The Remarkable Leadership Podcast

Picture a conference or a large meet and greet situation. How do you feel? Some of us are excited about all the new people we will meet. Others of us, let’s just say a root canal sounds like a good alternative. Devora Zack is the author of Networking for People Who Hate to Network. She joins Kevin to look at real networking. It really is about building mutually beneficial connections and we all have a different way of getting there; whether we identify as an introvert or an extrovert. Devora suggests we find our primary temperament and let that work for us, rather than against us and customize the networking to our advantage.

Check out this week's episode where I will compare and contrast the leadership lessons from… a pogo stick!

Tom Ziglar joins Kevin to talk about his new book Choose to Win: Transform Your Life, One Simple Choice at a Time, and yes, the name sounds familiar. Tom is the son of Zig Ziglar and joined his dad’s company in the warehouse, to sales, to management, and then on to leadership. Tom is proud of his dad’s legacy and carries on the Ziglar philosophy, “You can have everything in life you want if you will just help enough other people get what they want.” In his latest book, he builds upon those lessons and discusses how we can find our “why” make simple choices in our lives to build better habits, leading to greater success.

If you’re like most, when you think of “mashup”, you think of music. And while this is one way to look at mashup, today we are looking at it as it relates to creativity and leadership. And we’ll start by using this definition of mashup: Mashup: a mixture of disparate elements.

Although he has baseball roots, Pat Williams is a basketball Hall of Famer and currently serves as co-founder and senior vice president of the Orlando Magic (NBA). Pat is also the author of over 100 books and sits down with Kevin to discuss his most recent book highlighting the leadership secrets of the United States Military Academy at West Point in Character Carved in Stone: The 12 Core Virtues of West Point That Build Leaders and Produce Success. Pat talks about the inspiration for the book and focuses on character leaders and what it means. He tells stories about the virtues and links them to West Point graduates.

Studies show 70% of the workplace is disengaged, costing $500 billion of lost productivity? Do you find these results surprising? Drew Tarvin is a self-proclaimed “Humor Engineer” and believes we should move beyond how to do a job to ow to enjoy a job for better results (more impact on the bottom line). So, should work/can work be fun? Drew joins Kevin to discuss his book, Humor That Works: The Missing Skill for Success and Happiness at Work. Drew shares that it’s not about the jokes or wisecracks; it’s about looking at the job in a new and energizing way. He reverse-engineers the skill of humor in a way that you can use as a tool for better results.

Have you ever noticed that how closely you look at something determines what you see? As leaders, it’s really important that we look closely so that we can really understand what’s going on in our team, in our organization and in our jobs. Check out this episode to learn more about what I mean.

The workplace is changing; it’s the technology, it’s the location, it’s the diversity of the people. So, if we know the workplace is changing, we need to be thinking about how we change our leadership. Ty Bennett is an author and founder of Leadership Inc. Today he sits down with Kevin to discuss his most recent book, Partnership Is the New Leadership. Ty believes that we can no longer rely on leading from a place of authority or title. By showing up as a partner with our team, they will show up for you. This means a direct result to the bottom line. Ty shares his thoughts about the balance between care and candor and looks at commitment.

Today’s mindset is different. Today everyone is good or the online reviews would drive them out of business. So, it’s not enough to have quality, care, or compassion. Your competitive advantage will be how you deliver your product better, faster, or more convenient. David Avrin is the author of Why Customers Leave (and how to win them back). David and Kevin discuss the book and how it illuminates some of the blind spots we have in how we work with customers. Leaders miss some things and there are unintentional consequences. They need to step back and ask some hard questions from the customers perspective.