In this episode, we’re looking back on our previous conversations about challenges most organizations face and how to overcome them. We spoke with industry leaders including Presidents, Founders, and CEOs about the challenges of change management, showcasing vulnerability, and making moves towards building better workplaces.
Continue listening to learn more and see what tips you can adopt at your organization. We hear from the following leaders:
- Robert Kohlhepp, Former Chairman of Cintas
- Dr. Grace Lee, the CEO & Founder of Mastery Insights
- Ebony Smith, the President of Ebenum Equation
- Matt Thieleman, the Founder of Golden Bristle
It's no secret that workplace culture has undergone dramatic changes in the last couple of years, and is continuing to do so as we redefine what this means to us. In today's episode, we revisit our conversations with industry experts including Doctors, founders, Culture officers, and owners.
Listen to how we can design organizational culture to lead change, what it means to build a welcoming culture that supports Diversity, Inclusion, and Equity, and how you can build a culture based on relationships and not fear.
Our guest round-up today features:
- Jason Richmond, Founder and Chief Culture Officer of Ideal Outcomes
- Shayna Pond, the President of Model Teaching
- Dr. Steve Yacovelli, the Owner & Principal of TopDog Learning Group
- Dr. Grace Lee, CEO & Founder of Mastery Insights
Employee experience is often a topic that’s nebulous and hard to wrap your head around. It starts from the moment someone applies to an open position, and lasts till their departure from the company.
In today's episode, we share tips from past guests on how to enable trust, transparency, and meaningful work, so leaders like you can elevate the employee experience your organization offers. Hear from:
- Kevin Hancock, CEO of Hancock Lumber
- Megan Purday, the Marketing Manager of Canadian Payroll Services
- Peter Yawitz, Founder of Clear Communication
- Maryna Shkvorets, a Public Speaking & Communication Coach
What’s your relationship with change? Do you welcome it with open arms or avoid it like your worst fear?
If you’re Liz Lewinson, you seek it out as a way to grow and expand your life experience. Liz went from writing to television to computer science to finance IT, and is still looking for ways to change.
The one constant that prepares her for change is a still mind. By practicing some form of meditation, Liz believes we can surf through even the roughest life swells.
In a world that’s ever-changing, the more prepared we can be, the better. Liz shares her experiences of moving through big and small changes with curiosity.
She also talks about how a life of meditation has given her the tools to enjoy change as an energy boost, not a drain.
I’m certain Liz will help you approach change more wholeheartedly, starting with your mind.
Communication doesn't mean talking louder than your introverted peers. In today's episode, we return to our previous conversations with communication experts, some of whom are life coaches, managers, and CEOs. We tap into why it's important to improve communication in the workplace and how this affects relationships and collaboration. We also explore the ways to do communication right.
Join us to unpack how workplace harmony isn't just about being nice, and other facets of this intricate topic. We hear from the following guests:
- Libby Robinson, Managing Partner at Integral
- Dr. Nicole Tschierske, positive psychology coach
- Dan Manian, Co-founder and CEO of Donut
- Catherine Gillespie, Managing Director of Workplace Harmony Solutions and Workplace Conflict Resolution
Stress is part of daily life, even more so with the ripple effects of the global pandemic, social injustice, and political unrest. While there’s a lot swirling around all of us, shaking us to the core some days, we can manage this stress.
Nicole Mixdorf has experienced the damaging effects of stress firsthand. She left her corporate career that was literally making her sick from stress, and started a wellness business to help busy professionals take care of themselves.
Nicole helps her clients understand their own stress response, and then teaches them how to take control of it. Whatever the cause of the stress, the first step to getting in the driver’s seat usually involves taking a deep breath.
Doing this not only gives us space between stimulus and response, it helps introduce more oxygen to the brain (70% in fact!) and that opens us up to be more calm, receptive, creative, and in control of our own emotions and physical state.
In this episode of People at Work, Nicole talks about a few simple tools that she uses to control stress, and turn each chronic stress state into an opportunity. Nicole leads us through a breathing exercise (bonus content!) and her key tips on how to change your mindset to “what can I do?” versus “what can’t I do?” when faced with stressful situations.
If you’re listening for yourself, Nicole’s simple approach will help you immediately. If you’re listening as a leader trying to help your team cope with stress, Nicole’s here for you too with thoughts on how best to support your people. Either way, just breathe.
Building trust and fostering growth in your direct reports fall under the responsibility of any leader. Yes, it's a challenging job to master. So let’s hear from these experts on how to hone your leadership skills and support the emotional wellness of your employees.
