Leadership Huddle with Geoff Welch

She walked away from a business she built, and found something bigger on the other side.In this conversation with Megan Militello, CEO of the Alaska Manufacturing Association and former founder of Elevated Oats, we talk about what it really looks like to build something meaningful, and when to let it go.Megan has a rare ability to see systems, connect people, and turn messy, real-world challenges into forward motion. We talk about how her background in air traffic control shaped her approach to accountability and process, why community is the throughline in everything she’s built, and how she thinks about leadership when there is no clear playbook.She also shares hard-earned lessons from entrepreneurship—the cost of chasing too many ideas, the emotional weight of walking away from something you’ve built, and why being “a little messy” might be a requirement for growth.This is a conversation about building, rebuilding, and bringing people together to solve problems that actually matter.Connect with Megan:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/meganmilitello/Website: http://akmfg.orgMy free PDF, “The 5 Secrets of Impossibly Effective Teams,” will show you the simple leadership moves that help teams unlock their full potential and deliver outsized results, without burning out. Grab your copy now at geoffwelch.com/secrets

When I was in elementary school I had a teacher who fundamentally changed the way I see the world.The teacher in question, Mr. H, would periodically bring interesting examples of science and technology to share with the class.I don’t specifically remember any of them, but they always felt like school had stopped and we were doing something fun instead.Like what you might see on Mr. Wizard. Whenever someone in the classroom would inevitably describe something like a simple chemical reaction as “weird” or “gross” he would pause and offer this bit of wisdom.When you see something new that you don’t understand, instead of labeling it as “strange” or “weird,” just stroke your chin and say, “verrrrrry interesting.”And so, before long, that’s what we all did.He was asking us to put curiosity ahead of judgment.He was asking us to give ourselves an opportunity to explore something new instead of just writing it off.It’s a good reminder for all of us to pause. To remember we don’t know everything. To choose to be curious.Your people are full of great ideas. Things that don’t go to plan are often full of unexpected power ups. The things that “we just can’t do here” might not be as impossible as you think.TRY THIS: The next time you want to shut down an idea shared in a meeting because you’re sure it won’t work, hit them with a, “verrrrrry interesting.”  It’s okay to challenge their thinking, just don’t dismiss their idea out of hand. This approach will yield new ideas from unexpected places and help your people validate their thinking so their ideas get better over time.My free PDF, “The 5 Secrets of Impossibly Effective Teams,” will show you the simple leadership moves that help teams unlock their full potential and deliver outsized results, without burning out. Grab your copy now at geoffwelch.com/secrets

It isn’t the workload that’s breaking people. It’s everything else.In this conversation, I sit down with Dr. Liane Davey to unpack a problem almost every leader feels but can’t quite name: the invisible weight that makes work harder than it should be. She calls it thoughtload and once you hear it, you’ll see it all around you.We dig into why “work isn’t working,” how leaders accidentally create more noise than clarity, and why so much of what fills our days is what Liane calls “dead work.” Not bad people. Bad work.What stood out most to me is how practical her approach is. This isn’t about doing more, it’s about thinking differently and focusing on outcomes instead of activity. It’s about managing up, not just down, and about reclaiming your attention in a world that’s constantly trying to steal it.If you’ve ever ended a day exhausted but unsure what you actually accomplished… this one will hit home.Connect with Liane:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lianedavey/Website: https://thoughtload.comMy free PDF, “The 5 Secrets of Impossibly Effective Teams,” will show you the simple leadership moves that help teams unlock their full potential and deliver outsized results, without burning out. Grab your copy now at geoffwelch.com/secrets

I hate black and white movies.And it’s for the dumbest reason imaginable.The thing I hate isn’t the absence of high-fidelity color, it’s that every black and white movie seems like the same movie to me. If I sat down to watch a black and white movie and every scene was followed by a scene from a different black and white movie, I wouldn’t even notice.Now, I fully recognize that every era follows the same pattern. Most 80’s movies look and sound the same. 90’s sitcoms are doppelgangers of one another. The music on the radio sounds like the same song over and over again.Am I being unfair to black and white movies? Certainly.Do I care? Nope.And neither do the people in your organization who are forced to endure the same meeting 6 times a day.There’s this thing that I keep seeing in organization after organization:The meetings aren’t good, but no one gets in trouble for running a terrible meeting as long as it looks and sounds like all the other terrible meetings on offer.Making a few small tweaks to improve the meetings is actually more dangerous than just following the template that isn’t actually working.Oof.The thought process by those who run the meetings seems to be something like, “the people who attend these meetings are paid to be engaged in these meetings.”And yet there is an opportunity for them to say, “I am paid to make these meetings as relevant and engaging as possible to everyone I invite.”You wouldn’t pitch a client without a clear purpose and an understanding of what matters most to them, so don’t invite people to another meeting without complete clarity about what the meeting is for and how to help participants engage.The best part is that improving the effectiveness of your meetings isn’t that difficult.It just requires you to think about the purpose of each meeting, invite only the people who serve that purpose, and structure the meeting with intention. TRY THIS: Here are three ways to break the mold and make your meetings more engaging and effective.If the meeting can be accomplished in 8 minutes, wrap it up and send people on their way. Don’t let the calendar dictate the length of the meeting if the work is already done.Treat the people in your meeting like you would treat a client. Be prepared. Honor their time and attention. Make your delivery interesting. Consider your responsibility to engage your audience instead of demanding they engage with a boring delivery.Know exactly what you want to accomplish and ensure everyone in the room understands the desired outcome. Structure the meeting accordingly. Leverage brainstorming, discussion, lecture, humor, interactivity, and verbal arm wrestling as needed. You don’t use a hammer or circular saw when trying to build a tower made of marshmallows and toothpicks, so make sure you aren’t just using the wrong tools in meetings just because you like them. Use the tools that will help you get the job done.My free PDF, “The 5 Secrets of Impossibly Effective Teams,” will show you the simple leadership moves that help teams unlock their full potential and deliver outsized results, without burning out. Grab your copy now at geoffwelch.com/secrets

Some of the hardest conversations you’ll ever have…stop being so hard the moment trust walks into the room.In this episode, I mix it up with Charlie Leonelli from MAC Federal Credit Union for something a little different. We skip the normal interview – because we’ve already done that – and just riff on an idea that shows up in almost every leadership challenge I see: difficult conversations.What we unpack is deceptively simple.If trust exists, hard conversations change. Not because they’re easy, but because they land differently. They become collaborative instead of combative. Growth-oriented instead of defensive.Charlie brings a practical, grounded perspective, from the realities of leading teams, to parenting, to what it actually looks like when trust is present (and when it’s not). We talk about accountability, autonomy, micromanagement, and why most leaders are trying to solve the wrong problem.If you’ve ever overthought how to say something hard…this conversation might flip that on its head.Because the real work might not be the conversation at all.My free PDF, “The 5 Secrets of Impossibly Effective Teams,” will show you the simple leadership moves that help teams unlock their full potential and deliver outsized results, without burning out. Grab your copy now at geoffwelch.com/secrets