Productivi-Tree: The Human Side of Productivity

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Your team has good software and the work still feels heavy. Nobody wants to say it out loud, because the tool was approved, paid for and announced.

Mike Toguchi has spent 25 years inside that exact room, in universities, nonprofits, foundations and corporates, and he has a blunt diagnosis: the technology is rarely what broke. He walks through a nonprofit scholarship programme that put AI on top of a convoluted review process and got "continued mess, faster mess", and he explains why a team that cannot say what is working has no feedback loop, only a sign-off.

By the end you will be able to spot survival mode in a team whose tools are running fine, test whether you have approval or alignment before a project goes sideways, and run a readiness check before you sign the next renewal.

Listen before your next software renewal lands on your desk, because the cheapest version of this lesson is the one you get secondhand.

Key Takeaways
1. A tool amplifies the workflow it lands on. Mike: "a lot of times the technology ends up being the thing that exposes the fissures in your workflow as opposed to fixing them."
2. Survival mode looks like smooth technology and overwhelmed staff. The signs are unclear ownership, incentives pointing in different directions and no line back to the mission.
3. Automating a convoluted review process gave one nonprofit richer summaries and worse decisions. Mike: "It's not making the process cleaner."
4. Approval is a signature. Alignment is a shared understanding of the problem, the success criteria and the tradeoffs, held together by a feedback loop people can actually use.
5. Every organisation runs two processes: the documented one and the real one. Mike calls them prescriptive and descriptive, and the gap between them is where the workarounds live.
6. Low adoption tells you something about leadership. Mike: "I think adoption is a leadership issue."
7. Readiness takes three things and none of them takes a year: strategic discovery, stakeholders bought in, due diligence done. Then hit the gas.
8. AI gives time back only when leadership decides what the time is for. Otherwise it scales the same busywork at higher volume.
Guest Links
Mike Toguchi on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/miketoguchi/
Tectonic: https://www.teamtectonic.com/
Orchestrate: https://onlineapplications.net
Orchestrate AMS: https://www.orchestrateams.com/
Mentioned in the episode: Democracy in America by Alexis de Tocqueville (Mike's book pick), Slack, HubSpot.

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Productive, Not Busy (live cohort on Maven): https://links.santiagotacoronte.com/productive-not-busy
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🧭 Find Your Weakest Productivity Vector in 5 Minutes (Free Assessment) https://links.santiagotacoronte.com/Productivity-Assessment

You have the title, the salary and the team, and you are lying awake working out how to get out. Nobody at work is having that conversation out loud.

Kimia Penton has it for a living. She runs a global PMO inside a Fortune 10 company; she is President of the PMI Dallas Chapter, and she would take a six-month paid sabbatical over a promotion tomorrow. She is also an organisational psychologist, which is why her account of burnout doesn't match what you have heard. She says she would happily spend a week in a music studio, packing her lunch so she does not have to stop, and leave refreshed. The hours are not the problem. The problem is being in a role where you have no agency, no trust in your leader, and nothing you recognise as yourself.

Listen, and you will come away with three things. One, the two moves to make now so stepping down is even an option later: never let your day job be your only identity or network, and never grow your expenses to match every raise. Two, the test Kimia applies before joining any team, which has nothing to do with the title or the money. Three, what emotional regulation looks like in a meeting that is going badly, from someone who has had to raise her voice five times in twenty years and can tell you why each one counted.

If you have a promotion conversation coming, have this one first.

Key Takeaways
1. Long hours do not cause burnout on their own. Losing agency, working for a leader you do not trust and doing work you no longer recognise yourself in is what does the damage.
2. Wellness apps and on-site gyms are one more thing on the list. Kimia has given up on her company's app. Culture is the retention strategy, and culture is set by the team leader, not the mission statement.
3. Before you can step down, two things have to be true: your job is not your only identity or network, and your expenses have not grown to match your last raise.
4. Build the next thing in parallel while you still have the job. Kimia teaches a university course on Friday nights now because she wants to teach more later.
5. Robert Walters found that 52% of Gen Z professionals in the UK do not want a middle management role, and 69% call it high stress and low reward. The responsibility went up, the autonomy and the pay did not.
6. Staying calm in a conflict takes more discipline than escalating. If you are known as reactionary, people stop taking you seriously unless you are reacting.
7. Asking your direct manager for performance feedback is overrated career advice. Their word does not have to define you.
8. Your job title is not your identity.

