TruthWorks

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Are you ready to dive deep into the world of work, culture and leadership? Join Jessica Neal and Patty McCord each week as they chat with expert guests and explore the issues affecting the workplace — from AI and mental health, to making layoffs and combating toxic cultures. Featuring global industry leaders and specialists that are passionate about reshaping the way work today. Listen in as we redefine the rules to work for us, not against us. Episode 1 of TruthWorks launches March 19! Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

  1. 1D AGO

    We Promote People Then Abandon Them! - The Leadership Crisis Nobody Is Talking About | Claude Silver

    Claude Silver is the world's first Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia — one of the largest independent agencies on the planet with over 2,000 employees globally. What started as an unexpected conversation over breakfast with Gary Vaynerchuck turned into a decade-long mission to build what he calls "the greatest human organization in the history of time." Her only job description? "Touch every single human being and infuse the agency with empathy." Claude never wanted to be in HR. She started in grocery stores, survived the dot-com boom and bust, built a career as a digital strategist at some of the world's biggest agencies, and stumbled into the most human role in business almost by accident. Today she leads a global people operation and has written the book — literally — on what it means to show up as yourself at work. In this conversation, Claude and Jessica Neal go deep on why most workplaces are quietly breaking people, why the traditional path to leadership is fundamentally broken, and what it actually takes to build a culture where people don't just perform — they thrive. In this episode you'll learn: Why psychological safety disappears long before performance numbers start droppingThe difference between culture fit and culture addition — and why mixing them up destroys teamsThe "Lie Exercise" Claude uses to dismantle imposter syndrome in real timeWhy promoting your best people without coaching them is one of the most damaging things a company can doHow to scale empathy across a 2,000 person organization without losing the human touchWhy heart-led leadership isn't soft — it's the fastest path to real accountability and zero dramaWhat cynicism, politicking and late night Slack messages are really telling you about your cultureWhy the loneliest role in any company might just be the one responsible for everyone else's wellbeingThe moment that changed everything: At 19, Claude left college, strapped 80 pounds onto her back and spent 93 days on an Outward Bound wilderness program in the Colorado Rockies. No tent. No toilet paper. No way out. What she came back with wasn't just confidence — it was a blueprint for servant leadership that still runs through everything she does today. On the book: Be Yourself At Work is Claude's answer to watching talented people shrink in the workplace — just like she once did. It's a practical, honest, deeply personal guide to self-awareness, team dynamics, and leading with courage. Part memoir, part playbook, part mirror. Claude Silver's book Be Yourself At Work is available now everywhere books are sold.

    51 min
  2. FEB 24

    Uber's CHRO: Why Your Company Culture Is Failing & The Secret To "Strategic Calmness

    In this incredibly candid conversation, Nikki Krishnamurthy (Chief People Officer at Uber) joins Jessica Neal (former Chief Talent Officer at Netflix) to discuss the high-stakes reality of leading people through crisis, transformation, and the AI revolution. Nikki opens up about the "Strategic Calmness" required to navigate Uber’s most turbulent years, from handling global layoffs to dismantling a culture of leaks and entitlement. She shares the internal mechanics of her 13-year partnership with Uber CEO Dara Khosrowshahi, explaining why a Chief People Officer must act as a business leader first and why being "the mirror" for a CEO is the most important, and loneliest, part of the job. We dive deep into: The C-Suite Burden: Why the HR role has shifted into a hybrid of Chief Medical, Diversity, and AI Officer.The "Entitlement" Trap: How Uber moved from "investigating everything" back to a culture of high judgment and "doing the right thing."Managing Up: The exact moment Nikki gave Dara feedback and how that blunt honesty built a foundation of radical trust.AI vs. Innovation: Why Nikki is prioritizing "AI-native" college grads and her warning to big companies: Don't let efficiency kill your ability to invent.The Art of "Disagree and Commit": Navigating executive hires and knowing which hills are worth dying on.This is a masterclass in leadership, human psychology, and the raw reality of what happens behind the closed doors of the world’s biggest tech companies.

