People Business w/ O'Brien McMahon

For twenty-five years, Bonnie Low-Kramen worked as the personal assistant to Oscar-winner Olympia Dukakis. Now she writes, coaches, and speaks to audiences of business leaders and assistants, helping them each make the most of this powerful relationship. Mentioned in this Episode:Staff Matters: People-Focused Solutions for the Ultimate New Workplace: https://www.amazon.com/Staff-Matters-People-Focused-Solutions-Workplace/dp/0976326841 Bonnie’s Be the Ultimate Assistant In-Person Workshop: https://www.bonnielowkramen.com/workshops/ultimate-assistants/btua-live/Connect with Bonnie on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/bonnielowkramenTime Codes: (2:14) - Introducing Bonnie(3:11) - Are we talking about administrative professionals or executive assistants?  Are there differences?(5:02) - How has this type of work evolved over time?(9:57) - How do you think of the virtual assistant in the scheme of things?(12:35) - How do I know when it’s time to hire an assistant?(18:26) -  How do I evaluate and assistant in an interview?(21:51) - What advice do you have for someone applying for an assistant job?(28:04) - What do you call the person who hires the assistant?(30:24) - What are the best practices for onboarding?(38:24) - How often do you suggest one on ones?(42:18) - What do you say to the people who aren’t comfortable giving up control?(44:36) - What are the best practices for giving feedback?(50:50) - What does development look like in this profession?(53:58) - What advice do you have to make sure the system works when the assistant steps away?(56:58) - What advice do you have for the single assistant?

Skye White is a Vice President at Deed, a workplace giving platform. She joins the show to talk about the different ways companies provide giving opportunities to their employees and the reasons why you may or may not want to consider doing the same. Mentioned in this Episode: Connect with Skye White on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/skye-white-sustainabilityLearn more about Deed, the workplace giving platform: https://www.joindeed.com/Timestamps: (1:55) - How do you define what you do?(3:40) - What feedback are you getting from employees about what they’re getting out of this kind of work?(5:28) - Are you seeing employees want to make a change with the work they’re doing?(8:23) - How many companies are offering ways to have an impact on the community?(12:15) - How do you see organizations selecting causes to support?(14:24) - What makes a ‘pillar’?(16:02) - How do organizations do that while keeping from investing in things they don’t agree with?(19:53) - Are companies that are giving or volunteering allowing it to be branded to the company name?(22:27) - What are best practices when it comes to corporate giving of dollars?(24:18) - What are best practices around establishing volunteer time?(27:06) - What’s the standard as far as how many volunteer days companies are giving people?](30:47) - What are good starter volunteer activities?(32:48) - What are the common pitfalls companies make when getting into this?(35:25) - Are there any other mistakes you see companies making?(37:44) - What are the detractors to ESG saying as to why this kind of work isn’t what a company would want?(40:12) - How do you see companies tracking the impact of these efforts?

Sean Bacon is a Canadian Armed Forces veteran who served 12 years as a Paratrooper and as an instructor at the Canadian Forces Military Police Academy. During that time, Sean developed a system of training that psychologically and physically prepared both soldiers and police to thrive in some of the worst situations the world has to offer. His company, Dynamic Shift, leverages his experience to work with business leaders to develop and sustain mental toughness, leadership, and team development in competitive environments. Mentioned in this Episode:Dynamic Shift Consulting: https://dynamic-shift.com/seans-story/Time Codes:(1:48) - Welcoming Sean(2:06) - What does it mean to be mentally tough?(3:16) - Does mental toughness mean we have to be extreme?(5:32) - Is it something we can tap into at any time or does it need to be developed?(6:48) - What are some ways you suggest people begin to learn mental toughness?(9:00) - How do we inspire people to want to develop it?(10:50) - How do we find the balance between pick ourselves up and asking for help?(14:51) - With your military background how do they create team mental toughness?(16:54) - Is that culling out people that don’t fit or developing it with people that you have or a combination of the two?(19:26) - How do you advise business leaders to reach the subcultures of their organizations and teach them this?(22:00) - Do you find that people when presented with higher standards and culture want it and will turn to it?

