Work For Humans

DJ DiDonna had built the kind of career many people would be reluctant to walk away from. He cofounded a growing company, built a life around work, and had every reason to keep going. But eventually, he decided to step away and take an extended break, an experience that changed how he thought about work, identity, and what comes next. In this episode, Dart and DJ explore what happens when people step away from work long enough to see their lives from a different perspective.

DJ DiDonna is a Senior Lecturer at Harvard Business School and the founder of The Sabbatical Project, where he researches the effects of extended time away from work. He is also the author of Big Time Off.

In this episode, Dart and DJ discuss:
- Why DJ left his “dream job”
- What makes a sabbatical different from a vacation
- Why six to eight weeks can change the experience
- How time away can change your identity
- The feeling of “being human again”
- Why people rush back into the next job
- How sabbaticals build organizational resilience
- The risk of treating burnout as a medical problem
- What companies gain when people step away
- The three ways people use a sabbatical
- How to make space for curiosity and exploration
- And other topics…

DJ DiDonna is a Senior Lecturer of Business Administration at Harvard Business School and the founder of The Sabbatical Project. Before entering academia, he cofounded EFL Global, a fintech company that developed alternative credit scoring for entrepreneurs in emerging markets. His research focuses on sabbaticals, entrepreneurship, and the ways extended time away from work can affect people and organizations. He is the author of Big Time Off: The Transformative Power of Sabbaticals and How to Take One.

Resources Mentioned:
Big Time Off: The Transformative Power of Sabbaticals and How to Take One, by DJ DiDonna
The Sabbatical Project: https://thesabbaticalproject.org/
DJ DiDonna: http://djdidonna.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/djdidonna/
Work with Dart:
Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what’s most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

We’ve spent decades designing work around the idea that people need incentives to perform. But what happens when the systems designed to motivate people actually get in the way of motivation? Professor Barry Schwartz has spent decades studying what makes work meaningful, and his research challenges the idea that money and performance incentives are enough. In this revisited episode, Dart and Barry explore what people really want from work, why pay-for-performance can undermine motivation, and what organizations can do to create work where people have the autonomy and responsibility to do good work.

In this episode, Dart and Barry discuss:
- Why Barry wrote Why We Work?
- How did we learn what people want from work?
- Lack of autonomy as a cost of employment
- How has Why We Work been received?
- How to protect against bias?
- Practicing autonomy with restraint
- The dangers of neglect in the workforce
- And other topics…

Barry Schwartz is an emeritus professor of psychology at Swarthmore College. He is the author of Why We Work, Practical Wisdom with Kenneth Sharpe, and The Paradox of Choice, as well as books on psychology, learning, and human behavior. His writing has appeared in The New York Times, Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, Scientific American, and other publications.
Resources mentioned:
Barry Schwartz: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Barry_Schwartz_(psychologist)
Why We Work by Barry Schwartz: https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9781476784861
Practical Wisdom by Barry Schwartz: https://books.google.com/books?vid=ISBN9781594487835
The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz: https://www.amazon.com/Paradox-Choice-Why-More-Less/dp/149151423X
Barry’s TedTalks: https://www.ted.com/speakers/barry_schwartz
Jeffrey Pfeffer: https://jeffreypfeffer.com/
The Human Equation by Jeffrey Pfeffer: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0875848419
Work with Dart:
Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what’s most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

Megan Hellerer had done everything she was supposed to do. She went to Stanford, graduated with a 3.9, and dutifully climbed the ladder at Google. But the life that looked great on paper felt terrible inside. A panic attack on the floor of a public restroom forced her to confront a bigger question: what if the problem wasn't choosing the wrong destination, but the idea that we need a destination at all? In this episode, Dart and Megan explore how we move from “destinational living” to “directional living,” and what it means to build a life and career by following curiosity, experimenting, and learning as we go.

Megan Hellerer is the author of Directional Living and the founder of Coaching for Underfulfilled Overachievers. She spent eight years at Google in Strategic Partner Development before leaving to help other underfulfilled overachievers rethink work, success, and fulfillment.

