Engaging Leader

Dan Schawbel is a New York Times bestselling author, Partner and Research Director at Future Workplace, and the Founder of both Millennial Branding and WorkplaceTrends.com. Previously, he wrote two career books: Promote Yourself and Me 2.0. His new book Back to Human was selected by The Financial Times as the book of the month. Through his companies, he's conducted dozens of research studies and worked with major brands including American Express, GE, Microsoft, Virgin, IBM, Coca Cola and Oracle. Dan has interviewed over 2,000 of the world's most successful people, including Warren Buffett, Anthony Bourdain, Jessica Alba, will.i.am, Michael Bloomberg, Chelsea Handler, Colin Powell, Sheryl Sandberg, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is the host of "5 Questions with Dan Schawbel," a podcast where he interviews a variety of world-class humans by asking them 5 questions in less than 10 minutes. In addition, he has written countless articles for Forbes, Fortune, TIME, The Economist, Quartz, The World Economic Forum, The Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, and others that have combined generated over 15 million views.

Dan Schawbel is a New York Times bestselling author, Partner and Research Director at Future Workplace, and the Founder of both Millennial Branding and WorkplaceTrends.com. Previously, he wrote two career books: Promote Yourself and Me 2.0. His new book Back to Human was selected by The Financial Times as the book of the month. Through his companies, he's conducted dozens of research studies and worked with major brands including American Express, GE, Microsoft, Virgin, IBM, Coca Cola and Oracle. Dan has interviewed over 2,000 of the world's most successful people, including Warren Buffett, Anthony Bourdain, Jessica Alba, will.i.am, Michael Bloomberg, Chelsea Handler, Colin Powell, Sheryl Sandberg, and Arnold Schwarzenegger. He is the host of "5 Questions with Dan Schawbel," a podcast where he interviews a variety of world-class humans by asking them 5 questions in less than 10 minutes. In addition, he has written countless articles for Forbes, Fortune, TIME, The Economist, Quartz, The World Economic Forum, The Harvard Business Review, The Guardian, and others that have combined generated over 15 million views.

The home improvement store chain Lowe's was named #1 among Fast Company's 2018 Most Innovative Companies, for augmented and virtual reality, as well as #1 for innovation among specialty retailers on Fortune's 2018 World's Most Admired Companies. How did a company in a dusty, old-hat industry (hardware stores) suddenly become known as an innovator?

When developing a communication strategy to drive change within an organization, we use various models and frameworks to help ensure we create a strategy that actually works. The Fogg Behavioral Model is a powerful framework for driving change. BJ Fogg is a behavior scientist and the founder of Stanford University's Behavior Design Lab. Fogg is one of the biggest influencers of modern user experience (UX) design – for example, he was influential in the success of Pinterest. He focuses on methods for creating habits, showing what causes behavior, and automating behavior change … all of which are helpful for leaders hoping to influence their workforce to take action or adopt a change. At the core of all BJ Fogg's research is the Fogg Behavioral Model. It's most simply stated as "Behavior (B) happens when Motivation (M), Ability (A), and a Prompt (P) come together at the same moment." •M: How motivated is your audience to engage with your initiative — take on the behavior you're seeking? •A: Ability — how hard is the task you're asking them to do — how difficult is the behavior? •P: Prompt — what will trigger the action you want? Jamie Barnes is a consulting partner with Workforce Communication. With a focus on change management communications, her approach is rooted in proven practices. She's worked in global firms and creative agencies; she studied behavior change with behavioral scientist BJ Fogg PhD, the neuroscience of learning with the NeuroLeadership Institute, and change management with Prosci. Jamie studied organizational communications at the University of Chicago and has a BA in social science from National Louis University.

A strong, authentic employer brand is key to recruiting, retaining, and fully engaging top talent. The most effective companies build a differentiated employee value proposition (EVP).

Organizations that communicate effectively with their workforce deliver better results. According to a study by Willis Towers Watson, companies with high effectiveness in communication and change management are 3.5 times more likely to significantly outperform their less effective peers. They: •Attract top people •Engage employees fully •Achieve a superior bottom line It's NOT about transmitting information. Workforce communication is listening to people and using key principles to grab attention, inspire trust, and nudge behaviors of people to deliver results that matter ... all within the crazy complexities of a human organization. Learning and practicing the principles of effective communication can help you become a better leader, a more successful businessperson, and maybe even a better person overall.

Boom! That's the sound of performance appraisal processes being blown up across the country. There's been a collective lightning flash of realization that the old way of doing it just isn't doing it. But what's really happening? In a new piece of research, The Truth & Lies of Performance Management, Michael Bungay Stanier and his colleagues David Creelman and Anna Tavis surveyed senior executives across more than 120 organizations, asking them to share what they're doing (and not doing) in their organizations. The research was supplemented with qualitative interviews, adding stories from the front line to the statistics. Among other findings, the research showed there is no "silver bullet" that will make performance appraisals easy, pleasant, and useful for everyone. However, performance can be improved by teaching managers how they can be more coach-like — and have everyday performance conversations — in a way that isn't an added burden to them. Michael Bungay Stanier has trained more than 10,000 busy managers from around the globe in practical, everyday coaching skills. He is the founder and senior partner of Box of Crayons, a company that helps organizations all over the world do less Good Work and more Great Work. Box of Crayons is best known for their coaching programs that help time-crunched managers coach in 10 minutes or less. Michael has written a number of books including The Coaching Habit and Do More Great Work.

