Unmasking Dysfunction: Joel Dubin’s Hilarious Take on Corporate Chaos
Join Keith Haney as he sits down with Joel Dubin, the insightful author of The Seven Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Companies. In this engaging episode, they delve into the inspiration behind Joel’s book and uncover key takeaways for readers. Joel opens up about his journey, sharing stories of the role models who have shaped his path.
The conversation also explores crucial topics like cybersecurity, effective communication, and the power of networking. Joel’s goal is to provide comic relief while encouraging listeners to evaluate their work environments critically. Tune in for a blend of humor, wisdom, and practical advice that will leave you thinking differently about your professional life.
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Transcript
Well, Joe, welcome to the podcast, my friend. How you doing?
Joel Dubin (:Great, I'm great today. How are you, Keith?
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I'm doing fantastic. Looking forward to talking to you.
Joel Dubin (:and I'm looking forward to talking.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love talking about companies or organizations, especially dysfunctional ones. I've served in many of them. So I'm hoping you're going to tell me how not to do that again.
Joel Dubin (:I think we all have.
Joel Dubin (:Yes. In some ways, my book is an anti -manual of what not to do.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:All right, well, we're gonna get into that. But to get to know you a little bit better for the audience, give me the best piece of advice you've ever received.
Joel Dubin (:best piece of advice I've ever received is that in terms of the work world, you should always be loyal to your skill set and keep training and don't be dependent on the company because the company doesn't depend or need you many times and will toss you out the door at any moment. I always say that the corporate angel of death could strike at any moment and today could always be your last. So you should always be
prepared, you should always be networking, you should always be out there and ready to move on. And you should also, what that means is just make sure you're always sharpening your skills, training yourself and always being, being the best you can and what you do, what you do. That's the, that's probably the best piece of advice.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love that. Somebody once told me complacency kills.
Joel Dubin (:You know, and I see a lot of people, they just get too comfortable in the job. And then all of a sudden the shock hits, you know, as I say in the book, you know, everybody kind of has like a, an expiration date. I think HR keeps little secret files kind of like a, like, you know, piece of groceries, like bread or milk, you know, where it has an expiration date on their HR. It says, we got an expiration date for that guy, Dupin. He's going to be out the door on that day. He doesn't know it, but we know it. So, but seriously, you know, you should always think that way.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love that. That's so good. I'm always curious. You've had a level of success in your life. I'm curious, as you think about your journey, who are some people along the way who served as role models for you, maybe mentors? Kind of tell us what about them made them role models and give them a shout out if you want to talk about who, name them.
Joel Dubin (:Well, sure, Mike, my closest childhood friend, his name is Peter. You know, we were about the same age actually. He's one or two years younger than me. And I always say I've known him since before he was born. And we've kind of followed a similar path. We were briefly in a business together. And then he moved, he moved on to another business when that business, you know, fell apart actually. And he's had a lot of wisdom in terms of.
building businesses, people relationships. we're both from a similar ethnic background. So we have a lot in common and, you know, I tell them, I don't, I don't need therapy. He's my therapist. You know, we talk every week and we kind of bounce things off of each other. Then there's been a few at my, the last company I was at, which I would call not a dysfunctional company, it was called coal fire systems. And it was a very good IT security company. So I'm giving a shameless plug for that company.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:businesses, full relationships.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I tell them I don't need therapy, he's my therapist.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:The last company I was at, which I was called, not a dysfunctional company, was called Cold Fire Systems.
Joel Dubin (:You know, it was very well run company. I thought that my managers and the executives there were very much in touch. They weren't like in my book. They were people that communicated. They listened. They took advantage of people's skills and they promoted people and they helped people. And I just kind of learned a lot about, you know, you don't have to be, you know, this, this hard driving jerk to succeed. and that's, you know, those, those, those are my, those are my key mentors and guides along the way.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Those are my key mentors. I love it.
