organizational effectiveness

Today’s guest highlights the importance of trust, empathy, and understanding in fostering meaningful experiences in the workplace. He also discusses the keys to successful acquisitions, how to avoid common mistakes by acquirers, and how to create post-acquisition strategy.

Anthony Webb is a mergers & acquisitions lifer, licensed lawyer, venture capital investor, servant leader, and engaged father.

Currently, he works in Corporate Development and M&A Integration for Adobe.

Anthony shares what makes work most meaningful to him, from being given the opportunity to solve complex problems, to building great team environments, to driving tangible results by empathizing with others, understanding their objectives, and providing supportive leadership.

Through a personal experience, Anthony illustrates how creating safe spaces allows trust to be built, in turn paving the way for effective communication. To empower your organization’s “culture carriers,” it is vital to create a space where ideas from both sides can come to the table, promoting innovation and better decision-making.

Asked what goes into a successful M&A, Anthony unpacks the concept of excellent end-to-end execution. It starts with creating a crisp corporate strategy, followed by homing into the target space, then getting the right people to the table for diligence, and, finally, building an integration strategy and approach.

Anthony explains that divesting businesses gave him a new perspective that allowed him to understand what to look for in an acquisition. Drawing from these experiences, he provides insight into the often unpleasant surprises that occur during acquisitions and offers strategies on how to avoid them, chief among them being the consequences of being overly optimistic and simplistic in a deal.

Anthony discusses the importance of knowledge retention and being sensitive to the motivations of the target company's employees. Building trust and openness, according to him, leads to better acquisition outcomes.

Anthony shares how simply attending routine meetings of the acquired company during a several-month "stabilization period"—allowing all voices to bring ideas to the table—allows acquirers to learn and gain more value from the acquisition for the long-term.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●     www.setili.com

●     LinkedIn

●     Twitter

●     Facebook

Connect with Anthony Webb:

●     LinkedIn

Talent leaders know that people programs make the best impact when everyone aligns to a shared goal — yet many struggle to get deep buy-in from company leadership. This hurdle can spell trouble for learning, development, and other talent initiatives, especially amid economic uncertainty.

In this episode, we explore actionable insights for getting the CEO — and the whole leadership board — on board with your talent initiatives. We'll show you how to elevate your pitch and successfully connect your initiatives to the outcomes leaders beyond the HR function care about most. 

This podcast is taken from our regular webinar series, Your Brain at Work Live. You can find the video version at this link: https://hub.neuroleadership.com/season-9-episode-01

The NeuroLeadership institute offers powerful enterprise solutions for organizations, including TEAM: The Neuroscience of Psychological Safety. If you're interested in learning more about our solutions for organizations, visit: https://neuroleadership.com/solutions-for-organizations/

Is it time to level up your leadership or professional development? Learn more about our Brain-Based Coaching cohorts here: https://individuals.neuroleadership.com/

If you're interested in accessing a treasure trove of research, industry insights and other original content, consider becoming a NeuroLeadership Institute Corporate Member. Learn more at: https://membership.neuroleadership.com/

Are you a senior executive looking to join a group of your peers for in-depth discussion about the key challenges and opportunities in the world of work today? Would you like first-look access to our new research? If so, consider becoming a NeuroLeadership Institute Insider. Learn more: https://neuroleadership.com/insiders

This podcast is taken from our regular webinar series, Your Brain at Work Live. You can find the video version at this link: https://hub.neuroleadership.com/ybaw-s8-e8

The NeuroLeadership institute offers powerful enterprise solutions for organizations, including TEAM: The Neuroscience of Psychological Safety. If you're interested in learning more about psychological safety, or embedding the habits at your firm, we can help. Learn more at: https://neuroleadership.com/team

If you're interested in accessing a treasure trove of research, industry insights and other original content, consider becoming a NeuroLeadership Institute Corporate Member. Learn more at: https://membership.neuroleadership.com/

Are you a senior executive looking to join a group of your peers for in-depth discussion about the key challenges and opportunities in the world of work today? Would you like first-look access to our new research? If so, consider becoming a NeuroLeadership Institute Insider. Learn more: https://neuroleadership.com/insiders

Liz Kislik specializes in developing high-performing leaders and workforces and for 30 years has helped family-run businesses, national nonprofits, and Fortune 500 companies like American Express, Girl Scouts, Staples, Janssen Pharmaceuticals, and Highlights for Children solve their thorniest problems.