You have the opportunity to lead: to show up with confidence, connected to others, and committed to a purpose in a way that inspires others to follow. But great leadership — leadership that aligns teams, inspires action, and achieves results — is hard. And what makes it hard isn't theoretical, it's practical. It's not about knowing what to say or do. It's about whether you're willing to experience the discomfort, risk, and uncertainty of saying or doing it. In other words, the most critical challenge of leadership is emotional courage. If you are willing to feel everything, you can do anything.

Think about two balancing buckets. Separate your work life and personal life into two distinct buckets — not to compartmentalize them, just for counterbalancing. Your work life is divided into two distinct areas—what matters most and everything else. You will have to take what matters to the extremes and be okay with what happens to the rest. Professional success requires it. Your personal life has multiple areas, and each requires a minimum of attention. Drop any one and you will feel the effects. This requires constant awareness. An extraordinary life is a counterbalancing act. Let the right things take precedence when they should. Get to the rest when you can. In this episode, Jesse shares what he's learned from chapter 8 of the book The ONE Thing and provides examples of applying the lessons.

This episode is about a true story that is interesting and well told — a story that is important for all leaders and entrepreneurs ... especially those of us who aspire to use business not only to make a living for ourselves but to help make the world a better place. Everyone wants to be fulfilled by their work. We want to feel like we're doing something valuable and making the world a better place. And if we can live out our passion too, well, that's the dream. We want to work with a team that's engaged, in a place where we can come alive, and contribute to something bigger than ourselves. In Meaningful Work: A Quest To Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, And Feed Your Soul, Shawn Askinosie shares that not only is all of this possible, it's imperative for the success of our economy, our businesses, and ourselves. Whether you're an entrepreneur, executive, or team leader, it's possible to imbue your organization — and employees — with purpose. In 2005, Shawn Askinosie left a highly successful career as a criminal defense lawyer to start a bean-to-bar chocolate factory and never looked back. Askinosie Chocolate is a small-batch, award-winning chocolate factory, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers. Recently named by Forbes "One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America," Askinosie's business model has been featured in The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, and numerous other media. Shawn was named by O, The Oprah Magazine, "One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World." For his efforts in "Advancing food standards… by creating social, economic, and environmental impact", Shawn was awarded Top Business Leader of the Year in 2013 by the Specialty Food Association. Shawn has been awarded honorary doctorates from University of Missouri-Columbia and Missouri State University. In 2015, Askinosie Chocolate was awarded a complimentary membership to the Clinton Global Initiative for the company's social efforts around the world.

How to Be a Decent Human Being to Friends (and Friends of Friends) This is a conversation about a book that's not like any networking book you have read (or ignored) before. In fact, it's not about networking; it's about how networks actually work. Networking seems to many of us to be an insincere way to manipulate relationships for personal gain. And yet there is a significant body of research that demonstrates that making and strengthening connections to others is vitally important for professional success. Being connected to a strong network provides major advantages — shots at key career opportunities, access to diverse skills and perspectives, the ability to learn private information, and the type of expertise and influence that makes it easier to attain power. What if the advice we've all heard about networking was wrong? What if it ISN'T about introducing yourself to strangers at cocktail parties, handing out business cards, or signing up for the latest online tool, but by getting the full picture of the existing network that's already around you? David Burkus returns to Engaging Leader to talk to Jesse about tips from his latest book, Friend of a Friend: Understanding the Hidden Networks That Can Transform Your Life and Your Career. Based upon entertaining case studies and scientific research, this practical and revelatory guide shares what leads to true success. (Hint: It looks a lot less like collecting business cards and making random introductions … and a lot more like fostering authentic connections and seeking out diverse new voices.) David is a best-selling author, a sought after speaker, and an associate professor of leadership and innovation at Oral Roberts University. He's delivered keynotes to the leaders of Fortune 500 companies and the future leaders of the United States Naval Academy. His TED talk has been viewed over 1.8 million times, and he is a regular contributor to Harvard Business Review.

In the next two decades, nearly 50% of white-collar jobs are at risk, either to automation or artificial intelligence (AI), according to analysis by Oxford University. Every leader and every worker need to ask: What will be left for people to do that machines can't do better or cheaper? If you don't figure this out, you (and maybe your entire organization) will probably be unemployed or underemployed. Survival requires focusing on the human attributes that will likely remain beyond the realm of this "tech tide." The latest book by Tom Peters, The Excellence Dividend, provides simple, actionable guidelines for success that any business leader can immediately implement — and a road map for your organization and for you as an individual to thrive amid the tech tsunami. And the really good news is that the "dividend" of doing so is not only survival, but also fun and meaning in your work and leadership. Tom shows that an unabashed commitment to excellence is the best defense — and offense — in the face of overwhelming change. Nothing beats a high-quality product or service, designed and delivered by people who are as dedicated to one another as they are to their shared goal. Tom Peters is coauthor of In Search of Excellence — the book that changed the way the world does business, and often tagged as the best business book ever. He wrote 17 more books over the next 35 years, and his newest book is The Excellence Dividend.

Grokker is an on-demand wellness solution that engages employees with better health through video, experts, and community. Loved by users in 172 countries around the world and used by top employers like eBay, Aetna, and Pinterest, Grokker was named to the 2017 CNBC Upstart 25 list for successful startups. With over 4,000 exercise, mindfulness, nutrition and sleep videos from 5 to 50 minutes, more than 130 master experts to choose from, and a supportive community to connect employees across locations, Grokker takes the work out of workplace wellness with an easy-to-implement, holistic, and cost-effective program. As the founder and CEO of Grokker, Lorna Borenstein is on a mission to redefine global business culture and champion employee well-being. Lorna is an internet veteran who began her career launching eBay Canada out of her guest room with a newborn in tow. After over 20 stressful years in high-profile roles at eBay, HP, Yahoo!, and Move, it was time for a change. With a holistic approach and a commitment to put herself first, Lorna transformed her own physical, spiritual, and emotional health. Then she founded Grokker to help others do the same. A sought-after speaker, contributing author, and C-suite adviser on wellness, leadership, corporate culture, and women's issues, Lorna is also a frequent contributor to business publications including Fortune, Huffington Post, and Entrepreneur.

