What song reminds you of 6th grade?

Which one makes you feel invincible? What song got you through a hard breakup? Which one do you play after a miserable day at work?

These are the questions Shaka Mitchell asks in his Come Together Music Project. It’s helped people with opposing political views have a civil conversation about hard topics like immigration, abortion and racism. Surely it can help a creative and an account person get along during a weekly status.

This project is gold. We all have answers to these questions. And each answer helps reveal the depth of our humanity.

A depth that gets lost way too easily under the pressures of timelines and time sheets.

No timeline is worth losing our connection to our humanity. No matter what Silicon Valley or Wall Street tries to tell us.

Welcome to the DesuckifyWork® podcast. The show where we cut through the BS and find ways to make work more fun, more human and less ridiculous. All of which makes your business more profitable, by the way. This episode is part of our ongoing Prohuman Series, in partnership with the Prohuman Foundation.

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

Let the desuckifying begin.

You can follow Shaka on LinkedIn and check out cometogethermusic.org to learn more about his project. And be sure to visit Shaka’s Substack as well.

If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to explore what a more human work culture could look like, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session. Type “meow” in the calendar invite and I’ll also send you a free DesuckifyWork® t-shirt!

Bye, everyone!

Bonus questions from Shaka:Are there creative ways that you’ve seen people use music to bring people together at work?

And in case you’re wondering:

What song reminds you of 6th grade?Hungry Like the Wolf - Duran Duran

Which one makes you feel invincible?Unchained - Van Halen

What song got you through a hard breakup?Scar Tissue - RHCP

Which one do you play after a miserable day at work?Livin’ on a Prayer - Bon Jovi

What are your answers?

Today is my birthday. The big 5-6. Not a particularly interesting age but I’m grateful for every turn around the sun.

To celebrate the day, I’m sharing a clip from a recent guest appearance on Regina Larko‘s amazing Lead With Your Voice podcast. Regina is a wonderfully empathetic and encouraging podcast coach who helped me find my voice when I started my show a few years back. And she is a generous and thoughtful host... I loved where she took our conversation.

This clip is all about staying in touch with our humanity, no matter what technology brings into the world. I think that’s a pretty relevant birthday message, as I reflect on my 56 years of humanness.

I invite everyone to celebrate being human with me today.

If you run a company, work culture isn’t a part of your job. It is your job.

Everything else, performance, profit, innovation, execution, is downstream from the culture you intentionally create every day.

It’s a hard job. But it’s the one you signed up for. What grade would you give yourself? What do you think your team would say?

I spoke with Kyle Johnston, Jacky Northgrave and Kianna Miller from Gigasavvy—an ad agency based in Orange County, CA—to see what this dynamic looks like in reality.

They are a remote-first agency. Kyle runs things from Idaho. Jacky is a Sr. Art Director in Memphis. And Kianna is a Sr. Account Supervisor in SoCal. They get along well. Even finish each other’s sentences at times. Not easy to do across time zones.

The culture has clearly evolved over the years. From scrappy beginnings in 2008 to a big office in Irvine with a built-in bowling lane to a work your butt off but work from anywhere vibe.

But the most interesting thing I noticed was how they navigate the inherent cultural tensions in any agency.

🐱 Most agency folks have a workaholic bent. We do this work because we’re obsessed with it. And, we don’t want that obsession taken advantage of.

🐱 Most agency folks are relentlessly curious. Leaders need to feed that with transparency and over-communication. And, not burden the team with the weight of every last detail.

🐱 Most agency folks are very opinionated. You’ve gotta let people speak their mind and make their points. And, you better create a baseline of humility and respect or things can turn toxic fast.

Gigasavvy seems to manage all of this pretty well. Kyle prioritizes culture. Jacky and Kianna clearly see their role in bringing that culture to life.

They smile a lot. Genuine full-faced smiles.

That says something. What would the faces say if I interviewed your company?

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

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

Let the desuckifying begin.

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You can follow Kyle, Jacky Kianna and Gigasavvy on LinkedIn. And check out gigasavvy.com to learn more about what they’re putting out into the world.

If you enjoyed the conversation and would like to find some calm in the chaos of work, I invite you to schedule a free half-hour discovery session. Type “meow” in the calendar invite and I’ll also send you a free DesuckifyWork® t-shirt!

Bye, everyone!

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Bonus questions from Kianna:Was anything that we said here surprising or very different from your current working environment or the way you work with your team? Or the flip side, was there anything that you were like, oh my God, me too?