Great Leadership With Jacob Morgan

Bob Chapman is the CEO of Barry-Wehmiller, a global supplier of manufacturing technology and services with over 12,000 employees. Bob was named the #3 CEO in the world by Inc. Magazine and Barry-Wehmiller is studied by business schools and organizations around the world because of their unique culture and Bob’s truly human leadership style. 

I have had the pleasure of speaking with Bob on many occasions. I had him on the podcast back in 2015, I interviewed him for my book, The Future Leader, and I interviewed him for my online leadership course. Bob truly cares about his people and he feels personally responsible for every single one of them. 

He is passionate about truly human leadership, but that hasn’t always been the case. When he first started his career, he led in a more traditional way and stuck to what he learned throughout his MBA journey. But Bob says he had three revelations back in 1997 that “awakened his senses to a higher calling in business”. 

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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Three revelations that changed Bob’s leadership style

Starting back in 1997 Bob experienced three events that caused him to shift his view on leadership and led him to think about how business could be the most powerful force of good in the world if leaders simply cared about the people they have the privilege of leading.

The first event occurred when Bob traveled to a company in South Carolina that Barry-Wehmiller had acquired. He arrived at the office very early and he was grabbing a cup of coffee as the employees arrived. They had no idea who he was so he was able to observe them, and as they were coming in they were talking about March Madness, who won the most money, what teams had won, etc… and people were happy and casual. But the closer the clock got to 8:00am, the more and more serious they got. Bob said he could literally see the fun draining out of their faces. And over time as Bob kept thinking about that moment he tried to figure out why work couldn’t be fun. Why do we go through our work week thinking “I can’t wait until Friday so I can get out of this place”. 

Since then he has worked to find things that aligned value creation with fun inside his own organization.

The second event happened one Sunday as he was leaving his church and he realized the pastor only had the congregation in front of them for one hour a week, but as business leaders we have employees in front of us 40 hours a week. And Bob realized what an impact business leaders could have if they took time to care about their people and impact their communities. 

The third event was when Bob was attending a wedding and he saw the father walking his daughter down the aisle to her future husband. And the father smiled and said “I give my daughter to be married to this man” and he looked at his daughter proudly and hugged her and then went to sit by his wife. But Bob, who has walked his own daughters down the aisle, realized that’s not what the father really wanted to say. He really wanted to tell the man “this is my beloved daughter and you better take care of her and never hurt her”. He realized that every father and mother loves their precious children and they want what’s best for them. And at that moment it hit him that every one of his 12,000 employees is someone's precious child. Their parents want them to lead lives of meaning and purpose and joy, and that is the responsibility of leaders inside of organizations. 

What to do if upper management doesn’t lead in a truly human way

Barry-Wehmiller is doing a lot of unique things because of Bob’s truly human leadership style. They don’t do headcounts, they do heart counts, they have training on empathetic listening, employees feel safe because they know their leader cares about them. 

But what if you are a mid-level or entry-level leader inside of an organization and upper management doesn’t hold these same views? Bob has been asked this question before and he likes to think of it as a scene from the Wizard of Oz. Dorothy, the tin man, the lion, and the scarecrow are all in search of something they need and so they go to see the wizard to get what they need. It turns out the wizard is just a wise old man, but he tells them they already have what they need, they just need to use the gifts they have.

You don’t need permission from upper management to be a better leader and put your people first. You just need to embrace these philosophies and live them out. And it’s possible that as you start to lead this way others around you will take notice and make changes themselves. But you can definitely start with yourself. 

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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Two pieces of advice from Bob’s long career as a leader

Bob has been a leader for several decades and over the course of his career he has learned a lot. Two of the biggest things he has learned along the way are:

  1. There is no relationship between what something costs and what it’s worth
  2. Everybody that works for you is someone’s precious child that has been placed in your care

He also believes that leaders need to be grounded optimists that provide their people with hope. Your people need to be able to put their faith in you and know you won’t let them down. 

 

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob



Direct download: Audio_-_Bob_Chapman_-_Ready_-_V2.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:16am PDT

You need to view working at your company just like being in a relationship.

Whenever you're in a relationship, you're inevitably presented with a choice. Do you keep the relationship going? Is it something that you turn into a long-term relationship?

