Lead From the Heart

With people living longer than ever – and therefore wanting to work longer – a big question many workplace leaders are asking themselves today is whether workers in their 40’s, 50’s and 60’s can remain relevant in our rapidly changing digital world. If you have even a tinge of gray in your hair, you’ll be pleased to know that many companies are coming to realize that qualities that only come with age – i.e. humility, emotional intelligence and wisdom – are in short supply in many of their units. And so, they’ve begun re-embracing their older and more experienced employees who often possess them. For the first time in history, we have five different generations working together in organizations – and few of us have experience in melding people of wildly different ages & mindsets into cohesive teams. And with unemployment at record lows across the globe, organizational success has suddenly become dependent upon our making multigenerational teams come together as one. Few people can help us navigate this new world order than Chip Conley.  After selling the boutique hotel management company he founded and managed for 24 years (Joie-de-Vivre Hospitality), he was faced with securing a new career.  And after receiving a call from Airbnb’s 31-year-old co-founder and CEO, Brian Cheskey, he accepted a role as Airbnb’s “Head Of Global Hospitality and moved to Silicon Valley. But on day one, he realized he was knee-deep in foreign waters. His boss was young enough to be his son – and his co-workers were all even younger – 20-something tech geniuses with whom he had almost nothing in common. As Chip details in his new book, “Wisdom At Work – The Making Of A Modern Elder” (and in our discussion), it took some time to find his sea legs before he realized the profound influence he could have by mentoring Airbnb’s young team.  And over the next four years, he also discovered the most successful ways of bringing young and old workers together for the benefit of the organization – and for the well-being of everyone involved. In just a few years, half of all workers will have someone younger than them as their boss. And whichever side of the equation you’ll be on come then, you’ll need solid guidance on how to make that relationship succeed. Providing you with this insight is the focus of this wonderful chat with Chip Conley. The post Chip Conley: How To Create A Thriving Multi-Generational Workplace appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Not since 1974 when Studs Terkel published his groundbreaking book, “Working,”has anyone performed a deep dive into the modern-day work experience. But with automation and digitalization poised to radically change our workplaces in the very near future – along with the jobs we all do – Boston University journalism professor, Ellen Rupell Shell spent the past eight years researching all the ways our careers are likely to be disrupted, and how we can emerge on the other side of it with work that inspires and sustains us. “Work is essential for human beings to flourish,” writes Shell in her New York Times bestselling book, “The Job: Work And It’s Future In A Time Of Radical Change.” “It gives our lives meaning, purpose, identity and status.”  But at a time when McKinsey predicts that one-third of all blue and white-collar jobs will be gone in the next 20 years, public policy isn’t yet oriented toward ensuring that everyone who wants to continue working will remain able to support themselves and their families. So what course corrections do we need to make? How can we sustain our own career viability in light of unparalleled technological change? What skills will emerge as most essential in the new economy? Can there really be a happy ending? These are critically important questions all of us should now be asking – and tied to Shell’s remarkably broad research, she’s able to provide many unexpected yet insightful answers. Not just intended for leaders and managers, this is a podcast that holds great benefits for us all. The post Ellen Ruppel Shell: How To Sustain Your Career Once Technology Changes Or Eliminates Your Job appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

HOW DOES A LEADER TAKE THEIR TEAM FROM GOOD TO GREAT? Georgetown University business school professor, Christine Porath says we won’t make that leap until we address the incivility that’s taken over our workplaces. In preparing for her recent TED Talk that’s had nearly one million views so far, Dr. Porath asked 20,000 employees around the world what they most wanted from their leaders today. The number one answer was “respect.” A lack of civility has come to characterize most of our experiences at work – so much so that we now just assume it comes with the territory. But the reason we must now confront incivility is because it’s proven to do great harm to people not to mention organization’s bottom lines. Dr. Porath’s research shows that incivility is highly contagious. It makes people less motivated, instantaneously less engaged – and deeply resentful. And 12% of workers who feel slighted or disrespected in their jobs end up quitting. In this inspiring conversation, we explore the reasons why curt, rude and unkind behavior has become so prevalent in business today, and discuss the surprisingly simple ways managers and companies can restore a more humane culture. If there’s one key take-away from this podcast episode, it’s that civility lifts people.  Leaders can therefore achieve so much more by ensuring their teams’ culture delivers what employees around the world today are clamoring for: a highly respectful place in which to work. Please listen in! The post Dr. Christine Porath: Workplace Incivility Requires A Leadership Fix appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Is it possible that you have a pattern of behavior or a personality trait that greatly limits your effectiveness as a person and as a leader? Could you have an unconscious way of acting – particularly under stress – that unwittingly thwarts your dreams of moving up the ladder? If you consider yourself part of the human species, it’s almost guaranteed that you’re doing at least one thing that undermines your true greatness as a manager. So the goal for this podcast is to help you discover what your personal derailleurs might be, and to learn how to lessen their negative impacts. Few people are better qualified to provide insight and advice on this topic than our guest, Dr. David Dotlich. A certified psychologist in career development and life planning, he’s been named one of the Top 50 Coaches In America – he’s also co-written 12 best-selling leadership books including the one we  discuss in great detail on the podcast: “Why CEOs Fail” The 11 Behaviors That Can Derail Your Climb To The Top – And How To Manage Them.” Today, David is President of Pivot Leadership – a consulting firm he started and later sold to Korn Ferry. He advises CEOs and Corporate Boards, and his list of clients includes Walmart, Nike, Johnson & Johnson, Microsoft, Aetna and Best Buy. Amongst his many prestigious former roles, David was a founding partner of CDR International which was later acquired by Marsh McLennan. He was an Executive Vice President at Groupe Bull S.A, a Paris-based computer manufacturer with 45,000 employees, an EVP at Honeywell, the President of Mercer Delta Consulting – and a Professor at the University of Minnesota business school where he earned his masters and PhD. As David says, “most leaders succeed or fail based on how well they work with others and how well they understand themselves.”  This podcast is devoted to helping you excel at both.   The post Dr. David Dotlich: Why Leaders Fail: The Top Behaviors That Can Derail Your Career appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