Liz’s work has been featured in the Wall Street Journal’s Morning Download, the Washington Post’s Work Advice column, Business Insider, and Bloomberg Businessweek. Her articles have been included in Harvard Business Press books Guide to Motivating People, Dealing with Difficult People, and Guide to Power and Impact, as well as in Entrepreneur, the European Financial Review, and the Forward.

She is a member of Marshall Goldsmith’s 100 Coaches initiative, which brings together the world’s top coaches and thinkers; has taught at Hofstra University and New York University; and is a frequent podcast guest. She received her BA from Yale University and earned an MBA in Management from NYU.

Find her at lizkislik.com  - you can get her free e-book "Coping With Conflict" there, too! 

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John Bates provides 1:1 Executive Communications Coaching, both in-person and online, as well as large and small group training. 

Sign up for his free weekly micro-trainings at https://johnbates.com/mini-trainings and create a great leadership communications habit that makes you the kind of leader who inspires trust, loyalty and connection.

Colleen Francis provides a proven, realistic gameplan to creatively adapt our sales and marketing efforts in a topsy-turvy world.

Colleen is an award-winning speaker, consultant, and the author of Right on the Money: New Principles for Bold Growth.

A successful sales leader for over 20 years, Colleen’s results have attracted hundreds of industry-leading clients, including Chevron, John Deere, NCR, Trend Micro, Merck, Abbott, Experian, Royal Bank, and Dow.

Colleen is a recognized thought leader in sales leadership, an inductee in the Professional Speaker Hall of Fame, and has been named the #1 sales influencer to follow by LinkedIn.

In Right on the Money, Colleen writes that the past two years could be regarded as “an evolutionary moment for sales”, and that “evolution came by revolution” as a result of the pandemic. That is, the world of sales was forever transformed once salespeople were forced to be creative sans traditional belly-to-belly interactions.

In fact, many sellers realized that they could be much more efficient and profitable working remotely to meet the needs of the new buyer, instead of being on the road all the time. Expense accounts could be scaled back and a lot of time could be saved—all with virtually no impact on employee and client trust.

Another huge shift Colleen has seen is the morphing of the business development specialist (BDS) role. Historically, this role has served as a “cold-calling team” that passes leads to senior sales people after a simple vetting process The new and more effective role for these more junior people is nurturing existing customers, giving customers strong reasons to stay loyal to your company.

In today’s world, Colleen’s clients have found that the inside sales role is better left to an experienced, seasoned professional able to have high-level discussions with prospects. 

Colleen points out that the pandemic revealed poor sales practices, in that some companies had been going overboard on customer-centricity. She explains that a “customer is always right” approach can cost a business money, brand reputation, and access to markets.

Likewise, there is a danger to incorporating potentially controversial social issues in one’s branding and marketing efforts. Instead, Colleen advises, your company may wish to focus on the good it can do in its own community. 

In Right on the Money, Colleen proposes a formula she calls “the Tempo Triad”, in which she encourages salespeople to engage in conversations across three different media platforms (she recommends LinkedIn, Twitter, and Facebook) in three different ways: 

1) sharing their company’s unique content

2) sharing something a customer posted

3) commenting or asking a question about something a customer has posted.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●     www.setili.com

●     LinkedIn

●     Twitter

●     Facebook

Connect with Colleen:

●     www.engageselling.com

Get her book, Right on the Money:

●     www.amazon.com/Right-Money-Principles-Bold-Growth/dp/163195671X

Today’s guest teaches us that by playing the long game, we future-proof our career.

I’ve known Dorie Clark for 11 years, and it was so much fun to have her on my podcast. I especially loved her story about a woman who became part of her Recognized Expert community and got back in touch a year later to thank Dorie. “I made one million dollars in my first year!” she reported. But that’s not the best part, which is that the woman is 80 years old. 

