Lead From the Heart

  In our every day experience at work, we attend innumerable events – team meetings, orientations, employee recognition events, etc.) – that all have the potential to become really tedious & uninspiring simply because they feel routine & therefore joyless. But there’s an extremely powerful way of reinvigorating these kinds of events & making them truly meaningful to people. According to Harvard Business School professor, Michael Norton, adding rituals “can convert ordinary acts from black & white to technicolor.” Rituals are symbolic actions or ceremonies that hold special meaning within a team & help create a shared identity amongst everyone on it. When teammates participate in consistent rituals, they end up feeling more united to a common purpose, values & each other. In his new bestseller, “The Ritual Effect: From Habit to Ritual, Harness the Surprising Power of Everyday Actions,” Norton stresses that rituals are a powerful tool for leaders to use in fostering team bonds & connection. Starting every team meeting with the same brief ritual, for example, or awarding the identical prize to employees whenever they attain a certain right-of-passage, proves to have a powerful effect on engagement & even motivation. That’s because rituals reinforce positive behaviors. When teams celebrate achievements or recognize individual efforts in the exact same way every month, people on the team will work very hard to ensure their own performance is called out & honored. In this wildly informative discussion, Norton brilliantly explains why rituals so often yield deep meaning for people. And he shares several specific examples of the kinds of rituals workplace managers would be highly enlightened to introduce to their teams! The post Michael Norton: How Rituals Can Transform Your Team’s Connection, Happiness & Performance appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Saul Perlmutter, Nobel Laureate 2011 for Physics, in his office. There’s a lot that’s remarkable about the new book, Third Millennium Thinking: Creating Sense in a World of Nonsense, starting with the fact that one of its three co-authors is a Nobel laureate who earned the Nobel prize in physics for discovering the accelerating expansion of the universe. One might imagine that UC Berkeley professor, Saul Perlmutter could have written this book on his own, but instead, he intentionally collaborated with two people way outside of his own discipline: John Campbell – a philosophy professor at Berkeley – and Robert MacCoun – a social psychologist and law professor Stanford University. Before working together on their book, the authors teamed up in developing a wildly popular UC Berkeley course, designed to teach students how to better understand the world and make informed decisions in an era of uncertainty and overwhelming data. It emphasizes how processes used in the practice of science can provide widely-applicable tools for approaching individual and collective decision-making. One of Perlmutter’s gifts is his ability to simplify complex ideas and, in this conversation, he explains why every decision we make as leaders is really a bet – we’re rarely guaranteed that our choices will be the right ones – and why despite the fact that uncertainty makes us all really nervous and uncomfortable, we can use it in a way that allows us to have strong confidence in what we’re doing. Yes, that’s a paradox – but what did you expect from a guest like this? Saul Perlmutter is brilliant and relatable – and he shares some wonderful disciplines you can put to immediate use. The post Saul Perlmutter: How To Make Smarter Judgments & Wiser Decisions appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