If you decide you want to fight for that relationship, then you have to fight like hell to make it work. Are you going to overcome the obstacles and work on the problems you're faced with? Then you have to do everything you can.

Working for an organization is the exact same thing. Are you going to try to make things work? Or are you going to jump ship?

Whether you are in a personal or a professional relationship, it is the same thing. You need to decide if it's a relationship worth fighting for. And if it is, fight like hell to make it work.

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

 

Direct download: Being_In_A_Relationship_Is_Like_Working_For_A_Company.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:24am PDT

I recently shared an image on LinkedIn on the evolution of the employee, and it went bonkers; like it went completely viral. It became the most popular thing that I have ever shared on LinkedIn. It's fascinating because this is something I wrote about in 2014 and the whole concept was looking at how employees are changing and how the idea of employees is changing. And even though I wrote about it in 2014, it was manifesting slower--than Covid hit, and suddenly, this became a reality.

It’s important to go through this evolution so that you can understand what you need to do as a leader, what you need to do as an organization, or even what you need to be doing and thinking about it as an individual contributor.

In the past, employees were working nine to five and we’ve had an evolution towards working anytime. The idea of working nine to five and setting 32 or 40 hours a week is a concept that is probably almost 100 years old.

And why are the hours after five o'clock designated for personal time? I think technology has been the great equalizer here. Because technology allows us to stay connected to work anytime, anywhere, on any device. So, we're moving away from this concept of work-life balance to work-life integration.

The whole concept here is that work-life integration is about you, as an employee, deciding how you should be working, what makes the most sense for you. If you want to work nine to five, and that's how you choose to spend your time, hey, more power to you. So, it's my choice. It's my freedom. It's my flexibility. This is what work-life integration is all about. The challenge is you need to set boundaries, working anytime efficiently. But it would help if you also were more accountable and responsible for shutting off. This means having self-awareness and paying attention to if you're getting burned out.

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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The next one that goes very much in parallel with this is this concept of the past. The past is working in the corporate office and the future is working anywhere. But for organizations that want more, they want to grow, they want to scale, they want to identify complex problems, they want to identify unique opportunities, they want to move beyond just getting stuff done. In that kind of environment, there is still a lot of room for improvement.

We're not just talking about productivity; we're not just talking about getting things done. We're talking about going beyond that. Tackling complex challenges, identifying new opportunities, creating trust, and psychological safety, being influential leaders, if we want to take it one step further. And you know what, there is still very much a place for in-person work. I do believe that, and guess what? All the executives that I've been interviewing think that now that role for in-person work doesn't mean that you're going to be in an office nine to five. It might mean you show up for a couple of hours a day or it might mean you show up once or twice a week--it might mean any number of things. That's what workplace flexibility is all about. 

Work is no longer a place that you go to work, it is something that you carry with you; You can pretty much get anything done on your smartphone or on a laptop that you can take with you. So, technology is pushing this forward. So that's another significant evolution that we're seeing.

The third way is moving away from using company equipment towards using the device. We're very much moving towards a world where people are using their own devices to get work done. And not only their own devices, but they're finding their software. Suppose your organization offers software that employees believe is tedious and time-consuming, ineffective, and inefficient, and it's not beautiful, helpful, and valuable. Why aren't you going to use it? We're moving away from having to use company-sanctioned hardware towards the employees using their laptops, their phones, using their cameras, their microphone, and anything else they need. Give employees access to tools and platforms that emulate the things you're using for personalized use like Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, and Google and all these other easy-to-use platforms; it should be just as easy to get stuff done inside of our organizations as it is to do things in our personal lives. 

The next one is the past is focused on inputs. Does your manager see you at your desk doing work, completing tasks? We're moving away from that and concentrating now on the outputs. What have you done? Would you instead that employee be working somewhere else, let's say working from home, if they are able to put four hours in,  but the work that they're doing is impressive. It's high-quality work; they're used to their job, they're coming to work each day with new ideas and opportunities, they are doing a fantastic job. That's the mentality that we need to have. And that's the visual that I want you to have. It's not the time that matters, it's the quality of work. So, this is a significant shift that we're seeing, moving from inputs to focusing more on outputs,

The next one is moving away from climbing the corporate ladder to building your ladder. The exciting thing with creating your ladder is that technology, again, has made this the great equalizer. Because what I mean by creating your ladder, I suggest that you can shape your career path and your trajectory in the size of your organization. 

