Barry O’Reilly’s guest is Jim McKelvey, who has been everything from a glassblowing artist, to a founder of a multibillion-dollar organization. Just recently, he was appointed Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. Jim is the co-founder of Square, a leading financial services and digital payments company, and the author of The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time, where he shares the story of building Square and his philosophy for building disruptive companies. His most recent startup, Invisibly, gives consumers control of how their personal data is monetized by advertisers. Jim treats listeners to some fun facts and tips he learned from his own journey in this week’s episode.   Be Grumpy, Optimistic and Tenacious Innovation requires a “wonderful blend of grumpiness and optimism”, as well as a healthy dose of tenacity, Jim argues. Grumpiness makes you upset about a problem, and optimism inspires you to come up with a solution. Tenacity keeps you going through the tough times. “A lot of the companies that are now household names ... began with a founder who just found themselves in a really unpleasant situation and didn't quit,” Jim says. The mix of work ethic and stubbornness is often the secret sauce to your ultimate breakthrough. The most successful founders are just regular people; you just need the right tools, which Jim describes in his book.   Entertain Them Barry loves The Innovation Stack for its amusing anecdotes and contrary approaches, one of his favorites being Jim’s approach to pitching investors. “People get pitching wrong,” Jim explains. “People spend a lot of time pitching as if they are trying to sell somebody something. I pitch as if I'm trying to entertain and invite them to partner with me, and it's a subtle difference.” It’s your duty to entertain your listeners, he argues, especially if you want them to listen to you for more than 30 seconds.   Make it an Experience Your product or service should be an unforgettable experience for your customers, one they want to revisit. Jim describes thinking through the design of a new drinking glass that will invoke the users’ senses and help them see the world in a new way. These types of hidden experiences are key. “What I noticed was that immediately after an experience like that, you have this window of attention that may last 2 seconds or 5 seconds or 20 seconds,” Jim tells Barry.   Make Space in Your Head What used to work well before may stop working, and you have to be flexible enough to unlearn. “If you stick too rigidly to what has worked, you'll find that you end up one of these fossils who is so out of step with what's working that you no longer have any success,” Jim warns. “To me, unlearning is a Marie Kondo approach to your brain.” You have to get rid of the stuff that no longer works, to make space in your head for new ideas and approaches. This is a continuous process.   Looking Ahead Jim is excited about his new position as Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. He is responsible for ensuring that the right information gets to the people who need it, he says. “But it's also about gathering economic data and then going to Washington a couple times a year to make decisions on how that data gets used.” The main focus is to bring the economy back to health post-pandemic. “The key unlearning there is to just continually recognize that you don't get to copy the solution from some previous crisis because we haven't had one like this,” he tells Barry, “so just keep your mind open and be willing to listen to the person who proposes something that sounds radical, but in fact might actually be the solution.”   Read full show notes at BarryO'Reilly.com Resources Jim McKelvey Website | LinkedIn | Twitter | Instagram The Innovation Stack: Building an Unbeatable Business One Crazy Idea at a Time

Jaime Schmidt started Schmidt’s Naturals in her kitchen and scaled it to acquisition by Unilever. In the process, she pioneered a movement of modern brands bringing naturals to the mainstream. Since then, Jaime has been empowering the next generation of consumer brands through her inclusive investment firm, Color. In 2019, she launched Supermaker, a media company that celebrates inclusive and disruptive independent brands. Her book, Supermaker: Crafting Business on Your Own Terms, on this very topic was released in 2020 and is all about turning your passion project into a thriving business. Jaime is gearing up for her starring role on Season One of Going Public airing on October 19, the first show that will enable viewers to invest in companies on screen, to help entrepreneurs take their brands to a global audience. “There's so much here that resonates with our mission at Nobody Studios about giving access to all for entrepreneurs,” host Barry O’Reilly says.  