Chief Change Officer
#251 Work3 Institute Co-Founder Josh Drean: Employment is Dead. Now What? — Part Two
Mon, 24 Mar 2025
Part Two of a 3-part series on Josh Drean. Josh has worn many hats—Harvard MBA, psychology grad, co-founder of Work3 Institute and now, co-author of Employment is Dead (Harvard Business Review Press). In the Part 1 of a three-part series with Josh, we dug into why the corporate world’s obsession with employee engagement surveys is as effective as asking your toaster for career advice. Spoiler alert: Most companies don’t actually want honest feedback from employees.Here in Part 2, where look deep into the book's journey: how did this provocative and ambitious book come about in the very first place?Key Highlights of Our Interview:A Book Born from a Cold Call“I know this sounds completely random, but do you want to write a book together?” That’s how co-author Deborah Perry Piscione kickstarted Employment is Dead. One unexpected call, a bold idea, and a title sticky enough to catch Harvard Business Review’s attention.The Slow Reality of Publishing in a Fast-Changing World“Can you imagine writing a chapter about a year ago and then having it publish a year later? It’s outdated week to week almost.” While AI and Web3 reshape the workforce at lightning speed, traditional publishing still takes years. To bridge the gap, Josh turned to TikTok, LinkedIn, and YouTube—engaging with audiences in real-time while waiting for the book’s release.A 120-Page Proposal and a Bidding War“Before we knew it, we had 120 pages of this proposal, which was much too long.” What started as an overstuffed pitch ended in a bidding war among publishers. The reason? Josh and Deborah weren’t just talking about changing work culture—they were exposing how outdated employment structures hold workers back._________________________Connect with us:Host: Vince Chan | Guest: Josh Drean_________________________--Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.10 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.130,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today. --Chief Change Officer--Change Ambitiously. Outgrow Yourself.Open a World of Expansive Human Intelligencefor Transformation Gurus, Black Sheep,Unsung Visionaries & Bold Hearts.12 Million+ All-Time Downloads.Reaching 80+ Countries Daily.Global Top 3% Podcast.Top 10 US Business.Top 1 US Careers.>>>140,000+ are outgrowing. Act Today.<<<
Chapter 1: What is the focus of this podcast episode with Josh Drean?
Hi, everyone. Welcome to our show, Chief Change Officer. I'm Vince Chen, your ambitious human host. Our show is a modernist community for change progressives in organizational and human transformation from around the world. Today, we are diving into the future of work with George Dream. George is a Harvard MBA, a startup founder, and the co-author of the book called Employment is Dead.
Yes, you hear it right. That is a very bold statement. But he's got a story to back it up. Across this three-part series, We'll explore why traditional employment models are failing, how emerging technologies like Web3 and AI are reshaping work, and what companies must do to survive.
We'll also go behind the scenes of George's book, how a cold call turned into a major publishing deal, and why the old ways of managing people just don't cut it anymore. Whether you are an employee, an employer, or just curious about where work is headed, this series will challenge the way you think.
So, would it be fair to say that the metaverse, Web3, and all these emerging technologies are essentially bridges, tools that help us redefine the employee experience? Not just in one way, but in ways that actually make sense for our lives, our productivity, our outcome, and our well-being? Would you put it that way?
Chapter 2: How is the employee experience being redefined with emerging technologies?
Yeah. So we actually write in the book, we call it the 10 operating principles of work three. These are the non-negotiables of the modern day workforce. I work with people leaders all over the world and I show them these principles. I say, can you offer any of your employees any of these today? And if the answer is no, why should they work for you? And they're really on a spectrum.
Chapter 3: What are the 10 operating principles of Work3 mentioned in the book?
There are some that are deeply technical, like interoperability. They want to jump from job to job. They want to Mix and match several streams of income. They don't want to be a full-time employee at your organization. They want to work on several different projects across several different DAOs or decentralized autonomous organizations.
And then there are stuff that is readily apparent today, like flexibility. There's flexibility, autonomy, ownership. How do we allow employees to work flexibly so that they can work on their circadian rhythm, right? A lot of them are logging on at 9 p.m. at night so that they can get some deep work done. Or they work really well in the morning before the kids are awake.
