On today’s show we talk about how to future proof your people and your company.

Antonio Garrido has over twenty-five years in senior leadership positions with world-class businesses. He is an expert in leadership transformation: shaping high-performance leaders out of highly stressed and overworked leaders. Antonio blends his own vast commercial experience with proven techniques to embed a unique brand of leadership development. He is a serial entrepreneur, successful business coach, charismatic speaker, and leader from small private businesses, right up to Fortune-60 size. Antonio’s latest book, My Daily Leadership: A Powerful Roadmap for Leadership Success, takes a deep dive into the most important habits, beliefs, and competencies needed to forever transform the way leaders think, behave, and lead.

Takeaways:

• Having a clear understanding of what makes a bad leader is essential for modeling effective leadership. By identifying and avoiding the characteristics of bad leadership, we can strive to be better leaders ourselves and create a positive work environment.

• Self-reflection and daily evaluation are crucial for leadership growth. By consistently asking ourselves if we’ve earned our money and if we’ve tried our best, we can hold ourselves accountable and strive for continuous improvement.

• Effective leaders possess a high level of self-awareness and engage in reflexive and reflective practices. This helps them identify areas for improvement, adjust, and achieve better outcomes for their teams and organizations.

• Journaling can be a valuable tool for leadership development. By studying successful individuals across various fields who practice journaling, we can recognize its benefits and explore different approaches to incorporate it into our own routines.

• Wisdom comes from evaluated experience, not just time served. Leaders should understand their knowledge and skills need continuous development.

• Building resilience and adaptability are crucial aspects of future-proofing. By establishing flexible processes, fostering a culture of innovation, and embracing change, businesses can position themselves to overcome obstacles and seize opportunities in evolving markets.

• Technology, such as AI and chatbots, is revolutionizing the way we work and interact. Keeping abreast of technological advancements and leveraging them appropriately can give businesses a competitive edge and contribute to their long-term sustainability.

• Embracing insights and aha moments. Insights can either occur naturally or be developed as a muscle through regular practice and deliberate effort.

• Future-proofing also involves developing leaders at all levels of the organization. By investing in leadership development programs, nurturing talent, and creating a learning culture, companies can cultivate a pipeline of capable leaders who can drive innovation and guide the organization through future challenges.

• Encourage constant learning and adaptation: leaders should consistently learn from their experiences and apply those learnings to adapt their strategies and approaches. It promotes the idea of daily reflection and regular examination of what can be done better.

• Make learning a regular part of the organization’s culture that is integrated into the organizational culture consistent practice rather than a sporadic event.

• Strategic planning, where leaders explore different possibilities and potential outcomes, should be an ongoing and dynamic process rather than a once-a-year event. This approach helps to develop a living and adaptable strategic plan that goes beyond a once-a-year exercise and enables proactive decision-making.

• Encourage a culture of asking for and offering help – build a collaborative culture where individuals are encouraged to ask for help when needed and offer assistance to others. This promotes a supportive environment where resources, knowledge, and effort are shared to achieve collective goals.

• Collaboration is a critical aspect of future-proofing organizations, going beyond cooperation to a culture of shared resources and mutual support. Building a collaborative culture starts from the top, with leaders fostering an environment where people are encouraged to ask for help and offer assistance.

Top 3 Takeaways:

Leaders:

1. Start journaling to increase your self-awareness – go to mydailyleadership.com to help start journaling. 
2. Take a subjective assessment to find your weaknesses and strengths. 
3. Encourage people to collaborate to make the world a better place. 

Connect with Antonio:

Read his book: http://www.mydailyleadership.com/book

Email: antonio@mydailyleadership.com

Website: https://www.mydailyleadership.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/antoniogarrido/

On today’s show we talk about how to get your company to stand out in a crowded marketplace. 

Quinn Curtis has spent the last 15+ years rocking juicy brand and marketing strategy for startups, cool causes, small & large businesses, inspiring entrepreneurs, network marketers, authors, speakers, politicians, e-commerce, charter schools, creatives, and non-profits. Career highlights include leading branding & marketing for a local boutique company to go from near bankruptcy to industry leader with a cult following, helping an amazing no-name Utahn get elected as Head of the Utah Democratic Party, and bring on speed-dial for many multi-million-dollar entrepreneurs whom she’s helped to scale their businesses and brands.

Key Takeaways

What’s a purple cow and how can one go about finding one?

