Out Of The Comfort Zone

Asking great questions is a powerful way to engage your team, motivate people, create inspiration, delegate, innovate… Just about anything you need to accomplish as a leader will have better results if you ask great questions. What questions are best and for what purpose? Tune in to here from the expert on asking questions.

Most successful leaders attribute some part of their success to luck. Is it possible to prepare to have good luck? What’s the role of luck anyway? And, ultimately, can you really plan your career? Tune in to hear more.

Getting people to do what you want them to do is a never easy. We have talked on past shows about how to influence people and to bring them along mostly by changing their perspective, beliefs and attitudes. Those techniques are hugely important. Today, we are going to talk about a different technique called behavioral design, that focuses on creating change by changing the environment. Tune in to hear one more tool for your tool kit.

Your team needs a sense of direction, so you toil alone in your office to create a vision for the team. However, it leaves the team uninspired. Tune in to hear what you should do instead to create a vision that gives a sense of direction, unites the team, builds collaboration and inspires people to truly deliver.

After researching over 200,000 companies, Jason Jennings has discovered a surprisingly small number of things that all the best, authentic leaders do. Tune in to learn about three of the five key findings.

Today is a different type show. My guest is not a typical corporate type or a corporate speaker – nor has he written a recent business book. Instead he has his own story of transformation from scientist to leader. He has great experience getting people to do what he wants without using any hierarchical power. And he has good advice for life.

Rarely do we get the opportunity to hear how one person embraces difficult feedback, tries to understand what it means and engages in the process of changing behaviors. Tune in to hear a live coaching session as our guest grapples with his actions and how those have been holding him back.

We will cover three marketing topics. First, are consumers, and employees, entitlement? How can we tell and how can we respond? Second, what does it mean to be strategic? Third, what can you learn from the US presidential address about marketing yourself?

Are you clear about your career goals? Are your direct reports clear about their goals? Are you thinking about a career move? Or, do you need to coach a team member on making a career move? If so, tune in to hear some of the things to be thinking about (and coaching your team on) from creating a mission statement to identifying opportunities.

Having executive presence in a meeting, in a talk or in a sales pitch involves how you craft the message plus the way you deliver that message. If you need a way to work through exactly what your message is and how to say it, tune in for a brilliant road map.

New Year’s resolution to get organized… best advice I have ever heard about how to get organized. There is never enough time and you can’t manage time anyway. So how can you get the most out of your day, be as productive as possible and focus on what really matters? Tune in to hear tips and an approach that can revolutionize how you approach work every day, with greater productivity, less stress and more satisfied teams.

In our packed, chaotic, stressed lives, many long for a sense of purpose and meaning. What truly creates meaning for each of us? What can we do to find a greater sense of meaning in work and in life in general? Tune in to hear the secrets uncovered by the research of today’s guest: Emily Esfahani Smith.

Given the pace of change today, companies need to innovate just to stand still. Whose job is it to drive innovation? Where does it happen? What does it take to innovate as a company? What does innovation mean about how we lead? What should you be thinking about as a leader? Tune in to find out how to drive innovation in your company – and it’s probably not what you are doing now.

Whether you are networking, dining with clients or senior leaders, making small talk or just trying to leave others feeling more comfortable in your presence, the way you interact leaves a lasting impression. How can you make small talk with anyone? How can you graciously except a conversation at a networking event? What is appropriate etiquette? What are the skills for leaving others more comfortable in your presence?

In a world driven by performance, to perform at your best, you need enough sleep with particular qualities. Contrary to popular myth, recent research shows that all of us need 7 to 8 hours of sleep to be at our optimum level of performance. Tune in to hear what you can do to improve the quality and quantity of your sleep so that you feel more relaxed and refreshed and can achieve your best performance.

People are regularly asked to lead teams where members are located in different countries, to work on a task force with peers from different countries or to take an ex-pat assignment in a different country. While you may be an expert in some of the content of your role, you won’t be an expert in the subtle ways of working in an unknown culture. What are the common mistakes to avoid? How can you understand what other cultures expect from you? What can you do to get the best from your colleagues around the world?

Given how important trust is for business, collaboration, partnerships and leading, we spend far too little time thinking about how trust is created. It turns out that being a “trustworthy” character, doesn’t matter as much as you might think it does. Tune in to learn what really makes a difference in building trusted relationships and in getting people to take your advice or follow you when you are not the expert.

Typically, somewhere in your career, a boss will say you need to raise your visibility and value, your profile, to get to the next level. Most people don’t know what to do – if they did they would be doing it. How can you raise your visibility with key stakeholders? How can you think about the value you bring to your organization and insure others see that value? Tune in to hear about 7 accelerators for your visibility and 3 areas of value.

Organizations often say our competitive advantage is our people. According to my guest, the competitive advantage is the relationship between people – and that is what defines the culture. So, how can a person improve the relationships between people? Tune in to here a few of the top 15 things you can do.

Corporate social responsibility and corporate sustainability are currently hot topics. Millennials are choosing to work for companies that care about the greater picture, not just the bottom line results. What is sustainability, really? How can you be more sustainable without breaking the bank? Why does it matter anyway? What can you as an individual leader do, even if your corporation doesn’t have a big program or a big budget? Tune in for the discussion.