Get Your Hands Dirty Oftentimes, you have to get your hands dirty to figure out what you want to do, Jaime discovered. She outlines her journey from college to working in HR to ultimately starting her own business. She advises listeners, try to learn something from every experience you’ve had that you can take forward: “Figure out something about that [present] job that you can take with you that will somehow make you a stronger performer in your dream job.” Leadership Lessons Barry and Jaime talk about important lessons that Jaime learned and unlearned along the way. Some of these lessons are: Not all leadership looks the same. Decide how you want to show up as a boss. Emulate the good behaviors you learned from other leaders, and discard the bad behaviors. There’s no one way to be a good leader. The best way is to just be yourself. Your leadership style is good enough. “Don't be afraid to admit what you don't know; ask for help when you need it, and just keep that ego under control.” Hire a good team: people you can trust who you’re proud to have representing your brand. Be transparent and let them lead sometimes. COVID has taken a toll on leaders, but one positive effect of the pandemic is that we’re more tolerant of others than before. Investing in People and Democratizing Entrepreneurship “In many ways,” Barry remarks, “most investors look for the people that they seem to make an investment in rather than the product.” He asks Jaime about her own philosophy for choosing investments. “As an investor today I think I have a little more openmindedness to founders that are a bit untraditional, because that was me,” she responds. She looks for more than just a good proposal on paper; it’s the passion and dedication of the founder that really helps her decide whether an investment has potential. Two-Way Mentorship The best type of mentorship is two-way. Mentors and mentees should bring their expertise to the table, and be open to learning from each other. Leave the ego at the door though, Jaime stresses. It’s common and natural to wonder if you can add value to a business when you have no experience in that industry, but Jaime realized that many of the lessons she learned growing her own business were transferable to any business. Once you approach mentorship collaboratively, it will be successful and rewarding, she says. Looking Ahead Jaime will continue to invest in consumer brands through Color, but she also sees an exciting opportunity in the emerging crypto and NFT space. She is learning more about this area, and feels that brands should embrace it and actually start adding these types of digital assets to their existing catalog. Brands would stay relevant, and consumers would be more inclined to buy these new products from brands they already know and trust. “The smartest hire a brand can make today is someone who is a consumer of culture” she points out. Read the complete show notes at Barry O'Reilly. Resources Jaime Schmidt Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

What is a product-led organization? What does it take to build one? How can technology help solve real-world problems? These are just a few of the questions that Yi-Wei Ang has dedicated his career to answering. Yi-Wei is the Chief Product Officer at Talabat, the largest food delivery and quick commerce company in the Middle East, and is responsible for Talabat’s rapid growth in the region. He joins Barry O’Reilly to talk about what better leadership means, and what it takes to build a product-led organization. Using Technology to Solve Human Problems “If we think about what great design is and great experiences are,” Yi-Wei tells Barry, “it's not just [that] it's beautiful - it’s how the thought process that goes behind every decision you make... is anchored on the end-user.” From an early age, Yi-Wei was fascinated with how you could create something that works using technology. He became immersed in human factors engineering in university, especially with building resilient systems that were responsive to unplanned exceptions. Ultimately, he remarks, it’s about understanding humans and building products that help them solve their problems. Better Management Marty Cagan taught Yi-Wei that people aren’t looking for less management, they’re looking for better management. This was counterintuitive to what he believed at the time, and it was a major unlearning for him. He knew that he didn’t want a top-down micromanaged organization, so he mistakenly felt that this meant giving his teams complete autonomy to choose the problems they wanted to solve. The result from this approach was that his teams’ efforts were misaligned, and they did not deliver on several commitments because of it. Cagan’s advice opened his eyes that he needed to set constraints and provide context and direction for his teams.  One Thing That Matters Trust the team close to the problem to solve the problem, Yi-Wei advises. Solving that problem should be their sole focus. At any given moment, there are 10 problems you could solve, and you might be inclined to tackle them all at once. This is a mistake, Yi-Wei and Barry point out. It’s more productive to pick the most important thing on the list and focus on solving that one problem. What you learn will tell you how to proceed. Leaders should help the team pick the problem. “The thing that often we don't spend enough time on - and I believe is that the crux of product leadership - is the ability for product leaders to help the team pick the one thing that actually matters,” Yi-Wei comments.  