• It’s about finding clarity on what makes you special and unique. There’s a level of clarity about what makes a company special, that’s hard to find when you are in the trenches. A lot of companies ask for help finding their purple cow (like it’s out there), but it’s usually right inside their heart and vision that they’ve had all along.          
• Every company needs their three uniques:
  • 1 or 2 might be the same as another company, but not all three. It’s the combination that’s the purple cow to the business. 
• Companies often overlook what makes them special. It’s good for leaders to think about what they think is special about the company. 

What are some of the ways you help company’s find their purple cow?

• Take a day to reset and have a vision day. What do we want this business to look like now and in the future. What lights me up as the business owner?
• Getting it down on a whiteboard is important. What unique qualities do we want to claim?
• Important to put your stake in the sand and claim who you are. This is what can become a vision statement and the core values. 
• Getting clarity is the hardest part, once you’re clear, you just need to spread the word about it. 

How do stand out when it feels like every company says the same thing?

• A lot of times they are saying the same thing, but the nuances can be different. 
• Get really clear about your target market. A lot of your purple cow comes from how clear you are about your target market. You can’t communicate to everyone. 
• Let people experience your company – don’t just say things at them. 

How do you find your target market?

• Do research. Leverage AI to do this research to confirm your target market, not find it. 
• A business’ success is based on how well it can connect to the hearts of their target market.
• Don’t go after a target market just because there seems to be a lot of opportunity there, focus on what you like the most about your company.
• Just because a market seems saturated doesn’t mean there isn’t opportunity there – you just must be clear about what your product does different and home in on that.  

How do you see AI disrupting marketing in general?

• This is a HOT topic. There’s only going to be more and more AI in the future. 
• We’re moving into a space where creativity is the new currency. Knowledge is cheap. Creativity is a new muscle. AI can mimic it, but it can’t replace it. 
• Humans can be empathetic and connect to people’s hearts, and AI can only take inputs it gets. 
• The emphasis of our education and society should be on creativity, emotional intelligence and problem-solving not just getting the right answer (that’s easy to do with technology). 
• AI is going to push us to operate on a higher level of ethics.

What’s most impactful to rise about the noise?

• Look at your funnel – what is your marketing to sale process. Make sure your bottom funnel is on track. 
• Video is a key place to explore– not many businesses are leveraging video well and there is a lot of opportunity there. 
• Test your message using a free platform like TikTok to try out talking organically about your brand.

Top 3 takeaways

• Don’t be intimidated by a crowded marketplace. Just show up to serve. 
• You don’t have to use all the platforms. Figure out what works best for your company.
• Quality of quantity always wins. People will notice. 

Connect with Quinn:

Website: www.distruptivemarketing.com           

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/quinn-curtis/      

On today’s show we talk about why we can’t expect people to leave their personal life at home. 

Natalie Boudou is an executive coach and facilitator working with executives, senior management, and leadership teams from a wide range of corporates and international organizations. She is a specialist in the field of resilience at work. Her expertise covers areas such as agility, positivity, emotional intelligence, and communications skills. She helps clients to define their objectives and needs and to improve their performance at work. Throughout her career she has excelled at coaching teams and getting the best out of people and she brings this passion and skill to her coaching practice. Natalie has worked closely with multinationals, the U.N. and NGO’s developing resilient leaders and highly engaged and collaborative teams.

Key Takeaways

What’s wrong with the philosophy that people should leave their personal life at home? 

We are complete human beings, and our power is not just how we work, but also what we bring to the workplace. We can’t check our emotions at the door. 

Does having to hide your emotions at work become a burden for employees?

Yes, when you can express your emotion freely there’s an emotional labor that takes its toll.

Is there a problem with people being themselves too much and bringing too much emotion at work? 

It’s important for people to have emotional intelligence to understand their feelings so they know how to handle their emotions at work. They need to learn how to dial up or down our emotions based on the situation. A lot of this has to do with the organizational culture, are emotions embraced or are they looked down on?

What is the role of emotions in decision making?

• We make decisions with our gut as well as our mind. Our emotions can have both a negative and positive impact on decision making. 
• Positive thoughts or moods will impact the way you take a decision so it is good to know where you are emotionally when making decisions. 
• Creativity and innovation are largely impacted by emotions. 
• Motivation is emotion so it is crucial we acknowledge its role. 

Why are emotions important?

They give us a message and it’s up to you to look at the message it is telling you.

