Unprofessionalism
Professional performance is exhausting. Maintaining the mask. Editing ourselves. Pretending we know when we don't.
This podcast is about people who dropped the performance. And what happened next.
Each episode features someone who broke professional conventions and found something better on the other side: the executive who disclosed grief in a corporate setting and found it opened new ways of relating; the coach who realised her authority came from integrity, not compliance; the designer who ignored the 'approved tools' and saved thousands of hours.
Conversations circle around three questions:
- What does it cost us to perform professionalism instead of showing up as ourselves?
- How do we create spaces where people can bring their full attention and humanity to work?
- When is the “unprofessional” move actually the most responsible one?
If you feel the tension between who you are and who you're expected to be at work, this podcast shows you what happens when people stop managing that tension and just stop performing.
Hosted by Dr Myriam Hadnes—behavioural economist and founder of workshops.work. New episode every week.
Unprofessionalism
001 - Permission Granted: Breaking Rules to Build Integrity with Jillian Reilly
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Jillian Reilly was young, running a multimillion-dollar AIDS programme in Zimbabwe, and supposed to give a diplomatic speech to a room of religious leaders. She sat through the procession, looked at her script, and decided she couldn't do it. What she did instead nearly sent the US government officials behind her into damage control mode.
Jill went on to write a bestselling book called The 10 Permissions, and this conversation is really about where that idea was born. We talked about the invisible rules we follow without questioning them, why "am I allowed?" is the most exhausting question to carry through a working day, and what she learned in Zimbabwe that took her decades to put into words: nobody is coming to give you permission.
Links to learn more about Jillian Reilly:
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