Accountability Now

[INTRODUCTION]

“Cristina Amigoni: If we come together, we can do something about it. Maybe it's our job to hold them accountable. It's just not going to magically happen. Maybe just because it didn't blow up my house, that doesn't mean it doesn't impact me.”

[EPISODE]

Alex Cullimore: Welcome back to this episode of Uncover the Humans. Today, it's just hosts. It's just host episode. I'm here to talk about something that's just endlessly on our minds currently. And that is accountability. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, which is a much more diplomatic way to describe what I wanted to talk about. 

Alex Cullimore: I figured we'll ease people into it. So the world is feeling, I'm going to say, entirely devoid of accountability lately. There's just a feeling of if you can get away with it, you'll get away with it. And we're seeing this at local levels. We're seeing this as governmental levels. We're seeing this in companies. We're seeing it just seems to be this runaway train of what can you get away with? And if you can, great. There's some kind of like reward/celebration for that rather than, I don't know, a system of accountability where that's not the case. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yes. Especially the worst the actions and the more power behind who does them. 

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. As a drug's correlation. And it seems to be – I mean, if I'm going to just go off on wild theories here, which is pretty much what we do, I would say that there's kind of a chicken and the egg situation where people who need that kind of power and will use that against people gravitates these positions and keep finding ways to get there. And that tends to reward psychopaths, which is why the C-suite is some massive over-representation of psychopaths compared to the general population. There's just a game. 

And to go back to what we said last week, the point of the system is what it does. The system is currently rewarding that in many ways. There's places that's not happening. That's great. But there are many places where that is rewarded, allowed, or seems to be permissible at the very least, if not encouraged quietly. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, there's definitely a lot of show through actions. And so even in places where the words are different, the actions are very clear. And what's very tough, what makes me very angry and lose faith in humanity and hence wanting the asteroid or comment to hit as soon as possible, because the experiment has completely failed and needs to be restarted, is the fact that the revolution is not happening quite as fast inside organizations that are suffering the same way as bigger places. 

I do believe that we all see what's happening. But the lack in surprise, the lack in knowing, like, "Oh, of course this is happening." And then the surprise of like, "Oh, wow, they really don't care." And I'm like, "No, they don't. Why did you think they ever did? If they did, they wouldn't have done it to begin with. If they cared about the people in the company, they would have treated them better. The actions are very clear." The constant surprise of like, "Oh, wow, they really say they care about people, but they really don't." That's surprising. Like, "How? How is that surprising?" 

Alex Cullimore: Anybody can say things. What they actually do is always incredibly telling. And I think there's a huge part of this feels like it's down to how individual everything is. And I think that's somewhat purposely structured. It's purposely structured in work, in the general, in politics. It's structured to make you feel like you're pitted against other people. You are in competition with everybody else around you. There's one promotion and five people available to it. And then sometimes they'll just throw in somebody from the outside and throw everybody for a little bit. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And somebody's friend will get hired who has no knowledge, no competence, doesn't really care about what's going on, but they only get hired because they were somebody's friend. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, we see that happen, where we see them continually sow some of those divisions between people. And then I think that's where I get frustrated is exactly that feeling of, "Why are you surprised by this? This can't be surprising anymore." But we get into this mindset, I think, of being worried that it might happen to us, then we kind of get into denial. And then we get into like, "Well, it happened to other people, but it probably won't happen to me." Where is it end? It never works that way. 

Cristina Amigoni: No, it never does. It really doesn't. I woke up this morning, and I was thinking about it. This is even before we had a conversation that fueled the topic of the day. But I thought about it. I'm like, "Just read a freaking history book. Any of them." There's plenty of example. Pick one up. Pick up a first-grade version, watch an animation that talks about this, and it doesn't work. It never works out. The collateral damage is insane, but it never works out. At some point, history will create accountability. At some point, it will come back in a very destructive way. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. And history replays this over and over again. I've been reading this book recently on labor movements and the civil rights movement. And mostly there's just this continual reinforcement of, "Oh, there's somebody with economic power. And the only reason things change are through some economic policies." And we see this happen within governments, countries, and companies. Companies themselves are, if it works economically, they can basically get away with it. It's the higher people who won't take care of people. If it seems to work for at least a very short amount of time, or gets us through this earnings call, or gets us through this board meeting, it's viable. 

