Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

S7-Ep26: Deep Tech: Dymystifying Breakthrough Technologies

Featured Guest: Eric Redmond
Deep tech describes capabilities that were impossible yesterday, barely feasible today, but tomorrow will be so pervasive it will be hard to imagine we ever lived without it. In this early stage of the digital age, understanding how deep tech is disrupting the world is no longer a competitive advantage—it's a matter of survival.  Eric Redmond joins us to discuss his new book, Deep Tech: Demystifying the Breakthrough Technologies That Will Revolutionize Everything.
Eric know of what he speaks; he's the Forrest Gump of technology: a twenty-year veteran technologist who always happens to show up where deep tech history is being made, from the first iPhone apps to Bitcoin. He has advised state and national governments, Fortune 100 companies, and groups as varied as the World Economic Forum and MIT Media Lab.

S7-Ep25: Mindset Is Only One Piece of the Puzzle

Featured Guest: Sean Castrina
Disruption to the norm, unexpected events, uncertain times: these are part of life, not just limited to pandemic times.  These disruptions force companies to rethink how they have done business, and how they can continue to stay in business. Leaders are daily faced with tough decisions on how to lead in this new and different environment.
Sean Castrina launched over twenty successful companies.  He joins the show to discuss his story of overcoming a setback, how he moved beyond it to start multiple new businesses, and the leadership lessons he has learned from his experiences.

S7-Ep24: The End of Jobs: The Rise of On-Demand Workers and Agile Companies

Featured Guest: Jeff Wald
The world has witnessed three-step functions in technological change: mechanization, electrification, and computerization. These industrial revolutions led to massive increases in productivity and thus we need far fewer workers. With each of these technological breakthroughs, the power balance between companies and workers shifted heavily to companies. The abuses of that power by companies instigated employee unrest. Counterbalancing forces rose to constrain companies’ power, eventually prompting unions, regulation, and the social safety net to bring stability to the relationship. As we enter the fourth great leap forward in technology with robots and AI, we face the first services revolution. The power balance will again shift massively to companies as new technologies drive productivity increases in the service industry, much as the last three industrial revolutions transformed manufacturing. Jeff Wald joins Maureen to discuss his book, The End of Jobs, and what the future of work is.

S7-Ep23: Recruiting and Retaining Diverse Executives

Featured Guest: Eric Douglas Keene 
Diversity recruiting and retention is a hot topic in HR departments and the board room.  Their DEI initiatives often fall short, though; many organizations don’t understand the nuances of recruiting, nor how to navigate the complexities of retention. Ensuring candidates and organizations create the best experiences and a path for mutual success isn't difficult. Eric Douglas Keene joins Maureen to discuss changes occurring in the world of diversity recruiting, with tips on helping your workforce benefit from the rich diversity of our citizenry.

S7-Ep22: The Creative Mindset: Mastering Skills that Empower Innovation

Featured Guest: Jeff DeGraff
Everyone can be creative in their own way. Creativity skills can be learned and developed. The creative process is iterative: we typically fail many times before we succeed. We learn from those failures and approach the next experiment with new information and an improved understanding.  Yet it can be different in the workplace; particularly in large organizations, the innovative leader is often pushed down by stagnant thinking up the chain. Jeff DeGraff joins Maureen to share how you can tap your individual creativity…and how to deal with the realities of how true innovation is received in the workplace.

S7-Ep21: Management vs Leadership: How Coaching Skills Make a Difference

Featured Guest: Jonathan Reitz 
Coaching skills are not just for the life coach or the executive coach, they are every leader’s secret weapon.  Managers can become the leaders that are needed when they understand how to use coaching skills that put the development of their team as the top priority and multiply their impact.  Want to move from managing your team to leading your team? Coaching skills are the key.  Jonathan Reitz joins Maureen to share how managers can move toward leading by learning some simple coaching behaviors. 

S7-Ep19: The Good Fight: Using Productive Conflict

Featured Guest: Liane Davey
Business today is more competitive than ever; staying ahead requires you to make tough calls, face hard choices, and work through conflict. But productive conflict is so rare. Why? Because productive conflict requires a different mindset, new skills, and repeatable processes -- none of which come naturally.  Liane Davey joins Maureen to discuss building a productive conflict culture.

S7-Ep16: Mindfulness and Its Benefits in the Workplace

Featured Guests: Rich Fernandez and Peter Weng
Even before Covid-19, employees reported record rates of burnout and stress; Gallup studies show only 15% of employees are fully engaged at work. Organizations need well-being development for their employees. It is essential for today’s workplaces to provide well-being support, every bit as much as traditional professional development. Supporting the long-term mental health of your team can mean the difference between an engaged, collaborative and productive organization, or one riddled with toxicity and turnover. With 71% of U.S. office workers either curious about or already practicing meditation, now is the time to signal your long-term support for employees, and bring in the neuroscientifically proven benefits of contemplative practices, such as meditation.   Peter Weng and Rich Fernandez discuss mindfulness and employee well-being with Maureen.