    53 min
  3. FEB 17

    HBO to $50,000,000: How I Built a Fortune, Lost Everything, and Reclaimed My Life | James Altucher

    James Altucher is a name that carries both the weight of massive success and the scars of public collapse. He has built and sold companies for millions, lived the life of the elite, and then—through a series of "stupid" decisions and a warped psychology of money—watched it all evaporate. In this episode, James sits down with Jessica Neal for a masterclass on the human ego. He takes us back to the "least respected" basement office at HBO, where he was just an IT guy with a secret dream of making TV, and explains how he accidentally stumbled into a $50 million fortune. But the real story is what happened next. James opens up about the "sickness" that strikes when you reach the top—the belief that if you aren't making $100 million, you're failing. He reveals the visceral shame of lying to business partners while his house was being foreclosed on, the depression that followed, and the radical "Four Bodies" framework he used to crawl back to the light. This isn't just about money; it’s about the "blood flow" of creativity, the danger of being a salesperson who is too easily sold, and the 1% compounding rule that can change your life in 20 days. If you feel like you’re treading water, or if you’ve achieved success only to feel more anxious than ever, this conversation is for you. In this episode, we cover: 00:00 The HBO basement: Where it all started.05:12 Having $50M and losing it all: The psychological "sickness."12:45 The "Four Bodies" Framework: Physical, Emotional, Creative, Spiritual.18:20 Why you must write 10 bad ideas every single day.25:30 Being a "Human Lie Detector": Detecting BS in the startup world.33:15 The future of Humanoid Robots and the next trillion-dollar shift.42:10 Why "Freedom" is often scarier than "Failure."

    50 min
  4. JAN 27

    The Work Expert: Why Your Obsession With Speed Is Destroying Your Team | Bree Groff

    Why do 70% of organizational transformations fail? It isn't because of bad strategy, poor funding, or a lack of talent. It is because we have fundamentally misunderstood the psychology of change. In this episode, we sit down with Bree Groff, a Senior Advisor at the global transformation consultancy SYPartners and the former CEO of NOBL Collective, to discuss the counter-intuitive truth about innovation: you cannot build the future until you mourn the past. Bree explains that what leaders often label as "resistance" or "laziness" is actually a form of grief. Drawing on her unique background—which spans cognitive psychology research, a tenure as a high school physics teacher, and over a decade advising C-suite leaders at companies like Google, Pfizer, and Calvin Klein—she breaks down the "Six Types of Loss" employees experience during a pivot. We dive deep into why the "move fast and break things" era is ending and why the most successful modern companies are those that allow teams to "metabolize" the loss of their old identities. Bree also previews insights from her book, Today Was Fun, challenging the toxic positivity of corporate culture and offering a scientific framework for why we need to stop forcing agility and start designing for closure. About Bree Groff: Bree Groff is a renowned expert in organizational psychology and transformation. Currently a Senior Advisor at SYPartners, she previously served as the CEO of NOBL, a global change agency known for pioneering new ways of working. She holds a Master’s in Learning and Organizational Change from Northwestern University and a B.A. in Psychology and Biology from the University of Pennsylvania. Before entering the corporate world, Bree explored human behavior from two very different angles: as a psychology researcher studying decision-making and as an actor and math teacher—experiences that shaped her belief that work should be designed for humans, not just efficiency.

    51 min
5
out of 5
23 Ratings

About

Are you ready to dive deep into the world of work, culture and leadership? Join Jessica Neal and Patty McCord each week as they chat with expert guests and explore the issues affecting the workplace — from AI and mental health, to making layoffs and combating toxic cultures. Featuring global industry leaders and specialists that are passionate about reshaping the way work today. Listen in as we redefine the rules to work for us, not against us. Episode 1 of TruthWorks launches March 19! Subscribe wherever you get your podcasts. 

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