One of the ways you can do that is through technology, by participating in relevant conversations, joining employee resource groups that are relevant to you seeking out opportunities pertinent to your organization that are tangential to what you're currently working on. But if you want to be able to create your ladder, part of what that means is that you need to step up, you need to let your voice be heard, you need to use these technologies that are out there, to speak up, you need to participate in the employee resource groups that are out there, all of this is going to be essential for you if you want to create that corporate ladder. 

We're starting to see that a lot of leaders wish to do this. They want you to speak up, they want you to give them feedback, they want you to let them know what you care about and what you value, you can very much start to shape your ladder. Now employees have more power than they ever did before. An organization does not want to lose people; it would much rather keep you in transition into another role that you would find more suitable for the work that you're doing. So take advantage of the opportunity. Speak up if you're in a position and don't want to keep climbing that corporate ladder.

The next one that we have here is predefined work to customize work. When I say customized work, this is a lot based on the technologies that we're using, the resource groups, your ability to speak up inside of your organization, your ability to let people know what you're interested in and what you care about. And now, what I think we're starting to see, especially with this concept of employee experience, it's the organization acknowledging and saying, we're not going to tell you what to do. We're not going to create the work for you, we're going to design it with you. So, you tell us, what do you care about? What are your values? What do you get out of it? What's your purpose? And so we're starting to see a lot of customization on work based on employees speaking up and based on employees using the different technologies that are out there.

The next one after this is moving away from hoarding information to sharing information. Today, we're seeing this massive shift, where the employees help others get recognized and rewarded. If the people share their ideas, identify new opportunities, or tackle complex challenges, they get rewarded. Technology, again, has been an essential factor in this because it's easy for us to share information across anytime, anywhere, and on any device. That will make you more successful inside of your organization.

We're starting to see a move away from this idea of not having a voice inside of your organization and a move towards the idea that anybody can become a leader inside your company. So now you have a tremendous voice. You have immense power and responsibility, and we're moving towards creating a place where anybody can become a leader. A leader is not a title that is bestowed upon you. A leader is a mindset. It's a skill set. The future Leader is about helping make other people more successful than you. It's about thinking like a futurist having a growth mindset. You don't need permission from other people to do these things. You can do these things yourself. Anybody now can become a leader inside of an organization, you have that voice, use that voice. Don't ask for permission; ask for forgiveness.

The next one is moving away from relying on email to relying on collaboration technologies. Now, I'm not saying that email will completely disappear or vanish because I don't think it will. But email used to be the primary form of communicating and collaborating inside of an organization. Look at the number of tools and resources we have at our disposal to communicate and collaborate. We have Zoom meetings and so many different platforms and channels at our disposal.

The next one is moving away from focusing on knowledge to adaptive learning. And really what this means is not being a knowledge worker but being a learning worker. You need to learn how to learn; you must become a learning machine. Now, the good news is today you have access to YouTube, Coursera, Udemy, Khan Academy and so many different tools and resources are out there, there is no excuse for why you cannot learn anything that you need to know to be personally or professionally successful. It would help if you learned how to learn, take things into your own hands, don't wait for anybody else to tell you what you need to know. Organizations will say, look, we're going to help you as best as we can. But ultimately, you are going to be responsible for your growth, your trajectory, and your future.

And the last one is about corporate learning and training. In the past, anything that you wanted to know you'd have to sign up for a seminar or a training program and you would have to wait a few weeks or months. So corporate education and training are seeing a significant evolution. Part of what we're starting to see is that anybody is a teacher, and anybody can be a student. In other words, as a company, you can't assume that you are responsible for all education and training; you need to do a better job of connecting your people. Let them educate and train each other.

This is the evolution of the employee. And this is what I think we're starting to see much more of in organizations around the world.

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Direct download: Audio_-_Special_-_Nov_22_-_Ready_-_V2.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:14am PDT

Are you an implementer or an owner?

According to Kate Johnson, president of Microsoft U.S., an implementer is somebody who takes somebody else's vision and actions and implements it. Implementers typically give the accountability and responsibility to somebody else.