Willpower is the ability to control yourself to determine your actions. It allows you (and your team) to accomplish what matters most to you — solving a business problem, losing weight, cornering the market, getting out of debt, etc. To control many of your actions, you can use selected discipline to build a powerful habit. But to control other actions in any given day, it requires the power of will — a vital part of the self-management that's necessary for leadership and personal success. You and your team need your willpower at full strength to ensure that when you're doing the right thing, you don't let anything distract you or steer you away from it. Then you need enough willpower the rest of the day to either support or avoid sabotaging what you've done. Unfortunately, willpower it not on will-call. All of us have a limited supply of willpower each day. Putting it to its best use requires you to manage it. To put your willpower to work, you need to think about it. Pay attention to it. Respect it. You make doing what matters most a priority when your willpower is its highest. In other words, you give your ONE Thing the time of day it deserves.

Ambiguity -- in the form of uncertainty or conflicting priorities -- has become the default state for organizations of all types. It lurks in the background when leaders can't explain what success looks like, or what aspects of performance matter most for achieving it. It saps energy from talented team members operating in the dark about how their work contributes to the organization's goals. In this episode, Jesse talks to Karen Martin about how to eliminate the ambiguity in your organization by starting with clarity. Drawing on her work with hundreds of organizations, Karen identifies and offers practical advice to perfect the "Six P's" of organizational clarity: •Purpose: Understand why the organization exists. •Priorities: Define what matters now. •Process: Design and manage how the work gets done — with excellence and precision. •Performance: Know how the organization is doing on all fronts. •Problem solving: Surface problems and use a disciplined method for solving them. •People: Lead with clarity of thought, word, and action. This conversation includes: •Why some organizations don't have clarity — and even accept ambiguity as an unavoidable fact of life •The difference between ambiguity and uncertainty •Why having clarity doesn't mean you can't have flexibility too •The pitfalls of not setting a clear foundation and relying on ambiguous goals •A quick and easy method for assessing your team's clarity •Tips for achieving better clarity for your team •The CLEAR approach to disciplined problem-solving Karen Martin is an author, speaker, and president of the global consulting firm The Karen Martin Group, Inc. She is a leading authority on lean management and performance improvement for businesses, government agencies, and the not-for-profit sector. Her newest book is CLARITY FIRST: How Smart Leaders and Organizations Achieve Outstanding Performance. Her previous books include The Outstanding Organization and Value Stream Mapping, both Shingo Research Award winners. Karen and her team have worked with clients such as AT&T, Chevron, Epson, GlaxoSmithKline, International Monetary Fund, Lenovo, Mayo Clinic, and many more.

Success is about doing the right thing, not about doing everything right.

Multitasking doesn't save time -- it wastes time. When you try to do two things at once, you either can't or won't do either well. If you think multitasking is an effective way to get more done, you've got it backward. It's an effective way to get less done. Every time we try to do two or more things at once, we're simply dividing up our focus and dumbing down all of the outcomes in the process. "Multitasking is merely the opportunity to screw up more than one thing at a time." ~ Steve Uzzell Researchers have found these surprising facts about multitasking: •People can actually do two things at once, such as walk and talk, but they can't focus on two things at once. Their attention actually bounces back and forth. •Bounce between one activity and another, and you lose time as your brain reorients to the new task. We lose 28 percent of an average workday to multitasking ineffectiveness. •The more time you spend switched to another task, the less likely you are to get back to your original task. (This is how loose ends pile up.) •Chronic multitaskers develop a distorted sense of how long it takes to do things. They almost always believe tasks take longer to complete than is actually required. •Multitaskers make more mistakes than non-multitaskers. They often make poorer decisions because they favor new information over old, even if the older information is more valuable. •Multitaskers experience more life-reducing, happiness-squelching stress. Distraction undermines results. When you try to do too much at once, you can end up doing nothing well. Figure out what matters most in the moment and give it your undivided attention. In this episode, Jesse shares what he's learned from chapter 5 of the book The ONE Thing and provides examples of applying the lessons. His personal tips include: •Jedi mind training (also known as mindfulness meditation) to improve focus and resist distraction •Minimal smartphone notifications •Going off-grid for deep work •Email hacks to minimize distractions

How do great leaders overcome resistance to change ― and the stress that accompanies it? Navigating change is hard, and people often get emotionally hijacked in the process. Leaders need potent, easy to learn, highly effective brain-based tools to navigate the emotions connected with growth and change ― and get their team on track. In this episode, Jesse talks to Christine Comaford about tools to help leaders overcome resistance to change ― not by manipulating people, but by helping them develop emotional agility. The latest book from top leadership consultant and employee engagement expert Christine Comaford is Power Your Tribe: Create Resilient Teams in Turbulent Times. Whether it's diminished sales, increased competition, or corporate restructuring, change is a natural part of doing business in today's high-speed, information-overload, instant-response environment. But at the same time, inherent in human nature is resistance to change ― a basic emotional response that is well-documented by neuroscience. By training and empowering your team members to shift their emotional states ― and see the positive potential of change ― you can lead your tribe through any challenge and ensure success for years to come. This conversation includes: •Using the Emotional Wheel to plan leadership communications about the change •Help your people process their feelings about the change •Using the SBM Index (Safety, Belonging, Mattering) to quickly assess employee engagement and then develop effective influencing messages about the change •How to respond when employee express mockery about the new program (converting mockery into usefulness)