More than anything else today, what people want from their employers & leaders is to be given a safe & respectful place in which to work. That’s the conclusion of new Pew research which shows 89% of American workers rank these needs highest. Yes, employees also expect their leaders to be honest, ethical – and to reward them fairly with pay & benefits. But their ultimate happiness, engagement & sense of well-being all prove to be directly connected to how they are made to feel. And what most people want to feel in their jobs is secure, valued, appreciated — & supported as a human being. In light of this research, workplace leaders are wise to ask one big question. “What are the specific things I need to do to ensure these employee needs & expectations get met?” In her new book, “Bring Your Human to Work: Ten Sure-Fire Ways to Design a Workplace That is Good for People, Great for Business, and Just Might Change the World,” author Erica Keswin provides many compelling answers.  She draws on research that shows it often boils down to simple but thoughtful gestures that make the biggest impact.  Making meetings more productive & inspiring. Giving people greater clarity around when their workday ends. Being nudged to take all of their vacation. Ensuring stated organizational values are lived in the halls, not just hung on the walls. If you’re looking for state-of-the-art ideas on how to support your employees (human beings!) & and to keep them healthy, motivated & productive, listen in & plan to take notes! The post Erica Keswin: How To Design A Workplace That Is Good for People & Great for Business appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

While we might consider the time in which we’re all living a more enlightened age, the word “heart” still carries a lot of negative associations when it comes to workplace leadership. Tied to traditional leadership wisdom, we cling to the belief that caring and supportive management is an inherently weak idea that cannot drive productivity – and so we go on leading in old & less effective ways. But recent scientific discoveries prove our understanding of how to most effectively motivate human performance is patently wrong. More to the point, new science shows the heart plays a profound role in influencing human behavior – and that workplace managers who care about, nurture and proactively support their people can expect to be rewarded with unimaginable productivity and success in return. For nearly three decades, the Institute of HeartMath has been researching the human heart – an organ many people believe is just a pump that circulates blood throughout our bodies. Led by its chief researcher and co-founder, Dr. Rollin McCraty, HeartMath has discovered that the heart is actually a source of great intelligence that plays an enormous role in shaping our choices and decisions.  And the feelings and emotions that people experience every day at work actually have a major impact on determining their level of engagement, commitment and initiative. While many managers remain convinced that managing with some degree of fear and stress is a potent way of achieving goals, HeartMath’s research proves they couldn’t be more wrong.  As Rollin McCraty thoroughly explains in this podcast, when people repeatedly experience negative emotions, their cognitive effectiveness instinctively shuts down. They make poor choices and have less energy to commit to the job at hand. Yes, it’s a huge paradigm change to think that organizations that put the needs of employees first – before those of customers, managers and shareholders – could be a winning formula.  But the science that proves it has become irrefutable. In addition to his work at HeartMath, Rollin McCraty is a professor at Florida Atlantic University.  His team has done joint research projects with Stanford University, Claremont Graduate University and several other universities around the world. His work has been featured on CNN, ABC World News Tonight, NBC’s Today Show and the Discovery Channel. And his studies have appeared in numerous scientific journals in addition to well-known publications including Prevention, Natural Health, Men’s Fitness and American Health. After you finish listening to this podcast, you’ll be convinced that the idea of leading from the heart isn’t just the wisest thing a leader can do – it represents the future of workplace leadership. The post Rollin McCraty: Why The Heart Is The Driver Of Optimal Human Performance appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Hear the word “rebel” & we immediately think of troublemakers & outcasts – people who end up with bad reputations for being non-conformists. But after a decade of studying rebels (especially rebel leaders), Harvard Business School Professor, Francesca Gino says we’ve got it all wrong. In her New York Times bestselling book, “Rebel Talent: Why It Pays To Break The Rules At Work & In Life,” Gino says that “rebels prove to be the masters of innovation & reinvention. They’re the ones who change the world for the better with their unconventional outlooks. Instead of clinging to what is safe & familiar –  & falling back on routines & tradition – rebels excel by challenging the status-quo.” Sharing a remarkable list of real-world examples, Francesca Gino explains why breaking rules enriches every aspect of our lives. And she saves her best insights for leadership – and why it’s irrefutable that the most successful, innovative & admired managers around the world are intentionally “Rebel Leaders.” The post Francesca Gino: Why It Pays To Break The Rules In Life, Work & Leadership appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

