The Future of Work With Jacob Morgan
Jacob Morgan
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The world is changing quickly. What do you need to know and do in order to be successful now and in the future? Join futurist, best-selling author, and speaker Jacob Morgan as he interviews some of the world's top business leaders, educators, and authors. From leadership to employee experience to the future of work, get the insights and the tools you need to succeed and thrive at work and in life. If you want to future proof your career and your organization then this is the show for you!
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4 days ago
Three Big Barriers to Collaboration
There are three main barriers to collaboration:
👉HIERARCHY
If your organization is built like a pyramid where information has to flow bottom-up or top-down, it won’t do well with collaboration.
👉FEAR
Part of collaboration means speaking up and having confidence in yourself. Sometimes employees are scared, which keeps them from really collaborating or communicating effectively.
👉 OVER-COLLABORATION
This occurs when you need to get someone else's input for every idea and every small thing you're trying to do. Over-collaboration is just as harmful as not collaborating.
We often see these common barriers inside organizations when it comes to collaboration. But if you know what the barriers are, you'll have a good sense of how to deal with them if they come up and can handle them quickly.
6 days ago
Greg McKeown On How To Get Effortless Results & Make It Easier To Do What Matters Most
Greg McKeown is the bestselling author of Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less and his new book Effortless: Make It Easier To Do What Matters Most. He is also the host of the popular podcast, What’s Essential, which has featured guests like Matthew McConaughey, Ariana Huffington, Jay Shetty, and Maria Shriver.
We all know life is hard, in multiple ways. We’ve all experienced challenging times, especially over the past year. But, as Greg points out, we tend to make things even more complicated for ourselves than we need to, and it can ultimately lead to burnout.
In his book, Effortless, Greg shares why achieving results doesn’t have to be as hard as we make it, whether in our personal lives or at work.
Why we need to get rid of the phrase “work hard, play hard”
This phrase, Greg says, gives us the idea that important work can’t be fun, easy, or enjoyable. It suggests that you have to be exhausted, self-sacrificing, and overworked in order for you to be doing something important. And on the other side, if you are having fun with something it’s not really work. Rest, relaxation, and fun is only something you do when you’re burned-out and need a break.
But what Greg believes is that there doesn’t need to be a separation between playing and working. And he is all about making the essential things enjoyable and easier to do. How? By turning the essential things into rituals that allows you to appreciate them and enjoy them.
A lot of times we confuse rituals with habits, but they are two different things. A habit is something that we make part of our routine on the basis that there will be a benefit later on. For example, maybe you’ve incorporated working out into your routine so that you feel better and live longer.
A ritual is something that you truly enjoy, it’s not about a benefit later on, it’s about enjoying the actual thing you are doing in the moment. It’s something that you look forward to. Greg says, “Take something from a chore and turn it into a ritual, then you have something magical to help you produce great results, but again, without burning out.”
What does it mean to be in an effortless state
One of the three main sections of Greg’s book is about what he calls an effortless state. Most people have experienced this sort of state, but not very often. Greg defines an effortless state as this, “when you're in flow, it's when you're physically rested, you're mentally at ease, you're able to be at ease in focusing on what is essential to you. What's important to note about this is that when you get into that state, it produces things. When you're in the effortless state, you tend to take effortless action, you're able to act without strain, without forcing things without breaking yourself or the people around you.”
That sounds great, so how do we get into an effortless state and make sure we stay there for a long time? Well first of all, you have to be able to realize when you are burned out. Research shows that the closer we get to burnout, the less likely we are to realize it.
Greg says, “The exhausted state tends to produce more exhausted action, and more exhausted results. And so people as they approach burnout start to try to power through it. So of course, that's not a recipe for success. That's a recipe for, you know, continuing this downward spiral.”
So it is up to us to realize that there are two states, two options. After we realize we are in an exhausted state, this is where your rituals come in.
One ritual Greg does to make sure he stays in an effortless state, is to practice gratitude. Every time he complains about something, he then says something he is thankful for. It is hard to stay in a state of anger, frustration, or fear when you are in a state of gratitude.
How to shut your brain off and be content with having free time
A lot of us have trouble taking time to rest, relax, and just have some free time. This is especially hard for entrepreneurs who tend to always create more work for themselves. But it’s true for people inside of organizations as well.
If this is true for you, Greg has some advice. First of all, he says, create a done for the day list. This is not a typical to-do list, although it is okay to have one of those as well. But typically those tend to be something we constantly add on-to and update, which means we could work with no end. But a done for the day list is a list of the things that if you accomplish them today you would feel satisfied with the day and you could walk away from work feeling good.
Another thing Greg does is he sets a time when he will be done for the day. His time is 5:00pm, so at that time every day, not only does he stop working, but he makes it a ritual that he walks out of his home office and calls out to his family “It’s five o’clock”, in order to hold himself accountable.
Now there are times when he has something special like a book launch or something like that when he has to work past his set time, but he doesn’t let that become the normal thing.
It is so important to set boundaries like the done for the day list and the set stopping time, especially during this past year. For a long time people have talked about work-life balance, but as Greg mentions, that’s a bit of a misnomer because it is never life overtaking work, it’s always work overtaking life.
But it will take time to train your brain to shut off at a certain point, in the beginning your brain will continue to think about work even after you walk away from it, but the more you practice your boundaries and get out of your old habits the easier it will be.
What to do if you don’t enjoy downtime
So now that you have set up some boundaries for yourself, what happens if you just don’t enjoy resting or free time? For over-achievers it can feel uncomfortable to not have anything specific to do. Greg shares something that sounds counter-intuitive, but it’s so true. He says, “Relaxing is a responsibility. Resting is a competency. And it turns out to be as important as the competency of work in the first place.”
These types of people who don’t like to relax need to practice self-awareness and realize that is a problem they have. Once you accept that you aren’t good at it, Greg suggests making a list of things that when you do them you are relaxed, rejuvenated, chilled out, and having fun. Greg and his wife both actually have a list of 20 things they recognize helps them relax. And you can have anything you want on this list, there are no other rules.
You may include going on a walk, reading a book, sitting in a hot tub, playing chess, drinking your favorite beverage out on your deck, going to your favorite restaurant--anything you want. And then these items become your building blocks for a time of rest. For example, if you have 3-hours of downtime, use this list to build your perfect 3-hours of relaxing. You could spend 30 minutes out on your deck with some coffee, spend 30 minutes playing chess with a friend, then go for a walk, and go out to your favorite restaurant--and you’ve filled those 3 hours, but with things that recharge you and give you rest.
May 5, 2021
Viewing Problems as Opportunities
As the future is rapidly changing, leaders must be able to adapt the growth mindset instead of having a fixed mindset. Leaders must be able to learn and adapt to any changes and challenges that come their way.
Remember, everyone faces challenges. Everybody has bad days, but the difference is how you overcome these challenges. You don't know everything, but you can learn everything.
What would have happened if some of the world's greatest innovators and inventors had given up simply because they felt that they couldn't do something or couldn't overcome something? What if a scientist just stopped because they ran into an obstacle and didn't try to find a cure for a particular disease? We would be living in a very different world if everybody gave up at the first sign of a challenge.
A challenge isn't the end of the road, it's just an opportunity to grow.
May 3, 2021
Fareed Zakaria On 10 Lessons For A Post Pandemic World
Fareed Zakaria is the host of the CNN show, Fareed Zakaria GPS. He is also a columnist for The Washington Post, a contributing editor for The Atlantic, and he is the bestselling author of several books including his newest one, Ten Lessons For A Post-Pandemic World.
The pandemic has had an impact on every one of our lives, and the effects will be felt for a long time to come. Early on in the pandemic, Fareed knew we were going through something big, something the world hadn’t gone through for over 100 years, and he wanted to figure things out for himself. He also wanted to help others make sense of everything, which is what pushed him to write his newest book.
Every part of our lives has been affected--health, politics, economics, and education. Thankfully we live in a time when we have the technology and resources needed to be able to still carry on for the most part. While office buildings, schools, and restaurants shut down people got creative and found a way to keep going with online learning, home deliveries, online work meetings, etc…
But while there are many good things about technology, there are also a lot of cons that come with an all virtual world.
The limitations of technology
The place we see the limitations of technology the most, according to Fareed, is in our education systems. Education is not simply about children and young adults soaking up information, it is also a very social and emotional experience as well.
As Fareed shared with me, “you have to create an atmosphere of social trust, you have to create an atmosphere in which people feel like they're having fun, you have to create an atmosphere where people feel a little bit of competition, you know, with peers and all that together creates the kind of opening in our minds that allows the knowledge to go in. And so if you just think of it, and say I'm just going to put you in front of a computer screen, and you will get information, and you will imbibe that information. No, you won't. You won't. You know, the mind just switches off.”
There are definitely some things that just aren’t the same virtually as they are when we are face-to-face. Fareed says that one of the challenges we will face after the pandemic will be to figure out the power and the advantages of this online world we’ve been in. But we also need to look at the disadvantages of what we experienced and figure out how we can fix it. And he believes that we will end up in a hybrid model of some kind where we have a mixture of in-person and online.
We can use technology for good things, but there are also ways in which we use it that can be harmful. But it is up to us how it is used. We can choose to text and drive which is dangerous, we can choose to multitask and always be available online which can cause burnout, we can use it to spread lies and misinformation. But it can also be used in ways that keep us safe, productive, and less stressed.
As Fareed says, we should be optimistic about the future, but we also need to be realistic in order to see the problems and challenges that come with technology. It’s not about being a blind optimist, it’s about being aware of all the problems that exist, because that's the only way you fix them.
How leadership has been impacted by the pandemic
Over the past year leaders around the world have had to pivot to lead in a completely virtual setting, and that is not easy. Fareed shared an example of something that happened to him personally as a leader during this time that really made him stop and think.
His team from his current CNN show has been all virtual, everyone on the team is working from their own homes. And at one point in the pandemic, he noticed that the morale was not as high as it usually was and people were getting burned out, which he found odd since his team is so close-knit and they have always worked so well together.
So in order to get to the bottom of the problem, he called a team meeting and he asked his team to be open and honest with him to figure out what was going on. And one team member was very blunt and told him “Look, you sometimes send these cryptic emails that are really hard for us to take”. And so the conversation started around why they felt that his communication was different now than before.
And what they came to discover was the loss of casual conversation and in person engagement was really at the root of the problem. Before the pandemic, they would see each other throughout the day and joke, ask each other about their families, talk about their weekend plans, etc...So in that context, after you hand some light banter throughout the day to get an email simply saying “we need to re-write this” doesn’t sound so bad.
But now in a completely virtual setting, they were going days without talking or interacting and then to suddenly get that same short email of “we need to re-write this” seemed harsh and rude. And it was ruining the morale of the team.
Fareed shares, “It made me realize that what I was doing there was I was spending social capital, rather than building social capital. And that what I had to do was to be very conscious of the fact that in this virtual environment, you've got to build social capital before you can spend it. And you've got to put in the time and the energy.”
What does that look like? Instead of writing one sentence, maybe you should write a full paragraph. Instead of jumping into the agenda for an online meeting, you should ask people how they’re doing, or joke around a bit. Instead of going a few weeks without checking in with an employee or a co-worker, reach out even if it’s just to say “hi, how was your weekend”.
“You need to realize you cannot just, you know, kind of issue commands and expect people to follow them or issue directives, that doesn't work. Where it might have in a different context, where there was a lot of soft stuff going on, and then you had this one email that came through.”
What’s going to happen to the cities?
Throughout the pandemic, and even a little before that, people have speculated that cities like New York, San Francisco, and Chicago are going to disappear. And while the option to have work flexibility is more possible now, which means people don’t have to report to a central office, it doesn’t mean cities are a thing of the past.
Fareed looks to history to figure out the future, and when we do that we see that people moved to cities because there was more work and because they could earn more money there. When you have a highly dense population, there are more people to sell your product to. There are more people to invest in your business. There are more people around to network with.
“That density is what produces economic activity, which is why, you know, there's a couple of very good calculations that suggest that people who live in particularly large cities tend to be about 50% more productive than other people. I'd say it's not that we're smarter, it’s that you're more likely to meet people, you're more likely to do more deals, you're more likely to see more stuff. I don’t think that’s going to change”
And while people no longer have to live in a city center to be close to their organization’s headquarters, you will probably see a large amount of people living on the outskirts and commuting into the city--if not everyday, then at least from time to time.
One thing Fareed thinks will change about cities is that you won’t be seeing as many big office buildings, since most people can work from home or from co-working spaces or even smaller more localized offices. So these big office buildings may be used for something else like affordable housing or performance space or something else.
Fareed’s advice for individuals and leaders in the post-pandemic world
When I asked Fareed what his advice would be for individuals looking for opportunity as things start to open up and also for leaders, he s…
Apr 28, 2021
Why You Need To Serve Yourself Before You Serve Those Around You
Constantly serving other people and neglecting yourself is probably the best way to get exhausted, burned out, drained, and to become disengaged from work and even disengaged in your personal life.
So even though you are serving your leaders, your customers, and your team members, you also need to make sure that you serve yourself, because if you don't, you're not going to be able to serve anybody else effectively.
Apr 26, 2021
How to Find Your ONE Thing: Advice From Bestselling Author Jay Papasan
Jay Papasan is the bestselling author of multiple books including The ONE Thing, which he co-authored with Gary Keller. The book has sold more than 2 million copies, it has been translated into 35 languages, and it has appeared on more than 500 national bestseller lists.
The main focus of The ONE Thing is to help readers find the one thing that they can do that will make everything else easier or unnecessary. In other words, once you come up with a goal for yourself it is important for you to ask yourself every day what is the one thing I can do today to take me closer to that goal. Every day you are looking for your number one priority.
But does that mean you can only focus on one goal or one thing at a time? No way! Jay says that is actually the biggest mistake readers make when going through the book. He says, “We never said that--who gets to do one thing? Nobody, right? We have kids, we have aging parents, we have hobbies, we have jobs, our jobs have all kinds of busy work that is absolutely necessary and can't be ignored. But if we start and give disproportionate focus and energy to the true priority, everything else does get easier. And sometimes it just goes away. You don't even have to do it. That's a big idea.”
Finding your ONE Thing
Jay suggests that when you first start to try to find your one thing, it is important to think strategically about something that will be a long-term goal. Aim big, and long-term, instead of focusing on something you can achieve in the short term.
As Jay shares, when you are young and just starting out it is important to try to figure out what your unique gifts are. What are some areas where you excel that maybe others have a hard time with? He says, “The reason ultimately people get accelerated through the business world is that in some area they can provide disproportionate returns on their investment of time, right. They can sell more than the next person, they can close more than the next person, they can write better copy, or better code than the next person. So part of the young person's journey is discovering where their passion and their gifts align.”
How can you become invaluable? In what areas can you show up and provide extra value? What are you passionate about or what are you skilled at? If there is something that you are very skilled at and that same thing brings you joy and a sense of purpose--you should lean into that.
And remember that every job is going to have things about it that you don’t enjoy, it’s pretty rare for someone to find a job that they enjoy 100% of the time. But if the majority of the role is exciting, challenging, and enjoyable for you--start your focus there.
How Jay helps his employees find their one thing
Jay is in charge of 44 employees with Keller Williams and one thing he practices on a regular basis with his team is something they call GPS. Each year Jay and his team come together to figure out what their number one goal as a company is. And once they have that goal they come up with three to five priorities that they will need to focus on throughout the year to reach that goal, and each of those priorities has up to five strategies behind it. That is how they get everyone on the team on the same page and working towards the same goal. So that happens on a yearly basis.
And then every week Jay meets with the people who report to him to review their own one page of set goals. This is called the 4-1-1, because it is that person’s priorities for 4 weeks, one month, and one year all on one page. Every week the individual employee looks at their annual goals based on the company priorities and from that they come up with monthly goals that support those overarching goals.
Jay says, “Every week they put their weekly goals that line up to their monthly goals that line up to their annual goals that line up to the divisional company goals. So it's a cascading set of priorities. So that every week, I spend 30 minutes or so with the key people who work with me, and we review their weekly priorities. And once a month, I will look at their monthly priorities and just ask the question, how does this help us achieve our goals? And at the beginning of the year is the most work, right? We ask what's our one thing and then based on that we create the cascade.”
This process allows employees to break large company-wide goals into bite-sized, achievable priorities that they know they can accomplish.
Is hustle culture a good thing?
A lot of people, especially entrepreneurs, believe that success is connected to a nonstop hustle to try to get ahead. They think that by outworking their competition they can win. But Jay doesn’t agree with this concept at all.
He says, “One of my fundamental beliefs is that to be a successful husband and a father and a successful business person, that those are not mutually exclusive endeavors. I refuse to believe otherwise. And the challenge I have with the hustle culture that you have to outwork and work longer than your competitors, is that they're just ignoring the fact that like, I get to work every day with a self made billionaire. I do the math, what is his dollars per hour, it's incalculable. But he doesn't work any more hours than I do on an average week. So it's not how many hours you work. It's what you put into the hours. And it sounds so trite, but it's incredibly true.”
It’s not that you can’t work long hours from time to time or put in time at the office on a weekend on occasion. As Jay shares, he has done that when they are on a deadline or if he’s preparing to speak at a big conference. But it’s not the norm. There are moments in life when you have to work harder than others, but to hustle nonstop all the time is not sustainable.
“I've seen it be a recipe for divorce and disease. And I do not want the people I love to be caught into the culture of hustle first, think second. So I think this is business as a thinking person's game. And when we are strategic in our investment of time, we win.”
The four pitfalls people experience when living The ONE Thing
Once people have found their ONE thing and they start living that out, there are a few pitfalls they can fall into that Jay warns about. They are:
* They lack clarity about what they want.
* They’re clear on what they want, but they’re unfocused in their approach.
* They’re focused, but they actually don’t have time to execute.
* The time that they DO commit, they leave unprotected.
So as you are navigating your priorities and goals, be sure to look out for these traps and make sure you don’t fall into any of them.
What can you do to start practicing your ONE thing today
For those of you who are ready to start putting this into practice today, Jay’s advice is to set up 30 minutes a week--whether it's on a Sunday before the week starts or on Friday before you leave work--and come up with your one goal for the coming week.
Look at your schedule and tasks for the upcoming week and ask yourself “of all the things I could do, what is the number one thing I can achieve next week?” Figure out your number one goal for that week and then manage your time to make sure that one thing happens.
And if you have more than one thing you have to get done, use that 30 minutes a week to help you narrow down your to-do list to your top 5 things that actually matter. And then number those 5 things in order of importance, so you remember what that #1 most important thing is. Putting this exercise into practice will help you stay laser focused on what really matters to you and it will help you achieve your goals faster.
Apr 21, 2021
Should We Get Rid of Managers?
Should we get rid of managers? This is the topic of a trending article floating around LinkedIn recently. I absolutely believe we need get rid of the terms manager and #management BUT it’s not just about a name change.
Nobody even wants to be called a manager anymore and people certainly don’t want to be managed. These concepts were created decades ago and the synonyms for manager actually include: slavedriver, boss, and zookeeper!
Moving from #manager to #leader is about a #mindset and skill set change as opposed to just changing a title. I interviewed over 140 CEO’s for my new book The Future Leader and got 140 different definitions of #leadership.
The CEO of Verizon told me he defines leadership as “achieving the missions of the business, all else is footnotes.”
The CEO of Audi told me leadership is about “walking the extra mile and solving problems that others cannot solve. Foremost, leadership is about caring for people and not only for numbers.”
Every organization and every leader needs to first start with defining “leadership” and “leader” before worrying about a name change.
Which definition resonates more with you and why? Do you have your own?
Apr 19, 2021
The Alignment Problem: The Implications of AI On Our Lives and Our Work
Brian Christian is the author of The Most Human Human, which was named a Wall Street Journal bestseller, a New York Times Editors’ Choice, and a New Yorker favorite book of the year. He is the author, with Tom Griffiths, of Algorithms to Live By, a #1 Audible bestseller, Amazon best science book of the year and MIT Technology Review best book of the year. And his newest book is The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values.
AI has been a very hot topic of discussion among business leaders over the past few decades, and there are varying degrees of worry. Today Brian is sharing his view on AI and machine learning and whether we should be worried or not. He also explains why everyone should get to know more about AI, even if you aren’t in a technical role.
In this episode of the podcast we explore:
* The history of AI and machine learning
* How questions from Elon Musk pushed Brian to write his book, The Alignment Problem
* What is supervised learning vs. reinforcement learning in regards to AI
* Potential problems we should look out for when it comes to AI
* What is an algorithm and what goes into creating one
* Advice for people who want to be more aware of this realm
Apr 14, 2021
Moving from Sympathetic to Empathetic Organizations
Empathy and sympathy are not the same things.
Sympathy is the idea of feeling sorry for someone. In other words, when somebody comes to you with a problem or a situation, sympathy is saying, "Oh, I'm sorry." Empathy, on the other hand, is about being able to take that person's perspective and to put yourself in their shoes to feel what they feel.
Being a master of empathy will allow you to create better products for your customers, better deal with people, resolve conflicts more effectively, and foster collaboration because you'll be able to build connections with other people since you'll be able to understand them and take their perspectives.
Is your organization empathetic or sympathetic?
Apr 12, 2021
How to Create Executive Presence and Why It's So Important
Whether you lead a team of thousands, a team of hundreds, or a team of five, you should have executive presence. While executive presence alone most likely won’t get you promoted or keep you in your current role, it is something that will set you apart. It is also a huge part of motivating and inspiring your team.
So what is executive presence? That is exactly what we are talking about today. Tom Henschel is the host of The Look & Sound of Leadership, which has been airing since 2008. Tom is also a communications coach for executives at companies like Warner Bros, Toyota, Mattel, and Sony Pictures.
Tom is president of the executive development firm Essential Communications. He was also classically trained at The Juilliard School, Drama Division. Tom was a professional actor for more than 20 years and has appeared in over 100 plays, films and TV episodes.
In this episode of the podcast we explore:
* How Steve went from acting to coaching executives
* What is executive presence and why is it so important
* Do you need executive presence in order to be a leader?
* The aspect of executive presence that leaders struggle with
* How to have executive presence in a virtual world
* Action items leaders can implement today to create executive presence
Apr 7, 2021
How to Build the Right Team
Building the right team is very important and can increase your chances of success as a business leader.
When it comes to building a team, one of the first things to consider is diversity. But diversity doesn’t mean different types of looks, it's about bringing together different types of intelligence, beliefs, and views on the world.
Another crucial component when it comes to thinking about teams is team size. I love the “two pizza rule” Amazon uses. If two pizzas aren’t enough to feed an entire team, then the team is too big.
The last piece for creating effective teams comes down to metrics and measurement. Organizations use OKRs, objectives, and key results. Objectives are the big picture things that you're trying to accomplish, and the key results are the milestones that lead you to that objective.
Keep those things in mind as you build an effective team or are part of an effective team.
Apr 5, 2021
Luvvie Ajayi Jones On How to Fight Fear, Get Uncomfortable, and be a Professional Troublemaker
Fear is something that we all deal with both inside and outside of work. What is fear stopping you from doing today? Are you not speaking up in meetings because you might say something dumb? Have you avoided asking for a raise or a promotion because you might be told ‘no’? Do you shy away from challenging your manager’s ideas because you might get reprimanded?
My guest this week is Luvvie Ajayi Jones, bestselling author of I’m Judging You: The Do-Better Manual and the brand new book, Professional Troublemaker: The Fear-Fighter Manual. For years Luvvie let fear stand in her way, but she’s definitely not anymore. While we can’t get rid of fear completely, we can live out our lives boldly in spite of it.
Today Luvvie shares her personal story of how she overcame fear and became a professional troublemaker--and she gives advice on how we can do the same.
In this episode of the podcast we explore:
* How Luvvie started writing and what most shaped her outlook on life
* W…
Mar 31, 2021
What is Self Awareness and Why is it Important at Work
Self-awareness is all about understanding your feelings, emotions, mental state, and how you're doing. Another big part of self-awareness is being aware of your strengths and weaknesses, such as what you're good at, what you're capable of doing, and where you might need some help.
Self-awareness is crucial for leadership because it helps us understand who we are and what we need and expect from other people. Also, it’ll help us identify the areas we shine and the areas we can potentially improve. It also helps control how we come across to other people.
Mar 29, 2021
Why Capable People Are Reluctant To Lead
One of the biggest challenges CEOs today say they are facing is lack of leadership talent to carry the organization forward. But it is not a lack of talent that is at the root of this problem.
My guest this week is Scott DeRue, the Edward J. Frey Dean of the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan. Based on his award-winning research, this challenge CEOs are facing is caused by the fact that 40%-50% of capable leaders are not stepping up because of the risks involved in leadership roles.
Today Scott shares the research behind his article titled, Why Capable People Are Reluctant To Lead, as well as what we can do to change that.
In this episode of the podcast we explore:
* The three kinds of risks that deter people from leadership positions
* How we can overcome all three risks
* What separates great leaders from average ones
* The biggest mistakes Scott sees leaders making
* The most important thing for leadership development
“One thing that we…
Mar 24, 2021
The Benefits of Being Service Oriented
Over the years, I've had the opportunity to interview hundreds of executives with different roles within organizations. One of the things I find consistently across the board is an emphasis on servant leadership, this change in leadership mentality that the role of a leader is actually to help others.
Being service-oriented simply means that you think about others before you think about yourself. You put other people ahead of yourself, and it can be extremely powerful.
It makes you a more effective leader, a more valuable employee, and a better teammate. Being service-oriented also helps create happy, loyal, and engaged customers, which is huge for company growth.
Mar 22, 2021
How to Live & Work When We Have a 100 Year Life
With new modern technologies and the knowledge that we have in order to lead more healthy lives, we are living longer than ever. So what does that mean for the way we live and work? For decades we have lived out our lives in three main stages-- full time education, full time work, and full time retirement. But in a 100-year life, that structure is no longer effective.
In this week’s episode Lynda Gratton, Professor of Management Practice at London Business School and bestselling author of The New Long Life, shares her advice on how our current practices need to change in order to make the most out of our longer lives.
As Lynda shared with me:
"At any point in time, you could follow a number of different paths. And I think that's a mindset shift, really. The idea that at any point in time you could plan to be something different. That's the first action. So let your imagination go in terms of thinking about “what could I be?"
In this episode of the podcast Lynda shares:
* Why…
Mar 17, 2021
How To Kill Innovation
The worst thing that you can do as an organization is to have a fixed mindset.
In a fixed mindset, you don't believe that people can change. You don't believe that people can learn new things or that they can adapt and improve.
This kind of culture will kill innovation inside your organization.
Instead, you must have a growth mindset.
Always believe that there is room for further improvement, and always learn new things.
Encourage your employees to think outside the box and constantly innovate in this rapidly changing world of work.
This is a really fantastic way to future-proof yourself, your career, and even your organization.
Mar 15, 2021
Aron Ain, The CEO of 13,000 Person Ultimate Kronos Group on Building A Company Where Everyone Loves to Work
For several years in a row, Aron has been on the Glassdoor top 100 CEO list and in 2012 he won the Ernst and Young Entrepreneur of the Year Award. UKG was rated the #2 best large employer in America by Forbes, it received a 100% on the Corporate Equality Index, and prior to the merger both Kronos and Ultimate Software were separately named a Best Workplace for Parents by Great Place to Work.
How do you build an organization where people love to come to work? Aron Ain, CEO of Ultimate Kronos Group (UKG), believes it is all about trust, transparency, and collaboration. Contrary to past fads, creating an engaged workforce is not about free food, free gym memberships, and frequent parties.
As Aron says, “I believe people join organizations because of the organization. I believe they leave because of who they work for.”
In this episode of the podcast Aron shares:
* How to keep consistency among leaders in an organization.
* What it means to be an “un-leader”.
* How to deal…
Mar 9, 2021
What if You Don't Like Your Leader?
What should you do if you work for a #leader that you don't like or don't get along with? If you're in this situation you typically have a few options.
1) Do nothing and suffer.
2) Have a conversation with your leader.
3) Try to switch teams.
4) Quit.
5) Focus on doing great quality work.
Regardless of the path you take, I think the worst option here is the first one. If you do nothing and just complain about your situation then I'm sorry, but you deserve what you get.
You have to take charge over your own personal and professional success. I talk about this more in the video. Let me know what you think. Have you ever been a situation where you had to take one of these paths? I sure have!
Mar 8, 2021
The 8 Archetypes of Leaders–Which One Are You?
Manfred Kets de Vries is The Distinguished Professor of Leadership Development and Organizational Change at INSEAD, one of the world’s leading and largest graduate business schools. He has received INSEAD’s distinguished teacher award five times.
Manfred is also the author of 52 books including The CEO Whisperer, Mindful Leadership Coaching, and Down the Rabbit Hole of Leadership. And he is a consultant on organizational design, transformation, and strategic human resource management to leading companies all over the world.
From a young age Manfred was interested in psychology and human behavior, he was intrigued with trying to figure out why people act in certain ways. In college he studied economics and organizational behavior. Throughout his career he has focused on the intersection of these two areas and eventually he was appointed as the Global Leadership Director at INSEAD and he started a program specifically for leaders where 21 executives come together and Manfred create…
Mar 3, 2021
3 Questions to Ask to Get Better Feedback
A lot of people are very uncomfortable asking for feedback.