This is an example of what Dorie does so well: to inspire others to reach higher and to give them the skills and tools necessary to succeed. Join us to hear countless actionable tips, including gems from her latest book, The Long Game: How to Be a Long-Term Thinker in a Short-Term World. 

Dorie teaches executive education at Duke University’s Fuqua School of Business and at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Business.

She has been named one of the Top 50 business thinkers in the world by Thinkers50, and was recognized as the #1 Communication Coach in the world by the Marshall Goldsmith Leading Global Coaches Awards.

The Long Game advocates taking a ten-year view when it comes to setting your goals and milestones. Dorie believes that, through a series of small and methodical steps and experiments, coupled with defining the kind of person you want to become, you can achieve extremely meaningful results.

Dorie recommends that we consciously choose how to spend our time. That doesn’t mean filling out every minute of your calendar and sucking the marrow out of each moment of the day. She’s tried that, and she found that such an approach often does more harm than good.

Instead of taking an overly quantitative approach to setting your daily schedule, get clear on your top three goals for the year and invest ample time working toward each of those goals. For example, Dorie’s three areas of focus in 2022 are relaxation, monetization, and friends. So most of her activities center on these three priorities.

Dorie says, “We need to train ourselves to systematically toggle between heads up and heads-down mode.” Give yourself the “white space” to look around and look within. Take time to rest and recharge, and periodically take stock of your progress to ensure that you’re on the right track.

Finally, Dorie offers her advice on avoiding the comparison trap. While comparing yourself to others may be a good “research tool”, staying stuck in that critical mental space impedes your ability to chart your unique path forward.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Dorie:

●      www.dorieclark.com

Get her book, The Long Game:

●      www.dorieclark.com/longgame

What makes Google’s culture so special that it has enabled them to have a 22% compound annual growth rate for a decade? How do they promote collaboration and keep growing even though they are already a huge company?

Hint: it’s not the volleyball courts and free food. 

In part two of my conversation with Neil Hoyne, he shares insights into practices behind this amazing performance. As the Chief Measurement Strategist at Google, Neil has led more than 2,500 engagements with the world’s biggest advertisers and has generated billions of dollars in incremental revenue for these customers.

Neil says that Google’s true strength lies in the “ability of the company and its employees to work across functions with minimal friction.”

In other words, Google has created a culture of curiosity and collaboration that promotes free exchange of ideas across all departments. Google incentivizes that behavior by allowing any employee to award a cash bonus to one of their peers. 

Google has a perpetual interest in scaling the business, but only in the leanest and most efficient fashion possible. For instance, when a team or department at first glance appears understaffed, instead of simply hiring more people, leadership asks, "How can we make the process more efficient, so that we don't need more people?”

Importantly, Neil implores other companies to find the values, tools, and processes that uniquely work for them instead of simply trying to build a Google copycat. “Fit an idea, a system, a transformation, a metric to (your) company’s culture.”

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Neil:

●      www.linkedin.com/in/neilhoyne/

Get his book, Converted:

●      www.convertedbook.com

The world is in desperate need for a new model of leadership, say Ken Blanchard and Randy Conley. We have seen the results of self-centered leadership, the kind that loves power and status. They make the case that it’s just not working for us.

The two are the authors of the new book, “Simple Truths of Leadership: 52 Ways to Be a Servant Leader and Build Trust”, which features one simple truth for each week in a year. It’s an elegantly powerful approach to sharing some big ideas, many of which Ken and Randy highlight in this podcast.

In this podcast, Blanchard and Conley persuasively argue that money isn’t the root of all evil, but rather overly strong love of money creates the problems. They say that just as the best use of power is in service to others, the best use of wealth is in service to others. When you see leaders and organizations use wealth to foster the growth and wellbeing of all their stakeholders, that’s where the magic happens. 

Ken and Randy believe that we would all be far better off—in today’s incredibly fast-paced, results-driven society—if more leaders, regardless of their field, dropped that win/lose attitude in their work. Top-down leadership has largely gone out of style, and side-by-side leadership has taken its place. In today’s world, servant leadership is the name of the game.

Every company’s number one customer is their own people. By doing what’s best for employees, employees will in turn go out of their way to do what’s best for actual customers. That leads to raving fans, which directly contributes to the bottom line. As Ken puts it, “Profit is the applause you get for taking care of your people, who take care of your customers.”

