just have to like say but the premise is, how many people are making those hurdles? I think we really think there's so many more people who are able to get through an educational system, but it's what? Third? A third of people get through, and most of it is financially derived now. So I just want to say those are big hurdles. It's hard to get to the other side, but once you get to the other side, they're going to show up.
Speaker 1: 9:47
There was a scandal a couple of years ago that I actually think is maybe one of the best things that could have happened.
Speaker 1: 9:53
That has happened, which was Amazon created an algorithm completely de-biased, objective algorithm, in theory that was just meant to basically look through people's resumes and indicate, you know, who should be brought in for interview, and when they set the AI to look at the commonalities in the resume, what they found is that the people they had and the people that they were bringing in were from the same schools, from the same clubs, from the same associations, and so the same is true for birds of a feather flock together, right?
Speaker 1: 10:30
So if your senior boss went to the same alma mater that you do and I don't want to make it just about school but is in the same club as you. Right, you're in the golf club. Together. That is going to influence your career, and so, at every step, at every juncture, we place people that we have connection and familiarity to. So, even after the schooling is done, it's what clubs and associations you block to, which, again, are related to how much money you have. Right, you don't belong to the golf club and you don't belong to the Columbia Tower Club. You don't belong to the St James Club, unless you're already wealthy enough to be there.
Speaker 2: 11:09
I worked in talent acquisition for years prior to getting into talent development and that is absolutely rampant in organizations where it's.
Speaker 2: 11:19
These are the schools that our people are from, they're alumni.
Speaker 2: 11:23
These are our main campuses that we're gonna focus our time and attention to and there are a lot of services that come with that relationship, because internal talent acquisition teams at organizations typically build deep relationships with the programs at those schools career services offices, they provide workshops, they provide interview prep. You're providing all of these free services and connection and relationship with those quote unquote chosen schools. And then you have what we would call essentially these are the fringe schools and the time and effort and resources aren't really put into recruiting from those schools unless someone's really pushing for it, and it used to be just mind boggling to me like how much talent are we missing out on? Because you will only prioritize these 10 schools and we have 30 that we can choose from, with exceptional candidates coming out of all of them. But if it's between two candidates, there's this preference for someone that comes from one of those known schools. I know that's changing and there's a lot of good discussion around that today, but it's definitely hard to see and hard to work through.
Speaker 1: 12:35
You might actually have this data point better than I do. I just generally say how many people get jobs going through the standard, apply for it on the website, submit your resume, get called on the basis of your resume, and how many people get jobs because they know someone at that company. Right In my mind, the most common way and I'd love to hear your expertise on it. But referrals are socioeconomic bias. Inherently they know you because you are in a social sphere to know them, whether that was from your parents or from your school or from your social club or from your church. That is inherently the system and I again, you might know the numbers better, but I would imagine it's pretty high the number of people who get in through a referral.
Speaker 2: 13:23
Yeah, we have obviously nepotism rules that you need to follow to avoid that bias and try to get ahead of bias taking place just in terms of standards. But you could definitely feel the unspoken pressure right of this person in particular really wants them to come in for this internship and at times, yeah, you're like what the hell, man, I don't want to be part of this choice or this conversation, and referrals are definitely a way that it at least gets your foot in the door for a screening interview the majority of the time.
Speaker 3: 13:58
And referrals. When you're in the organization, they're incented. We were offered thousands of dollars If we found someone from our network and they were hired into those organizations. We would get thousands of dollars for that. It's not even just a hey, could you refer this person in it's? You're financially incented to do that. Yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: 14:22
Yeah, and on one hand seems harmless.
Speaker 3: 14:26
Seems like it yeah.
Speaker 2: 14:28
It seems very efficient. It cuts down on the time of potentially finding good candidates right, because that takes time and money. I always go back to it. Started with positive intent but quickly got dark.
Speaker 1: 14:39
Exactly.
Speaker 3: 14:42
Why are we all white guys named Chad Exactly?
Speaker 2: 14:45
Why are we all?
Speaker 1: 14:46
white guys named Chad. We were all part of the rowing club.
Speaker 3: 14:50
You went to University of Illinois too. Oh my God yeah.
Speaker 2: 14:54
I accidentally made it on the rowing team. My friends will tell you.
Speaker 3: 14:57
How do you accidentally make it? How do you accidentally Listen?