Instead of a to-do list, you need a success list -- a list that is purposefully created around extraordinary results. A to-do list becomes a success list when you apply Pareto's Principle to it. Does it seem like every day you and your team have more and more that "simply must get done"? Do you often feel overbooked, overextended, overcommitted, and "in the weeds"? Do you (or your direct reports) feel like a human pinball, bouncing from task to task throughout the day, hoping to check as many things as possible off your to-do list -- but later realizing you didn't actually accomplish anything that truly matters? To-do lists (whether in our head, on paper, or in an electronic system) can help collect our best intentions, but they also tyrannize us with trivial, unimportant stuff that we feel obligated to get done. If allowed, a to-do list or inbox can dictate our priorities -- keeping us busy but not letting us achieve real success for ourselves and our organization. Activity is not related to productivity or success -- and certainly not to extraordinary results. So how do you decide what to do, or what to do first? Successful people have an eye for the essential. They: •Pause long enough to decide what matters. •Do sooner what others plan to do later. •Defer to later (or indefinitely) what others do sooner. •Work from a clear sense of priority. In this episode, Jesse shares what he's learned from chapter 4 of the book The ONE Thing and provides examples of applying the lessons. His personal tips include: •Success list: At the end of each day, selecting and writing down the ONE Thing you will do tomorrow that will make it a successful day for you; any other to-dos are relegated to a different list and generally not worked on until the ONE Thing is done. •Cerato or Scleranthus: Gentle herbs in the family of Bach remedies; these two options can, help your mind be more clear and decisive about setting priorities. They are inexpensive, available many places online or in many health food stores. •Decision points: As discussed in episode 165 [link], these are moments in your day when you have the opportunity to decide what to work on next, based on your priorities, your energy, and the amount of available time. •Mindfulness meditation and prayer: Helps you become more aware of what really matters in your work and personal life; helps improve your focus and resistance to distractions throughout the day; helps you make the most of each moment for maximum effectiveness, satisfaction, and fulfillment. •Pareto's Principle, also known as 80/20 Rule: Apply this lens to your to-do list to identify the few things that matter more than the rest. Then with your shorter list, apply it again, and again, until you identify the essential, imperative ONE Thing that matters the most.

Success demands singleness of purpose. ~ Vince Lombardi, arguably the greatest football coach of all time Extraordinarily successful people, companies, and teams always have one product/service/idea they're most known for or that makes them the most money. They may have other important things too, but only one of them is the most important. Having clarity on a single purpose — especially one that combines your top passion and skill — is the simplest and smartest thing you can do to propel yourself toward the success you want. This principle shows up consistently in the lives of successful people and companies because it's a fundamental truth. It is those who concentrate on but one thing at a time who advance in this world. ~ Og Mandino Technological innovations, cultural shifts, and competitive forces often require that your ONE Thing evolve or transform. The most successful leaders and organizations are always asking, "What's our ONE Thing?" If you don't currently know what your ONE Thing is, then your ONE Thing is to find out. And as a leader, you need to engage your team to find out, get clear, and stay focused. In this episode, Jesse shares what he's learned from chapter 3 of the book The ONE Thing and provides examples of applying the lessons.

Why do some people perform better at work than others? This deceptively simple question continues to confound leaders, as well as all professionals who want to advance and succeed while maintaining balance and wellbeing. We often equate working longer hours with success, but the fact is that type of work leads to stress, burnout, and overall inferior work performance. A new, groundbreaking study of more than 5,000 managers and employees shows that top performers actually work less -- and it reveals the tricks they use to accomplish much more. The newest book from Morten Hansen is GREAT AT WORK: How Top Performers Do Less, Work Better, and Achieve More. In the book, he provides key practices that emerged from the study's data -- "work smarter" practices that overturn many of our basic "work harder" conventions. In this episode, Jesse and Morten discuss: •How people who "work less, then obsess" outperform people who work longer hours •Why applying intense effort in a few chosen areas leads to greater success •How top performers decide what will be the critical few tasks or goals they will focus on •How to say "No" to your boss, when a longer to-do list would hurt your performance •How to avoid being a pesky, "do-more" boss who lacks direction and sets too many priorities •How "disciplined collaboration" produces much higher results than either under- or over-collaboration •How to lead better (and fewer) meetings and stop wasting time Morten T. Hansen is a management professor at University of California, Berkeley. He is the coauthor (with Jim Collins) of the New York Times bestseller Great by Choice and the author of the highly acclaimed Collaboration. Formerly a professor at Harvard Business School and INSEAD (France), Professor Hansen holds a PhD from Stanford Business School, where he was a Fulbright scholar. His academic research has won several prestigious awards, and he is ranked one of the world's most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50. Hansen was also a manager at the Boston Consulting Group, where he advised corporate clients worldwide.