And rightfully so!
Early in my career, I was one of those people who was weirded out by asking for feedback.
But I realized that when you phrase feedback in a different way, it makes the conversation a lot easier and more directed towards your growth and development.
Here’s how you can rephrase the feedback you want to get.
1. Can I get your advice? If you've created a solution to something and you want to get feedback on what that solution is.
2. What can I do better? If you want to improve yourself on a certain thing.
3. What can I focus on now to prepare for a future role? If you want to focus on your growth for future learning and development.
I found these questions very effective to get the feedback I’m looking for. Try it out!
Mar 1, 2021
How Smart Companies Can Close the Skills Gap: Insights from the Former CEO of Guardian Life
Deanna Mulligan is the former President, CEO, and Board Chair of Guardian Life Insurance Company of America, a 160 year old Fortune 250 company with around 9,500 employees. She is also the author of a new book called Hire Purpose: How Smart Companies Can Close the Skills Gap.
Deanna was named one of the “50 Most Powerful Women in Business” by Fortune in 2019 and she was named one of “The 50 Most Powerful Women in New York” five times by Crain’s New York Business. Prior to Guardian Life Insurance, Deanna held senior positions at AXA Financial and New York Life Insurance and she was a principal at McKinsey & Company.
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In the financial crisis of 2008 nearly 9 million people lost their jobs. For four years unemployment was at an all time high, and people were having a hard time finding new jobs. It was at this time that Deanna started thinking about the concept for her book, Hire Purpose. She knew it was i…
Feb 24, 2021
4 Steps To Practice Empathy From Dr. Brene Brown
Now, more than ever, we need to make sure every leader in our organization is practicing empathy.
Empathy is all about putting yourself in somebody else's shoes to understand their perspective and where they're coming from.
According to Dr. Brene Brown, there are 4 steps to practicing empathy:
* Put yourself into somebody else's shoes. Imagine you are in their situation and try to think of a time when you had a similar experience.
* Never judge too quickly when a person tells you something. You have to understand the whole story of what’s happening.
* Recognize the emotion that the person is experiencing.
* Communicate that you understand that emotion.
Feb 22, 2021
Power Moms: Advice for Professional Women, Their Families, and Their Employers
Joann Lublin is the author of Power Moms: How Executive Mothers Navigate Work and Life, which came out this month. She is also the author of Earning It: Hard-Won Lessons From Trailblazing Women at the Top of the Business World.
Joann is the former Management News Editor of The Wall Street Journal where she created its first career advice column which she wrote up until May 2020. She won a Pulitzer Prize in 2003 and she won the Gerald Loeb Lifetime Achievement Award, the highest accolade in business journalism, in 2018.
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Over the past few decades we have made greater strides in workplace gender equality and we have seen more and more women step into leadership roles, but we still have a ways to go. There are still stereotypes and mindsets set in the past that give the notion that women have to choose between a career and having a family, they can’t have both.
But as Joann has found in her conversations with fem…
Feb 17, 2021
How To Work With Multiple Generations Of Employees
Can you really work with multiple generations of employees?
A lot of people are worried about the new generation that is coming into the workforce.
Here are three ways you can ensure that employees can work with multiple generations:
✅Avoid stereotypes
Don’t assume that if somebody is older, they don't know how to use technology and if somebody is younger, they are great with technology. Let's not assume that every generation and every person from that generation acts or behaves a certain way.
✅Focus on the life stage
We have to focus on the stage each person is at in life. They might be a younger employee who has a lot of responsibilities or an older employee with few responsibilities.
✅Practice empathy
This is extremely important to any organization, especially when we think about working with different generations. We need to remember that different generations went through different things.
These three tips will help create more cohesive teams, especially if those…
Feb 15, 2021
How To Thrive In A Post Covid-19 World
Jeff Schwartz is the U.S. Leader for the Future of Work at Deloitte and author of the new book Work Disrupted: Opportunity, Resilience, and Growth in the Accelerated Future of Work.
Jeff is also the global editor of the Deloitte “Global Human Capital Trends” report series, which he started in 2011.
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Business leaders are always looking ahead to see what is coming in the future of work. The trends that we have seen coming in the next 5-10 years have been accelerated due to the pandemic in 2020. Things that we thought would happen in 5-10 years have happened in weeks and months.
When it comes to the future of work Jeff believes that we are in the end of the beginning, and we are beginning the next chapter. We now have the technologies in place, in this new chapter we are going to see the implementation and scaling of these technologies and the new ways of working.
“One of the one of my favorite quotes is a qu…
Feb 10, 2021
The Worst Career Choice I Ever Made
What’s the worst career choice you ever made?
I remember when I was younger, everybody told me not to move to San Francisco. They said I couldn’t afford to live there, that I didn’t know anything about speaking, and that I was a terrible writer and couldn’t write a book.
People would say that I should be a lawyer or a doctor, that I should do this or that. And I spent a lot of my life listening to other people and trying to fit into somebody else's mold.
When I wanted to start a business, everybody told me that I didn’t know anything about starting a business and that I should get an MBA instead.
Listening to other people was the worst career mistake I ever made.
It took me several years to understand that I shouldn't be listening to other people--I should be listening to myself.
It's ok to take advice from other people and to hear what others are saying. But ultimately, you have to take it with a grain of salt, because nobody knows you better than you.
Feb 8, 2021
The Future of Work Post Covid-19: Insights From Goodwill CEO
Steve Preston is the President & CEO of Goodwill Industries International, the world’s leading workforce provider. He leads a team of around 140,000 employees across the United States.
Prior to his current role Steve served as Secretary of the U.S. Department of Housing and Urban Development and as the Administrator of the U.S. Small Business Administration.
He orchestrated successful turnarounds as the CEO of two private corporations, Oakleaf Global Holdings and Livingston International and he was the CFO of two Fortune 500 companies — Waste Management and ServiceMaster.
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The world looks very different today than it did just over a year ago. The pandemic and other world events have had long lasting effects on the way we live and work. Steve’s role at Goodwill has put him in the unique position of not only having to address these issues inside of his own organization, but because one of Goodwill’s main op…
Feb 3, 2021
Why You Should Practice Self Care as a Leader
Leaders need to serve themselves.
This is the leadership hack of Barbara Humpton, CEO of Siemens in the United States.
While leaders need to serve their leaders, their customers, their partners, and their teams, they also need to serve themselves.
Self-care can manifest in a lot of different ways, but for Barbara, it's about sleep. Oftentimes, sleeping on a problem can greatly increase your potential for better ideas instead of trying to solve the problem at the moment.
Self-care is different for each person, as each of us is dealing with different kinds of stress. But the most important thing is that you take care of yourself so that you can then take care of others.
Feb 1, 2021
How To Go From Top Performer To Excellent Leader
Ryan Hawk is the host of one of the most popular management and leadership podcasts in the world called, The Learning Leader Show. The show was chosen by Apple Podcasts as an “all time bestseller” in 2020 and it has received acclaim from Forbes and Inc. Magazine.
He is also the author of Welcome to Management: How to Grow From Top Performer to Excellent Leader. It was named one of the 100 Best Management books of all time by Book Authority and it was named the best leadership book of 2020 by Forbes.
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Contrary to popular belief, top performers do not always make the best leaders.
At the beginning of his career Ryan was in sales making cold calls for LexisNexis, and he was very successful at it. Because he was a top performer he was promoted several times and ultimately he moved to a sister company and became the VP of North America. Over his time as a leader he learned a lot and was able to gain the skills needed…
Jan 27, 2021
Leaders Are Lighthouses
Leaders need to become lighthouses.
Why?
A lighthouse is something that shines light into a sea of uncertainty. It guides other people so they don’t hit rocks and can find their way back home.
But as a lighthouse, you need to remember that without ships in the water, you're not very valuable.
It means you should always guide other people. You have to take other people along on this journey with you.
If you only focus on yourself and become a wonderful lighthouse but don't have any ships in the water, then what’s the point?
This episode is brought to you by my friends at ServiceNow, a software company that makes the world of work, work better for people by delivering digital workflows that create great employee experiences, and unlock productivity. If you or your company is looking to transform old, manual ways of working into digital workflows, then you need ServiceNow. They are trusted by over 6,200 enterprises customers, Check them out here.
Jan 25, 2021
Essential Career & Life Advice From The CEO of UScellular
Laurent Therivel is the CEO of UScellular, the fourth largest wireless carrier in the United States with 5,000 employees across 23 states. Previously he spent 12 years at AT&T where he most recently served as CEO of AT&T Mexico leading 18,000 people.
Becoming the CEO of a company during a pandemic comes with a unique set of problems. A role that usually requires a lot of face to face interaction with employees, customers, and vendors has been mostly limited to phone calls and online meetings.
Laurent joined UScellular as their CEO in July of 2020. He says he’s had to heavily rely on data and analytics to see how their services are working for customers across the country, and that’s been difficult. Usually he would prefer to interact more to get a better feel for how things are going.
This past year there has been a fundamental shift in the way we live and work and Laurent believes that this shift has allowed us to take trends that would have taken 10 years or so and accelerated…
Jan 20, 2021
What You Can Do To Get Better Feedback
Whether you are a leader or an employee, self-awareness is extremely important.
One of the best ways to be externally self-aware is to be open to feedback.
There are 3 ways you can get better feedback:
* Ask for it. Have a conversation with your leader or manager about what the feedback process looks like. Have open communication and set up the parameters around what the feedback will look like.
* Internalize the feedback you get. A lot of times when we get feedback, we take it personally and get defensive. Instead, internalize the feedback, absorb the information, and use it as an opportunity to learn and grow and apply the things you’re given.
* Focus on the effort, not just the end result. Don't discard the journey. Reward yourself for what it took to become self-aware instead of focusing only on the end result.
This episode is brought to you by my friends at ServiceNow, a software company that makes the world of work, work better for people by delivering digital workflo…
Jan 18, 2021
How the CEO of CPChem Leads with Trust, Transparency, and Simplicity
Mark Lashier is the CEO of CPChem, a company that produces petrochemicals and plastics with 5,000 employees around the world. 50% of the company is owned by Chevron and 50% is owned by Phillips Petroleum. Mark has served in leadership roles at Chevron Phillips Chemical and Phillips Petroleum for three decades.
With the challenges that we have all had to face over this past year, we have seen organizations and leaders make changes to adapt to our new way of work and life. Mark Lashier, CEO of CPChem, says that all of the events of 2020 reinforced some of the basic principles he has always believed in.
Ever since Mark first became CEO in 2017 he has focused on trust, transparency, and simplicity. And while those values are important at any point in time, they were even more crucial throughout 2020.
In order to carry on with business Mark knew that his employees and his customers had to trust him and each other, he knew he had to be open and transparent with everyone to keep them up to…
Jan 13, 2021
Implementing a Customer First Mentality
I love the way my wife Blake Morgan talks about customer experience.
She says that we need to figure out how we can make our customers’ lives easier, even if that means our lives get a little bit harder.
But what happens in most organizations is the exact opposite.
We are willing to make the lives of our customers harder so that we can make our lives a little bit easier.
We need to flip that around.
The fact is that customers are willing to pay more for a great experience.
Psychologist Thomas Gilovich looked at how our satisfaction changes depending on if we invest in physical goods or in an experience.
What he found is that over time, if we buy a physical good, our satisfaction levels go down, but if we invest in an experience, over time our satisfaction levels go up.
Clearly, this idea of creating experiences and serving customers has a significant impact, not just for our customers, but for the bottom line for our organizations.
This episode is brought to you by my friend…
Jan 11, 2021
How To Use Failure To Propel You Forward
If there is one thing that’s true about being an entrepreneur, it’s that you have to get used to rejection and failure. These things are a part of the game when you have your own business.
Entrepreneurship is all about innovation and curiosity and you can’t have those things without failure. The important thing is knowing how to deal with this reality and not letting it stop you from moving forward.
We have both encountered failure over the course of our careers. The reason we have successful businesses now is because we learned to deal with that failure and we’ve used it to propel us forward instead of letting it hold us back.
Here are some of the lessons we have learned over the years on how to deal with failure and rejection as entrepreneurs.
Let yourself process the failure
When you experience failure in your business, whether it’s a small error or a huge mistake, it is important to deal with the feelings and emotions that come with it. Don’t go into denial or try…
Jan 5, 2021
How to Practice Servant Leadership
Today, leaders need to be servants.
We used to have this traditional idea of the pyramid where the leader sits at the very top and tells everybody else what to do.
But we're starting to see this kind of inversion of the pyramid where the leader is at the bottom propping everybody else up.
This is called servant leadership.
When you show up to work every day, your job is to help make other people more successful than you.
Here are some tips on how you can practice servant leadership:
* Remove stressors from the lives of your employees.
* Show appreciation and recognition to your employees.
* Understand your employees as individuals, not just as workers.
* Understand the moments that matter in the lives of your employees.
* Remove obstacles from the paths of your employees.
Thanks to my friends at ServiceNow for sponsoring this episode. Make sure to check them out at http://bit.ly/servicenow21
Jan 4, 2021
Top 15 Leadership Lessons From 2020
I’ve had the privilege of speaking with around 500 leaders over the years on The Future of Work Podcast and I have really learned a lot from each one. On the show, they share tips, advice, lessons they’ve learned, as well as an inside look at what it’s like to lead their organization.
This past year really brought a lot of challenges for every single leader around the world. We had to learn how to adjust to a pandemic, how to address social injustices, how to lead virtually and much more. My guests really shared a lot of inspiration, motivation, as well as realistic advice for listeners.
Even though all of the interviews were great and informative, I have a few favorites that I really enjoyed. And from those episodes I have compiled 15 leadership lessons that are crucial for leaders to learn in order to succeed in the future.
Leading by example: Arthur Blank, co-founder The Home Depot
Arthur Blank is the co-founder of the Home Depot, which today has a market cap of over $300…
Dec 28, 2020
The Impact Corporate Culture Has On Employee Experience
Culture is usually the hardest thing for organizations to figure out.
It’s something you can’t see or touch.
Culture is how employees feel working for the organization.
I’ll never forget the story of when President Kennedy visited NASA Space Center.
In the middle of his tour, he saw a man walking down the hall with a mop and a bucket.
President Kennedy stopped the tour and went over to the man and said, “Hi, I'm President Kennedy. What do you do here?” And the man said: “I helped put a man on the moon.”
This is the type of culture they had in NASA, and it’s something every company should have.
The type of culture you have in your organization greatly impacts the employee experience.
Dec 27, 2020
Fortune 500 CEO Says #1 Secret To Her Success Is Taking Jobs That Make Her Uncomfortable
Kathy Mazzarella is the Chairman, President, and CEO at Graybar, a wholesale distribution company that’s been around for 151 years. The company has around 8,700 employees and $7.5 billion in revenue. She has been with the company for 41 years and has been president for 9 of those years.
Kathy Mazzarella has a great story of how she first started at the company she now leads as Chairman, President, and CEO. When she was 19 years old she decided she didn’t want to go into medicine anymore so she dropped out of college, where she had a full scholarship, and moved back home with her parents.
It only took about three days before both she and her parents came to the mutual conclusion that Kathy needed to get a job and move out.
So she set up an interview with a company called Genentech where she was applying to do some research work. But on the day of the interview she got lost and had to ask for directions.
She just happened to walk into Graybar to ask someone at the front desk for…
Dec 23, 2020
The Best Way to Navigate an Uncertain World
The world of work has changed a lot.
We live in a world of uncertainty where employee tenure is no longer a thing.
The best way to navigate this world is to be a super perpetual learner.
That means constantly learning new things at a rapid pace and applying those things on a regular basis.
You need to keep up with the pace of change or you will be left behind.
Dec 21, 2020
The CEO of Groupon Shares His Recipe for Success
Aaron Cooper is the Interim CEO at Groupon, an online marketplace with around 4,000 employees globally. Prior to that he had worked in several other roles at Groupon including president of North America, Chief Marketing Officer, head of Global Travel, Head of North America Services and Head of North America Goods.
Before Groupon Aaron held a lot of marketing and leadership positions at Orbitz and optionsXpress and he held consulting roles at AOL and PwC.
Aaron Cooper, who recently moved into the role of interim CEO at Groupon, says his recipe for success has been working across many different industries and in very diverse roles. These experiences have given him the skills and mindsets he needs to be the best leader he can be.
He says it has been incredibly important for his career that he’s been able to work in finance, marketing, brand marketing, and general management across industries such as travel, retail, finance, and internet. He has worked with companies who were very suc…
Dec 14, 2020
How to Think Like an Entrepreneur Inside an Organization
You can start being an intrapreneur now!
When most people think of an entrepreneur, they think of an individual who went off on their own to start a successful business.
But being an entrepreneur can also be applicable inside of your organization--it’s called being an intrapreneur.
One of the things that make entrepreneurs unique is their ability to push through obstacles and challenges that come their way.
Entrepreneurs are also big dreamers.
They understand failures and move on to the next obstacle.
Entrepreneurs also have vision.
They have a very clear picture in their minds of what they want to do and the problem they want to solve.
Entrepreneurs are also extremely self-driven, they have an internal fire that's always pushing them, and they don't need somebody to tell them what to do.
You can have all of these qualities even if you work inside an organization.
Thinking like an entrepreneur will have a significant impact on your career and on your life.
Dec 14, 2020
Lessons from a CEO: How to Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Your Own Success
Shellye Archambeau is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley based governance, risk, and compliance software company, and the author of the new book, Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms. She also serves on the boards of Verizon, Nordstrom, Roper Technologies, and Okta.
Under her leadership MetricStream was recognized for growth and innovation over the years and was named in the top 10 of the Deloitte Technology Fast 50. Shellye was named the second most influential African American in IT by Business Insider. She was ranked one of the “100 Most Influential Business Leaders in America” by Newsmax and she received the NCWIT Symons Innovator Award from the National Center for Women & Information Technology (NCWIT).
Shellye Archambeau is no stranger to roadblocks and barriers. All throughout her career she has encountered them.
But one thing she learned early on was that life is not fair, you’re not always going to…
Dec 7, 2020
How to Get Your Team to Embrace New Technology
People are always reluctant to change.
It’s human nature.
But if you want your team to adapt to new technologies, there is something you can do.
To get your team to embrace new technology, you have to educate them.
It's not just about giving them the tools or training them how to use it--it’s about helping them understand why and how these technologies will improve how they work.
Change is hard. There will be a learning curve.
But I promise you, if you get through that learning curve, you’ll absolutely see the benefits.
Dec 7, 2020
Life & Business Lessons from the CEO of Wex Inc.
Melissa Smith is the CEO of Wex Inc. a provider of payment processing and information management services in the US, Canada, South America, Europe, Asia, and Australia. They have around 5,000 employees and under Melissa’s leadership the company has gone from $50 million to $1.7 billion in revenue.
Melissa began at Wex Inc. in 1997 as a senior financial analyst and she worked her way up to being CFO and then President of the Americas before becoming CEO.
A lot of things in the world have been changed by Covid-19. The way organizations operate, the way employees connect with one another, and even the way leaders have to lead.
Melissa Smith, the CEO of Wex Inc., who is responsible for around 5,000 employees around the world says connecting with her people is more important now than ever before. And one important way she does that is through recognizing her people for what they do.
She takes time to send handwritten notes to employees who have been promoted, or who have gone above an…
Nov 30, 2020
Signs You Are Not Self Aware
Being self-aware is one of the most important skills to have as a leader. It will help you identify your weaknesses and work on them.
How do you know if you’re self-aware? There are a couple of signs.
👆 The first sign that you are NOT self-aware is if you are constantly defensive. You're always having to defend yourself and defend your position to anyone who critiques you.
Also, if you have a reputation of being overpowering or a bully, it might be a good indicator that self-awareness is an important skill you need to practice.
👆 Another sign you’re not self-aware is if you're constantly having to make excuses for why things aren't getting done, for why the quality of work isn't always there, or why things are done late.
The most important thing is to be honest with yourself. That way, you can practice self-awareness, work on your weaknesses, and become a better leader.
Nov 29, 2020
How The President Of Microsoft U.S. Leads With Courage & Empathy
Kate Johnson is President of Microsoft US, a $45 billion division including all of Microsoft’s solutions, services, and support revenues across public and private sectors in the United States. Kate is responsible for a team of 10,000 people and she is currently very involved in Microsoft’s culture journey led by CEO Satya Nadella.
Prior to Microsoft Kate served as the Chief Commercial Officer for GE Digital. She has held several key senior leadership roles at GE, Oracle, Red Hat, and Deloitte Consulting.
With the chaotic state of the world right now we need leaders who are courageous and empathetic.
One leader who truly understands how to lead with both courage and empathy in these challenging times is Kate Johnson, the President of Microsoft US.
Leaders can’t just stay where they are comfortable anymore, they have to be willing to take a risk and own all the consequences. They have to be open, transparent, and vulnerable. They have a deep understanding of their people and th…
Nov 25, 2020
Effective Technique to Practice Self Awareness
Self-awareness is one of the most important things to have as a leader.
An effective way to practice self-awareness is to know what others think of you.
Other people's opinions of you are often very different from your opinion of yourself.
You need to encourage people to give you constructive feedback.
But you can’t just call people up and ask what they think of you.
Once you collect this information, you can compare it to your list of how you think about yourself.
This will help you assess yourself and improve on the areas you are struggling with.
This episode of Future of Work is supported by Teamistry, a podcast that tells the stories of teams who work together in new and unexpected ways… to beat the odds.
Each episode tells a unique story and provides practical lessons for your team and your business. I got a sneak peek of season 2 and was immediately sucked in with its documentary-style narration, details about stories I thought I knew but didn’t, and practical lesso…
Nov 23, 2020
How the CEO of Bay Federal Credit Union Takes Care of Herself & Her People
Carrie Birkhofer is President and CEO of Bay Federal Credit Union, a non profit financial cooperative with 225 employees. She’s been the CEO there for 25 years and under her leadership the credit union has grown from $70 million to $1.4 billion in assets.
This year has brought on a lot of challenges for leaders in every industry.
Some leaders have struggled and even failed. Others have really embraced change in order to help their people get through these tough times.
One CEO that has really used the current challenges to make her organization even better is Carrie Birkhofer, President and CEO of Bay Federal Credit Union. Even before the pandemic she knew the importance of putting people first.
Carrie was one of the CEOs I interviewed for my book, The Future Leader and during the interview she said the following, “I meet employees the first hour on the first day they start at the Credit Union. New employees are welcomed as a group and when new hires start together, I’m there.…
Nov 18, 2020
How to Improve Your Strengths and Work on Your Weaknesses
Improving your strengths and working on your weaknesses is not as hard as people think.
When I was younger and was trying to make decisions in my life, whether it was who I wanted to date, where I wanted to live, or even the company I wanted to apply for, my dad would always say, "Jacob, take out a piece of paper, fold it in half and write down the pros and cons on each side of the paper."
What you can also do with this exercise is to replace the pros and cons column with strengths and weaknesses.
This is a great way to assess yourself and find out what areas you need to work on. Of course, this only works if you are completely honest with yourself.
As you learn new things and try to work on your weaknesses, these things are going to change.
If you do this exercise on a regular basis, you’ll become very self-aware of what your strengths and weaknesses actually are. It's a very simple practice that can make a big difference.
This episode of Future of Work is supported by Teamist…
Nov 16, 2020
The First 90 Days: Strategies for Leaders in Transition
Michael Watkins is the Professor of Leadership and Organizational Change at the IMD Business School and the co-founder of Genesis Advisors, a global leadership development consultancy based in Boston where he coaches C-level executives of global organizations. He is also the author of 11 books including the international bestseller, The First 90 Days: Proven Strategies for Getting Up to Speed Faster and Smarter.
Michael was recently ranked among the top 50 management thinkers globally by Thinkers50. Previously he was an adjunct professor at INSEAD and an associate professor at the Harvard Business School and the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.
We all go through periods of transition. Whether it is a change in a role at work or moving to a different company or even going through a new season in your personal life, transitions are a part of life.
For leaders transitions are critical, and if they are not handled correctly the results can be disastrous. Michael’s b…
Nov 11, 2020
The Right Way to Tackle a Problem
To be successful in the future of work, leaders must have a growth mindset.
One way to identify if a person has a fixed mindset or a growth mindset is by how they tackle problems.
For example, if you have a fixed mindset, when you run into a challenge or are faced with a roadblock, you try to tackle it the same way over and over. When those attempts don't work, you get frustrated and quit.
But when you have a growth mindset, you find a way to get better to solve the problem. You understand that what you were doing didn’t work and that you need to learn a new skill to overcome the obstacle.
If you're able to embrace this concept of a growth mindset, you’ll become much more valuable as a leader inside your organization.
This episode of Future of Work is supported by Teamistry, a podcast that tells the stories of teams who work together in new and unexpected ways… to beat the odds.
Each episode tells a unique story and provides practical lessons for your team and your business…
Nov 9, 2020
The 14 Principles Of The Future Organization
The way we work is changing.
It’s not going to stop changing anytime soon, in fact the change is only going to speed up.
Organizations have made progress in adapting for the future of work, but we still have a long way to go.
In my book, The Future of Work, I laid out 14 principles of the future organization. And while that book was released back in 2014, these principles are still very relevant for organizations today and we have a lot of work to do in each one of these areas in order to succeed in the next decade and beyond. So let’s take a deeper look at each one of these 14 principles.
Globally distributed with smaller teams
We have been seeing organizations move away from having all of their employees located in a few corporate offices to having employees spread out all over the world. This allows teams to be smaller and more agile.
It also opens up a wider pool of talent for organizations then we have seen in the past. Proximity to the corporate headquarters is no longe…
Nov 4, 2020
Do You Need People Analytics?
People analytics is crucial to creating great experiences.
I was once speaking overseas to a large organization that was very interested in investing in employee experiences.
The Chief HR Officer said that the average tenure in the organization was eight to ten years. I told him that was great and asked him why that was, but he said he didn't know.
He also said, “When people do leave the company, they always leave at the two-year mark.” But when I asked what happened at the two-year mark, he said he didn’t know.
Without people analytics, you don’t have data. And data is what helps you truly know your people.
Look at the data you already have about your people--engagement data, salary data, geographic data, demographic and background data, performance review data, etc. You have a lot of ways to find data and learn about your employees.
This episode is sponsored by Teamistry, a podcast by Atlassian. Check them out at http://bit.ly/fowatlassian
Nov 2, 2020
9 Skills and Mindsets for Leaders in the Future of Work
We are facing a leadership crisis today.
The world of work is changing, which means we need a different type of leader to guide our people and organizations to success.
The old ways won’t work anymore.
In my newest book, The Future Leader, I interviewed over 140 CEOs from around the world to get their view of how leadership is changing, what it’s going to look like in the future, and what we need to do now to be future-ready leaders.
One thing was clear in all of their responses, what has worked in the past will not work in the future. We need a new kind of leader. Leadership can no longer be based solely on confidence, seniority, the ability to make money for the company, acting like you know it all, etc...
Another thing that I found in my research for the book was the lack of leadership training inside of organizations. Most people become leaders in their mid to late 20s, but most leaders have admitted that they didn’t receive formal training until they were in their late…
Oct 27, 2020
What if organizations couldn’t fire people when the company didn’t meet their numbers?
The Covid-19 pandemic has hit a lot of organizations hard in a way that they might never recover.
Some of these organizations have chosen to let thousands of employees go just to make their numbers better.
And it got me thinking, what if organizations couldn’t fire people when the company didn’t meet its numbers?
Would they be able to come up with creative solutions to keep those people employed? Would they do things differently?
Cutting employees should always be the company’s last resort.
Employees are the greatest asset of organizations around the world.
Oct 26, 2020
The Moments That Shaped the CEOs of Honeywell and PTC
Jim Heppelmann is the CEO of PTC, a technology software company with 6,500 employees in 30 countries. Jim was named one of “7 IoT leaders to Watch in 2017” by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, he was recognized as “IoT CEO of the Year” by PostScapes, “Technology CEO of the Year” by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, and he received the CAD Society Leadership Award for his work with the Internet of Things. Together with Harvard Professor, Michael Porter, Jim has co-authored three highly influential articles on the transformational impact of the Internet of Things on business.
David Cote is the former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell and author of the bestselling book, Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term. During his time at Honeywell David fixed a toxic work culture and grew the company’s market capitalization from around 20 billion to 120 billion, delivering returns of 800%. Currently David is Exe…
Oct 20, 2020
What are you doing to push yourself out of your comfort zone?
What are you doing to push yourself out of your comfort zone?
Pushing yourself is important because growth only happens when we venture into the uncomfortable. We can’t be scared to go there.
The stress, anxiety, awkwardness, and frustration is all temporary. These things exist as a way to challenge you, so you must overcome them.
Nothing worth doing is meant to be easy.
What are you doing to push yourself out of your comfort zone either personally or professionally?