Gustavo Serbiá is the Head of Human Resources at Hair Cuttery, a retail hair salon with 5,000+ employees across 10 states. In this episode, we talk about the challenges of leading a workforce with few promotion opportunities. Gustavo shares lessons on how they recruit, develop talent, and help people grow inside and outside the organization. Mentioned in this Episode:Follow Gustavo on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/gustavoserbiaLearn more about Hair Cuttery: https://www.haircuttery.com/Recommended book: Sell the Feeling by Pinci/Glosserman (on Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Sell-Feeling-6-Step-System-Business/dp/1600372791/ref=sr_1_1)Time Codes:(0:45) - Introducing Gustavo(2:11) - Who are you? What’s your role? And where do you work?(2:56) - What does the workforce look like?(4:01) - Where would you rank Hair Cuttery from a wage standpoint?(5:56) - What about the racial demographic?(6:43) - What is the age demographic?(7:13) - What is the entry-level like?(8:59) - From a recruiting standpoint, how do you stand out in a retail environment?(13:32) - What is the compensation threshold?(21:09) - Who’s having the compensation conversation?(24:05) - Are you developing sales skills in your people?(27:06) - How are you encouraging stylists to think about the proactive side of bringing people in?(32:27) - How are you teaching the proper training and principles in the development process?(52:25) - How do you handle people who have goals that can’t be met in Hair Cuttery?

When Minette Norman and Karolin Helbig heard about psychological safety, they knew it could have a big impact on their workplaces. But they struggled to find guidance on how to put the principles of psychological safety into practice. Like all good self-starters, they decided to write the book they wished they'd had. In this episode, we dive into that book, The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead More Powerfully by Being More Human. Mentioned in this Episode:The Psychological Safety Playbook: Lead more powerfully by being more human: https://www.amazon.com/Psychological-Safety-Playbook-Powerfully-Being/dp/1774583097Karolin Helbig Consulting: https://karolinhelbig.com/Karolin on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/karolinhelbig/Minette Norman Consulting: https://www.minettenorman.com/Minette on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/minettenormanTime Codes:(2:09) - Welcoming Karolin and Minette(2:39) - What is psychological safety and what is it not?(6:24) - What are the big mistakes leaders make? (9:38) - What are the tips and tricks to foster better collaboration?(13:21) - What does it mean to be vulnerable as a business leader?(15:58) - Where is the line between ‘I don’t know’ and negligence?(20:10) - How do you make the environment comfortable even if you’re rejecting ideas?(28:06) - How do you help people through the psychological discomfort of hearing ideas they don’t like?(34:57) - What do you do when someone fails and you have to take corrective action?  How do you communicate frustration productively?(37:21) - How do you vent frustration?(42:52) - How do we encourage people to open and loosen up and share more bravely?(45:06) - What adjustments have you seen leaders have to make in this environment?(47:01) - Are these principles effective cross-culturally?(52:07) - What’s the purpose of business?