    Nearly two decades ago, Stanford University psychologist, Carol Dweck, introduced the groundbreaking idea that human flourishing can be dramatically influenced by how we think about our talents & abilities. In her classic book, “Mindset: The New Psychology Of Success,” she taught us that some people have a general belief that their talents and intelligence are predetermined, & largely unalterable (hence, “fixed mindset”), while others believe their talents & abilities can indeed be nurtured and developed (hence, “growth mindset”). Dweck’s research proved that people who believe that their abilities are fixed are much less likely to flourish than those with a growth mindset – people who do believe that abilities can be developed. In her new bestseller, Cultures Of Growth: How The New Science Of Mindset Can Transform Individuals, Teams & Organizations, Mary C. Murphy, a social psychologist at both Stanford and Indiana Universities, shows that mindset transcends individuals. A growth mindset culture can transform any group, team, or classroom to reach breakthroughs while also helping each person achieve their potential. When Dweck’s book was just being published, Murphy was her graduate student earning her Ph.D. And it was then that Murphy observed that that “mindset” transcends individuals. Her thesis was that a growth mindset culture could transform any group, team, or classroom to reach breakthroughs while also helping people individually achieve their full potential. Working with Dweck, & later independently, Murphy spent a decade researching & then proving that organizations & teams which are geared toward growth mindsets, have huge performance upsides. She found they inspire deeper learning, spark collaboration, spur innovation & build the trust necessary for risk-taking and inclusion. They’re also more likely to achieve top results. As we discuss in this episode, Microsoft was the first company to apply “Growth Mindset” thinking to its overall leadership philosophy and culture. And, because of their great success they went on to have tied to this thinking, they’re by no means the last. Listen in to learn how you can create a culture of growth within your own team and organization – & how to build a workplace where everyone can thrive and achieve their potential, both individually and together. PS: Murphy’s research finds that people are infinitely more excited to work at companies that foster a culture of growth – and that translates into them being more loyal, more engaged and more productive. The post Mary C. Murphy: How A Culture Of Growth Can Transform Your Team appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  As a professor in NYU’s prestigious Stern School of Business, Alison Taylor spends a lot of time with the next generation of business leaders. In her new best seller, “Higher Ground: How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World,” she tells us that her MBA students are not hoping to have careers working for ethical companies. They now expect to. For decades, organizations largely committed themselves to doing whatever was legally allowable to maximize shareholder value – a singular focus that’s proving to be no longer viable. Taylor’s book easily could have been titled, “How Business Can Do the Right Thing in a Turbulent World,” because while shareholders remain unrelenting in pressuring companies to drive stock prices higher and higher, other stakeholders – customers and employees, especially – have significantly elevated their expectations of companies over issues like diversity and inclusion, fair treatment of workers, impacts on the environment, transparency and social responsibility. Taylor’s book (the focus of this episode) shows leaders how businesses can navigate this messy paradigm shift, build trust, and achieve long-term strategic advantage in our turbulent world. And she argues, the starting point is for companies to gain new and greater clarity around their purpose saying, “a healthy organizational culture has never been a better source of strategic advantage.” Because society itself is so divided, however, Taylor says companies can no longer hope to be all things to all people. The only realistic approach today is to define who they are – and who they aren’t – and then attract the stakeholders who want to align themselves accordingly. In this rather timely conversation, we discuss why respect for employees is now the most important principle in organizational leadership, why transparency is a managerial essential – and why so many workplace managers are stressed out about the contradictory pressures on driving performance and supporting employee well-being. The post Alison Taylor: How Leadership Can Find “Higher Ground” appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Human beings are social creatures. We’re hard-wired to connect deeply & intimately with others. We want to feel valued, supported, & needed. And this makes connection a fundamental aspect of our existence. But in our busy, technology-driven lives today, we have fewer friends than people did in past generations, we interact less with our neighbors, & the majority of interactions we have with people are now held virtually – not face-to-face. Many of us are even working remotely some days of the week, further limiting the number of other human beings we see & interact with on a regular basis. Needless to say, we’re missing out on something essential to our emotional & psychological well-being. Connection with others improves the quality of our lives, builds empathy, lengthens our lifespans & makes us less self-focused & more collaborative. It feeds our spirits. In her new bestseller, “The Amen Effect: Ancient Wisdom to Mend Our Broken Hearts and World,” Sharon Brous says we’ve reached the moment in time when we must restore our relationships with friends, family, co-workers and people in our community – all in order to honor our most basic human instinct – the yearning for real connection. Of her book, author Daniel Pink says “Sharon Brous has crafted a profound and poetic reminder that the remedy for a fractured world is human connection. The Amen Effect is a powerful call for each of us to show up for others, see them fully, & hold them close.” Daniel Pink’s testimonial – & another one from Wharton’s Adam Grant – is what caught my attention. I strongly believe that our workplaces must become centers for connection, that workplace managers must intentionally foster connection – & that leaders who focus on team cohesiveness will be the big winners in the future of work. To that end, Sharon Brous is urging us to not only invest in relationships of shared purpose, & to build communities of care, but to also “show up for one another in moments of joy & pain, vulnerability & possibility.” The word “amen” in her book’s title refers to the ancient practice of affirming another person’s life experiences by demonstrating, in body & word that: “I see you. You are not alone.” It’s really love that we’re all seeking and needing – & our conversation with Sharon Brous is focused on seeing how leaders can support this profound human need in order to ensure their people thrive & are able to perform optimally. You’ll be inspired. The post Sharon Brous: The Importance Of Fostering Connection In Our Workplaces appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  In his new bestseller, “The Geek Way,” Andrew McAfee makes the fascinating case that the most important technological revolution of our time isn’t what companies make, it’s in how they’re being managed. And by his definition, being geeky isn’t a pejorative but rather a clear description of leaders who are perennially curious, not afraid to tackle hard problems or embrace unconventional solutions. Those few assertions alone piqued our interest in having Andrew as a guest; and then we learned The Economist and The Financial Times named “The Geek Way” one of the best books of 2023. According to former Google Chairman, Eric Schmidt, “The Geek Way” is a book that will change the way we think about work, teams, projects, & culture – & give us the insight & tools we need to harness our human superpowers of learning & cooperation. We explore all of this in this episode. McAfee describes a new & optimal leadership culture based around four norms: science, ownership, speed, & openness. It’s a culture that’s neither deferential to experts, fond of planning & process, afraid of mistakes, or obsessed with “winning.” And when all four of his norms are in place, he says a culture emerges that is freewheeling, fast-moving, egalitarian, evidence-driven, argumentative, & autonomous. These are cultures that intentionally leverage “intense cooperation” & “rapid learning.” Andrew McAfee is the Co-Founder and Co-Director of the Initiative on the Digital Economy and a Principal Research Scientist at the MIT Sloan School of Management. We invite you to listen in to this cutting edge thinker. The post Andrew McAfee: Being “Geeky” Happens To Be Good Leadership Form appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  When we think about the highest performing people in all disciplines of life, they all commonly share the ability to think clearly, stay focused & shrug off setbacks all while under very high levels of stress. In their most critical moments, in other words, they know how to maintain intellectual clarity & emotional control – which allows them to consistently perform at exceptional levels. While we might believe that people like this are born into the world with uncommon abilities, the truth is they’re not innate talents at all; they’re 100% learned. So, this episode is dedicated to introducing you to more cutting-edge performance psychology techniques the world’s best athletes & elite military teams are known to already have mastered. This is a topic we first began exploring a few episodes ago with guest Michael Gervais & in which we now go even deeper & wider. We believe it’s time workplace leaders were given the tools they need to master their own states of being & introduce you to Dr. Eric Potterat to provide it. Eric is a clinical & performance psychologist who, as a US Navy Commander, helped create the mental toughness curriculum used during Navy SEALs BUD/S training. He spent several years as the director of specialized performance for the Los Angeles Dodgers & has worked with Red Bull athletes, the US Women’s national soccer team, the NBA’s Miami Heat, numerous Olympic athletes & NASA astronauts. In Eric’s words. the difference between settling & achieving, between good & great, between contentment & fulfillment, is based entirely on our mental approach. And he’s just published his first book which teaches the requisite skills. In “Learned Excellence: Mental Disciplines For Leading And Winning From The World’s Top Performers,” Eric distills his high-performance knowledge into five mental disciplines: “Values & Goals,” “Mindset,” “Process,” “Adversity Tolerance,” and “Balance & Recovery.” We discuss them all in our conversation with Eric – & his methodologies are guaranteed to both surprise & enlighten you. The post Eric Potterat: The Mental Disciplines For Leading & Winning appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Every organization is plagued by what Stanford University Business School professor, Bob Sutton, calls “destructive friction:” forces that make it harder, more complicated, or downright impossible to get things done. In Sutton’s language, “the convoluted, time-consuming & soul-crushing gyrations that drive people crazy and undermine organizational performance.” Along with his co-author, SBS professor, Huggy Rao, Sutton spent seven years studying the ways in which companies unintentionally create maddening friction – from mazes of red tape, to clueless leaders who pile on needless complexity, to hours spent in meetings to more wasted time spent reading poorly constructed and indirect communications (e-mail especially). And they’ve just published the new bestseller, “The Friction Project: How Smart Leaders Make The Right Things Easier And The Wrong Things Harder” in which they provide clear and proven solutions: tactics, tools, & practices to help us avert these traps & move forward. While most friction in organizations proves to undermine and slow-down progress, the authors stress there are times when leaders are actually wise to inject good friction into the mix – for the explicit purpose of enabling teams to be more creative, develop deeper connections and trust, be kinder & more ethical, make better decisions, and prevent bad friction from building up in the first place. On the book, Wharton’s Adam Grant says “If every leader took the ideas in this book seriously, the world would be a less miserable, more productive place.” Bob Sutton has written seven books including the bestsellers “The No Asshole Rule,” “Good Boss, Bad Boss” and “Scaling Up Excellence,” and has long been a desired guest for our podcast. The post Bob Sutton: Greasing The Skids For Organizational Success appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  The expression, “emotional intelligence” is seamlessly embedded into our common vernacular – but it was Daniel Goleman’s groundbreaking book a quarter century ago that first coined the idea & brought it to a mass audience. In his #1 bestseller “Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ” Goleman revolutionized how we think about human intelligence. Along with Rutgers University psychology professor Cary Cherniss, Goleman has just taken a fresh look at how emotional intelligence has evolved over the past few decades, & has written,“Optimal: How To Sustain Personal & Organizational Excellence Everyday.” Tied to new research, Goleman reveals practical methods for using one’s inner resources to more readily enter an “optimal” state of high performance while also avoiding burnout. There are moments when all of us achieve peak performance: An athlete plays a perfect game; a team has record-breaking quarterly results. But these moments are often elusive, & for every amazing day any of us has, we may also have a hundred ordinary or even unsatisfying days to follow. As isolated peak experiences clearly fail to consistently produce excellent results, Goleman’s book answers the question: How do we sustain high performance, while avoiding burnout and maintaining balance? His book taps into how hundreds of people have built the inner architecture that repeatedly leads them to having good days – proving that emotional intelligence holds the key to everyone’s best performance. Building on attributes such as self-awareness, a sense of meaning, emotional balance, high concentration and ‘flow’ states, Goleman demonstrates that it is in our optimal moments that our mental clarity shines. And when workplace leaders are equipped with this knowledge, they’re able to build a culture that additionally empowers employees to sustain their own high performance. The post Daniel Goleman: How To Optimize Emotional Intelligence appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Workplace managers are often told to define their leadership purpose & authentic self, & that this personal introspection & self-reflection will guide their leadership journey. But research on how adults actually learn shows that the logical sequence – “think, then act” – is reversed in a personal change process such as what’s involved with becoming a leader. In other words, we only increase our self-knowledge in the process of making changes. We try something new and then observe the results – how it feels to us, how others around us react – & only later reflect on and perhaps internalize what our experience taught us. Tied to this understanding, London Business School Organizational Behavior professor, Herminia Ibarra titled her global bestseller, “Act Like A Leader, Think Like A Leader.” Herminia tosses conventional wisdom aside – the idea that managers should increase their self-awareness first – & asserts that managers must experiment by taking actions and trying new things. (“How can I know what I think until I see what I do”)? New experiences not only change how we think, they change who we become. In other words, who we are as a leader is not the starting point on our development journey, but rather the outcome of learning about ourselves. Herminia Ibarra is ranked among the top management thinkers in the world by Thinkers50. She is a member of the World Economic Forum’s Expert Network, a judge for the Financial Times Business Book of the Year Award, and a fellow of the British Academy. Before moving to London, she taught at the Harvard Business School. This is the second time Herminia has been a guest on the podcast. Her first episode, focused on her study of how Satya Nadella transformed Microsoft, is the second most downloaded episode in our five-year-long podcast series. The post Herminia Ibarra: Act Before You Think! appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Michael Gervais is a high-performance psychologist who has helped some of the world’s most successful athletes overcome mental & emotional obstacles on their way to excelling in their sports. He was on the sidelines when the Seattle Seahawks won a Super Bowl, when beach volleyball players Kerri Walsh & Misty-May Treanor won Olympic gold – & when daredevil, Felix Baumgartner set a skydiving world record for the highest-ever free fall. In his new bestseller, “The First Rule Of Mastery: Stop Worrying About What People Think Of You,” co-written with his partner, Kevin Lake, Gervais argues that the single greatest constrictor of human potential is our fear of other people’s opinions (FOPO). FOPO shows up almost everywhere in our lives—& the consequences are great. When we let FOPO take control, we play it safe & small because we’re afraid of what will happen on the other side of critique. When challenged, we surrender our viewpoint. We trade in authenticity for approval. We please rather than provoke. We chase the dreams of others rather than our own. As the antidote, Gervais says the key to leading a high-performance life lies in learning how to redirect our attention from the world outside us into the world inside us. Discovering how to accomplish this – the mental skills & practices – is one of the key themes of this conversation. As you’ll also hear, so is the importance of gaining clarity around our personal purpose. Gervais believes valuing the opinion of others over our own creates a huge obstacle for optimal success in life. “But few want to do the hard work needed to change. The greatest, however, have a vision, & they commit to following it. They have great capacity to experience what’s uncomfortable, because they know that’s the way to self-mastery.” What separates the boys from the men (and the girls from the women!) is the focus of this highly informative conversation. Truly one of our most interesting & compelling episodes. The post Michael Gervais: Overcoming The Fear Of Other People’s Opinions appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Professor of Marketing at the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business, Dr. Marcus Collins, believes culture is the most powerful vehicle for influencing human behavior. In his words, “if you want to get people to move, there’s no vehicle more powerful or influential than culture. Full stop. Culture is how we inspire people to act. Culture implies social forces – both subtle & over – that govern the beliefs and behaviors of every-day life.” Suffice to say, many organizations, & their leaders, pay little attention to crafting & reinforcing their own workplace cultures – & unwittingly allow unproductive & even counter-productive behaviors & practices to take hold. Consequently, our discussion with Marcus is focused on how leaders can purposely re-invigorate & even reinvent their cultures to derive the greatest performance outcomes. Marcus Collins is a rather impressive person. Amazon named his new book, “For the Culture: The Power Behind What We Buy, What We Do, & Who We Want to Be” one of the “Best Books of the Year So Far In 2023.” He was recently named to the Thinkers50 & Deloitte class of 2023 Radar List of 30 thinkers with the ideas most likely to shape the future. And before becoming a professor, he led social media marketing at the cutting-edge advertising agency, Translation, owned by Jay-Z & Beyonce. He later became the head of strategy at the Wieden+Kennedy agency in New York where he led the successful launch of the Brooklyn Nets NBA team & campaigns for Nike & Apple. Marcus holds a doctorate in marketing from Temple University where he studied social contagion & meaning-making. He received an MBA with an emphasis on strategic brand marketing from the University of Michigan, where he also earned his undergraduate degree in Material Science Engineering. And, not surprisingly, one big theme of this episode is that we don’t persuade people through their intellect, we do it through their hearts. The post Marcus Collins: Culture Is What Inspires People To Act appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Many of the world’s wisdom traditions teach that we humans all have a core purpose – a gift uniquely assigned to us by the universe. Eastern religions call this “dharma,” and we also know it as “an inner calling.” What’s intriguing about this idea is that we know so many people are unhappy in their jobs. And, even after many of us have achieved some sense of career success, wealth and status in our lives, we find they’re not accompanied by “inner” feelings of success – i.e. joy, fulfillment and well-being. According to Harvard Medical School visiting scholar, Suneel Gupta, “people are achieving more than ever before, and getting no greater sense of fulfillment in their every-day lives. We’ve compartmentalized work and well-being and ignored the fact that both are essential for sustained success. We’ve assumed that outer success leads to inner well-being–despite history showing us that this has never been the case.” In his new bestseller, “Every Day Dharma: 8 Essential Practices For Finding Success & Joy In What You Do” Gupta says that each of us has a personal essence – unique talents and activities that make us feel passionate, energetic and fully aligned to the what we were put here to do. And it’s not only incumbent upon each of us to clarify what experiences in life make our own hearts sing, helping others discover theirs has become an essential leadership practice. In the Gospel of Thomas, it’s written that “if we bring forth what is within us, that thing will save us. If we don’t, it will destroy us.” This means, of course, that living a fully fulfilled and meaningful life demands that we first discover who we truly are at our core – and then go and put our true selves out in the world. Suneel Gupta joins us to discuss what our lives could be like if we found ways for everyone to live a more purposeful life. It’s a discussion too often overlooked in our workplaces — and it’s especially timely and enlightening. The post Suneel Gupta: Discovering The Great Work Of Your Life appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  As an entrepreneur and CEO, Ron Shaich has had one truly remarkable career. He’s the founder and former chairman and CEO of Panera Bread, a groundbreaking restaurant brand that today has more than 2,400 bakery cafés, 120,000 employees – and nearly $6 billion in annual sales. Under Shaich’s leadership, for multiple years, Panera generated annualized returns of over 25 percent, and in the same period, delivered a total shareholder return forty-four times better than the S&P 500. In 2017, he sold the business he created thirty-seven years earlier for $7.5 billion. In his new book (destined to be a bestseller), “Know What Matters: Lessons From A Lifetime Of Transformations,” Shaich reveals with honesty and candor what it’s like to live the entrepreneurial life and to run a large corporation – not just the highs but also the lows. In his book – the focus of the podcast discussion – Shaich reveals many attributes and philosophies that distinguish his leadership process: He’s Massively Planful: Before landing on a business model for Panera, he more than extensively traveled the U.S. visiting bakeries and restaurants in search of inspiration and practical guidance. He Keeps A Sharp Focus: Shaich pays close attention to the most essential elements of his business and lets the rest fall away. Hence his title, “Know What Matters”. He’s Anchored To Empathy: While traveling the U.S., he had the epiphany that people want to feel special in a world where they no longer feel they are. And making people feel special became a foundational intention of the Panera experience. He Believes Managers Must Be Inspiring: “A leader’s job is to give people are reason to do more than is expected of them – not less.” He’s Remarkable In His Own Field: Shaich has received an astonishing number of awards – many acknowledging his being one of the most significant contributors to the history of the restaurant industry. In 2017, he received the Legend in Leadership Award from the Chief Executive Leadership Institute at the Yale University School of Management. Incredibly, he’s already created an entirely new, Mediterranean restaurant chain, CAVA, that’s taking America by storm. For obvious reasons, an episode not to be missed! The post Ron Shaich: Know What Matters appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