Oct 18, 2020
Purpose, Culture, & Leadership: How to Master All Three
Steve Bilt is the CEO of Smile Brands, a company with 5,000 employees that provides business support services to over 425 dental offices. Smile Brands has been on Glassdoor’s Best Places to Work list three times and Steve is one of the top CEOs on Glassdoor.
Steve was recognized as People Focused CEO of the Year and Healthcare CEO of the Year by American Business Awards. He is also a top rated US Large Company CEO on Glassdoor, Comparably and CEOWORLD Magazine.
Steve was on the founding management team of Smile Brands in 1998. He started as the company’s CFO before becoming the CEO a year and a half later. As the CEO he worked hard to build close relationships with the dentists so that he knew what kind of support they really needed. That is what has set Smile Brands apart from other companies, because it allowed Steve to tailor the business model in a way that works at scale with a lot of dentists.
Several other companies who were trying to provide similar services ended up fai…
Oct 13, 2020
How Can You Say No Without Getting in Trouble?
I have someone I work with who helps me with content. She assists me with writing course descriptions, research, worksheets for courses, etc.
A year or so ago, I threw a lot of work her way and her response to me was, "How would you prioritize these different projects?". It was her way of saying, "No, I can't do all of this, you need to pick and choose."
It took me a while to realize that what she was really doing was saying no to me, but in a way that didn't cause any tension or friction.
This is much better than saying something like, "Sorry I can't do all of this," or "Sure, I can do it", but then not being able to deliver.
It made me realize that I was indeed throwing too much work at her, and it forced me to think about what projects were important and what could wait.
She still uses this every time we speak--it's an amazing technique that anyone can use. Give it a shot and see what happens!
Oct 10, 2020
How the Co-Chairman of Amway Leads from the Heart in Uncertain Times
Doug DeVos is the co-Chairman and former CEO of Amway, the world’s largest direct selling company that provides health, beauty, and home care products. The company was actually founded over 60 years ago by Doug’s father and his father’s best friend. The company now has around 15,000 employees.
Doug has been inducted into the U.S. Direct Selling Association Hall of Fame and he received the Direct Selling Education Foundation’s Circle of Honor award. He currently chairs the Executive Committee for the National Constitution Center and he is a chairman of the World Federation of Direct Selling Associations.
The world has been going through some challenging times over the past year with the pandemic, political unrest, extreme weather, and social injustice. Businesses are having to learn how to adapt quickly.
The founders of Amway, Doug’s father, Rich, and his father’s best friend, Jay, were no strangers to tough times. Growing up Rich’s family went through the Great Depress…
Oct 6, 2020
How Can You Recognize Your People?
When was the last time you did something to recognize your people?
I'm amazed at how easy it is to show appreciation, yet how few of us (especially #leaders) actually do it!
Here are some super simple ideas for you:
* 🙌Go up to someone and thank them for the hard work they are doing.
* 📧Send an email to the team or company recognizing someone for their hard work.
* 🍕Take a coworker out for lunch.
* ☕Bring a coworker coffee or tea.
* 💬Post a comment thanking someone on your internal collaboration tool.
* 📣Shout out an employee during an all-hands meeting.
* ❤️Give an employee a gift card.
* 📜Write a personal note to a coworker.
There are literally hundreds of things you can do, so why aren't you doing them?
One of the best ways you can serve those around you is by recognizing them. It feels terrible to work hard on something and not be appreciated!
Oct 4, 2020
That Will Never Work: Netflix Co-founder on How They Beat the Odds
Marc Randolph is the co-founder and founding CEO of Netflix. He also served on the board of Netflix up until 2003. And Netflix wasn’t his only startup, he’s founded or co-founded 6 other successful startups. He is also the author of the bestselling book, That Will Never Work: The Birth of Netflix and the Amazing Life of an Idea.
From very early on Marc was entrepreneurial. As a kid he was always trying to find problems and unique ways to solve them. He sold seeds door to door, did candy arbitrage, he even carried a notebook around with him to write down invention ideas he had. He was always starting clubs and groups and coming up with products throughout high school and college. And as Marc shares, one of the keys to being an entrepreneur is practice, practice, practice.
In his early career Marc had a small startup that he was helping run. After the company was sold he had to find something else to do so he went to work at another startup company which just happened to be led by…
Sep 29, 2020
What Are You Doing to Look After Yourself?
One aspect of the servant mindset is practicing self-care.
This is something we often forget, especially in times of crisis.
You won’t be able to serve others if you are not your best self.
So make sure you’re taking care of yourself physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.
Even with the pandemic, I still make time to exercise each day, eat healthy, and spend time working on #chess because these things make me happy!
What are you doing to look after yourself during these tough times?
Sep 28, 2020
How the Former CEO & Chairman of Best Buy Transformed the Company
Hubert Joly is the former Chairman and CEO of Best Buy. Currently he is a professor at Harvard Business School, he is on the board of two companies--Johnson & Johnson and Ralph Lauren. He is coaching and mentoring a number of CEOs and senior leaders and he is writing a new book which is set to come out next May titled: The Heart of Business: Leadership Principles for the Next Era of Capitalism.
Hubert was elected a Global Leader for Tomorrow by the World Economic Forum. He was honored as one of the 25 most influential executives of the business travel industry in 2006 and 2009 by Business Travel News Magazine. He was voted one of the top 100 CEOs on Glassdoor in 2017 and 2018. And he was named one of the best CEOs in the world by the CEOWorld Magazine.
He didn’t always dream of being a leader. In fact, when he was 10 years old he wanted to be a vet and then in high school, he felt his career would be in economics. After college, he spent 12 years at McKinsey & Company as a consult…
Sep 22, 2020
Sympathy and Empathy are Not the Same Thing
I have witnessed first hand the difference between sympathy and empathy when I worked with two different companies.
In the first company, there was a relatively new employee being introduced to a senior leader.
The new employee was talking about how nervous she was, how she wanted to make an impact, and how she wasn’t sure she was doing a good job.
The senior leader said, “That’s pretty tough, I'm sorry that you feel that way. But don't worry, I’m sure you'll be able to get through it. ”
A couple of months later, the same thing happened at another company.
The senior leader sat down with the employee and asked her to share more about her fears and struggles within the company.
The senior leader also shared his experience when he was new and told her that he’s always there to help her.
That is the difference of sympathy and empathy.
The first leader just showed sympathy by saying “I’m sorry”.
The second leader showed empathy by putting himself in the employee…
Sep 20, 2020
How the CEO of 6,500 Person PTC Gets His People to Embrace Change
Jim Heppelmann is the CEO of PTC, a technology software company with 6,500 employees in 30 countries. Jim was named one of “7 IoT leaders to Watch in 2017” by Hewlett Packard Enterprise, he was recognized as “IoT CEO of the Year” by PostScapes, “Technology CEO of the Year” by the Massachusetts Technology Leadership Council, and he received the CAD Society Leadership Award for his work with the Internet of Things.
Together with Harvard Professor, Michael Porter, Jim has co-authored three highly influential articles on the transformational impact of the Internet of Things on business.
Jim grew up on a dairy farm in Minnesota as one of eight children. It was during his upbringing on the farm that he really learned the value of hard work as well as the ability to take things apart and put them back together, which is in part why he was successful as a mechanical engineer.
It was actually one of his older sisters who inspired him to attend college and study to become an engin…
Sep 16, 2020
Leadership and Exercise
Leadership is a lot like working out.
When you work out and really push yourself, you're actually tearing down your muscles.
When you recover and rest, your muscles heal and become stronger.
In other words, before you become bigger and stronger, you first have to go through a process of tearing down and rebuilding.
And a lot is the same for leadership.
If you want to become a better, future-ready leader, you first have to go through a process of tearing down and getting rid of your outdated ways of thinking about work and leadership.
You have to push yourself and be uncomfortable in order to see results later, just like working out.
Sep 13, 2020
Bestselling Author Dan Pink on The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing
Dan Pink is the bestselling author of six books including Drive, To Sell is Human, and his newest book, When: The Scientific Secrets of Perfect Timing. In 2019 London based Thinkers 50 named Dan the 6th most influential management thinker in the world.
He has contributed to Fast Company, Wired, The New York Times, Slate and others. And prior to working on his own, he worked in several political positions, including chief speechwriter for Vice President Al Gore from 1995-1997.
Dan has been writing for around 20 years and a lot has changed in the world of work since he first began. But his first book was actually ahead of the game back in 2001 when he wrote Free Agent Nation: How America’s New Independent Workers Are Transforming the Way We Live. He recognized the trend before the iPhone came out and just a few years after broadband internet.
Now the numbers have risen quite a bit and we are seeing a lot more people go off to work for themselves, thanks to advances in technology an…
Sep 9, 2020
Most Leadership Development Programs are Too Late
How crazy is this?
Most people don't enter #leadershipdevelopment programs until they are in their 40s, yet they actually become leaders in their 20s and 30s!
This means that most #leaders spend 10-15 years leading others before they are actually taught how to lead.
It's no wonder so many employees around the world aren’t engaged in their jobs--we simply don't have enough leaders who are taught how to lead effectively.
This is because of the outdated "climb the corporate ladder" mentality that has been around for decades.
The idea is you can only be taught how to lead after you spend years working for a company, which we all know is now no longer the case.
Sep 6, 2020
How the Co-Founder of Home Depot Built a Multi-Billion Dollar Company by Putting People First
Arthur Blank is the co-founder of The Home Depot, a home improvement retail chain which today has a market capitalization of over 300 billion and over 400,000 employees. Arthur is also the author of the new book, Good Company, which comes out on September 15. Arthur has been named one of the world’s 100 greatest living business minds by Forbes in 2017, Executive of the Year 2018 by Sports Business Journal, and one of the 50 most influential people in Sports 2016, 2017, and 2018 by Sports Business Journal.
Arthur owns the Atlanta Falcons NFL team and the Atlanta United Soccer team. His family businesses also include the nationwide PGA Tour Superstore, three ranches in Montana, and Mercedes-Benz Stadium which hosted the 2019 Super Bowl. Under his leadership The Home Depot was voted America’s most socially responsible company in 2001.
How Home Depot Came to Be
Back in the 1970s Arthur and Home Depot co-founder Bernie Marcus were working together as employees of Handy Dan, one of th…
Sep 2, 2020
Being a Leader of SELF
Leadership starts from within.
It’s not just about leading others, you should also lead yourself.
Leading yourself means that you set your own goals, learn new skills and mindsets, push yourself out of your comfort zone, and are the director of your career and life.
You can't always rely on others to tell you what to do or what to learn. Ultimately, nobody is going to look out for you but YOU!
Aug 30, 2020
How Leaders Can Win Today and Tomorrow: Insights from Former Honeywell CEO
David Cote is the former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell and author of the bestselling book, Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term.
During his time at Honeywell David fixed a toxic work culture and grew the company’s market capitalization from around 20 billion to 120 billion, delivering returns of 800%. Currently David is Executive Chairman of Vertiv Holdings Co, a global data center products and services provider. He is a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group on Foreign Relations and the Conference of Montreal.
David’s journey to being CEO is anything but ordinary. He nearly quit high school, because although he was good at school, he hated it. He ended up sticking with it and became the first one in his family to graduate high school. David was accepted to the University of New Hampshire, but decided he didn’t want to pursue college so he went to work as a mechanic with his dad in a small garage.
After…
Aug 24, 2020
Why Companies Need Digital Transformation, Especially Now
Javed Khan is SVP and GM at Cisco Collaboration, a multi-billion dollar division inside of Cisco, a worldwide leader in IT, networking, and cybersecurity solutions. Prior to his current role, Javed ran Cisco’s Cloud Calling business as the VP and General Manager and before that he led the Webex Meetings business unit.
Just like many organizations around the world, when Covid first started becoming a global issue Cisco had to take action in order to keep business going while also enabling employees to work from home. Because of the products they build, they had some advantages over other companies as they already had communication and collaboration tools everyone was familiar with.
But one challenge they had to overcome was an overnight need for their products from existing and new customers. The demand for their products was suddenly three times bigger in a very short period of time. So as a company they had to hurry to scale very quickly in a time when they also needed to move the…
Aug 19, 2020
The Impact of Collaboration
Collaboration has never been more important than it is now.
We are living in a globalized world where boundaries don't seem to exist anymore. And because of this, we’re now seeing more diversity in the workforce.
We are also seeing more and more remote workers. According to a study by Upwork, 63% of employers have remote teams.
That is why collaboration is crucial in the future of work. Organizations need to focus more on collaboration tools that will enable them to connect their people seamlessly.
Aug 17, 2020
Four Global Crises Businesses Are Facing Today and How to Solve Them
Blair Sheppard is Head of Global Strategy and Leadership for PwC, a global network of firms delivering world-class assurance, tax, and consulting services for businesses. He is also the author of the new book, Ten Years to Midnight: Four Urgent Global Crises and Their Strategic Solutions, which came out on August 4th.
Prior to PwC, Blair spent the majority of his career as a professor at the Fuqua School of Business, Duke University. During his time there he also served as Founding CEO and Chairman of Duke Corporate Education and as Dean of the school. As Dean, Blair was the primary architect of Duke Kunshan University which opened in 2014.
Blair was the first recipient of faculty of the year at Fuqua, he received the Business Person of the Year award for Education in 2011 by Triangle Business Journal, and the Eminent Scholar Award from the Institute of Finance at Frankfurt University in 2007.
The concept behind Blair’s book, Ten Years to Midnight, started with a conversation he…
Aug 14, 2020
14 Top CEOs Share Their Definition Of "Leadership," What's Yours?
There was one question top CEOs had a hard time answer…
But first, some context.
Over the past 18 months, I had the privilege to interview some of the world's top CEOs for my book, The Future Leader. I spoke with CEOs from companies like Best Buy, Audi, KPMG, Oracle, SAP, Verizon, MasterCard, Royal Caribbean, InterContinental Hotels Group, and dozens of others.
I was trying to understand how leadership is changing what leaders need to do in order to adapt and be successful in the new world of work. I asked these CEOs about trends, skills, mindsets, challenges, and everything and anything in between.
All the leaders gave me fantastic answers, wonderful stories, and profound insights, everything flowed very easily...until we got to THE QUESTION.
"If I came from another planet and had no concept of 'leader' or 'leadership,' how would you explain it to me?"
This is where the awkward pauses started…
The problem is we don't spend enough time thinking about this because we all ass…
Aug 13, 2020
140 Top CEOs Reveal The 4 Most Crucial Mindsets For Leaders
Leadership isn't just about what you know how to do, it's also about how you think...your mindset.
What mindsets do you as a leader need to possess? There are 4 of them that over 140 of the world's top CEOs from companies like Audi, KPMG, Best Buy, Oracle, Unilever, MasterCard, SAP, and dozens of others identified as being most crucial for current and future leaders.
Global Citizen
Leaders who embody the global citizen mindset think globally and embrace diversity. Not only do leaders need to consider how to enter new markets but they must also understand how to spread ideas and messages and how to find the best talent regardless of where in the world they might be. As a new or existing leader you will also have to work with, communicate, collaborate, and lead individuals who don’t think like you, look like you, act like you, or believe in the same things that you believe in.
Servant
Being a leader doesn’t mean that you get to sit at the top of the pyramid and tell everyone els…
Aug 12, 2020
Creating a Culture that Embraces Teamwork
Do you regularly find your employees competing against each other?
This competitive type of culture is disappearing as people start to realize that team success is more important than individual success.
If your organization doesn't have this definition of teamwork, it’s time for you to change it.
Start by understanding your employees, team members, and leaders as human beings, not just as cogs or worker bees who show up to work every day.
Once you understand your peers as individuals, you'll really get a strong sense of where you might be able to step up and do something small to make their lives easier.
Aug 12, 2020
140 Top CEOs Share Most Crucial Skills For Leaders
Leadership is changing...you as a leader MUST change, and perhaps more importantly, we should all DEMAND that our leaders change. It's necessary for the very survival of our organizations.
Things like globalization, the changing nature of talent, AI, and technology, the emphasis on purpose and meaning, and the demand for more transparency mean that our organizations are going to look fundamentally different than they did in the past. As a result, we need a new breed of leaders.
Research by DDI found that only 14% of organizations have a "strong bench," which is ready-now leaders who can step to replace those who retire or move on (DDI). Half of the organizations surveyed by DDI say their leaders are not skilled to lead effectively today and 71% say their leaders are not ready to lead their organizations in the future.
If you want to be an effective leader (now and in the future), someone who positively impacts your organization, your people, and your community, then these are the 5…
Aug 11, 2020
We Are In A Leadership Pandemic: Research Proves It
Most business leaders around the world are not good leaders. They aren't bad people, but their approaches to leadership are simply put...obsolete. We can especially see this quite clearly with what has been going on with Black Lives Matter, COVID-19, and the ongoing fight against racism and social injustice.
To give you an analogy, it's a bit like trying to fly a modern-day passenger plane while being trained on an original Wright Brothers plane. There's a chance you might get the plane in the air, but you won't go far.
Leadership around the world is failing us.
In the United States alone there are around 25 million supervisors and managers today, these are people who are responsible for others. I estimate that by 2030 we are going to have around 220 million leaders around the world.
That's a lot of leaders!
We have lots of people in leadership roles but unfortunately, many of them are bad leaders, there's just no other way around it. But, their days are numbered because the way t…
Aug 7, 2020
Becoming a Manager: What to do When Everyone Looks to You
Julie Zhuo is the bestselling author of The Making of a Manager: What to do When Everyone Looks to You. She was also the first intern at Facebook when they had 100 employees and were just starting out as a company. She worked there for a total of 14 years and during her time there she became a manager and then ultimately the VP of Product Design.
Actually, it was because of her experience at Facebook and first becoming a manager very early on in her career that caused her to write her book. Her internship at Facebook was something she did while in college and then right after she graduated she took a full time job with the company. When she was asked to become a manager at the age of 25, she had had no prior training or management experience and she wasn’t exactly sure what she was supposed to do.
But as the culture at Facebook was at that time, as a startup, employees all had to try new things and say yes to some things that took them out of their comfort zone. So Julie said yes…
Aug 5, 2020
What is Reverse Mentoring and why do you need it?
Every employee inside of your organization has something to offer regardless of their generation or current life stage. This is why mentoring can flow both ways. When a younger employee mentors an older employee, we refer to it as reverse mentoring.
The purpose of these types of mentoring programs is to share information, skills, and knowledge. Especially in this technology-driven era, older employees often find it difficult to adapt, and the younger employees who are already familiar with the new technologies can teach them.
It's really all about connecting your employees and bringing people together from different generations, backgrounds, cultures, attitudes, values, and beliefs to work together to collaborate and communicate.
Aug 2, 2020
The CEO of 100,000 Person Genpact on How to Lead in the New Normal
Tiger Tyagarajan is the CEO of Genpact, a global professional services firm with 100,000 employees that drives digital-led innovation and digitally-enabled intelligent operations for organizations around the world.
Prior to Genpact, Tiger worked for several well-known companies such as Unilever, Citibank, and GE. He was actually one of the industry leaders who pioneered a new global business model and transformed a division of GE into Genpact back in 2005.
Tiger serves on the Board of Catalyst, a global non-profit organization working with some of the world’s most powerful CEOs to help build workplaces that work for women. He also was one of the founding supporters of the U.S. chapter of the 30% Club, which is committed to gender balance on boards of directors and in senior management. He is an active member of the Fortune CEO Initiative, a forum for corporate leaders committed to addressing major social problems as part of their core business strategies.
Just like organizations a…
Jul 29, 2020
What Are You Doing to Look After Yourself?
One of the aspects of being a servant leader is practicing self-care. During times of crisis, we often forget to look after ourselves, which is a mistake.
If you want to show up and be your best self for your family and employees, then you need to remember to take care of your emotional, spiritual, mental, and physical health. Even with coronavirus, I still make time to exercise each day, eat healthy, and spend time working on chess because these things make me happy!
What are you doing to look after yourself during these tough times?
Jul 26, 2020
How to Build an Invincible Company
Alex Osterwalder is the bestselling author of Business Model Generation, Value Proposition Design, and Testing Business Ideas. He also released a new book back in April called The Invincible Company: How to Constantly Reinvent Your Organization with Inspiration from the World’s Best Business Models.
Alex is ranked #4 on the Thinkers50 list of the top 50 management thinkers in the world. Along with Yves Pigneur, Alex invented several practical business tools, including the Business Model Canvas, that are used by millions of business leaders today. For this invention they won the Thinkers50 Strategy Award in 2015.
He is also the founder of Strategyzer, a company that provides organizations with corporate innovation strategy, training, tools, and software.
This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wher…
Jul 22, 2020
Business is still Very Much a Human Thing
During this COVID-19 pandemic, we hear a lot of stories about all the good things that companies are doing for their people. But why does it take a pandemic for companies to start being more human? We should be human all the time and shouldn’t wait for a tragedy to start doing the right thing.
During these hard times, we’re seeing more conversations around the importance of being more human; connections, relationships, and how to stay together. To beat this pandemic, people have to help each other.
Humanity is, and will always be, the most important skill that leaders and organizations need to have in order to succeed.
Jul 19, 2020
Humanocracy: How to Create Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them
Gary Hamel is the author of five books including bestsellers What Matters Now and The Future of Management. His upcoming book is called Humanocracy: Creating Organizations as Amazing as the People Inside Them, which comes out in August.
Gary has been on the faculty of the London Business School for more than 30 years and he is the director of the Management Lab. He has been named “The World’s leading expert on business strategy” by Fortune magazine, “the management innovator without peer” by the Financial Times, and he has been ranked by The Wall Street Journal as the world’s most influential business thinker. He is also a fellow of The Strategic Management Society and the World Economic Forum.
This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being produc…
Jul 15, 2020
10 Things You Can Do to Stay Positive and Optimistic During Tough Times
It's SO important for you to stay #positive and #optimistic during these crazy times with the #coronavirus. Here are 10 things you can do to stay positive and optimistic during tough times:
1. Understand that you control your actions and emotions
2. Avoid staring at your bank/retirement accounts
3. Don't keep the news on 24/7, set specific times to watch and focus on reputable sources
4. Stay away from negative and pessimistic people
5. Make sure you have a good POSITIVE support network
6. Remember that this is temporary, just like airplane turbulence
7. Take time for yourself and practice self-care
8. Remind yourself each day of what you have to be grateful for.
9. Focus your time and energy on something constructive whether it be work, starting a new business, playing chess, writing a screenplay, etc.
10. Use technology to your benefit to stay connected with friends and family
Jul 12, 2020
How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate BS
Martin Lindstrom is a New York Times bestselling author of seven books including Buyology, Small Data, and his upcoming book--The Ministry of Common Sense: How to Eliminate Bureaucratic Red Tape, Bad Excuses, and Corporate BS (Jan 2021).
Martin is the founder and Chairman of Lindstrom Company, a global branding and culture transformation firm working with Fortune 100 companies in more than 30 countries. He has advised companies such as Mattel, Pepsi, Burger King and Google. Martin has been ranked on the Thinkers50 list for 3 years in a row and TIME Magazine named him one of the “World’s 100 Most Influential people”.
This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Visit https://bit.ly/webexfow to learn more.…
Jul 8, 2020
Customers and Employees Care for More than Just a Paycheck
Money is no longer the number one tool organizations have to retain and attract top talent. Just because you created a sustainable company doesn’t mean that every employee wants to work with you and customers want to transact with you.
Employees and customers around the world want to be part of an organization that positively impacts the environment, society, and communities around the world.
What you need to be asking yourself is what can you do to create an environment where your employees actually want to show up to work? What can you do to create an environment where customers genuinely want to transact with you?
Jul 5, 2020
The CEO of 1-800-Flowers on How to Lead In Turbulent Times
Chris McCann is the CEO of 1-800-Flowers, a floral and gourmet food gift retailer and distribution company with over 3000 employees. The company was started back in 1976 when Chris’ older brother opened his first flower shop. In the 1980s Chris joined his brother in the business and they have been working together ever since.
Chris was named to the National Retail Federation's "The List of People Shaping Retail's Future 2018." And under his leadership, 1-800-Flowers was named one of 2017's most innovative e-retailers on the Internet Retailer 'Hot 100' list.
This episode is brought to you by Cisco. Nearly overnight, the entire world has found itself adapting to a new way of working. The future of work requires a modern approach to collaboration – helping people securely connect wherever they work, while staying safe and being productive. Cisco is shaping this path forward. Visit https://futureofwork.webex.com/ to learn more.
Chris actually studied political science in college wit…
Jul 1, 2020
Context Matters in Business and in Life
A few years ago, I was asked to give a talk to a few thousand people. A week or so after the talk, the client sent me feedback from the attendees and it was...terrible! I scored below a 3 out of 5 and was shocked!
I was confused and asked the client to send me the actual responses so I could see why I scored so low. As I read through the feedback it all made sense--context!
For starters, from the thousands of people in attendance, only 60 filled out the form. As I read the comments I saw people complaining that there was no restroom break, they didn't like the food, it was too dark, it was too loud, etc.
In other words, 95% of the feedback had absolutely nothing to do with me at all! Context matters a great deal in business and in life.
Jun 28, 2020
How Leaders Can Empower Everyone Around Them
Frances Frei is a Professor of Technology and Operations Management at Harvard Business School. She is also the bestselling co-author of two books, Uncommon Service: How to Win by Putting Customers at the Core of Your Business and Unleashed: The Unapologetic Leader’s Guide to Empowering Everyone Around You.
In 2017 she joined Uber’s team as the first SVP of Leadership and Strategy to help the company navigate its public crisis in leadership and culture. She has a popular TED Talk titled How to Build (and Rebuild) Trust which has over 4 million views.
Frances has always been interested in operations--how things work and how to make things work better. But being interested in operations has led her work to focus on leadership. As she shares, “I pretty quickly came to the conclusion that if it weren't for the pesky humans, operations would work beautifully. And then I got super intrigued by the humans, and then realized that the humans were led. So then that took me to leadersh…
Jun 24, 2020
The Two Types of Leaders
How is it that in an organization there are leaders who everyone hates, are scared of, and don’t want to work with, and in that same organization there are leaders who everyone admires, respects, and wants to work with?
In this mini-podcast episode, I talk about the two types of leaders and why we have these in our organizations.
Jun 21, 2020
How to Lead a 100% Remote Team
Robert Glazer is the bestselling author of Elevate: Push Beyond Your Limits and Unlock Success in Yourself and Others. He is also the CEO of Acceleration Partners, a 13 year old company that manages affiliate and partner marketing programs for a lot of well known brands such as Adidas, LinkedIn, Target, Instacart, and Hotwire.
Robert has around 260,000 LinkedIn newsletter subscribers, he has a 100% approval rating as a CEO on Glassdoor, he is ranked #2 on Glassdoor's list of Top CEO of Small & Medium Companies in the US, his company has a 4.9 out of 5 star rating as a place to work, and 99% of employees would recommend the company to a friend. He frequently contributes to Forbes, Inc. Magazine, Entrepreneur Magazine and Thrive Global and he is the host of the popular Elevate Podcast.
The team of 170 people at Acceleration Partners is 100% remote, and they have been since day one. So Robert knows the ins and outs of successfully leading a team that he doesn’t see in person every da…
Jun 21, 2020
The Future of Work with Jacob Morgan Trailer
The world is changing quickly. What do you need to know and do in order to be successful now and in the future? Hi, my name is Jacob Morgan, I’m a 4x best-selling author, speaker, and futurist and this show is all about you…helping you become more successful at work and in life. Each week you will get access to several episodes which range from longer interviews with with the world’s top business leaders. Educators, or authors to shorter episodes where I will share a specific hack, tip, or strategy that you can use to become more successful.
From leadership, to the future of work, to employee experience this show will live you the insights and the tools you need to succeed and thrive both professionally and personally. If you want to future proof your career and your organization then this is the show for you!
Make sure to follow me on Spotify on subscribe to the show on your favorite platform. You can do so easily by going to futureofworkpodcast.com
Jun 17, 2020
Talent Comes Before Process
How we think about hiring talent has been around for decades. We make them jump through hoops with evaluation tests, interviews, and more. One business leader even told me he asked the people interviewing him why they did things a certain way, to which they replied, “I don’t know. We’ve always done it like this.”
Are we spending too much focusing on the process of finding top talent instead of on the talent itself?
In this midweek podcast episode, I share stories about talented people not getting jobs because of the unnecessary process that companies use and why it shouldn't take months to hire a single person.
Jun 15, 2020
How Leaders Can Get the Best from Their People
Liz Wiseman is a New York Times bestselling author of three books, including Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. She has been listed on the Thinkers50 ranking and in 2019 she was recognized as the top leadership thinker in the world. She is a researcher, an executive advisor, and the CEO of the Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm. Some of her recent clients include Apple, Disney, Tesla, Facebook, and Twitter.
Previously, she was the Vice President of Oracle University and the global leader for Human Resource Development at Oracle Corporation. She frequently guest lectures at BYU and Stanford University.
In Liz’s book, Multipliers, she describes two types of leaders that we have all encountered--diminishers and multipliers. As Liz says, organizations cannot afford to have leaders who are diminishers. The good news is multiplier leadership can be learned and developed.
