Work For Humans

After years leading recruiting and talent systems at companies like Bridgewater, Electronic Arts, and Dolby, Jeff Hunter came to believe that many of our assumptions about talent, hiring, and performance are fundamentally wrong. The problem is not that people lack potential. The problem is that the systems around them often fail to recognize or develop it. In this revisited episode, Dart and Jeff discuss what gets in the way of human potential and what organizations can do differently.

Prior to founding Talentism, Jeff served as Head of Recruiting at Bridgewater Associates and held leadership roles at Electronic Arts and Dolby. His work has focused on designing and scaling systems that help people learn, grow, and perform at their best.

In this episode, Dart and Jeff discuss:
- What limits human potential
- Why talent matters more than capital
- The hidden flaws in hiring
- Why skills can be misleading
- What Bridgewater taught Jeff
- The problem with managing people
- How systems shape behavior
- Why context changes everything
- The challenge of hiring for values
- What great organizations do differently
- And other topics…

Jeff Hunter is founder and CEO of Talentism, a company that helps leaders build organizations that unlock human potential. Previously, he served as Head of Recruiting at Bridgewater Associates and held senior talent leadership roles in the technology industry. His work focuses on helping organizations design systems that enable people to learn, grow, and perform at their best.

Connect with Jeff:
Website: www.talentism.com 
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.

Many of the problems we care most about cannot be solved by a single organization. That insight helped John Kania develop Collective Impact, a framework for bringing people together around shared goals. But over time, Kania noticed that coordination alone was not enough. Even when groups made progress, the deeper patterns of the system often remained unchanged. In this episode, Dart and John discuss the evolution of systems change thinking and why lasting change requires more than alignment, strategy, and good intentions.

John Kania is Executive Director of Collective Change Lab, a nonprofit that develops new approaches to collaboration and systems change. He is a leading thinker on collective impact, systems leadership, and the relational work of creating social change.

In this episode, Dart and John discuss:
- Problems no one can solve alone
- Why good intentions often fail
- The limits of coordination
- What keeps systems stuck
- The hidden power of mental models
- Why relationships drive change
- The challenge of sharing power
- What leadership looks like in uncertainty
- The role of healing in systems change
- Why changing systems means changing ourselves
- Building islands of coherence
- And other topics…

John Kania is Executive Director of Collective Change Lab, a nonprofit focused on advancing transformational systems change practices. He previously served as Global Managing Director of FSG, where he helped develop and popularize the concept of collective impact. John is co-author of the influential Stanford Social Innovation Review articles Collective Impact, The Dawn of System Leadership, and The Relational Work of Systems Change, as well as The Water of Systems Change. His work focuses on helping people and organizations collaborate across boundaries to address complex social challenges.

Resources Mentioned:
Collective Impact, by John Kania, Mark Kramer, and Peter Senge: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/collective_impact
The Dawn of System Leadership, by John Kania, Mark Kramer, and Peter Senge: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_dawn_of_system_leadership
The Relational Work of Systems Change, by John Kania, Jennifer Splansky Juster, and Peter Senge: https://ssir.org/articles/entry/the_relational_work_of_systems_change
The Water of Systems Change, by David Peter Stroh, John Kania, Mark Kramer, and others: https://www.fsg.org/resource/water_of_systems_change/
Collective Change Lab: https://collectivechangelab.org/

Connect with John:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/john-kania-1a294020/
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 becoming painfully aware that he cared more about the numbers than the well-being of his employees, Mark LeBusque began to question his management philosophy. An insight to start thinking of his employees like customers helped Mark breakout of the "employees as inputs to production" model that previously informed his thinking. With this shift in management style, Mark was able to lead his team to unprecedented levels of growth and a new found sense of belonging.

In this revisited episode, Dart and Mark discuss management, belonging, emotional labor, and what happens when leaders stop treating work as a system to control and start treating it as a human relationship.

Mark is internationally known as the Human Manager. He is a Harvard-trained speaker, facilitator, mentor, coach, and author focused on making businesses more human-centric.

In this episode Dart and Mark discuss:
- Why results can hide bad management
- What happens when people feel like inputs
- Why belonging changes how people work
- Why management is really relationship work
- How trust changes team performance
- Why discomfort can lead to growth
- The difference between metrics and meaning
- How leaders create psychological safety
- Why some workplaces make people feel invisible
- What work costs us emotionally
- And other topics…

Mark LeBusque is an Australian speaker, facilitator, coach, and author known for his work on human-centered leadership and workplace culture. After more than 25 years in sales, operations, and executive leadership roles, he developed his “Human Manager” philosophy, which focuses on belonging, trust, and human connection at work. He is the author of Being Human and The Little Book of Human, and works with leaders and organizations around the world to build healthier workplace relationships and cultures.