  Frances Frei (left) is a tenured professor at the Harvard Business School, and two years ago, was an extraordinary guest on this podcast when we discussed her brilliant understanding on how to build, retain and restore trust. Listeners should note that she also gave a remarkable TED Talk on trust that shouldn’t be missed. Frances returns to the podcast to discuss a wonderful new book that she & her (also brilliant) life & professional partner, Anne Morriss, have written. Unlike Meta CEO, Marc Zuckerberg, who once urged his organization to “move fast and break things,” Frei & Morriss prove to be more sensible & enlightened in asserting that a swift implementation of change needn’t be accompanied by a lot of wreckage & harm (to people especially) as Zuckerberg previously assumed. Frei and Morriss are speed freaks – meaning they think all change initiatives have a far better chance of succeeding when implemented with true urgency – but also believe the best leaders can not only handle the speed, they can do so while while making their organizations—employees, customers, & shareholders—even stronger. Their new book is cleverly called, “Move Fast And Fix Things,” and features five essential steps to implementing change that require no tradeoffs between speed & excellence: Identify the real problem holding you back Build and rebuild trust in your company Create a culture where everyone can thrive Communicate powerfully as a leader Go fast by empowering your team As many of our podcast listeners continue to seek guidance on how to make their organizations (& leaders) more caring & humane, we asked Anne and Frances to come prepared to apply their methodology to this very problem. It might be the most comprehensive guidance you’ve ever received on how to implement the “Lead From The Heart” philosophy at your workplace. Listen in to two creative thinkers who also happen to be a lot of fun to spend time with. The post Frances Frei & Anne Morriss: Leading Change Without Collateral Damage appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Our drive to create change, have impact & solve problems all comes from emotional energy. Who we become – how dynamic & powerful we are as people & leaders – depends upon our learning to work with this energy. Leaders may feel as if they don’t control this energy, that it’s just a product of the world around them & the forces bearing down on them. But that’s just not the case. A through-line of this podcast is the thesis that we humans are nowhere near the rational beings we’ve long believed we were. Science has proven that feelings & emotions hold profound sway over our choices & decisions – a truth that applies to the people we lead & manage just as much as to ourselves. Dr. Julia DiGangi is a practicing neuropsychologist & the author of “Energy Rising: The Neuroscience of Leading With Emotional Power.” She joins us to discuss how emotions shape our worldview & ultimately, our behavior. Positive emotions make us all feel worthy, confident, strong, significant, strong & important. Negative emotions – like anxiety, fear, worry, anger & disappointment – give us pain & make us suffer. If positive emotions enable our best performance & negative emotions undermine it, Dr. DiGangi says we must consciously reflect upon our own emotional experiences & realize they are the primary force that impacts how we affect other people. And most leaders greatly underestimate the power & influence they have by mindfully harnessing their emotional energy. One of Dr. DiGangi’s key assertions is that our leadership effectiveness is fully dependent upon our ability to use emotional energy to successfully lead ourselves – & the sad truth is most of us tend to deplete our own power by doubting our own value & worth, & by not remaining true to ourselves. Magnetic leadership is when other people follow us because they are attracted to the power of our example. This episode is dedicated to reminding you of your great value as a person so – in your role as a leader – you can go on to remind others of theirs. The post Julia DiGangi: Harnessing Emotional Energy For Personal & Leadership Success appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

What comes to mind when you think about failure – specifically, a failure of your own? Intellectually, we may all agree that failures are great teachers, but deep down the idea of failing at anything in life tends to produce some distressing emotions & feelings. The truth is, most of us (try as we will) would just assume not ever fail. According to Harvard Business School professor, Amy Edmondson, we’ve always tended to think of failure as being the opposite of success – an erroneous belief that inherently influences many a workplace leader to avoid failing at all costs. It also influences managers to punish employee failures. In her speeches to business groups, Edmondson often asks audiences, “What percentage of the failures in your organization do you think are blameworthy? Consistently, the answer is 1-to-4 percent. Then she asks, “How many of the failures get treated as blameworthy?” The answer is consistently 70-to-90 percent. In her new book, “Right Kind Of Wrong: The Science Of Failing Well,” Edmondson posits that failure actually can work in our favor – & that workplace leaders need a reframe on all the good that can come from “failing well.” As a Ph.D. student at Harvard, Edmondson was assigned to a research project at a nearby hospital. The thesis she sought to prove was that the more cohesive, trusting and collaborative a team was, the fewer mistakes they would make when treating patients. But when she learned that the most unified teams actually made more mistakes compared to other less interdependent teams, she was initially confused, distressed – & feared she had failed. That is until she discovered that teams anchored on mutual trust simply disclosed more of their errors in order to learn from them and improve. While Edmondson at first believed her “failed” thesis was an academic embarrassment, ironically, her determination as a researcher led her to understand the importance of psychological safety (in this case, feeling safe to openly acknowledge failures) in the workplace – what’s gone on to become her life’s work. In this podcast, Amy explains how we can minimize unproductive failure while also maximizing what we gain from flubs of all stripes. She shares how we and our organizations can embrace our human fallibility, learn exactly when failure is our friend, and prevent most of it when it is not. NOTE: This is the third time Edmondson has been a guest on this podcast and her episode, “Why Psychological Safety Breeds Exceptionally High Performing Teams” is the #1 most downloaded episode in our entire series. When COVID first hit in 2020 – and people were first deployed to their homes to work – we asked if she would do a special podcast episode dedicated to helping managers maneuver in a very stressful and ambiguous moment. Edmondson immediately agreed. With over 110 episodes produced so far, we’ve never had a more generous and brilliant guest. The post Amy Edmondson: How To Fail Well appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

In what might seem to be the least likely workplace imaginable to implement this, automaker BMW now has five generations of people working under one roof in their factories collaborating & contributing their unique skills and perspectives. If, by chance, you’re wondering how older workers could possibly keep up with the rigorous demands of building cars on an assembly line, you may be missing one of the most important societal trends of the moment: people today aren’t just living longer than ever, they’re remaining healthy & capable of working many years beyond the traditional retirement age of 65. For the first time in human history, eight defined generations now live together side by side, from Alphas to the Greatest Generation by way of Boomers, Gen-X, Millennials & more. And, until now, these generational labels have only served to pigeonhole people & define their presumed limitations. In his new book, “The Perennials, The Megatrends Creating A Postgenerational Society,” Wharton Business School management professor & assistant dean, Mauro Guillen, argues that the idea of a linear life of compartmentalized stages (i.e. from birth to childhood to adulthood to retirement) is no longer appropriate, & that concepts like retirement prove to do more harm than good. He’s proposing an alternative: a post-generational workforce of “perennials,” where older people are encouraged to work well into their 70s alongside their younger colleagues. Guillen rejects the idea that older people are too set in their ways to adapt, & points to evidence showing that, when given the opportunity, they can use their experience & maturity to add value to any business wise enough to hold on to them. Guiilen stresses that educational institutions should also be willing to embrace older students, since there’s a necessity for continual re-skilling to accommodate new technologies & trends. And, older people who remain in the workforce offer huge marketing opportunities for companies looking to expand their product lines in everything from cosmetics to cars. He also acknowledges that all this will require a new mindset – & enlightened leadership – in our workplaces. Younger people must be shown the upsides of accepting older people at work even while they themselves grapple with the idea of lifelong learning. Equally, older people need to accept that change, both technological & social, will be a constant in their lives. This won’t be easy, but the upside is that many more people will have the opportunity to lead lives that are personally rewarding & socially fulfilling. How can all this work? That’s the core focus of this podcast. This is also Guillen’s second time being a guest – three years ago he joined us to discuss his Wall Street Journal Bestseller, 2030: How Today’s Biggest Trends Will Collide and Reshape the Future of Everything. The post Mauro Guillen: Redefining Traditional Notions of Aging In Our Workplaces appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Very few people know their life’s purpose at an early age, but as a young college student, Ed Catmull started dreaming of making the world’s first computer animated movie. He went on to nurture that dream by earning a Ph.D. in Computer Science before forging a partnership with George Lucas (of Star Wars fame) that led to his founding Pixar Animation Studios with Apple founder, Steve Jobs & John Lasseter. In 1995, Pixar ultimately fulfilled Catmull’s dream by releasing “Toy Story,” & in the nearly three decades since, Pixar has dominated the world of animation, giving us such beloved films as “Finding Nemo,” “The Incredibles,” “Up,” “Inside Out” – & racking up 18 Academy Awards in the process. Anyone who has seen a Pixar movie knows they all share a brilliant formula: joyous storytelling, inventive plots & characters that touch our hearts. But the essential ingredient in “Toy Story’s” success – & in the twenty-five films that followed – was the unique culture that Catmull (as CEO) & his colleagues built that uniquely nurtured the creative process & defied traditional leadership convention. In our conversation, we explore how Catmull & his team introduced psychological safety (long before it was a thing) as a means to ensuring the film directors received critical yet caring feedback on their work – & how pursuing excellence as an organizational value led to the production of so many remarkable movies – animated or otherwise. Perhaps no person on the planet than Catmull spent more years working with Steve Jobs, & this podcast also explores how Jobs greatly evolved as a leader. Before Ed Catmull retired in 2019, he was President of Disney Animation and Pixar – two of the most innovative companies on the planet. The post Ed Catmull: On Creativity, Heart, Steve Jobs And Leading Pixar appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