Product Led Organizations Across Cultures  Barry asks Yi-Wei how he gives teams context and directions company-wide, while also paying attention to local differences. He replies, “The challenge with building an organization or product across all these different markets is that when you try and paint it with one brush you often just get an average product across everything.” The best approach, he finds, is to choose the most strategic problem in just one market and address that. You can go deep and find out details that you wouldn’t otherwise. Talabat’s impressive growth is due in part to taking this approach. The company sees the intersection of technology and the real world as an interesting challenge and is driven to innovate their operations to serve their customers. Yi-Wei’s definition of a product-led organization is one where you use technology and product to solve customer problems.  Looking Ahead Barry asks Yi-Wei what he is excited about as he looks ahead. Yi-Wei responds that they are very focused on solving more problems in the food delivery space, including online and offline experiences. Scaling quick commerce is also part of their agenda, as he believes there are opportunities in so many verticals “to help enable people and bring a lot of autonomy back into their lives.”  Read the full show notes at BarryO’Reilly.com Resources Yi-Wei Ang Website | LinkedIn | Twitter

Peggy Liu is on a mission to spark quantum change towards a better future faster. Hailed as the Green Goddess by the Chinese media, Peggy has been bringing people together from around the world to change the world for the better. She is the Chairperson of JUCCCE, the Joint US-China Collaboration on Clean Energy, as well as the bestselling author of Mesmerize the Media: Maximize Your Impact with More Press. She joins Barry O’Reilly on this week’s show to talk about building momentum for your change movement and how to recognize when the universe is winking at you. From Head to Heart “The power of the intellect,” Peggy tells Barry, “is not matched at all by the magnetism of the heart.” This was an important lesson she had to learn in her own life, so everything she does now is based on tapping into emotional energy. Quantum change - societal change that’s the end goal of tornado leadership - starts with mastering emotional energy of movements, and of yourself, she argues. When you build the energetic architecture of a tornado behind the change you want to see, you bring people along with you to a better future faster. Perception Creates Reality The books that inspired her from a young age and the influence of her grandfather, are just two of the “winks from the universe” that told Peggy what path she was meant to take. “...It begins with the perception of yourself and reality,” she remarks. “Perception is what creates reality.” You create the future by visioning that you’re already there. The emotion of euphoria of already achieving that future is what magnetizes people subconsciously.  Barry comments on the value of meditation as part of your morning routine. People who are good at leading change usually practice spending time with their thoughts, he says. Peggy shares an example of how practicing meditation helped her craft a speech for the Harvard Model UN. You have to open yourself up to transformational ideas. Allowing yourself freedom to do so is one secret to moving to quantum change. Building Momentum Peggy helps her workshop attendees embody the future they want to see: she leads them into experiencing “the satisfaction of already living in the future that they want to create”. From there, it’s easy to reverse engineer the path to that future. Barry agrees that focusing on your vision of ‘better’ cuts through the noise and clarifies the creation process. You can choose from an infinite number of realities, Peggy comments, “but to make them come alive, you need to be excited about it and to believe that it already exists to have that satisfaction and euphoria, that love for living that life.” You then become a lightning rod to others aligned with the same vision. Barry remarks that the right people are drawn to you when you share your vision authentically. Friction vs Flow “How successfully you create your reality is all about your level of understanding of friction versus flow,” Peggy emphasizes. Friction comes from trying to force things to go your way, flow is when things align naturally. She shares the secret of flow with listeners: “Your job is to be at the center of the tornado with a vision delivered with love; but you cannot control the tornado's path.” You have to be open to the possibilities the tornado brings. Barry shares an example of flow with founding Nobody Studios. When people are aligned you can create a bigger wave that’s like a lighthouse, Peggy adds. Getting Started Barry asks how listeners can get started on this path. Peggy invites them to start with the questions on the Limitless Facebook page. These questions would help anyone and their community to envision the future they want to create. “Always start by being the James Cameron, creator of the Avatar world,” she advises. Believe in yourself as the creator of yourself world. Resources Peggy Liu at Website | LinkedIn | Facebook | Instagram | Twitter  BrianTheHealer  Limitless Facebook page

