In this episode of Mick Unplugged, we dive into the dynamic world of work, technology, and culture with the visionary Josh Drean. Join host Mick Hunt as he uncovers Josh's journey from building a startup out of the Harvard Innovation Labs to pioneering sentiment analysis and exploring how emerging technologies like AI can revolutionize the workplace. Together, they explore how companies can harness AI and other technologies to enhance employee experience, culture, and productivity. With a focus on thriving at work, they discuss the modern workforce's demand for purpose, respect, and autonomy. Whether you're curious about the Work3 Institute, the future of AI in the workplace, or learning how to unlock your team's full potential, this episode is packed with insights to inspire change and innovation in your organization. Tune in for a conversation that's as deep as it is engaging, with practical tips and visionary ideas to help shape the future of work. Takeaways: Understanding the true value of culture: It's not just policies but a felt experience that empowers and motivates employees. The synergy of AI and humanity: How balancing technological advances with human-centric approaches can revolutionize workplace productivity and satisfaction. The future demands adaptability: Traditional work models are becoming obsolete, and businesses must evolve to meet modern expectations of transparency, autonomy, and purpose. Sound Bites: "Leaders don't lead businesses, they lead their culture. And it’s the culture that truly drives success." "The future belongs to those who combine AI and humanity to create a dynamic workplace solution." "When Great Resignation 2.0 hits, companies not focusing on employee experience today might be left behind tomorrow." Quote by Mick: "Motivation gets an employee to sign on the dotted line; inspiration is what brings them back day after day." Connect & Discover Josh LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joshdrean/ Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/joshdrean/ Tik Tok: https://www.tiktok.com/@joshdrean Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=josh+drean Books and Articles: Employment is Dead: How Disruptive Technology is Revolutionizing the Way We Work FOLLOW MICK ON:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/mickunplugged/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mickunplugged/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@mickunplugged Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mickhunt/Website: https://www.mickhuntofficial.com Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/mick-unplugged/ See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Chapter 1: Who is Josh Drean and what is his vision?
Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to another exciting episode of Mick Unplugged. And today, we have a brilliant one for you. We're talking about a groundbreaking trailblazer in the arena of work and technology and AI and just culture. a person I've looked up to for a very long time, a person I'm very honored to call a friend.
We're talking about the one, the only, the groundbreaker, the trailblazer, the visionary, the guy that's going to lead work future into the future. My man, Mr. Josh Dream. Josh, how are you doing today, brother?
Mick, thanks for that intro, man. I always feel like, you know, an MMA fighter coming out of the tunnel when you give those intros. It's so powerful. Yeah.
We're going to get your favorite hip hop song and play under it. And that can just be your intro as you move forward. Cause I know Josh is a hip hop guy, right?
That's it. Big hip hop guy. Big heavy hitter here.
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Chapter 2: How did Josh Drean start his journey in AI and culture?
There you go. Josh, man, like you're someone I've been following for a long time. You know, we talked off off camera just on what you've meant to me over the last few years. Right. Like someone I really follow that I feel like we share a lot of the same pillars and values when it comes to leadership and culture. My question, Josh, when did that start for you?
Like, when did you know that that was going to be the niche that was going to be the place that you could leave your mark?
Yeah, I appreciate that. And I do feel like we share that ethos, right? I think we both are in this for a lot of different reasons. But one of the foundational reasons is because we want people to achieve their full potential, whatever that looks like and feels like.
And it would be so disheartening to go through your entire life and recognize that you only achieved a small part of that full potential. And so... The reason we put out content, the reason I'm active on my socials and the reason why I follow you is because it's interesting to see how many people – I hate the word sellout, but they kind of get stuck.
And so that was kind of the big raison d'etre, if you will, that I brought to a young startup that I was building out of the Harvard Innovation Labs. We were essentially –
pioneering sentiment analysis in real time which is a fancy way of saying let's ask employees what they need to achieve their potential let's ask them what they need to be satisfied at work and then do everything we can as a business to give it to them because the age-old adage a happy employee is a productive employee holds true no matter the economic circumstances
And that's what really drove me is this young startup, right? We were so interested in helping employees be better at work. And we started to recognize all of the challenges that came along with that. Some of them were motivational, right? An individual might not be interested in achieving their potential. They just want to kind of coast and do their work. And that's your prerogative. Right.