Leading talented people in creative fields requires a different skill set than what many management books teach. How do you ensure your team consistently delivers a brilliant work product from an inherently unpredictable creative process? How do you manage pushback from your team of super-smart, headstrong creatives? As a consultant to creative companies, Todd Henry knows firsthand what prevents creative leaders from guiding their teams to success. In his latest book, Herding Tigers: Be the Leader that Creative People Need, Todd provides a blueprint to help you be the leader your team needs to produce awesome work. In this episode, Jesse and Todd discuss: •The unique challenges of leading a team made up of creative people •The two things that creatives need most in order to do great work •A three-part framework for the true role of a creative leader •What to focus on when coaching creative staff •How to build time and attention buffers to protect your team's ability to do its best work •Why you should still "get your hands dirty" sometimes, even as you remove yourself from the work. Todd Henry teaches leaders and organizations how to establish practices that lead to everyday brilliance. He is the author of three previous books (The Accidental Creative, Die Empty, and Louder Than Words) which have been translated into more than a dozen languages, and he speaks and consults across several industries on creativity, leadership, and passion for work.

When one thing (the right ONE Thing) is set in motion, it can topple many things. Even more significant, a single domino can bring down another domino that is 50% larger. That provides that opportunity not only for linear progress, but exponential progress. Getting extraordinary results is all about creating a domino effect for you (or your team). Successful leaders line up their priorities anew every day, find the lead domino, and whack away at it until it falls. In this episode, Jesse shares what he's learned from chapter 2 of the book The ONE Thing and provides examples of applying the lessons. In addition, he provides science-based tips from the book Two Awesome Hours to help you stay focused on your ONE Thing and especially your lead domino.

What's the ONE Thing you (or your team) can do this week such that by doing it, everything else would be easier or unnecessary? Behind every successful person is their ONE Thing. No matter how success is measured, personal or professional, only the ability to dismiss distractions and concentrate on your ONE Thing stands between you and your goals. The ONE Thing is about getting extraordinary results in every situation. In this episode, Jesse shares what he's learned from chapter 1 of the book The ONE Thing and provides examples of applying the lessons. What is the ONE Thing standing between you and your goals? To help identify your ONE Thing, you may find it helpful to ask yourself (or your team) these additional questions: •If you could work only two hours per week, what would you do? •What if I could only subtract to solve problems? •What should I simplify? What should I put on my not-to-do list? •Am I hunting antelope or field mice? •When looking at your to-do list, which one to-do would render all the rest either easier or unnecessary? •What would this look like if it were easy?

All of us have at least one person or group of people that we work with who has an issue that we really need to address — a performance problem, a behavioral issue, a piece of spinach stuck in their teeth — but for some reason, we avoid bringing up the topic with them. We've all been there. Perhaps we're afraid of hurting their feelings, getting a negative reaction, having our helpful intentions misunderstood, or otherwise causing an unintended consequence. So we don't bring it up, and the ignored topic becomes the proverbial elephant in the room that gets bigger over time ... continuing to hold back that person's true success and also negatively affecting us and others on the team. We aren't doing anyone a favor by pretending it doesn't exist. So how can we address the elephant in a way that we can be confident is likely to bring about a healthy result? That's where communication expert Dr. Mike Bechtle comes in. You've seen his books in airports and other bookstores for years. His best-known book is People Can't Drive You Crazy If You Don't Give Them the Keys, and his newest book is Dealing with the Elephant in the Room: Moving from Tough Conversations to Healthy Communication. It's based on his belief that, with the right tools and skills, individuals can learn to negotiate the toughest conversations without intimidation and frustration. Over the past 29 years as a senior consultant with FranklinCovey, Mike has taught more than 3,000 seminars about productivity and communication, done executive coaching, and written five books to help people at all levels live their lives intentionally (instead of by default).

How many times have you heard a leader say, "Our people are our greatest asset?" You've probably even uttered it a few times yourself. It's a nice sentiment but really doesn't tell the full story. Simply having an organization full of stellar individuals is ultimately less important than how they function together. In his new book, Get Better: 15 Proven Practices to Build Effective Relationships at Work, FranklinCovey's Chief People Officer, Todd Davis, explains that while an organization's greatest assets are indeed its people, it's actually the relationships between those people that truly become the organization's ultimate competitive advantage. Get Better is a practical guide for anyone looking to create a competitive advantage for any size and type of organization by building effective relationships. Davis describes the most common relationship pitfalls that negatively affect personal careers and organizational results. He identifies 15 proven practices that influential leaders use to improve the quality of interactions with others and master the skills of effective relationships. Todd Davis has been with FranklinCovey for over 20 years, and currently, serves as chief people officer and executive vice president and is responsible for FranklinCovey's global talent development. Davis has delivered numerous keynote addresses and speeches at top industry conferences and associations, annual corporate events and for FranklinCovey clients, many of which are Fortune® 100 and 500 companies.

Chronic stress takes a toll on the quality of work and life, for both leaders and the people they lead. Stress muddies our thinking, impairs judgment, damages health and relationships, and causes people to burn out and quit their job. The solution, according to Dr. Andrew Shatté, is for leaders to become stress-relient and to teach resilience to their team. Learning resilience gets to the root cause of stress by helping people improve how they respond to adversity. Unfortunately, nearly half of leaders and high-value employees are not resilient, according to a recent study by meQuilibrium. Among other findings, the study revealed: 44% of employees with a master's degree or higher have below-average resilience — meaning they are at a higher risk for depression, burnout, absenteeism and reduced productivity 54% of employees making between $75,000 and $90,000 yearly have below-average resilience — and of those people, 42% intend to quit their job within the next 6 months In episode 32 of Workforce Health Engagement, Andrew joined Jesse to discuss how to train employees to tackle the seven core components of stress resilience — not by attempting to eliminate stress, but by markedly improving their ability to handle it. In this episode of Engaging Leader, Andrew discusses resilient leadership, including: •Developing resilience personally — and modeling it in real life, •Mentoring team members to develop their resilience, and •Creating a resilient workplace. Andrew Shatté is co-author of two books about resilience and stress management. He is a psychologist and research professor in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona, a Brookings Institution fellow, and the Chief Science Officer at the online stress management company meQuilibrium. Andrew has spent more than 20 years researching resilience and has established resilience programs that are operating around the world. Andrew's work has improved productivity and performance at organizations ranging from NASA to Fortune 100 companies. meQuilibrium is a personalized, interactive, coaching system designed to provide people with proven, measurable methods to increase their stress resilience. Large employers, including Comcast and HP, use meQuilibrium as part of their human capital strategies to help their employees to manage stress and boost performance and to make healthier choices. It's designed for mobile and desktop use.