Do our emotions every lie to us? As in, “I don’t like this, I want to give up?” Doesn’t mean you should give up…

That is an example of a mindset, which are usually subconscious. Sometimes acknowledging the emotion associated with a way of thinking can be helpful to realize a mindset so you can challenge what is going on and give you the chance to make a choice about how to deal with the mindset.

What about the gender stereotype in the workplace?

• There are still stereotypes about how different genders should act. It’s important to work with both the individual and the organization to educate about these stereotypes to break them. 

What are your recommendations for organizations to break down stereotypes?

• Create clarity that stereotypes of the past are not valid. 
• Give employees flexible work arrangements to create equal opportunities between men and women especially around family. 
• Have conversations between genders about how they feel at work. 
• Get curious about how it feels for people to be at work and what they think could be improve. 
• Encourage men to speak up and use their emotions in a positive way. 

What is the role of burnout in emotional work:

Burnout is a joint responsibly on the individual to understand their emotions and the organization to provide an emotional environment people can flourish. Organizations should ask personal questions like “How are you feeling about…” to make sure they are hearing from their employees about their emotional state. And the employee feels listened to. 

How do encourage employees to share more about how they are really feeling?

1) Ask questions

2) Really listen 

3) Care about the answer

How do you create an atmosphere of trust?

• Often call it psychological safety. Team leader needs to be fostering and the rest of the team can support it. 
• Discuss with the team how you want to operate. Have an open discussion to set up ground rules about what will make the team feel safe. 
• Leader needs to show vulnerability at times, ask for help, ask for feedback etc. These things will help the team feel safe because leader is opening up. 
• Feedback is regular and constant. Doesn’t feel awkward. 

Advice for how to be a good listener?

• Think about your challenges to listening. What are the traps you fall into when listening?
• Ask others how you are as a listener?
• Give yourself time where you’re not distracted and you’re listening to the person. 
• Listening is a long-term investment. Make the time and it will come back to you two-fold.

Top 3 Takeaways:

1. Check in and get curious about what people say

2. Especially with hybrid teams, be more intentional about having an emotional connection with your team members.

3. Take time to listen to people. 

Connect with Natalie:

Website: https://www.human-force.ch/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/natalieboudouexecutivecoach/

On today’s show we talk about aligning your organization to accelerate your strategic goals. 

Nishika de Rosairo is a serial entrepreneur and leader who has spent the last 18 years focused on two key things – people and impact in organizations ranging from Deloitte Consulting to Apple, Cisco, Salesforce, Levi, and others, to the startups of Silicon Valley. On a mission to unlock the human potential of the world, she founded HumanQ to address the pain points felt by both individuals and organizations in having access to the right development opportunities. 

Dualing as an artist, having extensively lived on 4 continents and traveled to 65+ countries, she approaches solutions with a unique perspective that focuses on the trifecta of how individuals, organizations, and societies can all win when workforces are developed and unlocked with the future in mind.

Key Takeaways

Where are the building blocks for alignment?

• Small companies are usually aligned, but as companies grow, they become more siloed and misaligned. 

• As companies grow, leaders need to ask where do people need to be aligned. Think of a flow of birds, they fly in a V – they drive the momentum of the v together throughout their journey.

What are some tips for organizational alignment?

• Don’t overcomplicate it. Provide good information that’s easy to understand.

• Build an employee purpose driven company. Individuals are the base layer, and they should receive the most investment from the company.

How does a leader begin to unlock potential in their organization?

• Start with strategic priorities. Are your people equipped to fulfill the company’s charter?

• Initiate a discovery session to ask key questions. 

• Work with a leadership coach to challenge your mental paradigms.  

How do you approach organizations losing alignment because they are doing too much at one time?

It’s about focused attention. It’s one thing to take an action and have it result in one outcome, it’s another to take an action and have it result in many outcomes. The latter is a mindset change to increase capacity in an individual.

What are the things that stand in the way of unlocking potential of an individual. 

• Company culture and the sense of psychological safety – Do employees feel comfortable sharing ideas no matter how wild? Do they feel they have the opportunity to fail? 

• Leaders cannot be everything to everyone, so it’s important organizations invest in employees with a growth mindset who can coach themselves and others as well. 

• Don’t be tied to old practices. Is there a new and better way to do something? Always be open to be inspired to change things up. 

Any advice for how to change soft skills?

• Know the difference between training versus coaching. Coaching helps to change thinking. Also, consider the benefits of group versus individual coaching. The right type of development is key to change. 

• It’s all about keeping up the momentum of change with ongoing coaching and learning activities. Think of coaching like tuning a piano…you must tune it regularly to have the piano work properly.    