Diminishing leaders vs. multiplier leaders
Liz gives a great metaphor f…
Jun 10, 2020
How do you get to inbox zero?
How do you get to inbox zero? Simple! Give those around you more autonomy and decision making power. One of the reasons why so many people have trouble reading all their email is because they are CC'd on everything.
Chances are if you can't get to inbox zero it's because you are bad at time management, you don't delegate, you don't give autonomy and decision making power to others, and you are a micromanager.
Want to clear your inbox? It has nothing to do with you! Empower your people!
Jun 8, 2020
HP's Chief HR Officer On How to Create A Great Corporate Culture for Virtual Employees
HP has over 55,000 employees and like many other companies around the world they had to pivot to working virtually during COVID-19. HP was able to adapt very quickly and they have a lot of unique programs and tools in place to support their employees. Leading the way is Tracy Keogh, their Chief HR Officer and co-chair of the World Economic Forum’s global task force for Future of Work. Tracy and I talked at length in a recent episode of "The Future of Work With Jacob Morgan."
How to maintain a culture in a virtual setting
Many leaders may be trying to figure out how to maintain corporate culture when all of the employees who are used to coming into the office every day now find themselves working from home. Tracy says, “I actually think you can maintain your culture. It's with every action and every program that you do even if you're not in the same office. I don't think I've ever seen our culture more alive or evident than during this pandemic. People are very attentive during th…
Jun 4, 2020
Balancing Technology and Humanity in Your Company
According to the more than 140 #CEOs I interviewed, one of the most important #mindsets for future #leaders is that of the Chef which is all about balancing #humanity and #technology. Chefs usually have to balance many ingredients to create a beautiful and tasty dish. As a leader, you just need to balance the two and you need both of them.
In this midweek podcast episode, I will be talking about the best way to balance technology and humanity in your company.
This episode is brought to you by Mitel. Don't compromise on business continuity. Mitel can meet all your business communications needs while working from home with all-in-one cloud calling, conferencing, collaboration, and contact center tools – free until 2021. Visit Mitel's https://bit.ly/mitelsponsors to learn more.
Jun 1, 2020
Seven Steps To Become A High Growth Individual
Most of us have had our lives disrupted by the current pandemic in some way. We have had to find new ways to connect with friends and family, we aren’t traveling as much (or at all), and we’re having to adapt to new ways of working and learning. Whitney Johnson is one of the 50 leading business thinkers in the world and bestselling author of 3 books and as she told me during our discussion “if we’re going to manage the disruption, we need to disrupt ourselves.”
How to disrupt yourself and why it matters
Clayton Christensen of the Harvard Business School was Whitney’s mentor and she co-founded The Disruptive Innovation Fund with him. It was Clayton who coined the term disruptive innovation, which he talked about in his book, Innovator’s Dilemma. The idea behind the term was that a small sometimes silly idea can take over the world, for example how the telephone disrupted the telegraph or how the automobile disrupted the horse and buggy. In more modern examples, we can se…
May 28, 2020
What advice would you give to your younger self?
As we grow older and learn new things, regrets are pretty normal. Regrets are not always about life-changing decisions, they can also mean things that could have made your life easier if you knew them earlier.
In this mini-podcast episode, I share two pieces of advice that I would give my younger self. How about you? What would you say to your younger self?
This episode is sponsored by Cisco Webex. They are launching ‘The Future of Work’ to help you understand the trends transforming the workplace and navigate the new normal. Filled with insights and expertise dedicated to the future of work, you’ll find all you need to transform your workplace. Check it out at https://bit.ly/fowwebex
May 24, 2020
Why People Must Come Before Profits
Companies are going through difficult times right now with the current pandemic, and while Pehr is not currently the CEO of a company, he is no stranger to leading during challenging circumstances, including recessions. When asked how current leaders are handling organizations during this tough time, Pehr says there is one critical thing that leaders are not doing a good enough job with.
Putting people ahead of profits
There are very few leaders today who are actively putting the well-being of their people ahead of profits. Pehr says, “I put people before profits in the sense that if I don't have good people, we could not have productivity, we could not go to have our aspirations come true unless we have good people. So I have people before profits and it's not declining profits. I think that profits are very important for any shareholder company and that the shareholder should have their part of course, but that the people will create it.”
He says companies today are not only l…
May 22, 2020
What is Self-Awareness and How Can We Start To Practice It?
One of the most important skills future leaders should have is self-awareness. Being aware of your own flaws so that you can improve on them is a sign of great leadership.
In this week’s mini-podcast episode, I explore self-awareness in-depth and share stories and examples of how to practice it.
This episode is sponsored by Cisco / Webex. They are launching ‘The Future of Work’ to help you understand the trends transforming the workplace and navigate the new normal. Filled with insights and expertise dedicated to the future of work, you’ll find all you need to transform your workplace. Check it out at https://bit.ly/fowwebex
May 18, 2020
How to Create More Joy at Work and at Home
This episode is brought to you by Cisco Webex. To help navigate our new reality and its impact on workplace transformation, Cisco Webex is launching The Future of Work; a destination to help you understand the trends transforming the workplace; highlighting remote work as well as workstyles, innovative workspaces and integrated workflows for teams. To learn more visit futureofwork.webex.com
Joy and happiness are two very important aspects of life, and they are just what we need now as we face difficult times around the world. What is happiness and joy to you? We all have times that we struggle to find one or both. In her book, Ingrid shares a moment of awareness that changed her life. She shares, “Joy isn’t hard to find. In fact, it’s all around us”. Before we are able to create more joy and happiness at work and at home, we first need to define them separately, because a lot of times they get grouped together.
The important distinction between joy and happiness
In our quest…
May 15, 2020
It's ok to take a break
Have you fallen into the trap of constantly working and feeling the need to keep pushing, no matter how exhausted and worn down you feel? We’ve all been there. In fact, many companies and people have the mentality that in order to succeed, you have to constantly hustle and work non-stop, even when you’re tired.
But that’s not true.
To set yourself up for success, you need to take breaks. When you’ve been working hard for a long time, things start to catch up with you. If you’re physically exhausted or mentally spent, you can’t do your best work. Your brain and body need to rest and re-energize. Pushing hard can work for a short-term goal or project, but it isn’t sustainable in the long term.
A break doesn’t have to be a long hiatus. Even taking a day or half a day to focus on the things you need to do to get yourself back into the physical, mental, and emotional state to perform your best can make a difference. Spend time with family and friends, exercise and get out…
May 11, 2020
How to Lead From the Future
Mark is a business advisor with over 20 years of experience helping Global 1000 and start-up companies to create new growth strategies, navigate disruptive innovation, and manage corporate transformation. He is the co-founder and Senior Partner of Innosight, a strategic innovation consulting and investing company. Prior to that Mark was a consultant at Booz Allen Hamilton and a nuclear power trained surface warfare officer in the U.S. Navy.
This episode is brought to you by Cisco Webex. To help navigate our new reality and its impact on workplace transformation, Cisco Webex is launching The Future of Work; a destination to help you understand the trends transforming the workplace; highlighting remote work as well as workstyles, innovative workspaces and integrated workflows for teams. To learn more visit futureofwork.webex.com
Every company wants to be more innovative in order to stay relevant, to be successful, to bring in the best talent, and to help the world. But innovation takes…
May 8, 2020
How You can Effectively Lead a Virtual Team
With the current pandemic, millions of people around the world are working from home. This will likely continue over the coming months, and everyone should adjust to this new normal way of working.
In this week’s mini-episode of The Future of Work Podcast, I’m sharing tips on how you can effectively lead a virtual team from the comfort of your own home.
This episode is sponsored by Cisco Webex. To help companies navigate the new reality of #remotework, they are hosting a future of work marathon series with customers and industry experts. Make sure to check it out at https://bit.ly/webex0504
May 4, 2020
How to Solve Problems Before They Happen
Leaders especially are constantly running around trying to "put out fires." But, what if there was a way to stop the fires from happening to begin with? That is the premise of Dan Heath's new book: Upstream: The Quest to Solve Problems Before They Happen. Dan is the best-selling author of six books five of which he wrote with his brother Chip Heath (who I had on my podcast a little while ago). These books include classics such as: Made to Stick, Switch, and The Power of Moments.
How do we stop chasing fires and start preventing them? It's all about Upstream thinking. You can listen to the full in-depth conversation with Dan below
This episode is brought to you by Cisco Webex. To help companies navigate the new reality of remote work, join us for a live future of work marathon series with customers and industry experts: #RemoteWork - The Future of Work is Now. The Upstream Parable
Back in 2009 Dan heard a parable that is well known in public health and it really resonated with him. I…
May 1, 2020
Are You Thinking About Linear Change Or Exponential Change?
Change is a natural part of life, but it’s also naturally difficult for most people. But in order to make progress in our careers, businesses, and lives, we’ve got to be willing to make changes and be open to new ways of doing things.
There are two types of change: linear and exponential. When most of us think about change, we tend to think about linear change. That means moving forward one step at a time for consistent but small progress. But the pace of change is increasingly so quickly, we really need to be thinking about exponential change.
I love the thought experiment created by futurist Ray Kurzweil. He puts it this way: if you were to take 30 linear steps, where would you end up? Not far from where you first started. In fact, you could likely look back and easily see where you began. But if you took 30 steps exponentially, you would make tremendous progress. After 30 exponential steps, you would end up traveling around the earth 26 times. That’s a massive distance and s…
Apr 27, 2020
How to Nurture Crazy Ideas That Change The World
Safi Bahcall is a second-generation physicist, a biotech entrepreneur, a former public company CEO, and bestselling author of Loonshots: How to Nurture the Crazy Ideas that Win Wars, Cure Diseases, and Transform Industries. He was also on President Obama’s Council of Science Advisors and it was during that time that he started down the path that would lead him to write Loonshots.
What Safi realized was that there is a better way to change the culture of an organization. When giving his explanation he uses the example of a glass of water. When the water is room temperature you can swirl the water with your finger and it will slosh around. But when the temperature is lowered and the water freezes it becomes rigid and you cannot insert your finger anymore.
He says, “You can think of culture as that pattern of behavior that you see on the surface. You
have a wildly political culture or a very innovative culture. You have molecules that are totally rigid or they're sloshing around.…
Apr 24, 2020
How To Work With Your Spouse
When I travel to speak or attend conferences, people are often surprised that I work so closely with my wife. We each run our own business, but we spend most of our day working within just a few feet of each other in our home office. To some people, working in such close quarters with your spouse sounds difficult, but we’ve been able to create a positive environment where we encourage each other and play major roles in each other’s success. It isn’t always easy, but it’s definitely a great situation overall.
Here are my top three tips for working with your spouse: Take time and space
I won’t pretend that every minute of every day is great. At times, we both need to step away and take a break from each other. It can be as simple as putting in headphones, going on a walk, or taking our work to a coffee shop for a few hours. Don’t feel bad about needing to take time or space for yourself — it’s natural to need a break. The important thing is being open with your s…
Apr 20, 2020
Using Science to Make Your Meetings Matter
Dr. Steven Rogelberg is the Chancellor’s Professor at UNC Charlotte. He is a professor of Organizational Science, Management, and Psychology as well as the Director of Organizational Science. He has over 100 publications addressing issues such as team effectiveness, leadership, employee well-being, and meetings at work.
Steven is also the author of The Surprising Science of Meetings: How You Can Lead Your Team to Peak Performance, which is based on his 20 years+ of research on the topic of meetings.
Most of us have to deal with meetings on a regular basis, whether they are in person meetings or virtual, and they can feel like a waste of time. But Steven says, the solution to bad meetings is not to get rid of all meetings, he says that would be a dangerous approach. “Meetings are really an evolution in the world of work. It's a recognition that organizations can be better with and through people. As organizations basically recognized that employee voices would be helpful and mean…
Apr 17, 2020
Think Like a CEO: 3 Questions to Ask Yourself at Work Every Day
Success at work has a lot to do with how you work, but it also relates to how you think. I’ve interviewed more than 300 top business executives and CEOs for my podcast and books and love to pick their brains about how they think and the habits they follow.
I’ve learned that success at work requires everyday effort and constant evaluation. It’s not something you can dedicate yourself to once, but something to be constantly tweaked and updated.
To be successful, follow the example of top business leaders. Ask yourself these three questions at work every day:
* What did I learn today? It’s no secret that the business world is changing rapidly. The things you learned in school or even at a conference a few years ago are likely largely outdated today. To be successful, you must become a perpetual learner. It requires conscious thought and energy to learn something new every day, whether it’s from a conversation with someone, a book, a podcast, or another source. If you start…
Apr 13, 2020
How to Change Anyone's Mind
Jonah Berger is a Professor at Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. He is a world-renowned expert on change, word of mouth, influence, consumer behavior, and how products, ideas, and behaviors catch on. He is also the bestselling author of numerous books including a brand new one titled, The Catalyst: How to Change Anyone’s Mind.
How many times have you tried and failed to change someone’s mind about something, whether it was a family member, a coworker, a friend, or a boss? Jonah says it is because we are going about trying to change their mind in the wrong way. He says, “If you look at a
chair in a room you are sitting in and you wanna move the chair, pushing that chair is often a pretty good approach, right? If you push that chair in the direction you want it to go, it often moves in that direction. But there's one problem, when we apply that same notion to people which is that people aren't chair. When we push physical objects, they tend to go, when we push peo…
Apr 10, 2020
How Coronavirus is Affecting Workplace Practices
The global coronavirus pandemic has brought tragedy in sickness, death, and loss of work. It has undoubtedly changed how billions of people around the world live. But at the same time, it has also changed how we work and potentially sped up the future of work.
From a business context, this global tragedy is forcing organizations to evolve their workplace practices quickly. Companies that perhaps didn’t believe in flexible work options or didn’t have remote work programs in place are now telling their employees they must work from home. And in order to stay productive and keep the business running, these organizations are being forced to quickly adopt workplace flexibility policies. That also means they are upgrading their technology to give employees the tools and resources to work remotely, such as internal collaboration tools, web conferencing capabilities, and security measures to share and protect information.
The mass movement to remote work to protect employees is also forc…
Apr 6, 2020
How to Take Control of Your Time & Get More Done
Laura Vanderkam is the author of several books on productivity and time management, including Off the Clock: Feel Less Busy While Getting More Done and 168 Hours: You Have More Time Than You Think.
These days most of us have been forced to step away from our normal routines, and that can feel stressful and chaotic at times. But as Laura shares, it is all about our internal dialogue and how we shape the way we handle the current situation. “It can be easy to tell ourselves stories about the chaos and how crazy it is and how you can get nothing done. But once you have a story in your mind, you start looking for evidence to support that. And so if your story is, Everything's crazy, I can't get anything done, this is horrible, this is terrible, well certainly you can find a couple of stressful moments in any given day, and then now you've got points of evidence supporting your story. But if you start from the story of, Well, this is challenging, but I am a resilient and productive ind…
Apr 3, 2020
How to Build A High-Performing Team
3 Ways to Build A High-Performing Team
People everywhere want to unlock the secret to building a high-performing team. After all, your team often makes or breaks the success of your company. When your team works together well, great things can happen. But often teams are slowed down by inefficiencies and difficulties.
From my experience working in a variety of teams and now assembling and leading my own team of 10 people around the world, here are three things you can implement today to build a high-performing team.
* Know strengths and weaknesses. This applies to yourself and the people on your team. Practice self-awareness and know what you’re good at and where you need help, and then find team members to help with your weaknesses. If you’re good at big-picture strategic planning but have a weakness in organization, find someone on your team who has organization as a strength. Optimize the roles people play on the team by keeping each person in their area of strength.
* Se…
Mar 30, 2020
How to Innovate and Create the Future
Jeremy Gutsche is the founder and CEO of Trend Hunter, a website where people from around the world can share business ideas and trends. It’s basically like a giant innovation focus group. He is also the author of two books, Exploiting Chaos: 150 Ways to Spark Innovation During Times of Change and Create the Future: Tactics for Disruptive Thinking.
As Jeremy points out in his books, it is still possible to innovate in times of uncertainty, which is encouraging with what we have going on in the world right now. He says, “Chaos creates opportunity always. And what happens is that we get intimidated by the doom and gloom of bad times. But actually, if you look in history, what happens is that we get caught in a groove. Successful people get caught in a groove. Successful people are the ones that miss out and get disrupted because we get caught on a path of repeating past decisions. And chaos changes that. So if you look historically, you will see an astounding list of companies tha…
Mar 25, 2020
Best Tips For Changing Jobs
You’ve decided it’s time for a change and is ready to switch jobs. What should you do now? Switching jobs isn’t something that should be taken lightly, but if you find yourself in a toxic work environment where you can’t advance, it may be time to move on. After you’ve made the decision to look for a new job, here are three things to consider: Understand why you want to leave
People leave their jobs for a huge variety of reasons. Before you leave your job, make sure you’re leaving for the right reason, not a superficial reason like there not being enough perks or your desk not being in the right spot. A good reason to leave your current job is if you feel stuck or if you and your manager don’t get along, even after trying to improve the relationship. Changing jobs is exhausting, so before you get in too deep, make sure you are leaving for the right reasons. Develop skills
In our modern work environment, your skillset is often more important than your job title. Organiz…
Mar 23, 2020
A Look at the Past and Future of Humanity
Toby Ord is a philosopher and Senior Research Fellow at Oxford’s Future of Humanity Institute. He focuses on the big picture questions facing humanity such as global poverty, health, the long term future of humanity and the risks which threaten to destroy our entire potential. Toby is also the author of a new book called, The Precipice: Existential Risk and the Future of Humanity.
How does he research and think about future risks and possibilities? Toby says, “I have looked into a lot of the astrophysics of questions about the earth's lifespan and things like that. And when it comes to particularly the risks that we might face over the next 100 years. Yeah, I've had to read a lot about science and technology and really talk to a lot of experts. That's been a real focus with the book. It looks at a lot of issues in cutting edge science and I really... This is a real area where it's easy to screw it up when you're writing a book like this if you have a great idea about something cl…
Mar 18, 2020
Three Ways To Think Like A Futurist
Are you prepared for the future? What about your organization or the people around you? Futurists don’t predict the future, but they do make sure their organizations aren’t surprised by what the future will bring. More people are becoming futurists, especially as the pace of change increases and many organizations look towards the future with uncertainty. But futurists don’t just take a shot in the dark to guess what will happen — their projections are rooted in thinking through multiple scenarios to make sure they and their organizations are as best prepared as possible.
Here are three ways to think like a futurist: Look for signals
Every day, futurists scan the horizon for things that are coming in the future. These things may seem small now but can turn into major events and developments for the future. Signals could be geopolitical events, technology developments, demographic changes, or a number of other things. Signals come from reading reports, listening to podcasts an…
Mar 16, 2020
Why Everyone Should Think Like an Entrepreneur
Jim McKelvey is the co-founder of Square and the author of a brand new book, The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time. Square was founded in response to a problem Jim had in his glassblowing business. He ended up losing a big sale because he couldn’t take an American Express card. So he set out to solve that problem along with his former intern, Jack Dorsey.
Jim says true entrepreneurs solve problems that haven’t been solved before, they don’t just start a business, they do something that has never been done before. And that is what he and Jack did, they solved a problem in a way that no one else had ever thought of before. They even were able to beat out Amazon when the company tried to copy the setup Square had.
The reason behind how they beat Amazon, Jim says, “In Square's case, I outlined about 14 things that we were doing absolutely differently from everybody else, 14 separate things and we were probably doing some more subtle stuff…
Mar 11, 2020
Three Technology Upgrades To Improve The Employee Experience
Here are three ways to upgrade your technology and improve the employee experience:One of the most important aspects of employee experience is technology. Think of how much your employees use technology every day — it’s a crucial part of every business, and if your company doesn’t have the right technology resources, it can be a drain on the employee experience. Consumer-grade technology
We’re surrounded by great technology in our everyday personal lives, but many employees face the struggle of having to set aside those programs and devices to use slow and outdated programs at work. Consumer-grade technology is tools that are so useful and intuitive that you would use them in your personal life if possible. An outdated computer or a clunky intranet system can be frustrating to employees, lower their productivity, and cause burnout. Employees should have tools at work that match what they use at home and reflect the year we live in. Video communication and collaboration…
Mar 9, 2020
Addressing the Nation's Greatest Talent Challenge
Victor Hoskins is the President and CEO of the Fairfax County Economic Development Authority. Prior to that, he was Deputy Mayor of Economic Development for the District of Columbia. In his current role, he works hard with his team to attract companies and jobs to the area. Most recently he led the team responsible for winning the Amazon HQ2, which will be bringing anywhere from 25,000 to 37,000 jobs to Northern Virginia.
What was it like to compete for the Amazon HQ2? Fairfax county was one of 238 jurisdictions in the running and their initial proposal was 250 pages long. A few months later Amazon responded with over 100 questions which took 1100 pages to respond to. It was definitely not an easy feat!
When looking at the big picture Victor has been paying attention to two main trends when it comes to talent. The first one is the need for regions to find ways to keep college students in the area after they graduate. In Victor’s region there are 60 universities and he says, “ther…
Mar 4, 2020
The Importance Of Being Human At Work In A Technology Driven World
With the growth of AI, machine learning, and automation, many people are worried about their jobs and think everything will soon be run by robots. But no matter how advanced technology gets, there are some things it will never be able to do as well as humans. These uniquely human abilities and characteristics, including practicing empathy, innovation, creativity, communication, collaboration, vulnerability, mentoring, and so much more can only be done by humans. It’s important for humans to embrace their natural abilities and showcase them at work.
Over the past few decades, we’ve been conditioned to leave our natural human abilities outside of the office. But to succeed in the future, we have to embrace these qualities. That means doing things like taking a stand to be vulnerable at work, fighting for something you believe in, and taking the time to coach and mentor someone. A lot of technology now is developed to take over mundane and repetitive tasks. Don’t run away from tech…
Mar 2, 2020
Why Work Doesn't Have to Be Crazy
Jason Fried is the co-Founder and CEO of Basecamp and bestselling author of Rework and It Doesn’t Have to be Crazy at Work. He has also given a TED Talk titled Why Work Doesn’t Happen at Work.
Jason is a big believer in capping a workweek at 40 hours, he says, “We don't want people working more than 40 hours. You don't need to. And if we're doing that, then we're doing something wrong, actually. I know a lot of companies, long hours is seen as doing something right, like, "Let's stay late, and let's work on the weekends and let's pull all-nighters." I think that's completely wrong. And so, we're very careful about not encouraging our employees to work that way.”
Anything that cannot get done in 40 hours can wait until the next day or the next week. The reason is 50, 60, 80 hour weeks are not sustainable. In an emergency, they can be done once in a great while, but to keep it up consistently, it doesn’t produce the best results.
Jason says, “I'm sorry, 80-hour weeks if…
Feb 26, 2020
Three Reasons Why College Is Still Worth It
Is college worth the time and cost? It’s a constant debate, and everyone seems to have a strong opinion on the matter. I regularly see posts on social media about the pros and cons of attending college. While there isn’t a definite answer that applies to everyone, I believe college is still definitely worth the investment.
No matter your career goals, here are three reasons why college is still worth it:
* Networking and Job Skills
Aside from what you actually learn in college, perhaps the greatest benefits are the job and life skills you gain. College teaches life skills like collaboration, accountability, and meeting deadlines, plus valuable skills for any profession, like writing and analytical thinking. College is also a great place to build your network. The people you meet and work with in college can provide valuable connections throughout your entire life. Many people end up starting companies or working with people they met in college.
* Most Jobs Require a Degree…
Feb 24, 2020
How Leaders can Overcome the Advice Trap
Michael Bungay Stanier is a bestselling author of The Coaching Habit and the upcoming book, The Advice Trap: Be Humble, Stay Curious & Change the Way You Lead Forever, which comes out on February 29. He is also the founder of Box of Crayons, a learning and development company that helps organizations transform from advice-driven to curiosity-led.
If you’ve had the chance to read The Coaching Habit you know the seven essential coaching questions, but Michael’s newest book builds on top of that and helps readers figure out how to take steps to stay curious and change behaviors.
Michael shares that the biggest hurdle we have to overcome is the advice monster. What is the advice monster? He says, “the advice monster is that thing that keeps looming up going, "No. No. No. I know you think you're curious but let me just pull you back onto the dark side, and have you lurking into telling advice and offering solutions and being the person with the answer." And everybody listening in r…
Feb 19, 2020
How To Manage Your Time Effectively
No matter if you work for yourself or in an organization, time management is one of the most essential skills you can master. Managing your time makes you more productive and opens the door to new personal and professional opportunities.
Here are three proven strategies to manage your time effectively:
* Understand Where Your Time Goes
You can’t manage your time if you don’t know how you currently use it. When I first started working for myself, I would get to the end of the day and realize I hadn’t accomplished anything substantial. My time had been spent doing smaller things that pulled at my attention. But I had to come to that realization before I could make changes and have a frame of reference of how to manage my time. Spend a week keeping a journal of where your time goes. Track what you’re doing throughout the day and what is happening. You may be surprised at certain patterns or distractions that can lead to major time management changes.
* Batch Tasks
Some pe…
Feb 17, 2020
The Future of Education, Skills, and Jobs
Dr. Denise Trauth is the President of Texas State University. She is currently in her 18th year leading the university. Prior to that Dr. Trauth was provost and vice chancellor for academic affairs at the University of North Carolina at Charlotte.
Under Dr. Trauth’s leadership, Texas State has experienced its largest construction program since being founded in 1899, became a federal Hispanic-Serving Institution, was designated a Texas Emerging Research University, has been reclassified as an “R2: Doctoral University – Higher Research Activity” under the Carnegie Classification system, and moved up to NCAA Division I.
Dr. Trauth and her team at Texas State make sure they are staying in touch with industries in the area in order to provide the most relevant and up to date education for students. She has noticed two big trends currently impacting the business world. She says, “What we see in particular is that business is being impacted by two factors in particular: One is tec…
Feb 12, 2020
In Business, No = Not Yet
Chances are, at some point over the course of your life and career, someone will shoot down a project or idea that you’re passionate about. Hearing No is a part of life and something everyone faces. The difference between success and failure often comes in how we react to hearing No.
I recently had the chance to interview former GE executive Beth Comstock. She told a story about an idea she had for a project early in her career. She did her research and presented it, only to be told No. But Beth didn’t give up there. She re-worked her project and presented it again. Again, she was told No. This happened over and over — Beth made adjustments to her idea, listened to feedback, and then went back to present. Over and over she was told No.
Finally, a top executive told her Yes. When she asked why he said it was because she had made it impossible to say No. Her persistence had paid off and her idea finally came to fruition.
In the business world, No really means Not Yet. Don’…
Feb 10, 2020
140 CEOs on What it Will Take To Be a Leader in 2030
My new book, The Future Leader, comes out on February 26th and it is based on interviews I had with over 140 CEOs around the world. In the book the two questions that I wanted to answer were: Is the leader of 2030 going to look that different than today? And if so, how is that leader actually going to look different?
To find out the answers to my questions, I interviewed CEOs around the world from organizations like Mastercard, Unilever, Audi, Best Buy, Oracle, Kaiser, SAP, Koc Holding, Enel, Carnival Cruise Lines, Dominos, Dunkin’ Brands, National Grid and many others. I also teamed up with LinkedIn and we surveyed 14,000 employees around the world. And this gave me a very good picture around what the future leader is gonna look like.
And what I found out from these interviews was that most of the top CEOs around the world believe that while there are going to be some attributes that remain the same for leaders of the future-- things like being able to create a vision and execute…
Feb 5, 2020
Should Your Organization Have Annual Performance Reviews?
It’s a pattern that has been around for decades. Once a year, employees gather their accomplishments and projects for the past 12 months and talk with their managers and HR representatives to plead their case of why they’re a valuable asset to the company. At the end, they may get a few suggestions for improvements and maybe even a raise. Then it’s back to work until the same time rolls around next year and it all starts again.
Annual performance reviews are standard in many organizations, but the way they’ve always been done can be incredibly detrimental to the overall morale, productivity, and engagement at a company. There’s no absolute answer to if your organization should have annual performance reviews, but here are three things to improve the process:
Ask your employees. Many organizations are quick to kill traditional annual performance reviews without asking their employees. Take a survey and hold focus groups to find out what employees are looking for and the form…
Feb 3, 2020
Leadership is Language
David Marquet is the bestselling author of the 2013 book, Turn the Ship Around! A True Story of Turning Followers into Leaders and the new book, Leadership is Language: The Hidden Power of What You Say and What You Don’t, which comes out on February 4th.
David was in the Navy for 28 years and he was ultimately selected to be captain of a nuclear submarine. And it was during his time as a captain of the USS Santa Fe that he changed his leadership style and that change led to him writing his first book.
What does David mean by “leadership is language’? He explains that while there are a lot of professions that require a person to work mainly with their hands, in leadership, because it is always about other people, leaders interact through words--face to face, emails, company statements, annual reports, etc...As he says, “the magic of leadership is that by changing your words you will change the world around you because if you ask a question a different way, you'll get a diffe…
Jan 29, 2020
Three Powerful Ways To Motivate Yourself At Work
Motivation is key to your success at work. Your boss can try to motivate you, but in most cases, you can’t rely on anyone else and have to find your own internal motivation. No matter if you work in an office or remotely for yourself, everyone needs help from time to time finding motivation to push through and be productive.
