Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

S7-Ep48: The Power & Promise of Gen Z, Part 2

Featured Guest: AnneMarie Hayek
Older generations view Gen Z as having their eyes glued to their smartphones.  While those phones are a window on the world no other generation has encountered, it means they’re more likely to see the world for what it is, warts and all.  And that exposure to the world and its diverse cultures makes Gen Z more ardent in resolving life-threatening issues like climate change and racism…driving them to make real life better.
 
AnneMarie Hayek is returning to the show to continue our conversation about her research of GenZ.  In her book, Generation We, she joins forces with thousands of Zs to tell their powerful story—a story that impacts all generations.  In her return visit, we discuss how leaders we can attract and lead Gen Z, how Gen Z’s unparalleled exposure to diversity shapes their priorities, and how this generation will impact the arc of humanity for generations to come.

S7-Ep27: Mental Toughness: How to Embrace Stress for Greater Success

Featured Guest: Colonel Deb Lewis
Women (and men) face unhealthy stress and anxiety on a daily basis - it’s a wonder we’re still standing. Too few of us have stress tools powerful enough to put stress to work for us so we can enjoy the journey. Once you’ve learned how to be mentally tough, you will use stress to your advantage. It becomes your superpower!
Colonel Deb Lewis learned the importance of mental toughness as part of the very first class of women to graduate from West Point.  The lessons learned there, and in her subsequent Army career, inspired her to develop her unique Mentally Tough Women program to teach people how to handle stress, not simply de-stress.  She joins the show to share her experiences, and how you can learn to effectively use stress to your advantage, too.

S7-Ep28: Workforce Education: A New Roadmap

Featured Guests: William Bonvillian & Sanjay Sarma
Technological advances are putting quality jobs out of reach for workers who lack the proper skills and training. From pre-K through college and on-the-job ""professional development,"" the United States' old-school education system simply isn't up to the task.  Universities, for example, can no longer be havens of academic theory and football; enrollment will begin to trickle over the next decade as college grads become too unprepared for the modern workplace.
We need a roadmap for a new workforce education system to rebuild America's working class, tackling inequality by equipping our workers for twenty-first-century jobs. The post-pandemic workplace requires us to train more workers more quickly, using innovative methods. William Bonvillian and Sanjay Sarma -- both of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) - join host Maureen Metcalf to share various ideas on the new roles community colleges, employers, governments, and universities need in workforce education, as well as new education technologies that may be adopted to deliver such training.

S7-Ep42: The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success No One Taught You

Featured Guest: Mark Herschberg
Networking, negotiating, communicating, leading, career planning—all skills critical to your career success. But did anyone ever teach you these skills? Mark Herschberg is on the show to discuss his book The Career Toolkit: Essential Skills for Success That No One Taught You. He shares practical ideas from his book and his thoughts on leadership that will help you master these vital skills.

S7-Ep41: Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance

Featured Guest: Howard Tiersky
Digital is at the center of most adults' lifestyles worldwide—and it's here to stay. (In fact, roughly 1/3 of people surveyed said they'd give up sex instead of their smartphone!) That has disrupted and changed the customer relationship. Customers today expect the brands they deal with to deliver outstanding and seamless digital experiences. If your brand is failing to thrive, odds are you're ignoring the marketplace changes digital has wrought. You must take what is core to your value proposition and adapt it, perhaps significantly, for a world filled with digital customers. That will require flexible and innovative leaders whose companies can turn on a dime. Howard Tiersky joins Maureen to discuss the methods for accomplishing this outlined in his new book, Winning Digital Customers: The Antidote to Irrelevance, as well as his experiences assisting large organizations grow from their analog past.

S7-Ep40: The Power & Promise of Generation Z - Part 1

Featured Guest: AnneMarie Hayek
AnneMarie Hayek joins the show to share insights from her new book, Generation We.  In this book, she joins forces with thousands of Generation Zs to tell their powerful story—one that impacts all of us. From new ideas on capitalism, politics, and climate change to education, gender, race, and work, AnneMarie explains how Gen Z thinks, what they envision, and why we should be hopeful. Zs are not naïve idealists. They’re hardened realists with a bold vision for how we can transition, re-create, and progress. Generation We is your invitation to see the future they will create as it’s unfolding.

