The Gartner Talent Angle

What if you could direct your brain? While most believe you are at the mercy of your brain, what if we actually had the ability to control it? Scott Halford, CEO of Complete Intelligence and author of Activate Your Brain: The Neuroscience of Success, discusses how we can activate “brain hacks” to refresh our brain, increase stamina and momentum, and exterminate negative feelings in order to make the best decisions in our daily work life. Begin living a life today that activates the thinking, inventing, and loving part of your brain.

Nobody likes to work with a jerk. But what if YOU are one? We talk with Bob Sutton, professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University and author of the newly released A**hole Survival Guide: How to Deal with People that Treat you Like Dirt.  We talk to Bob about “jerky behaviors” that result from being in a hurry, use of social media, being in a position of power, and exhaustion. Bob describes how toxic these behaviors can be to culture, and gives specific tactics we can use to deal with jerks in our everyday lives.

Play keeps us in the moment. It is unpredictable and fun, and it keeps the attention of people. So why not play in the workplace? We talk to Elizabeth Cushing, the President and COO of Playworks, an organization that works with children in elementary schools to play in a socially and emotionally intelligent way. In this episode, Elizabeth shares how to use play tactics like her organization uses with children in order to promote a healthy, profitable organization.  

We don’t talk about love in the workplace. But what if we told you the best leaders are realizing the importance of self-awareness, love, and “going deep” in order to be a great leader? Bob Rosen, global CEO advisor, organizational psychologist, and bestselling author talks to us about how the best people “go deep” within themselves to determine their story. In this episode we talk about the four components that determine our story: genetics, family relationships, events and experiences, and our sense of ourselves. By connecting with these, we can rewrite our story, get rid of baggage that may be holding us back, and change how we see the world. Bob Rosen founded Healthy Companies International over 20 years ago to help top executives achieve their leadership potential and build healthy, high performing, and sustainable companies. He was awarded a grant from the MacArthur Foundation, where he interviewed over 400 CEOs in 50 countries. Bob graduated from the University of Virginia and earned a PhD in Clinical Psychology at the University of Pittsburgh. He teaches in executive education programs around the world, and is a faculty member in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at George Washington University’s School of Medicine.

Culture is increasingly becoming a pivotal part of organizational strategy. Red Hat is one company that uses their culture of open decision making as a strategic advantage for their business,where they use an open source framework to make decisions in the organization. Join us as we talk to Red Hat Executive Vice President and Chief People Officer DeLisa Alexander about how Red Hat works with both leaders and employees to include characteristics of transparency, inclusivity, collaboration, community focus, adaptability, and agility into their culture through open source decision making. DeLisa Alexander leads the organization responsible for global human resources including Red Hat University. The organization's mission is to be a strategic partner to the business in acquiring, developing, and retaining talent and to enhance the Red Hat culture and talent brand.        

Reconcile how AI, analytics, and machine learning effect humans and the future of talent with Guru Sethupathy, Head of People Analytics at a Fortune 100 company and former engagement manager at McKinsey Global Institute. Guru talks to us about the value of people analytics, and how we can overcome the siloed nature of companies to use predictive and prescriptive analytics to help the business achieve its goals. He was the former Chief Economist and Director of Product Development at Opportunity@Work, a civic enterprise based at New America. Prior to joining Opportunity@Work, Guru was an engagement manager at McKinsey, serving clients on topics related to human capital. Before McKinsey, Guru was an assistant professor of economics at Johns Hopkins University. His research agenda focused on how globalization and technology are changing labor markets, including productivity, employment, skills, wages, and inequality. Prior to becoming an economist, Guru also spent some years in the hi-tech and investment banking worlds. Guru has a B.S. in computer science from Stanford University and a Ph.D. in economics from Columbia University.

How does naked leadership lead to better decision making? Chris Fussell, former Navy SEAL Officer and Partner at McChrystal Group, talks to us about "naked leadership," and how he worked in the military with senior leaders to expose themselves to uncertainty on a daily basis. We then dive into techniques that retain the strength of bureaucracy, while moving at the speed of decentralized networks. Later, Fussell takes us through his model of strong leadership and culture: credibility = proven competence + integrity + relationships. Listen to Part Two of this two-part series. Chris is an author of the 2015 New York Times bestseller, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, and his new book, titled On Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams.

What if Eisenhower wasn’t the genius we thought he was? Chris Fussell, former Navy SEAL Officer and Partner at McChrystal Group, talks to us about the “leader myth,” and how we often aggrandize leaders of a successful project or mission. With Chris, we dive into some of these misconceptions, and how the characteristics that make a great leader may not be the leader’s individual genius, but rather their ability to pull together networks of good teams and lead in a fast, efficient manner. Listen to Part One of this two-part series. Chris is an author of the 2015 New York Times bestseller, Team of Teams: New Rules of Engagement for a Complex World, and his new book, titled On Mission: How Leaders Build a Team of Teams.

“A sprawling exploration of the psychic frailty that leads to self-delusion and self-aggrandizement, and—importantly—a compassionate, helpful guide for avoiding that path (or reversing it).” - Fortune Dr. Tasha Eurich is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Timesbest-selling author. She’s built a reputation as a fresh, modern voice in the business world by pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to solving problems. Her second book, INSIGHT, delves into the connection between our self-awareness—what she calls the meta-skill of the twenty-first century—and our performance and success, both in and out of the workplace. Tasha’s first book, Bankable Leadership, debuted on the New York Times bestseller list in 2013, and has since become a popular resource for managers and executives who don’t want to choose between making their employees happy and producing bottom-line results for their business. Her second book

Learn how to design your life through the same techniques that innovators use to design products and new technology. Dave Evans, Stanford Lecturer and New York Times best-selling co-author of Designing Your Life, talks to us about following your passions in life, and how you can design a process to figure out what will ultimately make you satisfied and happy. Dave holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford. While en route to biomedical engineering, Evans accepted an invitation to work for Apple, where he led product marketing for the mouse team and introduced laser printing to the masses. When Dave’s boss at Apple left to start Electronic Arts, Dave joined as the company’s first VP of Talent, dedicated to making “software worthy of the minds that use it.” Dave holds a BS and MS in Mechanical Engineering from Stanford and a graduate diploma in contemplative Spirituality form San Francisco Theological Seminary.