The Humans Behind Workhuman - Lynne Levy
b'On a scale of 1 to WorkHuman, how supportive is your company? Lynne Levy is our product evangelist and storyteller, joining us for another installment of our Humans of WorkHuman series. Lynne shares about being a late bloomer, her thoughts on artificial intelligence, and, incredibly, going to work with stage 3 cancer.\\xa0\\nThe mission\\nLynne\\u2019s dad hated his job. He would come home every night anxious, stressed out, angry, or overwhelmed because he worked in a toxic environment. He worked there for 40 years, and the whole family would be impacted by how he came home.\\xa0\\nNow Lynne is on a mission to make sure no human or their families have to go through working in that type of awful atmosphere. When you work in a toxic environment, it impacts your productivity, innovation, health, family \\u2014 everything. It\\u2019s mind-boggling how organizations can assume it\\u2019s okay to be nasty to people. It doesn\\u2019t make human sense and it doesn\\u2019t make business sense.\\nA change of heart\\nLynne had been in tech her whole career, always looking to improve processes and automate as much as possible. When she hit her early 40s, she grew tired of building software that would put people out of work.\\xa0\\nThere are two ways to make people productive: you can automate, or you can create an awesome environment where they love what they do.\\xa0\\nLynne chose the latter. And in her 40s, she went back to school and got her master\\u2019s degree, and began her new career as a product manager who\\u2019s been in software, but with an academic background in engagement, communication, and leadership.\\xa0\\nThe human element and the future of work\\nWe\\u2019re built as a tribal community. We\\u2019re built to interact with people. It\\u2019s part of our nature. It\\u2019s part of who we are. We need connection, and Lynne hopes that as a race and global community, we will reach our tipping point and set limits for artificial intelligence.\\xa0\\nThe big C\\nLynne was diagnosed with stage 3 cancer about six months into working with WorkHuman. But what was so special, she says, was that she considers working at WorkHuman as part of her treatment.\\nShe was surrounded by a community of people who cared: people who would say, \\u201cLynne, you look great today,\\u201d (even if she felt swollen and pale), \\u201cLynne, you got this,\\u201d or even, \\u201cLynne, what can we do to help?\\u201d Her leaders gave her a great workload that wasn\\u2019t too much or too little.\\xa0\\nShe chose to work because it helped keep her distracted and motivated, and it was the one thing in her life that would allow her not to think about cancer. She felt productive and useful while going through treatment, and it made a huge difference.\\xa0\\nTakeaway\\nYou don\\u2019t know what life has in store for you. Do what you love. Work at awesome companies where you\\u2019re valued and treated like a human being, and just embrace the moments.\\xa0\\nResources\\nLinkedInWebsite'