And it's really crushing to see people who are told they should put their all into it, who are told, "Well, you need to be loyal to the company," who are told, "Oh, make sure you're working really hard on this." And when they do, the reward is, "Well, I mean, you're not useful now. That was then. We just needed you to do things." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Here's your boss. And here's your escort. Goodbye. Yeah, just the lack of humanity, the lack of respect. And it's like you have somebody who's moved mountains who's been incredibly loyal, who's always done the right thing, who has an amazing amount of true human leadership, and intelligence, and competence. And that's how you treat them because it's harder to be human? It's harder to be respectful? It's harder to have a conversation? It's apparently very hard to admit, "Oh, I'm incompetent, and my ego is taking over. And so I'm going to destroy everything around me that may point to the fact that I'm completely incompetent." 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. I feel like that gets into a feedback loop. Even if they have the internal feeling of like, "Oh, I might have done this right," they found that the way to get out of that is to blow up everything else around. This is why I suggested accountability, because they keep getting away with it. This is where we just see this happen over and over again. And I don't mean to make it too dismal. We'll have to get to solutions here eventually, but it is really brutal just to see this happen over and over again, that there is no real accountability, there's no way to get through this, there's no way to make sure that this is going to be okay. They just seem to blow things up. And then everybody says, "Oh, no. Well, at least they didn't blow up my house." Okay, but all of your neighbors' houses are on fire, and you're not worried? 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, exactly. It's not that bad. They're good people. Are they? Really? At which point do they stop being good people? At which point did they stop? Do we actually say like, "Oh, this is actually really bad?" And maybe if we come together – you talked about individualism. If we come together, we can do something about it. Maybe it's our job to hold them accountable. It's just not going to magically happen. Maybe just because it didn't blow up my house, that doesn't mean it doesn't impact me. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. And the only time we've ever seen in history this be successful is banding together. To be a more collective group of people that can face down the larger or more powerful entity in charge. That's why there were a bunch of sit -down strikes in the 1930s. And you just stop the entire factory by sitting in there. Nobody can get by. Nobody can do anything. That was what stopped it. How do we find now whiz to do that in the modern era? Because we're a little bit more disparate. We all work in remote jobs, or at least a lot of people work in remote jobs. The manufacturing already got shipped overseas, and it's not going to come back. And where do you lean in, do you think, to find some accountability and to try and create or use levers of power that do exist for large groups of people? They just are hard to use. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. And I think, unfortunately, there's a lot of follow the money who benefits from this. And also, where is the power coming from? And so, yes, there's a lot of like, "Hey, the people can do sit-downs." They can do various pieces to hold that the ones in power within their organizations, within their structure, their company accountable by, I guess, sit down, stopping the production, stopping the work. 

And also, the other side, I really think it needs to be – let's put the people, the board, whoever it is, that still needs to have accountability and needs to enforce accountability. You cannot get to the point where you get to a certain level above middle management or above manager, and now you literally get away with doing whatever the hell you want. When we all know that doesn't happen at the entry-level employee. They don't get away with anything most of the time. 

Alex Cullimore: No, that's it. Systems of accountability only exist at that level. 

Cristina Amigoni: And so how is this right? How do people sleep at night? 

Alex Cullimore: I think this is the lack of empathy piece. And it goes both ways. There's a lack of empathy in enacting these actions, but there's a lack of empathy and being like, "Well, other people's houses are burning down, but I'm just going to be glad that mine isn't now." Well, okay, but it's your house next. It's fine until it's not. And then you're going to be like, "Damn, I wish people cared about this." We have to all care then. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, exactly. We have to all care. And yes, it's hard. And we have to stop saying like, "Oh, it's all good." I'm like, "No, it isn't all good at all." And if you want it to be all good, then go work for a company that actually treats people right. They're showing you what they think about people. Take it as it comes. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. And I think it's hard to swallow that when the system is built to not allow for that. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it is hard. 

Alex Cullimore: It's built to try and keep people a little bit separate. I mean, we have things like at-will employment. We have things like you can schedule a sit-down, but if only so many people do it, it's not going to be as effective. And they're going to try, and when there's a hard job market, it's hard for them to start to feel safe in doing that. And that's the other problem with – these are systemic problems that make it very difficult to hold accountability. It needs this collective action. It needs to come from the top. It needs to come from regulation and enforced regulation. And that's very hard to create, especially in the current system as we have it. And so this has mostly turned into venting because I'm having a hard time swallowing it. 