Here are three effective ways to motivate yourself at work:
* Set Goals
Start every day with an idea of what you want to get done that day. Setting goals gives your purpose and direction instead of just wandering around trying to find something to do. Goals can be big or small. I like to set large goals, smaller daily goals, and mini goals. For example, my large goal could be to write a book, so I set a daily goal to write for an hour. As I’m working on that goal, I can set a mini goal to write 500 more words. Setting goals pushes you in new directions.
* Find Meaning
You’re more likely to be motivated and productive if you feel the work you’re doi…
Jan 27, 2020
Hacks for Bringing Joy to Your Job
Bruce Daisley is a former Twitter VP and bestselling author of the forthcoming book, Eat Sleep Work Repeat: 30 Hacks for Bringing Joy to Your Job, which comes out February 25th. Bruce also has experience working for Google and YouTube.
There are some statistics that show that only 13% of employees are engaged in their jobs. Why is that? Bruce says it is because, “If you have a look at status, higher power is dis-inhibiting. What I mean by that is if you watch people who are bosses, people who are presidents, people who are high status individuals, they generally are unencumbered by this sort of self-consciousness that the rest of us fail. And the correlate of that, the flip side of that is that lack of status is inhibiting, meaning that when we have no position in the hierarchy, when we are junior, when our opinions are told that they don't matter, it means that we repress how we feel. And you observe this more and more, countries that have strong hierarchy generally find that thei…
Jan 22, 2020
What Are You Doing To Build Your Own Career Ladder
For decades, most people believed there was just one path to career success: climbing the corporate ladder. Everyone was expected to start in an entry-level role, pay their dues, and get promoted as they worked their way up the organization. That was the only way it was done, and no one questioned it.
Thankfully, today we have many more options and fewer people spend their entire careers working their way up the corporate ladder. With new technology and opportunities, each person can build their own career ladder to chart their own path to success. For some people, that could be staying with the same organization, but for other people, the career ladder they create could involve becoming an entrepreneur or working for multiple companies.
Building your own career ladder comes with countless possibilities, but it also requires work and vision. Here are five way to build your own career ladder: Keep learning
Knowledge has never been more plentiful than it is today. We have access to to…
Jan 20, 2020
How Chipotle is Investing in Their People
Marissa Andrada is the Chief People Officer at Chipotle, a very popular restaurant chain with 2,500 restaurants and 80,000 employees. Prior to Chipotle Marissa had led HR for companies such as Starbucks, Kate Spade, GameStop, Red Bull, and Universal Studios.
Marissa has seen quite a few changes in HR over the past 10-20 years. One of the biggest changes she mentioned is a shift in leadership. Purpose, vision, and values have been around in theory for awhile, but it wasn’t until recently that companies took these words from something on a poster in the hallway to something that companies actually live out through leadership. And employees can tell when leaders are actually living out what they talk about in company meetings or if it is all just talk.
When it comes to tenure in restaurants, a lot of times employees are coming and going frequently. Although Marissa shares that tenure at Chipotle has increased, she also says they understand that not everyone will stay at the company lo…
Jan 16, 2020
Are You Finding Time To Be Curious
If you’re like most people, you often get caught up in your work and personal life. You’re busy every day with new activities, goals, and the mundane tasks of work and life. It can be hard to find time to be curious when you’re busy with all your other activities.
But curiosity is vital to our creativity and success. Curiosity allows us to solve problems, uncover opportunities, and have fun. It’s the curious people who shape the future.
So how can we balance our daily lives with the need to be curious? It comes down to making time to be curious. For most people, it takes real effort to set aside our daily tasks and allow our minds to wander and think of new possibilities. Here are five ways to make time to be curious.
* Schedule it in. The most basic tactic is to simply schedule time to be curious. If it’s on your calendar, you’re more likely to actually do it. Scheduling in curiosity time can come in many forms, from giving yourself a few minutes to step away from you…
Jan 13, 2020
How Leaders Can See Around Corners
Rita McGrath is a professor at Columbia Business School and author of the new book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. She was also recently ranked #5 on the Thinkers50 list for her work in strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship and for being a champion of harnessing disruptive influences for competitive advantage.
What does it actually mean to see around corners? Rita says it’s not about predicting the future, because predictions are hard, but it is about paying attention to signals. She says, “it's more about expanding your range of possibilities that you're considering, and then really being prepared to challenge your own assumptions. And I think that's really where the seeing around corners part is so valuable, because if you think about it, any business grows up with a set of assumptions about what's possible and what's not. And what an inflection point does is it really changes the nature of those assumptions.”
Compan…
Jan 8, 2020
Why All Leaders Must be Coaches And Mentors
As AI and automation grow, employees are concerned for their job security. Adding to that fact is uncertainty about the unknown future of work and what it will take to succeed over the next decade and beyond.
There are lots of ideas of what it will take to future-proof your career, but the simplest and best thing you can do is this: be a coach and mentor.
All leaders should be coaches and mentors, but it’s not just limited to leaders. Employees at all levels can find people to coach and mentor, either at work or outside of work. A coach is different from a traditional boss. A coach gives honest feedback to their mentee, pushes them, unlocks their potential, and removes obstacles from their path. In fact, the ultimate goal of a coach or mentor is to make the person they’re mentoring more successful than them.
This isn’t how it’s always been. It used to be that leaders and managers sat at the top of organizations and pushed down anyone with talent who threatened their success.…
Jan 6, 2020
How to Make Work Meaningful
Tom Rath is a bestselling author and researcher who has spent the past two decades studying how work can improve human health and well-being. He has written several books, his newest one comes out in February and it is titled, Life’s Great Question: Discover How You Contribute to the World.
Tom set out to write this book as a result of his personal reflections over the last several years. He says, “I've really been personally reflecting on, given my own health challenges and threats and my mortality, what are the most important things for people to get focused on? In particular, most of my writing and research is focused on that nexus of people and organizations, and how can we help people to lead better lives through the organizations that they're a part of? And one thing I've observed after 20 years of, kind of following this area is that we're often so quick to look inward and think about self-development and our own brand and how we can improve personally, and the more I have…
Jan 1, 2020
Learning How To Say No Is An Invaluable Skill
Like most people, I’m constantly bombarded with requests from other people in both my personal and professional lives. I’m asked to meet friends for coffee, attend a conference, conduct an interview, answer questions for someone — the list goes on and on.
I used to say yes to everything because I didn’t want to miss out on making a new connection. But over time, I felt myself becoming exhausted and depleted. I could never meet my own goals because I was spending all of my time helping other people. So I started saying no. It was difficult at first, but I learned that in order to see my own professional and personal success, I had to invest time in myself. When you say no, you’re really saying yes to something you want to do. Something for yourself that gives you purpose and meaning.
As we become more connected with new technology, we’ll be even more inundated with requests. Learning how to say no is one of the most valuable things we can learn. You don’t need to be…
Dec 30, 2019
How this CEO Leads a Team of 56,000
Dan Helfrich is the Chairman and CEO of Deloitte Consulting, where he has worked for over 20 years. Although he had always wanted to be a sportscaster, once he graduated from Georgetown University, he had a choice between broadcasting and consulting and he ended up choosing consulting. And that choice has led him to where he is now, which is leading a team of 56,000 people.
Dan is very passionate about diversity and inclusion, which seems to be at the center of a lot of conversations today inside of organizations. Dan says, “I actually think some are talking about it as a theme, and I think that's wrong. Diversity and inclusion is an imperative, not a management fad, and not something to pay lip service to. And what we're doing is, we are putting diversity and inclusion, and I view those as related concepts, but that have distinct elements to them. We're putting that at the center of everything we do, we're striving for increasing the representation of our teams on a ton of dimensio…
Dec 25, 2019
You Shouldn’t Have A Typical Day; Here’s Why
What does a typical day look like for you?
It’s a question I’ve asked of hundreds of CEOs and top business leaders around the world. They almost always tell me the same thing: they don’t have a typical day. Every day is full of different activities and meetings. If you want to follow in the footsteps of some of the most successful business leaders, avoid having a typical day. These people still have habits and commonalities throughout their days, but they avoid falling into the routine of doing the same mundane things every day. Avoiding a typical day can make you more creative and energized, which is good for your sanity and the success of your business.
So how do you avoid having a typical day? Here are five tips:
* Get out of the office. It’s easy to fall into the same routine when you’re in the same place all day, every day. Get out of the office and take your work on the road. Work from home or a coffee shop or even a communal workspace in your building. Visit custo…
Dec 23, 2019
How the CEO of Ketchum Leads by Example
Barri Rafferty is the President and CEO of Ketchum, a leading global public relations firm serving clients in over 70 countries. Ketchum has been named PR Agency of the Year and the winner of an unprecedented three consecutive Campaign of the Year Awards.
She became the first female CEO of a top-five global public relations firm at the beginning of 2018. In total, she has worked for Ketchum for 24 years. When asked what her leadership style is, Barri says, “My goal is to bring out the best in the people that work for me. So I feel like as a leader, I'm very much of a coach. I go... I move really fast, so I have to trust the people around me. And I really encourage us to all collaborate and work together. We have a lot of debate on... Any leadership team I ever have, I always think if people aren't debating and pushing back on me and there's not a few raised voices, or curse words every now and then, that it's probably not a good thing, right? We've gotta get in it, but we lock arms…
Dec 18, 2019
We All Have The Power To Shape Our Employee Experience
Employee experience is the next big battleground for organizations. It’s crucial for building a place where people want to come to work because they are engaged and satisfied, not just because they have to be there. Many people think that employee experience is determined by executives, but in reality, it is something employees at all levels can control and shape.
A few decades ago, employees didn’t have any power. If they were frustrated with something at work, their only choice was to go home and complain to family and friends because they could make any real changes. But today’s world is different, and employees now have the power to shape their own work experiences. It doesn’t matter if you’re an entry level employee, mid-level manager, or executive. Here are five things you can do to shape your employee experience:
* Talk to your manager. Have open and honest conversations with your manager about what you like about your experience and what you want to change. Don’…
Dec 16, 2019
The Future of Education
Martin Boehm is the Dean of IE Business School, one of the world’s leading higher education institutions. It is based in Madrid, Spain, but most of their programs consist of 80-90% international students.
The business school was ranked the 3rd European Business School by Financial Times, 1st Worldwide Distance Online MBA by QS, 1st Business School in Europe and 3rd in the world by The Aspen Institute, and 3rd Non-US MBA Business School by Forbes, just to name a few of their awards.
Education hasn’t changed much over the past 100+ years and it is becoming more apparent that we are in desperate need of change in this area. With all of the technological advances, the evolving workforce, and an incredibly face pace of change in the world today we have to update our way of educating to allow students to prepare for the future of work. And that is just what Martin and his team at IE Business School are doing.
One thing that has to change is we have to move from simply imparting knowle…
Dec 11, 2019
There’s More To Life Than Work
Believe it or not, there’s more to life than work. When we’re stuck in the repetitive day-to-day where the majority of our time is spent at work, that can be hard to believe. Many people struggle with separating themselves from work and focusing on other things. But the truth is that we don’t live to work; we work so we can live.
Everyone is unique, but everyone has more in their lives than just work. How do you discover your life outside of work? Try these five tips:
* Set boundaries. Work tends to expand to fit whatever time we have to get it done. Without limits, you may let yourself work all the time and feel like you have enough work that it needs to take all that time. If you set boundaries and decide you’ll leave the office or be done with work at a certain time every day, you’ll have more time for other activities and will likely find you can still get your work done in less time.
* Build relationships. For many people, one of the biggest parts of their life out…
Dec 9, 2019
Why and How to Become Indistractable
Nir Eyal is the bestselling author of Hooked: How to Build Habit-Forming Products (2014) and Indistractable: How to Control Your Attention and Choose Your Life (2019). He started and sold two tech companies and he has taught at Stanford Graduate School of Business and Design. He has been studying and writing about behavior design and habit formation for many years and he became fascinated with how technology persuades people to do things they normally wouldn’t do. This is ultimately what led him to write his bestselling booked Hooked.
Nir’s newest book came about as a result of his search for a solution to a problem he had with staying focused and getting things done. Nir says, “Hooked is about building good habits, Indistractable is about how do we break bad habits.”
Being distracted is not a new problem. These days we tend to place the blame on technology, social media, smartphones, etc… But as Nir points out, “People have always been finding ways to escape boredom. S…
Dec 4, 2019
What Are You Doing To Try To Get Noticed At Work
When was the last time you were noticed at work? Did you get recognized at a meeting or even just receive a compliment from a boss or colleague for a job well done? It can be difficult to get noticed at work, especially in large organizations. With lots of moving parts and ongoing projects, it takes effort to stand out and be recognized. It also comes with risks. There’s always the possibility that a big step to get recognized could backfire or a project could end up not being as successful as anticipated. But those risks are worth taking because being noticed is crucial for your career.
People who get noticed will grow and thrive in the future of work. They’re the people managers turn to when a new opportunity arises and they have a chance to grow and develop. Of course, it’s important to do good work simply to be a good employee, but it also helps to get extra recognition.
How do you get noticed at work? Make yourself visible and stand out. Here are three tips to getting noti…
Dec 2, 2019
How The World's Largest Design Firm is Thinking About the Future Workplace
Diane Hoskins is the co-CEO at Gensler, the largest global design and architecture firm with over 6,000 professionals across 50 offices. You may have seen some of the structures they have worked on, including the Shanghai Tower, the Facebook Headquarters in Menlo Park, the Microsoft headquarters in Ireland, the Ford Foundation Center in New York, and countless others all over the world.
When speaking about the work that Gensler does, Diane says, “We bring insight-driven and research-driven design solutions to some of the most challenging and most amazing opportunities out there, all around the world. Working with leading companies in the tech industry and governments, and law firms, and organizations all over the world and also projects like airports, and sports stadiums and hospitality and even health and wellness. And really bringing a full 360 understanding of really the transformation of live, work, and play. And our deep research is helping us to bring insight into the design s…
Nov 27, 2019
Employee Experience Isn’t Just A Work Thing, It’s A Human Evolution Thing
Humans have changed naturally over time. There’s a reason we don’t live in caves and work over fires any more—we’ve found a better and more efficient way. Human evolution didn’t stop with technology or modern times. We’re still changing and evolving as we find better ways to do things and as our values and concerns change.
Many people think of employee experience as something that just happens at work. Organizations want to create a great environment where employees are happy to come each day, but they only think about what happens during normal business hours and only for things that are work-related. That’s the old way of thinking.
Employee experience relates to every aspect of a person’s life, not just their time at work. When they feel engaged and empowered at work, they likely feel calmer and more confident outside of work. They know they are welcome to bring their true selves to work without judgement, and they don’t feel the pressure of dividing their lives i…
Nov 25, 2019
Blockchain and The Future of Work
Don Tapscott is the Co-Founder and Executive Chairman at the Blockchain Research Institute and bestselling author of 16 books. His most recent book is Blockchain Revolution: How the Technology Behind Bitcoin is Changing Money, Business, and the World.
Don has been on the Thinkers50 list 5 times, most recently in 2017 when he was ranked #2 on the list. He also wrote the afterword for my 2012 book, The Collaborative Organization.
At the Blockchain Research Institute, Don and his team study hundreds of cases and stories within 15 industries in order to document the strategic implications of blockchain. Because of this research they are able to help leaders in business and government navigate the blockchain revolution.
Why do we need blockchain? As Don explains up until now we have had intermediaries such as banks, brockers, credit card companies, governments, etc… in order to make sure that assets are safe. But these intermediaries are getting hacked and they sometimes have processes…
Nov 20, 2019
What Are You Doing To Convince People Why They Should Work For You?
The world of work is constantly changing. Perhaps one of the biggest changes is how we attract new talent. It used to be that whenever a company had a job to fill, people would line up to interview. They would share all of their qualifications and accomplishments to show the company why they should work there.
Things are different now. Just because a company has a job opening doesn’t mean people are automatically lining up to fill it. When potential job candidates come in, they’re more concerned about making sure the organization is the right fit for them instead of proving why they would be the best new employee. Instead of candidates convincing companies why they should work there, companies now have to convince job candidates why they should work for them.
What makes a potential employee want to work for an organization? They want to feel confident the company is the best fit for their interests, values, and skills. Job candidates want to be convinced in the following areas:…
Nov 18, 2019
Drones and The Future of Work
Ben Marcus is the Co-Founder and Chairman of Airmap, a company that develops the digital infrastructure, standards, and services for drones to fly safely at scale. Basically they create the digital highways that allow for drones to fly. He grew up near an airport and was always fascinated with aviation.
He became a pilot, a flight instructor and eventually a flight test engineer who certified planes. And it was while he was learning to fly that he began his journey to come up with the idea for AirMap.
Ben says, “When I was a flight instructor flying over Los Angeles, I used to fly every day, and have a student next to me, look down at the freeways, and they're jammed packed with people. These cars are just stopped, and I felt so bad for all these miserable people stuck in traffic and I'm the only one up here in the sky. And I was like, "Why is there not more people in the sky with me?" And so, I've dedicated my life and my career to helping extend the benefits of flight to more and…
Nov 13, 2019
Stop Hearing And Start Listening
When you’re at work, do you spend more time hearing or listening? They may seem similar, but the differences between just hearing and actually listening are astounding. With all the technology and distractions we have today, it’s crucial for us to be able to take a step back and really listen to what’s being said. As automation and AI become more prevalent at work, listening is a distinctly human attribute that sets us apart. Robots and technology can hear, but they can’t truly listen.
How do you move from hearing to really listening? Here are three tips:
* Practice active listening
Most people can tell when someone is actually listening to them and when they’re distracted and not really paying attention. It comes down to active listening. Hearing is a passive action, but really listening is active. To practice active listening, eliminate any distractions. Put your phone down, step away from the computer, or go into a quiet room. Make eye contact with the person speaking…
Nov 11, 2019
How to Navigate Your Organization Through Digital Transformation
Chuck Kosal is the Chief Transformation Officer at Deloitte Tax, the tax function of the global firm Deloitte. Deloitte has a total of around 312,000 employees around the world and the tax function is made up of around 12,000 of those employees. They were actually named “Americas Tax Technology Firm of the Year” for the 2nd year in a row by the International Tax Review.
Deloitte’s mission is to create digital innovation that helps its clients adapt to accelerating globalization, increased regulatory and business complexities and other significant transformational changes in the corporate landscape. And in order to accomplish this the organization has to continually evolve to keep up with the needs of their clients.
Part of Chuck’s role is to help the organization navigate change and transformation. This can be a very challenging task because people tend to resist change. Chuck says, “You think in any conversation people always embrace change, they talk about how they want t…
Nov 6, 2019
How The World Of Work Is Changing
How we work today is drastically different than it was even just a few years ago. It might seem like everything about the world of work is changing, but I narrowed it down to three main areas:
* Technology and Connectivity
The idea of working without a smartphone or the internet seems crazy, but that was standard practice not too long ago. Technology, especially AI and the Internet of Things, is constantly growing and evolving and bringing with it new opportunities for growth. Technology impacts how we work, where we work, and the type of work we do. Companies best positioned for the future leverage technology to increase productivity and efficiency.
* Power to Employees
A power shift has been happening in recent years that puts employees in the driver’s seat. Instead of having to explain to companies why they need to work there, companies now must explain to employees why then need them to work there. With more power comes increased transparency and an openness between organ…
Nov 4, 2019
The Customer of the Future with Futurist Blake Morgan
Blake Morgan is a best-selling author, speaker and futurist who focuses on customer experience. Her new book, The Customer of the Future: Ten Guiding Principles for Winning Tomorrow’s Business, was just released on October 29.
Creating great customer experience is critical for organizations looking to get and stay ahead. With all of the technologies we have and use on a daily basis (Netflix, Amazon, Spotify, etc…) as consumers we have come to expect personalized, easy, quick experiences. The problem is so many organizations are not keeping up with technology. Most, if not all, of us have stories about horrible experiences when interacting with insurance companies or cable companies or airlines.
Creating great customer experience is intertwined with creating great employee experience, because it is employees who are fulfilled, happy, and engaged who are going to be willing to go above and beyond for the customers. Employees who do not have the resources, tools, and training to do…
Oct 30, 2019
Why And How To Build Your Personal Brand
Huge thanks to VMware for sponsoring this episode! If you want a free copy of my upcoming book The Future Leader, go to http://bit.ly/vmwaregiveaways
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Today’s world is incredibly fast-paced and competitive. How do you stand out and build your career? By developing your personal brand.
Just like each company has a brand, each person also has a brand. It’s what you stand for and what you want people to know about you. Your personal brand could be a subject you are passionate about, a cause you care deeply for, or a message you want to share. A strong personal brand solidifies you as a subject matter expert and makes you more valuable in your company or in your own entrepreneurial endeavors. Building a personal brand takes time and effort. To build a maintain a strong personal brand, you need to focus on three areas:
* Consistency
Choose a brand and stick with it. What are you going to share with people? What do you want them…
Oct 28, 2019
How This CEO is Transforming His 22,000 Person Company to Focus on Purpose
Daniel Martinez-Valle is the CEO of Orbia, a global leader in polymers, materials, and infrastructure. Orbia has over 22,000 employees in 41 countries around the world. They are committed to “help the world take shape and create a more livable, lovable planet for everyone”.
The company has been undergoing a major transformation, including a recent name change, from Mexichem to Orbia. There are three main components to the transformation they are going through, when explaining them Daniel says, “The first one has to do with articulating a very clear purpose, that people in our organization and our stakeholders can really understand and connect to. The second one, our values, which is very important as we move along, and as people make daily choices within our organization and within our extended organizations. And then the third one is to really transform our company and to become truly, a customer-centric organization.” They are changing to be a more human company, one that ca…
Oct 23, 2019
How Do The Values Of Your Organization Come To Life?
Every organization has values that showcase what it stands for. In most cases, these are words like innovation, collaboration, or integrity that are used in the company’s mission statement and emblazoned on the walls. As important as many companies think their values are, in reality, most companies have similar values. Nearly every organization emphasizes things like trust, quality work, and authenticity.
So if the words themselves aren’t unique, what makes your company different? Employees don’t care as much about the words themselves as they do with how the values come to life. It’s one thing to say your organization values transparency and another thing to actually showcase transparency every day. It should be evident what your company stands for just by looking around the office.
Here are five ways to make your company’s values come to life: 1. Do a value audit.
Look around the physical workspace to see if you can find the values in action. Look for employees who ar…
Oct 20, 2019
The History of AI and What to Expect in the Future
Pamela McCorduck is an artificial intelligence (AI) expert and author. She has written 10 books, the newest one comes out this month and it is titled: This Could Be Important: My Life and Times with the Artificial Intelligentsia.
Pamela first became interested in AI when she was studying at the University of California, Berkeley. She was an English major, but she had a job typing in the business school, which is where she met some of the “fathers of AI”. Two assistant professors in the business school who she became acquainted with through her job approached her to see if she could help them work on a book. The book was on the topic of AI, something that at that time Pamela knew nothing about.
When she asked one of the assistant professors what AI was he gave her a great definition. He said, “I would define it as machines doing something that if a human did that we would say, 'Oh that's intelligent behavior.” Pamela said that while working on the book in 1960 she fell in lov…
Oct 16, 2019
The #1 Cause Of Stress In Our Lives And How To Manage It
It probably doesn’t come as a surprise that the majority of Americans say their job is the biggest cause of stress in their lives. As we push ourselves harder and are constantly connected, stress has started to take an even bigger toll on our lives. Many employees constantly feel burned out and overworked. When you’re stressed, you’re not as good of an employee or manager, and you’re definitely not as good of a friend, spouse, or parent outside of work.
A growing number of organizations have initiatives to promote health and wellness, but it really comes down to each employee taking control of his or her own mental and emotional health and control their stress.
Here are four ways to manage your stress at work: Take a stress audit.
What causes you stress at work? Is it having to do the work of two people because a co-worker left? Is it being called into meetings at all hours of the day? Is it a client with a bad attitude? Analyze what triggers your stress and try to find solu…
Oct 14, 2019
How to Balance Technology and Humanity
Sanjay Poonen is the Chief Operating Officer at VMware, a global leader in cloud infrastructure and digital workspace technology. They are the 5th largest software company and they currently have around 26,000 employees in offices around the world.
Sanjay has been with VMware since 2013, prior to that he was President & Corporate Officer — Platform, Applications & Industries at SAP. He started his career as a software engineer at Microsoft followed by Apple.
Technology today is advancing more rapidly than ever before, and it’s hard to tell what the world will look like 10–15 years from now. But Sanjay says some things will never change and as we progress we still need to make sure that we are training our children the fundamental principles of science, technology, engineering, math, logic, physics, etc…He also believes storytelling is an important skill for the future.
He says, “I think it’s super important that we emphasize storytelling to our kids. And I hope that…
Oct 9, 2019
AI Is Going To Impact Your Job, Here's Why You Should Let It
Conversations about AI are nearly unavoidable these days. It seems like everyone has an opinion about how AI is taking jobs from humans and how it will impact and transform our work situations. Many of those conversations are full of fear that the machines are taking over and soon employees in all industries will be replaced.
Here’s the truth: yes, AI is impacting jobs. But we should let it.
That doesn’t mean that machines will soon leave us completely unemployed and take over our world. Instead, it means that AI is augmenting and transforming jobs to make them better. Just because it’s new and unknown doesn’t mean it has to be scary. Here are three reasons you should let AI impact your job. AI removes mundane tasks.
AI is built to do repetitive tasks like data entry, analysis, and scheduling. The best applications for AI are areas where humans don’t typically want to spend their time. AI takes over those boring, mundane tasks and does them faster and more accurately th…
Oct 7, 2019
How ManpowerGroup is Using Science and Technology to Predict Human Performance
Dr. Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is the Chief Talent Scientist at ManpowerGroup and Professor of Business Psychology at Columbia University and the University College in London. Tomas has written 10 books and over 150 scientific papers on the psychology of talent, leadership, innovation and AI. He has also delivered multiple TED Talks, including one on “The Power of Negative Thinking” and another on “Why do so Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders”.
What is a Chief Talent Scientist? In Tomas’ case it means combining his expertise and background in organizational psychology and analytics & assessments. Tomas says, “If you combine both things, and an interest in understanding human performance, then you get the kind of interface or the main area niche that I specialize. And at Manpower Group, our agreement is to really use all of our data, our tools and expertise to predict performance and understand human potential in a deeper way.”
ManpowerGroup’s main purpose is to “under…
Oct 2, 2019
Why The AI Conversation Is Everywhere
AI and technology are at the forefront of so many conversations today, but why is that when neither AI or tech are new concepts, they have been around for decades. The reason is there are 4 major elements that are working together to create the perfect storm that is causing AI and tech to progress more quickly than ever before.
The 4 elements are:
* We have more data than ever before
* The cost of technology is decreasing
* The speed of technology is increasing
* Moore’s Law: the number of transistors on a chip doubles every year while the costs are halved.
All of these things are coming together to cause AI and technology to progress at a much faster pace than we have ever seen before.
Sep 30, 2019
An Inside Look at the Academy at Bank of America, Which Supports More Than 40,000 Employees Each Year
John Jordan is the Head of the Academy at Bank of America, an award-winning employee development organization that trains around 40,000 people per year. As John puts it, The Academy is, “truly an environment where people can practice, where they can learn that goes beyond just the typical sort of learning environment into a really high-touch coaching environment and we've really seen great results so far.”
John has been with Bank of America for about 16 years in a wide variety of roles, all of which have prepared him to lead The Academy.
The Academy is used to onboard new employees, to support and train employees looking to move into a leadership position, to help employees enhance their current skills and more. They use a combination of web-based training and hands on practice. One example of training they have is a client engagement simulator that allows employees to practice using the online systems while having client conversations at the same time. This allows employees to g…
Sep 25, 2019
The Price Of Being A Change Maker
There are a lot of people who feel like they are the lone changemaker in their organization. You may be in that position right now. It can feel extremely frustrating and lonely at times, but that shouldn’t stop you. Changemakers are persistent, resilient, and determined--they have to be.
As a changemaker you will probably get told ‘no’ a lot, you may be rejected, and you may find that people around you have a hard time keeping up. There is a price to pay to be a changemaker, but it is worth it.
Don’t give up! Keep pushing your organization and the people around you. The change will happen, maybe slower than you want, but it will.
Sep 23, 2019
How to Teach Empathy and Instill the Importance of Diversity and Inclusion: Insights from Ingersoll Rand's Chief Diversity Officer
Michelle Murphy is the Chief Diversity Officer and VP of Global Talent Acquisition at Ingersoll Rand, a manufacturing and sustainability company that creates products and services for commercial, industrial and residential customers. Some of their products include heating and air conditioning systems, golf carts, and power tools. They were formed in 1905 and today they have 40,000 employees around the world.
Michelle recently wrote an article, titled Truly Effective Diversity Training Can Be Measured in Goosebumps where she opened up about the moment when she realized the importance of diversity and inclusion inside and outside of the workplace. Her experience ignited a passion for creating a safe place to work inside of Ingersoll Rand as well as encouraging others to do the same in organizations around the world.
