The Strategy Skills Podcast: Strategy | Leadership | Critical Thinking | Problem-Solving

For this episode, let's revisit one of the classics by Strategy Skills, where we cover a topic about understanding the readiness and level of confidence required to go out there and lead. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

For this episode, let's revisit one of the classics by Strategy Skills where we cover a topic which we believe is very important and we think will resonate with everyone. As always, we focus on critical yet overlooked insights.  Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 193, an episode with a master executive coach, Shir Nir. Shir Nir is the CEO & Partner at Handel Group an executive life coaching & corporate consulting company dedicated to teaching people how to realize their personal and professional visions. Shir brings more than 20 years of experience working with executives, teams, and organizations to increase performance and create organizational, personal, and financial growth. Shir is an expert in designing and implementing wide cultural initiatives that evolve an organization and its people. He works with and leads executive teams to impact the results of their organizations and enhance organizational alignment and productivity. He is currently advising several executive teams and senior leaders on topics such as building honest cultures, enhancing organizational success, organizational alignment, leadership development, mergers and acquisitions, strategy, and talent management & development. Prior to working at the Handel Group, Shir was a management consultant as well as a partner and owner of a knowledge management consulting firm where he worked to enable organizations such as UNFPA, Head Start, and PSEG to name a few, to design, develop, and implement knowledge sharing cultures and structures as well as enhance leadership and collaboration. In this episode, Shir talked about the importance of a balanced lifestyle for people, the value of integrity, and how to improve through self-assessment. The Current Reality Quiz https://iu.coach/STRATEGY-CRQ This quiz is the first step in truly designing your dream life when it comes to your career. It breaks out your life into different areas to help you get a better handle (or Handel) on what needs attention, love, and a figurative swift kick. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 192, an episode with an award-winning CEO, communications expert and advisor, Sabrina Horn. Get Sabrina’s book here: https://amzn.to/3oNDHz9 Sabrina Horn is currently CEO of HORN Strategy, LLC, a consultancy focused on helping entrepreneurs and CEOs navigate the early stages of their businesses. She serves as an advisor and board member for a number of organizations and is a frequent speaker at industry forums and leadership conferences. She founded Horn Group, a public relations firm, with $500 and five years’ job experience, becoming one of few female CEOs in Silicon Valley in the early 1990s. Over a quarter century, her firm advised thousands of executives and their companies—from the hottest startups to the Fortune 500—doing so with a special focus on authenticity. Horn Group received national acclaim as Best US Employer and Best US Tech Agency. In 2015, Horn oversaw her firm’s successful acquisition by Finn Partners, a global marketing company. Horn, as a young executive, learned about leadership on the job through two lenses: one, as CEO growing and running her firm, the other, as strategic advisor guiding her clients through their own unique business challenges. Through her journey, she learned that there are no shortcuts to achieving long term business success. Still, she confesses to having made many mistakes, and now in her first book, she shares what she learned about how to make it without faking it. In this episode, Horn talked about the importance of honesty, humility and authenticity for business and humanity, and how leaders find the righteous path forward through this. For leaders or individuals who believe in integrity as success’ recipe, this is for you. Make It, Don’t Fake It: Leading with Authenticity for Real Business Success. Sabrina Horn: https://amzn.to/3oNDHz9 Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo We use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using our affiliate links, we will get a bonus).

Welcome to the bonus episode of Strategy Skills with a sought after international speaker and leader, Simon Mainwaring. Get Simon’s new book here: https://amzn.to/3wxrEZX Simon Mainwaring is the founder/CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy accelerating growth and impact for purpose-driven brands. He’s a member of the Steering Committee of Sustainable Brands, the Forbes Business Council, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. His company We First was included in Real Leaders list for the Top 100 Impact Companies in the US for 2018 and We First was a B Corps ‘Best for The World’ Honoree in 2019. He is a Jury Member at the Cannes Lions Festival for the Sustainable Development Goals in 2021 and a Jury Member of PRWeek’s ‘Purpose Awards’ in 2020. Simon’s first book, We First was named as Best Marketing Book of the Year by strategy+business, was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestseller. Simon was a Real Leaders Top 50 Keynote Speakers in the World in 2020, and he has been featured on the cover of the National Speaker’s Magazine (U.S.). Prior to starting We First, Simon spent 15 years as a writer, Creative Director and Worldwide Creative Director at the world’s top creative advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden & Kennedy, and Ogilvy working on brands such a Nike, Toyota, and Motorola, receiving over 60 awards at major advertising festivals including the Cannes Advertising Festival, the One Show, the British Design & Art Direction Awards. In this episode, Simon spoke about the importance of the role that everyone plays in solving the challenges we face today and how leaders can extraordinarily grow their business while solving social and environmental crisis to bring forth a better future. For leaders and individuals who wants to take part in building a better future for the world, this is for you. Lead with We: The Business Revolution That Will Save Our Future. Simon Mainwaring: https://amzn.to/3wxrEZX Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo We use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using our affiliate links, we will get a bonus).