Or they like being able to run out and pick up their kids from school at 3 p.m. without skipping a beat. So it just is tragic to me to see that we are returning to the office so forcefully in this nine to five structure instead of moving forward in a way that makes sense for the employee and their work-life balance. Again, that's on this end of the spectrum of flexibility.
There's this end of the spectrum that's interoperability and all throughout there are all the elements that you need to design a better employee experience.
You mentioned that you and Deborah, the co-founder of WorkStreet Institute, worked on this book together with you. I know there's quite a story behind how this book came to be. Can you share that with us here?
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Chapter 4: How did Josh Drean and Deborah Perry Piscione come to write 'Employment is Dead'?
Yeah, it's quite an interesting story. I feel if you are writing a book with Harvard Business Review Press, especially, it feels like a lot of times it would be, I've been a professor for many decades. My colleagues and I have written several books together. And so we're finally ready to write with HBR. That is the opposite of what happened with Debra.
And I was actually, she was running her own conference, a Web3 conference out of Silicon Valley. She's based out of Silicon Valley. She's written several books. She's fairly renowned in the Silicon Valley space. And she was putting on this conference that I was fascinated in. So I submitted my proposal based on some of the research and these initial ideas. I essentially remember the title being...
The future of work is not employment. It's the metaverse. And she pretty much saw that, saw the opportunity for a book, and cold called me. I was leaving the office one day and got this call. I know this sounds completely random, but do you want to write a book together? Yeah. I chuckled to myself and said, absolutely.
And the first thing she said to me is like, that title that you wrote was good. It's not sticky enough, though. Like, how can we make it more sticky? And so we came up with Employment is Dead, not thinking that it would stick. Honestly, we thought HBR was going to change that. But the idea was strong enough that they loved it. And thus the book was born.
Chapter 5: What was the process of getting the book 'Employment is Dead' published?
How did you get HBR on board with this book? They publish a lot of business books, many from professors, industry leaders, and big-name executives. Of course, Deborah is a leader in her space, and you have your HBS background, but pitching a book idea is never easy. So how did you make the case? What convinced them that this was a book they had to publish? What did that process look like?
Yeah, honestly, it was quite an organic experience. You put together a book proposal, which is essentially, here's the theme of the book, here's how we want to write it. You write a sample chapter, you have pretty much everything mapped out and ready to go. Debra and I found it so easy to put that together. Before we knew it, we had 120 pages of this proposal, which was much too long.
But it was just all of these emerging technologies. We were excited about all of the research that we were seeing, all of the young startups who were coming to me out of the Harvard Innovation Labs and saying, hey, we want to We want to leverage these technologies. We want to do something different. These are even minds, right?
These very ambitious next level, the next Mark Zuckerbergs, if you will. And we were fascinated in the way that they were building their teams, engaging with talent. It was just so fluid and so natural that it just felt like, wow, like this is definitely a better model than what we have, which is amazing.
employment rules, and I give you X amount of dollars, you give me X amount of time, no questions asked. That's how things work. It's not how it works in the age of information. The proposal came together nicely. We actually shopped it around quite a bit, right? You give it to all the publishers, see what they say, and
If more than one publisher is interested in the book, then it goes to auction, which was the case with us. We had several. Surprisingly, we had quite a few publishers interested in it, and HBR was interested as well. They threw their hat in the ring. We knew they were the clear winner. when they decided that they wanted to jump on it.
But I think the strength of the idea and really that feeling inside of everyone that something's not working here and something needs to change and saying it in a different way. There's so many people come out and tackle it from a culture perspective. Oh, it's just the culture. You need to change the culture of the organization. We very much say, Yes, that's the case.
But when you look underneath the culture, there's a structure in place that keeps employees put, that keeps them small, that doesn't measure the right things anymore. We're measuring time sitting at your desk rather than output. Never made sense to me. So it was just a natural fit to answer your question.
How long did the whole book process take? Now you are at the finish line with the launch. But of course, that's really just the beginning of a new chapter. From that initial cold call to getting to this point, how long was the journey? What did that timeline look like?
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