Some people just do things differently. Data analytics expert and advisor Donald Farmer is one of them. Donald works with Barry O’Reilly at Nobody Studios where he serves as the Chief Innovation Officer. With his company TreeHive, Donald advises enterprises and non-profits in emerging economies on innovation, strategy, and the uses of data. His career has taken him around the world and into a huge range of industries, from fish farming, to managing a village nursery, to being the face of business intelligence for Microsoft. He and Barry talk about creating a better world for the people who live in it through technology and innovation. Different, not Better “I’ve never been interested in computers for their own sake. I’m really interested in what I can DO with it.” Donald tells Barry, “I see the machine as an intellectual lever that allows me to do more – that’s what’s interesting to me.” This leveraged power is important because there is a lot in the world that needs changing. A guiding principle of Donald’s work is that each individual is unique – humans can’t be aggregated into categories for whom one solution will work all the time. By moving away from the industry standards of incremental change and towards exploring alternative solutions that make things materially better for people, Donald is able to ask how a new company or idea will help change the way things are done.  A Pivotal Moment Barry wonders about the choices Donald made that really clarified this perspective of focusing on humans above all else, and Donald shares a story about a fish farming tech startup he developed while doing some consulting work in the Scottish Highlands. He formed a company that productized the data around fish weights and measurements and aided in the complex calculations needed for transporting and exporting and so on. Eventually, they sent the product to Japan, where it was extremely well received, except for one major issue: the computer beeped when a data entry error was made. Now, in Scotland, no one cared about this, but in Japan, the public announcement of errors was intolerable. The context of the technology was different, so the product needed to be. Barry notes that you can execute an algorithm correctly, but when we’re talking about people using a product – the things that make them feel good can vary. Don’t Solve Problems. Eliminate Barriers to Happiness. So much of software design starts from trying to understand the user problem. This sounds great, but Donald wants to start with what’s good in someone’s life – their job, their business, etc. The first step in modeling a problem is to model a positive situation, and look at how to make it easier to achieve that. Barry adds that when you’re constantly looking at the problems, you’re often overlooking better approaches: What does great look like? Problems are the obstacles in the way, so let’s design for the aspiration – you’re thinking bigger, you’re creating more options, etc. It’s an interesting way to look at the world – especially in startup space where people are always talking about the problem they’re solving, not the great world you could be creating. Nobody Studios The vision of Nobody studios is to rapidly build a very large number of startups, but very differently from the traditional venture model, which is extremely broken. Venture startups are usually built with a financial and technical imperative – no one asks if it’s good, valuable, sustainable, or responsible. This means that a lot of ideas that might not tick those tech and finance boxes never get a chance – and that’s what is so exciting about Nobody – it’s a lighter touch focused on human, social, and personal values. Go to BarryO'reilly.com for full show notes. Resources: Donald Farmer: Twitter | LinkedIn TreeHive Strategy Nobody Studios

Bill Gates is a fan of The Innovation Show, hosted by this week’s guest, Aidan McCullen. It’s also one of Barry O’Reilly’s favorites, because of the meaningful conversations Aidan has with guests, and because of Aidan himself, whose lifelong journey of reinvention is inspiring. Aidan played professional rugby for 10 years for the 2 most successful teams in Europe in Ireland and France before transitioning into the business world. He is an acclaimed consultant and advisor, with expertise in team transformation, innovation and team culture and leadership. He has also developed and delivered modules in Emerging Technology Trends at Trinity College. He and Barry talk about his recent book, Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations and Life, as well as the mental models he learned and unlearned that helped him become who he is today. Moments of Change “Difficult moments are always growth points,” Aidan remarks. “They’re inflection points where you can reframe them… as milestones rather than millstones.” Success is more about pushing through challenges and working hard to accomplish your goals, and less about how much talent you are born with, he tells Barry. The secret is to just keep going, and give it your all: “When I get out of this I don't want to ever turn back and go, I should have done, I could have done… I never wanted to walk away with something and have a regret.” Discipline Is the Magic Word Aidan succeeds in rugby and in life because he just keeps showing up. “Discipline is like this force that you can use and point it at anything