Speaker 2: 15:00
it was a dare to try out. It was like a fluke thing and I'll just yeah anyway, but then it was awesome. With everything, there are misconceptions on topics. So what are some common misconceptions that people often think about? Socioeconomic bias in general and then in the workplace?
Speaker 1: 15:36
I'm going to respond to that question with a question, and this is a little bit of a hot take on my part, or I want to say a hot take. It's really sound in the data, but there's a lot to talk about here. So my question is what do you think are some of the most common biases that we talk about in workplaces today, or that we create policies around?
Speaker 3: 15:56
Race gender, age, sexual orientation, religion.
Speaker 1: 16:03
Yeah, there's a lot. There's a lot we talk about in this field. So there's some great research just three years ago out of Georgetown that shows the most significant determinant of someone's future is how much money they were born into, and it's not even close. So when you compare it to race and gender and sexual orientation and all of the other statistics that we have invested a lot of infrastructure in protecting for it doesn't even come close to the amount of advantage that people are experiencing based on wealth inequality. So the common misconception is this is not as big of a deal as it really is.
Speaker 2: 16:44
I believe that, though, because we have an unspoken class system in the US, I like to say we don't have this caste or class system here, or you often hear, oh, middle class, what does this truly mean? But it does feel like people have their stations and it gets harder and harder to climb to the next level, and there's this misconception that you can do anything if you just pull up your breech straps. You've been going and work hard, but it is not the case.
Speaker 1: 17:17
That is what the economic data tells us.
Speaker 3: 17:20
I think because there's a money thing to it. There's also to me. I grew up upper middle class. I remember I had someone very close to me that their parents had immigrated to this country and he was eight when he immigrated and I remember we were both in grad school and I was going into corporate. My parents were both corporate, his parents worked in factories and we had this discussion around navigating corporate and that I knew what to do because my parents were helping me navigate all of this stuff. There was a language that I inherently grew up with and understood, that was absolutely foreign to him, and it was the first time in my life where I was like, oh wow, it's a money and opportunity piece. It's also a unwritten language of how do you even navigate college applications, how do you navigate social crap that happens when you're in these circles or not. It's all of that.
Speaker 2: 18:17
It's all of that with Francesca and I talk about it all the time because we're like, wow, this experience was way different. But like you, brayden, and to your point, francesca, similarly I did not have that guidance. It was a financial aid officer at UConn that helped me fill out my FAFSA, because my parents didn't help me do it. And then I remember my first job interview. I didn't realize you had to wear a suit because I didn't have parents to teach me. They were like telling me that guidance and I borrowed a friend's suit to interview because I was rejected by three jobs because I showed up in a button down shirt and pants and it wasn't a formal suit and I was like, what's the problem? Why does that matter? And I didn't even own a suit and I didn't have the money to buy a suit, so I borrowed one just to have that first interview.
Speaker 1: 19:10
Yeah, I would love to amplify because you're exactly right, it's all of these subtle and small things we don't even think about. And then there's this level deeper let's talk about, like how a person perceives themselves in the world, confidence, what their worth, what their inherent worth is as a human being. And when they study this they're like they can do the standardized tests on kids young and they'd be like this kid's in the top 10 percentile in terms of math capability, but bottom 10 percentile in terms of economics, and what happens? So they see that their scores go down and down and down Right, and the other kids scores go up, and part of that is the tutors that the parents can afford, but the other part of that is one of these kids is getting affirmation.
Speaker 1: 19:53
One of these kids is being told that they're worth something and that they're loved and that they're valued. And that adds up in how, like, I'm going to take it all the way to the workplace, right? So you have that kid who starts out like always feeling they're super talented, they're super capable, and they always feel behind and they're always made to feel not enough or not as good as their peers. Are they asking for promotions when they're 25 and when they're 30 and when they're 35? Or are they just happy to be there if they succeeded in being anywhere? And so there's, like this inner confidence and value and self-worth and problem of caste systems, as you said, you know.
Speaker 2: 20:31
Yeah, it sounds like there's a lifelong kind of issue there where they're not going to ask for those opportunities or feel they're worth going after them. So, man, we could probably talk about two hours I'm like oh, there's so much to uncover, how, how does this, or does it even differ between industries or professions Is there? Is it more rampant in certain professions over others, or have you found that it's pretty much across the board?