S7-Ep39: The Science Behind Our Yes!

Featured Guest: Dr. Jim Ritchie-Dunham
We all have agreements.  Some are overt, such as agreeing to make monthly payments when you get a mortgage to buy a house.  And some are unconscious, like the agreement in sports that everyone on your team will work toward winning against the other team.
We all have two ways of responding to those agreements. You have a Yes! response that aligns your purpose and unique contributions with the impact you can generate and the experience you can have.  It's yours to choose.  Your Yes! always generates net-positive value and your No! always generates net-negative value—your choice.  Jim Ritchie-Dunham joins Maureen to explain the science behind our Yes!

S7-Ep38: Flex: The Art & Science of Leadership in a Changing World

Featured Guest: Dr. Jeff Hull
In the past, to move up the corporate ladder and succeed at the top, you simply had to set goals, motivate the troops, delegate to underlings, and groom a successor. Now, if you are leading a team you must manage a kaleidoscope of people from a variety of cultures, across a range of ages, all of whom are wired together 24/7. These changing demographics and structures have led to a seismic shift in terms of the tools needed to successfully manage and grow within a company: charisma and strategic thinking abilities now matter less than qualities such as vulnerability and relatability. Jeff Hull joins Maureen to discuss the research he has done on the art and science of leadership in a changing world that is featured in his book, Flex.

S7-Ep37: The Science of Dream Teams

Featured Guest: Mike Zani
Moneyball was just the tip of the iceberg.  In that movie, a baseball team relies on performance data instead of scouts' intuition to build a winning club.  The very same concept can forge a dream team in your own NPO or business.
Sophisticated assessments, data, and software give CEOs and managers in any industry detailed insights into human behavior -- and, more critically, their team members' behavior.  As CEO of The Predictive Index, Mike Zani has witnessed firsthand how the application of data and science can impact, and completely change, the way we function in our professional lives. In his new book, THE SCIENCE OF DREAM TEAMS: How Talent Optimization Can Drive Engagement, Productivity, and Happiness, Zani details a data-driven approach to talent strategy that makes hiring, motivating, and managing people more efficient and effective than ever.  From coaching a U.S. Olympic team to founding an investment firm, he knows first hand how assessments can build a dream team.

S7-Ep36: Finding Meaning, Joy, & Purpose in What You Do

Featured Guest: Paul Gibbons
Conversations about meaning and purpose at work are very old and very new. Spirituality provides a lens for those discussions—a lens that is effective regardless of your team's religious preferences. From evangelical to atheist, a sense of mission and meaning are critical to well-being. Workplace spirituality helps us understand the issues underlying personal meaning in the workplace: fulfillment, engagement, purpose, leadership, and more. However, it also increases worries about values conflicts and how well organizations handle that. There are many ways to help the process go smoothly. 40-year career veteran Paul Gibbons joins host Maureen Metcalf to discuss the spirituality of work and leadership for leaders and organizations.

S7-Ep35: Building a Culture of Brain Health, Growth, & Effectiveness

Featured Guest: Dr. JJ Walcutt
The power of mind over body goes back at least 2,000 years with the Stoics—but what about the power of the brain over both mind and body?
To be competitive over the next decade, all organizations—non-profits, businesses, and especially the military—must not only help staff optimize their bodies for physical and mental health purposes; they also need to ensure that cognitive optimization is a major focus of staff development. Despite our hubris, the human brain is not equipped to handle the deluge of data that is coming, much less the constant upskilling requirements that are emerging already. Dr. JJ Walcutt joins host Maureen Metcalf to discuss Accelerate, a program that helps organizations get on the right track toward building a culture of brain health, growth, and effectiveness. The military is paying attention; should your organization, too?

S7-Ep34: Leverage Change: Achieve Faster, Easier, Better Results

Featured Guest: Jake Jacobs
Change is now a constant in all organizations.  Is there a way to make it easier?  Jake Jacobs joins host Maureen Metcalf to discuss his new book Leverage Change, and how leaders can use the concept of leverage to achieve faster, easier, better results related to all change work they are doing in their organizations—at the individual, team or organizational levels.  He shares practical actions leaders can take to achieve the much sought-after, but seldom accomplished, goals of successful change management.