Ken and Randy then touch on the crisis of anxiety among the younger generation, saying that this crisis is largely driven by assaults on self-worth and other distractions propagated by social media. It is a tool that can do a lot of harm; but it can do a lot of good in the right hands. They make the case that social media and digital tools in general can even augment the process of building relationships, personally and professionally.

Ultimately, though, we must always remember to go back to simple truths; chiefly, that the art of leadership, cultivating great relationships, and helping each other grow is about those others-focused belly-to-belly interactions.

“Leadership is much more about who you are than what you do. If you get the beliefs, the attitudes, and the values right on the inside, the actions will follow.”

The legendary Ken Blanchard is the co-author of more than 65 books; including “The One Minute Manager,” and is one of the top 25 bestselling authors of all time. Randy Conley is Vice President of Global Professional Services and Trust Practice Leader at the Ken Blanchard Companies.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Ken:

●      www.kenblanchard.com

●      LinkedIn

Visit Randy’s blog:

●      www.leadingwithtrust.com

●      Linkedin

Get their book, Simple Truths of Leadership:

●      www.kenblanchardbooks.com/book/simple-truths-of-leadership-52-ways-to-be-a-servant-leader-and-build-trust

What makes a successful data-driven company?

Today’s guest says that it has very little to do with the company’s ability to analyze massive data sets. Rather, what’s most important is identifying the right questions to ask, and then finding the simplest ways to answer these questions.  

Neil Hoyne is the Chief Measurement Strategist at Google. He has led more than 2500 engagements with the world’s biggest advertisers and has generated billions of dollars in incremental revenue for these customers.

Even at that level of success for someone in his profession, however, Neil says that he goes to work every single morning with the ability to explore whatever he finds interesting that day. It once again comes down to a focus on solving difficult problems over aimlessly reading columns of data.

Further, it is vital to consider the human beings behind the numbers when interpreting any data, even more so when business decisions are made on the basis of those interpretations. Neil himself says: “We still have a lot to learn in business about how intuition and human behavior drives performance.”

Neil also shares how to have meaningful conversations with customers, particularly when that communication is taking place online. He prefaces this by explaining that “you certainly want data to support your decisions”; however, many companies “are incredibly fixated on the short-term” when looking at data. 

Basically, they ask: “Did they buy or not?”

But what is missed with that narrow focus is the potential for nurturing a long-term relationship. The key is to approach data analysis with customer lifetime value in mind over immediate ROI.

Ultimately, Neil attributes his success in the data analytics space to his being able to bridge the interpretation of raw data with a deep understanding and appreciation for behavioral economics.

Says Neil: “If you’re going to be successful, you need a head as well as a heart. The ‘head’ is the data and analytics, but it’s not going to be the complete story. But on the other hand, if you’re leaning on, ‘This is just how I feel about a problem,’ you’re going to be missing out because there are times in which your intuition is going to be challenged.”

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Neil:

●      www.linkedin.com/in/neilhoyne/

Get his book, Converted:

●      www.convertedbook.com

If you want to understand what often stops teams from being more productive and successful, look no further than the tendency of most people to avoid difficult conversations.

Recognizing this fact is leadership and talent expert Roberta Matuson, who has dedicated her latest book Can We Talk?: Seven Principles for Managing Difficult Conversations at Work to this universal workplace conundrum.

Asked to name the one topic that most people are afraid to bring up at work, Roberta says that it’s unquestionably that of employee performance.

For managers, this hesitation takes place when a team member is failing to meet expectations or when the time has come to inform them that they’re being let go. On the other hand, employees may struggle to tell their boss that the way they’re being managed isn’t working for them or that they deserve a raise or a promotion.

Roberta reminds us that “people don’t work for companies. They work for people.”

Can We Talk? offers seven principles that guide people toward “the right conditions for a meaningful discussion,” helping both parties see situations from each other’s point of view in order to move forward in a productive manner.

These are: confidence, clarity, compassion, curiosity, compromise, credibility, and courage.

Listen in as Roberta breaks down a few of these principles, while also explaining what drives satisfaction at work, a tactful approach to letting staff go (even at the executive level), and how to “select for success” to ensure your new hires only do work that energizes them.