There was also a systemic problem that a lot of companies weren't established or set up structurally to help employees unlock their potential. They were set up to drive shareholder value, which is nice for shareholders.
There wasn't a lot there for employees to do more than just going and collecting your paycheck, doing your nine to five, learning the skills that you need to do the job that your company wants you to do. And so I guess that kind of kickstarted me into this world of work. We just published a book. It is called Employment is Dead, How Disruptive Technologies are Revolutionizing the Way We Work.
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Chapter 3: What is the role of culture in the modern workplace?
If you can identify what the culture is, then you can have a successful culture. And And a lot of companies jumped on board. They wrote it all out. They put it up in the break room and they said, this is what you need to do to be successful. Just follow our model for culture.
And what we are seeing now in the mid 2020s is that that's not enough, that establishing or defining the culture is, yes, a very important part of it. But what about the subculture? Like are executives actually living the culture? Are your employees feeling the culture of the organization or is there something else going on there?
Because we didn't actually take the time to ask employees what they wanted the culture to be. We just declared a few executives high up in the organization said this is what the culture is going to be. But it's that culture adoption from your frontline employees is what matters most.
And the reason why I'm talking about that is because employees can't have the experience that will unlock their potential unless they have the environment and the tools that they need to be successful.
You're exactly right, man. I have this quote and it says, I have this for leaders. Leaders don't lead businesses. They lead their culture. And it's the culture that actually leads the business. And so I love the fact that culture is a big thing because it is for me as well, too. It's one of those things that people talk and talk and talk about. But to me, culture is felt, right? Culture is seen.
And culture is a four-letter word, C-A-R-E, right? Like if I care, if we have a culture of care, everything is felt around that. I don't need a fancy mission statement. I don't need a vision statement that nobody on the team knows other than the CEO and the CEO doesn't have it memorized, right? Like culture is something that you feel. Josh, what's your take on that?
It is. And what is unfortunate is that companies will give lip service. I'm not saying all companies. Most companies will give lip service to what we call employee experience design. They will talk about culture. They will get excited about the perks. There's snacks in the break room. We have an amazing culture. Let's do hot yoga. It's an amazing culture.
And what they're really doing is like offering nice perks, which might be above and beyond the perks that you see in your contract, which is here's how much I'm being paid. Here's the hours I need to work.
Right.
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Chapter 4: How is the Work3 Institute revolutionizing workplace strategies?
And so they are pushing back on the narrative of like, Oh yeah, I'll just come and sit in my seat and I'll work and I'll have that purpose. It's a structural issue. I love the way that you just framed it, right?
The way that I like to say it is when the Great Resignation 2.0 happens, when the employer market swings back to an employee market and employees have options again, they're not just going to jump from job to job. They're going to jump to more attractive alternatives for work.
And when that happens, and they can probably find the security that they want and they need over there, what does that mean for corporations who are like, culture, let's go, let's... motivation. Let's go. What they're going to find is like, Oh, there's actually more than employees want need out of this relationship than a contract.
That's it. That's it. So Josh, I know, you know, you don't like bragging. You're not going to talk about all the amazing things that you have done. So this is where I, the words of me and me only get to brag about my friend. The Work 3 Institute might be the greatest thing that I have ever seen, heard about, been a part of.
For those that don't know about the Work 3 Institute, one, let's break down what it is. Let's break down how it's helping individuals and companies. And then, Josh, like, what was the brainchild around that? I know I just gave you three and I never do that, but three is our favorite number, right?
So unpack it together, starting with that last one, right? Yeah. The Work 3 Institute is a play on Web 3. Web 3 is supposed to be the next iteration of the Internet. How are we moving beyond just looking at our screens to be within interactive worlds? What do our relationships look like in what we used to call the metaverse, which is still moving forward, by the way, if anyone's curious?