Joel Dubin (:And of course my father, you know, was always a, you know, my father was, who's now deceased. He was a very funny guy. I think that's where I get my sense of humor. And he also, you know, when I look back at his experiences in the companies he worked at, he worked for several dysfunctional companies, you know, as an accountant. And he just kind of just had his nose down to the grindstone and did his job and just kind of ignored the politics swirling around him sometimes. He's very good at that.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love it.
Joel Dubin (:you know sometimes didn't know how to play the game but he got the job done and he was well respected and that's
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Being in cybersecurity, you know I always think cybersecurity is that way necessary. If you just have a really good password, like password 101, you're probably safe, right?
Joel Dubin (:Right. No, no way, man. No way. So hackers have all of the passwords. They have thousands of different password combinations that everybody thinks it's their cool password, you know, that's going to protect them. It's not that hard to steal passwords. It's not that hard to break into systems. You know, I would recommend using two factor authentication. You know, now you can add like where they send an SMS message to your phone.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yeah.
Joel Dubin (:There's password managers like LastPass and stuff like that. So yeah, passwords definitely not, they're not disappearing. Everybody, you know, I think that the death of the password is premature. People always talk about how they're going to disappear. They're not, but I think they'll always be used in combination with other things. And there's ways to create strong, clever passwords that no one can guess.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I liked it. I just had to throw it out because I thought cyber security, we're all thinking we're safe. So yeah.
Joel Dubin (:Yeah, we're not. Yeah, we're not. So you always think. Think before you post. Think before you put things online. Think, think, think. You know, I would, for instance, as I was writing this book, I was very careful where I put it, you know, online, because I didn't want it taken or stolen before it was out there published and copyrighted. So I was very careful where I put it.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Wow. Yeah, you gotta think about those things now, don't you?
Joel Dubin (:Yeah, a lot.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:So, Joe, tell us about your personal journey. We just kind of touched on a little bit about your background in the opening, but I want to kind of let you tell us how you got, because to write a book about dysfunctional companies, you had to have had a journey of dysfunction. So tell us about your story.
Joel Dubin (:Yeah. Yeah. Ask my psychiatrist. He would know about all of my dysfunction. Basically, what I started, well, the book is predominantly about, you know, my couple of decades, about 25 years where I was in cybersecurity. But prior to that, I was in another industry. It was the very different industry altogether. It was the international shipping and import export business. I did a lot of international business.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:But prior to that, I was...
It's just a very different industry altogether. The internet.
Joel Dubin (:for about 10 years before that. That was right out of business school. And interestingly enough, that business was a very chaotic business. There was very little loyalty. I was kind of bounced around a lot from companies because as soon as companies would lose business, they just lay off people en masse. And that's kind of where I first saw it. But not until I actually got into more corporate world, more structured companies, did I see the bureaucratic bureaucracies,
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:This is very chaotic.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:business, they just lay off the board and that's kind of where I first saw it. But not until I actually got into this more corporate world, more structured companies that I see bureaucratic, you know, bureaucratic.
Joel Dubin (:you know, fief building, people just kind of getting into all kinds of political infighting, at least the own that import export business is very entrepreneurial, very sales driven. So it wasn't as hierarchical, you know, there were very, very thin layers of management, but, you know, in cybersecurity, you know, I, again, both the companies I worked for and companies that I reviewed, cause I reviewed companies of all kinds of industries and even non nonprofit, private,
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:you know
Joel Dubin (:things like universities and nonprofit institutions. I just saw these same patterns over and over and over again of dysfunctionality. That's kind of what inspired me to put this book together. Cause it's kind of like, you know, at one company I put, I kind of threw these ideas on a whiteboard as I was working and they stuck for decades. It seems this company seemed to go through the same rut over and over and over.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I just saw the same pattern over and over and over again of dysfunctionality. That's kind of what inspired me to put people together. It's kind of like, you know, at one company I put, I kind of drew these ideas on a whiteboard as I was working, and they stopped projecting. And then it doesn't become a rut over and over and over. Dysfunctional company.
