What’s The OffBeat about?

The way we work is broken*. 

Burnout is the norm. The gender wage gap persists. Personal politics run roughshod over empathy. Childcare infrastructure is in crisis and parental leave is a disgrace. Racism, misogyny, and homophobia—conscious and subconscious—are rampant. Meetings are a waste of time, emails and Slack notifications and WhatsApp messages flood in 24/7, and taking actual time off is too frequently considered a faux pas. 

It’s exhausting.

But once in a while, there’s a glimmer of inspiration from a compelling presentation or a team sync that reinvigorates you; there’s an empathic conversation with a colleague that lowers your blood pressure or a smart white paper that quickens your flow of ideas. What those things have in common, what’s enabled each of them: exceptional leadership.

Leading people—not just the act of it, but actually caring about how it’s going and diligently reflecting on and improving the craft of it—takes no less (in fact, more) attention and care as delivering whatever your work product is. It’s a great privilege to manage a team. You have an outsized impact on those people’s experience of work, which profoundly affects their life.

Over the last two decades, while building and leading marketing teams at brands like Shake Shack, Sweetgreen, BarkBox, and Stella Artois, and experiencing a reckoning around how to find personal/professional balance as a mom of two and a hard-charging executive, I’ve discovered a wealth of interoperability between music and corporate leadership.

One of the core tenets of my leadership approach is to lead from behind—to provide clear and consistent vision, guardrails, and expectations, then let people crush it out in front. Similarly, the job of the drummer is to keep the beat for the band—and to do so from the physical back of the space, holding the rhythm down so the other musicians can shine.

And often, the most impactful part of the drumbeat is the offbeat, the in-between notes that make the rhythm more unexpected—and the groove better.

So: The OffBeat mines inspiration from music to address your leadership challenges. Whether you lead people directly, are leading people on a project, or show up as a leader in an individual contributor capacity, I believe it’s on you (us!)—leadership—to mend what’s broken in the workplace. And we can do that by examining the offbeat: bucking the trend, respectfully questioning the status quo, seeking out the unexpected metaphor. 

As Thelonious Monk put it, “I say, play your own way.” 

*I’m specifically experienced in and qualified to speak about corporate, aka “knowledge,” work, so that’s my focus here—but I am in no way discounting the brokenness of work outside that sphere. Our society also needs policy updates and fundamental sea changes across many of the ways we conduct our day-to-day life with respect to one another; but that’s for another space.

OK, what’s the TLDR on what The OffBeat is about?

The way we work is broken, it’s on leaders to solve that, and the “usual” isn’t working so we need to mine for inspiration from unexpected places; for me, that’s music.

How often do you publish? 

Every Sunday morning.

Is The OffBeat relevant to me?

Do these questions ever cross your mind?

• How do I develop my own leadership approach?

• How do I learn about leadership without getting bored?

• How do I manage people effectively when I’m burnt out myself and experiencing a reckoning around ambition?

• How do I obtain fresh, original leadership insights I actually haven’t heard before and without having to go to a conference or attend a seminar?

• How do I improve my leadership skills quickly, with minimal resource outlay?

• How can I be a respected, inclusive leader in the workplace while maintaining a healthy work/life balance and supporting that same ethos for my team?

If any of those questions resonated, then The OffBeat’s relevant for you.

Who’s Allison Stadd?

I’m a Philly-based (NYC expat) brand marketer and former jazz drummer. I’m currently the SVP of Brand, Culture & Media at Shipt, a subsidiary of Target, where I spearhead brand, transformational creativity, and full-funnel media. I have almost two decades of experience in high-stakes, fast-paced marketing leadership roles at consumer-obsessed brands, including Shake Shack, Sweetgreen, BarkBox, Stella Artois, and Target (Shipt). I’ve built, restructured, and tuned teams as small as 5 and as large as 50.

I cut my teeth in the 2000s on unpaid internships; shitty, untrained bosses; and the concept of "paying your dues.” I slowly burned out, then recovered from burnout, then slowly re-crispened, back and forth for, like, a decade. I’ve finally found my way to a personal/professional balance but part of that is ensuring that I can find meaning in my work and that my work is true to my values.

I’m also a mom of two little kids (and an awesome wheelchair dog named Franklin).

Ans I’m honored to have been a member of the inaugural U.S. class of 30 of The Marketing Academy, a 9-month fellowship targeting the fastest rising stars in U.S. marketing, and I was selected as one of Ad Age’s “40 Under 40” and Brand Innovators’ “40 Under 40” in 2019.

I bring all of that to bear here in The OffBeat: low-cognitive-load, music-inspired ideas for jazzing up workplace leadership without sacrificing personal/professional balance.

The way we work is broken, but the way we lead doesn’t have to be.

allisonstadd.com | @AllisonStadd | bookshop.org