to use it for positive,” he tells Barry. When you do the work, Barry agrees, you set yourself up to get the best out of yourself and the situation. It’s what separates people who excel from those who are just ‘winging it’. Lessons to Unlearn Barry asks Aidan to share some lessons he had to learn and unlearn. Some of the lessons Aidan shares include: “There's always a high and a low at the same time. They're always coming in succession. The trick is to enjoy the highs but know there's a low coming, so prepare for it. And when you're in the low, understand that there's a high coming again [so] you'll get through this.” For every Batman, there has to be a Joker. The anti-hero gives contrast, which you now have to manage. Someone has to play that role so you can push through your boundary. Seeing them from this viewpoint spares you from feeling angry at them; it also helps you use that energy to move on with your goal. Don’t fall into the coconut trap. Let go of things that no longer serve you. Don’t over-identify with your jersey - you’re just its custodian for a time then you have to pass it along to the next person.  Looking Ahead Aidan is always learning and finishing up a course in executive coaching to “add some discipline” to his existing executive coaching practice. His own workshop, The Permanent Reinvention workshop, is doing very well, he tells Barry. He is humbled to see the impact his course is having on how teams communicate and collaborate. He also coaches senior leaders on thought leadership writing and executive presence. Another project he is passionate about is Edge School, an idea he conceived and is developing in collaboration with Alexandra College and the Learnovate Centre in Trinity College. Edge School will give students the opportunity to gain real world experience in emerging fields such as AI Ethics, cybersecurity and communication skills. This is not about making money, he tells Barry; it’s a legacy that he hopes that the school will use to create a template which they can share with other schools. For full show notes, go to BarryO'Reilly.com Resources Aidan McCullen on LinkedIn | Twitter  Undisruptable: A Mindset of Permanent Reinvention for Individuals, Organisations and Life The Innovation Show

Soumeya Benghanem is a product management leader at VMWare and the creator and curator of a thriving product manager and builders community on Clubhouse. Soumeya is an inspiring member of the product industry – she shows up with passion, resilience, and adaptability to everything she puts her hand to. She and Barry discuss the different kinds of cultures you run into in the tech industry, how to handle mistakes – your own and those of your team, and the value of community. What’s Different about Start-Up World Soumeya got her start at large companies and in the start-up world – this is important because what works in large companies and in smaller ones are not always the same. There are systems and values that are constant, but how they are applied in different cultures is different. The amount of risk you can take in a startup compared to a large established business is quite different, for example. Barry concurs, and notes that one of the classic traps you can fall into is that as a consultant, you can coach and guide teams towards solutions, and people will be able to take that and run with it. In a startup, you often need to get right in there and do it. Making Other People’s Mistakes It is very hard to make mistakes that you know other people have already figured out the answers to. Soumaya thinks that it is important to make them anyway, to keep the wheels moving, and to make sure you’re really learning. Barry points out that there are so many ways to do things the right way, and you just need to commit to one. It is also possible to make the same mistake over and over again without ever knowing what you’re doing. Barry notes that this is quite a common problem and shares his own repeated mistake – and the solutions he has developed to make sure there is better visibility and collaboration on small teams.  Team Retrospectives Soumeya’s team has a meeting called the Weekly Retro where they talk about what has gone on, what has been great, and what’s been difficult. This is incredible for creating awareness and taking advantage of the team memory of the big picture. Barry accuses Soumeya of mind-reading and talks about the Retrospective meetings that his start-up studio has instituted as well – something he considers the most powerful meeting you can have. They are open spaces to talk about concerns, and issues and successes, especially when working on new and innovative projects. Soumeya and Barry dig into the nuts and bolts of running retrospectives, and different ways they’ve proven themselves useful. Being the Squeaky Wheel Asking for help, when you’re in an ecosystem that’s willing to provide it, is a point of strength. It may be counterintuitive, but the teams you can trust the most are the ones who are open about saying “we’re having difficulties, here’s what’s happening and what we’re doing.” Soumeya goes on to note that even during planning, you often don’t see any disagreement or idea conflict – and that is an indication to look for two things: are people able to prepare in advance and think through different scenarios? And that there might be unhealthy team dynamics that need closer examination. Soumeya talks about the XP (Extreme Programming) methodology she uses to address these problems. Looking to the Future Soumeya is looking forward to making the jump from achieving product and market fit to scaling – and getting through the awkward and painful canyon that is often in between them. It is this gap that Soumeya finds fascinating right now, and wants to work in. Read full show notes at BarryOReilly.com Resources: Soumeya Benghanem on Twitter | LinkedIn VMWare Clubhouse