Joel Dubin (:dysfunctional companies that is or companies that are not self -aware so that you know that that's so that's kind of my personal story is that you know then i i reached a point i'm much older and i you know i was able to retire and so i i retired and then i started these are my memoirs you know kind of my kind of therapy for me of getting it all out you know of everything at the expose the kiss and tell if you will of
of what went on in the corporate world.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:So I looked at your book and I love the approach that you have, and it's called The Seven Habits of Highly Dysfunctional Companies. So we know what led you to write the book. Tell us what you hope the person who picks up this book and reads it, what do you hope they get out of it?
Joel Dubin (:So there's two things I hope they get out of it. One is comic relief, because I think a lot of people are unhappy in their job. Most people are. And they're always kind of struggling to get their work done and get things out the door or deal with all kinds of personality issues in companies which relate to the politics. So a little bit of comic relief helps you laugh at yourself and laugh at your situation and maybe say, well, it's not the end of the world. But on a serious note, you know,
It's not a prescriptive book that tells you exactly what to do. But as I said in the beginning, it's an anti -manual of what not to do in business. So it's kind of a cry for, you know, a call for, you know, leave the ego at the door, you know, learn to improve your people skills, learn to communicate, break down barriers. I mean, too often I saw in companies, particularly large companies where the executives, I like to say they're in
underground bunkers off site where you never see them. You know, or when they come out, I have a story in there where, you know, especially in a very large company where the CEO will come out, you know, they have like a town hall, my gosh, there's no, no hall in this town and they'll come out and then they'll be flanked with all these advisors. It's like the, when the president speaks and the secret service comes or something like that, you know, and then they just talk all this gobbledygook and nonsense. It's kind of like giving a
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:You
Joel Dubin (:singing an aria on the deck of the Titanic or something. You know, you're wondering, is this guy work for the same company? Does this guy know what the hell I have to go through? You know, and then I mentioned there's someone people ask questions and you think the questions are prepared, canned questions that make the guy or gal look good. But then I say, well, someone asked an uncomfortable question that security, two security people come and lift the offender up from each arm and take them and bring them, drag them out to the parking lot. So.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Thank you.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's an uncomfortable question.
Joel Dubin (:And then afterwards, the executive leaves and then his or her entourage leaves and it's like, boom, they're gone, they're back in outer space. So breaking down barriers, that's a big thing. So a lot of things also relate to automation. I talk about customer service nightmares. We all have gone through this where you can't get to a human being anymore. So like I have my habit five that...
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:The executive machines that I know, the doctors are on garage leaves and it's like boom, they're gone, they're backing out of the plane. So you know, breaking down barriers, that's a big thing. A lot of things also relate to automation. I talked about...
going through this where you can't get to a human being anymore. So I have my side that human contact with customers is prohibited.
Joel Dubin (:human contact with customers is prohibited. You know, and any customer service person caught talking to a customer will be disciplined, you know. So those kinds of things, yeah. Breaking down the ego, putting it, leaving it at the door, communication, you know, breaking down barriers, yeah, and just being open and honest and vulnerable, you know. I mean, it's too much of, you know, chest beating in some of these companies, you know, or just what the hell did he say?
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I have a whole thing in there about corporate speech.
Joel Dubin (:You know, this gobbledygook, you know, I have a whole thing in there about, I call it corporate speak, you know, it's just all these, you know, all these crazy things. FTE, what the hell is an FTE? FTE is some term, which means that it just say it's an employee. You know, I need employees. I need FTE to actualize the project. I need people to get the work done. Just say it, you know? You know.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right. So you have seven habits in here. One of my favorites is the one about habit number four, because I hate meetings. I always said that meetings to me are like a brain drain on my day. It often does.
Joel Dubin (:Yeah.
Joel Dubin (:You know, okay, you do have to have some meetings. There's no way around it and some meetings are necessary, but I kind of took it to the extreme. You know, I mean, I saw people that literally never got out of their desks. They were constantly in meetings all day, every day. And I said, you know, you should have your headphones surgically attached to your head. It would just make it a lot easier. You know, now...
