Archives

Guest: Soon Yu

This interview focuses on Iconic franchises. Iconic franchises tend to be significantly more profitable than standard ones. They’re also far more resilient in the face of market fluctuations. But you can’t create an iconic property overnight. Iconic Advantage is a compound effect that you earn after a period of deliberate and sustained commitment. The effect is stronger over time. So, the only way to start is to choose to become iconic. An Iconic Advantage strategy is for companies that want to establish market leadership by becoming the standard-bearer in their market. This is about focusing your efforts in the right places. It means instead of just chasing shiny new objects, you focus on innovating the old—where your existing strengths lie. Iconic Advantage involves over indexing your efforts on your iconic properties. On the flip side, it also means that you reduce your focus on properties with low potential. You need to put your energy and resources in the right place.

Season 4 Episode 26

Guest: Eric Termuende

Eric’s mission is to change the way we think about work. His message: there will be less of a talent gap, communications gap, and age gap in the workplace as we rethink the human technology interface and manage how we think about one another and behave with one another. A recent HBR article indicates that nearly 50% of employees reported being lonely and that loneliness shortened our lives by the equivalent of smoking 15 cigarettes a day. The price we pay for speed, convenience, and even efficiency is a trade-off – not a saving. The time we save by not having that face-to-face conversation is costing relationships, friendships, and even basic understanding of who we’re working with. Eric will discuss an antidote that balances savings and relationships. This means rethinking belonging and how we navigate topics like employee engagement in remote and distributed environments. Eric will also discuss the conversations he has had on this topic with World Economic Forum.

Guest: Gary Weber

Gary and Maureen talk about the leadership “operating systems” people are working with based on our brain programming and our level of conscious awareness of this operating system. When we increase our awareness, we can reprogram this operating system to move beyond the survival and ego based system to a more deliberate, service based, long term success oriented system. In our current time with increasing complexity and challenge, we as leaders need to commit to updating this operating system to ensure future generations thrive. This updating is something that must be done by each leader – we can’t look to those in political roles or senior roles to take care of it – all of us have a responsibility. The discussion includes an in-depth discussion of: 1. how decisions are made by the brain, 2. the impact of confirmation bias and how to navigate it, 3. the illusion of control, how to relinquish this perception, and the benefit of making this change

Featured Guest: David White

As an IT Leader and someone who works in technology, David talks about why the soft side of what we do is a significant contributor to success. As technology leaders, we need a diverse set of skills including a heavy dose of soft skills to be a highly successful business leaders beyond our technical skills. These skills range from awareness and management or our mood, an ability to be present and focused and skills in establishing and managing a positive culture where a broad range of perspectives can be explored and synthesized. This is a new type of management and requires new skills. Battelle is working to ensure their culture and their leaders are prepared with the soft skills and culture to thrive and maintain agility as they lead in integrating new technology into companies and the US government. David also shares his perspective on his career path and the importance of seeking mentoring and being a mentor.

Guest: Ken Wylie

The most advanced and effective leaders have evolved as much as they have developed. That evolution is often fueled by challenges and disorienting dilemmas. We leave our comfort zones and move into areas where we are not the most skilled. This can mean we relinquish our leadership roles and follow others. Some of the most innovative leaders are known for their unconventional activities. These range from performing in rock bands to extreme sports to attending festivals like “Burning Man”. They move out of their regular surroundings and face challenges. They push physical, emotional and often spiritual boundaries. Attendees are rumored to include Richard Branson, Founder of Virgin Group and Larry Paige, Co-Founder of Google. Why? Adventure, getting out of your comfort zone and taking what you learn from these adventures back into your leadership mindset and behaviors enables evolution. Ken talks about his adventures and what he has learned about himself and building leaders.

Guest: Mark Kovacevich

In a time where more people are questioning capitalism as a concept and our younger work force is demanding an opportunity to bring purpose and meaning into their work, we want to explore how this is happening successfully in profitable organizations. Mark talks about what he has done to bring successful capitalism and consciousness together to build a business that is both profitable and socially conscious. He shares his journey and company success along with details about what conscious capitalism looks like in his company, Improving. We discuss the following questions? 1. How does conscious capitalism work in an actual company? 2. What was the value you anticipated when you took this journey? 3. Have you gotten the results you anticipated? 4. What did you need to change about yourself and the organization to realize that value? Not only does conscious capitalism offer an avenue to improve profitability, it is an avenue to attract and retain talented people!

Guest: Linda Patten

Empowerment is foundational to employee engagement. We have been talking about it for over a decade and yet, many leaders are unclear about how to use it and still maintain accountability and responsibility to drive results. During this interview, Linda and Maureen will talk about empowerment basics then move into the nuances of how to empower people to drive better results rather than abdicating responsibility. This has been a long term question of balance for many leaders. During the discussion, we will explore: 1) How do you define empowerment? 2) Why is empowering others such a key skill in leadership and growing a movement? 3) How does empowerment help us navigate an environment subjected to significant change and disruption? 4) What makes empowering others such a challenge for the leader? Why do leaders fail to empower others? 6) What are the essential skills needed to empower others? 8) What are 3 key tips to empowerment?

Guest: Maria Urani

Leaders follow many paths to success – in a time of varying role models for exceptional leadership, Maria talks about how she developed over her career. She shares her values, her path to CIO, role models and the art of leadership. Many people develop visions but living them is the art. Maria talks about how she puts her values into action to create a positive workplace, great results and strong successors. She shares: 1. Her passion and how it connects to her work 2. the art of leadership 3. her path to leadership – career is lattice more than a ladder 4. her role models – actual and virtual 5. the value of inverted mentoring 6. the role of empowerment in IT transformation at NetJets She shares her insights and career journey with passion and wisdom.

Guest: Guru Vasudeva

Guru builds on prior interviews discussing agility, lean and a culture of learning. During this show he discusses how DevOps is transforming the pace of development at Nationwide IT, continuously improving the company’s competitive advantage while meeting consumer demands. Guru shares real-life experiences of leading this transformation across several application development and maintenance efforts, while highlighting the integration of Agile and Lean practices and the importance of lean leadership. During this conversation Maureen and Guru explore the implications of using the Dev Ops methodology, in conjunction with others to accelerate the rate of change and how the organization must respond. It means people’s jobs will change – including IT people who are doing their work differently. They explore how Nationwide is preparing people for significant changes in their work yet at the same time focusing on sustaining jobs for those committed to personal growth.

Guests: Greg Moran & Teri Bettinger

This is the kick-off of our leadership happy hour series. During this conversation, Greg, Terri and Maureen discuss the topic of aspirations over the courses of their leadership careers. Aspiration has the power to expand our limits and potential by motivating us to test our capabilities and competencies further and in new ways. It has a completely different effect on us than its evil twin – desperation. Not that aspiration is inherently good or desperation is inherently bad, but when people believe, the paths they follow look very different than when they do not. The conversation will touch on the following among many others topics: 1. The power of aspiration as a means of creating opportunity where it is desired 2. Aspiration is necessary filtered through our values and priorities – and that’s okay! How do we remove the limits of aspiration when they have been indoctrinated into leaders for reasons that have nothing to do with their potential (i.e. race, gender, etc.).