But one thing that I always go back to is what was the point anyway? Why don't we think about what was – the whole point of industry could be just to have people have jobs so that they can pay for their lives, so that everybody has – yeah, you're producing something, and it's contributing to society. It's not just out ambiguous. But you're there, you're contributing. Why is that not enough? Why is it just like, "Oh, well, let's keep accumulating resources for 3% of people that are at the top of these things." Why is it that, "Oh, the board can do this? Oh, this can happen." Why is that the goal anymore? Why was that ever the goal? And how do we let that just be? 

Cristina Amigoni: No. Failed capitalism, failed experiment. But yeah, it's amazing because I also think about the fact that we're not immortal yet. Sure, you can accumulate all this wealth. You can do all these things to destroy people's lives, to disrespect them, to treat them poorly when they don't deserve it, to accumulate whatever it is that it is for the abundance, for the greed. And then what? You're not going to live a thousand years. You're not going to use it all. You're probably already using as much as possible with it. So then what? What's the point? What is the point of the accumulation? You're not even respected anymore. You've lost the respect of everybody else watching you. So if you're doing it for followership and respect, that's gone. 

Alex Cullimore: I don't think that's it anymore. People don't do it. I saw a piece about like art and how art is being hoarded now. I mean, things Picassos and whatever, they get bought up. And instead of being displayed in museums, they get put on a private yacht, and somebody's just – they'll show it to a few. The worry is so far away from what you look like to the public. And it's drowned out. It doesn't matter if they're going to go play with the other five people who were powerful in their little arena, and that's it. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's interesting, though, because yes, the worry of what it looks like to the public is gone, but it isn't at the same time because it is all about a show and tell. It is a lot about saying like I have five Picassos on my yacht. Other people's opinions matter. 

Alex Cullimore: And you die. 

Cristina Amigoni: I know. Clearly, it's done for other people's opinion because you're not going to eat it. You're not going to sleep on it. It doesn't actually satisfy basic human needs. It doesn't satisfy core human values, internal soul values. The only thing that it satisfies is the show and tell. I get to say that I have five houses and three islands. I get to say that because I'm constantly looking for that admiration. I'm constantly looking for that followership. I'm constantly looking to be better. For what? It's like the so what and now what is missing. There's a lot of what, but there's no so what and now what with that. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. And I know you mentioned that this is like failed capitalism, but I think this is the endgame of capitalism. If you don't have regulations on it, this is what happens. This is the kind of accumulation that happens. And that's what I sometimes have a hard time swallowing. And in today's day and age, we keep defending capitalism as if it creates good things when every 10 years the economy collapses. That can't be good. If it's not good for 90% of people, it can't be a great system. Surely, we could do better than this. 

Cristina Amigoni: And shockingly enough, the countries and societies that don't collapse every 10 years are the ones that are not based on strict capitalism. They're the ones that are based on the bad word socialism. Those are the ones that actually survive. I mean, have you ever heard of any Scandinavian countries going through an economic crisis in the last 50 to 80 years when everybody else is like, "Oh, we're around here again. Here's another one. It was the banks first, and now it's the real estate, and now it's the other fraud, and now it's the other accumulation of wealth that's causing that." Seriously, have you ever heard of Holland, the Netherlands, Denmark, Norway? 

Alex Cullimore: And there are very basic things that are done there that people always like, "Well, it's a smaller country." That doesn't matter. There's definitely institutable policies. There's things like Norway uses their oil as a sovereign wealth fund. It's not private companies that just get to plunder the rewards of oil. Oil is considered the natural resource of Norway. So it belongs to Norwegian people. So there is a sovereign wealth fund where oil trading goes to, and people essentially have access to this either through services, or it goes to government funding, it goes to whatever. It goes to the public. 

Or you have Finland, where I actually just read that they exercise speeding tickets based on your income. Yeah, if you earn a little – 

Cristina Amigoni: Which is phenomenal. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. Somebody paid apparently $140,000 in a speeding ticket because that was their income. And the idea is basically fines will only work if it matters, right? If $200 fine is going to really put a dent in your monthly budget, then that's pretty bad. But if a rich person gets a $200 speeding ticket, they don't care. They can just go speed again. They can do it. There's no actual incentive to stop the speeding. They're actually trying to enforce the spirit of the law and find a way for the accountability to exist there. All of these things are absolutely possible. 