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Joel Dubin (:Particularly in my field, I often had, because I was reviewing clients, I'd need stretches of hours in the day, for example, to do interviews of IT staff or to do testing and that kind of a thing. And then I'd have that nagging thorn in my side, that weekly meeting that they had to have, even if there was no progress. And I'd have to break up the day to have this meeting.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:you know, for example, to do interviews of IT staff or to do testing and that kind of a thing. And then I can't be actually mad and torn in my mind.
Joel Dubin (:And you know, they ended up, there was no progress. And they ended up talking about their pets and their kids and their vacations. I thought, just cancel the meeting. Why do we have to have the meeting? I mean, in another situation, I wanted to add a column to a spreadsheet. It could have been discussed in an email. No, we need a meeting. We need approval for that. I thought, my God, what the hell? You know, I mean, you know, just, yes, Keith, I know meetings, man. And you know, I have a whole thing in there about meeting police, you know.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I mean, you know, just, yes, I know. Meeting, I have a whole thing in there about meeting police, you know.
Joel Dubin (:These guys that have armbands in the hall and if they see someone in the hall not in a meeting, they will arrest them and drag them to a meeting even if it's a meeting not related to the job that they're in. So, meetings are, they have their whole culture, you know, in there.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:my word.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:So for those who haven't picked up your book yet, tell us your, run us through the seven habits so people can kind of get a sense of what the seven are.
Joel Dubin (:It's all in the book.
Joel Dubin (:Okay.
So the first one is if it makes sense, don't do it. So this is kind of the base habit that you must master first if you want to screw up your company before you can do all the other habits. It's just common sense things. It's about how you always gotta have a meeting, you always have to have a committee, you gotta have this, the committees that beget other committees to get anything done. And then...
You know, let's say I give, I give several examples where I take it from the basic. If you need office supplies, it's easier to go out the door and go down to, you know, office Depot and buy your office supplies and go through purchasing in your own company. Cause there's too much paperwork and stuff like that. You know, and then just dumb things, you know, you see companies do things that, you know, the public wants their customers want, and they do the opposite. You know, there's a store in a mall that's a popular store. And then some idiot in some corporate office.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Thank you.
Joel Dubin (:ran some numbers and said, it doesn't work. And then they closed the store and everybody, you know, why are they losing business? Because it's a, you know, it's a popular place, right? Or I have an example where, you know, they'll move the office to where the corporate executives live, you know, far away from the employees. I saw that once. So that was, you know, that was, that was kind of crazy. So then the second thing I, the second habit is, you know, turf battles are part of our culture, you know, and I say that the dysfunctional companies at war with itself, you can't really have,
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:the work. And then they close the store and everybody, you know, why are they losing business? You know, it's a popular place, right? Or I have an example where, you know, they'll move to the office where the corporate executives live, you know, fire away from the employees. I saw that one. That one. You know, that one, that was kind of crazy. So then the second thing I, the second evidence, you know, turf battles are part of our culture.
Joel Dubin (:peace and calm in the company. Basically, people, they're not interested in business. They're like little Napoleons, little knights, always trying to build their own little empires in the company. You ask them, what's the business we're in? Well, I don't know. I need more staff. I need more FTEs. I got to build my little castle and moat. And then on top of the bureaucracy, I talk about silos, where these vertical.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:the
Joel Dubin (:organizations that just don't communicate each other. You know, you've got to break down the silos. Now, of course, the pyramid, which is the basic function of the bureaucratic enterprise, you know, as it goes narrower up, you know, it's there's fewer and fewer opportunities for advancement, you know, and you get sharp elbows there, you know, trying to fight each other off to kind of, you know, try to get ahead. So it kind of, that encourages jerky behavior.