Speaker 1: 21:02
Well, it's going to sound like good news. It's not across the board, but the bad news is it's directly proportional to how much status, money, privilege, come with that position. So the more desired the position, the more socioeconomic barriers will be an impediment If you want to be a CEO, or you want to be a senator, or you want to be an astronaut, or you want to be if it has power, and so you can see this again. I've done some of my own research more recently and my own personal experience with graduate programs, so it's fresh on my mind. I don't want to keep going back there, but the families that are wealthy want their kids to go get a medical degree, get a law degree, get a business degree, get an engineering degree. These are going to be inherently more competitive and bought and purchased programs. Someone going for a fine arts degree? I don't know, there's probably not a lot of low economic people that are trying to go to a four-year school to get a fine arts degree, but it's more competitive the more money is associated with the role.
Speaker 3: 22:06
I'm laughing because my undergrad was in Italian printmaking, which is etching on copper plates. Again, I made really dumb shit decisions. Sorry, yeah, I'm laughing. Oh, yeah, oh my god was that about privilege I'm gonna come for?
Speaker 1: 22:26
I'm here for the joke, yeah but it's yeah, I love it and yeah, yeah, it's, yeah, it's good, we need to care about the issue. We need to laugh too, because that's how you do with this stuff. It's good, we need to care about these issues. We need to laugh too, because that's how you deal with this stuff. It's sad, yeah.
Speaker 2: 22:39
I love that we're having this conversation and we can joke about it, right, because, okay, what can we do to make it better? That's the ultimate goal, and talking about it helps bring awareness. I think even just sharing our personal stories about what was your experience like can be really eye-opening of how different Back I remember when I was younger, I knew there was a difference, but I didn't realize how much. And it's these stories as I get older, with peers and friends and talking about it, where you're like holy shit, how do you change this? How?
Speaker 3: 23:07
do you change it? Brayden? One of the things you talked about earlier was this idea of confidence from an individual. What is the long-term impact of socioeconomic bias on individuals? One of those impacts could be on the confidence piece, but what have you found in terms of what are some of the other long-term impacts of this, as people are going through their career.
Speaker 1: 23:29
Okay, let's take it step by step. I think that self-worth thing develops early. I think whether you can afford to get an education which a majority of people won't. So these are big barriers each time. So, whether you can afford to, can you get into a prestigious one? Do you have the with the right people in the right ways especially now with the remote work outside of work, in your social clubs and golf clubs and whatever to get promoted more quickly as you go through your career? For most people that's about promotions.
Speaker 1: 24:09
I do want to take a slight turn and say a lot of these people don't do it through the traditional career workforce. Right, they might go on to be politicians or celebrities or. But I'm an entrepreneur. A lot of people are trying to move in that direction now and that is highly correlated. Whether the people that can make your company successful I how deep do I want to get into this, there's so much I can say being able to get money for your company is completely who. You know, I sit in these different meetings, so I see both perspectives very clearly.
Speaker 1: 24:44
For people who go in and pitch to VCs and the VC doesn't know who that person is, is a button down professional pitch, super nuts, they are going to talk about the business and they're probably going to get a no. If the VC knows the person and again, I sit in on these calls they say, oh, nevermind, don't worry about the pitch. Yeah, how are we going to get this done? Verbatim, how are we going to structure this deal? Which of our friends are we bringing in on it?
Speaker 1: 25:11
Which? Which influencers are we going to tap for this one? Oh, it's like the other one we did right, so let's tap this one and this one. So it's everywhere. And so they might do it within promotions, they might do it by trying to be an entrepreneur or start their own business. They're still going to count it. And I think the longest term implication, and the one that we need to be the most concerned about and talk the most about, is that the impact of socioeconomic inequality on that person's life is also going to be the primary determinant of the success of their child's life and their child's life. It's like generational at this point.
Speaker 3: 25:49
Yes, I just read a study that one of the greatest impacts on a child's happiness and their well-being is actually how happy the mother is. Did you see that?
Speaker 1: 26:00
Which makes sense.
Speaker 1: 26:01
So there's a great book called In the Realm of Hungry Ghosts, which is written by one of the greatest addiction experts in the world, and in that book he talks about all of this research and about basically what leads to addiction.
Speaker 1: 26:19
His point is amazing, which is we're all oriented to addiction and we all have some form of addiction. The question is, how much do we express it? And that has to do with how much we suffer, love the message. But his point on this mother thing is he says that the number one determinant, or the most impactful determinant around whether someone will become a drug addict is the abnormalities that they have in their serotonin and dopamine production, because basically, people who have abnormalities will have different experiences with drugs, where it's like they really don't feel normal without them, and the primary determinant of that is how much eye contact they have with the mother between the ages of one and three and what were her stress levels. And so then you think about that and it's which mothers are with their children constantly between one and three and don't have stress or have the least amount of stress.