Trek Bikes grew out of one man's belief that he could build a different kind of company. In a barn in southern Wisconsin, Dick Burke instilled the simple principles that continue to guide the company as it has grown into a worldwide brand: build things that last and leave a legacy of positive change. Dick's son John Burke began working at Trek in 1984 and has been president of the company since 1997. Jesse and John discuss: •What makes Trek different from other high-end bike makers; •How Trek got started; •How John joined Trek and eventually came to lead the company; •Why John decided to do something to make the country better; •The problems-and-solutions approach that John teaches as one way to create a high-performing team; •How Trek makes sure it has the best people; •How Trek creates a positive culture, including developing its leaders; and •Why John decided to create a culture of health within Trek, and how they did it. John Burke is president of Trek Bikes. He is also the author of two books: 12 Simple Solutions to Save America and One Last Great Thing. John served as chairman of President George W. Bush's President's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports and is a Founding Board Member of the Bikes Belong Coalition. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, John is an avid cyclist and runner and has finished Ironman Wisconsin as well as the Boston and New York Marathons. This interview originally aired in June 2017 on Jesse's podcast Workforce Health Engagement.

Just like managing weight, managing stress is about becoming aware of personal choices and making better ones, and rewiring thought patterns so that an individual's habits sustain well-being rather than sabotage it. Learning resilience gets to the root cause of stress and unhealthy behaviors by helping people challenge and adapt their thinking. Dr. Andrew Shatté joins Jesse to discuss how to train employees to tackle the seven core components of stress management — not by attempting to eliminate stress, but by markedly improving their ability to handle it. Third-party research shows that people who develop stress resilience based on the meQuilibrium approach are: •4x more likely to have high job satisfaction. •5x as likely to have very good or excellent health. •47% less likely to miss at least one day of work per month. •Half as likely to quit. Even though 75% of people say they are overloaded by stress, only 3-5% take advantage of employee assistance programs (EAPs). At organizations that implement meQuilibrium, Andrew reports that 60-70% of employees give the program a try, and 88% of them complete the program. Andrew Shatté is co-author of two books about resilience and stress management. He is a psychologist and research professor in the College of Medicine at the University of Arizona, a Brookings Institution fellow, and the Chief Science Officer at the online stress management company meQuilibrium. Andrew has spent more than 20 years researching resilience and has established resilience programs that are operating around the world. Andrew's work has improved productivity and performance at organizations ranging from NASA to Fortune 100 companies. meQuilibrium is a personalized, interactive, coaching system designed to provide people with proven, measurable methods to increase their stress resilience. Large employers, including Comcast and HP, use meQuilibrium as part of their human capital strategies to help their employees to manage stress and boost performance and to make healthier choices. It's designed for mobile and desktop use.

What does it take to lead a team that builds a startup into a nationally recognized company in less than three years, with an annual growth rate of more than 1,000%? Josh Kent is the CEO and founder of over a dozen startups, including SunFrog Shirts, which launched in 2013 and is currently the largest T-shirt company in the United States. In this interview, Josh shares his personal story of failures, successes, and the lessons learned along the way. Josh will share how he built a winning team, how he uses a combination of high-touch and high-tech to cultivate the company's culture despite its explosive growth, and how he leads a workforce of not only several hundred employees locally but also 80,000 affiliates globally. In addition, Jesse and Josh discuss: •Holding intentional events to strengthen a fun, healthy culture; •How new employees are introduced to the culture; •Developing leadership skills of managers, including foundational training as well as an ongoing weekly "book club"; •How to conduct daily "huddles," weekly "super huddles," and monthly town halls; •How to take advantage of the affiliation business model; and •Managing task lists on a cascading basis, and inspecting what you expect. Josh Kent is listed as one of Entrepreneur Magazine's Top 25 Entrepreneurs to Watch, and Inc.com recently featured him as an industry disrupter. According to Alexa, SunFrog.com is now one of the 500 most trafficked sites in the world, making it more popular than Mashable, Reuters, and Nordstrom.

The organizations that are most successful in building a culture of health begin at the top, with key leaders championing a vision that includes the wellbeing of every employee. In this episode, Jesse interviews John Burke, CEO of Trek Bikes, who took a stand 13 years ago that launched a culture that has produced improvements in employee health every year since then. Trek Bikes grew out of one man's belief that he could build a different kind of company. In a barn in southern Wisconsin, Dick Burke instilled the simple principles that continue to guide the company as it has grown into a worldwide brand: build things that last and leave a legacy of positive change. Dick's son John Burke began working at Trek in 1984 and has been president of the company since 1997. Jesse and John discuss: •What makes Trek different from other high-end bike makers; •How Trek got started; •How John joined Trek and eventually came to lead the company; •Why John decided to do something to make the country better; •The problems-and-solutions approach that John teaches as one way to create a high-performing team; •How Trek makes sure it has the best people; •How Trek creates a positive culture, including developing its leaders; and •Why John decided to create a culture of health within Trek, and how they did it. John Burke is president of Trek Bikes. He is also the author of two books: 12 Simple Solutions to Save America and One Last Great Thing. John served as chairman of President George W. Bush's President's Council on Physical Fitness & Sports and is a Founding Board Member of the Bikes Belong Coalition. A native of Madison, Wisconsin, John is an avid cyclist and runner and has finished Ironman Wisconsin as well as the Boston and New York Marathons.