S7-Ep15: Empowering Women for the Prosperity of Nations

Featured Guests: Amanda Ellis & Augusto Lopez-Claros
Gender inequality around the world has many facets: archaic laws that codify sexism, male control of joint income and household assets, exclusion from governance, trafficking and violence against women, denial of education and adequate health care, and gender segregation in the work force, to name a few. The Gender Equality and Governance Index (GEGI) taps into some of the world’s best datasets to analyze gender discrimination on a global scale, using five critical “pillars”: governance, education, work, entrepreneurship, and violence. The Index covers 158 countries and provides a compelling perspective on the status of gender inequality across the planet. It allows policymakers, the business community and civil society to pinpoint specific areas for improvement and to learn from best international practices. Amanda Ellis and Augusto Lopez-Claros join Maureen to discuss the index results for 2020 and how we as leaders can implement changes for the good of all.

S7-Ep14: Building Trust in Uncertainty: A Personal & Professional Journey

Featured Guest: Dr. Mary Jo Burchard
As a society, we're facing a growing lack of trust.  We're losing trust in each other, and in our institutions.  The impacts ripple through our personal lives and through the nation -- reflected in how difficult it is for both parties to come together in Congress for the greater good.  It's also led to an increase in mental illness and suicide. Dr. Mary Jo Burchard shares her personal experiences with this lack of trust to demonstrate how important building trust is in our lives:  at home, at school, and at work.

S7-Ep12: Innovative Leadership for the Health Care Industry

Featured Guest: Neil Grunberg
Universities and medical schools do a wonderful job preparing their students for medical procedures, but the often-missed crucial element for great health care is leadership training. 
Neil Grunberg joins host Maureen Metcalf to share his experiences, and how the leadership framework he developed with Maureen can build the leadership skills needed by medical staff to make our healthcare system stronger.  Neil has seen the gaps firsthand; he's a professor at the Uniformed Services University, training physicians, nurses, and psychologists for military and public health service.

S8-Ep51: Growing Up Biden: The President's Sister Shares the Family's Lessons on Leadership

Featured Guest: Valerie Biden Owens, First Female Presidential Campaign Manager
It’s said that leaders are made, not born. That’s certainly true of the Biden family. Although Joe Biden is in the spotlight as the 46th President of the United States, his three siblings are all leaders in their own right, too. And Joe’s sister Valerie Biden Owens says that forging of strong leadership began in childhood with deep family values.
Valerie joins host Maureen Metcalf to discuss her book, Growing Up Biden. She shares the challenges she faced breaking gender barriers, the importance (and elusiveness) of confidence, and growing women as leaders. She'll also dive into the ingrained lessons and expectations that have been the guiding principles of the Bidens’ close-knit, Irish American, Catholic family. These stories and insights speak deeply to the impact of family and generational leadership on political and personal ethos.
It's a revealing conversation unfolding the many ways our parents’ guidance shapes us as leaders of our own families, organizations…and nations.
For daily wisdom from Valerie and our other guests, be sure to follow us on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/innovativeleadershipinsitute/ . We’re also on Facebook, Mastodon, and Twitter.
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RESOURCES:  
You can purchase Growing Up Biden: https://amzn.to/3Vr5yDf 
Information about Valerie Biden Owens:  https://www.valeriebidenowens.com/  
Learn about the International Leadership Association at: https://ilaglobalnetwork.org/  
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OUR PODCAST TEAM:  
Host & Executive Producer: Maureen Metcalf
Editor & Producer: Dan Mushalko
Video Editor: Devon Mushalko
Our Website: InnovativeLeadership.com
Our YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/@InnovatingLeadership 
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ABOUT OUR GUEST:
Valerie Biden Owens is the first woman in U.S. history to have run a presidential campaign — that of her brother, Joseph R. Biden, Jr. She also led his seven straight U.S. Senate victories and has been his principal surrogate on the campaign trail.
Valerie is Chair of the Biden Institute at the University of Delaware and a partner at Owens Patrick Leadership Seminars. Valerie sits on the Advisory Board of the Beau Biden Foundation for the Protection of Children. For 20 years, when Valerie was not managing or advising President Biden’s campaigns, she served as Executive Vice President of Joe Slade White & Co., a media consulting firm. She has worked extensively with Women’s Campaign International, teaching women how to organize and develop communication and political skills. Valerie has also served on the National Board of the Women’s Leadership Forum of the Democratic National Committee and has served for 35 years on the board of The Ministry of Caring.
In 2015, Valerie delivered the keynote address for Harvard Law School’s International Women’s Day celebration and was one of 50 women presented with the law school’s international “Women Inspiring Change” award. In 2021, she was named to the Forbes 50 Over 50 Women Who Are Leading the Way in Impact list.
She is a graduate of the University of Delaware. She is married to Jack Owens, an attorney and businessman. They have three children.