RISEUP AT WORK

Nobody lands on a Performance Improvement Plan, a PIP, by surprise. It feels like an ambush, but it is almost always a year of quiet feedback someone stopped hearing, finally printed with a deadline. The signals came gently, wrapped in "great, next thing," and were easy to file under noise. By the time it becomes a document, it was months in the making. I wrote about how to catch it while it is still just a conversation.

Nobody Lands on a Performance Improvement Plan (PIP) by Surprise A PIP is almost never a surprise. It is a year of feedback you quietly stopped hearing, finally printed on letterhead with a deadline.

It is my birthday, and Maven just named me a featured instructor. That is a pretty cool gift to wake up to.

So I want to give one back.

I have been focused on helping early to mid career professionals grow in the job. This is the work I do with RISEUP@work. I am now opening two ways to learn from me on Maven.

FIRST: The free one, live. "Using AI Without Losing Your Edge @ Work." AI is making your work look better while quietly replacing the judgment you should be building early in your career. You score yourself on a fast diagnostic, identify your risk cluster, and leave with immediate next steps. Two options available. Choose one:

Thursday, July 16, 11 AM CDT: https://maven.com/p/554b1d/using-ai-without-losing-your-edge-work-cohort-c

Tuesday, July 22, 11 AM CDT: https://maven.com/p/960a62/using-ai-without-losing-your-edge-work-cohort-d

SECOND: The deeper one is a 3-hour workshop. "Install Your Career OS", either July 14 or July 24. You get your full career diagnostic, decode it with me across six segments, and walk out with a 90-day plan that turns your growth into a doable number.

Enroll here, and my birthday gift is code ROW50 for 50% off: https://maven.com/riseupatwork/workshop-install-your-career-os

Come build the system with me.

Dr. Deepak Bhootra on Maven Dr. Deepak Bhootra teaches live online courses on Maven. Browse their courses and enroll today.

After 15 years of coaching people through their first years at work, here is the cheapest career diagnostic I know. Your own calendar.

I picked this up from Dan Martell. He colors his calendar to see which weeks make money and which ones waste it. Smart. But he already has the career. I wanted a version for the person still building one.

So change the question. Do not color by what pays you this week. Color by what builds something you will still own at the end of the job.

Green for the hours that grow you.

Blue for the hours that make you known.

Yellow for the job you are paid to do today.

Grey for the maintenance.

Open the next seven days and color them honestly. For most people, green and blue barely show up.

Whatever color you see the most is not this week. That is your career, a decade from now, already in motion.

I wrote the full piece on this.

substack.riseupatwork.com

Everyone is racing to use AI to do more.

America turns 250 this week. Paul Allen asked a sharp question. If the Founders were alive today, what would they build? His answer is AI agent fleets. Real capability, finally in everyone's hands.

He is right. I want to push on one part.

Franklin was a tinkerer at his core. The thread through his life was never output. It was learning. He kept aiming his curiosity at the next useful thing for sixty years.

So here is the turn. Franklin would not have used AI only to do more. He would have used it to become more.

Used well, an agent becomes a mirror. It shows you where you rush. Where you avoid the hard call. Where your thinking has gone lazy.

I call this outer engineering versus inner engineering. The agent handles the outer work. The inner work is the part that compounds.
The career is the asset. The tools are finally here. The judgment to aim them is still yours to build.

I wrote the full piece for America's 250th. Read it on Substack.

substack.riseupatwork.com

What if the greatest competitive advantage in your organization is not technology, strategy, or AI, but the quality of your human relationships?

In the latest edition of the RISEUP@work TV show, I reflect on my conversation with Paula Quinsee, relationship intelligence expert and CEO of Engaged Humans. Our discussion explored why trust, psychological safety, conflict, and self-awareness have become essential leadership capabilities in today's increasingly complex workplace.

1. Human relationships create the trust that drives stronger collaboration, innovation, performance, and sustainable organizational success.

2. Conflict approached with empathy and curiosity becomes an opportunity for growth, stronger decisions, and healthier workplace relationships.

3. Psychological safety gives people the confidence to speak honestly, learn from mistakes, contribute ideas, and remain accountable.

4. True success at work means achieving meaningful results while protecting your purpose, well-being, identity, and long-term growth.

If you lead people, build teams, or simply want a healthier and more meaningful career, I believe these ideas will challenge the way you think about leadership and performance.

Read the full article to explore these ideas in greater depth, and subscribe to the RISEUP@work Newsletter for practical insights, real stories, and actionable strategies that will help you thrive at work, not just survive.

Building Human-Centered Organizations Where People Thrive: A Conversation with Paula Quinsee We Live in a Complex World Every organization talks about performance, productivity, and growth, yet the strongest organizations rarely begin with numbers. They begin with people.

Your HR department's new job is to decide whether you cost more than a machine.

The head of SHRM just told a room of HR leaders that their profession faces extinction and that the way to survive is to prove the ROI of every employee relative to the cost of AI.

Edition #43 of the RISEUP@work Newsletter reads that warning from the employee's chair.

HR started as the mama bird that feathered your nest. Cost pressure changed it. The managers who guided people were cut, support shrank to a phone number, and engagement drifted south. Now the same leaders who cut HR when it added value want it to rank who else is worth keeping.

The conclusion is uncomfortable and freeing.

Nobody in the structure is coming to protect you. The only security left is the value you carry yourself.

Read the full edition below. Then subscribe to RISEUP@work so you never miss my perspective on building careers in a world that feels like it is on fire!

HR Was Never Coming to Save You | Deepak Bhootra Your HR department's new job is to decide whether you cost more than a machine. The head of SHRM just told a room of HR leaders that their profession faces extinction and that the way to survive is to prove the ROI of every employee relative to the cost of AI. Edition # 43 of the RISEUP@work Newslet...

A blade kept in the drawer still goes dull. That is what I keep seeing after two years of close work with salespeople, executives, and people in the first ten years of their careers.

AI does more and more of the cutting, and the edge that made them valuable slowly loses its grip. Their writing has never looked better. My worry is that their thinking is not keeping up.

The bill does not arrive in your next email or deck. It arrives later. In the interview, you cannot close. In the promotion that goes to the person who was sharper in the room than you looked on paper. Read that again. Hurts yet?

I am teaching this in four free 45-minute Lightning Lessons on Maven, titled "Using AI Without Losing Your Edge @ Work." Pick one slot. In 45 minutes, you will run a personal diagnostic that surfaces your own AI risk pattern, see how you compare to other professionals who have taken it, get the exact prompt that makes AI push back instead of flatter you, and leave with a blueprint that protects the judgment that makes you worth hiring and promoting.

Four cohorts, built around different time zones:
- Tue, Jun 30: 8:00 AM CT / 2:00 PM UK / 6:30 PM India
- Mon, Jul 6: 10:00 AM CT / 4:00 PM UK / 8:30 PM India
- Thu, Jul 16: 11:00 AM CT / 5:00 PM UK / 9:30 PM India
- Wed, Jul 22: 11:00 AM CT / 5:00 PM UK / 9:30 PM India

Cannot make any of them live? Register anyway. The replay goes to everyone who signs up.

Want to go deeper first? The same link has a free white paper to download, "RISEUP White Paper: Using AI Without Losing Your Edge." It lays out research on how AI quietly erodes professional judgment in the first 10 years, plus the 5 signs to watch for.

Register and download here: https://maven.com/riseupatwork -lessons

RISEUP AT WORK

Dr. Deepak Bhootra on Maven Dr. Deepak Bhootra teaches live online courses on Maven. Browse their courses and enroll today.