Professional Futurist Rebecca Ryan returns to the podcast and brings with her Libby Castro, Founder and Principal at LP/w Design Studios. The two have joined forces to create the Work Better Project, a community geared towards redesigning the what, where, and how of work. Mentioned in this Episode:The Work Better Project: https://www.linkedin.com/company/work-better-project/“People First: The Next Generation of Downtowns”: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/work-better-project_people-first-the-next-generation-of-downtowns-activity-7051201238704521216-ZAUDThe Work Better Series: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/work-better-project_work-better-project-article-1-activity-7039219337701785600-reIuPeople Business podcast with Rebecca Ryan: https://peoplebusinesspodcast.com/rebeccaryan/Next Generation Consulting: https://www.linkedin.com/company/next-generation-consulting LP/ws: http://lpwsstudios.com/Time Codes:(1:37) - Welcoming Rebecca and Libby(1:59) - What is the Work Better Project and how did you come to work together?(4:56) - How would you define the Work Better Project itself?(10:07) - What signals are you paying attention to regarding work?(15:33) - Libby, what signals are you paying attention to?(17:45) - Have you seen mental health impacting the way we work?(22:00) - How should we be prepared for sudden change and also how to avoid denial when change is slow?(26:46) - Do you have a structure for how you do Think Week?(28:29) - When faced with impending change, where do you start in the design process?(30:26) - Do you talk about design thinking principles?(34:03) - How do you help organizations think through the way they’re actually working?(40:39) - How do we repurpose space? What are some alternate/radical options?(50:10) - Do you have any good exercises for getting brain storms going?(55:41) - What is your goal for this project?(57:44) - What’s the purpose of work? 

Dr Andy Bass is the founder and principal of BassClusker Consulting. He works with leaders of successful businesses who are acutely aware of the rapid pace of change in the world. Andy specializes in getting them ahead of the change and bringing their people with them, and he does it in a very unusual way based on finding and using their Hidden Resources – strengths they and their people already have but are overlooking.Mentioned in this Episode:Bass Clusker Consulting Ltd: https://bassclusker.com/Committed Action (book): On Amazon Start With What Works (book): On Amazon Sean Bacon (former Canadian paratrooper): Dynamic Shift websiteJørgen Vig Knudstorp: Lego Management Profile Rework (book by 37 Signals): On AmazonTime Codes:(1:36) - Welcoming Andy Bass(1:56) - What kind of work do you do and how did you come to be doing it?(4:32) - How do you motivate groups of people?(6:45) - What is the difference between motivation and commitment?(13:12) - What was the exercise like to draw their commitment out?(14:58) - Do you then ask people if you’re on track with what you have put in for their head bubbles?(16:07) - Where does the communication need to come from to work?(17:34) - How does the CEO model connect to this?(18:32) - Can you tell us why you consider leaders as educators?(23:31) - What would it look like to create curiosity in a business setting?(28:17) - Does curiosity naturally flow toward exploration?(31:06) - As a leader or leadership team is our task to guide the curiosity flow until it’s taken ownership of? (32:30) - Are there any areas people get wrong when they start to implement this?(35:26) - Do we join in the blame culture or do we focus on solutions?(36:34) - How do military veterans handle situations differently?(42:27) - Can you talk to the philosophy of what works and using what you have amidst limited resources?(51:52) - Anything else you’d like to share?

Dr. Sunitha Chandy, Licensed Clinical Psychologist and Founder of Artesian Collaborative, returns to the show to talk about ways we can recover after expending all of our energy and resilience running life's great marathons (for example, coming out of a global pandemic). Mentioned in this EpisodeSunitha Chandy, PsyD is the lead trainer at Artesian Collaborative.  Reach out to learn more about corporate training.Listen to Dr. Chandy’s previous appearance on People Business.Time Codes:(1:33) Meet Dr. Sunitha Chandy(2:23) Emerging from the pandemic was a marathon, not a sprint (O’Brien’s experience)(4:30) Some people were struggling before the pandemic(5:43) How do we get back to baseline after something like a pandemic?(6:47) How was it for Dr. Chandy getting back to her first big event post-COVID?(7:18) What are our physiological needs, and how did the pandemic help us learn those limits?(9:05) What do grit and resiliency look like in the current circumstance?(10:34) What if I am not up to doing more hard things?(11:11) Self-reflection and self-doubt about our own grittiness during the pandemic(12:46) How do we refill the “resiliency tank”?(16:44) Ice bath/sauna; physical/mental reset (ask O’Brien for more details)(20:39) How can we reconnect with friends in a meaningful way?(23:23) What can we communicate intentionally with people we care about? (24:26) People are feeling disconnected (27:22) When is it time to stop ruminating and start pushing ourselves out of our comfort zone?(29:49) The importance of play