Listen to the following leaders and learn more about their successful strategies:
- Anthony Vaughan, Founder of The E1B2 Collective
- Jeff Melnyk and Laurie Bennett, the founding partners of Within People
- Lisa Fain, CEO of The Center for Mentoring Excellence
- Dr. Bruno Cignacco, Training Consultant of Human Oriented Enterprise
When a podcast guest says “This isn’t a fairytale”, I buckle up because I know we’re in for an interesting and useful conversation.
In today’s People at Work episode, Gonçalo Silva, CTO at Doist, tells the story of this fully remote company’s growth and culture journey over the past decade.
Even though Doist is doing a lot right, there are still obstacles in their way and a team to take care of from afar. Oh, and did I mention they’ve also had to adapt to cope during the pandemic? Granted, they’ve had a head start with the remote work gig, but the struggle has been real for them too.
The hero in the story is trust. Everything they do, how they work, how they make decisions, centers on trust. The success of their asynchronous, remote, fully distributed team depends on this.
This interview is real and refreshing, with many insights that can help those of us adapting our workforces to fully remote or hybrid arrangements. Give it a listen and let me know how you enjoyed the ride.
About our guest:
Gonçalo is the CTO of Doist, working remotely on Todoist and Twist. He’s obsessed with building the future he wants to work in, where location is irrelevant to being part of a highly productive team. He loves to work odd hours, but wonders if there’s even such a thing within a fully distributed team.
You can connect with Gonçalo Silva on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/gon%C3%A7alo-silva-006748171/, Twitter @goncalossilva, or Youtube at youtube.com/user/DoistApps
It's fair to say that the working world has undergone a ton of changes over the past two years. Amongst the most impactful is definitely the shift to remote and hybrid work. Let's revisit the major learnings from these pivots, and how we can re-imagine the workplace of the future.
Tune in to learn more about what two years of remote work have taught our guests and how to transition to better hybrid collaboration.
In today's episode, we look back on the insight from our expert guests, including:
- Cathryn Lavery, Cofounder and CEO of BestSelf Co
- Ryan Malone, CEO and Founder of SmartBug Media
- Vicki Yang, VP of People Operations of Bonusly
- Rachel Lanham, the Chief Customer Officer of Voodle
- JJ Caffrey, Founder and CEO of OrderIn
Employee departures are disruptive in any company. Whenever an employee resigns, they leave a gaping hole in a team. And they take their institutional knowledge, contribution to culture, and other skills with them.
Since the pandemic, talent is flocking in droves for various reasons. The great resignation has leaders, CEOs, and managers asking: what can we do about it and what does it teach us about the working world? From prioritizing communication in the workplace to ensuring employee and company value alignment, our guests go in-depth about why employees are leaving and share insights on how to retain your best people.
In today's episode, we look back on the insight from our expert guests, including:
- Yair Riemer, the CEO of Intoo
- Molly Bruttomesso, the Senior VP of Customer Success at Wunderkind
- Joe Mullings, the Chairman & CEO of The Mullings Group Companies
If the pandemic has afforded us anything, it’s a fresh perspective on a major part of our lives: work. Where we do it, how it’s measured, what we’re prepared to put up with, and how we expect bosses to behave (I could go on).
Happiness at work expert Aoife O’Brien advocates for a fresh perspective on work itself, and where it fits in our lives. With her research and personal work experiences, she believes we shouldn’t embrace work and life, work-life balance, or any other way to stitch those two parts together.
Instead, let’s simply think about life, and all the parts and contributors in that experience. This helps us make smarter decisions about what we want from our lives, what success means to us, and how we choose to spend our time.
Listen in on how Aoife suggests we can achieve happiness when we adopt this mindset. We also talk about how organizations can make a shift to whole person support structures, and the role that individuals play in their own happiness, wherever they find themselves.
Link to our Blog: https://blog.jostle.me/blog/people-at-work/aoifeobrien
About our guest:
Aoife O’Brien is a Happiness at Work expert. Her background is in data analytics in the CPG market research industry, and now she uses her strengths to help organisations to increase culture-fit to create happier working environments where employees flourish. Aoife has lived and worked in several countries and has travelled to all 7 continents, mostly independently, with camera in hand!
You can contact Aoife on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/aoifemobrien, on Twitter at @HappieratWorkHQ, and on Instagram at @happieratwork.ie.
Resources:
Imposter to Empowered ebook https://www.impostersyndrome.ie/pl/2147526113
Don’t worry, this isn’t another blog post bemoaning the reality of the great resignation. It’s very well understood that we’re facing more turnover thanks to the pandemic. Now it’s time to talk about how we can avoid a revolving door of talent.
Yair Reimer believes the strongest strategy to keep people engaged and active in your organization is to communicate. And realize that over-communication is impossible. For Yair, communication includes clearly sharing company updates, asking for feedback, listening, encouraging everyone to speak up, and training leaders and managers to ask hard questions.