An owner is somebody who sets the vision and course of action. They provide clarity on the outcome and how a team or organization can achieve that outcome. Owners also take on the accountability and their responsibility without passing it off to someone else.

If you want to become an owner at your organization, you need to be more accountable for driving change. Volunteer for the tough projects that nobody else wants to take on. Be more humble and vulnerable when it comes to making mistakes and learning from them. And think of where you can create value inside of your organization and as a part of your team.

Implementers keep the ship running. But owners change the world. We need both, which one are you?

 

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Direct download: Are_You_An_Implementor_Or_An_Owner.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 1:52am PDT

As 2021 ends, I wanted to look back at some of the best leadership advice we heard from our guests over the last year and a half. I interview around 50 guests every year, and I've had the privilege of speaking with many great leaders around the world; these are some of my favorite conversations. 

I have picked out some short clips from my interviews with five past guests. These leaders have brought their companies & their people through the pandemic and all the changes that came with it, and they have continued to thrive despite all the challenges they faced.

I hope you enjoy looking back at parts of these conversations and the lessons we can learn from these leaders. 

Mark Lashier is the CEO of CPChem, a company that produces petrochemicals and plastics with 5,000 employees worldwide. Chevron owns 50% of the company, and Phillips owns 50%. Mark has served in leadership roles at Chevron Phillips Chemical and Phillips Petroleum for three decades. 

Mark explains that being an effective leader entails building trust, showing transparency, and simplifying your employee's workload. It is critically important that all our leaders demonstrate the behaviors of trust, transparency, and simplicity every day; we talk a lot about that as leaders.  

"People are incredibly perceptive. If they smell something inconsistent, they're not going to buy it, and they're going to say, okay, you say you want trust, but you're not exhibiting trust," he says.  

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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Shellye Archambeau is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based governance, risk, and compliance software company, and the author of the new book, Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Terms. She also serves on the boards of Verizon, Nordstrom, Roper Technologies, and Okta.

In our conversation Shellye explained that creating your luck is positioning yourself so that when an opportunity shows up, you can take advantage of it, and it is just as vital that you make sure you let people know what you're doing. 

Tell them your job title and explain what you are responsible for in your job.  

David Cote is the former Chairman and CEO of Honeywell and author of the bestselling book, Winning Now, Winning Later: How Companies Can Succeed in the Short Term While Investing for the Long Term. During his time at Honeywell, David fixed a toxic work culture and grew the company's market capitalization from around 20 billion to 120 billion, delivering returns of 800%. Currently, David is Executive Chairman of Vertiv Holdings Co, a global data center products and services provider. He is a member of the Aspen Economic Strategy Group on Foreign Relations and the Conference of Montreal.

David explains how he defines leadership and his advice on how to lead in tough times. 

If we do the right things in the middle of a tough time, that will cause us to come out of a much stronger company than our competitors. And the advice that I give to people is don't panic and make sure that you keep thinking independently. Never forget to put your customer first, don't let customer service suffer in any way. Lastly, start thinking about the recovery, even while you're in the middle of the recession.

A good leader finds a way to take at least a couple hours a week to put their head above the fray and look around and say, okay, all these short-term actions, I'm assuming, is it going to make a difference for where I'm trying to go for the long term? Is it consistent with what I'm trying to do, and if It's not, what do I do differently so that it will be? Those are the people who will do well going into the recovery and truly establish themselves.

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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Rita McGrath is a professor at Columbia Business School and bestselling author of the book, Seeing Around Corners: How to Spot Inflection Points in Business Before They Happen. In 2020, she was ranked #5 on the Thinkers50 list for her work in strategy, innovation, and entrepreneurship and for being a champion of harnessing disruptive influences for competitive advantage. She is widely recognized as a leading expert on leading innovation and growth during times of uncertainty.

Seeing Around Corners opens your mind to possibilities that are now made real because of a strategic inflection point. It's more about expanding the range of options that you're considering and then really being prepared to challenge your assumptions. And I think that's really where the seeing around corners part is so valuable. If you think about it, any business grows up with a set of assumptions about what's possible and what's not. And what an inflection point does is it changes the nature of those assumptions.

Chris McCann is the CEO of 1-800-Flowers, a floral and gourmet food gift retailer, and distribution company with over 3000 employees. The company was started back in 1976 when Chris' older brother opened his first flower shop. In the 1980s, Chris joined his brother in the business, and they have been working together ever since.

