Duke alum Kathryn Minshew launches podcast about ‘The New Rules of Work’

Gone are the days when careers were a ladder. Here are the days where careers are a jungle gym, where jumping from one job to another is not looked down upon but perhaps beneficial. In her recently-debuted podcast “The New Rules of Work,” Kathryn Minshew, Trinity ‘08 and founder of the career-building platform The Muse, delves deep into these “new rules” of a changing workforce.

“The New Rules of Work, ”which launched in November, is inspired by The Muse and Minshew’s 2017 best-selling book of the same name. Honest, witty and enrapturing, the podcast sweeps across the workforce, interviewing innovators and professionals from a variety of backgrounds. Minshew emphasizes how today’s interconnected world creates a workspace that blurs the line between work and life balance, making it increasingly important that one falls in love with their career. At its heart, the podcast represents a burgeoning of Minshew’s own career journey. 

“My own winding career path was part of the inspiration for The Muse, a career platform that helps 6 million people every month research companies and careers,” Minshew wrote in an email. “I wanted to give other people an inside look into company cultures and different jobs, so they wouldn’t have to learn by trial and error like I did.”

Research has shown that the first 90 days at a new job are crucial in determining whether an employee will stick with a company in the long run. In the podcast’s first episode, Minshew interviews Stacey Payne, Chief People Officer at Dig, a culinary powerhouse based in New York City that has mastered the 90-day window for capturing the heart of its employees. Payne attributes Dig’s success to “fearless” vulnerability and strong workplace values.

In the following episodes, Minshew interviews several other prominent entrepreneurs including Anil Dash, CEO of the app-collaboration company Glitch, and Sallie Krawcheck, CEO of Ellevest, a female-empowerment investment company. Above creativity and challenge, the most powerful value that shines through in Minshew’s “The New Rules of Work” is persistence.

“In my experience successful entrepreneurs are a very diverse bunch — some are highly creative, others methodical and detail-oriented, some introverted and some extroverted — but nearly all are persistent, because it’s incredibly hard to do something that no one else has done,” Minshew wrote.

Minshew’s podcast doesn’t sugarcoat the challenge of figuring out the most dynamic yet daunting question: “What do I want in life?” Colleges like Duke are supposed to help students find this answer, forcing us to question if our interests are mere fascinations or lifelong passions that border on obsessions. Undergraduate years are meant to show us how to adjust to change in several dimensions — changing majors, change career goals, and the changing workplace itself. 

The most recent podcast episode of “The New Rules of Work” features Marie Moynihan and Brent Amundson, both talent acquisition leaders at Dell, who talk about Dell’s 2016 acquisition of EMC Corporation and the resilience needed to approach an obstacle as an opportunity. In her podcast interview with Moynihan and Amundson, Minshew elucidates that success in today’s modern workplace is game of adaptability over ability.  It’s not only about using all the skills learned in college but also having the open-minded spirit to learn completely new skills along the way.