 
Connect with Amanda Setili:

●     www.setili.com

●     LinkedIn

●     Twitter

●     Facebook

Connect with Roberta:

●     www.linkedin.com/in/roberta-matuson/

Get Roberta's book, Can We Talk?

www.amazon.com/Can-Talk-Principles-Difficult-Conversations/dp/1398601330 

What's a "product"? Radhika Dutt argues it's the mechanism for creating the change you want to bring in the world. She is my podcast guest this week and is author of Radical Product Thinking. Her vison-led approach applies to anyone who wants to create change, from human rights activists to entrepreneurs to corporate innovators.

“Each person in your organization should be able to use their own words to describe the problem you are solving, who you’re solving it for, and why it is valuable to them. When you start with that, you can align everyone to march toward the same goal.“

Radhika Dutt is the author of Radical Product Thinking, a book about systematically making fundamental change as opposed to simply optimizing the status quo.

She was inspired to write the book after noticing the same set of what she calls “product diseases” throughout her work in businesses big and small over the past 20 years. “It was the same pattern of mistakes as we were translating a vision into reality.”

Radhika found herself asking whether only gifted individuals such as Steve Jobs or Elon Musk were capable of building world-changing products, and the rest of us were doomed to relying on cycles of trial-and-error.

Determined to answer that question, she and her team created a framework that empowered product developers of any kind to become leaders and changemakers in their organization.

Radhika’s research eventually culminated in her book Radical Product Thinking. A blend of inspiration and practicality, the book aims to answer the question: “How can we create change in the world through our products, and how do we do that systematically?”

She went further and sought to redefine the word “product” to mean “the mechanism for creating the change you want to bring.” From gadgets to services to causes to campaigns, Radhika makes the claim that anything that is vision-driven and created systematically is a “product”.

“Unless we have a really compelling answer to why is the status quo unacceptable,” Radhika says, “maybe there's no reason for our product to exist. We should start with the question, ‘What does the world look like when we're done?’”

Listen as we talk about Radhika’s approach for creating change in the world.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●     www.setili.com

●     LinkedIn

●     Twitter

●     Facebook

Connect with Radhika:

●     www.linkedin.com/in/radhika-dutt/

Get her book, Radical Product Thinking:

www.radicalproduct.com 

Have you ever jumped to a conclusion that was dead wrong? Or assumed that everyone else on your team was seeing the world in the same way as you, but then found out that they saw things very differently?

My guests Gaurav Bhatnagar and Mark Minukas are co-authors of Unfear: Transform Your Organization to Create Breakthrough Performance and Employee Well-Being. They  explain how the failure to separate what we've actually observed from what is merely our interpretation of the situation often gets us in trouble. They share how we can communicate in a way that recognizes that other people's perceptions, assumptions and reality are different from our own. 

Gaurav describes himself as a former “fear addict” who had to overturn his two-pronged paradigm that life is a competition and that you either succeed, or you are nothing.

He says that becoming aware of the story he told himself was the very first step he had to take in order to shed those limiting beliefs and undergo a total mindset transformation—and it is precisely this principle that he and Mark expound on in their book, Unfear.

Likewise, Mark grew up believing that you had to “check your emotions at the door”. He had to rewire his mind and realize that improving how you show up in the world depends on your ability to dig deep and get in touch with your authentic, emotional self.

“Separate what you observe from what you interpret,” Gaurav and Mark teach. This way, you can separate your subjectivity from the objective and be on the same page with the people you’re interacting or working with. Start by simply and literally noting what you observe, and from there you may begin to draw conclusions based on the facts.

If you find yourself having to navigate a fear-based organization, it may be worth it to hear what the resident “troublemaker” has to say—the staff member who isn’t afraid to speak their mind and challenge the restrictive status quo. They may just vocalize the same concerns that everyone else in the organization is too afraid to bring up.