Speaker 3: 27:14
When I think about some of the highest stressors that people face too money, if you are feeling like you're living paycheck to paycheck or you're on the verge of homelessness that amount of stress, in addition to raising children, in addition to trying to be a partner or a spouse or a daughter, a son, a sibling, it's incredible. That's an incredible amount of stress. Yeah.
Speaker 1: 27:35
And working right. And the other thing we didn't say is how many families can either parent but one of the parents afford not to work? That's a wealth option. Yes, yeah.
Speaker 3: 27:49
That's from a For those folks that have gone through all of those hurdles. I'm looking at two of them that have gone through that and come out very successful as well. Are there advantages Meaning are you stronger minded, right, or something of this sort? Do you find that there's better skills coming out of that or no? Is this a bad?
Speaker 2: 28:11
this is a weird question but you get where I'm going with this. No, it's not a weird question.
Speaker 1: 28:15
I did a talk on resilience and we talked about what breeds resilience and there's lots of things metacognition and lots of things are really important to talk about. One of the really important things is how much have you been through? And if you can reference back to oh, I've been through harder times than this right, that's the easiest way to be resilient. I did that. I can survive this right. So resilience is directly proportional to how much someone goes through and experiences. I think empathy is a muscle that you're gonna grow, because it's easy to see, when you almost don't make it, why someone else might not have made it, and that not being a reflection of their inadequacies or, um, in game build lack of capable. I think it's a really relevant consideration. I think the problem is that you never really know where you would have gotten without the barriers, so you can't really compare to who you would have been and I can't say whether it would have been better or worse.
Speaker 3: 29:19
In a way that's true for everybody Right have you ever seen the? Movie Sliding Doors with Gwyneth Paltrow. What was that, Mel? From like 1994? I have no idea. I think so. Yeah, I love that movie. Brady, do you know the premise of this movie?
Speaker 1: 29:31
I don't, you'll have to tell me.
Speaker 3: 29:33
You're like really, this is what we're talking about. So the premise of the movie is Gwyneth Paltrow. Basically, she takes one subway or she takes another subway, and depending on which subway she takes, her life just ends up completely different. Like it's that question of if I would have just taken path A, how would my life be different? The answer is that question, but it also begs an interesting question In order to gain empathy, or resilience too, do people have to go through hardship in order to get? That Is a different question. Curious about impact, so we talked about it at the individual, I am wondering how this might impact work, culture or impact a team.
Speaker 1: 30:13
I'll say a light thing first, which is the birds of a feather thing again. Right, so teams are probably going to get organized around people they know and comfort level, and so birds of a feather, that's a very light thing. I think that as a culture, we are moving more and more towards what makes us different. It's all about this group and that group and you're not part of my group and my group group and that group and you're not part of my group and my group just got smaller today and you're not part of it anymore, and so as we move in that direction, this becomes part of it. It's one more thing that divides people. That's where you middle class or low class or upper class and do I trust you because of that or do I not trust you because of that? Does one group feel resentment towards the other or contempt towards the other? I see those things showing up. I don't want to speak to other people's experiences, but that's something that we see emerging. So that relates to teams, right, people who might not feel as comfortable trusting of each other, because it's one more divide that's getting between us.
Speaker 1: 31:11
My bigger message on that and we could circle back to it later, but I don't know. I just said circle back. I know that's like the most hated term in corporate. We could talk about that again at a later time. But the real message is like there are so many things that divide us right now. How do we start unifying? Because this is an issue that impacts almost everyone in the United States. Like you can make arguments about oh, I'm upper middle class or middle class or lower middle class or dirt poor, or, but it's really just like the one percent and then everybody else. The differences are so severe and so substantial.
Speaker 1: 31:51
And look, harvard ain't admitting that many people this year. Nor is Oxford, right, we're talking about small numbers of people in one camp. And look, harvard ain't admitting that many people this year. Nor is Oxford, right, we're talking about small numbers of people in one camp. And there's just so many other things that divide us today. And a lot of us have this in common, and it is again the single most impactful thing as to what our futures will look like, at least financially speaking, at least in terms of our wealth and accomplishments. We got a lot in common, and I think coming together is going to help a lot.