What makes for a happy life? A good life? In 1938, Harvard University researchers launched what’s now become the longest in-depth longitudinal study of human life ever done. The Harvard Study of Adult Development has followed the lives of two generations of individuals, from the same families, for nearly 85 years. And the conclusion from all these decades of inquiry is that human thriving, & even longevity, are predicated on having meaningful connection with others. In other words, the stronger our relationships, the more likely we are to live happy, satisfying & flourishing lives. Dr. Robert Waldinger is the fourth director in the history of the Harvard Study, & he’s recently co-written the global bestseller, The Good Life: Lessons From The World’s Longest Scientific Study Of Happiness. His TED Talk about the Harvard Study, “What Makes a Good Life,” has been viewed 42 million times & is one of the ten most-watched TED talks ever. Dr. Robert Waldinger is also a professor of psychiatry at Harvard Medical School & is a practicing psychiatrist & psychoanalyst. He is a Zen master (Roshi) and teaches meditation all around the world…. While we’re all conditioned to believe that money buys happiness – & that a focus on material needs leads to the good life – Waldinger’s work proves that relationships in all forms: friendships, romantic partnerships, families, coworkers, tennis partners, book club members et al, is what truly characterizes a joyful & healthier life. Inherently, this also means that having fewer friends & daily human interactions is directly harmful to well-being. In fact, the US Centers For Disease Control has found that having fewer social relationships (characterized by social isolation & loneliness) is associated with a 29% greater risk of heart disease & a 32% increased risk of stroke. In an era where studies show most people today have only three-to-five close friends – & are often working alone, away from other people – a deprivation of steady connection may actually be harming us. In our conversation with Dr. Waldinger, we explore ways of maximizing the benefits we gain from the brief interactions we have with other people most days (what he calls, “social fitness”). And he weighs in on remote working in one of the most provocative ways you’ve ever heard. In truth, real human connection only occurs in our hearts (not in our brains), so this is a particularly important topic & guest for the “Lead From The Heart” podcast – not to mention its listeners. The post Dr. Robert Waldinger: How To Have A Happy And Fulfilling Life appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Seemingly overnight, the COVID pandemic caused a massive societal transformation — a structural change in how and where people work and live. And while we may be hearing that CEOs is general still have dreams of having all of their employees back in the office five days a week as they once did, the truth is that nothing is going back to normal. Perhaps because it’s long been uncertain as to whether or not remote working would endure, organizations have yet to fully embrace the new reality and adapt their leadership practices accordingly. In other words, they’ve yet to master managing people who work in the office some days and in the office on others. And, in many cases, they’ve failed to give employees clear direction on expectations. By all important measures – engagement, well-being and employee retention – the evidence is clear that most people today are poorly managed. Employee engagement has fallen to a seven-year low, just 20% of workers feel strongly connected to their organization’s culture – and turnover (at least in the US) has set records for two consecutive years. To punctuate all of this, Microsoft’s Chief Human Resource Officer, Kathleen Hogan wrote an article titled, “We Are Experiencing A Global Human Energy Crisis.” Her assertion was that workers everywhere have become highly dispirited by traditional leadership practices and that companies are suffering for it as a result. In fortuitous timing, Gallup has been ahead of the curve in identifying all the pivots organizations need to make at this important inflection point, and we’ve invited Jim Harter – Gallup’s long-time Chief Scientist and founder of the firm’s longstanding engagement and well-being studies – to be our first three-time guest. Along with Gallup Chairman, Jim Clifton, Harter has just written “Culture Shock: An Unstoppable Force Has Changed How We Work And Live. Gallup’s Solution To The Biggest Issue Of Our Time,” a book that will be published in late May. How do we solve society’s energy crisis? How to companies re-engage their people and ensure they feel a greater connection to its mission and people? How can managers ensure their employees with hybrid working schedules remain highly productive? These are just some of the important leadership questions we discuss in this invaluable episode. The post Jim Harter: Gallup’s Guidance On Leading In The Post-Pandemic Workplace appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

One of the through lines of this podcast is the idea that the COVID pandemic profoundly and permanently changed how people think about work – not to mention the value exchange we now expect from it. Consequently, in a post-pandemic world, our common and traditional ways of motivating human performance in our workplaces instantly lost any remaining viability, and now must be replaced with practices that inherently demonstrate to workers that they are valued, appreciated and respected in the most meaningful ways. What’s long been missing in leadership is heart – and if the nearly 100 million American workers who quit their jobs during the past two year-long “Great Resignation” have a message to send, it’s that they’ll no longer accept job offers where they don’t have a manager who cares about them, advocates for them, develops them and honors who they are as a person. One theme we haven’t spent enough time discussing is empathy, more specifically the managerial ability to better understand the lives, motivations and needs of the employees we lead before being able to give them the personalized support they’re seeking. Authors Heather E. McGowan and Chris Shipley have just published “The Empathy Advantage: Leading the Empowered Workforce,” a book that speaks to this directly – and this podcast with Heather is focused on exploring some of the less obvious ways managers can powerfully demonstrate empathy to their people. In his book, “The Future Normal,” our most recent podcast guest, Rohit Bhargava noted that both sexual identity and gender were emerging as a new form of diversity in workplaces. And Heather’s book more directly asserts these “have become the most rapidly transforming demographic in the workforce today.” So, in our discussion, we address this sensitive issue with Heather providing some rather humane and insightful guidance to managers on how to effectively maneuver as this change takes hold. With another through line of this podcast being that we all must learn to effectively navigate our new uncertain and non-linear world, Heather brings an optimistic view to virtually every topic we discuss. A long-time listener and promoter of this podcast, my conversation with her replicates one you’d have with a long-time friend. And it’s truly informative. The post Heather McGowan: How To Empower & Inspire Human Potential appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

As life today seems to be becoming more complex & unpredictable by the minute, it sure would be nice if we had a crystal ball to see into the future. And, while seeing into the future with any degree of certainty is, of course, a fantasy, there are trends occurring in the world that some informed observers can determine with reasonable certainty are poised to impact our future lives. And this episode’s guest is one of the best at spotting those things – & the title of his new bestseller, “The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work & Thrive In The Next Decade” pretty much sums up the theme of today’s episode. Rohit Bhargava is the founder of the Non-Obvious Company & is widely considered one of the most original thinkers on marketing disruption & innovation in the world. He is the Wall Street Journal bestselling author of five books and teaches marketing and storytelling at Georgetown University. Rohit was also a recent speaker at the “South By Southwest” conference in Austin, Texas. Having a view into the future is always valuable, of course, but there are a few specific reasons why I wanted Rohit to join us. First, he doesn’t see technology as something to be feared or resisted, but rather as being a tool for creating a better world for all of us. He optimistically acknowledges that there will be challenges along the way, but believes that with the right mindset & approach, we can navigate those challenges & emerge stronger & more connected than ever before. And speaking of connection, Rohit recognizes that technology has the power to bring us together in new & exciting ways, but also knows it can be isolating & alienating if not used properly. In our discussion, he shares his best strategies for staying connected with our loved ones, & for building meaningful relationships, at a time when we’re now spending record amounts of time on our devices. So, what’s life going to be like in the months & near years ahead. Please listen in to my discussion with Rohit to find out! The post Rohit Bhargava: The Future Normal: How We Will Live, Work & Thrive In The Next Decade appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

The post-pandemic world we’re all living in sure seems to be more volatile, more toxic, more stressful and more subject to radical change due automation, downsizing, and globalization than ever. And that just means it’s become much harder for any of us human beings to truly flourish in our lives. As if the past three years of COVID related challenges didn’t already make us feel weary! Martin Seligman is a University of Pennsylvania professor & the former president of the American Psychological Association. It was Seligman who first argued that psychological research would far better serve society if it focused more on discovering ways to enable human thriving than it does on treating people who already have psychological illness. And with that impetus, he launched the “positive psychology” movement. Recently, Seligman partnered with Dr. Gabriella Rosen Kellerman in writing the new bestseller, “Tomorrowmind: Thriving At Work With Resilience, Creativity & Connection – Now And In An Uncertain Future.” Trained in psychology herself – & having earned a medical degree from the Mount Sinai School of Medicine and a bachelor’s degree summa cum laude from Harvard University – she is the chief product and chief innovation officer at human transformation company BetterUp. Much of Dr. Kellerman’s her work has resulted in identifying five psychological powers she and Martin Seligman believe have become essential to personal well-being & success in the future workplace: (“Resilience & Cognitive Ability,” “Meaning & Mattering,” “Connection & Rapid Rapport Building,” “Prospection” – the forward looking ability to emotionally and logistically prepare for change before it arrives – and, “Creativity & Innovation”). No one can deny that how we worked ten years ago, how we work today, and how we’ll work just five years from now are all likely to be profoundly different. The entire focus of this conversation with Dr. Kellerman, then, is to help you not just survive in the emerging and new work environment, but to bloom in it. And it starts by fleshing out these five psychological powers in order that you can master them. It’s insight we all need assuming life’s about to become more demanding & challenging than it already is today. The post Gabriella Rosen Kellerman: How To Future-Proof The Uncertain World Of Work appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

When hybrid cars first became mass produced over a decade ago, Honda and Toyota had two different strategies. Honda chose to produce a hybrid version of its wildly popular “Civic,” believing brand familiarity would help customers feel more comfortable with its brand-new technology. Toyota not only decided to produce an entirely new model car, they intentionally designed it so it would stand out. Which of the two models do you think ended up outselling the other one on a grand scale? According to Uri Gneezy, behavioral economics professor at the Rady School of Management at the University of California, San Diego, Toyota’s “Prius” continues to dominate hybrid car sales today – specifically because Toyota’s senior management understood how incentives work. One might think that acquiring one of the first energy-saving hybrid cars would have been motivation alone for people already inclined to do their part to help the planet. But Toyota knew it wasn’t. They understood that people buying the first hybrid cars would also want to “signal” to other people that they were the kind of eco-conscious person who’d be willing to sacrifice personal luxury & horse power in order to help the environment. So, Toyota intentionally built an edgier (literally) car to ensure other people “noticed” it. This is just one of the myriad examples Gneezy cites in his new bestseller, “Mixed Signals: How Incentives Really Work,” to show that incentives send powerful signals that aim to influence behavior. But often – especially when it comes to workplace incentives – there’s a conflict between what a company intends with their incentives & the behavior they actually motivate. Consider the leader who urges teamwork, but unintentionally designs incentives for individual success. Or the one who invites innovation but punishes failure. It might sound funny, but organizations have been known to tell workers that “quality is job one,” while launching incentives that pay for quantity. To help workplace leaders especially, Gneezy highlights how the right combination of economic & psychological incentives can encourage people to drive more fuel-efficient cars, be more innovative at work, & even get to the gym. “Incentives send a signal, & your objective is to make sure this signal is aligned with your goals.” This is a fascinating discussion that will not only teach you how to more effectively create incentives for your employees and even children – it also explains how incentives are used to motivate our behavior (and not always favorably) by people we all interact with every day (think doctors, plumbers, sales people et al). Wharton’s Adam Grant named “Mixed Signals one of his highly recommended books of 2023. The post Uri Gneezy: Avoiding Mixed Signals: How To Align Incentives With Your Values appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