Todd Hlasney is the Director of Health Risk Solutions at Lockton where he and his team help companies build wellness programs that improve health and lower cost. In this episode, Todd shares best practices, how to make data actionable, and the ways to approach different segments of your employee base.  Mentioned in this Episode:Lockton Health Risk SolutionsTodd on LinkedInTopics:(2:21) - Introducing Todd Hlasney(3:28) - What is population health?(4:25) - Are the terms wellness and wellbeing interchangeable? (6:45) - Why would employers take responsibility for the health of their employees?(8:17) - Where does wellness start to be impactful for a company?(11:29) -  What are the types of health risks you are looking for and what are the interventions?(14:47) - What kind of ROI metrics, from a dollar standpoint, are you seeing and what are employers doing to get it?(18:23) - Is your group looking at blanketing across the 23-25% and creating strategies or are you getting hyper-specific on the high-cost claims?(24:55) - What are chronic conditions and what happens when you start to stack them?(27:19) - Can you explain "gaps in care" and how companies can close them?(30:31) - What does it look like in practice to get people to change their behavior?(33:29) - Is it fair to say that executive leadership drives the culture of the whole organization?(39:09) - Is there a way to get leadership on board with building up the company culture?(41:13) - Have you ever seen leadership roll out programs by using it only themselves first?(46:27) - What questions should employers be asking in order to build these programs?(50:26) - What are you sick of talking about?(52:19) - What are you most excited to be talking about?

Dr. Richard Safeer is the Chief Medical Director of Employee Health and Well-Being @ Johns Hopkins Medicine. He works to help leaders understand how to build cultures of health in their own organizations. He holds faculty appointments in both the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and the Bloomberg School of Public Health. His book, A Cure for the Common Company: A Well-Being Prescription for a Happier, Healthier, and More Resilient Workforce outlines a process companies and leaders can use to improve health across their own organizations. Mentioned in this Episode:A Cure for the Common Company by Richard Safeer - https://www.amazon.com/Cure-Common-Company-Well-Being-Prescription/dp/1119899966 Ten Minute Well Being Tips For Managers - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2_v8Jd-x-c4Extreme Ownership by Jocko Willink - https://www.amazon.com/Extreme-Ownership-U-S-Navy-SEALs-ebook/dp/B0739PYQSS/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=extreme+ownership&qid=1680479372&s=books&sprefix=extreme%2Cstripbooks%2C102&sr=1-1Breathe by James Nestor - https://www.amazon.com/Breath-New-Science-Lost-Art-ebook/dp/B0818ZZNLR/ref=sr_1_1?keywords=breath+james+nestor&qid=1680479398&s=books&sprefix=breath+jame%2Cstripbooks%2C94&sr=1-1Culture: It’s the Smell of the Place - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YgrD7yJwxAMTime Codes:(1:44) - Introducing Dr. Safeer.(3:05) - What does it mean for an individual to be healthy?(4:19) - What does it mean for an organization to be healthy?(5:37) - Is it an employer’s responsibility to cultivate a healthy company?(7:02) - What do you mean by taking a cultural approach?(8:12) - What is a subculture?(13:17) - How does this relate to subcultures?(14:20) - What makes a positive or a negative subculture?(16:07) -  Where does one start when trying to influence subcultures?(18:35) - What are the types of things I should be looking for in healthy or unhealthy subcultures?(25:31) - What is 4-7-8 breathing?(28:15) - What role does mental health play here?(31:27) - How important is 'connection' in relation to health and what does it look like in healthy organizations?(34:07) - Is socialization at work driven mostly by extroverted leaders?(37:21) - How should a leader approach changes that are needed?(42:31) -  How do we start moving culture in a healthy direction?