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 191, an episode with a highly regarded lecturer, Carole Robin. Get Carole’s book here: https://amzn.to/3lAmUhi Carole Robin, Ph.D. was known as the Queen of Touchy Feely and received the MBA Distinguished Teaching Award and the Silver Apple award for contributions to alumni programming. She was the Dorothy J. King Lecturer in Leadership at Stanford’s Graduate School of Business where she helped to further develop the Interpersonal Dynamics Course including co-developing the Executive version. She also became the Director of the Arbuckle Leadership Fellows Program. When she retired in 2017, a scholarship was established in her name. Subsequently, she co-founded Leaders in Tech, a nonprofit which brings two decades of lessons to Silicon Valley startups. Carole was a partner in an international consulting firm and a senior manager in a Fortune 500 company. She has provided executive coaching, leadership development and executive team building to a wide range of business, government, and nonprofit clients ranging in size from startups to global and Fortune 500 organizations and is currently an advisor on several boards. She is the recipient of two Congressional Awards for Community Service. In this episode, Carole discussed more about “Touchy Feely” and the importance of connecting to people and how it greatly affects an individual real time, or in the future. CONNECT: Building Exceptional Relationships with Family, Friends, and Colleagues. Carole Robin & David Bradford: https://amzn.to/3lAmUhi Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 189, an episode with Rocketship.FM hosts, Michael Sacca and Mike Belsito. Michael Sacca is the General Manager at Dribbble.com and co-founder of Rocketship.FM. He was the President at Crew, the freelance design and development marketplace, and former parent company of Unsplash, the popular stock photo website. At Crew he secured key partnerships with Squarespace and the BDC before leading the company through it's acquisition by Dribbble in 2017. His writing has been featured in the Harvard Business Review and his popular product management podcast has been written about in Inc, Forbes, The Huffington Post and Entrepreneur respectively.  Mike Belsito is the author of Startup Seed Funding for the Rest of Us and co-founder of Product Collective which organizes INDUSTRY: The Product Conference, one of the largest and top-rated product management conference series anywhere in the world. Mike has been named one of the Top 40 influencers in the field of Product Management on several occasions. Mike also serves as a Faculty member of Case Western Reserve University in the department of Design and Innovation, and is Co-Host of Rocketship.FM. Rocketship.FM is a podcast for entrepreneurs and is part of the Podglomerate network, a podcast company that produces and distributes exciting new shows. In this episode, Michael and Mike spoke about their career journey and how Rocketship.FM and Product Collective started. We will learn more about user personas and jobs to be done framework that most product people apply to better understand their users. Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 188, an episode with a sought after international speaker and leader, Simon Mainwaring. Get Simon’s new book here: https://amzn.to/3wxrEZX Simon Mainwaring is the founder/CEO of We First, a strategic consultancy accelerating growth and impact for purpose-driven brands. He’s a member of the Steering Committee of Sustainable Brands, the Forbes Business Council, and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts in London. His company We First was included in Real Leaders list for the Top 100 Impact Companies in the US for 2018 and We First was a B Corps ‘Best for The World’ Honoree in 2019. He is a Jury Member at the Cannes Lions Festival for the Sustainable Development Goals in 2021 and a Jury Member of PRWeek’s ‘Purpose Awards’ in 2020. Simon’s first book, We First was named as Best Marketing Book of the Year by strategy+business, was a New York Times, Wall Street Journal, and Amazon bestseller. Simon was a Real Leaders Top 50 Keynote Speakers in the World in 2020, and he has been featured on the cover of the National Speaker’s Magazine (U.S.). Prior to starting We First, Simon spent 15 years as a writer, Creative Director and Worldwide Creative Director at the world’s top creative advertising agencies including Saatchi & Saatchi, Wieden & Kennedy, and Ogilvy working on brands such a Nike, Toyota, and Motorola, receiving over 60 awards at major advertising festivals including the Cannes Advertising Festival, the One Show, the British Design & Art Direction Awards. In this episode, Simon talked about the future of business, how leadership is changing and what leaders need to do today to make a difference and be part of a better future. For leaders and individuals who wants to raise their awareness of the challenges we face today, and how we solve it, this is for you. Lead with We: The Business Revolution That Will Save Our Future. Simon Mainwaring: https://amzn.to/3wxrEZX Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo We use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using our affiliate links, we will get a bonus).