Guest Links
Kimia Penton, website: https://kimiapenton.com/
Kimia Penton, music: https://kimiapmusic.com/
Kimia Penton, book (Power, on Purpose): https://www.amazon.com/Power-Purpose-Authenticity-Becomes-Leadership/dp/B0GH5Y4RM8
Kimia Penton, LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kimiapenton/
Kimia Penton on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/2x1RG5Y0QitBt9mqrEaOFQ
Want to know where you are losing time and energy?Take the free Productivity Assessment and get your personal results in minutes. https://links.santiagotacoronte.com/Productivity-Assessment
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Find Your Weakest Productivity Vector in 5 Minutes (Free Assessment)
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You run the house, you run your job, and every week you end up further behind.

Lisa Woodruff has spent more than a decade studying the invisible work of household management, and she found that overwhelm at home is a planning problem, not a personal failure. The fix she teaches is to run the household the way a CEO runs a company: batch the admin, fund two or three projects at a time, and plan the season ahead instead of reacting to the week.

In this episode you will learn:

- How the Sunday Basket replaces an hour of daily admin with one 90-minute session and frees up about 5 hours a week
- Why organizing your own closet before the family spaces is what makes the rest of the house stay organized
- How to use time, talent and treasure to pick fewer home projects and finish them faster

Listen now if you feel like the harder you work at home, the deeper you sink. Lisa shows you the first two steps to take this weekend.

Key Takeaways

1. Batch the household admin. Bills, forms, mail and weekly checklists go in one basket and get handled in one 90-minute to two-hour session. An hour a day becomes one sitting, and about 5 hours of the week come back.
2. Organize for yourself first. A family room cleared on a long weekend is a mess again by next weekend. Your own closet, bathroom shelf or desk stays organized for three or four months and supports you every morning.
3. Run the home like a CEO, not a manager. Check time, talent and treasure before you start a project. Two or three projects a quarter get finished. Eight get started and stall.
4. Plan the season, not just the week. Summer camps get booked in February, trips while everyone is healthy, big personal goals when the family calendar allows. Lisa finished a PhD at 54 by planning it this way.
5. Lower the bar for done. The invisible scorecard built from Instagram and Pinterest makes the workload look bigger than it is.
6. Set a stop time. Lisa stops all work, business and household, at 6:30 pm, even with to-dos left on the list.
7. If you are overwhelmed right now: clean out your closet this weekend, and every evening write tomorrow's list, including the weather, the outfit and the meals.

Chapters

0:00 The Sunday Basket: one session instead of an hour a day
1:30 Meet Lisa Woodruff
2:35 Where the idea of invisible work came from
4:59 Are women still doing more of the work at home?
7:30 How Lisa made her invisible work visible to her family
9:34 Swiss cheese organizing, and why your closet comes first
11:46 What a household CEO does that a manager does not
14:19 Strategic planning at home: camps, trips, retirement, a PhD
17:23 Time, talent and treasure: CEO skills applied to the home
19:47 Too much work, or not organized enough?
22:53 Productivity guilt and Lisa's 6:30 stop time
24:45 Escaping Quicksand: how overwhelm pulls you under
27:31 Two things to do this week if you feel overwhelmed
28:52 How the Sunday Basket frees up 5 hours a week
30:36 Should household managers use AI?
32:48 Can anyone learn to run a home well?
35:30 Quickfire round
37:36 What's next: the Productive Home CEO framework
38:23 Where to find Lisa

Guest Links

- Organize 365: https://organize365.com/
- Escaping Quicksand: https://organize365.com/escapingquicksand/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/organize365/
- Organize 365 Podcast: search "Organize 365" on any podcast app
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Summary

You are using AI to tailor every resume, and you are still hearing nothing back.

Carrie Christiano spent two decades recruiting at companies including IBM and LexisNexis before she started coaching the people whose applications she used to screen. Her position is that AI does not fix a weak job search; it scales it. Paste the posting, paste the resume, ask for a tailored version, and you have automated the least valuable step in the process.

In this episode, she shows what the valuable use looks like. Ask AI why the role is actually open at that company before you write a word. Use open questions instead of stacked constraints, because over-prompting turns the model into a compliant writer and gives you the same flat summary everyone else is submitting. Then use what you learn to get into the conversations that happen before a job is ever posted, which is where, as Carrie says, half the hires are decided.

You will leave with the one prompt she gives every job seeker, a five-step sequence for reaching decision makers cold, the two questions every recruiter is silently asking about you, and the numbers on how AI is reshaping the roles you are applying for.

If AI has made your search faster but not effective, start here.