When you think about our world today, “turbulent” might be the first word you use to describe it. After a three-year long COVID pandemic fatigued us all, we’re now bewildered by a surprising number of employee layoffs occurring in all industries, & equally uncertain about how disruptive the AI-GPT technology will be to our work & careers. A crisis in Urkraine continues with no end in sight; it’s still undetermined where people will work most days – & unrelenting inflation is adding financial stress to all of our lives. To put it lightly, the world we live & lead in today is filled with uncertainty, ambiguity & complexity – & there simply are no signs suggesting we’ll ever again live in more simpler times. Our guest this episode is Jean Gomes, author of “Leading in a Non-Linear World: Building Wellbeing, Strategic and Innovation Mindsets for the Future, a book the Financial Times spotlighted as one its most anticipated books of 2023. Jean was the co-author with Tony Schwartz of the New York Times bestseller, The Way We’re Working Isn’t Working – & his new book shows how our mindset, more than our knowledge & expertise, has become our greatest asset in facing an uncertain future – & to making important decisions when little or no data exists. Tapping into emerging science & research which proves our basic understanding of the term, “mindset” is missing some important dimensions, Gomes’ book shows that our mindset isn’t just a set of beliefs that shape how we make sense of the world, but actually the interplay of our feeling, thinking, & seeing. While a lot of us (those of us in leadership roles, especially) instinctively go to our minds when we’re having to make difficult or spontaneous decisions, it turns out we have far greater & supplemental intelligence to leverage when we learn to listen to what our bodies tell us. Remarkably, science proves that our bodies know significantly earlier than our brains when we’re about to make a bad decision – & our feelings tell us the truth about situations that our rational minds often cannot see. While the expressions “lead with the heart” and “heart-led leader” are suddenly gaining traction in business, they’re almost always used as a metaphor. But, in the case of Mark’s book & this podcast, the title “Lead From The Heart” was specifically chosen because of the emerging science which proves our hearts are not just blood pumps, they’re also a source of intelligence that holds great influence over human choices & behavior. Because we no longer live in a linear world where both our problems & solutions are clear, our rational, thinking brains alone cannot adequately respond to the non-linear world in which we find ourselves today. And, so, Jean Gomes joins us to explain why tapping into the intelligence of our bodies – which very much includes the heart – provides a profound competitive advantage in leadership because it consistently leads to better judgments. This is absolutely cutting edge insight, & learning how to do this is easy. Listen in! The post Jean Gomes: How To Develop The Mindsets You Need To Flourish In An Uncertain World appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

When Bob Chapman was thirty years old, his father died of a sudden heart attack – instantly making Bob CEO of a small, unprofitable manufacturing company his dad had only recently purchased. For the next two decades, leveraging an MBA from the University of Michigan, and a few years’ experience as a senior level accountant to prepare him, he led his company as most CEOs of his era did. He squeezed his workers as much as he could, and laid them off in times when the business’s profits were challenged. But in the late 1990’s Bob Chapman had a massive change of heart. He started caring about his employees in truly significant ways. With great intention, he reimagined the culture at Barry-Wehmiller, and went on to build a $3.7 billion (revenue) business via 60 acquisitions. And every time he took on a new team or a new plant, he went there personally to ensure his skeptical workers heard it from him: They were now working for a company based on trust and the ideal that “everybody matters.” During the Great Recession, Chapman never laid off a soul in any of his many locations. He personally forfeited 90% of his salary and then asked every employee to take a one-month unpaid leave. The way he saw it, “during tough times a family pulls together, makes sacrifices together, and endures short-term pain together. “If a parent loses his or her job, a family doesn’t lay off one of the kids.” As a result of his approach, Barry-Wehmiller remarkably emerged from the downturn with higher employee morale than ever before. In his book, “Everybody Matters,” Chapman says, “once you stop treating people like functions or costs, disengaged workers begin to share their gifts and talents toward a shared future. Uninspired workers stop feeling that their jobs have no meaning. Frustrated workers stop taking their bad days out on their spouses and kids. And everyone stops counting the minutes until it’s time to go home.” In the eight years since his book was published, Chapman has become an activist in the world of CEOs. He realizes too few of them have embraced any of the humane leadership practices that have made his company so successful – and he spends much of his time working to persuade them to change. This podcast exists for the sole purpose of persuading managers around the world that there is nothing but upside for them once they begin to lead from the heart. Bob Chapman is the embodiment of that ideal – and a model leaders can follow if they not only want to drive performance and profits, but positively impact the lives of other people as well. The post Bob Chapman: A CEO The Business World Must Emulate appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Our most precious resource isn’t money. It’s time. We’re all given the same twenty-four hours a day – &, for most of us, that never feels enough. We flatter ourselves for being “so busy” in our jobs, yet end our days feeling depleted & without enough time to get to the gym, read the books we want to – or spend dedicated time with the people we love. And often, the recognition that we always feel “time poor” makes us resentful and unhappy. Social psychologist and professor at UCLA’s Anderson School of Management, Cassie Holmes, has devoted her career to researching the role that time plays in our lives – with a specific interest in how different ways of thinking about & allocating our time might lead to greater life satisfaction & well-being. Tied to all she’s learned, she’s just published, Happier Hour: How To Beat Distraction, Expand Your Time And Focus On What Matters Most, named by Amazon’s editors as one of their “Best Books” of 2022. One of the first eye-opening observations she makes is that we don’t really need much more free time to make us content. A key study shows people are happiest with just 2 to 5 hours of discretionary time per day (ironically, when we’re given more than this, we grow bored & wanting more to challenge us). Another discovery is that, as people get older, they tend to find a higher level of happiness in ordinary events (say, a walk with a friend) in contrast to younger people, who mostly see happiness boosts from extraordinary events (a great vacation or show). “Realizing their time is precious, these people become more prone to savor even the simplest of moments.” Holmes observes that many of our daily experiences can be made to feel more meaningful when we, too, realize we won’t continue to do them every day forever. After admonishing her son to hurry up when he had literally stopped to smell the roses on the way to preschool, she says, “I didn’t realize that on that very morning I was trying to get Leo to hurry up, we had already completed 80 percent of those preschool commutes. Better to enjoy the roses on the last 20 percent.” “How we decide to approach our hours and spend our days determines the happiness we get to enjoy in life,” Holmes says. “And, when it comes to time & creating a good schedule, ‘we are the artist.’ We’re not just an observer, subject to passive viewing. This is our time. The mosaic we create is the magnificent life that we get to live.” This podcast, then, is dedicated to helping you become wiser in how you use life’s most precious resource — time — and in making decisions that will affect the happiness you experience every single day. The post Cassie Holmes: How To Live More Happy Hours appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

According to PepsiCo’s award-winning, and first, Chief Design Officer, Mauro Porcini, “our world is radically changing, and is forcing us to innovate as never before. And, we are entering a new, modern renaissance fueled by the reborn, humanistic necessity of putting people at the center of everything.” And when Porcini says, “put people at the center of everything,” he’s not just referring to the human beings (consumers) for whom companies design products and services, but also explicitly for all of the human beings who lead and participate in the innovation process – (an organization’s employees). Porcini, who also was the first ever Chief Design Officer at 3M – one of the most innovative companies in the world – has just published, “The Human Side Of Innovation: The Power Of People In Love With People,” where he makes the uncommon assertion that: “Innovation is an act of love. It is a gesture of empathy, respect, generosity, of one human being’s devotion to another.” And, recognizing that humans have all of the ideas that make innovation happen, he’s an advocate for loving employees as a condition for drawing out their greatest creativity. When hiring people to work on his design team, Porcini not only focuses on finding candidates who “are in love with people” – and who have a genuine fire in them to create meaningful solutions for actual human beings – but people who also possess the specific traits of kindness, optimism, curiosity, and humility. Leading any team of human beings, he believes, inherently requires managers possess these exact same qualities. We don’t often think about how a company’s culture will impact its ability to drive change, transform product offerings or reimagine processes; but one of the world’s top design thinkers believes any leader who fails to see the direct connection will fall by the wayside – transcended by people, and organizations, who do. Mauro Porcini isn’t just inspiring in this conversation. His philosophy and leadership thinking will likely transform you. The post Mauro Porcini: If Your Organization Wants To Innovate, Love Your People appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

You might not think a book on philosophy could be a bestseller these days, but the title of MIT professor, Kieran Setiya’s new book, “Life Is Hard” clearly has wide appeal. We’ve just come out of a two-year global pandemic, have experienced record inflation due in part to a seemingly endless war in Ukraine – and are heading into a recession that could put many workers’ jobs in jeopardy. And these are just the headline issues that make our lives especially difficult today. It’s rather confirming (soothing even) to hear a respected academic say the words, “life is hard” if for any reason that we’ve all been influenced to believe that, when it comes to dealing with life’s challenges, we’re just supposed to suck it up, plow through and keep smiling. Setiya’s book (and the focus of this podcast) is about making the best of a bad lot. It offers guidance for coping with pain, grieving loss, getting older, failing with grace, confronting injustice and searching for personal meaning. Pop psychologists simplistically advise us to “find our bliss” and “live our best lives,” while Setiya acknowledges that, at times, the best can often be out of our reach. As a contrast, he asks how we can better weather life’s adversities, find hope and live well when life is hard? Our first episode of the new season welcomes an educator from one of the world’s top universities. A philosophy expert and a philosopher in his own right, Setiya joins us to share wisdom of the ages we can apply to better manage all of our life’s challenges. And since many of our biggest difficulties and daily stresses too often occur at work, we’ve asked Setiya to share wisdom that can directly help you become a more grounded and confident leader…no matter how hard your life gets. It’s a truly brilliant and inspiring conversation you won’t want to miss. The post Kieran Setiya: How To Live Well When Life Is Hardest appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