So the Work3 Institute, we essentially help companies marry emerging technologies with workforce strategies. If you are a digital first human centric leader who says, I value my people. I'm not trying to get rid of them for AI. I value my people and I want them to use AI to become better. We say, well, here's how you do it.
And so what we've seen is that there are a lot of younger, hungry executives who are like jumping into these new work models with both feet. And we provide the roadmap. That's part of our book. Deborah Perry Pashoni and I have published. It's the last chapter where we provide a 13-step roadmap on how do you even do it? Like, is it buying VR headsets for all of your employees? Is it...
going to a virtual office, which, you know, that trend has kind of died off. And I would say it's not that. On the surface, no, like none of that. Really what we're saying is there are 10 operating principles of the Work 3 Institute. These are the non-negotiables of the modern workforce. And I talk to HR leaders all over the world and I say, can you offer any of your employees these?
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Chapter 5: Why is transparency and autonomy important in the workplace?
And one of the things I love about you, Josh, and you say this a lot and shameless plug for Josh's YouTube channel, by the way, because I heard you say this probably 30 times there. AI plus humanity equals the perfect workplace solution, right? And I took liberties on saying that, but that's kind of how I grabbed that.
How can organizations and companies, one, not be afraid of AI, two, not look at AI as a true replacement of humans and humanity and making it work? Because to me, that's where you get the dynamic true workforce. Like if me as a company,
If we embrace AI and we're using it for the betterment of what we do to make humans better, to have true human interaction, like that's a huge win across the board. So for Josh, man, and the things that you're teaching, talk to us a little bit about AI and humanity together.
Yeah, I mean, it's interesting. There's two camps. This is an oversimplification, but there are companies who recognize that your workforce is expensive. You spend the most money on your people. And so if we can reduce the workforce using AI, we save money. That to me is a very closed universe concept. kind of negative perspective.
And then there are companies who say, we could use AI to supercharge our efforts. We can 10x and 50x and 100x our outcomes if we can train our people to use AI, if we can leverage this in a way that is still mutually beneficial. And I am very much in that camp. I think that, you know, we're going to see companies probably go fully automated.
And I mean, to me, it just kind of you look at the foundation of what a business is designed for is to drive value for people. And there are businesses that can be automated fully and it's coming. So we need to be aware of that. But I think the companies that are going to win. are the ones that say, hey, let's help you learn AI. Let's implement it into our ethos.
How can we achieve our purpose with AI? And they move in that direction. We're going to see much greater returns.
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Chapter 6: What are the expectations of the modern workforce?
No, I totally agree. You know, even for my teams, you know, I run three different companies and we look at, all right, what are some things that I can actually do that are part of your job function? Right. To make you thrive at work, to make work happier for you and not just AI, but also technology. Right.
Because all of a sudden in the last two years, Josh, everything technology has been lumped into AI and that's also just not the case too. Machine learning and AI are not the same thing. Bots and AI are not the same thing. All are important to technology. So we look at
How can we utilize technology to maybe take a job function that was repetitive that you no longer have to do so that now you can be that dynamic human who can talk to customers, who can close deals, who can do different facets that you don't have to. be transactionless anymore.
So we do a lot internally with letting technology, again, I'm not just saying AI, but letting technology handle some of the transactional things that usually keep your employees up at night because it's like, oh, I've got this thing and I forgot to do this thing. And if I didn't do this thing, then something might be broken. Well, technology can handle that.
And now this human can be the leader that they are because I don't care about titles anymore. Most of the people on your team are leaders in their household. They're leaders in their community. They know how to decision make. Now I have a team of pure leaders that can now help me grow the business, change the business, adapt the business, like the things that as leaders we really want.
I let AI or I let technology handle that mundane stuff so that my team can really focus on being leaders.
I love that, Mick. That is 100%. the right direction. And just listening to you talk about that, I was like, wow, Mick really has the right vision here of what it can be and what it should be. You know, that it's... When I look at growing businesses in the future, I think about what we as humans value. And...
There are the one percenters, if you will, who value money and value power and value sending rockets to the moon. And humanity needs that to a degree. But does it have to be just a few people? Can't we all go? Can't we all work on this project together?
Right, right.
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