I write about the gap between who we are at work and who we are when we put down the professional mask. Every week, I share one personal story from my life and a podcast conversation with someone who dared to write their own script, choosing authenticity over performance. The podcast is called Unprofessionalism. Each episode comes with a 1-page summary, in case you'd rather read than listen.
The risk of being unprofessional || 🎤 Ep 022: Speak Up or Shut Down with Gustavo Razzetti
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Hi Reader, The first thing I ask my podcast guests is to tell me a story about a time when they've been unprofessional. One story that was part of my keynote last week was when I was hosting an online workshop for a luxury German automotive company. I was still young but had embraced the concept of "connection before content" and so I opened the session with my now famous Turn to Your Neighbour moment. Not even one minute into the 1-1 breakout, I get a personal message from my client: Abbruch! Stop this immediately, the boss finds it too touchy feely. My mantra was "trust the process" so I carried on, ignored it. For the rest of the workshop, I stared at middle-aged white German men leaning back with crossed arms. They had paid for 4 workshops in advance. This remaind the only one I delivered. If I had been one of those men, I am sure I'd have gotten away with it. Maybe even been considered courageous and 'out of the box'. But I wasn't a middle-aged white man. I was a young woman with maybe a bit too much confidence. When I told this story at the keynote last week, I doubled down: when women ask groups to sit in a circle and close their eyes, it's often considered spiritual woo-woo. If a man does the same, he's courageous. Unprofessionalism doesn't carry the same risk for everyone. What surprised me most was who this statement resonated with. Not just my feminist friends, but the men. The way the male audience opened up to their potential blindspot really touched me. One even reflected about it on LinkedIn: What does it mean, as a male trainer, to design learning spaces? Which role models do we unconsciously reproduce when we stand at the front of the room? What is our responsibility toward marginalised groups? What I'm taking away: a vulnerable personal story and an honest provocation without blame can open conversations on difficult topics — and even get a man to publicly ask for help. 🎤 Waiting for you on the Unprofessionalism podcast:Gustavo Razzetti once sat next to a woman at a corporate conference, judging the regional VP presenting on stage until she revealed that was her husband. Instead of backpedaling he apologised, then stood by every word. That instinct of owning the mess without pretending he didn’t mean it is the backbone of his work. He has spent decades inside corporate and agency life watching great ideas die because of terrible culture. He now works with teams on what he calls conversational debt: the gap between what people nod through in meetings and what they actually act on. His research found that when people are asked why others don't speak up, the answer is fear, but when asked why they themselves don't, the answer becomes pointlessness: a learned belief that nothing will change anyway. Gustavo refuses to live that way. He fires clients before the work even starts if the fit is wrong. His rule is that he'd rather lose his job over one conversation than avoid a hundred — and he did. We talked about the power dynamics that shape what is considered professionalism, the most dangerous type of silence in organisations and why we should all drop the invisible contract nobody handed us and stop waiting for permission to speak. 🎧 Click here to listen to the interview📥 Download my 1-page summary​UP_022_Summary.pdf​ That's it from my side. I hope to see you next week! Myriam
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What does it cost to be yourself — at work?
I write about the gap between who we are at work and who we are when we put down the professional mask. Every week, I share one personal story from my life and a podcast conversation with someone who dared to write their own script, choosing authenticity over performance. The podcast is called Unprofessionalism. Each episode comes with a 1-page summary, in case you'd rather read than listen.
Hi Reader, Three weeks ago I started preparing my first ever keynote on Unprofessionalism. By "preparing" I mean: almost no mental capacity for anything else. I have never worked harder on anything. The irony is not lost on me. Over the three weeks, I had many plans. A theatre play, costumes for showing the masks of unprofessionalism, turn-to-your-neighbour conversations for reflection. The closer the date approached, the more I found clarity that the tools and costumes I planned were more of...
Hi Reader, Twenty episodes into "Unprofessionalism" and I still cannot even grasp the edges of the topic! It's privilege, it's self-expression, self-permission, ownership, corporate rebellion. There is no real subject matter expertise to explore on Unprofessionalism. The guest and their personal story are the focus, although each one brings expertise that we explore through the lens of unprofessionalism. As the podcast host, I am continuously making decisions whether to dive deeper into the...
Hi Reader, I spent my weekend with a group of strangers to whom I told the most personal story - one that not even my closest friends would be aware of. The shaking of my hands stopped as soon as I started. I didn't need notes because this was my story. While I am used to speaking to groups of strangers, I usually stand there with a specific role: the facilitator. This time, nobody knew about what I was doing from nine to five. All they knew about me was this one story. And wow, that felt...