In Australia, they had one election, one where they had allowed companies to donate the way that we do in the US to things like political campaigns. They saw the horrendous influence it had, and they immediately made it illegal. We can do that. There are ways to do things that are better. And we are continually – this is why I go back to the individual thing, where I think we're just continually pitted against each other enough to feel like, "Oh, we're in competition with everybody else." And it just keeps us busy enough. And I don't blame people for this. It's so ingrained in us, and it is so exhausting that it feels like there's not enough. It feels like we're in a scarcity place, and it's a force scarcity. There clearly exists enough for somebody to have yachts in an island, but there's a force scarcity for everybody else so that you have to spend time competing. So you have to spend your 40 hours at a job that will the second it can shake you off. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. In a disrespectful, inhuman way, no matter what you give. You can give your soul, you can give your blood, you can give your tears, you can move mountains, you can work evenings, weekends. You can go through every single change that it's imposed, whether you like it or not. You can do it all, and then you will literally be given a box and be escorted out because some, I'm going to say a bad word, asshole decided that that's how they can make themselves look better. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Yeah. You're going to get the Ariana Grande treatment. You're going to get the thank you next. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Not even a thank you. 

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. 

Cristina Amigoni: You don't even get a thank you. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. And that will happen over and over again. And the thing that really crushes me is that everybody is like, "Well, yeah, I get it. That's just kind of how it is." And why do we accept that? 

Cristina Amigoni: It's not. It doesn't have to be that way. There are countries and companies in the world that it doesn't have to be that way. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. 

Cristina Amigoni: And what I struggle with, and realizing, yes, there are basic needs that we all have to fulfill and all of that. What I struggle with is why do you stick around? Why are you not actively going to better places? They exist. Why don't you go actively to better places? Better companies that actually say and act as the people here exist. Why would you stick around? Because it didn't impact you today. Not yet. For now. 

I heard a podcast that was talking actually about relationships and looking at relationships in a different way in all sorts of way. But instead of looking at relationships from a forever point of view, looking at them like for now. For now, this is good. For now, this works. For now, I am single. For now, I don't have as many friends as I want. But switching that point of view of expecting everything to last forever, but actually switching it to for now. 

And so that's the thing. It's like, for now, you still have a job. You don't know what's going to happen tomorrow morning. And so that's when you start caring. That's when the caring kicks in when it impacts you. What if they kicked in before when you saw your neighbor treated poorly? 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah, it's really hairy. There's going to be consequences for taking this kind of action, but making sure you are banding with other people and trying to make sure that you can establish complaints and that you do speak up when you see these things. And you do allow yourself to feel that discomfort enough to say this is not going to be safe for me. This is not just like I can sit on a hope as long as possible. This is going to happen to you, to whoever, at some point. It's going to come down the pipeline. And admitting that I think is difficult. It's easier to sit in the comfort of like, "Well, it hasn't happened yet. Maybe it won't happen." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, it's happening. 

Alex Cullimore: Why do we have to live in a system where there's a hammer over your head at all times? Why is that a good way to be? And I get it. It's hard to move. And I think that there's plenty of scary headlines about the job market and trying to find new jobs and unemployments and other conditions that don't need to exist because we didn't need to do it this way. We just laid off a lot of people for the fun of it. 

Cristina Amigoni: No. Because there's plenty of money going around. It's just that let's make people suffer, so that we can control them. That's a whole other podcast episode. But it's true. And at the same time, it is true. The job market is tough. There are plenty of thousands and tens of thousands of people getting laid off every week, every day in certain systems. Again, I would want to look at the statistics in Scandinavia and some of these other countries and see what's happening. 

Alex Cullimore: It's not a global thing. Yeah. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's not a global thing. Even if it feels like a global thing, it's not a global thing. And at the same time, we're part of a gigantic Slack group of people and human-related jobs, teams, and companies. And there are literally jobs being posted. I think there's five or six jobs being posted every single day. You could spend days just looking through that job board to find opportunities. So, there are jobs out there. It is possible to find them. 

And there is an element of – and again, that doesn't mean you quit today. But make a plan. Make a plan that, no, this is not acceptable. The people that I care about, that have cared for me, that have supported me, that are competent, and great people are being treated badly, it's not acceptable.

Alex Cullimore: Those are the questions to, I think, ask. These are the small actions that can be taken and easily within a company. You can do things like share your salary, because salary transparency helps create the general equality. The idea that you can't share your salary is an idea born of like make sure you don't talk about this. It's a way to keep people quiet about it so that they can see if they can see how much they can get away with. And so sharing your salary is an easy one to go with. 