In our discussion, Chris talked about what he learned from other leaders he came to know, including CEO of JP Morgan, Jamie Dimon, and the former CEO of AXA Financial, Ed Miller. He also talked about the crucial things he has learned about leading in turbulent times.

Chris explains two of the most critical leadership skills in communication and visibility. The need to step up communication so that the people in your company know that you're on top of things and you're looking out for their best interest is critical.

Also, a key component to leading in turbulent times is re-emphasizing the vision of your company, your values, your mission. By focusing and constantly reminding people of our job and our vision to inspire human expression, connection, and celebration. And tying everything we do back to the company vision gives employees a sense of normalcy.

WHAT YOU WILL LEARN IN THIS EPISODE   

  • How to lead with Trust, Transparency, and Simplicity
  • How you can own your luck and create your own success
  • How to Lead in Tough Times
  • Leading Innovation and Growth during times of uncertainty

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Direct download: audio_-_Special_Episode_-_15._November_-_Ready.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 12:09am PDT

I was able to witness first-hand the difference between empathy and sympathy.

Before COVID, I spoke at a lot of events. I had the opportunity to speak at two financial institutions several months apart.

When I went to the first company, I saw one of the executives get approached by a new employee. She introduced herself and told the executive that she was really nervous. She was given big responsibilities and didn’t know if she could handle it.

The senior leader said, “I’m sorry you feel that way, but don’t worry about it, I’m sure you will be fine.”

A couple of months later, I went to the second financial institution and the same thing happened. A new employee approached a senior leader and told him that she was nervous and not sure she could do the job.

The senior leader said, “I remember feeling the same way when I first started working here.” Then he told her all the things he did to overcome those fears and ended the conversation with, “If you ever need any help, please come to me directly.”

This is what empathy looks like. This is exactly what leaders need to practice inside of their company every day.

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Direct download: This_is_What_Empathy_Looks_Like.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 12:10am PDT

Celeste Headlee is an award-winning journalist, bestselling author, and speaker. Her TEDx talk has over 26 million views. Her books include Do Nothing: How to Break Away From Overworking, Overdoing, and Underliving and Speaking of Race: Why Everyone Needs to Talk About Race--And How To Do It. 

Celeste is a 25-year veteran of public broadcasting. She was a host on NPR and she has also been on PBS and PRI. And during this time in her career she really started researching and figuring out how to have better conversations and how to interview well, that’s when she realized most people are not good at informal conversations--especially difficult ones on topics such as race and politics. 

She gave a TED Talk on that topic and it went viral so she wrote a book on the same theme titled, We Need To Talk: How To Have Conversations That Matter. The TED Talk really changed her life and led her down the career path she is on today.

Why we struggle to truly rest

There is a quote from Bertand Russell that Celeste included in her book, Do Nothing and it is such a great quote.

“It will be said that while a little leisure is pleasant, men would not know how to fill their days if they had only four hours of work out of twenty four. In so far as this is true in the modern world it is a condemnation of our civilization; it would not have been true at any earlier period. There was formerly a capacity for lightheartedness and play which has been to some extent inhibited by the cult of efficiency. The modern man thinks that everything ought to be done for the sake of something else, and never for its own sake.”

So many of us, myself included, have a hard time taking time away from work, resting, and not thinking about what else we have to get done. Celeste says for the longest time she felt the same way too. The to-do list in her head was never complete and she would justify working until 10 o’clock at night so that she could “get ahead”. But the problem was she never got ahead, the list kept getting longer and never emptied. So what was the point of working so late?

We tend to think that people going back through history have always worked hard, and they did, but they also knew how to have balance. Something that we struggle with. Celeste says this all changed with the Industrial Revolution. Before the Industrial Revolution people worked half the year, or maybe less. Even the lowest ranking people had time off. They spent a week celebrating a wedding. After the harvest was done, they took a week or more to reward themselves for the hard work they accomplished with a festival. People, even serfs, had some land, they made their own tools, they were capable of taking care of themselves.

During the Industrial Revolution people moved to the cities to work in the factories and for the first time in history time equaled money. That is when the obsession with efficiency and productivity started. And this is something we still focus on today---it’s all about the hustle culture--the more you work supposedly the more successful you are. 