What does group coaching look like?

• No longer than one hour to keep people’s attention. Call this the “golden hour.”

• Utilize assessments to track metrics. 

• Create one action item people can walk away with. 

How do you create an environment of psychological safety in these groups?

It’s the coach’s responsibility to create a safe environment with the methodology and science they bring to the group. The group must be able to trust the coach fully to embrace transformation.  

What are some myths are coaching?

• From the employee, coaching is only for when you aren’t performing well. However, it can be a regular activity that’s positive and transformational. From a leadership perspective, HR is seen as a slow-moving administrative support function. Instead, HR can be a more dynamic and innovative function of the organization that challenges existing models- i.e., LMS.

Within coaching, how long until a leader will see results from their team?

• 6 weeks but want to keep going for 12 months. 

• Constant momentum is important (again, like tuning a piano). The biggest mistake is to approach coaching as one and done. 

Do you ever deal with resistance to coaching?

• Not if you create excitement around coaching experience beforehand and communicating about the intentions of the coaching. 

• The coach’s goal is to get people on board, so a good coach will work through any resistance. 

Top Takeaways:

• Challenge your way of thinking around development and what it really takes to win as a company.

• Question what has worked in the past to see what could increase your ROI and realize your organizational charter. 

How to connect with Nishika:

Website: http://www.HumanQ.com

Email: Nishika@humanq.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nishikaderosairo/

On today’s show we talk about the power of perspective.

Robin Osborn has a 33-year history of being at the helm of her small family business in Southern California. Her remarkable entrepreneurial journey started at the young age of 21! She managed over 40 employees with a current employee retention record of over 30+ years. She has an intuitive understanding of both the employee’s and customer’s needs.

As a consultant, she provides the secrets to strengthening key components of a business. She helps leaders discover a simple yet powerful way to run a company providing a path for more focus, more growth, and more enjoyment. 

Key Takeaways

How we get ahead of fire fighting in organizations?

• Executive should focus on prioritizing and delegating tasks. This will free up time to work through problems as they arise. 
• Take time to understand the actual problem. 

What do you do about false alarm emergencies? 

• Utilize DISC. Powerful tool to create cohesiveness and understanding of each leader. DISC helps to understand the 4 different communication styles. 
• Understand leaders do things at their own pace. Some are not ok with being open and honest about what they cannot do, and this can create perceived crisis in organizations. 
• Focus on the outcome first. An issue can have many different issues wrapped inside of it but what are we actually solving? 
• Avoid the crazy 8, when everyone is spinning around without really understanding the problem. 
• Make a decision while also training everyone around you to help solve the problem. Delegation is critical to avoiding fires. 

How to get to root cause of the problems organizations face?

• Create better meetings. Meetings should always have a clear agenda. 
• Use 5 WHY? Ask Why 5 times. This helps to get curious and dive into problem solving.
• Have difficult conversations. 

Why do people avoid have difficult conversations?

• They do not feel safe having them. Leaders need to a culture of trust even in conflict. 
• Leadership needs to be comfortable with difficult conversations first. Then this filters down through the org. 

How do you turn around unhealthy behaviors from employees without seeming negative?

• Base your feedback on the company values. Review and reward on those values. 
• Show you care about your people and consistently let them in on what they are doing well. 
• Ask open ended questions to let them know where you’re coming from.  
• Be impeccable with your word. The more a leader is willing to be the change themselves and working on improving themselves the better they can connect and lead others. 

How can an organization hire more for culture as well as skill set?

• Be clear during hiring process about the core values of the company.
• Ask potential employees open questions about their values to make sure they’re a good fit for the org. 
• Interview with the right questions. 
• Really listen to the answers to get a good pulse of where the potential employee is. 
• Avoid hiring too fast. Take time and do multiple interviews if needed. 

How do you approach someone with a different conversation style?

• Refer to the Five Dysfunctions. First, we must have the foundation of trust. Then we do want healthy conflict in a team to make good decisions. 
• Make the space safe to disagree and make sure everyone knows conflict is not personal. 
• Start recognizing the conversation styles of others. Make an effort to come to another person’s communication style to get better outcomes. 

Top Takeaways

• Look at yourself in the mirror and ask yourself if you’re in alignment with your values.
• Aspire to be your best self. 
• To learn more about DISC check out Robin’s website at https://robinosborn.com/

Ways to Connect with Robin Osborn:

Website: https://robinosborn.com/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robinosborn/