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Guest: Rebecca Heiss

We all have bias. In various forms, it’s built into our brains. But implicit bias creates a disadvantage for leaders and their organizations. Dr. Rebecca Heiss has studied bias extensively, and shares what implicit bias is and how it impacts each of us. As leaders, we need to understand and manage implicit biases because they impact our hiring choices, promotion and succession decisions, company policies – even how closely we pay attention to someone in a presentation. To truly ensure we hire and retain top talent, we need to remove bias from our decision making process as much as possible. During this show, Rebecca shares her research…and what it reveals about the ways we can beat the bias in our business, and our lives.

Here’s what Rebecca and Maureen cover:

• What, exactly, implicit bias is – and how it taints your decision-making without you realizing;
• How implicit bias goes beyond major strokes like race and religion, such as the seemingly subtle bias of “Blondes have more fun” which has deep effects in the workplace; and
• The ways bias actually impedes how efficiently (and profitably) your company is achieving its goals.

Guest: Brad Circone

Brad brings his artistic finesse and strong intellect together to help companies build brands that matter. In the crowded field of branding, social media proliferation and the dizzying pace of new platforms that promise to solve business marketing problems. Brad talks about how to make sense of these trends and amplify your business presence thereby allowing you to accomplish your organizations mission and vision. Brad shares his unique concept of “Banding to Branding” revealing the innovative leadership strategies of art (expressive), intuition (emotional), and study (gap-finding) that he utilized in capturing a multi-million dollar recording contract with Geffen Records, and later, successfully parlayed this into the Midwest’s first, brand-only Agency which transforms organizations and their leaders through the discipline of brand and the wisdom of rock-roll. The discussion will challenge you to re-shape your organizational perspective through the power of brand leadership.

Guest: Mike Morrow-Fox

One of the key skills leaders consistently struggle with is conflict management. During this discussion, Mike will share a range of approaches to help leaders address difficult conversations and manage conflict. Included is a discussion about why leaders need to address conflict including the impact of “bad apples” on the team performance and also the impact of positive influences. Both are contagious, confronting bad apples is foundational to positive results. Mike then shares several models that help leaders think about how they will navigate the inevitable conflict they face. These models help leaders build actual skills to manage conflict personally. Finally Mike talks about building a culture that supports healthy conflict resolution. It is not enough for key leaders to have the skills, it is important to build the organizational aptitude and agreements about how it will navigate conflict in a manner that is generative. When conflict is addressed effectively, orgs thrive.

Guest: Skip Prichard

This interview discusses THE BOOK OF MISTAKES, an inspiring business fable of a young professional named David. Two years into the workforce, David has already become embittered with lost confidence, misdirection, and growing apathy over a list of all-too-familiar stresses. That is, until he’s taken on a journey from “struggling young professional” to “promising entrepreneur, public speaker, and change-maker” by nine sage teachers readying him with the mistakes that lead to failure. We discuss a few of the nine mistakes, commonly made but rarely addressed. The list of nine includes: 1. Working on someone else’s dream. 2. Allowing someone else to define your value. 3. Accepting excuses. 4. Surrounding yourself with the wrong people. 5. Staying in your comfort zone. 6. Allowing temporary setbacks to become personal failures. 7. Blending in instead of standing out. 8. Thinking there is a fixed and limited amount of success available. 9. Believing you have all the time in the world.

Guest: Dr. Dale Meyerrose

As 2017 comes to a close and we continue to plan and look forward, we see signs that technology change is positioned to revolutionize many areas of business and society. Given Dale’s experience, we want to share his views on short to medium term changes he is focusing on as well as how he is advising leaders to prepare for and manage the changes they anticipate and those they don’t anticipate but need to respond to. Dale shares his perspective on the following questions: 1. As we wrap up 2017, what stands out for you as some of the key changes that happened this year? 2. With these changes, some things seem even more important to get right – what are the key foundation stones that you think remain constant in this changing time for the individual and for the organization? 3. As we look forward to 2018 and beyond – are there any trends you are watching closely? 4. As leaders, do you have any recommendations for how to navigate the trends?

Guest: Christoph Hinske

Christoph discusses his findings from the experience based research exploring the patterns and specifics of societal-scale transformations in different culture. This research was commissioned by the German government and focused on global transformations outside of Germany. Christoph interviewed 22 thought leaders about their personal experience in running large scale transformation processes. Specifically he looked at the global implications of transformation exploring the patterns and specifics of societal scale transformations in different cultures. This work is now being leveraged by sustainability and transitions people around the world. During the interview, he shares common themes across cultures and transformation focus and recommendations that increase the probability of transformation success. The following quote summarizes how individuals and organizations view resources: “they are often perceived to be limited, but never scarce”

Guest: Dr. Gleb Tsipursky

Effective decision making is one of the key skills for great leaders. Learning how to balance science based approaches to decision making and also leverage experience and intuition form a strong foundation for leaders to improve how they make decisions and how they improve their decision making process. During the discussion Gleb shares several key points from his research. He will share tips and underlying foundation to enable you to improve your decision making skills. • How do you use science-based strategies for avoiding disasters in business environments? • How do you appeal to the emotions of internal and external stakeholders in your business to maximize success? • How do you manage your own emotions to make wise decisions – neither taking undue risks nor failing to seize promising opportunities? • How do you combine intuitive and analytical thinking to make the best possible decisions in an environment of uncertainty?

Guests: Urko Wood and Jeff Baker

In this show, we will explore what innovation really is, and is not, and bust some common myths. Listen in to learn how you can make innovation and growth a predictable and profitable business process.

Maureen, Urko, and Jeff will discuss:
1. What is the innovation process?
2. What makes it predictable?
3. What are the biggest myths you want to dispel during this conversation?
4. Why are some companies better at innovation than others?
5 What do you see is the biggest impediment to innovation in organizations today?
6. Is leadership itself ever an impediment to innovation?
7. How can companies build a culture of innovation?

Guests: Robert Bell, John Jung & Louis Zacharilla

The Intelligent Community Forum (ICF) is a global network of cities and regions with a think tank at its center. Its mission is to help communities use information and communications technology (ICT) to create inclusive prosperity, to tackle social and governance challenges and to enrich their quality of life. The ICF think tank studies how Intelligent Communities use ICT to succeed in the broadband economy. As effective leaders, it is critical to attend to the geographic environment and the ecosystems in which we live and work and explore how this ecosystem impacts the success of the organization and the leader. During the interview, the founders share: 1. Why they started the ICF 2. How do organizations benefit from being located within intelligent communities? 3. What is a healthy ecosystem? 4. What is the difference between a smart city and an intelligent city? 5. Why should leaders contribute to community building?

Guest: Kathy Starkoff

A key element of successful leadership in this dynamic time is successfully implementing large scale change. Kathy Starkoff has extensive experience successfully transforming large IT organizations as well as advising others on their implementations. She is an expert in all facets of IT including cyber security and risk management. This show will give you a better understanding of how leaders and their organizations successfully implement large scale change. This interview will include the following questions: • How does an organization achieve sustainable large scale change? • What are the critical components of large scale change? • Why does it always take so long? • How do you recognize issues along the way? • How do you address issues along the way? • What is the probability of a typical project’s “success”? • What are the most common mistakes made?