Are you a genius or a genius-maker? We've all had experience with two dramatically different types of leaders. The first type drains intelligence, energy, and capability from the people around them and always needs to be the smartest person in the room. These are the idea killers, the energy sappers, the diminishers of talent and commitment. On the other side of the spectrum are leaders who use their intelligence to amplify the smarts and capabilities of the people around them. When these leaders walk into a room, light bulbs go on over people's heads; ideas flow and problems get solved. These are the leaders who inspire employees to stretch themselves to deliver results that surpass expectations. These are the Multipliers. And the world needs more of them, especially now when leaders are expected to do more with less. In today's episode, Jesse's guest Liz Wiseman discusses how Multipliers can have a resoundingly positive and profitable effect on organizations — getting more done with fewer resources, developing and attracting talent, and cultivating new ideas and energy to drive organizational change and innovation. Jesse and Liz talk about: •The five key areas where Multipliers and Diminishers differ, •How Multipliers manage to get so much brain power from their people, •How to know if you are an "accidental" Diminisher — despite good intentions, you've been accidentally diminishing the people on your team — and what to do about it, •Dealing with Diminishers, •Becoming a Multiplier, and •Building a Multiplier Culture. Liz Wiseman teaches leadership to executives and emerging leaders around the world. She is the author of three best-selling books, including the newly expanded second edition of Multipliers: How the Best Leaders Make Everyone Smarter. Her other books are Rookie Smarts: Why Learning Beats Knowing in the New Game of Work, which we discussed in episode 104, and The Multiplier Effect: Tapping the Genius Inside Our Schools. Liz is president of The Wiseman Group, a leadership research and development firm headquartered in Silicon Valley. Some of her recent clients include: Apple, Disney, eBay/PayPal, Facebook, GAP, Google, Microsoft, Nike, Roche, Salesforce.com, and Twitter. Previously, she was an executive at Oracle Corporation, where she worked over the course of 17 years as the Vice President of Oracle University and as the global leader for Human Resource Development.

Is your sight set on a new leadership role? Perhaps you're the Director of Finance, and you've just been tapped to become the new CFO. What do you need to change now that your former peers will be reporting to you? Or maybe you're not yet in a position with formal authority, but you know the leadership spot will be open in the near future, and you want to position yourself now. How do you get on the radar screen for internal promotion? How do you become the winning candidate? And most importantly — since 40% of new leaders fail in the first 18 months — how do you ensure your success and longevity if you get the job? This episode focuses on how an aspiring leader can be successful. Jesse's guest is John Lawler, who is co-author of The New Leader's 100-Day Action Plan: How to Take Charge, Build or Merge Your Team, and Get Immediate Results. As Managing Partner of the executive onboarding group PrimeGenesis, John and his team help leaders create and implement 100-day action plans to deliver better results faster. In fact, they have reduced the rate of failure for new leaders from 40% to below 5%. John works with leaders and teams during points of transition – such as executive onboardings, reorganizations, and M&A integrations.

When successful people begin to feel uncertain or challenged at work, the one thing they want to know most is why things are going wrong after they have gone right for so long. Leaders tend to rise to their positions relying on a specific set of values and traits. But in time, every executive reaches a point when their performance suffers. Very few understand why or how to prevent it. In her new book, The Leadership Gap: What Gets Between You and Your Greatness, Lolly Daskal presents a system for harnessing the virtues of your leadership style. In this episode, Jesse and Lolly discuss how leaders embody seven archetypes and how each archetype has powerful abilities and hidden impediments: •The Rebel, driven by confidence; and the Imposter, plagued by self-doubt. •The Explorer, fueled by intuition; and the Exploiter, master of manipulation. •The Truth Teller, embraces candor; and her twin, the Deceiver, who creates suspicion. •The Hero, embodies courage; and the Bystander, a coward if there ever was one. •The Inventor, brimming with integrity; and the Destroyer, is morally corrupt. •The Navigator, trusts and is trusted; and the Fixer, endlessly arrogant. •The Knight, for whom loyalty is everything; and the Mercenary, who is perpetually self-serving. As founder and CEO of Lead From Within, Lolly Daskal has three decades of experience as an executive coach, speaker, and author. Her proprietary leadership program helps leaders enhance performance and make a meaningful difference in their companies, their lives, and the world. Her writing has appeared in HBR, Inc.com, Fast Company (Ask The Expert), Huffington Post, Psychology Today, and others. American Management Association called her the Leader to Watch, and the Huffington Post named Lolly the most inspiring woman in the world.