With the current world of work, where we are all so connected and where we can interact with customers and coworkers from countries all around the world the issue of diver…
Sep 18, 2019
Do You Know How to Reinvent Yourself?
One of the most important skills to have for the future of work is learning how to learn, but a major component that goes along with being a perpetual learner is consistently reinventing yourself. It’s not just about learning new things, it’s about how the outside world sees you.
Reinvention is about how you position yourself, it’s about how you market yourself and it is about the brand that you build. This is something that should be taking place consistently, whether it is every 3 years or every 10 years.
So when did you last reinvent yourself? If the answer is never, it’s time to start.
Sep 16, 2019
How Artificial Intelligence is Changing the Face of Business: Insights from Maria Bartiromo FOX Business Global Markets Editor and Anchor
My guest today is Maria Bartiromo, anchor and Global Markets Editor for FOX Business. Maria has been a journalist for 30 years, starting back in 1989 as a production assistant at CNN Business News. She has seen and reported on some of the world’s most major events which you will hear about in our discussion. Maria has an upcoming special debuting on September 22, 2019 tied to how Artificial Intelligence is changing the face of business and the workplace. Her research for this special included traveling across the country over the past year and interviewing the top tier CEOs leading the charge on this topic. In today’s conversation, you will hear some of her findings and what CEOs are saying about AI and technology. You will also hear Maria’s advice on how we should prepare for what’s to come, what assumptions she had at the beginning of the process that were proven wrong, what jobs will be most on-demand in the future, and how AI might impact leaders.
Maria Bartiromo is a FOX…
Sep 11, 2019
Two Things To Worry About For The Future of Work
There are two things about the future of work that worry me.
The first is if executives at organizations will choose to use AI and automation to replace humans instead of using them to augment humans.
The second is that if we as individuals take a passive role in our lives and careers. We cannot just sit back and watch from the sidelines as the world changes. That is a surefire way to ensure we get replaced by technology.
If we can work on both of these issues, then the future of work is optimistic
Sep 9, 2019
How Estonia Created a Digital Society for Entrepreneurs and the Impact it is Having
Today I am joined by Ott Vatter, the Managing Director at e-Residency, an initiative started by the Republic of Estonia to encourage more people to start businesses in Europe and to make it easier for remote workers and entrepreneurs to work while on the move. E-Residency was the first digital initiative of its kind, and there are now over 55,000 e-residents worldwide, including Bill Gates, Barack Obama, Pope Francis, and Angela Merkel. It has been so popular that e-residency applications have been growing faster than the number of births in the entire Estonian nation.
Today we are talking about how e-Residency came to be--what made the government of Estonia start this initiative, the benefits that have come from it, what impacts the country has seen from the program, and the possibility of other countries creating their own programs. You will also hear some mistakes they made along the way and how they overcame them.
Ott Vatter is the Managing Director at e-Residency, an initiative…
Sep 4, 2019
The Power of Saying "I Don't Know"
Have you ever been asked a question that you don’t know the answer to? What was your response? Did you make something up? Did you talk around the question? One thing I have learned over the years is the power of saying three simple words---”I don’t know”.
It might seem like a scary phrase, you might think people will lose respect for you or that they will think you’re an idiot. But I have found that the opposite is true. People tend to have more respect for someone who admits they don’t know everything.
I think getting comfortable with this phrase is something that is going to be increasingly important in the days ahead as the pace of change gets faster and faster. We are never going to be able to know everything about everything. There is power in admitting you don’t have all the answers.
Sep 3, 2019
How to Attract and Maintain a Diverse Workforce: Advice from 3M's Chief Diversity Officer
This week I am joined by Ann Anaya, the Chief Diversity Officer at 3M, a global company with 93,000 employees in 70 countries around the world. They use science and innovation to create and supply products for the fields of industry, worker safety, health care, and consumer goods. One of their most well-known products would be the Post-it Note.
In our conversation today you will hear Ann’s advice for people looking to make a career shift and why it is more important to focus on your skills rather than your past job titles. You will also hear how the Post-it was created, what people outside of HR need to know about diversity and inclusion, and what programs 3M has going on to emphasize and focus on diversity inside the organization.
Ann Anaya is the Chief Diversity Officer at 3M, a global company that creates and supplies products like the Post-it note. They have 93,000 employees in 70 countries around the world. Ann has been with 3M for six years. She actually began her career as…
Aug 28, 2019
The New Face Of Competition
In our increasingly connected world the way businesses compete has changed. It is no longer about competing within your industry or within your geographic location--you are competing with everyone. And that is especially true with talent.
The way that organizations compete has changed. It used to be that organizations would compete within their own industry or within their geographic location. But now with our world becoming more and more connected our organizations have to compete with everyone. And this is especially true in the war for talent.
Employees today have so many options. Organizations have to adapt if they want to attract and retain the best talent. It is not all about perks--you don’t have to have slides, ping pong tables, free food, and parties every week. The way to win the war is to bring humanity back into your organization. You have to treat your employees like humans.
Aug 26, 2019
The Six Leadership Principles This CEO Has Followed for Over 35 Years and Why They Work
My guest today is Farooq Kathwari, the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc., an American furniture chain founded in 1932 with more than 300 stores across the world. Farooq has a new book coming out on September 3 titled: Trailblazer: From the Mountains of Kashmir to the Summit of Global Business and Beyond.
He has a truly fascinating life story, some of which you will get to hear today. Our discussion today covers a lot of ground including how his background shaped his approach to leadership, the immigrant mentality to work, the six leadership principles he created over 35 years ago that his team still follows today, and how to get people around you to think like an entrepreneur.
Farooq Kathwari is the Chairman, President, and CEO of Ethan Allen Interiors, Inc. an American furniture chain founded in 1932. The company now has more than 300 stores across the United States, Canada, Europe, Asia, and the Middle East. Farooq has been President of the company since…
Aug 21, 2019
AI Stems From Our Desire To Forge The Gods
Artificial Intelligence is not a new concept. Actually, it has been around for thousands of years and you can see representations of the concept throughout history starting with Jason and the Golden Fleece.
Did you know that the concept of Artificial Intelligence has been around for thousands of years? One of the first representations of AI in history shows up in the story of Jason and the Argonauts. Jason had to travel to get the golden fleece and along the way, he had to battle it out with Talos, a huge non-human man made of bronze.
Representations of AI also appear in Judaism and Chinese, Greek and Indian Philosophy. The concept has been around for a very long time. Now we have things like Siri and Alexa and it shows that AI is part of our human nature to want something that is higher and greater than ourselves.
There is a quote from Pamela McCorduck that states, “Artificial Intelligence began with an ancient wish to forge the gods”. And that “ancient wish” is still aroun…
Aug 18, 2019
Deloitte's Chief Innovation & Digital Officer Shares Seven Factors that Impact Digital Transformation Success
This week I am joined by Ragu Gurumurthy, the Chief Innovation and Digital Officer at Deloitte. Today we are talking about a hot topic--digital transformation. What it actually means, what it looks like to be a digitally transformed company, what skills are needed to achieve transformation and much more. Ragu actually authored a report on this topic back in March of this year titled, Pivoting to Digital Maturity: Seven Capabilities Central to Digital Transformation. In our discussion you will also hear Ragu talks through the seven digital pivots mentioned in his report and why they matter.
Ragu Gurumurthy is the Chief Innovation and Digital Officer at Deloitte, the world’s largest professional services company with 240,000 employees around the world. Ragu has been with Deloitte for over 13 years. Prior to that, he worked at companies like T-Mobile, Morgan Stanley, and AT&T.
In March 2019 Ragu authored a report titled, Pivoting to Digital Maturity: Seven Capabilities Central to Dig…
Aug 14, 2019
How Do You Define Leadership?
Over the years I have heard many different definitions of leadership.
One person might say that a leader is someone who has followers. Another person might say a leader is someone who has a clear vision and inspires others to move towards a certain goal. Someone else might say a leader is a person who is trustworthy, who acts with integrity and treats people well.
Everyone’s definition of leadership is different because it is a very subjective thing. What is your definition of leadership? After you define your view of leadership, look around, you might unexpectedly find people around you who meet your criteria.
Aug 11, 2019
How to encourage innovative thinking inside of your organization: Chief Innovation Officer, Engineering at NASA Shares Techniques
My guest this week is Omar Hatamleh, the Chief Innovation Officer, Engineering at NASA and Executive Director of the Space Studies Program at the International Space University. In today’s discussion, you will hear how Omar has seen NASA change over the last 21 years, how they plan to use technology like 3D printing and AI in the future, and his thoughts on which technologies are overhyped. Omar also gives us a sneak peek into how NASA works including how they tackle problems, how they build effective teams and deal with failure, and how they focus on creative thinking.
Omar Hatamleh is the Chief Innovation Officer, Engineering at NASA and the Executive Director of the Space Studies Program at the International Space University. He is the former Deputy Chief Scientist Ames and he has been with NASA for the past 21 years.
Over his 21 years at the company, he has seen a lot of things change. Back at the time of the Apollo program, the whole environment at NASA was very competitive as…
Aug 7, 2019
The One Rule To Keep Growing And Learning
I’ve had a rule for myself that I have practiced for several years. The rule is to do one thing every year that I didn’t do the year before. Some examples of new things I have implemented over the years are my podcast, my future in 5 video series and my online courses.
Following this rule has allowed me to build up my personal brand and it has set me apart from anyone else in this space. It is important to note that this one item per year needs to be something fairly big, you can’t decide to do something for one week out of the year and expect results. It needs to be something major that become foundational elements in how you think and work.
This is a rule that anyone can implement, whether you are a freelancer, an executive, or an employee. So what one thing are you going to do this year that you did not do last year?
Aug 5, 2019
How the Canadian Public Service is Creating a Talent Cloud of Free Agents
Abe Greenspoon is the Program Lead for Canada’s Free Agents, a Government of Canada program launched in 2016 that proposes a new model for workforce mobilization. Abe has been in the public service of Canada for about 10 years.
The idea of creating a more autonomous, mobile workforce first came from a report released in 2012 from Deloitte. The report looked at how the government might reorganize itself to better respond to problems of the future and it proposed a concept of a cloud-based workforce based off of the IT cloud computing.
Essentially they have a group of workers in a database “available to do project-based work, move around the organization, solve problems, return to the cloud when they weren't needed anymore, and then just continue on to different projects.”
So when a position opens up, Abe and his team advertise for it within public service and those who are interested can apply. Abe says that this new way of flexible work has created greater employee satisfactio…
Jul 28, 2019
Intel's Chief Talent Officer on How to Transform Talent to Prepare for the Future
Amber Grewal is the Chief Talent Officer at Intel, a company with over 107,000 employees in 36 countries around the world. Prior to Intel Amber was the Corporate Vice President, Head of Global Talent Acquisition at IBM and the Vice President of Global Talent Acquisition at GE.
Some of the major trends Amber is paying attention to at the moment are:
* The pace at which technology is growing and changing
* The change in the average span of a company, which is now around 15 years and how to survive beyond that
* The growth in the gig economy
* The desire of employees to know they are doing meaningful work and making an impact
* Working with a multi-generational workforce
All of these trends are driving Intel to make changes internally and they are directing Amber to figure out how to evolve HR in order to address these challenges. At Intel, they have quite a few programs that their employees can take advantage of.
One of these programs is called Freelance Nation that launche…
Jul 25, 2019
Are You A Super Perpetual Learner
The term, “perpetual learner” has been thrown around a lot recently and while it is important to learn how to learn in today’s fast pace of change, the concept is not something new. We have always had to adapt throughout history, but the difference is now we have to be Super Perpetual Learners.
There are a lot of organizations and leaders talking about the concept of becoming a perpetual learner these days. I have spoken about it many times. But the truth is, this is not a new concept.
All throughout history we have had to adapt personally and professionally to new technology, new processes, new policies, etc...We have always had to be perpetual learners. The difference now is that we have to be SUPER perpetual learners.
The pace of change in our time is much faster than it has ever been in history. So now it is not just about learning to learn; it is about being a perpetual learner in a quick, applicable and frequent way.
Jul 22, 2019
How One of The Largest Private Equity Investment Firms Is Ensuring The Best Experiences For Their Employees
Anilu Vazquez-Ubarri is the Chief Human Resource Officer at TPG, one of the world’s largest private equity investment firms. Prior to moving to TPG, Anilu was the Chief Diversity Officer and Global Head of Talent Development at Goldman Sachs.
Anna Edwin, is the Global Head of Talent Development at TPG and she works very closely with Anilu. Prior to TPG Anna was the Head of Global Leadership Development at BlackRock and VP Human Capital Management at Goldman Sachs.
Anilu is actually the first ever CHRO at TPG and she is enjoying being able to shape that role. She says the firm has gone through several different evolutions of paying attention to its people, but they are now at a place where they are ready to have a specific team in place to intentionally create these experiences to set TPG apart from all other organizations.
Some of the programs, benefits and perks that they are currently working on include:
* Updated parental leave that gives 12-18 weeks for primary care and 2-4…
Jul 18, 2019
It's Time To Move Beyond Perks
We have come to understand that in order to attract and retain the best talent in the future of work, organizations must create a workplace where people want, not need, to show up to work. But in this effort to create great employee experience, we can sometimes get sidetracked with focusing solely on perks and benefits.
While perks and benefits can be very beneficial to employees, it can also be dangerous. There is a term in psychology known as the Hedonic Treadmill, also known as the Hedonic Adaptation. This is a tendency in humans that has been observed which shows that we quickly return to a relatively stable level of happiness despite major positive or negative events or life changes.
What does this mean for organizations implementing the latest and greatest perks and benefits at the drop of a hat? Well, it means we adapt to our surroundings quickly. So, let’s say your organization implements a new policy stating that there will be free food everyday and every Friday is bring y…
Jul 15, 2019
Why IPsoft CEO Believes The Labor Force Will Be 50-50 Digital And Human In 2025 And How We Should Prepare
Chetan Dube is the CEO at IPsoft, an American multinational technology company which primarily focuses on Artificial Intelligence. IPsoft has just over 2,000 employees in 15 countries.
When you think of AI you might remember an experience you’ve had with a chatbot when trying to contact a company in order to ask a question, make a return, or purchase an item. Most of our experiences with chatbots are extremely frustrating and commonly end with us screaming “agent” into the phone. But IPsoft is working on solving this problem.
Chetan says the problem is the average IQ of the chatbots and virtual assistants is around that of a 5 or 6 year old human. How can you expect great customer service from a five year old? You can’t. So what IPsoft is doing is studying the human brain and finding ways to mimic the human hippocampus, ways to make chatbots and virtual assistants more flexible and able to read a customer’s mood.
So where are we now in the grand scheme of things being able…
Jul 11, 2019
How Experience Is Shaping Your Employees' Relationships With You, & Your Organization
If I were to ask you, when was the last time you spent time or money on creating an experience for yourself, what would the answer be? Most likely, the answer would be a few weeks ago, a few days ago, or maybe even earlier today. Experiences are genuinely human things, we care about them a lot.
Experiences are connected to our thoughts, emotions and memories. Think back to a big moment in your life, perhaps it was when you bought your first house, the day you graduated from college, the birth of your first child, or the first day in a new job. I bet you can remember the emotions you felt and the things you were thinking. Were you happy, sad, excited, angry?
Our experiences have a huge impact on us and they shape our relationships with others. With experience being that influential, you can see why it is so important for organizations to create positive experiences for their people. It will impact the relationships between your people and management, each other, the organization and t…
Jul 8, 2019
How Citi Is Upskilling Employees, Preparing For AI, Getting Involved In Social Issues And Much More
Cameron Hedrick is the Chief Learning Officer at Citi, a 200 year old financial services company with around 200,000 employees in 100 countries. Cameron has been with Citi for 16 years and prior to that he worked at Fidelity for over 7 years.
As Chief Learning Officer at Citi Cameron is responsible for the performance rating system inside the organization, defining the corporate culture, and of course the learning platforms.
Citi is addressing a lot of key issues including climate change, urbanization, AI and automation, changing demographics, and plenty of others. Some of these issues may make sense for an organization to focus on, such as AI and automation, but how does climate change and urbanization affect Citi and other organizations?
When it comes to urbanization Citi realizes that there is currently a higher concentration of people in big cities--New York, Chicago, LA, etc… and so in the past a lot of companies have focused on putting headquarters there to draw in the best…
Jul 5, 2019
The Definition Of "Work" Has Changed
In the past when we thought about work we mostly thought of it as a job where we put in our time and then we make money to pay the bills. But the mindset around work is shifting and work is much more than just a paycheck.
Now work is more about a sense of self, identity, and purpose. The impact that our work has on our customers, our communities and the world gives us a reason for being. People aren’t picking jobs for just salary anymore, they want to feel as though their work has meaning.
What are you doing as an organization to account for this new way of thinking about work? Are you still thinking about job openings in your organization as a position to fill with a warm body who has decent skills? Or are you thinking about how someone can use that job to bring meaning and purpose to their life and how they will be able to impact the world around them within that role?
Jul 1, 2019
Bestselling Author And Zen Buddhist Teacher On How To Reclaim Joy, Combat Stress, And Find Meaning At Work
Haenim Sunim is the bestselling author of Love for Imperfect Things: How to Accept Yourself in a World Striving for Perfection and The Things You Can See Only When You Slow Down: How to be Calm in a Busy World. He is also a monk and a Zen Buddhist teacher. Haemin was born and raised in South Korea and moved to the US when he was 18 to study at Berkeley, Harvard, and Princeton. While he was working on his Master’s degree program he went back to South Korea and received the proper monastic training there.
He has over 1 million followers on Twitter, Facebook, and Instagram. His first book sold over 3 million copies and he has taught Asian religions at Hampshire College in Massachusetts for seven years.
In our society today people always seem to be so busy. We get burnout, stressed, overworked, overwhelmed. Haemin believes it is because we are goal driven, striving to get the end result as quickly as possible, and we aren’t taking time to enjoy what we are doing. We have lost the j…
Jun 27, 2019
The Two Ways Of Thinking
In Psychology there are two ways of thinking; System 1, which is a fast, intuitive way, almost like a gut reaction and then there is System 2, which is a more conscious, purposeful way of thinking.
A lot of times in our organizations we tend to make decisions about our people initiatives and employee experiences in a System 1 type thinking. We react quickly, we don’t think about it too deeply, we just do something for the sake of saying we did something.
We need to take a step back and be more conscious about our decisions around our initiatives to understand what we are doing and why. We need to act in a more mindful, purposeful way instead of reacting in a knee-jerk fashion. Our initiatives will be much more effective and successful if we can change our way of thinking.
Jun 24, 2019
Shaping The Future Of A City: Insights From President And CEO Of The Chattanooga Chamber Of Commerce
Christy Gillenwater is the President & CEO of the Chattanooga Chamber of Commerce. Christy has been in the Chamber of Commerce and Economic Development field for over 20 years, mostly in various cities throughout Indiana. She moved to Chattanooga in 2017. Chattanooga is the first city to be twice named Outside Magazine’s “Best Town Ever” and it was recently ranked one of U.S. News’ Best Places to Live.
What does a Chamber of Commerce actually do? Christy shares that while every chamber has differences, one of the main focuses they all share is “the economic prosperity of their geographic region, so whether that's the county, their city, or a multi-state, multi-county area, they focus on making sure that their existing businesses can grow, thrive and prosper, that those companies have the talent they need to meet existing and future customer demands. They really think about and partner with their elected leaders, and business leaders, around what does their community need to…
Jun 20, 2019
Optimism Is Crucial To Our Success In The Future Of Work
Looking around at the world today it is so easy to get down, be negative, give up hope, and have a bad attitude. But in order to be successful in this new world of work it is crucial to be optimistic. We have to be positive, otherwise we lose our desire to take action and move forward.
So how can we be more optimistic when things seem to be so dark and crazy all around us? One thing we can do is to focus on the things we are grateful for. Come up with a list of 5 things each day that you are thankful for and think about those when you are stressed or overwhelmed. We can also think about what impact we can have and things that we can do to for our family, our community and our organizations that can make a difference. And maybe we need to limit the time we spend on social media or the time we spend watching or reading the news.
It may seem like a challenging thing to do, but it is so important to our success, in work and in life, that we be optimistic.
Jun 17, 2019
Why Generalists Will Triumph Over Specialists In The Future Of Work
David Epstein is the author of two top 10 New York Bestselling books, The Sports Gene and Range: Why Generalists Triumph in a Specialized World, which is the topic of today’s discussion. David has a fascinating and very diverse background that led him to write both of these books.
David has a Master’s degree in environmental science and journalism. While he was in college studying to be a scientist he was also a competitive runner. When one of his teammates died in a race, David decided to merge his interests of science and sports together to figure out what happened and why extremely fit athletes can suffer sudden cardiac arrest.
While investigating the disease he ended up writing for Sports Illustrated. During his time at Sports Illustrated he wrote about things like the only living Olympian to have survived a concentration camp and the revelation that Yankees third baseman Alex Rodriguez was using steroids. He was also asked to speak at a conference about sports development w…
Jun 13, 2019
Will Technology Replace or Augment Humans? It’s Our Choice!
We tend to talk about technology as if it is its own entity that has its own mind, mission and agenda. “Technology is going to replace our jobs, it is going to get out of hand, it will take over the world!”
But the truth is we have control over technology, it is our choice how we use it. We can decide whether we want technology to replace us or augment us. There are already a lot of great organizations, like Accenture, Amazon and McDonald’s, making the conscious decision to use technology to augment their people.
Technology is a tool, how are you going to use that tool? Are you going to let it replace jobs, or are you going to find innovative ways to use technology to help your people get their work done?
Jun 10, 2019
Creating Autonomy And Internal Mobility For Employees: Insights From The CEO Of Globant
Martin Migoya is the Co-Founder and CEO of Globant, an IT and Software development company that uses the latest technologies transform organizations. They have worked with companies such as Disney, the Met Police in London, and the MTA in New York. Globant was founded back in 2003 by four founders and today they have almost 10,000 employees in 16 countries.
Creating and maintaining a culture with a handful of people is one thing, but how has Globant scaled that culture while growing to almost 10,000? Martin explains that one of the main goals of their culture was to go against the typical command and control system that a lot of the professional service industry has always had.
The leaders at Globant use a very unique method to give their employees autonomy and internal mobility. The company is made up of what they call Pods and they currently have around 1,200 pods. Each pod is made up of a group of 8 to 20 people, depending on the project they are working on. The pods can stay toge…
Jun 6, 2019
Real Time Data And Decision Making Inside Of Our Organizations
If you are a sports fan and you watch games on TV, whether you like football, soccer, baseball, hockey, etc...you may be amazed by how fast the commentators get their information. They are constantly getting real time stats so they can keep viewers informed throughout the game.
During a recent conversation with Mihir Shukla, CEO of Automation Anywhere, he brought up this point about sports and he related it to organizations, asking why we don’t have this capability within organizations to have real-time, constant stats.
Think about how this capability would change the way we work. It would change the way we make decisions, it would change the way we lead organizations, it would change the speed at which we can keep up with competitors.
Jun 3, 2019
The CEO Of Gallup Shares Six Things You Need To Change In Your Organization Now
Jim Clifton is the Chairman and CEO of Gallup, an American analytics and advisory company founded in 1935. Jim has been the CEO since 1988 and under his leadership Gallup has expanded from a predominantly US based company to a worldwide organization with 30 offices in 20 countries. Gallup is made up of 2,000 professionals plus 35,000 contract workers across 160 countries.
Jim is also the co-author of a new book called It’s The Manager, which is based on data Gallup has collected from their largest study on the future of work. The book examines 52 discoveries found from that study that point to why managers are the biggest factor in your organization’s long-term success.
From the Gallup study Jim and co-author Jim Harter found six things that have been done in the past that most organizations still seem to hold on to. These six things need to be changed inside of organizations immediately in order for organizations to stay relevant and successful in the future of work.
One of the…
May 30, 2019
Think Of Yourself As An App
Most, if not all, of us have smartphones these days and we all have our favorite apps. Whether you like to use Instagram, Pandora, Google Maps, or Ebay, “there’s an app for that”.
You may have noticed that every once in awhile your apps will update. Just like the apps on your smartphone, we--as individuals, leaders and employees--need to constantly update ourselves. We have to master learning how to learn so that we can keep our skills up to date. This is the way to succeed in the future of work and the way to futureproof your career.
What kind of an app are you and how often are you taking time to update your skills?
May 28, 2019
Jacob Morgan Answers Your Questions About Leadership, Employee Experience, The Future Of Work And More
Last week I went to social media to find out what your questions are related to leadership, employee experience, and the future of work. You asked and now today, I answer.
The following questions are the ones I am addressing on today’s episode:
* Often leaders are on the fence about investing in employee experience, especially when it requires outside support or consulting. What are the top 3 things you've heard from leaders that have pushed them to actually take action on an employee experience shift?
* Would you make any changes to your top 5 soft skills for the future (perpetual learning, accountability, empathy, self-awareness, entrepreneurial thinking) if you were to create the list at this moment again?
* What are the top 5 hard skills that will be relevant in the future? Now, it seems it is programming, however, a lot of it will be probably replaced by AI, therefore what hard skills will be the most relevant in the future?
* If you were responsible for employee engag…
May 23, 2019
Are We Living In The Future Of Work?
There are countless conversations, concerns, theories and ideas about the future of work. Will AI and automation take over? Will we experience major job loss? Will there be a ton of new jobs created? Will we all be on Universal Basic Income and be able to do whatever we want?
But what if the future of work is exactly the way it is now? What if in the future of work there is still a majority of workers around the world who don’t like their jobs, who are disengaged and who are not treated well by their organizations? This is something we need to think about and also consider a major concern.
We need to make sure that in the future of work we create jobs that are meaningful, organizations that are human, and work that we actually want to do.
May 20, 2019
Keeping Up With The Accelerating Pace Of Change: Insights From Mastercard's President Of Operations And Technology
Ed McLaughlin is the President of Operations and Technology at Mastercard, where he has worked for the past 14 years. In his current role Ed oversees all of Mastercard’s technology functions including the global network, processing platforms, information security, and technology operations.
As Ed points out, working in technology doesn’t mean he is sitting in a cubicle coding all day. Work in technology is very much a people centered role. “I think technology has always been people at its heart. What really matters is who are the people, and how well we use the stuff, how good we're at it, and how much we understand what all of that's for. Technology is always for a purpose, and it's people that give it that purpose. Yeah, I spend a lot of time. I still code every once in a while, but it's not the work of doing it, it's really working together to create the value that is. I think just about everything we do is either done through or with technology these days. It's just really h…
May 16, 2019
Where Is Your Yellow Notepad?
Sam Walton was the creator of Walmart and Sam’s Club, two hugely successful retailers that have been around for many, many years. He had a practice that he carried out for many years at the beginning of his career that we may view as simple nowadays, but it was extremely effective and, I think, something we can learn from today.
Sam would take a yellow notepad and walk around his store. He would stop and engage with both employees and customers as he walked around and he would ask them questions--how’s it going? What is it like to work here? What do you find frustrating? What do you like about the store? He would then take his notes from these conversations to the leadership team and they would make decisions based on the feedback from the employees and customers.
My question for you is, what are you doing today to replicate that practice? Where is your yellow notepad? With technology, of course, we are able to do this at a much larger scale. But it is important to be human, it i…
May 13, 2019
How Fidelity Investments Is Using Data And Analytics To Create A Diverse And Inclusive Organization
Amy Philbrook is the Head of Diversity and Inclusion at Fidelity Investments, a financial services company with around 50,000 employees. She’s been with Fidelity for 24 years working in almost every department. She started her career there in customer service answering phones.
“Diversity is the presence of differences and inclusion is a leveraging those differences to create value,” Amy says. They are two separate things and you can easily have one without the other. It’s easy to feel included on a team full of people who are just like you. And you can have a very diverse team, but if you don’t create an environment that is inclusive and that encourages everyone to share their ideas, those differences won’t really matter. You have to have both diversity and inclusion.
As the head of D&I, Amy works closely with the People Analytics team at Fidelity to make sure they leverage data in order to are make the best choices for the organization. “Data is the foundation for ever…
May 9, 2019
Don't Empower Your Employees, Stop Disempowering Them
One of the common questions I have been asked in the past is, how do we empower our employees. For me the answer has always been about investing in employee experience. But lately I have been thinking about the root cause of this problem. Why do we need to empower our people in the first place?
If you think about an employee’s first day at work, they are already engaged, excited, they want to be there. They are already empowered. The problem lies with us as leaders. We actually disempower our employees, not on purpose, but over time it happens. We bog our employees down with rules, regulations, policies, hierarchy, bureaucracy and other outdated workplace practices.
And then once we bog them down and strip them of their power we ask, “how do we empower our employees?”. Instead of empowering them, we need to figure out how to not disempower them to begin with.