Key Takeaways

- AI amplifies your strategy, good or bad, so the strategy has to come first
- Before tailoring a resume, ask AI to research the company and explain why the role is open
- Over-constrained prompts produce canned writing, open questions produce usable material
- Every AI-written resume summary sounds the same, which makes yours forgettable rather than disqualified
- Half the time the hiring decision is made before the job is posted, because a referral triggered the requisition
- Recruiters are asking two things: can we afford you, and will you leave
- 76% of employees now use AI at work, and AI-skilled workers command a 56% wage premium

Chapters

0:00 What being stuck in a job search actually looks like
2:13 Why sending more applications gets you fewer interviews
4:21 How ATS and AI screening really filter your resume
6:00 What a recruiter does with a stack of 100 applicants
7:26 The hidden job market, explained
8:43 Cold outreach versus warm introductions
10:40 What a strong pitch looks like next to a weak one
12:14 Where AI belongs in research and networking
13:37 The most dangerous way job seekers are using AI
15:46 Using AI without losing your own voice
17:30 The open question that beats an hour of prompt engineering
18:58 Does AI-sounding resume language work against you?
20:00 The two questions every recruiter asks themselves
21:57 The EMPOWER method, in Carrie's words
23:55 Do you need to become an AI expert to stay employable?
24:59 The numbers: 76% using AI at work, 170M new roles coming
27:26 How to prove you can contribute instead of claiming it
30:13 Confidence, humility and the imposter syndrome trap
31:17 Should you prepare before you get laid off?
33:54 Quickfire round
39:01 Where to find Carrie and her book

Guest Links

- Website: https://empowercareerstudio.com/
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carriechristiano/
- Book: EMPOWER Your Job Search with AI — https://www.amazon.com/EMPOWER-Your-Job-Search-Future-Ready-ebook/dp/B0GYBKPJ8H
Want to know where you are losing time and energy?Take the free Productivity Assessment and get your personal results in minutes. https://links.santiagotacoronte.com/Productivity-Assessment
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Jason P. Carroll grew Champion National Security to 2,500 employees, sold it at the end of 2020, and then woke up with no role, no team, and no clear purpose. The same period brought a lockdown, the loss of a community he had belonged to for a decade, and the end of his first marriage. He used those two years to rebuild and then founded Aptive Index, a behavioral assessment company that measures conative traits: the innate drives that shape how you act at work.

In this episode, Jason explains why personality shifts with context and mood while your drives stay stable from your preteens onward. He shows how one drive, the need to shape outcomes, made him steamroll his own executive team, and why asking "why do I do this?" pushed him toward shame instead of change. He also explains the difference between sociability and prosocial behavior, why the loudest voice in a meeting is not the most productive one, and why people who stretch too far from their wiring for too long burn out faster.

You will leave with a better question to ask when a behavior is hurting your team, a way to think about role fit that doesn't end in firing anyone, and a clear view of when your strengths need to be turned down so others can contribute.

Jason is the founder and CEO of Aptive Index and trained under Dr. Brené Brown. Connect with him on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jasonpcarroll/

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Key Takeaways

1. Personality changes with the room you are in, your sleep, and your season of Life. Conative drives stay stable, making them a better basis for decisions about roles and teams.
2. Knowing a bad behavior is only a data point. Jason changed when he saw its impact: his team felt he did not value their input.
3. Swap "why do I do this?" for "what is driving this behavior?" The first question tends to elicit identity statements such as "I am a bad leader." The second point points you to a need you can meet in a healthier way.
4. Sociability (warm, animated, outgoing) and prosociality (seeking consensus and the best ideas from the group) are separate traits. The loudest voice often wins the room without contributing more.
5. A team made only of people who want to be in charge cannot resolve conflict. Blended wiring brings more perspectives into every project.
6. People can succeed in roles that do not fit their wiring, but they burn out faster. The fix can be a change in position or simply resetting the leader's expectations.
7. Jason's message to his 30-year-old self: weakness was not derailing him. His strengths were cranked up too loud.

Chapters

0:00 Intro
0:12 Two years that rebuilt Jason's Life
3:58 Selling the company and losing his purpose
6:25 Why he bet on behavioral science
8:53 Why he didn't retire after the exit
10:45 What "conative" means and why it beats personality
13:16 How hardwired drives predict the way people work
15:15 What the data shows inside companies
18:27 Why asking "why" hurts self-awareness
22:12 Prosocial vs sociability and the myth of alpha teams
26:03 When your wiring doesn't match your role
29:10 How to find your conative profile
30:49 From a toxic first job to a culture that works
33:12 Quickfire round
38:07 How to connect with Jason
Want to know where you are losing time and energy?Take the free Productivity Assessment and get your personal results in minutes. https://links.santiagotacoronte.com/Productivity-Assessment
More Productivity resources at https://santiagotacoronte.com/productivity-tips/
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