For our 100th episode – and our final episode of the 2022 season – we bring you a guest who is the true embodiment of the Lead From The Heart philosophy. Bill George is formerly the CEO of Medtronic – a Fortune 200 medical device company which has 90,000 employees across 120 countries. And, for the past twenty years, he’s been a professor at the Harvard Business School where he’s long insisted that workplace managers at all levels possess a “moral compass” to guide their actions. He believes ‘the four most important qualities of leadership are passion, compassion, empathy and courage.” It may come as a surprise that any top business school professor would so strongly emphasize a leadership philosophy tied to values, character and, heart – but George is also the author of the leadership classic, “Discover Your True North” which he’s recently revised and republished. In his new edition, he makes some stunning assertions – starting with his belief that people running large companies today have lost touch with the needs of younger workers & must step aside. In his words, “current business leaders must move the next generation of leaders to their rightful place.” George also believes business – and society as a whole – would be wise to repudiate CEOs who intentionally harm people by their actions. In no uncertain terms, he calls out Facebook founder and CEO, Mark Zuckerberg for being as a leader who lacks both ethics & any spiritual center. And, most remarkably, he says business has long valued intelligent, intellectual workplace managers when what leadership truly needs today is a shift to the heart. He believes this approach to managing human beings is truly reflective of the future style of leadership. And he explains why in the compelling conversation. The post Bill George: Harvard’s Senior Fellow Urges Managers To Lead From The Heart appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

“If we have no peace, it is because we have forgotten that we belong to each other.” ~ Mother Teresa. Social belonging is a fundamental human need, hardwired into our DNA. And yet, 40% of people say that they feel isolated at work, and the result has been lower organizational commitment and engagement. I suppose we should throw “quiet quitting” in there too — a sign workers today feel less connected to their colleagues and unconvinced that they matter much to their organization, team or manager. On top of that, we’re living in rather polarized times. Whether it’s politics, social issues, race or gender, we’re now massively divided. Even worse, as a society, we’ve grown incredibly intolerant of people who don’t think and believe what we do. To punctuate that point, 40% of people in each of the two primary political parties in the US say that supporters of their opposing party are “downright evil.” If there was ever a problem in the world needing leadership, it’s surely this one. It’s simply unsustainable for us to cohabitate this planet without having greater empathy, compassion, connection, patience and tolerance for people who are unlike us. So, what if there were a set of science-backed techniques for navigating life that could help us overcome our differences and rebuild lasting connections across all of these divides? What if there were a useful set of takeaways for managers and educators of all stripes to create connection now that it’s become critically needed? Stanford University professor Geoffrey Cohen is the author of the new book, “Belonging.” His work demonstrates that there really is a way back toward having a civil and cooperative society – one where people of all stripes feel they belong — and provides concrete solutions for improving daily life at work, in school, in our homes, and in our communities. Cohen asserts that every human being alive has a deep and essential need to belong, but most of us don’t fully appreciate that need in others. So, this episode is dedicated to understanding the methods and practices that will help us restore a common sense of belonging all tied to his groundbreaking research. The post Geoffrey Cohen: The Science Of Creating Connection And Bridging Divides appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Are you someone who would love to make a positive change in the world? Could you be an influential change maker? University of California, Berkeley Haas Business School professor, Alex Budak believes all of us have the potential. And he created a wildly popular class called “Becoming a Changemaker,” which has quickly grown into one of the most highly-rated courses anywhere on the CAL campus. The popularity of Budak’s class very strongly hints at the underlying desire all of us have – as Steve Jobs once said – “to leave a dent in the universe.” And how helpful would it be to have a guide on how to implement our ideas of transforming the world (or our team) in some truly meaningful way? In his new book, “Becoming A Changemaker: An Actionable Guide To Leading Positive Change At Any Level,” Budak effectively provides a playbook for leading positive change. It’s a research-backed guide to developing the mindsets and leadership skills needed to navigate, shape, and lead change and to thrive amidst uncertainty. Alex Budak joins us to discuss his book – and does so in the most interesting and relatable way possible. As a hint to his marvelous concluding comments, Alex says, “The world needs you to be a change maker. We need you to lead in a way that’s true to who you are and to where you are.” A truly inspiring conversation! The post Alex Budak: How To Lead The Change You Want To See In The World? appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Leadership is full of paradoxes: Should we build close relationships with our employees or keep a suitable distance? Should we trust our staff, or keep an eye on what’s happening? Are we best to display self-confidence – or is humility a greater power? For many of us, these competing & interwoven demands are a source of conflict. Since our brains love to make either-or choices, we choose one option over the other. We deal with uncertainty by asserting certainty. The problem is that once we declare certainty – & rule out one option over the other – we effectively undermine our potential success by needlessly believing there’s no way of achieving both. In other words, we get it all wrong when we think that as managers we can’t be humble and decisive, or believe it’s impossible to build close relationships with employees and retain an appropriate distance. In their new bestseller, Both/And Thinking: Embracing Creative Tensions To Solve Your Toughest Problems, Marianne Lewis (left) & Wendy Smith (right) tap into 25 years of their own pioneering research to prove there’s a far more informed & enlightened way of approaching paradoxes in our lives. And in what’s suddenly become common language, their solution is “both/and” thinking. The driving question that motivated Smith & Lewis in their extensive research was “What underlies our toughest problems, & how can we deal with it? At the heart of this question was their realization that if we all had better approaches to our problems, we could consistently develop more effective, creative & sustainable solutions. For years, we’ve seen “either-or” thinking play out in business. We’ve seen how values & ethics get tossed aside in the interest of making profits. We’ve seen CEOs defer exclusively to the demands of shareholders even when doing so harmed all other stakeholders including their employees. These are just two clear examples of how “either-or” bias continues to bias our decision making. Dr. Wendy Smith is a professor of management at the University of Delaware’s Lerner College of Business & Economics, & the academic director of her school’s Women’s Leadership Initiative. Dr. Marianne Lewis is the dean of the University of Cincinnati’s Lindner School of Business. Together, they share some truly brilliant insights that bring great clarity to a new & empowered way of thinking. And the information they share won’t only help make you a more effective leader –more than likely, it will change your entire life! The post Wendy Smith & Marianne Lewis: The Profound Limitations Of “Either-Or” Thinking appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Being a CEO at any of the world’s largest companies is among the most challenging roles in business. Billions, and even trillions, are at stake – and the fates of tens of thousands of employees often hang in the balance. Yet, even when “can’t miss” high-achievers win the top job, very few prove to excel. According to the New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestseller, “CEO Excellence,” “Thirty percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are booted from their jobs in three years or less, and two-out-of-five new CEOs are perceived to be failing within eighteen months.” Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, apparently. Seeing these statistics and wondering what behaviors prove to distinguish the very best CEOs, three McKinsey senior partners – including Carolyn Dewar – identified over 2400 public company CEOs before distilling that group into a smaller elite corps. And sixty-seven of that final group agreed to in-depth, multi-hour interviews including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, American Express’ Ken Chenault, Sony’s Kazuo Hirai & GM’s Mary Barra. From what’s been described as being “frank, no-holds-barred conversations” the three McKinsey partners were able to pin down the uncommon mindsets these top performing CEOs shared in common. And Carolyn Dewar joins us to explore all they discovered. As Carolyn repeatedly affirms in our conversation, the behaviors that define top CEOs prove to be ones that define the top managers at almost all other levels of an organization. And the leadership thinking Carolyn affirms as being critically needed in our workplaces today has surprising resonance with pretty much all of the themes we address on this podcast. Heading into the interview, I’m not sure I expected this from a senior partner at McKinsey! As you’ll hear, Carolyn exudes a wonderful and enlightened balance of mind and heart. The post Carolyn Dewar: Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Tiffani Bova is the global growth evangelist at Salesforce and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book “GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business.” She’s been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers. Along with Columbia University and Stanford University, Bova recently authored a study which averaged data from 1,000 brick and mortar stores of a major American retailer (Walmart? Target? She can’t reveal). And the research proved what most of us have always suspected: there’s a causal relationship between employee satisfaction and well-being – and the revenues the stores produce. She not only found that the stores that “did the employee experience well,” elevated revenue – revenue per hour increased by a full fifty percent. Bova’s confirming conclusion is that when leaders focus on employee satisfaction in the most sincerest of ways, “it produces hard financials, not the soft stuff.” Highly regarded in Silicon Valley for her work in creating bold strategies for sales and growth, she was previously a Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow at Gartner where she won the Thought Leadership award. Our conversation digs into her research study and it’s guidance to all managers who lead front-line teams. How you treat them truly does affect the bottom-line, for better or worse. The post Tiffani Bova: Salesforce’s Growth Guru Explains Why Employees Must Come First appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Uncertainty in life is, ironically, certain. Amid a pandemic, the past two years have been no exception. None of us needs to think very hard to recall the unprecedented and sudden need we had to move employees en masse to their homes to work, the lingering fears we all had around an unknown virus, and the challenging decisions we later faced about the future of the office in light of the Great Resignation. Over the course of his career as a professor at the prestigious Insead business school in Paris, Nathan Furr interviewed many of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. And along the way, he made the extraordinary discovery that rather than being scared by uncertainty, these people all seemed to thrive on it. And this influenced him to ask the big question, “How might the rest of us learn to embrace uncertainty – and use it to our advantage – at a time when modern day life is proving to be its most ambiguous and unpredictable?” From that question comes the new bestseller Furr wrote with his wife Susannah, “The Upside of Uncertainty,” a book that offers extremely powerful ways of approaching all the ambiguity in our lives, and shows us how to reframe it in a way that helps us use it to our advantage. As science proves our brains are wired to fear uncertainty’s downsides, the Furrs have uncovered clever ways of facing the unknown and teaching us how we can far better cope with it ourselves. In their research, the Furrs tapped into neuroscience, psychology, innovation and behavioural economics to develop a four-stage toolkit to help people overcome their fears of uncertainty. And, lest anyone doubt that living with uncertainty is on the rise, the authors point to the World Uncertainty Index (created by economists at Stanford University) which shows that uncertainty has been steadily rising in recent decades. As there is no longer a linear route forward to success in any endeavor in life, we’ve invited the Furrs to the podcast to explain how we can be more fearless, especially when our lives feels truly uncertain and unsettled. The post Nathan And Susannah Furr: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Alan Murray is the CEO of Fortune (Magazine) Media. He’s the former president of the Pew Research Center & the Deputy Managing Editor – & Washington Bureau Chief – of the Wall Street Journal. And, for decades, he’s had tremendous access to the world’s top CEOs. In his new book, “Tomorrow’s Capitalist: My Search For The Soul Of Business,” Murray makes the clear & direct assertion that senior business leaders are suddenly discovering a moral compass. He says we’re living through a moment of profound change in how chief executives understand their role, & argues that this shift is already changing the way that business operates. If this sounds too good to be true, this may be the first time in our podcast’s history where our guest was asked to endure some cynical grilling (& he responds to every question with aplomb). In rather interesting language given the theme of this podcast, Murray says “it’s not that CEOs have grown bigger hearts,” but rather that they’re pivoting in a pragmatic way. They’ve come to understand that their organizations can only grow & prosper if they invest in their employees, serve their customers, support their communities, & recognize their responsibility is to help lift up all of society — rather than (in the words of JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon) “ignore or ‘drive by’ those who have been left behind.” Few of us could argue that Capitalism doesn’t require a major upgrade, & Murray has been sincerely persuaded that CEOs realize the historic blindness of corporations to social issues like climate change, the “Black Lives Matter” movement, discrimination of all kinds — & income inequality – is no longer sustainable or viable. In his book, & in our conversation, Murray emphasizes that CEOs — the ultimate pragmatists — have simply realized they could lose their “operating license” if they fail to lead in a new way, not to mention ensure that it’s no longer shareholders who have a say in how their corporations are run. Few people on the planet have had the access to CEO thinking as Alan Murray, & his perspective on the future of CEO leadership practices will surely leave you encouraged. One very interesting insight he shares here: it’s vocal employees & customers who are holding chief executive’s feet to the fire to evolve. And, Murray makes a compelling case that they finally are. The post Alan Murray: Is The Shift To Stakeholder Capitalism For Real? appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he didn’t speak English and struggled at school. But, in the fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. It turns out the seemingly shy and introverted kid had a knack for persuasion – and he went on to become a two-time world champion debater and the coach for the Harvard College Debating Union. Seo also graduated from Harvard, earned a masters degree from Tsinghua University and is about to graduate from Harvard Law School. Somehow, he also found time to write the surprising bestseller, “Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us To Listen And Be Heard,” a book Wharton’s Adam Grants says ”has the potential to make you smarter—and everyone around you wiser.” As you’ll hear, the twenty-eight-year-old Seo is wicked smart and equally articulate. But we invited him to the podcast because he’s discovered the art of having arguments that don’t go off the rails or leave other people fuming. Seo believes that, far from being a source of conflict, good-faith debate can enrich our lives and elevate our influence – and being an effective debater is inherently essential in leadership. In debate competitions, topics are announced just minutes before participants must make their case on stage – and which side a debater gets to argue is randomly assigned. So, for example, if the topic is “It’s time marijuana use become legal in America,” a debater could end up arguing in favor of an opinion they don’t personally hold. As Seo describes this experience, you learn empathy through the process of understanding how other people perceive an issue. And because no one is allowed to interject a comment or speak while another debater is on stage, contestants also learn to deeply listen to what other people say. In an era where it seems so hard to disagree with someone without being perceived as disagreeable, Seo shares practices he mastered while becoming a two-time world champion debater. And there’s a lot of heart in them. The post Bo Seo: Timeless Secrets Of Effective Communication And Persuasion appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