“If there's one thing we love on this show,” Barry O’Reilly tells this week’s guest, “is people just speaking from their heart and what really matters and what they believe in; and I can't think of anyone who better exemplifies that than you.” JeVon McCormick's story is certainly a testament to the value of believing in yourself and taking consistent action despite the odds. JeVon persevered through every setback, vowing to never stop until he achieved his goals. He and Barry talk about his inspirational journey and how to keep going even when the decks are stacked against you. Possibility Opens Your Eyes You can only aspire to what you see and know is possible, JeVon tells Barry. He shares that a drive through an affluent community as a child was the beginning of his mindset shift. “It showed me possibility, and that was very key,” he comments. A big problem in lower economic communities is that many people there don’t know all the options that exist. “When I was shown possibility, that was game-changing for me; even though I didn't know how I was going to get there, it showed me possibility, and it was up to me to go figure out [how to] make that happen,” he says. [Listen from 2:00] Be Consistent In a society of instant gratification, the importance of consistency is often downplayed. However, JeVon tells Barry, what helped him improve his circumstances and his life overall was his commitment to never stop trying. “The biggest thing was I was always consistent,” he remarks. He kept learning from his mistakes and improving on his strengths. He posits, “I truly believe you only fail if you stop trying.” Barry adds that society rarely talks about the hard part of consistency: getting back up after getting knocked down, or holding on when it seems more sensible to let go. [Listen from 8:35] How Conscious Capitalism Can Change Lives Barry sees JeVon’s work in conscious capitalism as a great juncture of his ethics, mindset, and entrepreneurialism. He asks him what inspired him to get involved in the space. Society demonizes capitalism, JeVon replies, but it has tremendous power to change lives: “Capitalism has provided me with the life that I have right now, and I truly believe that if more people from the lower economic communities that I come from knew the power of capitalism, that it could also change their lives.” Conscious capitalism is about taking capitalism to the communities where it can really make a positive impact. He shares an example about how retailers like Whole Foods could help change generational poverty by opening stores in lower-income neighborhoods. More than just creating jobs in these communities, they would be creating possibility, so younger generations would now have more to aspire to. [Listen from 22:20] Looking Ahead JeVon is excited about doing his part in making a racially just society. He explains why he now goes by JeVon instead of JT. “I made the decision for every kid named RayVontae, Martavias, Lawanda, Lacresha; and I did it with the intent - in the belief - that one day when they hit corporate America, that maybe they can work next to a JeVon and not just a JT.” He’s about creating real, tangible change: not just attracting diverse persons, but creating a culture of belonging so everyone feels welcome and respected in the workplace. Barry comments that we have to call out inequality, talk about it, so we can start the change. [Listen from 33:55] Find complete show notes at BarryO'Reilly.com Resources JeVon McCormick Website | LinkedIn | Twitter  Charles Marohn Jr - Strong Towns: A Bottom-Up Revolution to Rebuild American Prosperity

Casey Rosenthal is the co-founder and CEO of Verica and the former Engineering Manager of the Chaos Engineering team at Netflix. He is an author and thought leader in chaos engineering, “a discipline of experimenting with software systems in production in order to build confidence in the system's capability to withstand unexpected and turbulent conditions.” Casey was an early engineer and champion of chaos engineering, bringing together people from companies like Netflix, Google, Facebook, and Amazon to explore the field. In this week’s Unlearned Podcast, Casey and Barry O’Reilly talk about the chaos engineering domain and how to apply its principles to build high-performance teams and businesses. Origins of Chaos Engineering Netflix’s migration to the cloud, in particular the sudden outages and service disruptions that would occur, spurred the creation of a program they called Chaos Monkey. “So Chaos Monkey would for each service inside Netflix, every day it would randomly choose an instance and turn it off,” Casey tells Barry. The