you know, because people are always trying to fight each other to get ahead. I always say that you should always look for the person that has a rear view mirror on their shoulder because they're looking to see who's stabbing them, you know, you know, and then in the back. And then the next half of three, I talk about, you know, I talk about communication. And here there's a whole raft of things, you know, formed just gobbledygook communications, just excessive emails and constantly bombarded. And I say one,
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:communication. And here there's a whole raft of things. There's just gobbled up communication with excessive emails and constantly bombarding them. I say one sign of a dysfunctional company is you see employees walking around with neck braces and they got their whiplash and they're moving their head around, what'd they say today? What did they say today? There's no consistent communication, you know. And then I talk about, of course, the next level up from email, you know, is, you know,
Joel Dubin (:sign of a dysfunctional company as you see employees walking around with neck braces because they got whiplash from moving their head around. What did they say today? What did they say tomorrow? There's no consistent communication. And then I talk about, of course, the next level up from email. After you've bombarded with email, you've got to have a meeting, right? And we've already talked about meetings. So then.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:It's very effective if a marginal female's gotta have a baby tonight.
Joel Dubin (:You have the meeting. So I say, if you are not in a meeting, you'll be assigned to one. So I talk about this whole meeting culture in the book. And then the next habit again is about customer service. So I talk about, as I mentioned, your automated customer service, because we're all used to this now, and how it's vitally important that you not talk to customers. You do whatever you can to drive customers away.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
Joel Dubin (:You got to remember Keith that the twin enemies of the dysfunctional company are its employees and its customers, right? So customers are out of sight, out of mind. They're outside the company. You can ignore them, you know, screw them, screw the customers, right? But employees, which is in the next habit where I say drive out your best employees and ignore the rest. Employees are like a, they're like a toothache in the company. You have to deal with them. That's the longest chapter of the book. And that's probably the most significant.
It's just poor treatment of employees. I talk about how we have HR practices, how to ensure using automated systems that you will never hire the right employees. I give some really idiotic interview questions that you should ask. And you should always, you should ignore in background checks, criminal records. So, salespeople that have been convicted of.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:You will never hire the right employee.
Joel Dubin (:you know, of crimes. Yeah, you want that. You want absolute unethical liars that'll be able to sell your product. Why not? Right. You know, you know, so all these things about, you know, employees and then, and then lastly, the last tab is about the company not serving the common good. And here I kind of talk about, you know, where companies say one thing to the public and then do something else. So they may talk about being green and environmentally friendly and you'll,
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:green and environmentally friendly. You have these plants that are doing all this garbage.
Joel Dubin (:gee, you have these plants that are spewing all this garbage, or you have all these emissions, these kinds of things. Company not serving the common good. And then I have this whole program in there where I talk about, I call it the Asshole Management Development Training Program. And in line with poor communication where you should strive to speak only in acronyms, I call it AMDTEP for short, I talk about all these various toxic personality types that you find.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:But then I have this whole program in there where I talk about, I call it the National Management Development Training Program. And in line with poor communication where you strive to be only an acronym.
Joel Dubin (:particularly in dysfunctional companies. And then how they serve, they deserve the public is that once they leave the company, they're unleashed to go out into the world with all of the tax and skills they learned to go either to another company or gasp. They might go into government where they could cause real damage, you know? So those are the seven habits kind of in a nutshell, Keith.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:particularly in dysfunctional companies, and then how they serve the public is that once they leave the company, they're unleashed to go out into the world with all of the massive children.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:You might know the government, but it's a real damn thing.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Wow, those are interesting. It's like a book that people can take and, like you said, see maybe their company in the book, hopefully not, or at least a company they've worked for. But I think even if you don't intend to give practical, here's how you fix that thing, you can at least recognize if these things are present in your company or your organization, you might want to address them.
Joel Dubin (:Right.
Joel Dubin (:I want to address them or you know, in a worst case scenario, you move on. The one thing I always say, you know, because I went to business school, I have an MBA, I call it a Masters of Bureaucratic Administration, actually. You know, the one thing they, and I learned a lot of good stuff, so you know, I make fun of it, but there are a lot of good things you do learn in a business program. And you also learn about skills, you know, that you might not be.