He’s a New York Times bestselling author, a former White House advisor to four American Presidents – both Republican and Democrat – a long time senior political commentator on CNN television, and the founder of the John F. Kennedy Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, where’s he been Director or co-Director for almost two decades. Gergen is also the author of the new bestseller, “Hearts Touched By Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made,” a book he wrote to share everything of value that he’s learned during his over five-decade career. Gergen has been a student of leadership ever since graduating from Harvard Law School and beginning to coach, counsel and write for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Leadership guru, Warren Bennis, once said that becoming a leader is fundamentally the same as becoming a fully developed person. We can have companions along the way, but we must ultimately make the journey ourselves. In that vein, Gergen tells us that becoming a great leader demands that we take a two-part journey toward self-awareness and self-mastery – one that is inner journey and one that is an outer journey. During this process, our personal growth and professional development become interdependent. In this highly inspiring conversation, Gergen explains how to embark on this two-part journey while also weighing in on the Great Resignation, the most essential qualities demanded of managers today, leading through ambiguity – and overcoming life’s most painful setbacks. If you’ve ever seen him on television, you know he’s a profoundly kind and wise man who seeks to find common ground rather that amplify differences. He’s a sage with wonderful insights to share. The post David Gergen: How Great Leaders Are Made appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that feeling is every bit as important as thinking. All of us make hundreds of decisions every day — including what to eat for breakfast & how we should invest our money — & not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking & feeling are separate & opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, author of the new bestseller, “Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking,” tells us, “extraordinary advances in psychology & neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking.” One of the cornerstone ideas of the Lead From The Heart philosophy is that human beings are far more influenced by feelings & emotions than most people (leaders) realize. And Mlodinow’s work offers a state-of-the-art understanding of how to apply this knowledge in the workplace. “Emotions shape virtually every thought we have,” he writes. “They contribute, moment to moment, to all our judgments & decisions,” even when we believe we are exercising cold, logical reason. If we understand that human beings are greatly influenced by their feelings, then it becomes incumbent upon workplace managers to support people in ways that inspire the feelings which motivate great performance. And we discuss how to accomplish all this in this episode. Leonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist, a former professor at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) & author of five best-selling books. His book “The Grand Design,” co-authored with Stephen Hawking, reached #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. As you might expect, he brings uncommon brilliance to this conversation – & shares insights that will prove invaluable to workplace leaders everywhere. The post Leonard Mlodinow: People Aren’t As Rational As We Think appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Most books about time management are written as guides to creating the perfect schedule or productivity method for cranking through as many items on our to-do list as we possibly can. Even when those methods work, they somehow still leave us feeling stressed & overwhelmed, paddling frantically against a current whose strength we can never match. The fundamental problem is that none of the typical time management books address the very grim fact that our lives on planet earth are woefully brief – & so managing to clear out all our e-mails every day no longer holds up as being one of our most essential accomplishments once we confront how absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short life really is. Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning writer for the Guardian, who one day did the math most of us would rather avoid. If we live until we’re 80, all we get are four thousand weeks. In his new uber-selling book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals,” Burkeman asserts that given the relatively short time frame of even the longest life, time management should be everyone’s most pressing concern. “Arguably,” he points out, “time management is all life is.” Formerly obsessed with finding the best ways of getting more accomplished every day, Burkeman found (just as we have) that none of the productivity hacks he learned truly lived up to their promises. And so he turned his focus to ways of getting the most out of life tied to one’s personal dreams, aspirations & purpose. And that led him to asking some rather pointed questions about how we unwittingly squander so much of the precious time we have: Why do we seem to crave distraction from the things we want to do the most? Why do we imagine we’ll someday reach a state of productivity perfection, with nothing left on our to-do lists? How many of us delay a creative project by telling ourselves “I’ll start when I have more time. I’m just too busy right now? Burkeman provides the sobering & insightful answers to all these questions, but his book – the focus of this entire podcast – was really written to urge us to (not morbidly) keep the idea of our mortality always present in our minds, as doing so will steadily influence us to be far more courageous in living the life we really desire. In a moment when all of us are deeply pondering the purpose & meaning of our lives, Burkeman’s insights couldn’t have arrived at a better time! The post Oliver Burkeman:Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Named by Forbes Magazine as one of “10 Must-Read Career & Leadership Books For 2022,” Roger Martin’s A New Way To Think: Your Guide To Superior Management informs us that our collective leadership thinking must stop centering around the organization & begin centering around human value. Martin is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management where he previously served as its Dean. Throughout a career of advising CEOs at some of the world’s most successful companies, Martin noted that almost every executive he talked to had a “model” – a framework or way of thinking that guided their strategy & activities. But these models tended to become automatic, so much so that when one didn’t work, the typical response was just to apply it again – with greater enthusiasm. In our discussion, Martin shares numerous examples of leaders doubling-down on their strategy instead of reconsidering their plan itself. So ingrained are our processes & approaches to managing our workplaces that we seldom step back & assess whether our methodologies need re-thinking. We just add more fuel to the way we’ve always done things. As one example, in an Ernst & Young survey, 81% of executives said they believe data should be at the heart of all decision-making. And while MBA programs have been trying to turn management into a science for the past 6 decades, Martin argues that data implies certainty – something no leader can every rely on. “Creating great choices requires imagination rather than data,” he says. “A purely scientific approach to business decision making has serious limitations.” At a time when managers the world over are seeking to attract and retain great people, Roger Martin joins us to share uncommon advice that’s predicated on the idea that it’s time to re-think leadership from the bottom up. The post Roger Martin: It’s Time For Leaders To Embrace A New Way Of Thinking appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