underlying principle was that once engineers knew a problem existed, they would fix it. “It changed their behavior by aligning the organization around the business problem that needed to be solved,” he remarks. He shares the early Chaos Community Days, bringing colleagues together from leading tech companies to build the discipline they would call chaos engineering. Navigating Complexity Chaos engineering assumes that you already have complexity in your system. “This is engineering to navigate it, or to surface it so that you’re aware of it,” Casey explains. Once you’re aware a problem exists, you can take steps to fix it. It’s a proactive approach to improving availability and security, which improves your system overall. He shares an example of how United Health Group was able to discover a system vulnerability they didn’t know they had, and allocate appropriate resources to strengthen their position. Barry comments, “The thing that’s very contrary with this is that it's not about people trying to predict the future, it's about them having the data to understand how the systems are performing and then taking action based on that.” Relearning Leadership “Unlearning management is relearning leadership”, Barry says. He asks Casey to share lessons he learned that he is bringing to his new company. Managers are creatures of habit, and that holds them back, Casey responds. “Most of us think we're making decisions when we're not; we're just following habit.” He tries to formulate his own management principles and strategies in his company, instead of following traditional ideas. He believes a manager’s job is to ensure their team has the context they need to make the right decisions. His litmus test is this: if your employees can explain why what they’re working on is the most important thing they could be working on for the company right now, then you are a successful manager. Read the full show notes at BarryOReilly.com Resources Casey Rosenthal on LinkedIn | Twitter  Verica.io

Sejal Thakkar is on a mission to educate and empower others to create a world where everyone is treated with dignity and respect. She is a former employment law attorney, a TEDx speaker, and the founder and Chief Civility Officer at TrainXtra, where she helps her clients create positive, safe, and respectful workplaces through customized training and coaching. She also recently joined Nobody Studios as Chief Culture Officer. Barry O’Reilly welcomes her on this week’s Unlearned Podcast to share her story of unlearning how to shift her own biases and beliefs. Check Your Biases It’s difficult to acknowledge your biases because they often portray a vision of you that is the opposite of what you believe of yourself. Sejal had to check her own biases in order to do her job as an attorney, representing persons accused of discrimination and harassment. “I had to do a lot of my own inner work to recognize my own bias so that I can do my job because there's no way that I can represent people unless I checked my own biases,” she remarks. Our biases often stem from our experiences, and they don’t make us bad people. The key is to slow down and recognize when we’re letting our unconscious biases affect our decisions and use strategies to combat them. She has changed her language: she no longer refers to them as biases, but beliefs. She shares an online tool listeners can use to discover their unconscious beliefs. She also advises leaders to have an accountability partner who will tell them honestly if they’re letting unconscious beliefs influence their decisions. Unlearning Preconceived Notions Practice active listening, Sejal advises, and you’ll start picking up on your own preconceptions and judgments. Barry reminds listeners that we’re all programmed to have automatic responses in some situations. However, we can reprogram our brains once we become aware of our negative hidden beliefs. He and Sejal discuss their own blind spots and the importance of being humble and willing to learn and grow. “I've spent my whole life up to this point learning, and now the rest of life is unlearning,” Sejal comments. It’s about taking small steps in the right direction; eventually “everything else will start to roll”. “The ability to adapt is so powerful,” Barry agrees; “...just do small steps and learn your way through it.” Where Culture Starts  “Your culture starts the moment you hire the first person,” Sejal tells her clients. Building a healthy, respectful, and diverse culture means maximizing the skills, talents, and contributions of every employee. You have to know what your employees want: ask them and listen to their feedback. “If you're too afraid to know about what problems are going on, how can you fix them?” she argues. Nurture an environment where people feel safe to speak up so that you can deal with problems before they become a lawsuit. Looking Ahead Sejal is excited about being part of Nobody Studios and helping to build the company culture from the ground up. “The key is the learning is never gonna stop,” she tells Barry, “so I'm excited about the fact that I get to learn about and challenge myself in ways that I never have.” Read full show notes at Barry O'Reilly.com Resources Sejal Thakkar on LinkedIn | Twitter  Implicit Association Test