You know, good at, you know, I was more of a marketing guy than a finance guy. So I learned, you know, the basis of finance and how to read balance sheets and stuff like that. You know, the big thing that they don't teach in business school, they don't really teach psychology. They should have a psych course about psychology so you can understand the different types of personality and personality types. They do have organizational behavior where they talk about organizational structures.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:organization of the major, where they talk about organizational structures, you know, and things that go on in the company. And that is a very good course and a good way to approach it. But I think we need to go down to a more granular level and learn more about things that cultivate people a little bit. Why do some people manipulate how to avoid that type of thing, how to, you know, identify the shooter and go to the Mount Everest?
Joel Dubin (:you know, and things that go on in companies. And that's a very good course and a good way to approach it. But I think you need to go down in a more granular level and learn more about things that motivate people a little bit. Why do some people manipulate how to avoid that type of thing? How to, you know, identify people that are egos bigger than, bigger than Mount Everest and how to deal with that. So.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right, that's good. So Joe, I'm curious, how has your book been received?
Joel Dubin (:You know, it's been very well received among people that work in offices, you know. But the other day, interestingly enough, I have a friend who's a retired executive from a major Fortune 500 company, just one of those coincidence happened to know him. And I was kind of biting my fingernails, you know, when I gave it to him and I said, he liked it. He thought it was very, very funny, you know, cause I could see.
You know, so an executive say, that's not my company, right? You know, being in denial or, or on the other hand say, this is a bunch of garbage. You know, this is just silly. You weren't an executive. You wouldn't know, you know, that kind of thing. But he thought it was funny. But the one comment he said was, you know, it's got a little bit of an edge to it. He says, sounds like you were angry. I says, well, maybe I was, it's kind of like therapy for me. So, but people definitely in offices and interestingly enough, Keith, I really.
I only worked in the private sector. I mean, I did consulting for some of my clients were like universities or healthcare, but I really only worked in the private sector. I have people in the healthcare and like in universities have read it and they say, yeah, it's just like the bureaucracy here is just like in the corporate world. So yeah, it's been well received among people in offices and the little bit I've heard from executives, they find it funny too.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:like diversity for health care.
good, I love that. So I'm curious Joel, as you got this book going, you're kind of doing your thing, what are you excited about in this particular season of your life?
Joel Dubin (:Well, I'm excited about having the freedom to do what I wanted to do. This was always a dream for me. I've always thought about this book for many years. So I'm actually kind of turn everything around. And now I'm like a humor writer. I had a book I wrote during COVID about marriage, because I've been married 30 years and my wife hasn't thrown me out of the house yet. A humor book called Yes, Dear Husband's Guide to Marriage. So.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:There you go.
Joel Dubin (:That's kind of what I'm excited about, being able to do my own thing, you know, just with all of the pressures and demands of work. And that's, that's any job. I mean, there's no way around it dysfunctional or functional company. You know, you have to work hard to, you know, to do, to do anything. And, you know, so now I'm kind of, I'm free. I don't have the distraction of those meetings, you know, or all those emails, you know, and all that, you know, all that stuff to actually.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I have to get back to those meetings.
Joel Dubin (:you know, do the things that I wanted to do. So I've got a lot of projects on the burner there.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's awesome. I love to ask my guests this question. As you think about your life so far and you kind of reflect back on what you've done and what you hope still accomplish, what do you want your legacy to be?
Joel Dubin (:So my legacy would be that I broke the mold. I kind of broke the serious facade of the corporate world because you go into the, and you see all these people that they take themselves too seriously. They're very cautious in their language and they, you know, they speak in this corporate speak as I call it in the book. And they don't, there's no creativity. You know, everything is like this cookie cutter mold way of doing things.
I was always that guy that was the smart aleck in the meeting that always said the wrong thing at the wrong time. And you need more of that. You need more of that creative energy. And I just don't see that. So that's my legacy, kind of breaking the mold, getting people to laugh and kind of making people be more creative in looking at their work situation.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:You need more of that, need more of that creative energy. I just don't see that. That's my life, is kind of raking the mold, getting people to laugh.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:That's a good, that's a good legacy. I like that. You know, as you wrap up our conversation, what key takeaways and insights do you want our listeners to remember from our discussion today?
