Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future - Archive

S4-Ep1: Buried in an Avalanche: Finding Deeper Purpose in Failure

Guest: Ken Wylie
This discussion is intended to help listeners come to know the deeper purpose of adversity or failure. In some ways to help dissolve judgement and move forward with new ways of seeing difficult events. Ken will share what he learned from being buried in an avalanche and the process he went through to find this deeper purpose. As a leadership and organizational coach and consultant, he helps leaders metabolize their struggles to create growth and opportunity. This is particularly important when failures in our current time can be very public so we as leaders have limited private time to make sense of our failure before it becomes public, in some cases this publicity can be humiliating and seem career ending. Navigating failure with grace and humility and with a mindset of growth can be a skill that not only makes or breaks leadership careers, it can have a profound life impact. Ken's generosity in sharing his insights and lessons along with his warmth make this a must listen!

S3-Ep50: 2017 Retrospective and 2018 Projections with Dale Meyerrose

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

S3-Ep49: Book of Mistakes - 9 Secrets to Creating A Successful Future

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

S3-Ep48: Leveraging Creative Conflict to Improve Impact

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

S3-Ep47: From Banding to Branding: How the Wisdom of Rock n Roll Taught Me the Artful Discipline of Leadership

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

S3-Ep45: Exec Insights: Dwight Smith Shares Experiences and ’Special Word’

Guest: Dwight Smith
Dwight has achieved a great level of success as a leader running a company and sitting on several high-profile boards. He shares how his vision and values helped him achieve his success across a broad range of organizations. He discussed how he moved through his career and who helped him accomplish this success. His humility is a trait that stands out as a key factor enabling him to build the trust necessary for successful leaders. He shares what he looks for in emerging leaders and leaders when he is making hiring and succession decisions as well as when he mentors the next generation of leaders. In the final segment He talks about a program very important to him, My Special Word, designed for the children who will be our future leaders and workforce. His values extend beyond his current roles, they pervade all of his actions in his corporate life, his board work and in his high impact volunteer work that will extend to children around the world!

S3-Ep44: Leadership Diversity Improves Business Results

Guest: Eric Douglas Keene
There are lots of reasons to attract and retain diverse leaders and workforce ranging from expanding the talent pool, improved understanding of customer base, improved productivity, and greater innovation and creativity are just a few. During this interview, he shares his experience on how companies can attract and retain a diverse talent pool in leadership roles and why they should. Discussion includes: 1. Why does recruiting diverse talent matter? What is the business case? 2. How do you define diverse? Different looks, gender, points of view, economics? 3 Most of your recruiting is focused on senior leadership roles, why are companies investing so heavily in building diverse leaders? 4. What are the biggest challenges you see in attracting diverse executives in different industries? 5. After you hire diverse leaders, what do companies need to do to retain them? 6. Tell me about your company tag line: “Diversify Access to Executive Talent.”

S3-Ep43: Building Leadership Using Peer Leadership Groups

Guest: Artie Isaac
On this show, we talk about leader development from many angles. One highly effective approach is participating in peer groups to build these skills and receive the challenging feedback executives require and often don't get from within their organization. These groups are proven effective when they are structured and facilitated well. For Artie, in all his interactions, he seeks this outcome: that all people can find their way to a group of peers, because in business, family, and geopolitically — people are at their best when they regularly receive the caring challenge of peers. We discuss: 1. Artie's experience with peer leadership development groups? 2. What is most effective and why? 3. What is least effective and why? 4. If you were asked to design a program with limited constraints – what would it look like? 5. What is the effect on the members? How soon? 6. What in your background makes you apt for leading peer groups? 7. Why do you do it? What motivates you?

S3-Ep42: Leadership Lessons from Social Enterprise: Soles4Souls

Guest: Buddy Teaster
As leaders, many of us ask ourselves questions about how we can contribute to address some of the challenges the world is facing beyond our businesses with our very limited time. How do we select organizations that are trustworthy and well run and actually make a measurable impact on the long-term viability of the people they help? What can we learn about leadership overall from a well-run social enterprise that recently underwent a turnaround? 1. Let's explore Soles4Souls - it looks like you are leveraging the model of doing well by doing good. Can you share more about the org and the changes you and your team have made since you took your CEO role. 2. How has the s4s micro enterprise model has evolved to increase impact…and why we haven’t changed faster 3. How do you measure impact in places where getting data (quantitative and qualitative) may be too expensive to gather? 4. How is partnership central to working globally in supporting entrepreneurship to help disrupt poverty?

S3-Ep41: Navigating the Graying Demographic: Rock Your Age and Manage Intergenerationally

Guest: Karen Sands
Karen believes that "visionaries do indeed have wrinkles," and that "older women will lead the way into the future as they meet the Greatness Challenge of our AGE. Women will shift the story on the leading edge of business, as innovative social entrepreneurs, change makers, leaders, and discerning, high-value consumers." She fully owns her "destiny more than ever before: to empower people to rock their AGE; to help women especially, and the men that love them, to experience the power of Agelessness, so to shape a new story for our times." "By the year 2020, 76 % of Americans will be 50 years or older. With age comes many challenges, but also a heightened appreciation for life along with a greater thirst for meaning in work and relationships." As business leaders, we need to understand this demographic and how it impacts our workforce, marketplace, and clients. Karen talks about the Longevity Economy, the new story of aging across generations, and the potential business impact of new opportunities and challenges as our workforce changes. We need to have thoughtful strategies to navigate the new terrain of the future.