These organizations—and, really, all organizations—can foster greater collaboration between team members when the leader improves their storytelling ability, as there is no better way to touch your team on the human, emotional level than by communicating via stories.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Gaurav and Mark:

●      www.cocreationpartners.com

●      www.cocreationpartners.com

●      www.linkedin.com/in/mark-minukas-9333011/

●      www.linkedin.com/in/gauravbhatnagar007/

Get their book, Unfear:

●      www.unfearbook.com

Seth Kahan is the Founder and CEO of Visionary Leadership. As a leadership and performance improvement authority in the Grand Challenge space, Seth has helped over 100 CEOs and other high-performers achieve large-scale change, innovation, and growth.

Seth defines a “Grand Challenge” as “a big systemic issue that resists superficial solutions. It’s usually hard for a single mind to grasp because it’s systemic.” Climate change and lowering the stigma around mental illness, he says, are two examples of Grand Challenges.

Seth helps organizations define and articulate their intractable problems, thereby giving them the confidence and the resources they need to attack those problems.

When taking on a Grand Challenge, an organization’s first step is to create a Common Agenda or the core, agreed-upon outcome. They must then ask the question, “Who else is invested in that common agenda?” These will be the partners that make up their alliance and, often, these partners are not usually who one would expect them to be.

Seth, for example, worked with the American Nurses Association (ANA), whose Common Agenda is to “measurably improve the health of America's 4 million nurses and, by extension, the country’s.”

The ANA found a valuable partner in the U.S. Army, who see the deterioration of nurses’ health as a national security threat. Harvard Medical School also joined the alliance since they had been conducting the biggest longitudinal study on nurses’ health in the world, and looked to tap into ANA’s 4 million intended participants to supplement their existing 8000.

Once that network has been established, Visionary Leadership holds an event called a Design Studio. Here, the leading thinkers and activists in the industry come together to review and optimize the proposed game plan as well identify key leaders among that group to join the Steering Committee for the Grand Challenge.

From there, working groups are formed to address tactical issues such as metrics, funding, social outreach, coordination, logistics, and other factors specific to that field.

Finally, nine months after the Design Studio comes a Design Summit that brings together hundreds of people from various organizations around the United States focused on addressing the Grand Challenge. The game plan is shared, and everyone is offered a role to participate in the agenda.

Listen in as Seth goes on to share how his upbringing and experience in street theatre cultivated his passion and skills for solving intractable problems.

Finally, he shares his strategies for getting hundreds of people from various organizations engaged and excited to tackle their Grand Challenge while allaying their fears.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Seth Kahan:

●      www.visionaryleadership.com

●      LinkedIn

Moira Vetter is the Founder and CEO at Modo Modo Agency, a strategic brand engagement firm that accelerates the way billion-dollar companies capture and grow their market. Moira has always been an entrepreneur at heart, having begun her journey working the cash register at her parents’ pharmacy at the ripe young age of 7.

Asked about the human side of B2B marketing, Moira notes that “there is a huge fallacy about B2B in general”—that the entire process is about “computers selling computers, tech selling tech, or an organization selling to an organization.” She reminds us that each company is composed of human beings making individual decisions that they believe is best for the brand.

It’s due to this simple yet overlooked fact that “there are humans hidden behind the numbers.” Modo Modo’s goal, with their clients, is to paint a picture of who those humans are and the realities they live with. The best client interviews, then, are those that are driven by genuine curiosity.

Moira also speaks on the issue of disengaged employees and compares and contrasts the desires of the Gen-X, Gen-Y and Gen-Z workforce. She believes highly in the crossover between work and play and why it is vital that today’s organizations cultivate a culture of service, transparency, and self-leadership.

Finally, Moira gives her thoughts on the post-pandemic workplace and challenges the notion that there is no going back from the new normal that is remote work. In fact, Moira, along with her growing team at Modo Modo, believe that theirs is a belly-to-belly culture that thrives best if everyone is mentally and physically present.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●     www.setili.com

●     LinkedIn

●     Twitter

●     Facebook

Connect with Moira Vetter:

●     www.modomodoagency.com

●     Linkedin

Greg White is the President & CEO of LEARN, a network of 11 high-performing public charter schools that serve more than 4,400 students in Chicago and Washington D.C.
 
After graduating from Harvard Business School, Greg worked at Salomon Brothers before eventually founding his own venture capital firm. He also taught at the Kellogg School of Management and served at the Chicago Community Trust before becoming CEO of the LEARN Charter School Network. 