As millions of millennials and the even younger GenZers come into the workforce with very different expectations and definitions of loyalty, companies need to shift to make the most of those workers' energy, skill sets, and incredible potential. Those companies that shift now for the long game of allegiance will have a strategic talent and efficiency advantage over those that don't. While many organizations and Boomer leaders long for some of the workplace dynamics of the past, one expectation — that employees will demonstrate their loyalty to their employers by staying at their jobs for a long time (or as long as the employer wants them) — is particularly unrealistic for business today. In The Boomerang Principle: Inspire Lifetime Loyalty from Your Employees, author Lee Caraher shows how companies and leaders can realize tremendous advantages by letting go of their old definition of workplace loyalty and replacing it with a mindset that inspires employees to be loyal for their lifetimes, whether they are employed by the company or not. Jesse and Lee discuss: •The new loyalty paradigm •Creating a culture of return creates a culture to stay for •When Millennials thrive, so do Gen Xers and Boomers •Creating a successful corporate alumni program •Interview processes •Training and development programs •Getting in on a good thing — opportunities to join Doube Forte's wine and spirits division Lee Caraher is the founder and CEO of Double Forte, a national public relations and digital media agency, based in San Francisco. Lee is also an acclaimed author and speaker and a recognized expert on creating high performing, positive, intergenerational workplaces. Through her work, she shows companies how to embrace the qualities of different generations, and how to recognize the significant benefits of shifting the definition of company loyalty from a long tenure of employment to a lifetime of allegiance regardless of employment status.

Your personality at work determines your success and impact as a leader. Is yours helping or hurting your effectiveness and your team's engagement? Contrary to what most people think, you can change aspects of your personality and become a more engaging leader. A new book analyzing the behaviors of business leaders explains concrete ways that current and aspiring leaders can improve their personality to boost their effectiveness. Research shows strong links between a leader's personality and outcomes. Ordinary behaviors either drive or derail teamwork, communication, decision-making, safety, and innovation — for better or for worse. Jesse and author Ron Warren discuss how you can be your best self more often, and avoid slipping into behaviors that are not you at your best. This discussion includes: •The 4 dimensions of leadership behavior — including the two that help your leadership, and the two that hurt it; •The dysfunctional behaviors that leaders need to start, stop, or improve; •Evidence-based approaches for "domineering" leaders to become more effective; and •Approaches for "deferent" leaders to achieve better results. Ron Warren, Ph.D. is author of The Achievement Paradox and his newest book, Personality at Work: The Drivers and Derailers of Leadership. Ron has been studying the impact of personality on effectiveness at work for 30 years. He is the developer of leadership and competency assessments taught by Harvard and Yale and used by many organizations worldwide. His work has been published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, Adolescence, and Measures of Leadership.

To lead and influence others, whether as a workplace leader or as a thought leader, you need to develop an authentic voice. For example, let's say you are a CEO delivering a speech to your employees, or a functional VP writing an email to your staff, or a department head presenting recommendations to the C-Suite. When you speak or write, are you clear? Are you true to your values, passions, and personality? Are you representing the real you, and do people understand and trust you? Are you effective not only in prepared communications, but when you speak "off the cuff" or extemporaneously? You might think, well, it's not rocket science. But if that were true, then why do so many leaders struggle with it and not quite have the impact they want? Maybe it really is rocket science, and so, to help us get to the bottom of it, we decided to talk to a real rocket scientist who became a leader. Joshua Spodek is an Adjunct Professor at NYU, leadership coach and workshop leader for Columbia Business School, columnist for Inc., and founder of SpodekAcademy.com. His new book is Leadership Step by Step: Become the Person Others Follow. Josh has led seminars in leadership, entrepreneurship, creativity, and sales at Harvard, Princeton, MIT, INSEAD (Singapore), the New York Academy of Science, and in private corporations. He holds five Ivy League degrees, including a PhD in Astrophysics and an MBA, and he helped build an X-ray observational satellite for NASA. He has co-founded and led as CEO or COO several ventures, and holds six patents. He earned praise as "Best and Brightest" (Esquire Magazine's Genius Issue), "Astrophysicist turned new media whiz" (NBC), and "Rocket Scientist" (ABC News and Forbes), and has been quoted and profiled by ABC, CBS, NBC, the New York Times, and the Wall Street Journal.

In the 21st century, those who are changing the world aren't just leaders; they're engagers. Managers and leaders try to get others to do what is needed. Engagers create conditions and cultivate a team that is fully energized to achieve the organization's purpose. Managers and leaders see themselves as the magic. Engagers see the team as the magic. The skills of traditional management (Influence 1.0) include recruitment, alignment, coaching, feedback, recognition, project planning, and problem-solving. The skills of traditional leadership (Influence 2.0) include thinking strategically, making decisions, casting a vision and inspiring excitement about it, setting goals, and designing systems and structures to support the goals. All of that is good stuff. But it essentially boils down to command-and-control, and lots of research shows it no longer drives high performance over the long term. What's changing the world today is Influence 3.0, or what we call engagership. In a team that is fully engaged in the business, people are both delivering the results that matter most and enjoying the work they do.

David Burkus is the organizer of the upcoming Work Smarter Summit, an online video-based virtual conference where world-class experts share their proven tactics for getting more done, earning more money, and living a life of purpose and productivity. Based on interviews with those experts, David has compiled a free ebook called Work Smarter, Not Harder, which spotlights over 30 productivity hacks that will do everything from helping you squeeze one hour out of your day, to doing 10 times what you're doing now in half the time and energy. In this episode, Jesse and David discuss several productivity hacks from the ebook, including: •Looking back, looking ahead (provided by Jeff Brown) •Blocking out time for deep work 4-5 weeks in advance (provided by Cal Newport) •Calendly, ScheduleOnce, and MeetNow •Block out some discretionary time every single day (provided by Susan Fowler) •Journaling (provided by Whitney Johnson) •The two-device rule David Burkus is the best-selling author of The Myths of Creativity and Under New Management. He is an award-winning podcaster and management professor, teaching courses on organizational behavior, innovation, and strategic leadership. And he's an internationally renowned speaker, having delivered keynote speeches and workshops for Fortune 500 companies such as Microsoft and Google, and at in-demand conferences such as SXSW and TEDx events.