Wrong Fit, Right Fit | Author Dr. André Martin

**Dr. André Martin** (0:00)
The second trend, and this one's probably a little bit harder to hear, but we're coming out of some of the most prominent growth, consistent growth, at least the United States we've ever seen. And so when you have a decade of consistent growth like that, it hides a lot of sins.
And so this generation of managers actually aren't that prepared. We didn't invest probably in the way that we needed to, to get them ready for this time, the time after a pandemic, in a recession, when everyone's struggling to make money. That's a different leadership skill. We don't have wartime leaders. And so I think part of the other reason you're seeing this burnout is our managers won't say it, but they're just not prepared.

**Conor Bronsdon** (0:38)
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Hey, everyone, welcome back to Dev Interrupted. I'm your co-host, Conor Bronsdon, and today I'm delighted to be joined by Dr. Andre Martin, author of Wrong Fit, Right Fit. Andre, welcome to the show.

**Dr. André Martin** (1:33)
Thanks a lot. Good to be here.

**Conor Bronsdon** (1:34)
Yeah, it was really wonderful being at your book signing last night and seeing just the incredible energy here around your new book, Wrong Fit, Right Fit. I had a chance to read a couple chapters last night, and so I'm looking forward to hearing from the source himself. You're an organizational psychologist. You've got over 20 years of experience in talent management and team management. And I know you've worked on employee engagement and culture with global giants like Target, Nike, Google, Mars and Disney, just to name a few.
As a champion of this kind of idea of purpose-driven culture, purpose-driven organizations, you've really helped companies spearhead value-focused digital transformations. I know it's a lot of words, but I promise we're going to unpack them, folks.
And what was the inspiration behind this book? How did it come out of your work?

**Dr. André Martin** (2:17)
Yeah, the inspiration around the book, I think like most books, there's probably two pieces to it. The first one is just my personal journey, right? Looking back over 20 years of working at really great, really interesting and very distinct companies and knowing that, hey, some of them really worked for me because they allowed me to do work easily.
Others were great learning experiences, but the experiences were hard. And so I think that personal experience is always where writer starts, right? And then from there, it's been this one number that's been on my mind, in my grill, sort of keeping me up at night, which is $7.8 trillion of lost productivity in the workplace today, estimated by Gallup. I just, I look at that number, I'm like, it's just too much.
You know, it just means that there's far too many people who are sitting at their desk in their company and really not feeling like they're able to do their best work. And that's my cause. I think everyone deserves that opportunity because we spend so much time at work in our adult lives.

**Conor Bronsdon** (3:14)
I love that you're trying to make this really important piece of our lives better. Because, I mean, even if I work just an eight classic eight hour day, that is still what probably half of my waking hours per day, maybe a little less, maybe a little more, depending on the person.
And that is such a deep resonant impact in how people feel day to day and how people go through the world. So I love that you're thinking about that. And I know that when you set out to start writing this book, you didn't quite have that as your mission. You had a related mission.

**Dr. André Martin** (3:47)
I did.

**Conor Bronsdon** (3:47)
How did you decide that this was the direction that this needed to go?

**Dr. André Martin** (3:51)
Well, I'm a geek at heart. So I'm a researcher. You know, I have a Ph.D. I love sort of digging into a problem. So the first thing I did is I after agreeing with the publisher to write a book on culture, I thought it was going to be about culture in this new era of work. So how do you build a really great culture, given that we're hybrid and we're remote and all these different factors?