Asked why he chose the unique career path that he did, Greg replies that “I've always had a passion for education and a passion for entrepreneurship. This was a very entrepreneurial venture. We grew from 20 employees and 2 million in revenue to 550 employees and 70 million in revenue.” 

Before joining LEARN, Greg says, he worked in a nice office with a beautiful view, and met with nice people all day long. But what he really wanted was to be in the community, on the front lines. “I was well aware of the problems with education. It just wasn't working for many students who looked like me. And I said, What can I do? How can I get involved, not just to set policy or raise money, but to work directly with students?”  

Leading the LEARN organization has been hard, Greg says, but “It's been a joy because when you're all in, it's not exhausting work. It’s actually quite exhilarating.”
 
As to his approach to leadership, Greg brings up his “laser focus on talent”. He believes in hiring great people and encouraging them to embrace their autonomy when it comes time to make decisions for the organization.
 
Speaking on his current role, Greg says that LEARN ensures its students’ success by focusing on the whole child, and not just on their academic prowess. It is all about meeting the social, emotional, psychological, and physical needs of students. He expects LEARN staff to live the organizations values and create a safe and nurturing environment, not just drive great academic outcomes. 
 
This focus on values, behavior, and social-emotional learning (SEL) is motivated by the fact that LEARN is located in some of the most challenged communities in Chicago. Greg says that the network purposely located in neighborhoods that have a great need for stronger education.
 
“If you can view public education as an investment which benefits society over the long term, there will be a substantial return.”

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●      www.setili.com

●      LinkedIn

●      Twitter

●      Facebook

Connect with Greg White:

●      www.learncharter.org

●      Linkedin

Ginger Bowman is the founder of Synergetic Media, a multichannel marketing services provider located in Alpharetta Georgia, offering commercial printing, web design, video marketing, social, and branding services.

She reflects on her journey to success as a business owner in the world of design. It all began after she graduated from university with a fine arts degree. Without the knowledge and the skills to actually monetize her creative ambitions, Ginger found herself waiting tables right out of school.

Later down the road, Ginger was offered a role at Sony Pictures Imageworks, which gave her the opportunity to work in the creative departments (and become an Oscar-winning technical director along the way) of a number of Hollywood blockbusters in the early-to-mid-2000s including Spider-Man, The Chronicles of Narnia, Superman, Stuart Little 1 and 2, the Matrix.

She left Imageworks in 2006 to become a Professor of Visual Effects at Savannah College of Art and Design, where she continued to work for the next nine years.

By the mid-2010s, Ginger had reached the point in her life where she wanted greater control of her financial future and, in 2017, she purchased the marketing company Synergetic Media.

Ginger goes on to share the many challenges she faced as a new business owner. Just as she encourages everyone of any career to adopt a mindset of continuous learning, she says that the key to success, especially for entrepreneurs, is to keep evolving while staying anchored in their company’s vision.

“I believe that there is a sweet spot,” says Ginger, “between what you love to do and what you’re good at. And if you can find that sweet spot, that’s the career zone, not the job zone.”

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●     www.setili.com

●     LinkedIn

●     Twitter

●     Facebook

Connect with Ginger Bowman:

●     www.synergeticmedia.com

●     LinkedIn

Ann Latham is author of The Power of Clarity (Bloomsbury 2021) and The Clarity Papers, two books that have made her the leading expert on clarity—where it is, where it isn’t, how to create it, why it is so uncommon, and its incredible and under-appreciated power.  

Leaders and employees are under relentless pressure to become faster, more efficient, and more adaptable in the face of change.  People are stressed, and organizations aren't performing as well as they could. 

How can we continue to do more with less? How can we possibly work smarter, not harder?

In this conversation, we talk about Latham's new book, The Power of Clarity. In it, Latham points out the distinction between what she calls "cognitive objects," such as ideas, decisions, and plans and "physical objects" such as products and services. 

Latham explains that the vast majority of our improvement efforts over the previous decades have been focused on physical processes that move products and services out the door. Those processes are clearly defined, with clear objectives and priorities. Physical processes and their outcomes are visible and measurable. 