In this episode of People at Work, Yair shares what he’s putting into practice at Intoo, to create a workplace culture where people want to stay and contribute. Beyond communication, it’s about finding joy in the day-to-day and treating everyone like equal, whole human beings.
About our guest:
As a CEO of Intoo, Yair helps global companies increase retention by developing the potential of their people, transforming performance, and transitioning skills. Yair once attracted over 75k applicants with 1 job advert in less than a week.
You can connect with Yair on LinkedIn
Resources:
Learning about leadership on the front lines of armed conflict is an extreme way to get clear on what matters when leading people. As a former US Army Special Forces Commander, Sean Patton understands what it means to be a quality leader, because his life (and those around him) depended on it.
Being a quality leader means taking a whole person approach. In the average workplace on any given day, it may not feel mission critical to be a quality leader. But, Sean believes we need to think about quality leadership as the determining factor in a business thriving or failing.
In this episode of People at Work, Sean talks about how he’s adapted his military experience into the corporate world. He outlines what he believes quality leaders need to embody, and why each of us needs to be a quality leader in every aspect of our lives, all the time.
About our guest:
Sean helps clients create more fulfilling and profitable futures through mindset mastery and servant leadership development. He’s a Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu Black Belt and 2019 Masters World Champion!
You can connect with Sean on Instagram, Facebook, and LinkedIn
Resources:
Too often we don’t do something for fear of making a mistake. Taking action on DEI is a good example of this. We’re afraid to misstep, alienate, exclude or worse, do exactly what we’re trying to avoid.
But that shouldn’t stop us from taking steps, even small, uncomfortable ones towards creating more inclusive and psychologically safe work environments. That’s why Bernadette Smith encourages little changes, a lot of the time.
When we break things down, and improve our infrastructure, relationships, habits, rituals, and cultures, one step at a time, we quickly impact the whole. Bernadette talks on People at Work about how to do this with her simple ARC method: ask, respect, connect.
When we arrive with humility and curiosity, we’re able to make progress, even if we make mistakes along the way. The key is to keep the momentum up and collect little wins along the way.
How do you know what people feel about working in your organization? Better question still, when was the last time you asked them? I’m not talking about annual engagement or pulse surveys. Those might have their place, but they’re not the tool to truly get to grips with what’s going on for people in your organization.
The best way to do that is through stay interviews. Angie Bergner has been conducting quarterly stay interviews with every employee at Veris Insights long before the pandemic. It’s her most critical lever to understanding how people are doing at an individual level, as well as what’s emerging as issues or victories at the team and organization levels.
Angie joins People at Work to share why and how she does stay interviews. This is an excellent primer on key components, things to consider, lessons learned, and most importantly, how to use what you hear to take action.
While stay interviews aren’t going to solve every problem (or stop people from leaving), you’ll get ahead of things by knowing what’s going on, and being honest about what you can improve. Regardless how long people stay with your company, it’s the experience they have while they’re there that counts. For that to be positive, open communication is critical.
About our guest:
Angie is a people leader committed to bettering the world of work at all levels. Her approach to coaching, whether individuals or organizations, is to unlock everyone’s growth mindset. Angie approaches every person, session, and workshop through the lens of DEI and the lens of long-term impact.
You can connect with Angie on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/angiebergner/ and find her coaching work at angiebergner.com.
You don’t often hear gratitude for younger generations at work. But I say thank goodness for their fresh perspectives, desire for transparency, and constant desire to better themselves and their circumstances. This will ultimately make workplaces and leaders better.
But how do we retain and manage young people against the context of The Great Resignation, so that they stay with us and add to our workplace cultures and their own growth?
Molly Bruttomesso thinks about this every day. At Wunderkind, she’s building a culture that accepts that people don’t stay as long as they used to. Instead of bemoaning this, Molly and her team are structuring the way they work to embrace the best of everyone, and help prepare them for their next best thing.
In this episode of People at Work, Molly talks about how this involves intentional career pathing, robust values alignment, learning opportunities, asking for ideas, and acting on feedback… and much more.
Most of us are challenged with the revolving door of people at the moment. If you want to hear some down to earth actions on how to keep people, even for the shortest time, take a listen. You’ll also want to take a look at your culture and make sure that it’s not hastening people out the door. Molly has some tips for that too.
About our guest:
Molly leads the Customer Success and Client Partnerships teams that drive extreme value and maximum performance across the 350+ E-commerce clients. Molly began the movement of the rock t-shirt and blazer as the new tech casual. Move over gray t-shirts.
You can contact Molly on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/molly-bruttomesso-535a393/.
Very few people raise their hand and volunteer to do the tasks nobody else wants to do. But Robert Kohlhepp did just that. He started at Cintas 50 years ago with 60-odd employees and finished his career there with over 40,000 people. Robert has seen Cintas grow through its ups and downs, making his many years of experience and advice so much more valuable.