Resources mentioned:
Being Human: Why Robots Are Not the Answer to Business Success, by Mark LeBusque: https://www.amazon.com/Being-Human-Robots-Business-Success/dp/0995429618
Seeing Like a State: How Certain Schemes to Improve the Human Condition Have Failed, by James C. Scott: https://www.amazon.com/Seeing-like-State-Certain-Condition/dp/0300078153

Connect with:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/marklebusque?originalSubdomain=au
Website: https://marklebusque.com/
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.

A kidney transplant does not work like buying a gallon of milk. Neither does hiring or getting into a medical residency. In these markets, both sides care deeply about who they end up with, and a good outcome depends on more than money.

Alvin Roth has spent his career studying what makes those systems succeed or fail. His work designing kidney exchange programs showed that even when people desperately want to help each other, the market can still break down unless the rules create the right kind of match. In this episode, Dart and Al discuss matching markets, moral economics, and the hidden rules that shape opportunity, fairness, and work itself.

Alvin Roth is an economist and professor at Stanford University best known for his work on market design and matching theory. He received the 2012 Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his work on stable matching and the design of markets used in medical residencies, school choice, and kidney exchange.

In this episode, Dart and Al discuss:
- Why some markets depend on matching
- Why fit matters more than money
- What makes a market stable
- Why real markets are messy
- The difference between theory and engineering
- What “repugnant transactions” are
- Why societies ban some exchanges
- How social norms shape markets
- Why work is also a matching problem
- And other topics…

Alvin Roth is the Craig and Susan McCaw Professor of Economics at Stanford University and recipient of the 2012 Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, awarded with Lloyd Shapley for the theory of stable allocations and the practice of market design. His work has helped design matching systems for medical residencies, public school admissions, and kidney exchange programs. He is the author of Who Gets What — and Why and Moral Economics: Why Good and Bad Markets Exist.

Resources Mentioned:
Al’s Book, Moral Economics: Why Good and Bad Markets Exist: https://www.amazon.com/Moral-Economics-Good-Markets-Exist/dp/1324076445
Al’s Book, Who Gets What — and Why: https://www.amazon.com/Who-Gets-What-Why-Matchmaking/dp/0544705299

Connect with Al:
Stanford profile: https://profiles.stanford.edu/alvin-roth
Market Design Blog: https://marketdesigner.blogspot.com/
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.

When Joan Ryan stepped into the locker room to conduct her first post-game interview as a sports journalist, she was all but kicked out by the players. Feeling both unwelcome and undeterred, she made a firm decision to stick around and make a name for herself as one of the first female sports columnists in the country.

Intrigued by the concept of team chemistry, Joan wrote Intangibles, where she shares what team chemistry really is, how to identify it, and how to use it to elevate the performance of any entity, from sports to businesses and beyond. In this revisited episode, Joan and Dart explore the hidden forces behind great teams, why chemistry matters more than most people think, and how human connection can elevate performance.

Joan Ryan is an award-winning journalist, speaker, author, and media consultant with the San Francisco Giants. Her work has been featured on Oprah, 60 Minutes, the Today Show, People magazine, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Time Magazine.

In this episode, Dart and Joan discuss:
- Whether or not team chemistry exists
- How team chemistry elevates performance
- The neurophysiology of human connection
- The essential archetypes within team chemistry
- Connecting over emotions vs. connecting over a shared task
- How chemistry and skills affect the likelihood of team success
- Using an intangible concept to create tangible results
- And other topics…

Joan Ryan is an award-winning journalist, speaker, author, and media consultant with the San Francisco Giants. She pioneered sports journalism as one of the first female sports columnists in the country; her work has earned 13 Associated Press Sports Editors Awards, the Women’s Sports Foundation’s Journalism Award, and the Edgar A. Poe Award from the White House Correspondents Association, among others.

As an author, Joan has been featured on Oprah, 60 Minutes, the Today Show, People magazine, the New Yorker, the New York Times, and Time Magazine. Her expansive career inspired her book, Intangibles: Unlocking the Science and Soul of Team Chemistry, which draws from hundreds of interviews to understand the phenomenon known as team chemistry.

Resources mentioned:
Intangibles, by Joan Ryan: https://www.amazon.com/Intangibles-Unlocking-Science-Soul-Chemistry/dp/B086KJFGBW
Organizing Genius, by Warren Bennis and Patricia Ward Biederman: https://www.amazon.com/Organizing-Genius-Secrets-Creative-Collaboration/dp/0201339897

Connect with Joan:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joan-ryan-intangibles/
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.