Meanwhile, most knowledge workers, managers, and other non-production people spend their work days trying to move cognitive objects, without the benefit of clearly defined processes and priorities. They are operating in what Ann Latham calls the ‘cognitive zone,’ which is currently the land of ‘disclarity.’

Latham stresses that in the cognitive zone, there are six cognitive objects that represent tangible progress--progress that completes one step and leads to another.  These are:

• A decision
• A list
• A plan
• The solution to a problem
• Confirmation
• Authorization

If you want to make real progress, she says, you had better be clear as to which of those six you are pursuing at any given moment. 

When you have a clear process, you become much more efficient. You involve the right people at the right time, and deal effectively with the emotions that can make decisions difficult.

Latham’s advice also addresses the importance of avoiding ‘shoulds,’ confronting procrastination, and the role of self-awareness. She provides a surprising example of how different people measure their own success differently and often unconsciously, and how bringing this to light can ensure a good match between the boss's/organization's objectives and the employee's objectives. 

Learn more about Latham’s work and how your organization can harness the power of clarity at power-of-clarity.com or connect with her on LinkedIn.

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●        www.setili.com

●        LinkedIn

●        Twitter

●        Facebook

Connect with Ann Latham

●        LinkedIn

●        Twitter

●        https://AnnLatham.com

Robbie Kellman Baxter is author of The Forever Transaction and The Membership Economy, two books which have sealed her place as the number one expert in the world on subscription and membership-based businesses.  

Nearly every company is at least thinking about moving to a subscription model, or incorporating subscription models into their business strategy. The benefits are clear - recurring revenue,  disruption-proofing customer loyalty, and more. But taking the leap can be scary.  How do you move forward quickly but mitigate risk to your core business even as you change, well, everything? 

Baxter stresses the importance of defining an ongoing value proposition – a “forever promise” that provides an ongoing benefit to customers and causes them to use your product as a habit, and something they can’t do without. 

Too many companies offer a one-time benefit that incents people to sign up for their subscription or membership, but pay insufficient attention to providing ongoing, indispensable value to customers. 

You have to earn the customers trust again and again, because every day the customer can cancel.  One way to build trust is to make it easy for customers to cancel their subscriptions. Nothing burns bridges like having a difficult cancellation process – we’ve all experienced that. 

Another mistake companies make is having too many promotions to entice people to subscribe. That just teaches customers to game the system – to wait for a better promotion before joining. 

Organizations know that subscription pricing can yield great benefits but are scared to make the massive change in business strategy it would require. We can look to companies like Adobe as exemplars of how to make the shift effectively. 

”Adobe did a ton of experimentation before they moved to a subscription-based model,” Baxter says, “They really understood and could anticipate what the behavior of their different customer segments was going to be. And they were very clear in communicating to their board, which customers were okay to lose, and which customers were not okay to lose and what they were doing to manage that.”

Learn more about Baxter’s work, and about how your organization can transition to a subscription model, at RobbieKellmanBaxter.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn. 

Connect with Amanda Setili:

●        www.setili.com

●        LinkedIn

●        Twitter

●        Facebook

Connect with Robbie Kellman Baxter

●        LinkedIn

●        Twitter

●        https://robbiekellmanbaxter.com/

Sandra Hughes is the epitome of reinvention. While working as a former Gap, Inc. executive,
building for-profit and nonprofit businesses and juggling her family life, she didn’t have time for
graduate school. Then, she decided to start her own business, earned an MBA from Santa Clara
University and founded Life Reinvented at age 50.

Her Life Reinvented® Solopreneur Accelerator helps people gain traction in their business
through highly effective work and life success strategies. Sandra’s pragmatic approach to
leadership applies to anyone seeking greater personal and financial success. She says when you
live your core values – the intersection of your life and work values – and then unleash your
superpower or differentiator, people see and appreciate your uniqueness.

Sandra emphasizes it’s important to be strategic and intentional about your success. Identify
and connect with your ideal clients through Meetup groups and other networking events.
Perform a customer discovery process for product/market fit by asking the right people the
right questions, analyze the data and finetune your offer.

Remember, a life reinvented means that where you start and where you end up may be
different than you expected. Sandra’s company can help you take control of your own happiness and success.