Joel Dubin (:So the key takeaway, as I said in the beginning, Keith, is that what you should do is always be prepared for the inevitable in any job or in any company. Take advantage of any opportunities you have. Even in dysfunctional companies, they will pay to train you. I have a whole thing in there about silly training, things that you're forced to do that make no sense.
You'll notice Keith, there's a theme here, all these habits actually overlap. Poor employee treatment, that's because of something that didn't make sense or they were in a meeting. So one of the things is always be, take advantage of training. If your company offers training or if they will pay for outside training, always beef up your skills in your field. The second thing I would say, always, always network. People, sometimes they just get too complacent.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:the company offers training or if they will pay for out to training. Always keep up your skills in your field. The second thing I would say, always, always network with people. I think you get to the places, you know, they don't look ahead, they're always kind of a tunnel vision about their job. That job may not be there tomorrow, especially with all the technical change going on, you know, with AI right now.
Joel Dubin (:They don't look ahead. They're always, they kind of have a tunnel vision about that job. That job may not be there tomorrow. And especially with all of the technical change going on, you know, in AI right now, artificial intelligence, jobs are going to change. They're constantly changing. They come and they go. So always be out there networking. If you're a member of a professional society, go to their lunches, go to their dinners, meet people.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:out there networked with a number of professionals.
Joel Dubin (:Network always have a business card. You know, I'm amazed that some of these companies, they don't give business cards to people. Well, you may not be in sales, but this way someone has a, you know, or, you know, now people put the contact information on, on apps, apps on their phones. So the takeaway, so as I said, you know, training networking, always be prepared, be loyal to your skills. I'm not saying to be disloyal to your company, but think of yourself first and think of what you, how be flexible.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:I love that. I can see your next book now though. Seven Bad Habits of Cybersecurity. Joe, thanks so much. Hey, can you tell people again where they can find your book?
Joel Dubin (:and adaptable and ready for change and ready to move on at a moment's notice. That's the takeaway.
Joel Dubin (:Thanks for the suggestion, Keith.
Joel Dubin (:Yes. So it's on Amazon. It's called the seven habits of highly dysfunctional companies. I've also set up a dysfunctional company. It's called dysfunctional company .com. That's my website and you can buy that book. And actually my, I wrote a cybersecurity book many years ago, which is a basic cybersecurity one -on -one, which it still has some valuable information in it, despite the change. And then about my other humor book about marriage. So.
Dysfunctionalcompany .com is the way to find it. And again, as I say, it is on Amazon available both in Kindle and in a paperback format. So.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Where can they find you on social media if they want to connect with you and hear some more of your great stories and jokes?
Joel Dubin (:So I'm still in the process of setting up my social media accounts. I'm in the process of setting up a TikTok and YouTube accounts right now. But if you go to dysfunctionalcompany .com, there's links to some social media that I have on there and links to other things about me on there. That's probably the best way to find me. So I'm, it's a work in progress. So I've only been, been paroled out of the corporate prison for a year now. So.
I'm still adjusting to the outside world.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Joe, thanks so much for this and for the conversation and for the book you wrote, because I'm sure we could all use a laugh here and there, especially remembering our careers and in the workforce to just kind of see the things that we may not have identified or written down as what was wrong. But you've helped us to kind of say, yeah, that's why. And it wasn't always my fault.
Joel Dubin (:Yeah, well, I have a thing in there about scapegoats, you know. Yeah. You've got to have a scapegoat. So, yeah, read the book. Read the book. It'll tell you about scapegoats and about, you know, what happens to them, how they get tired and feathered in public in the cafeteria. So.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Yes.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:Right. Well, blessings on your book, Joel, and thanks. And when you write your next one, come back on again. We'll talk about that too as well.
Joel Dubin (:Thank you.
Joel Dubin (:Absolutely, Keith. Thank you for having me.
of Becoming Bridge Builders (:You're welcome. Thanks for being here.