In this episode, Dart and Megan discuss:
- The underfulfilled overachiever
- Why success can still leave you miserable
- Where our “shoulds” come from
- Destinational vs. directional living
- Why certainty can be so seductive
- Curiosity over purpose
- Using “warmer” and “colder” to find your direction
- The value of small experiments
- Designing more directional work
- Can fulfillment become another destination?
- And other topics…

Megan Hellerer is the author of Directional Living: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life and the founder of Coaching for Underfulfilled Overachievers. She has spent the past decade helping high-achieving people who feel unfulfilled rethink their relationship with work and success. Before becoming a career coach, she spent eight years at Google in Strategic Partner Development. She graduated from Stanford University with a degree in International Relations and is a Certified Professional Co-Active Coach.

Resources Mentioned:
Megan’s book: Directional Living: A Transformational Guide to Fulfillment in Work and Life: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0593299272 
Designing Your Life, by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1101875321
Bill Burnett on Work for Humans: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/designing-your-life-how-to-use-design-principles-to/id1612743401?i=1000738307337
Margaret Heffernan on Work for Humans: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-hidden-cost-of-certainty-at-work-margaret-heffernan/id1612743401?i=1000754431168

Connect with Megan:
Website: https://meganhellerer.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/megan-hellerer-6868326/
Work with Dart:
Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what’s most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

Darius Mirshahzadeh built the company he'd always wanted. In just three years, he grew it from a one-person operation into one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States. But when he looked around, he realized something unsettling: he hated the company he had created. That experience forced him to rethink what it really means to scale a business. In this revisited episode, Dart and Darius discuss how core values shape the way organizations grow, why culture must be designed intentionally, and what it takes to build a company that can scale without losing itself.

Darius Mirshahzadeh is an entrepreneur, author, and leadership advisor who helps founders build values-driven organizations. He founded Twin Capital Mortgage, later served as CEO of The Money Source, and is the author of The Core Value Equation.

In this episode, Dart and Darius discuss:
- Building culture through values
- When values become operational
- Hiring for alignment
- The language organizations create
- Measuring engagement differently
- Why some polarization is healthy
- Scaling without losing your culture
- Finding your calling
- And other topics…

Darius Mirshahzadeh is an entrepreneur, author, and leadership advisor who helps companies scale through strong culture and clearly defined core values. He founded Twin Capital Mortgage, growing it into one of the fastest-growing private companies in the United States, and later served as CEO of The Money Source. He is the author of The Core Value Equation, where he shares a framework for building organizations around values that guide hiring, leadership, and growth.

Resources Mentioned:
The Core Value Equation, by Darius Mirshahzadeh: https://www.amazon.com/Core-Value-Equation-Framework-Limitless/dp/1544506708

Connect with Darius:
Official website: https://therealdarius.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/dariusmirshahzadeh/
The Greatness Machine podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/the-greatness-machine/id1555334180
Work with Dart:
Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what’s most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

After years building software products, Chris Metcalfe crossed into People & Culture and noticed something surprising. Organizations invested enormous effort into understanding customers, testing ideas, and improving products, yet the work people did every day was rarely designed with the same discipline. That realization led him to ask a different question: what if work itself were managed like a product? In this episode, Dart and Chris discuss what happens when organizations move beyond HR as a service function, how product thinking changes the way work is designed, and why better work begins with solving the right problems.

Chris Metcalfe is a product leader and organizational strategist helping organizations apply product management to the design of work. After leading product teams at Workday, Docebo, and Primark, he now helps People teams build product capabilities through Red Oak and PX as a Product.

In this episode, Dart and Chris discuss:
- HR through a product lens
- Treating work like a product
- The customer inside your company
- Solving real work problems
- Outcomes over outputs
- The power of constraints
- Product thinking for HR
- Rethinking HR as product
- And other topics…

Chris Metcalfe is a product leader and organizational strategist who helps organizations apply product management to the design of work. He has held product leadership roles at Workday, Docebo, and Primark, where he led product teams spanning enterprise software and People & Culture. Today, he is the founder of Red Oak and PX as a Product, where he helps organizations build product-led People functions and apply product operating models to the design of work. He also writes The Operating Model, a newsletter on product leadership, organizational design, and the future of work.

Resources Mentioned:
Inspired, by Marty Cagan: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119387507
Transformed, by Marty Cagan: https://www.amazon.com/dp/1119697336
SapienX: https://sapienx.co.uk/
Chris's newsletter, The Operating Model: https://metcalfec.substack.com/

Connect with Chris:
Red Oak: https://www.red-oak.agency/
PX as a Product: https://pxasaproduct.com/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/chris-metcalfe-red-oak/ 
Work with Dart:
Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what’s most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.