Speaker 3: 32:19
You feel it in politics. This isn't a political statement by any means, but when you look at, for example, a lot of what the Trump campaign had run on, continues to run on, is this idea of you've been left behind economically and I'm going to be the person that's going to bring it back in. And then you have the Biden administration, which is looking at more, bringing everybody along. They're both an economic message coming from different places, but I feel like both of those messages are very different. They're very divided. So you have the politics happening with that kind of economic message. You also have technology, with AI, and we just got the job support, for example.
Speaker 3: 32:59
I think, there's going to be a lot more fear around economics and the 1% and those that aren't. How do we move towards that common ground when it just feels like there are so many vices that are just pushing us further and further, apart from an economic perspective?
Speaker 1: 33:18
I can sometimes sound like a super pessimist when I talk about the data, but this is actually something I'm quite optimistic about, oh, sweet, because we need some good news, because I'm like, I'm bummed, bring the good news please Look.
Speaker 1: 33:31
At the end of the day, we have a lot that's working to divide us. Your point is exactly the right point and I'll put even, like a pin on top of it, who is the Trump administration speaking to and who is the Biden administration speaking to. They're talking about different economic problems, so I'll just put a label on it. I'll be the person.
Speaker 1: 33:52
One might be talking about white male problems and the other might be talking about people of color problems, women problems, and the reality is the cake for all of us is getting smaller every year and has been since 1971. Under every administration Republican, democrat, doesn't matter. Congress controlled by Democrats, president, republican doesn't matter, matter Congress controlled by Democrats, president, republican doesn't matter. Every administration, the pie has got smaller for all of those groups. Now we're fighting over it in different ways and it might be getting split up in different ways, but it's getting smaller for all of us and has been consistently. And the reason I say I'm a bit of an optimist is one humans might be my belief, but I think most of us are empathetic and compassionate and believe in essential equality, believe in modern political terms. They talk about this kind of era as liberal equality what is?
Speaker 1: 34:51
that, okay, there's all. So all political philosophy is underpinned by moral philosophy. So we start with a set of morality and then we build it into an idea, and utilitarianism was an idea that we should maximize the good for everyone. Right, and so it became a political movement that, under that kind of, helped destroy feudalism, because it was like this isn't the best for all. There's these three people at the top, or whatever. Unfortunately, we've come back around back to dead your servants.
Speaker 3: 35:23
Okay, fantastic, that's good all right.
Speaker 1: 35:25
So then we entered into this, this era, and there's some great works by a guy named Rawls and Dworkin great names to a theory of justice and and it's a lot of what we talk about today where they're like, hey, this is what it would ideally look like and a lot of people bought into this message.
Speaker 1: 35:43
It's where a lot of these like pushes for equality and people shouldn't have these negative dispositions on them. Unfortunately, it hasn't really translated to our politics, but it is something we naturally feel. So I think there is both this sense in human beings that, like we innately have compassion, and there's this cultural zeitgeist that, like people fundamentally feel about what is right in politics, and so there's a lot of systems that are holding that back, but it is holding back something that is natural, something that is believed and accept and been felt by most people, like super majority of people, and so my optimism is look, the politicians are not going to lead us to the promised land here, like they are working to create divisiveness among us, and whether that's a conspiracy or what helps them get elected doesn't matter to me. They're not solving the problem.
Speaker 3: 36:39
No, the data shows that yeah.
Speaker 1: 36:40
Yeah, but we should be optimistic about the future because culturally we hold these beliefs and take off some of this kind of unnatural confusion and we're compadres. We're in the same journey, fighting for the same things.
Speaker 3: 36:54
Yeah, I just feel like there's so much more that unites us than divides us instinctually and actually as well that it'd be. I am looking forward to seeing more of us leaning into that and not waiting for institutions to make that happen.
Speaker 1: 37:11
I agree, and that's where it's going to come from. I think it comes from us as individuals, but a mentor of mine says he teaches leadership to, has the best selling books on leadership in the world and he really understands the topic. He said I've given up on politics. I gave up a long time ago. Any hope I have in the future is in business leaders stepping up, and so I think it's individuals and I think it's organizations that are hopefully going to move this message forward.
Speaker 3: 37:36
There's a lot of organizations can do right.
Speaker 1: 37:38
Yes, there is, especially when 96% of elections are won by whoever raised the most money.
Speaker 3: 37:46
Yeah.
Speaker 1: 37:47
And now about 80% of the money that goes into campaigns comes from businesses and super PACs. So there's a lot of the business community.
Speaker 2: 37:56
Absolutely, absolutely so what measures can organizations start to take? One to identify the socioeconomic biases that they're upholding within their structures and systems and policies.