May 6, 2019
The Best Leadership Advice From Walmart, Box, Lego, National Grid, WD-40 And Others
Having great leadership inside of an organization is critical. An organization can succeed or fail based on how it is lead. I’ve had some great discussions on the podcast over the years on this topic of leadership and today I’m sharing a few of my favorite clips.
Garry Ridge is the President and CEO of WD-40. Garry knows a lot about leadership as he has been a leader inside of WD-40 for over 30 years in various roles including Executive Vice President and Chief Operating Officer. He also co-authored the book “Helping People Win at Work: A Business Philosophy called “Don’t Mark My Paper, Help Me Get an A”.
Garry defines his role as a leader as “taking care of people” and he believes wholeheartedly in the concept of servant leadership. He says, “As we stand as leaders, it's our job to ensure that we have a viable strategy, we have a business model, we have resources, we have goals, we have all of the things that it takes to have a business that can perform. Once we've…
May 2, 2019
The Real Question Around Jobs and Automation
AI and Automation is still at the forefront of so many conversations that business leaders are having. And the core issue that continues to be the main focus of these conversations is whether we are going to create more jobs than we replace or vice versa.
I have a different concern when it comes to AI and Automation. My concern is, are we going to create jobs that people actually want. What if we are able to create enough new jobs to make up for those replaced by technology, but they are jobs that people hate. What if they are jobs that make people feel like cogs? What if these jobs leave them feeling disengaged or undervalued? Are these jobs worth creating?
So the conversation I think we need to be focusing on now is, how do we create new jobs that people actually want to have?
Apr 29, 2019
The Nine Lies About Work: Insights From Cisco’s SVP Of Leadership And Team Intelligence
Ashley Goodall is that SVP of Leadership and Team Intelligence at Cisco and the author of the new book, Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World. Prior to Cisco, Ashley spent 14 years at Deloitte where he worked in several roles, including Director and Chief Learning Officer, Leadership Development.
When conducting research for the book, Ashley and co-author Marcus Buckingham found that a lot of the “basic truths” people think they know about work are actually not true at all. These nine lies that they found are based on data and evidence from the real world of work, it’s not just an opinion or a philosophy.
These nine lies found in the world of work are:
* People care which company they work for
* The best plan wins
* The best organizations cascade goals
* People are well rounded
* People need feedback
* People can reliably rate other people
* People have potential
* Work life balance matters most
* Leadership is a thing
If yo…
Apr 25, 2019
Every Day Should Be Employee Appreciation Day
Most organizations set aside specific time to appreciate employees. Sometimes it is one day a year, sometimes once a month, but it is usually sporadic. Usually it consists of one day a year where the company provides food, games, activities, prizes, etc… to celebrate their employees.
But I believe everyday should be employee appreciation day. Not necessarily having a party everyday, but doing things to show your employees that they matter and that they are doing a great job. Something as simple as having an open door policy for a set time every single day as a manager. What would your organization look like if you treated every single day as a People Day or an Employee Appreciation Day? Would this make your organization a place where your employees want, not need, to show up? How would it improve the morale, productivity, happiness, work ethic and atmosphere in your organization?
Apr 22, 2019
Why Organizations, Governments, Educational Institutions, And Individuals Need To Work Together To Shape The Future Of Work
Thomas Kochan is the George M. Bunker Professor of Work and Employment Relations at MIT’s Sloan School of Management and co-director of the MIT Institute for Work and Employment Research. Thomas has actually been a faculty member at MIT since 1980. In 2010, he led the formation of the Employment Policy Research Network, an online think tank on the subject of employment. In 2015, he was honored by the Aspen Institute with a Faculty Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award for his research and teaching on business practices that contribute to an economy that works for all. Thomas is the author of Shaping the Future of Work: What Future Worker, Business, Government, and Education Leaders Need To Do For All To Prosper and Restoring the American Dream: A Working Families' Agenda for America.
Thomas has been looking at the future of work and employment for 40 years, he has seen the workforce and the economy change quite a bit over the years but he says our policies, values, and practices in Ame…
Apr 18, 2019
The One Trait Most Leaders Don't Have
Are you a leader that truly acts like a coach and mentor? A leader who actually believes in being a coach or mentor to their employees doesn’t stop once the employees get to a certain level of success. They are willing to help others be more successful, even if it means the employees become more successful than they are.
But what I often see is that leaders act as a coach or mentor to employees up until they reach a certain level of success and then the leader holds the employees back or pushes them down, so as not to be outdone by their mentees. But that is not a true coach/mentor.
A true coach/mentor guides, encourages and helps their mentees and when the mentees reach a level of greater success than the actual coach/mentor the coach/mentor is filled with pride, accomplishment and happiness knowing that they helped the mentees get there.
Think about the relationship between a parent and child. If a child becomes successful in education or sports or a special skill, the parent do…
Apr 15, 2019
The President Of Amy's Kitchen On Finding Your Purpose And Figuring Out The Right Company To Work For
Xavier Unkovic is the President of Amy’s Kitchen, a family owned, privately held company founded in 1987 that manufactures organic and non-GMO convenience and frozen foods. Amy’s Kitchen employs around 2,400 people in California, Oregon, and Idaho and their products are sold all around the country. Prior to Amy’s Kitchen Xavier was the Global President of Mars Drinks, a company known for brands like M&Ms, Uncle Ben’s, Dove, and Orbit.
When asked how he was able to make his way up to the president of a company Xavier said it was a combination of hard work, great mentors and coaches, a love for the work he is doing, and the ability to surround himself with great people. He says being a leader is not about knowing it all.
“I keep saying to my managers, when you go to school, we teach you at school to have all the answers and it's pretty damaging when it comes to the future at work where at work, it's not about having the answers, it's about providing the answers together. Not…
Apr 11, 2019
What Is The Internet Of Things?
The Internet of Things (IoT) is having a huge impact on the way we live and the way we work. But many people are still trying to figure out what IoT actually is. Here is my simple explanation.
The Internet of Things (IoT) is a huge topic of discussion these days and it is having a profound impact on the way we live and work. But many people are still trying to figure out what IoT actually means.
Simply put, IoT is all devices that have an on and off switch, are powered by electricity or batteries that have the ability to be connected together and share data with each other. You may already have a lot of these devices in your home, such as Smart TVs, Smartphones, Fitbits, Alexa, etc….
Eventually there will be many other objects in this category as technology allows things such as toothbrushes, coffee pots, cars, and calendars to be connected. There will be a day when you can wake up to your alarm and all at once your coffee pot will know that you are up and start making a cup of co…
Apr 8, 2019
CEO Of IDEO On How Leaders Can Apply Design Thinking Inside Of Their Organizations And Why They Must
Tim Brown is the CEO of IDEO, the global design and innovation company behind projects such as the first Apple mouse and the first notebook style computer. The team of around 800 people are located around the world and they come from a wide variety of backgrounds--everything from chefs, practicing physicians, software engineers, to filmmakers and everything in between. But they all have one thing in common, a methodology of design.
Tim is also the author of the book, Change by Design: How Design Thinking Transforms Organizations and Inspires Innovation. What does design thinking actually mean? Tim says, “The big difference between thinking and design thinking is the doing bit, which doesn't crop up in the term design thinking...When you start the creative process you do not know what the answer is. Most people when they're presented with the problem of solve a problem but they have no idea what the answer is, they're sort of, they don't know what to do with it. It's like the proverb…
Apr 4, 2019
Think Like A Futurist
Imagine you are looking through the narrow end of a paper cone. The space in the cone closest to your eye is very narrow and closed in, but the farther out into the cone you look the wider it becomes.
Futurists use a tool/technique called the cone of possibilities to explore different scenarios that could happen in the future. The narrow part of the cone is the near future, it includes present time and a couple of months or even a couple of years into the future. But as the cone gets wider it signifies time further out into the future--think 10, 20 or even 50+ years in the future. It is wider because there are many more scenarios/possibilities that could happen that far in the future vs. what could happen in the near future.
Futurists use a couple of different ways to think in terms of scenarios. The first scenario they use is to look at their ideal scenario. What they would like to happen. The second scenario they use is a likely scenario, what might happen realistically. Then the t…
Apr 1, 2019
Founder Of The Ritz-Carlton On Creating Purpose For Your Employees, Why It Matters, And How To Do It
Horst Schulze is the Co-Founder and former President of the Ritz-Carlton and author of the new book, Excellence Wins: A No-Nonsense Guide to Becoming the Best in a World of Compromise. Even though he is technically retired, he is staying extremely busy. Horst is currently the Chairman Emeritus of Capella Hotel Group, he is on five boards, and he does some consulting work.
Horst actually started in the hotel industry when he was 14 years old as a busboy. From there he worked his way up--waiter, kitchen staff, club manager, catering manager up to regional VP for 10 Hyatt hotels and then manager of food and beverage operations for all Hyatt hotels before ultimately receiving the call to help start a new hotel brand. When asked what career he would have had if he wasn’t in the hotel industry Horst said, “The hotel business. Again, and again, and again. I don't want to do anything else. That's what I love.”
A lot has changed in the hotel industry, and work in general, in the past se…
Mar 28, 2019
Shifting From Linear To Exponential Thinking
When we normally think about change, whether in our organizations or even in our personal lives, we tend to think about linear change. But what would happen if we thought about exponential change instead?
What’s the difference? Well a couple of years ago the famous futurist, Ray Kurzweil did an interview with the Financial Times and in the interview he compared linear growth to exponential growth. He said, “30 steps linearly gets you to 30. One, two, three, four, step 30 you’re at 30. With exponential growth, it’s one, two, four, eight. Step 30, you’re at a billion”
So taking 30 linear steps is not going to get you very far, but taking 30 exponential steps would be the equivalent of traveling around the world 26 times! There’s no telling where you would end up.
We live in an exponential world where things are changing very quickly, especially technology. In order to stay relevant we need to take our linear assumptions, ideas and concepts and adjust them for an exponent…
Mar 25, 2019
Developing A 21st Century Workforce: Insights From The CEO Of Siemens USA
Barbara Humpton is the CEO of Siemens USA, a global company that operates in several areas including industry, energy, healthcare, and infrastructure. They have almost 400,000 employees around the world in 190 countries and Barbara is responsible for over 55,000 of those employees and the company’s largest market with over $23 Billion in revenue and $5 billion in annual exports.
Her journey to becoming CEO has not been a typical one, but it certainly is an interesting one. She studied mathematics in college and initially thought she would be a math professor, like her parents. But after college she got an offer to join IBM in software programming. In 2008 she became the Vice President at Lockheed Martin where she oversaw biometrics programs, border and transportation security, and critical infrastructure protection. She also worked as the Vice President at Booz Allen Hamilton, managing the program performance and new business in the Department of Justice and Department of Homeland S…
Mar 21, 2019
Should You Standardize Your Corporate Culture?
Business leaders at companies around the world are always asking, “how can we standardize corporate culture across all of our locations?” My response is, “do you really want to do that?”
Standardizing corporate culture is a subject that comes up quite frequently during my conversations with business leaders at companies around the world. They want to know how they can make it so that whether a person walks into their company in Australia, Japan, England or the U.S., they see and feel the same things.
But my question is, “do you really want to do that?”. People across the world are all going to have different behaviors, customs, beliefs, etc…and that’s okay. People in your organization should be able to be themselves at work. So if your office in Sydney, Australia looks different than the one in London, England that’s to be expected.
What we really want to standardize across all of our organizations is our values--doing good, collaboration, fun, trust, transparency,…
Mar 18, 2019
How The CEO Of Zapier Leads A 100% Remote Team
Wade Foster is the Co-Founder and CEO of Zapier, a company that allows you to connect the apps you use daily in order to automate tasks and save time. The company was started back in 2011 as a side hustle for Wade and fellow founders, Brian and Mike. They now have 200 employees all over the world and over 100,000 customers.
All 200 employees work remotely from different locations, they don’t have any office buildings. Some managers might worry about leading a remote team, but Wade says there’s really no difference between leading an in person team versus leading a remote team. Whether or not you can see your team, the only way to know if your team is getting work done is to see the work, not the people themselves. You may have employees showing up to an office space everyday, sitting at their desks all day long, but it doesn’t mean they are being productive.
Wade says all managers, whether they have a remote team or not, need to understand the company’s goals, they need to kn…
Mar 14, 2019
The One Game Business Leaders Should Play
The game of Chess has been around since the 6th Century AD and it has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember. I think all business leaders should learn how to play because there are so many business lessons we can learn from Chess.
I am quite obsessed with the game of Chess. It has been a huge part of my life for as long as I can remember and it is something that I really enjoy doing. Chess is not only a fun and challenging game, but it also provides many life lessons.
I think all business leaders should learn how to play chess because it can teach us a lot about business.
Here are the 6 biggest business lessons I have learned from playing chess:
1. How to work with AI
2. How to look at the big picture
3. Patience
4. How to look at several different situations and figure out what outcomes each may bring
5. How to identify patterns
6. How to be comfortable with the unknown
All of these lessons are important to learn and will help you be a better leader. So,…
Mar 11, 2019
Columbus 2020: How This City In Ohio Is Shaping The Future Of Jobs And Preparing The Next Generation
Kenny McDonald is the President and Chief Economic Officer of Columbus 2020, an economic development organization for the 11-county Columbus, Ohio region. This initiative was started back in 2010 by a team of more than 20 economic development experts who wanted to actively do something to improve their area after the ‘07-’08 recession.
At the beginning, in 2010, the team behind Columbus 2020 came up with four main long-term goals that they would focus on over the next 10 years. The goals were:
* Add 150,000 net new jobs
* Generate $8 billion of capital investment
* Raise personal per capita income by 30 percent
* Earn recognition as a leader in economic development
They didn’t want to just recover from the recession, they wanted the city of Columbus to do better than it ever had before. And this strategy paid off, in 2018, just 8 years into their 10-year plan, they had already met three out of the four goals.
Now a big focus for Columbus is preparing the workforce of…
Mar 8, 2019
It's Not Human Resources, It's Human Transformation
When we think of traditional HR functions we typically think about hiring, firing, policies, training and rules/regulations. But in the future of work we need a shift in the role that HR plays in the organization. We need HR to not be like HR.
I know we cannot ignore the traditional HR duties, but I think those duties should make up a small percentage of time compared to how much time is spent on driving change in the organization.
That is what HR should be focusing on. It should be called Human Transformation instead of Human Resources. Why? Because their role should be centered on helping the organization grow, evolve and move forward. HR should be a part of the company, not because legally it has to be there, but because the organization wants and needs transformational growth.
Mar 4, 2019
How To Lead, Motivate, And Collaborate With A Team You Cannot See: Advice From The CEO Of LiveOps
Greg Hanover is the CEO of LiveOps, a virtual call center company that provides services for a wide variety of industries including healthcare, retail, travel, hospitality, and insurance. LiveOps has a little over 200 full-time employees and they have 14,000 independent contractors who work virtually from home. Having a team of virtual agents has allowed LiveOps to be more cost effective, flexible, and innovative than a traditional brick and mortar call center.
Having flexible and remote work options is becoming more and more valuable to employees, no matter what industry they are in. But a lot of executives shy away from giving these options because of the concerns that come with leading a virtual workforce. How do you know if they are actually working? How do you measure productivity? How do you create a cohesive corporate culture when not everyone is in the same building everyday?
Greg says it ultimately comes down to your communication strategy. Having effective and consistent co…
Feb 28, 2019
The Key To Being A Great Manager
There are many things that make up a great manager or leader. But I have identified one key characteristic that all truly great leaders and managers should have. It is something that employees all over the world consistently ask for and want. It is the ability to think in terms of a coach or mentor.
I have been inside a wide variety of organizations all across the world and have found that a lot of organizations say that they encourage and train their leaders to be mentors and coaches, but the truth is the coaching and mentoring only goes up to a certain point.
A leader who actually believes in being a mentor or coach to their employees doesn’t stop once the employees get to a certain level of success. The leaders goal is help others be more successful, even if it means the employees become more successful than the leader.
But what I often see is that leaders mentor/coach employees up until they reach a certain level of success and then the leader holds the employees back or pushe…
Feb 25, 2019
What Is Emotional Intelligence And Why Is It A Skill You Need To Focus On Now?
Dr. Marc Brackett is the Founding Director of the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence and Professor in the Child Study Center at Yale University and Dr. Robin Stern is the Associate Director of Partnerships for the Yale Center for Emotional Intelligence, a licensed psychoanalyst, educator, and author. Dr. Stern is a licensed psychoanalyst, with over twenty-five years of experience treating individuals, couples, and groups, holding a doctorate in applied psychology from New York University. She is on the faculty of Teacher’s College, Columbia University.
Dr. Brackett is the lead developer of RULER (an acronym for the five key emotion skills) which is an evidence-based approach to social and emotional learning that has been adopted by over 1,500 public, charter, and private pre-school to high schools across the United States and in other countries. Dr. Brackett has published 125 scholarly articles and has received numerous awards for his research on social and emotional learning.…
Feb 22, 2019
Want Job Security? Then You Must Possess This One Crucial Skill
In this new world of work skills are vitally important. One of the most crucial skills that we can possess is one that could help provide job security even as AI and automation continue replacing jobs.
In this rapidly changing world of work and life we live in, one of the most crucial skills we as individuals can possess, is motivation. We have to have the motivation to learn how to learn new things, the motivation to speak up at work and the motivation to experiment.
It is such an important skill that the CEO at AT&T told his employees that if they don’t have the motivation to take matters into their own hands--to learn how to learn and to be responsible for their own professional development--then they don’t belong at the company.
If we want to succeed, grow and thrive in this new world of work and life we have to take things into our own hands. Are you motivated enough?
Feb 18, 2019
A Look At Red Hat's Culture: How They Use Open Leadership, Creating Meaning At Work, Dealing With Change, & Much More
DeLisa Alexander is the Chief People Officer at Red Hat, a role she has held since March 2011. She is responsible for leading Red Hat’s global Human Capital team, including Red Hat University College of Leadership and Management.
She joined Red Hat in 2001 and served in the office of General Counsel until 2006. In that role, DeLisa was responsible for equity and executive compensation and employment matters. Prior to Red Hat, she was associated with the law firm Kilpatrick Stockton where she focused on mergers, acquisitions, venture capital and licensing. DeLisa graduated with a BBA from James Madison University, holds an MBA from University of Baltimore, and earned her Juris Doctor from George Mason University.
Red Hat is a leading software company in the business of assembling open source components for the Linux operating system and related programs into a distribution package that can be ordered and implemented. They currently employ about 13,000 associates, with about 25% of t…
Feb 14, 2019
Ditch The Employee Lifecycle And Focus On Moments That Matter
We all have moments in our lives that stand out from the rest, moments that matter. For me personally some of the moments that matter are the day I got married, the day my daughter was born, and the day I bought my first house. But there are also moments that matter that relate to work, such as the 1st day at a new job, the day you get a promotion or even the day you leave a job.
Quite often organizations miss out on celebrating these moments that matter for their employees. Instead of thinking of employees as individuals they think of them simply as workers. In this new world of work where we have such an integration between work and life it is so important to acknowledge these moments that matter and make them special. These moments are what allow us to create amazing experiences for our employees.
One example of a missed opportunity is the first day at a new job. If we could set up our employees for a great first experience this could be a moment they truly remember, even 10 or 15…
Feb 11, 2019
How To Take Control Over Technology Instead Of Having It Take Control Over You
Cal Newport is a computer science professor at Georgetown University and the author of a brand new book called Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. He earned his PhD in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science at MIT, specializing in the theory of distributed systems. He has two other books, entitled Deep Work: Rules for Focused Success in a Distracted World and So Good They Can’t Ignore You: Why Skills Trump Passion in the Quest for Work You Love.
What is Digital Minimalism?
Cal says It's a movement. And it's a like a rebellion. It's a rebellion against this idea that these small number of companies in Northern California (Twitter, Facebook, Google) should really dictate how we spend our time, and how we feel, and how we think. In recent years people have come to realize it is a problem to be so wrapped up and addicted to social media and technology in general. And people say, "I wanna create my own life, and I'll use technology on my own damn terms."…
Feb 8, 2019
Is Technology Really Improving Our Lives
The pace of technology in our world today is faster than it has ever been. We go out and buy the newest phone out on the market with all of the bells and whistles and the newest innovations and then a few months later it is obsolete as there’s a newer, better phone available. We always hear about how technology is benefiting our society. It boosts productivity and innovation, it provides greater accessibility to products and services and it allows for greater opportunities.
Technology provides great benefits, but are we using it in the right way? According to a chart created by Our World in Data showing the price changes in consumer goods and services over the last 20 years, we may not be using technology in the best way.
The chart shows that the price of TVs, clothes, software, toys and cars have either stayed the same or plummeted. At the same time the cost of things that everyone really, truly needs-- such as healthcare, tuition, and childcare-- has skyrocketed.
Are we taking a…
Feb 1, 2019
Staying Relevant In Today's Constantly Changing World: Insights From The CEO Of Box
Aaron Levie is the Co-Founder and CEO of Box, a company that specializes in helping companies securely share and manage their information. The company was started back in 2005 while Aaron was in college. Back then it was him and one other person, but now 14 years later they have over 2,000 employees who serve 90,000 customers around the world.
But the road to success wasn’t easy. Aaron dealt with a lot of rejection along the way. When they were initially trying to start Box they received around a dozen rejections, but instead of giving up Aaron kept a positive attitude. He claims, “that was a good week for us, what are you talking about? That was like wow! The fact that people responded saying no was actually a good thing. We were like, “All right, we finally got a rejection””. This is what makes him a great entrepreneur, he held to his convictions and never gave up.
When it comes to leading Box, Aaron works hard to create a culture of openness and transparency. He explains…
Jan 31, 2019
Elephants, Deadfish, And Vomit, The Secret To Airbnb's Amazing Corporate Culture
In my newest book, The Employee Experience Advantage, Airbnb was ranked one of the best organizations for employee experience and there is a rather odd practice they implement that may be helping them create such a successful corporate culture.
During every one of their regular company-wide meetings they bring up elephants, dead fish and vomit. Elephants are the big things inside of most organizations that no one dares to bring up, dead fish are the things that are in the past but the employees just can’t seem to forget about them and let them go, and the vomit is the things we need to just get out into the open, the things we want to vent about.
Most companies shy away from these topics, but Airbnb is not just addressing them, they are throwing them into the front and center of their company wide meetings. What are your organization’s elephants, dead fish and vomit? Perhaps you aren’t a huge fan of the labels given, but in the end it is all about creating a culture of transpar…
Jan 28, 2019
Author Douglas Rushkoff On Why Humans Are Being Devalued In The Digital Age And How We Can Stop It
Douglas is a bestselling author of 20 books, including his most recent, Team Human. He is a research fellow of the Institute for the Future, and founder of the Laboratory for Digital Humanism at The City University of New York/Queens, where he is a Professor of Media Theory and Digital Economics.
Douglas’ work explores how different technological environments change our relationship to money, power, business, and one another. He coined such concepts as “viral media,” “screenagers,” and “social currency,” and has been a leading voice for applying digital media toward social and economic justice.
Douglas believes organizations are trying to make humans act more like algorithms when what we really need is to be more human. When asked why he wrote the book he said, “I wanted to write a book in the digital age that helped us really identify and retrieve what makes human beings special, so that we don't accept this incorrect Silicon Valley premise that human beings are the…
Jan 24, 2019
What We Do With AI Is A Choice
AI and Automation doesn’t have to create the job apocalypse that some people are worried about. We have a choice to make--will AI replace your workers or will it augment them?
I have heard both sides of the AI and Automation debate over the past few years. Some people think that our future is doom and gloom and that all human jobs will be replaced. Others feel more optimistic about the subject and they are excited to see how AI and Automation can augment human workers to do their jobs better.
One of my recent podcast guests was Tim O’Reilly, the Founder and CEO at O’Reilly Media and Author of WTF: What’s the Future and Why It’s Up To Us. During my interview with Tim, he brought up a really interesting point about AI and Automation and jobs. He believes that what we do with AI is a choice. We can choose to design our organizations in a way that allows AI to replace all the human jobs, or we can change our business model to figure out how AI can effectively augment human jobs…
Jan 21, 2019
A Look Inside Lego: How They Utilize Storytelling, The Power Of Play, And How They Are Redesigning Their Leadership Model
Loren Shuster is the Chief People Officer at the Lego Group. He joined the LEGO Group in 2014 from a position with Google as Managing Director of Brand Solutions, Asia Pacific. Loren was also previously with Nokia for 10 years where he worked across Asia and Africa before assuming a global marketing role as Senior Vice President of Go-to-Market in Helsinki. In his current role, he is responsible for The LEGO Group's People Operations and Development. As Chief People Officer, he is mainly responsible for People Strategy, Culture, Leadership Development, Talent Acquisition & Retention, and Reward & Recognition.
Loren’s focus is on building the right culture, leadership and talent platform so that LEGO can reach more children around the world and 'inspire and develop the builders of tomorrow'.
Loren holds an MBA and Masters in Organizational Psychology from INSEAD.
The Lego Group has been around for 86 years; with 18,000 employees, they are a privately-held enterprise, still held and…
Jan 17, 2019
Skills Are Greater Than Jobs
Many conversations these days revolve around AI and Automation and whether or not there will be any jobs left for humans in the future. But the truth is, jobs were made to be automated. Our problem is that we are focusing too much on jobs instead of skills, when really skills are greater than jobs in the future of work.
When you focus on a job you typically only give yourself one career path. You may be able to grow in that career path, but it is still a solitary career path; you really limit yourself. Skills cannot be replaced by AI. If you focus on skills you open up many job options for yourself and you secure your place in the future of work.
If we want to future proof our lives, the mentality we have to have is that skills are greater than jobs.
Jan 14, 2019
How To Create A Diverse And Inclusive Culture: Insights From Dow Chemical's Chief Inclusion Officer
Karen Carter is the Chief Human Resources Officer and Chief Inclusion Officer at the Dow Chemical Company. She is responsible globally for guiding and directing Dow's efforts to create a more diverse and inclusive environment and workforce. “My job, in a nutshell, is to ensure that we have an environment that gives everyone a fair chance, those processes, those policies, how we evaluate people, and how we hire people…if you’re not focusing deliberately on including, you will ultimately exclude.”
Karen has 25 years of experience with Dow, but she only recently moved into the HR space. Before assuming her current responsibilities, she held the role of North America Commercial Vice President, Dow Packaging and Specialty Plastics (P&SP). In her role, Karen was a member of the global business leadership team and was responsible for the overall profit & loss of P&SP’s North America region, which is part of Dow’s Performance Plastics Division and represents more than $18.4B in sa…
Jan 11, 2019
The Changing Nature Of Companies
Looking back 20 or 30 years the very nature and definition of a company was very different than it is today. Companies used to be viewed solely as a place that offered jobs in exchange for compensation. Employees would show up to the building, work 9-5 and then go home again at the end of the day.
Companies today are no longer just an employer that pays people to show up--in fact a large number of workers don’t even go into a centralized office building anymore. Now companies are involved in not only an employee's work life, but also in their personal life. Companies provide gyms, therapy, financial planners, etc...it is much more than just place that provides you with a job. Companies are focusing more on employee engagement and experience today than ever before.
We are seeing a blurring of work and life and organizations have to adapt to this shift. They can no longer just focus on an employee’s work life, they also have to focus on the personal aspect of our lives.
Jan 7, 2019
How One Of The Largest Global Apparel Companies Is Building The HR Function
Dave Kozel is EVP and Chief Human Resources Officer of PVH Corp, the global apparel company that owns brands such as Calvin Klein, Tommy Hilfiger, Izod, Speedo and Arrow. PVH employees around 36,000 people and has locations in 40 countries. Dave is responsible for Human Resources, Compensation, Benefits, Talent Management & Development, Inclusion & Diversity, Communications and Facilities for one of the largest global apparel companies in the world.
PVH has been recognized for its commitment to creating an inclusive environment where every individual is valued, including being named one of Forbes’ Best Employers for Diversity and earning 100% on the HRC Corporate Equality Index. The Company was also ranked among the top 100 Most Inclusive and Diverse companies globally on the Thomas Reuters Global Inclusion Index and named one of Forbes’ and JUST Capital’s Most JUST Companies.
Dave joined PVH in 2003 as Senior Vice President, Human Resources, and was promoted to Executive Vice…
Jan 4, 2019
The Employee Life Cycle is a Myth, Here's Why
In our organizations we like to put the life cycle of an employee into a neat series of buckets such as recruitment, onboarding and separation. But is the employee lifecycle model really an accurate way to look at an employee’s time at our organizations, or is there a better way?
In our organizations we like to put the life cycle of an employee into a neat series of buckets such as recruitment, onboarding and separation. But this is more of the organization’s perspective of what the employee lifecycle should look like, not so much an accurate picture of what employees really encounter during their time in an organization.
When we put employees into these rigid, pre-determined buckets it really causes us to view them as worker bees, not individuals. If we look at this from the employee’s perspective, their time at the organization looks quite a bit different. We would see that their time not only includes recruitment, onboarding and development, but it also includes personal asp…
Dec 31, 2018
A Shift In Workplace Demographics: How Organizations Need To Adapt For The Aging Workforce
Paul Irving is Chairman of the Milken Institute Center for the Future of Aging and distinguished scholar in residence at the University of Southern California Davis School Of Gerontology.