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 187, an episode with a sought-after business advisor and speaker, Jon Picoult. Get Jon’s new book here: https://amzn.to/3H9SM6y Jon Picoult is the founder of Watermark Consulting and a noted authority on customer and employee experience. He helps companies impress their customers and inspire their employees, creating “raving fans” that drive business growth. He worked with some of the world’s foremost brands, personally advising CEOs and other members of the C-Suite and helps organizations capitalize on the power of loyalty, both in the marketplace and in the workplace. His insights have been featured by dozens of media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, USA Today, The Economist, Inc., NBC News and Forbes. Jon held senior executive roles at Fortune 100 companies – leading service, operations, distribution, technology, sales and marketing. Early in his career, at the age of 29, Jon earned the distinction of becoming the youngest executive officer in the over 150-year history of a leading, global financial services company. In this episode, Jon talked about how his career led to understanding customer experience and how to deliver value that will provide customer satisfaction in any kind of business or industry. For individuals and businesses who want to understand more about providing better customer experience and why it matters, this is for you. From Impressed to Obsessed: 12 Principles for Turning Customers and Employees into Lifelong Fans. Jon Picoult: https://amzn.to/3H9SM6y Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo We use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using our affiliate links, we will get a bonus).

Welcome to Strategy Skills episode 186, an episode with a professor at Queensland University of Technology, Amanda Lotz. Get Amanda’s new book here: https://amzn.to/3jzSLhK Amanda Lotz is an educator, media scholar, and industry consultant. She is known for her expertise in media industries, television studies, digital distribution, the business of media, net neutrality and other aspects of digital media policy. Amanda is a professor at Queensland University of Technology and leads the Transforming Media Industries research project. She is the author, coauthor, or editor of ten books that explore television and media industries including We Now Disrupt This Broadcast: How Cable Transformed Television and the Internet Revolutionized It All, The Television Will Be Revolutionized and Portals: A Treatise on Internet-Distributed Television. Media Disrupted: Surviving Cannibals, Pirates and Streaming Wars (MIT Press, 2021). Her books explore the connections between internet-distributed services as well as the business strategies and revenue models that differ. Her award-winning book, The Television Will Be Revolutionized, now in its second edition, has been translated into Mandarin, Korean, Italian, and Polish. She is frequently interviewed by NPR’s Marketplace, has appeared on BBC, CNN's The Nineties, HuffPost Live, and ZDF (German television network) and been interviewed for articles in the Los Angeles Times, The Guardian, The Atlantic, Christian Science Monitor, the Associated Press, Wired, and Men’s Health among many others. She publishes articles about the business of television at Quartz, Salon, The New Republic, hosted the Media Business Matters podcast, and tweets about television and media @DrTVLotz. In this episode, Amanda talked about the effect of internet and digital technologies to media industries such as television, recorded music, newspaper, and film. For individuals and media practitioners who want to understand more about the impact of internet disruption in media industries and determine its relevance to their organization, this is for you. Media Disrupted: Surviving Pirates, Cannibals, and Streaming Wars. Amanda Lotz: https://amzn.to/3jzSLhK Enjoying our podcast? Get access to sample advanced training episodes here: www.firmsconsulting.com/promo We use affiliate links whenever possible (if you purchase items listed above using our affiliate links, we will get a bonus).