Speaker 1: 38:29
There are some basic things right. Ditch the degree requirements, especially where they don't matter. You could say stronger programs around, don't take referrals, so maybe don't incentivize the referrals or put some policies in place to stop them. Obviously, I'm going to say gather human capability data to actually understand the people and look at what is effective instead of where people came from. Ask more about people's stories in the interview process and filter that information into how you're judging their responses. As an example to your case, mel, if they asked about your background, maybe they could have overlooked that you weren't in a suit, building stronger reskilling programs, thinking about people as people and saying you know what. You didn't get a two-year accounting degree, but you've got all the makings and we're going to invest in some people this year and get them skilled up. The upswing for companies is these are exceptionally loyal people. That's everything that we see in the data. So if you want to save a ton of money on attrition, invest it on these kinds of programmatic changes.
Speaker 2: 39:39
I think that's such an important call out. I think organizations miss the forest through the trees because they're not going to see an immediate return on investment in some of these things or don't see the value of implementing some of these things. What role does leadership play here in addressing and reducing these issues in the workplace?
Speaker 1: 39:58
Referencing Bill George leadership at Harvard for 23 years. He wrote the True North book series. I've had a beyond unbelievable opportunity to be mentored by him for 16 years, which came out of nowhere. It was one of these never should have happened things. But actually you know what I'm going to tell that story because I think it answers a bit of your question.
Speaker 1: 40:22
So I was, he was doing a tour, talking to all these universities, and he came by a relatively not prestigious Seattle university and gave a talk. I skipped my class so that I could attend. I didn't know who he was, but the talk was on like ethical leadership and that was appealing to me. And so I went to this talk and I just challenged him in a polite way. I was if you're so good at business, like, why didn't you start your own? Why did you just become a CEO of a company that was almost a billion dollars and then make it a international 18 billion or something? At the end of his tenure grew at 23%, and he loved that. And so I went up after and I gave him my card and he was like oh, I'm so glad that you, that you came up, let's keep in touch. And I emailed him once and he never responded. I emailed him a second time he never responded. I emailed him a third time he never responded. I emailed him a fourth time and he was like I was waiting to hear from you, so good to hear from you.
Speaker 1: 41:15
And two years later we went for a run together and he was like do you know why we're friends? And I said I have no idea. And and I had just passed him on the track and he was like do it one more time and I'll tell you. And he was a good runner, but mind you. But I looped him again and he said no one that I teach at Harvard will run.
Speaker 1: 41:36
And so, in a way, he was looking for people that aren't normal, not what most of these leaders are surrounded by, which is people that they're very comfortable with, that don't challenge them, that just support their views, that just say gosh, you're the best person that I've ever met met. And I do want to say I'm sure there are some people at Harvard and not everyone is there with all these things that we're talking about. So I don't want to say anything negative about any institution, but the point nonetheless he was looking for something really different than what organizational leaders typically look for, and I think that's what we need to do. And this is the long way of moving back to that.
Speaker 1: 42:21
96% of politicians win based on who raised the most money. So politicians aren't going to change it. It's on business leaders, and I think it's the defining issue of our time. So I think it's up to us. I think that business leaders have to look outside what's efficient, natural, comfortable in front of them and say this is an issue I'm aware of. What can I do about it in the day to day things that I do.
Speaker 2: 42:48
When you think about business leaders presence throughout communities, it's massive. Your experience alone a lot of business leaders spend a lot of time on campus, where people are just beginning their journeys of career exploration. So even how they show up there or think of candidates differently, or interacting with students differently and having those conversations or being willing to give, I got to ask, though I'm sorry.
Speaker 3: 43:15
I think we are absolutely not talking about the very important thing in that story is you had a card in undergrad.
Speaker 1: 43:24
I didn't want to say anything Absolutely, and I will make even more fun of myself. I wore suits.
Speaker 3: 43:36
Oh.
Speaker 1: 43:36
I know.
Speaker 3: 43:37
We're ending the conversation right now. Tell me more, tell me more, tell me more.
Speaker 1: 43:47
I was working in the school cafeteria, I was overloading on my classes and I was trying to start a company, and so I was like, okay, I'm like, I am showing up to this game, I am working as hard as I can work I actually I don't even know how I did it these days but so I was like suit, I had a card for my company. I was like this is my dream, I'm going to go after it. That was me, and so this one other guy we joke now because we're both like super laid back and super I wear like Mandarin cut shirts and not normal. And we were the two like. We showed up in suits and we stayed friends and we're both like the opposite now oh, that's so funny.