Making sure you have a plan because you're going to need it at some point is a good thing to go with. Making sure you speak up when you see things going down, and speak with other people, and say this doesn't seem right that how this was done. And bring that up in town halls. Bring that up as a group, as a collective, especially if you have any way of producing anonymous feedback. Find a way to do that. 

There's ways to state and show displeasure, which is important not just because it helps and is cathartic for you. Other people are feeling that. Everybody has been trained to put on a real good face and make sure they seem like they're marching forward and seem like they're on board with whatever is happening, but they're not. People know this. People see this, and people need things to rally around. Give them a lightning rod and make sure you can – if nobody else is doing it, see what you can do to find the bravery to become that point, some point of catalyst that other people can react to, because they do feel it. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Exactly. Yes, everybody sees everything. You see, you feel. It's not invisible. You can deny it again for now. You can deny it until you can't anymore. I love the general accountability as we're talking about it. Extremely important. Extremely missing in a lot of places and in a lot of circumstances. And especially missing in the places that it's much more needed. But I love the fact that usually it's either one of the core values on the walls or one of the – every year, it's just kind of like we need to create a culture of accountability. And I'm like, "Yeah, how about it starts with you?" You want to culture accountability? It starts at the top. That's where it starts. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Go model that. 

Cristina Amigoni: It does not start at the bottom. It does not magically disappear or not exist above a certain level. It starts at the top. You want a culture of accountability, then act like there's accountability. 

Alex Cullimore: Oh, that's the other one that everybody could do more of. And it doesn't take bravery. You don't even have to speak out in public. A lot of companies operate and do this with lack of transparency, right? There's some, they won't tell you what's going to go on. They won't tell you that. Or they'll tell a few people and then say, "Oh, we can't tell this to everybody else." And we get that feeling of like, "Oh, no. I'm supposed to be real quiet about this." 

I've only one time see a company actually generate a bunch of NDAs about that. And that one felt scary. But most of the time, there's not an actual legal obligation to do that. That is a good way to help – 

Cristina Amigoni: No. It is not an HR rule. 

Alex Cullimore: No. 

Cristina Amigoni: If anybody tells you it's an HR rule, it isn't an HR rule. 

Alex Cullimore: Share with everybody the information that you have. That transparency can help create that accountability. Because if you can just keep smoking mirroring the game, and just keep pumping a bunch of fog into it, then people can hide. People can make sure that, "Well, I don't really know. I'm not sure if that's true." The more you share what you know, and whenever you know it. And you can give the qualifiers of this is what I heard most recently. We've seen organizations that change their minds every 3 seconds. And so everybody doesn't even want to say what they know because they're like, "Well, I don't want to be wrong about this." But it's okay to share that this is what I last heard. 

If a company would like rumors not to spread, which a lot of companies are like, "Oh, people really getting away on the rumor mill." Great. Have you provided clarity that actually makes sense? Because if you haven't given the narrative and if you haven't given the actual through line that is true, because people will notice when it's not true. If you haven't given them the actual transparency, then that's what you're going to get. 

Either they should accept the consequence of there being a rumor mill that gets things wrong, or they can just practice better communication. That's a good way to force accountability without – you don't have to speak out in public. Just share it to the people you know. Share it to your peers. Share, "Oh, yeah. I heard this. Oh, I saw that this has happened." Somebody gets laid off mysteriously, but a few people know the details, share the details. That's culture. That's transparency. That's your ability to act and share something that gives you the power to say, "Yeah, that's not okay with me. People should know if this is happening." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. And just like the sit-downs, just like the French Revolution, just like every time things have turned around, it's the collective that makes that happen. One individual, yes, it's going to be a struggle. One individual, yes, it's probably going to get punished. But if it's a collective, then things actually change. That's when things change. It's when the collective comes together. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. 

Cristina Amigoni: We see it all over the place. We see it in history. Again, history books. It's not hard. You don't have to go very far to figure that out. 

Alex Cullimore: No, it's everywhere. It's in current times. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's everywhere. And it's the collective. And so what's interesting is forgetting how much power we have in certain situation. And especially in situations where, let's say, leaving a company is voluntary, which is pretty much how we left every single company I've ever worked for. But in that sense, I've worked in places where I've given my notice to my employers, and they're like, "Oh, but you can't tell anybody." I'm like, "No, no, not only I can, but I will on this date. If you want to get in front of me and tell everybody before me, you go right ahead. Otherwise, I'm still telling everybody on this date." Because I'm the one that's voluntarily leaving. So, the power is still in my hands. 

