Unprofessionalism
What does it really mean to be professional?
For generations, professionalism has been associated with competence, composure and control. But many of the unwritten rules we follow at work were built for a different world, one that asked us to hide uncertainty, suppress emotion and prioritise appearance over connection.
Each week, Dr Myriam Hadnes, behavioural economist, facilitator and founder of workshops.work, sits down with people who've questioned those rules. Their stories start with a professional risk. Few set out to be disruptive. Most simply reached a point where the conventional way of working no longer served them or the people around them.
Together they unpack the risks they took: admitting they didn't know, showing grief at work, challenging authority, asking for help, dressing differently, changing careers, trusting others, leading in ways they'd never seen modelled.
This podcast doesn't ask you to reject professionalism, or treat authenticity as some ideal to reach for. It’s about judgment: Which professional norms help us collaborate, lead and build trust? Which ones create distance between people? And how do we recognise the difference?
If you've ever felt the gap between who you are and who you think work wants you to be, this podcast invites you to look again. Not every professional rule needs breaking. But every one is worth questioning.
Episodes
29 episodes
028 - The Costume That Got Me Promoted with Moh Guissé
This week's professional risk - inspired by Moh GuisseAbandoning the persona that got you promoted.DescriptionFor years, Moh believed he was doing exactly what a successful professional should do.After ...
027 - Why This Podcast Makes Us Uncomfortable with Dr Myriam Hadnes
This week's professional riskQuestioning the professional rules we’ve always followed, without ever choosing them.DescriptionEvery now and then, a conversation comes along that completely breaks my understandi...
026 - The Corporate Drag with Charlie Robertson
This week's professional risk - inspired by CharlieMake the thing you've always kept furthest from work the centre of it.DescriptionCharlie Robertson spent years keeping two lives carefully apart: the consulta...
025 - The Courage to Be Fully Human at Work with Mariam Halfhide
This week's professional risk - inspired by Mariam HalfhideTelling someone honestly how their behaviour affected you, instead of hiding behind professionalism, blame or silence.This episode invites you to reflect on:...
024 - Beyond the Day Job with Jamell Crouthers
Jamell Crouthers has held a full-time job the entire time he's been writing. Sixty books in eight years, a podcast, blog posts, all of it built in the hours around his day work. He writes fiction about social issues — race, workaholism, homeles...
023 - The Third Space: Belonging Comes First with Donatella Caggiano
Donatella Caggiano was living in a Best Western while her flooded apartment got fixed when she watched a SWAT team raid a neighbouring house to catch a fugitive. She caught herself rooting for the person running and then realised she was the pe...
022 - Speak Up or Shut Down with Gustavo Razzetti
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 t...
021 - Innovation Before Consensus with Rori DuBoff
Rori DuBoff once took an unused office at Accenture, tore it down, and built a virtual reality studio from scratch with no formal approval and that's how she got the firm into the metaverse. She didn't wait for the green light. She brought in a...
020 - Fitting Out at Work with Emanuele Mazzanti
Emanuele Mazzanti is a day one rule-breaker. When he moved to EY Italy, his boss asked to be called "Dottore." He noticed the distance being created and suggested, politely, that they drop the formalities and just use first names. Surprisingly,...
019 - How to Find Your Real Voice Again with Cathey Armillas
Cathey Armillas built her career the way most people are told not to. She doesn't separate what she loves from what she sells. Her sneaker collection became a filter for clients. Her obsession with waterfalls became a corporate training product...
018 - The Norm Breaker's Privilege with Benjamin Taylor
Benjamin Taylor was once brought in to help eleven chief executives navigate a merger that would cost the job of some. Before the meeting, a more senior colleague on his team pushed back on touching that topic. It would embarrass them, he said....
017 - Small Talk Is Big Talk with Julie Brown
When Julie Brown was being poached from one company to another, they asked what she was currently earning. She told them a number she wanted to be true — what she deserved, not what she was making. They didn't blink.That’s how she spent ...
016 - The Courage to Say: I Don’t Understand with Jussi Hermunen
Jussi Hermunen was brought in as a consultant on a multimillion-euro project when he discovered that his go-to tool was on the client's prohibited software list. He used it anyway. Not out of recklessness, but because a diagram reads the same o...
015 - The Price of Being Difficult with Tramaine Schilders-Teo
Tramaine has a rule for herself and everyone she manages: what you allow will continue. She learned by watching what happened when she didn't set a boundary, and what happened when she did.With +15 years of managing teams across industri...
014 - The Cost of Being Yourself with Michael Bungay Stanier
Thirty years ago, in a room full of blue suits with padded shoulders, pearls, and red ties — all competing for one of the most prestigious academic scholarships in the world — Michael Bungay Stanier walked in with long blonde hair, earrings, an...
013 - The Mask I Still Wear with Myriam Hadnes
While working in Vietnam, the uni president, once told me I was getting away with a lot — working from home, teaching with comic books, skipping the standard slide show — because I was young, female, pretty, and white. As harsh as it might soun...
012 - The Courage to Unmask with Roi Ben-Yehuda
Roi Ben-Yehuda was one dissertation away from finishing his PhD when he realised he didn't want what was waiting on the other side. He walked away. Then years later, settled into a good job he liked, with a new mortgage and two small babies at ...
011 - Claim It Before You're Ready with Leanne Hughes
Leanne Hughes wrote the name of a podcast she didn’t have on a blue Post-it note, dropped it in a hat, and when her name was called — walked on stage and described the show as if it existed. It didn’t. A few months later, the First Time Facilit...
010 - When a CFO Chooses Humanity over Numbers with Martin Frederik Garbers
When Martin Frederik Garbers’ company was acquired, he was handed the unenviable job of letting twenty-five people go. His own days were numbered too, but he chose to spend them sitting through the hard conversations, one by one, as a human bei...
009 - Creating a Return on Humanity (When ROI Isn't Enough) with Philippa White
As her classmates chanted the purpose of business (spoiler: to make money), Philippa White couldn’t help but feel like she'd wandered into the wrong room, as the business school black sheep.She'd grown up watching her uncle bridge worlds...
008 - The Generation That Refused to Fake It at Work with Alex McCann
Alex McCann isn’t a qualified career coach, occupational therapist, or psychologist. But he’ll be the first to tell you that.He walked away from a six-month internship, would sneak off to watch films when he should've been serving popcor...
007 - The Good Girl Trap with Anna Lundberg
Anna Lundberg had spent her whole life being the good girl. Top of the class as valedictorian, Oxford graduate, and the shiny P&G title to show for it. She’d ticked every box, perfected the image, and then she did something very off-brand: ...
006 - The Lie of Not Enough with Mark McCartney
Mark McCartney showed up to facilitate a C-level team in Berlin on the hottest day of the year, drenched in sweat, and opened by pointing out his own stain marks. They laughed. The room shifted. That's Mark — someone who left a 15-year finance ...
005 - When the Rules Stop Serving You with Rotem Kazir
Sometimes, just sometimes, the rules are there to be broken. Because when you dare to break them, miracles and moments of beautiful humanity could be waiting just on the other side.Rotem Kazir was trained never to let her coaching client...
004 - The Business Case for Belonging with Jon Berghoff
Jon Berghoff walked into a room of C-level executives from billion-dollar companies and noticed they'd all filled the back rows first. He spent two hours debating whether to say something. Then he got on stage and asked them to move to the fron...