Robert believes establishing compatibility, facing conflict head on, and being direct helps bring a company’s culture to life. Much like a marriage, a company’s principle objective, corporate characteristics, and management style need to be compatible with the individual in order to create value.
Treating your customers and employees right while maintaining professionalism are some of the things that seem to be forgotten about in the midst of the constantly changing work environments.
Listen on for some tips on the essentials of building an effective corporate culture and how to retain employees in this new world of work that we’re in.
About our guest:
Robert J. Kohlhepp is the Retired Chairman of Cintas Corporation. He joined Cintas in July 1967 as controller. Over a span of 50 years with Cintas, he was promoted to positions of General Manager, Vice President and Treasurer, Executive Vice President, President, and CEO, then served as Vice-Chair and Board Chair until retiring in 2016. Additionally, Kohlhepp has served on several association, corporation, nonprofit, and university boards.
Resources:
Book: Build A Better Organization
Working from home can get monotonous, so how about changing it up once in a while? VEL is a hyper-localized tech-forward coffee shop concept supporting a hybrid workforce. Here you can work in a transactional setting and be more efficient while co-working.
Mo Hamzian, Co-Founder & CEO of VEL, took his love for working at coffee shops and turned that into a work experience that offers flexible privacy and psychological safety. It gives you the opportunity to experience the energy of other people working in the same space as you.
Mo joins us to chat about what the future of the workplace looks like. Are there better alternatives? What are the benefits of co-working vs. working from home?
The nature of workplaces has been shifting and will continue to do so. Mo encourages you to discover how you think about work itself. Do you go to a gym because of the equipment or does it depend on the ability to customize what fitness goals suit you? At VEL, more than renting a co-working space, technology, and snacks, they focus on selling a productive work experience.
The transition from a disrupted workforce back to “normal” is slow for a reason. Mo believes that hybrid, flexible, dedicated co-working spaces are here to stay as employees crave more interesting and supportive ways and places to work.
About our guest:
Mo is a London Business School Sloan Fellow and the co-founder & CEO of VEL, a premium utopian tech-forward work cafe. An established leader with 20 years of experience in nearly all things business. Mo excels at building businesses and creating value. He has successfully exited projects with a total value of over $150M.
You can contact Mo on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/mohamzian/.
Have you heard anyone say “I love that learning platform”? No? EdApp is here to change just that through their constant functional learning.
EdApp is a workplace learning tool that delivers bite-sized education while maintaining high levels of engagement. CEO and Founder, Darren Winterford, identified that e-learning was broken and that COVID played a role in accelerating that because of how disconnected people are.
However, the increased usage of smartphones in workplaces is providing the perfect opportunity for microlearning. Imagine if a push notification asked you for 5 minutes of your time to give you a refresher on your sales training. Way better than a 90 minute video taking you through the whole process, right?
Changing attitudes towards content creation, consumption, channels, and adoption of learning material is key to harnessing the power of microlearning. The old way of learning in organizations isn’t effective: it’s not engaging, it’s inaccessible, and it doesn’t help people learn.
Listen to Darren speak about why enforcing a continuous learning culture through microlearning within your organization is essential in order to be successful.
About our guest:
Darren Winterford, CEO and founder of EdApp, has extensive experience building mobile apps and pushing the boundaries of innovation. As a pioneer in the microlearning space, EdApp's teams are established in Sydney, London, Manila, and New York.
You can contact Darren on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/darrenwinterford/.
Resources:
http://linkedin.com/in/edapp-micro-learning
http://twitter.com/thisisedapp
Remember the black squares on Instagram showing support of Black Lives Matter? What action took hold after companies proclaimed to care about DEI in the workplace? Even though awareness has likely increased, meaningful change is in short supply.
That’s what’s driving LaTonya Wilkins to get below the surface with leaders. Leaders have a critical role to play in shifting workplaces (and society at large) towards deeper inclusion and caring about diversity. Unless we get to the core of change, we’ll see little progress for DEI.
LaTonya chats to me about why we should be skeptical about what’s been done, what mechanisms we can use to change from the core, and what’s helping and hindering DEI as we shift to hybrid workplaces. If you’re trying to get past the DEI checkboxes and external posturing in your workplace, this is the podcast episode for you.
About our guest:
As the founder of Change Coaches and author of Leading Below the Surface, LaTonya helps organizations create cultures of belonging and motivating environments while amplifying the “only ones” at work so they feel more valued, heard, and engaged.
You can contact our guest on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/latonyawilkins/, on Facebook at facebook.com/LaTonyaWilkinsCoachSpeaker, on Twitter at @LaTonyaWilkins, and on Instagram at @latonyacoaching.
Resources:
Learn more about and purchase Leading Below the Surface at leadingbelowthesurface.com.