Speaker 3: 44:22
How did you know to do that? Like literally, how did you know to do that?
Speaker 1: 44:25
or did you just free this up? Gosh, I didn't. I certainly didn't know how to do it. I struggled for such a long time. Yeah, I had no experience, no, no one to teach me at all. I did so many things wrong for so long. I guess it was just like I was just going to give it everything I had every day. But again, if I had been two years younger, none of it would have ever happened. It didn't matter that I had overloaded all my classes and still graduated magna cum laude and big gamma sigma and worked in the school cafeteria and didn't have enough money and started a business. None of it would have mattered. It wouldn't have been enough.
Speaker 2: 45:04
Timing and luck are big components of, in addition to that ambition piece and the business cards, let's not forget the business cards.
Speaker 1: 45:16
And don't underestimate the kids sitting in the suit in the business class.
Speaker 2: 45:20
Wear your suits, class kids.
Speaker 1: 45:22
Kids go in places.
Speaker 2: 45:26
AI is the hot topic everywhere. What role does technology play in either holding up socioeconomic bias or eliminating it in the workplace?
Speaker 1: 45:39
I think that totally has to do with what leaders do. I think it'd be very the technologies are becoming available. I'm working on them, other people are. It calls on leaders to not ignore the technologies that are becoming available, to recognize that they will get lower attrition rates, that they are going to save money, that they are going to get better people and that they're going to do good for the world all at the same time.
Speaker 1: 46:04
And honestly, you mentioned AI and automation. Are some of my biggest concerns because throughout time, the conflict has been between labor and capital. All economics or models are built on this, and wages for labor has not matched productivity gains for 55 years now something like that and the problem with AI and automation is the power of the labor class to negotiate is getting pulled out from under them. It's been a concern. I think it is an increasing concern and I don't know how fast it's all going to change. But labor needs to negotiate now and get political influence now if we're going to live in something other than a dystopian altered carbon society in the future. Yeah, because yeah.
Speaker 2: 46:57
It is a little scary Because, yeah, it is a little scary. Yolo, yeah, all for universal income. It's like figuring this out Because, to your good point, the room to negotiate is getting smaller and smaller and I think most organizations don't even know yet what this looks like for them. So it's like in five years time, what world are we going to be living in? Your company, Almas Insights, you are building technology. You have technology that helps remove inherent bias in resume review, referrals, interviews. Can you tell us more about that tech?
Speaker 1: 47:31
Yeah, absolutely, and I'll give some thank yous here as well. So the essence of our technology is we put someone in a digital work sample for 45 minutes and they go through a variety of situations like you will experience in the workplace and demonstrate their preferences and behaviors and capabilities and how they respond and how they react and that's all cool, but that's not actually what we do. What we actually do is all the data on the other side where we say what kinds of people are being successful in this role at this organization, and that all happens automatically in the data. So a company just baselines it. The statistical significant things basically highlight in that and the machine learning algorithm matches that with people who are applying or people who already exist in that job who have also taken the measurement. So all of that becomes automated and it says this person is likely to stay with your firm for a long time If you hire them. This person is likely to be high potential in this role, and it's all objective data.
Speaker 1: 48:34
But what we did and I think what proved to be one of the important aspects of how we approach this was we put it in a fully contextualized environment. So when I say digital work sample. I don't just mean situational questions. There are avatars on screen. You see what's going on. You have full context of the experience towards Deloitte and also the University of Washington. There was a validation study that doesn't eliminate all other biases, and it did so. Level of education didn't matter. What someone's current job was didn't matter they could be an Uber driver or a Deloitte consultant because they had so much context. And then people said, hey, this was like the most accurate thing that I've seen for a Sethi and myself.
Speaker 2: 49:22
This is going to completely remove all bias about your match to this role and how powerful for talent acquisition to find the right people for the right jobs at the right time. That helps with workforce planning. That helps with so many things. So kudos to you, that's amazing.
Speaker 1: 49:40
I'm excited about it. Vision here is, as you look at unemployment right and you look at some of these people who are very talented and on the fringe and being overlooked, having something that can give employers confidence and giving people like that opportunity is what the world needs more of.
Speaker 2: 50:00
Yeah, that's huge and giving those people confidence as well. Totally brayden, we like to close out each episode with a rapid round. These don't have to be one word answers, but maybe one sentence, and it's just to get your like immediate reaction to some of these questions. How does that?