And it's amazing how even that is just kind of like, "Okay. Yes. No. Then we'll do it this way. But how else would you like to do it?" And I'm like, "I want to do this, this, and this, and this, and this, and this." You have the power. Even if they tell you you don't, you actually do. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. And that's when they start holding things like severance and stuff over your head. But most of the time, these are things that are way more negotiable than people believe to be. Because most of the time, it's an attempt. Things like that. That is a great example. I gave my two weeks, and they say, "Oh, you got to wait until you tell people." Well, I don't actually. If you want to do something, come up with succession plan so that we can tell the whole thing all at once, I'll give you three days for that. Three days so that we can do that, so that you could have those things. That doesn't take that long. Even if it's just this is what's happening in the interim, if you want to like figure that out before I tell everybody, great. That would make sense. That's useful transparency. That's useful waiting on information because then you have something to not just freak people out and let them sit and freak out. You have something to be like, "This is what's happening. Here's what we're going to do about it. Here's what our next plan is. That's totally fine.  

But most of the time I just see hide the two weeks because it might cause more unrest, and we're just going to delay that as long as possible. That's not helpful. That's not useful transparency. So spend some time evaluating what is being asked of you and whether that's useful to you, to the company. If they say that this is a rule, who is that helping? And how is it going to help? And if you feel like that's not going to help, point that out. It's fine to say, "Oh, I think there's going to be this impact. Oh, I think that's not going to go well. Oh, that's going to leave these people out on a line." 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. Oh, absolutely. And it doesn't have to be just internal. External, too. I mean, part of a lot of times when I have established when I was going to tell people and what I was going to tell them included clients. And even then, when I had some backlash, I'm like, "Well, you can't tell them." Well, I'm not going to lie. Because we've built a trust. I've built a trust as a human, as an individual. But the trust that I've built with this client actually carries to your company. And I think it's worth for that trust to continue whether I'm here or not. 

If I lie, first of all, they're going to find out because it doesn't take a brain surgeon to figure that out that they're going to find out. And also, now not only they've lost trust in me as an individual. I'm not going to be here anyway, so I may or may not care. But they're going to lose trust for you as a company. And unless I want to destroy the company and destroy its reputation, it's not worth it. I'm not leaving to destroy. I'm leaving for my own reasons. I'm leaving for whatever reasons. But my goal is not to destroy the company. 

Yes, I am going to tell clients, and I'm going to tell them who's going to take over, and I'm going to transition that. I was once in a job, and it was still one of the best companies besides ours that I've ever worked for, where I gave, I think, a four-month notice because I could, and that was my plan. And because I gave so much notice which was very much appreciated, and it was public, and everybody knew. There was no hiding it. I spent six weeks out of those four months transitioning to the person that was going to take over for me. To the point that the day I left, it was completely seamless internally and externally. There was no disruption whatsoever because I had somebody shadow and work with me for 6 weeks. So that when I went away, things would not get disrupted. Because for this company, being able to not disrupt the internal and external operations and reputation was way more important than keeping it a secret. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. 

Cristina Amigoni: And what are people going to think? People are going to think that I'm moving, and I've decided to move on to the next job. People are going to think what I tell them to think. 

Alex Cullimore: Yes. Also, that's a good example of showing the actions. If you have somebody who's well respected with an organization and they're suddenly shoved out and it's done with secrecy, and it's done without trust, it's done with make sure, "Oh, they immediately lose all their access to everything," there's some security things to think about here and there. And there are different ways to do things with respect or not respect. 