The country where people live the longest is Japan where they’ve long had a rich tradition of respecting and honoring older people. In America, & throughout the West, we have especially negative views on aging, & almost treat getting older as being shameful. In her new book, “Breaking The Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long And Well you Live,” Yale social psychologist, Becca Levy, tells us that the expectation that aging means decay is actually a major reason it so often does – our negative view of aging is literally killing us. Levy’s remarkable & rigorous research proves that, on average, people with the most positive views of aging outlive those with the most negative views by 7 ½ years – an extraordinary 10% of current life expectancy. There’s a proverb that says, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” And Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius made essentially the same conclusion two millennia ago when saying, “we become what we think about.” In her book, Levy shows that in memory tests, people with positive age beliefs allowed them to outperform their peers with negative age beliefs by 30%. Levy argues that because our views of ageing are often so negative in the West, our media continues to reinforce them by stereotypically presenting older people as doddering, forgetful, slow & confused. And this plays out in our workplaces where Levy says, “ageism is the most widespread & socially accepted prejudice today.” Levy’s research shows there’s little evidence that people become less useful as they age – nor is there any proof that older people are more resistant to change than people much younger. When he was 14 years old, Paul McCartney imagined his life at age 64 and his famous song about it wondered if he’d still be valued in his “old” age. In 2022, McCartney will turn 80 & he not only still fills large stadiums, he performs for three straight hours. Noting all of us are aging every day, Becca Levy urges us to start re-framing getting older as an experience that doesn’t automatically mean poor health or unsound mind. “It’s time we all embrace ‘age positivity,’ she says, & explaining all the reasons why is the focus of this wonderful discussion. The post Becca Levy: It’s Our View Of Aging That’s What’s Really Old appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Dr. Marshall Goldsmith is routinely ranked as one of the top executive coaches in the world – & the Thinkers50 organization named him the #1 leadership thinker in the world – twice. A former Professor of Management Practice at the Dartmouth Tuck School of Business, he’s the author or editor of 41 books, which have sold 2.5 million copies. His books, “Triggers” & “What Got You Here Won’t Get You There,” have both been recognized by Amazon as being in the top 100 books ever written in their field. His new book, “The Earned Life: Lose Regret, Choose Fulfillment,” was published today. In a very special edition of the podcast, Marshall shares story after story of luminaries he has coached & helped to excel over his 40+ year career. And the stories are rich because they reveal priceless wisdom he’s acquired that will benefit leaders at every stage of their career. We recorded this podcast late last Friday night – & had persistent technical problems that delayed us. At one point, it seemed we would have to cancel. But as the unflappable Buddhist that he is, Marshall patiently waited for the issues to be resolved, & then acted as if time were no issue. The result is a conversation you’ll want to savor & ponder. As CBS’s John Dickerson has said, “for anyone who wishes to align their efforts with a life of meaning, Marshall Goldsmith is a fabulous companion, guide, & cheerleader.” The post Marshall Goldsmith: A Coaching Legend’s Wisdom For Living A Fulfilling Life appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Few business topics arouse more skepticism than the notion of corporate purpose – & for good reason. Too many companies have deployed purpose as a promotional vehicle to make themselves feel virtuous & look good to the outside world. The insincerity behind efforts like these are, of course, easily spotted by both outsiders & insiders (employees most importantly) leading them to feeling jaded – & to losing trust in the management team that attempted the deception. Despite all the harm that past efforts at establishing organizational purpose have caused, Harvard Business School professor, Ranjay Gulati, believes the time has come for companies to try again – this time with a sincere commitment. He argues that the pursuit of profits without purpose is no longer a sustainable business model. And in his new bestseller, “Deep Purpose,” he says “the road to high performance, for both individuals and companies, depends on deepening our connection to enduring & essential human values. He adds, “purpose isn’t a ‘nice-to-have’ in the business world anymore. It’s a ‘must-have.’ As Gulati argues, a deeper engagement with purpose holds the key not merely to the well-being of individual companies but also to humanity’s future. With capitalism under siege & relatively low levels of trust in business, purpose can serve as a radically new operating system for the enterprise, enhancing performance while also delivering meaningful benefits to society. It’s the kind of inspired thinking that businesses—& the rest of us—urgently need. Tapping into extensive research, Ranjay Gulati shows how companies can embed purpose much more deeply than they currently do, delivering impressive performance benefits that reward customers, suppliers, employees, shareholders, & communities alike. To get purpose right, leaders must fundamentally change not only how they execute it but also how they conceive of & relate to it. They must practice what Gulati calls deep purpose, furthering each organization’s reason for being more intensely, thoughtfully, & comprehensively than ever before. Is accomplishing this in most companies even possible? Will top CEOs take these ideas seriously? Listen in as Ranjay explains why every business’s survival will be at stake if they don’t. The post Ranjay Gulati: Why Purpose Is The Heart And Soul Of High Performance Teams appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

For over twenty-five years, Marcus Buckingham has been one of the world’s leading researchers on human performance, especially in our workplaces. He is the New York Times bestselling author or co-author of ten books, including the business classic, “First, Break All the Rules” in addition to, “Now, Discover Your Strengths” & “Nine Lies About Work.” You probably know that Marcus is a highly analytical, data-driven trend evaluator who left his mark at Gallup. Yet, ironically, his rigorous study has landed on a conclusion many of us might accurately say needed no deep-dive at all: Love, which is the most powerful of all human emotions – the source of our creativity, collaboration, insight, & excellence – has been systematically drained from our work lives. And, It’s time we brought love back in. We’ve all heard the adage, “Do what you love.” But how many of us has fully discovered what we really do love doing most, what fully engages us & makes us thrive? And, how many of us get to bring our full, messy, unique, weird & amazing selves to our jobs instead of being expected to conform & tamp down our individual & personal expression? The release of Marcus’s new book, “Love And Work” coincides with the publishing of this podcast, & during our conversation, we not only discuss the many uncommon & creative ways we can unleash our true individual selves, we dig into the relevance of employee engagement in the post-COVID era (spoiler alert: it’s more important than ever), & why workplace leadership demands a complete reinvention in order to foster love, respect, appreciation – the things all of us are needing & wanting in our work experience today. As I hope you’ve come to expect, this is another stunning, insightful & unusual conversation that is sure to enrich you in many unexpected ways. The post Marcus Buckingham: Why Love And Work Are Inextricable appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

“Regrets, I’ve had a few. But then again, too few to mention.” These famous lyrics from Frank Sinatra’s classic song, “My Way,” assert the idea that it’s very easy to recover & move on from the bad choices we make in life. But in 2020, Daniel Pink launched the “World Regret Survey,” & asked 15,000 people in 105 countries, “How often do you look back on life & wish you had done things differently? And 81 percent of the respondents said regret is at least an occasional part of their lives with one-in-five saying they feel regret all the time. Just one percent said they never lament their past. While letting ourselves be overwhelmed & even immobilized by regret is unquestionably bad for us, in his new bestseller, “The Power Of Regret,” Pink says repressing our regrets consigns us to making the same mistakes again & again. In his words “the trick is to not banish our bad feelings, but to acknowledge & use them for learning & improvement.” When we think about regrets, they usually fall into one of four core areas: “Foundation Regrets:” We regret not getting enough education or for not having made better choices about preparing for our future. “If only I’d done the work.” “Boldness Regrets:” Looking back, we see ourselves as having played it safe or not seizing on opportunities when they presented themselves. “If only I’d taken that risk?” “Moral Regrets:” We remember hurting another person by a betrayal of some kind. “If only I’d done the right thing.” “Connection Regrets:” The largest category of regrets arise from relationships that have come undone or that remain incomplete. “If only I’d reached out.” Through his research, Pink has discovered that – as long as we’re willing to look at them & re-experience the pain of them – we can remedy a lot of our regrets, heal them & benefit from them: “If we reckon with our regrets properly, they can sharpen our decisions & improve our future performance.” In this truly wonderful discussion, Daniel shares many informed ways we can optimize our regrets & vault ourselves forward to a happier, more productive & principled life. The truth is that life is a journey full of pleasures & pains, To live it well & fully means learning from every bit of it, including the mistakes, & moving forward. The legendary Daniel Pink shows us how to accomplish just that. The post Daniel Pink: The Surprising Power Of Regret appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

A lot of us would like to become more influential because – all boiled down – influence is the ability to create change, direct resources & move hearts & minds. But when we think about the tactics we’ve seen other people use to influence people, we use words like sneaky, manipulative & coercive to describe them. So, this episode is devoted to introducing you to ways to grow your influence in truly profound ways – but also in ways that aren’t just powerful, they’re deeply ethical. Zoe Chance is a professor at the Yale School of Management who earned her doctorate at the Harvard Business School. She once managed a $200 million segment of the Barbie doll brand at Mattel, but today teaches the most popular class at Yale called “Mastering Influence & Persuasion.” And she’s just published a book that’s become an immediate bestseller, “Influence Is Your Superpower: The Science of Winning Hearts, Sparking Change, and Making Good Things Happen.” Becoming more influential – being able to communicate better – is, of course, a huge leadership power. Yet most of us lean into facts & figures to persuade others not knowing that few humans are ever moved by this approach. Another myth about influence is our belief that asking people for more will make them dislike us – thereby making us less influential. As one of the many revelations Zoe shares in her book, “people who ask for what they want get better grades, more raises & promotions & bigger job opportunities.” One of the primary & recurring themes of this podcast is that we humans aren’t the rational beings we pride ourselves to be; most of the time, the choices & actions we take are motivated by our feelings & emotions, not through analysis. And research Zoe cites shows as much as 95% of our decisions & behavior are influenced by what she calls ‘the gator,” our instinctual decision-making process that lurks below our conscious awareness & is always prepared for immediate action. Especially for highly analytical people, this fact is hard to accept. This means it’s really just a small percentage of time that any of us really slows things down, applies great concentration – & employs what Zoe calls the “judge” that deliberates & carefully weighs all the evidence. Knowing that all of us are highly influenced by what we feel versus by what we think is a foundational idea of Zoe’s book. And, in this conversation, Zoe Chance conveys a truly enlightened understanding of humanity, & what really influences people to act. One of the great take-aways from this episode is Zoe’s explanation of the “Magic Leadership Question.” It may be the greatest piece of practical influence wisdom you’ve ever heard! So listen in for that – and to hear a management professor who isn’t just brilliant, she’s uncommonly kind, thoughtful and a really wonderful person. She’s also a master of persuasion as you might imagine! The post Zoe Chance: How To Make Influence Your Superpower appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

There are many disciplines outside of workplace management that can elevate our leadership effectiveness, & tapping into the experiences & insights of highly creative & accomplished people is one great way of skinning that cat. This is especially true when you have a guest who has interviewed over 400 of the world’s most creative people – & who happens to be one of the most inventive people on the planet herself. Debbie Millman is an author, educator, brand strategist & Chief Marketing Officer at Sterling Brands, where she has worked with over 200 of the world’s largest brands. Fast Company magazine named her one of the most creative people in business & one of the most influential designers working today. She’s also the host of the Design Matters podcast, one of the longest running shows of its kind that’s been downloaded at least 30 million times. Design Matters is a show about how the most creative people invent their lives. And one consistent theme that’s emerged is that no matter how talented & hard working they all are, they’ve had to overcome often monumental setbacks & hardships in order to succeed. No one gets off easy is a helpful reminder for us all. Debbie has a new book out called “Why Design Matters: Conversations With The World’s Most Creative People,” which features many of her most interesting interviews. Amongst the luminaries she’s had sit down with her are Brené Brown, Seth Godin, Simon Sinek, Krista Tipppett, Ira Glass, David Byrne, Malcolm Gladwell, Cheryl Strayed, Anna Lamott, Adam Grant & Daniel Pink. After producing 80 episodes of my own podcast, I can tell you I’ve been fully transformed by all I’ve learned from my guests. And I invited Debbie to join us full-knowing in advance that the wisdom she’s gleaned from her five times as many conversations would be invaluable for you to hear. And, as it turns out, Debbie has some rather sage insights on leadership to share as well. The post Debbie Millman: Wisdom From The World’s Most Creative People appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.