Speaker 1: 50:38
all right, let's see.
Speaker 2: 50:40
Okay, if you could change one workplace process or rule nationwide for everyone, what would it be?
Speaker 1: 50:48
I guess I go to ban the degree or forget the degree thing.
Speaker 2: 50:52
What's one book everyone should read on this topic.
Speaker 1: 50:57
It's so hard. I would say, if they're interested in just the economics and reality of what's happening capitalism in the 21st century by pickety if they are interested in the political concepts, that we should probably be listening more to a theory of justice by rawls. And of course, I would be amiss to not mention I also have a book on the topic which is Twilight of the Idols, an American Story which gets into. How is this impacting, in particular, young American lives today?
Speaker 2: 51:29
Yeah, we'll link to that. We'll link to that in the show notes for everyone. What's the biggest barrier to workplace equality?
Speaker 1: 51:37
Two words, but downstream consequences. Tell me more equality Two words, but downstream consequences, tell me more. Yeah, well, so we can't start fixing it in the workplace? It starts with kindergarten, right? And so the downstream consequence of having someone, as we talked about, not confident, or having someone who couldn't get a college degree, or having someone, and then the downstream consequence on the other side of this is going to be the primary determinant of their children's future. It's a downstream consequence problem. I don't think we could just say the workplace fixes this.
Speaker 2: 52:06
What was your first job and what did it teach you about socioeconomic bias?
Speaker 1: 52:11
Working in the school cafeteria to pay for my college degree. That's my first like real job and people look at you different. That's what I learned. There's the kids who need to do that and the kids who don't need to do that, and I learned real quick that people look at you different when you are serving them their food. And it's just heartbreaking to know that.
Speaker 1: 52:31
They're your peers. So it's like it's one thing if it's the local Taco Bell or something, but if it's like it's you and your classmates and they're out behind the cafeteria and you are behind the cafeteria, yeah.
Speaker 2: 52:43
Yeah. What's one myth about this topic that you want to bust today for everybody?
Speaker 1: 52:49
It's just the insignificance of it. It's that it is the single most determining factor of someone's future and we need to organize around that. We are in this together.
Speaker 2: 53:00
What's one piece of advice you would give to your younger self? And we need to organize around that we are in this together. What's one piece of advice you would?
Speaker 1: 53:05
give to your younger self. This one's hard, it's just hard feedback to give. But I think I would tell my younger self play the game, Don't lose your soul. And then give it all away. And I probably could have gone a lot further, a lot faster, if this didn't enrage me so much. But but I wanted to beat the system or prove it a different way. And the system is the way the system is. If you have influence, help break it, but you have to have the influence first.
Speaker 2: 53:40
We're glad you were enraged because you're doing good things. Last question future of work. Are you optimistic or pessimistic?
Speaker 1: 53:48
I think short-term, long-term, short-term pessimistic, long-term optimistic Pessimistic because what are the things happening and what is the direction they're going, but optimistic because movement towards public benefit, corporations, triple bottom lines, intentional communities which probably no one on this, or a lot of these people, are not going to be aware of.
Speaker 1: 54:10
So I will just say there, these groups there's more than 10,000 in the world now. I had no idea how many, but there's like an example, twin Oaks in Virginia and it's a group of people, a couple hundred people that live and work together and they sell like tofu and hammocks and stuff like that. But everybody makes the same money, they all live comfortably, they have stipends they can spend on whatever they want, they have 600,000 in profit every year that they invest in their community and it's very much how indigenous tribes live. I had the opportunity to live with one for a couple of weeks, which is amazing. But there are all these models emerging where people are taking care of each other and thinking about business differently. We've never really seen culture sustain economic inequality as long as we are seeing here. So change is bound to happen, and hopefully really positive and really soon.
Speaker 2: 55:10
Brayden, we're glad you are working towards helping to change that little by little in what you're doing, because eventually that will become what is it take one bite and suddenly the whole meal is done right, like it'll be a bigger impact long-term so excited to see it and we really appreciate you talking about this with us today.
Speaker 1: 55:29
Thank you for the opportunity.
Speaker 3: 55:34
Thanks so much for joining us today. Subscribe wherever you listen to podcasts. You can come over and say hi to us on the TikToks and LinkedIn community. Hit us up at yourworkfriends.com. We're always posting stuff on there and if you found this episode helpful, share with your work, friends, bye.