You can revoke other kinds of access and treat people like a human. And if they're not going to do that, that's your signal. This is not a good company. They're not just doing things that just seem – every company will hide behind, "Oh, it's procedure. Oh, this is how it should happen. Well, we didn't want to cause this." There's a thousand excuses, and they'll all sound almost legitimate until you actually squint at them even the slightest bit. And then you can say, "No, that's not right." How they treat other people when they're coming in, when they're going out, that's a huge indicator. Do they trust people enough? And is the operation of the company useful enough that they want to actually keep the steadiness? Or are they just so used to disruption they're fine with that? Because that's another red flag of like maybe you don't want to be here. Do you want to be in a place of endless disruption? Most of us end up being there. Not because we want to, but most of us seem to end up there because it is very jarring. It feels hard to move when you're constantly trying to adjust your own reality. I sympathize with that. And I would ask people to consider whether that has to happen that way. Whether you want to be part of something that is that trapped. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah, I completely agree. And going back to accountability, in my stories, I took accountability for what I was leaving. It was my accountability. I'm leaving something. And I'm leaving a series of tasks and a bunch of work that somebody else is going to have to pick up. My accountability is to the company and to the people that have employed me, and to the people that have respected me and treated me well, to not leave them in a situation that it's dire. And their accountability was to allow me and giving me the support to be able to do it. It's a two-way street. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. It immediately shows the intentions. If they can do that, their intention is actually to have succession. To actually have a transition to move forward smoothly. The intention is to highlight the smoothness. To highlight that attention. The operations will go on. That we will help people move what they need to move. We'll help people be what they need to be. Whereas, just look for the actual intentions, look for the actions. Not for what they say. Not for what the polished PR message is. Not for what the overall mass communication that goes out about it afterwards is. Not for, "Oh, they found another opportunity." Or this was just a good time to split. Look for the actual intentions. What really happens? Listen to the voice in your head that tells you this doesn't feel right. This doesn't seem right. 

I think we get very used to just having to believe that there's no other option. But there are other options. And we do know, we just don't always feel like we can say that out loud. So, the more practice we get at saying those things out loud, saying no, this just isn't right. The better off we're all going to be. 

Cristina Amigoni: We all play a role in accountability. We all play a role in holding ourselves accountable. And we all play a role in holding other people accountable. It's just a lot harder where we're all individualistically doing it and expecting somebody else to do it. It's like, "Well, I don't have the title. Well, it's not my company. Well, this, I'm alone." Well, if everybody feels that way, then there is no accountability for where there needs to be. 

Alex Cullimore: Mm-hmm. 

Cristina Amigoni: There's accountability for the stupid stuff. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. One thing that is interesting, most of the studies of things like social movements, is that there is a certain threshold, and it's about 3.5% of the population. It doesn't have to be much more than that. We talk a lot about collective and about how people can come together. It's not about like, "Oh, we get 100% of people, or this doesn't work." It's actually much less than you'd think. It just needs to be enough. It needs to be a bit of a mess. And it doesn't take as much as you would think to get to that point. Collective doesn't have to immediately be everybody, but a small portion of people can start to the snowball effect to where it is. Just commonly, this is kind of how we behave and how we are. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yeah. If nothing else, have accountability for your own values and your own integrity. That'll go a long way. 

Alex Cullimore: Yeah. At the end of the day, you're with you at the end of the day. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Can you sleep at night? Ask yourself. If you're not sleeping at night, maybe stop taking Ambien and figure out what is it that needs to change in terms of actions during the day. And sometimes, yes, you need some help. But a lot of times – 

Alex Cullimore: It doesn't mean it can all happen today. But it can't happen. 

Cristina Amigoni: Exactly. Yeah. 

Alex Cullimore: And it's okay to keep demanding that until it does because we all have one life to live. 

Cristina Amigoni: Mm-hmm. And we're all connected, and it does impact everybody else, even when we refuse to see it that way. 

Alex Cullimore: We act like it's not true. 

Cristina Amigoni: It's uncomfortable to see it that way. 

Alex Cullimore: So, go promote some accountability. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes. Yeah. Figure out what's the 1% you can do. 

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much for listening. 

Cristina Amigoni: Thanks for listening.

Alex Cullimore: Thanks so much for listening to Uncover the Human. We are Siamo. That is the company that sponsors and created this podcast. And if you'd like to reach out to us further, or reach out with any questions, or to be on the podcast, please reach out to podcast@wearesiamo.com. Or you can find us on Instagram. Our handle is wearesiamo. Or you can go to wearesiamo.com and check us out there. Or I suppose, Cristina, you and I have LinkedIn as well. People could find us anywhere. 

Cristina Amigoni: Yes, we do have LinkedIn. Yes. Yeah. And we'd like to thank Abbay Robinson for producing our podcast and making sure that they actually reach all of you, and Rachel Sherwood for the wonderful score. 

Alex Cullimore: Thank you, guys, so much for listening. Tune in next time. 

Cristina Amigoni: Thank you.

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