In 2012, Gallup made the startling announcement that employee engagement across the globe was in crisis.  We learned that only 30% of American workers were fully committed in their jobs – and the numbers were even worse in most other countries. So here we are six years later and we’re left to wonder: “Has engagement gotten any better?” “Did most organizations fully commit to creating more supportive workplaces?” And, “Has the employee engagement metric held up as a true barometer of organizational success?” Few people on the planet are better prepared to answer these important questions than Gallup’s Dr. Jim Harter. Nearly 30 years ago, Harter created Gallup’s on-going employee engagement & wellbeing studies. And on this podcast, he taps into compelling data and insight to bring us all current. As you’ll hear, millions more employees around the world are now engaged at work. And, provocatively, the country of Singapore took their low engagement so seriously they’ve more than doubled the nation’s engagement scores.  And just this week, The Drucker Institute published its annual list of the 250 World’s Best Managed Companies by stating that the organizations making the biggest leaps on the rankings also had the biggest gains in employee engagement. As you might imagine, engagement hasn’t gotten better everywhere. So listen to this rare opportunity to hear Jim Harter explain what the most enlightened companies are doing to inspire their workforces – and the advantages they now hold over competitors who’ve yet to take engagement seriously. The post Jim Harter: Gallup’s Chief Scientist Explains Why Employee Engagement & Caring Cultures Differentiate Thriving Organizations appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

If you have the chops to get accepted into an elite MBA Program at a school like Harvard, Wharton or Yale, you pretty much know that the next two years of your life will be devoted to mastering left-brain coursework – classes in analytics, statistics, accounting, economics, finance and the like. But a few years ago, top business schools like these started to reassess. Alarmed by rock-bottom employee engagement across the world – not to mention other distressing trends on employee stress, health and well-being – they began to ask themselves whether they were part of the problem. Faculties and administrators reflected upon how successful they’d historically been in preparing students to manage other human beings in the workplace. And they collectively concluded that their traditional methods of preparing future leaders was entirely deficient and required a massive reinvention. Fast-forward to today: At Yale’s graduate school of business, students take a mandatory class on “purpose.”  At Harvard, MBA students are being taught groundbreaking science on how to achieve personal happiness. They’re also reading about Chinese Philosophers and how spiritual wisdom can guide their management decisions.  And these same kinds of curriculum changes are happening at Wharton, The University of Michigan – and business schools across the world. In what proves to be a remarkable & compelling discussion of why all of this is happening in MBA Programs, podcast guest, Stanford University Graduate School of Business Professor, Leah Weiss, shares why a class she teaches called, “Leading With Mindfulness And Compassion” has become the top elective course in her school’s MBA program. Weiss is the author of the brand new bestseller, “How We Work: Live Your Purpose, Reclaim Your Sanity And Embrace The Daily Grind,” and if you want a glimpse into the future of workplace leadership – not to mention fabulous insight into practices and skills that can help you to better “Know Thyself,” listening in will prove invaluable. The post Leah Weiss: Why A Class On Mindfulness & Self-Mastery Is Now Stanford Business School’s Top Elective appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Everyone has self-limiting behaviors, for the simple reason that we’re all human. But frequently, what holds women back from obtaining the next raise, promotion or job tends to be different from men. In their new bestseller, “How Women Rise,” legendary leadership coach, Marshall Goldsmith, and Sally Helgesen – the person Forbes Magazine named the world’s top women’s leadership expert – partnered up to explain which bad habits all too frequently hold back women. But in this podcast that was intentionally designed to benefit all managers, Sally explains why men and women often approach leadership differently, and how their unique set of bad habits can derail their desired growth. Leveraging a thirty-year career as a researcher and author – while tapping into all she’s learned from Marshall’s four-decades of coaching male executives – Sally Helgesen shares much surprising and invaluable insight on how to both identify and overcome the unintentional behaviors that unnecessarily impede our progress.   The post Sally Helgesen: The Bad Habits That Limit Our Career Growth & Success appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.