Paul spent much of his life as a corporate lawyer as chairman and CEO of Manatt, Phelps & Phillips, a law and consulting firm. He is also the author of “The Upside of Aging: How Long Life Is Changing the World of Health, Work, Innovation, Policy, and Purpose,” a Wall Street Journal expert panelist and contributor to PBS Next Avenue and Forbes. When he came to the end of his term as CEO he enrolled at Harvard to look at ‘something new, something interesting’. There, he was asked to do a research project on the impacts of population aging in cities in the U.S. They came up with an idea about ranking U.S. cities, knowing how ranking systems attract interest and attention, and it was called “Best Cities for Successful Aging”.
Eventually Paul became the president of the Milken Institute which…
Dec 27, 2018
Employee Experience Cannot Happen Unless We Embrace Empathy
What is Empathy and why do we need it? A lot of times we confuse empathy with sympathy. In the past organizations have been good with being sympathetic to employees, but in the future of work it is empathy, not sympathy that is crucial for organizations to have.
A lot of people confuse empathy and sympathy. Sympathy is feeling sorry for someone else’s circumstances, empathy on the other hand is the ability to understand and share the feelings of others. It means putting yourself in someone else’s shoes to not just say you feel sorry for them, but to actually imagine how hard it must be to be in that situation.
In the past organizations have been good at being sympathetic, but they have struggled with being empathetic. Unlike in the past when most organizations had hierarchies where there really was no need for upper management to be empathetic, in today’s organizations we are beginning to see why it is so crucial to have empathy in the workplace. We have different generations o…
Dec 24, 2018
How One Of The Largest Law Firms In The World Is Changing The Way They Work, Collaborate, And Lead
Andrew Glincher is the CEO and Managing Partner at Nixon Peabody LLP, one of the largest law firms in the world. Andrew started at Nixon Peabody 30 years ago. He is a first generation college graduate, having grown up in Brockton, Massachusetts. He studied business at Boston College undergraduate and has always prided himself as being as much a business person as a lawyer. He ran his own snack bar and concession in high school, was very entrepreneurial, worked in business, and then went to law school. Initially he went to work for a small firm for about a year and a half to do business and commercial real estate. Eventually, Andrew made his way to Nixon Peabody, running the Boston office with a large corporate and commercial real estate client base which has evolved into his current role of CEO.
Nixon Peabody LLP is one of the largest law firms in the world - with 16 offices. They have international alliances throughout the world, particularly in Asia. In the United States, their majo…
Dec 22, 2018
Change Takes Time to Happen, Don’t Give Up!
Creating a true human organization has been a topic for decades and there has been a lot of smart people, wonderful books, case studies and research reports out there that talks about leadership, employee experience, and management skills.
But still, a lot of organizations all over the world struggle to embrace these things. Still, a lot of employees out there don't like their jobs. So a part of me wonders, does any of the work that I do matter? Why isn't change happening? why do these companies still exist?
Then I remember the emails I get or the stories I hear from all of you about how change is happening in your organization. It might be hard for us to see change because it takes time, but change is truly happening.
It's like going to the gym. I have no idea how long it’s gonna take for you to look better or feel better, but I know that over time, as you exercise and eat healthier, you’re gonna start to look a little bit better and feel a little bit better. One day you will w…
Dec 17, 2018
How This Fortune 500 Company Gives Its Employees Ownership Of Their Learning, Development, And Success
Caskie Lewis-Clapper is the Chief Human Resources Officer at Magellan Health, Inc., (“Magellan “). Prior to joining Magellan, she served as senior Director for Human Resources Operations for Helix Health, a Baltimore, Maryland-based health care system. At Helix, she held a variety of senior leadership positions, including Sr. Director of Human Resource Operations and Director of Training and Organizational Development. Prior to joining Helix, she was a consultant with General Physics Corporation, providing training and performance improvement consulting services, and conducting human performance improvement research. She is a published author of articles on team building and human performance improvement. She received her Bachelor of Science degree from the University of Maine and her Master of Science degree from Johns Hopkins University.
Magellan Health is care management for the fastest growing and most complex areas of healthcare, including special populations, complete pharma…
Dec 13, 2018
A Shift In The Way We Think About Work
There has been a major shift in the way we view work. In the past when a company had a position to fill they announced the opening and people jumped at the opportunity. There wasn’t any talk of employee perks, health and wellness programs, workplace flexibility or workplace design. Someone needed a job, they found out about the job and they applied.
Now if an organization has an opening people don’t just jump at the opportunity. They want to hear about what it’s like to work at that company, they want to know what the company perks are, they want to know whether the office is an open floor plan and whether or not they have the latest technology. People have options now, so they don’t have to jump at the first opportunity, they can wait for the job that is a perfect fit for them.
That is why it is so important for companies today to focus on employee experience. Companies have to be able to understand their Reason for Being and they have to be able to answer questions like, wh…
Dec 10, 2018
How The World's Largest Employer Is Evolving For The Future Of Work
Jacqui Canney, is EVP and Chief People Officer at Walmart and Clay Johnson, is EVP and Chief Information Officer at Walmart.
Jacqui has been with Walmart for three and a half years. She is focused on the development, the retention and the rewarding of their 2 million employees. Clay joined Walmart 18 months ago. He focuses on the technology but also the shared services for the company. He is charged with putting those two together to create more productivity and automation.
With over 2 million employees, Walmart is the world’s largest employer. They have 5000 stores in the U.S and 10,000 globally.
Skilling and training employees on a massive scale
Investing in people is a focus for Walmart, in particular the last few years they have made investments around salaries, training and education. As Jacqui puts it, “we are people led and tech enabled. So investing in our people and humanity is what Walmart is rooted in and is our competitive advantage”.
Recently, they have been mov…
Dec 6, 2018
Work Life Balance Vs. Work Life Integration
There used to be a time where work and life were kept separate and they did not overlap. Once you got home at 5pm everything that happened at work was put to the side and you focused on your personal life. But today there’s no longer boundaries between work and life. It is more of a blending of the two and it’s only going to keep becoming more and more blended in the future.
If the work side of your life is not going well, then most likely your life as a whole is not going well. Work is life and life is work; the two things are becoming one. Therefore it matters greatly what choices you make in your work life. It matters what career field you choose to go into, what organization you choose to work for and how you interact with others you work with. If you want to have an overall meaningful, happy and satisfying life you also need to have a good work life.
This episode of The Future of Work Podcast was made possible by our friends at ServiceNow. Please show your support by checkin…
Dec 3, 2018
The Future Of Work Is Talent: Organizations Will Win Or Lose Based On Their People
Dan Shapero is the Vice President of Talent Solutions, Careers, and Learning at LinkedIn. Prior to this, Dan held several positions at LinkedIn, from Vice President of Talent Solutions and Insights to Vice President of North America Sales, Hiring Solutions. He has also served as the Manager of Bain & Company, as Senior Marketing Manager of Paramark, as Product Marketing Manager of Zembu, and as an advisor for Dropbox.
LinkedIn currently has over 575 million members around the world. They are the world's largest professional networking site. The idea originated to provide a platform for professionals to join and start to run their careers much like a startup would think about building their own businesses. Over the course of LinkedIn's history different capabilities have evolved. They started with 300 employees in 2008 and currently, in 2018, employ over 12,000 employees.
Three things LinkedIn offers employees:
* Every two weeks they have a company all hands meeting hosted by the C…
Nov 30, 2018
How To Keep AI And Automation From Taking Your Job
A lot of times I hear people discussing AI and Automation in a way that makes it seem like once everything is fully automated we will all lose our jobs. But is that the right way to think about it? When you lose something that means you misplaced it, you no longer know where it is. It has an air of carelessness or passiveness.
I don’t think we are that careless or indifferent. The truth is, we don’t lose our jobs, we allow them to be taken from us. There are things we can do to ensure our job security in the future of work.
First of all, we have to be perpetual learners, we have to learn how to learn. We cannot just rely on our companies or schools to teach us the skills we need for the future, we have to actively seek information out and learn things on our own.
Secondly, we have to pay attention to the tangential. We cannot keep our heads down or only look forward. We have to be looking forward, sideways, behind us, etc… We have to broaden our scope so that we are prepared f…
Nov 26, 2018
Bringing A 165 Year Old Company Into The 21st Century: Upskilling Employees, Utilizing AI & Data, And Creating A Meaningful Culture
Judy Marks is President of Otis Elevator Company, a 165 year old company that helps move over 2 billion people a day. With 27 years of experience serving federal customers across multiple agencies, her experience spans multiple disciplines including positions in systems engineering, engineering management, business development, capture management, subcontract management, program management and executive management. She has also served as the CEO at Siemens.
Additionally, she was the President of Transportation and Security Solutions of Lockheed Martin Corporation. In total, she served 27 years with Lockheed Martin and its predecessor companies.
Otis Elevator Company began in 1853 when Elisha Graves Otis invented the safety elevator. Over the last 165 years they have delivered products and services for 2 million elevators, in 1000 offices found in 200 countries around the world - every day. The 12.5 billion dollar company’s focus of their 68,000 employees is on their customers and w…
Nov 25, 2018
How To Be More Successful In Life And Business
Have you ever heard of the phrase, “Fake it til you make it”? It is this idea of believing something or telling yourself something even when it’s not necessarily reality yet. I am a big believer in this mindset and I have used it to help me throughout my career.
When I went off to work on my own I struggled in the beginning. I didn’t have many clients and I didn’t have a ton of experience. Instead of looking at myself as a poor, young kid, struggling to find work, I told myself over and over that I was a young entrepreneur building a life for myself--a life that I truly wanted to live. I still repeat that to myself even now, years later.
The way that you think and the things that you believe shape your behaviors, feelings and actions. It’s kind of like a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you believe that you are successful, talented, and that you have something to offer to others you will have a different outcome than if you constantly think negatively about yourself. It’s a…
Nov 19, 2018
Maynard Webb Shares Business & Leadership Lessons He Learned From Yahoo, eBay, And IBM
Maynard Webb is co-founder and board member of Everwise, a talent development startup, and a board member of Visa and Salesforce. Previously, Maynard served as Chairman of the Board of Yahoo!, CEO of LiveOps, COO of eBay, and held executive roles at Gateway, Bay Networks, and Quantum.
Maynard is the founder of the Webb Investment Network (WIN), a seed investment firm dedicated to nurturing entrepreneurs, bringing his experience in developing and leading high-growth companies.
In 2004, he and his wife created the Webb Family Foundation, which provides underprivileged, motivated young individuals access to quality education and supports individuals who are struggling against the odds to make a positive impact on the world through innovation and hard work.
Maynard is the co-author of the critically acclaimed book, Rebooting Work: Transform How You Work in the Age of Entrepreneurship . His second book, Dear Founder: Letters of Advice for Anyone Who Leads, Manages, or Wants to Start a…
Nov 15, 2018
What Happens When We Rely Too Much On Technology
Technology is cool and it helps us in daily life. But one thing that is cause for concern is that we tend to over rely on technology. We have this scenario in our heads that in the future we will all have robots that will do things for us at home and at work and that software will do the jobs we don’t like to do. We think of all the advancements that are happening in the technology space and what is yet to come and we get this grandiose vision in our minds.
The fact is technology has a lot of issues including the possibility of being hacked and the challenge of glitches and errors that are bound to happen. I fear that we are over relying on technology thinking that in the future we won’t have to do anything for ourselves. The question is, will our over reliance on technology come back to bite us in the future?
If we rely solely on technology for things like automating farming or operating autonomous cars, what happens when the technology breaks down or it gets hacked? If we put t…
Nov 12, 2018
Seth Godin On Marketing Yourself: What Promises Are You Making And Can You Live Up To Them?
Seth Godin is a bestselling writer, with 18 books and another one coming out on November 13, 2018. His books address various aspects of marketing, advertising, business venturing and leadership. He is also a successful entrepreneur, marketer and public speaker, who became well-known for public speaking when he uploaded his e-book ‘Unleashing the Ideavirus’ and made it available for free.
He obtained his MBA degree from Stanford Graduate School of Business and worked as a software brand manager before he started ‘Yoyodyne’, one of the first Internet-based direct-marketing firms. The publicity of his firm compelled big companies like Volvo, Microsoft, Sony Music, etc. to associate with it and in a few years ‘Yahoo!’ bought the company, keeping Godin on as a vice president of permission marketing. Since Seth was last here his altMBA program has graduated over 1000 people. He has also written a new book, This is Marketing: You Can't Be Seen Until You Learn to See, which will…
Nov 9, 2018
How Your Mindset Can Impact Your Work
There is a story of a man who walks into a construction site and as he walks into the site he passes by a worker and asks, “What are you doing?” and the worker says, “I’m laying bricks”. The man continues on his way and runs into a second worker and again asks, “What are you doing?” and this time the worker says, “I’m building a wall”.
The man continues on once again and runs into one final worker and again asks the question, “What are you doing?”, but this time the worker answers, “I’m building a cathedral”.
All three workers were doing the same job, the difference was the way they thought about their work. The moral of the story is that you have the ability to affect the way you think about your job and work in general. It doesn’t matter if you are a cashier, a teacher or a CEO, it’s all about what you tell yourself and the attitude you choose to have.
So, are you laying bricks or are you creating a cathedral?
Nov 5, 2018
The Science Of Attracting, Recruiting, And Performance Management From Alorica’s CEO
Andy Lee founded Alorica Inc. in 1999 and serves as its Chairman and CEO. Guided by his desire to improve customer experiences and his entrepreneurial talents, he has become one of the leaders in the service and support outsourcing industry. He conceptualized and developed one of the original cloud-based Software-as-a-Service customer contact management applications that integrated contact center operations, returns management, and e-commerce. Andy has also served as an executive at Advanced Membrane Technology, CTX Data Services, and Gateway. He holds a Bachelor’s degree in Business and Finance from the University of Southern California.
Alorica is a “BPO - ‘Business Process Outsourcing’ company or ‘a customer experience provider’. Alorica specializes in attracting, developing and performance managing people.” Regardless of the work, they can put more effort into these areas on a large scale. With over 100,000 employees, you may find yourself talking with one of them of…
Nov 1, 2018
Why Following Your Passion is Terrible Career Advice
We have all heard it before, the advice that many people have given when asked for career advice or when talking to college students entering the workforce--”Follow your passion”. But there are some challenges with that statement.
First of all, telling people to follow their passion assumes that the passion is something that lives outside of them and they have to chase it. The second issue is that we assume it is a static thing, that there is one passion it is in a certain location and that’s where you have to go. The truth is our passions change-- as we get older, as we go through experiences in life and as we expand our horizons.
Thirdly, the problem is that often we are not able to identify a passion before we choose to pursue something. It happens all the time, someone tries something new and that sparks a new passion. So to think that we have to simply follow a passion would take away the possibility of finding a new passion in something we didn’t think of before.
The r…
Oct 29, 2018
Digital Upskilling: How PwC Is Ensuring No Employees Get Left Behind In The Digital Revolution
Mike Fenlon is the Chief People Officer at PwC US, a global network of firms with 208,000 people across 158 countries. PwC firms provided services to 429 of the Global Fortune 500 companies and more than 100,000 entrepreneurial and private businesses
Mike has responsibility for employer branding and social media, talent acquisition, analytics and talent management. He has held a variety of senior leadership roles in human capital since joining PwC, including strategy, operations and lead generalist roles. Mike is a psychologist with expertise in strategic and organizational change, talent management and leadership development.
PwC is focusing on an inclusive agenda to assist people to become ‘digitally fit’. To that end, they have created an app. The app allows people to take an assessment that gives them personalized feedback on their digital fitness across a number of domains. Based on their assessment they will be provided with a connection to learning assets and an individual…
Oct 25, 2018
Why You Should Never Be “Heads Down”
In a world where things are ever changing at a fast pace, it is no longer good enough to work “heads down”. We have to keep our heads up and be constantly aware of our surroundings.
Have you ever had anyone tell you “I’m so busy at work, I’ve just been heads down”? It is so common to hear that in conversations in the workplace. I’ve heard it many times. The problem with being heads down is that the world is changing so quickly these days, it’s just not good enough to work heads down if you want your organization to thrive.
Being heads down you miss so much that is happening in the world around you. We have to be heads up, heads side to side and heads back to keep up in today’s workplace. Nobody is going to look out for you, except you. And there’s no way to do that if your head is buried in the ground like an ostrich.
Keep your head up, pay attention and be aware of all of your surroundings!
This episode of The Future of Work Podcast was made possible by our fri…
Oct 22, 2018
A Look Inside Hyland Software: How This Ohio Based Tech Company Is Attracting And Retaining The Best Talent
Bill Priemer is the CEO of Hyland Software. Bill joined Hyland in 1997 as Vice President of Marketing. He became Vice President of Sales & Marketing in 2001, Chief Operating Officer in 2005, and CEO in January 2013. Prior to joining Hyland, Bill worked at FedEx Corporation and at AST Research, a personal computer manufacturer.
Hyland Software is the developer of the enterprise content management (ECM) (or content services platform) and process management software suite called OnBase, where they digitize an organization’s information. Applications of the suite are used in healthcare, financial institutions, insurance, government, higher education and manufacturing. With 3300 employees, the organization houses about 2000 of them in the headquarters located in Westlake, Ohio. They have other offices located across the U.S. and around the world in Brazil, England, Japan, Australia, and Germany.
Hyland’s location in the central U.S has led them to develop their own workforce through r…
Oct 19, 2018
What Happens When Code Becomes the New Law?
The length of time it takes to create or update a new law far exceeds the time it takes to update software or code. Are we going to get to a point where code or software surpasses laws in the real world?
How long does it usually take us to update or create a new law? Typically it takes many months or even years to do so. Now think about how long it takes to update software or code. That happens instantly. Yes, it can take days, weeks or even months to create or test new software and code, but the process of updating is instantaneous.
There is a concept out there that says code is becoming the future law. One book that explores this concept is a book written by Marc Goodman called Future Crimes: Inside the Digital Underground and the Battle for Our Connected World. When sites such as Google, Facebook or Netflix update their terms of service it essentially becomes the new law.
There are a lot of things that go along with code as the new law. It changes the way we interact with various…
Oct 15, 2018
Connecting People To Priceless Possibilities: Insights From MasterCard’s Chief Human Resources Officer
Michael Fraccaro is the Chief Human Resources Officer of MasterCard. In this role, he is responsible for all human resources functions globally, including driving cultural transformation, building leadership capability and creating a company that is “most valued to work for.” MasterCard is about 50 years old with 14,000 employees in 74 countries.
From 2012 until assuming his current role, Michael served as Executive Vice President of HR, Global Products and Solutions. In this role, he supported the company’s growth in key businesses and markets and optimized talent programs in a competitive environment. He also was responsible for leading the global HR integration of new acquisitions and joint ventures.
Prior to joining MasterCard, Michael was a core member of the HR leadership team at HSBC Group for nearly 12 years, based in Hong Kong. Earlier, he held senior HR positions in banking and financial services in Australia and the Middle East, working extensively across different c…
Oct 13, 2018
How Are We Going To Build The Future Of Work
Conversations around the future of work usually include questions like, “What is the future of work going to look like?” or “What is the future of work going to bring?”. But this is a very passive view of the future of work. It’s almost as if we are waiting for something to happen to us, as if we are bracing ourselves for a punch to the gut.
We need to take a more active role in the future of work. We have to be responsible for designing, creating and building the future of work.
Instead, we should be asking questions like, “What is the future of work that we want to build and shape?”. We should think of it as a verb, not a noun. It is so much more valuable to have conversations around how we can shape the future of work instead of assuming the future of work is going to happen to us.
So the question is not, “what is the future of work going to look like?”, it is “How are we going to build the future of work we want to see?”
Oct 8, 2018
Sweetgreen's CEO On Creating A Meaningful Company Culture And Positively Impacting The Surrounding Community
Jonathan Neman is Co-Founder & CEO of Sweetgreen, an American fast and casual restaurant that focuses on simple, seasonal, healthy food that uses locally sourced ingredients. Jonathan and his co-founders, Nathaniel Ru and Nicolas Jammet, started sweetgreen in 2007, opening their first location in Georgetown, DC – just three months out of college. The brand’s strong food ethos, embrace of passion and purpose, and investment in local communities has enabled Sweetgreen to grow into a national brand with more than 90 locations and over 4,000 employees across the East Coast, Midwest and California.
Sweetgreen has a very strong company culture that focuses on passion and purpose. Jonathan, Nathaniel, and Nicolas have done an amazing job, not just fostering a meaningful employee experience for their people, but also in creating a great experience for their customers that goes above and beyond. They are on a mission – not just a job. There is a greater purpose – both as a company and…
Oct 4, 2018
Dealing With Change Management Inside Of Organizations
Humans are creatures of habit; we are not fond of change. But is it the actual change that we find difficult or is it the process of change?
I recently heard a quote that makes so much sense, it is “Everybody loves Disneyland, but nobody likes the journey down there”. That is so true! It isn’t so much the actual outcome of the change that challenges us, it is the long drawn out process of change. Individuals and organizations can get excited about the end result of change, they can learn to embrace it. The hardest part is the journey to the change; that’s what causes the anxiety, fear and frustration.
The journey to change is filled with bureaucracy, arguments, tension and a lot of back and forth. If we can understand this and accept that the journey will be the challenge to get to that final outcome, we can find ways to make that journey easier.
Sep 30, 2018
Beth Comstock On How To Be A Changemaker, Lead With Imagination And Overcome Challenging Roadblocks
Beth Comstock, is the former CMO and Vice Chair at GE and the author of a new book, Imagine It Forward: Courage, Creativity, and The Power of Change. The book pulls from Beth’s experiences and observations from her 20+ years at organizations like NBC and GE and it is about summoning courage and creativity in the face of change.
For nearly three decades at GE, she led efforts to accelerate new growth and innovation, initiated GE's digital and clean-energy transformation, started new businesses and enhanced GE’s brand value and inventive culture. As President of Integrated Media at NBCUniversal, Beth oversaw TV ad revenue and new digital efforts, including the early development of hulu.com. She graduated from the College of William and Mary with a degree in biology.
Found in her book are 5 principles/criteria that people should embrace to grow and succeed. They are:
* Give yourself permission – there is always a reason you can’t move forward--the boss says no, the company d…
Sep 24, 2018
Creating The Workforce Of The Future: What You Need To Do To Prepare For The Changing Labor Market
Charles Phillips is the CEO of Infor, the largest privately held technology provider in the world. During Charles’ time at Infor the company has more than doubled in size and became the first major software company to offer an integrated, end-to-end application suite for entire industries.
Prior to Infor, Charles was President of Oracle Corporation and a member of its Board of Directors. During his seven and a half year-tenure, the company tripled in size and successfully acquired 70 companies. Prior to Oracle, Charles was a Managing Director in the Technology Group at Morgan Stanley. Before his business career, Charles was a Captain in the U.S. Marine Corps.
Infor is a global company with 18,000 employees around the world. It provides enterprise software products for every aspect of business in 180 countries. They build complete industry suites in the cloud and deploy technology that puts the user experience first, leverages data science, and integrates with existing systems.
One…
Sep 21, 2018
How to Keep Your Company From Becoming Irrelevant
How would it feel if you were on a 30 year train ride on a train that is traveling at such high speeds you aren’t able see anything outside the windows. You would only be able to focus on what is immediately around you in the train; the food you are eating, the other people on the train and the physical space that’s around you. That would be your full reality for 30 years. You probably wouldn’t recognize the world around you when you stepped off the train 30 years later.
This is the situation a lot of organizations are in right now. They focus solely on their own organization; they keep their heads down and always look inward. These organizations aren’t taking the time to get off the train and look around at what is happening around them. They don’t try to figure out how their products and services fit into the world around them.
When we as organizations fail to stop the train and get off, by the time we get to our destination, we will be irrelevant. We all need to learn th…
Sep 17, 2018
The Making Of Modern Elders: Why It's Not All About Millennials
Chip Conley is a NY Times bestselling author, founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality, and the Strategic Advisor for Hospitality and Leadership at Airbnb. His newest book, "Wisdom@Work: The Making of a Modern Elder," was inspired by his post-50-year-old experiences as both a mentor and unexpected intern at Airbnb.
At age 26, he bought an inner city hotel, renamed it The Phoenix and it is now a popular place to stay for musicians, celebrities, etc. in the Bay area. After that he became the founder of Joie de Vivre Hospitality (JDV) which has become the 2nd largest boutique hotel brand in America, with 3500 employees.
Chip sold JDV in 2010. He accepted an invitation in 2013 from the founders of Airbnb to help transform their start-up into what is today the world’s largest hospitality brand. In January 2018, he founded Modern Elder Academy (MEA), the world's first "midlife wisdom school," where attendees learn how to repurpose a lifetime of experience for the modern workplace.
Chip has…
Sep 15, 2018
We Still Need Humanity in the Future of Work
AI and automation is at the center of a lot of conversations these days. Most of the time these discussions are focused around efficiency and the ability of AI and automation to get a task done. An autonomous vehicle, for example, can pick you up from point A and drop you off at point B.
But, I’ve noticed that there really isn’t any discussions focused around the human aspect and how we feel about the process of the task completion. The world’s number one chess player, Magnus Carlsen, recently commented on AI and automation in the chess world. He said he doesn’t ever play against a computer, not because the computer always wins (which he admits, it always does), but because he feels like he is playing against someone stupid who does not understand the game.
Going back to the autonomous car example, yes it can get you from point A to point B, but can it open the door for you, can it provide casual conversation along the way, and can it provide commentary on the area you are pa…
Sep 10, 2018
Creating A Challenge Culture: Insights From Former CEO Of Dunkin' Brands And Papa John's
Nigel Travis is the current Executive Chairman of the Board for Dunkin’ Brands. Previously, he served as Chief Executive Officer of Dunkin’ Brands and added responsibility as Chairman of the Board in May 2013. Dunkin’ Brands Group controls nearly 19,000 Dunkin’ Donuts and Baskin-Robbins “points of sale” in more than 60 countries, from Argentina to Japan.
Previously, Nigel served as President & CEO of Papa John’s, the pizza chain with annual system-wide sales of $2.1 billion and more than 3,300 restaurants throughout the U.S. and 29 international markets. During his four-year tenure with the company, Papa John’s online sales tripled through the innovative use of technology.
Prior to Papa John’s, Nigel served as the President and COO at Blockbuster, Inc. During that time, global sales increased over 50 percent and the international business was developed to encompass 26 countries with revenues of $1.8 billion. Nigel also built a worldwide franchise network of 300 fran…
Sep 7, 2018
Does Your Company Have A Reason For Being?
There are some organizations that are great. Their employees love coming to work, they have satisfied customers and they make a great impact on their communities. There are also organizations that are not so great. But what makes some organizations great and others not so great?
The answer is, great companies have a reason for being and others do not. A reason for being is a non-conventional mission statement that is comprised of four main things. The first thing is they have something that is unattainable. Something that makes their people reach for the stars and aim high and it gives them something to constantly work towards.
The second component is something that doesn’t talk about money or financial gain. When a company only focuses on financial gain it doesn’t give employees anything to get behind and it doesn’t give them a strong sense of purpose.
The third component is to have something that talks about the impact your organization can bring to the community or the worl…
Sep 4, 2018
The Future Of Energy And How National Grid Is Future Proofing Itself For The Changes Ahead
Dean Seavers is the President of National Grid, US. Prior to leading the US portion of National Grid, Dean worked in leadership at companies such as Ford, GE, United Technologies and Tyco.
National Grid is one of the largest investor-owned energy companies in the world - covering the UK and the Northeastern part of the US. They have 16,000 employees – about 10,000 that are customer facing and the other 6,000 or so that are in management roles spread out across three states. National Grid serves 20 million customers.
What are the workforce trends Dean is paying attention to?
The first trend is technology-- we all need to be tech savvy. We can use technology to drive better efficiency and productivity through things like data analytics and automation. Dean says, “The reality is, I think, when you spend 80% of your time doing routine things, you don’t have the time to always focus on the things that truly add value for customers and employees”.
Dean is also paying attention to…
Aug 27, 2018
The Truth About Self-Awareness From New York Times Bestselling Author Dr. Tasha Eurich
Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author. Over her 15-plus-year career, she’s helped thousands of leaders around the world become more self-aware and successful.
With a PhD in Industrial-Organizational Psychology, Dr. Eurich is the principal of The Eurich Group, a boutique executive development firm that helps companies—from start-ups to the Fortune 100—succeed by improving the effectiveness of their leaders and teams. Having worked with clients like T-Mobile, KPMG, Walmart, Vail Resorts, and HCA Healthcare, her primary areas of expertise are executive coaching, leadership development programs, and executive team development.
Dr. Eurich’s first book, Bankable Leadership, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in 2013. Her latest book, Insight, delves into the connection between self-awareness and success, where she shares the surprising findings from her multi-year research program on the topic
What is self…
Aug 26, 2018
How Often Should You Measure Employee Engagement?
Is there an optimal number of times to check in with employees or gather data on employee engagement? There is an important element of employee engagement that