But the truth is people who work around 50 hours a week only make between 6-9% more than someone working 40 hours or less. So there really isn’t a huge financial gain to working excessively. 

Celeste shares that actually people who take all of their vacation time every year are more likely to get promoted and have a higher salary than those who don’t take their vacation time. So, as she states, long hours are literally counterproductive. 

When you work more hours you are more apt to make mistakes, you're much more likely to be irritable and tired, and it often leads to an unhealthy lifestyle that leads to heart attacks, strokes, etc…

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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How to stop overworking

For those of you reading this and thinking that you would like to work less and take care of yourself more, Celeste has a few tips on how to start.

The first thing you have to do is track your time. Most of the time your perception of the time you are using to do a certain task or job is not reality. When you track your time you will see how much time you are actually losing on certain things.

Once you figure out where you are losing time, work on fixing it. Maybe you don’t realize you spend 3 hours a day checking social media. Or maybe you spend a lot of free time shopping online for things you don’t end up buying.

Celeste came to the realization that her grandmother was far more productive, engaged, and active than she is without all of the modern tools we have to cut down the time it takes to do things. We have vacuums that can run on their own, we have dishwashers, clothing washers & dryers, we have microwaves, etc…And yet without those things Celeste’s grandmother was a member of social clubs, she worked in her garden, she wrote books, she hosted backyard bbq’s with neighbors---she had a ton of hobbies on top of the work she did everyday. We really have no excuse. 

Once you have tracked your time and find out where the lost time is going you have to figure out what it is you want to do in an average week and on an average weekend. And understand that no one in the world is able to focus for eight hours straight. We have maybe three or four hours to focus on something in a day. So focus on what is really important and keep going until you get really distracted. And make note of when throughout the day you are most focused--are you better in the morning or the evening--when is your brain at it’s best. And work around that.

How to have tough conversations at work

These days there are so many hot topics that people shy away from in the workplace to avoid confrontation. But Celeste says we should talk about things like politics and race--but we have to find a way to do so in a respectful, level-headed way.

Celeste’s advice for how to talk about these tough topics at work are:

  1. Stop going into conversations with the intention of changing someone’s mind.
  2. Don’t worry about what you’re going to say, think about what you want to hear from the other person to understand their side more
  3. Connect with the other person emotionally and show them empathy instead of trying to logically win a fight with statistics and facts
  4. Make sure you are in the right frame of mind to have this type of conversation

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

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Direct download: Audio_-_Celeste_Headlee_-_Ready.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 3:39am PDT

Do you have rules that you abide by?

Not long ago, I had the opportunity to speak with Mark Randolph, co-founder and first CEO of Netflix.

According to Mark, there are eight rules for success that his dad created, which he follows every day:

Do at least 10% more than you’re asked. There's no substitute for hard work.
✅Never present your opinions as facts.
✅Be courteous to people both up and down.
✅Don't knock others, don't complain, don't whine about stuff.
✅Don't be afraid to make decisions when you have the facts on which you can make those decisions.
✅Quantify whenever and wherever possible. You can't improve something if you don't measure it.
✅Be open-minded, but also be skeptical.
✅Be prompt. Never show up late.

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Direct download: Rules_for_Success_from_the_first_CEO_of_Netflix_Marc_Randolph.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 1:25am PDT

Daniel Goleman is an internationally known psychologist and a science journalist, he is, in fact, known as the father of emotional intelligence. He’s also the bestselling author of several books including Emotional Intelligence: Why It Can Matter More Than IQ and Primal Leadership: Unleashing the Power of Emotional Intelligence.

Emotional Intelligence was named one of the 25 Most Influential Business Management Books by Time Magazine and Daniel has been listed among the most influential business thinkers by The Financial Times and the Wall Street Journal.

What is emotional intelligence? Daniel says it is a competence, a workplace ability, that makes you stand out from others and there’s a set of around a dozen competencies within the domain of emotional intelligence including empathy, adaptability, being able to stay positive, being able to inspire others, and keeping your eye on a goal without getting distracted.

Why is EQ critical for leaders and can it be learned
As Daniel shares, “everything is a combination of nature and nurture, you get your genetic makeup, but that doesn't limit you. That's what you start with.” And he says that emotional intelligence is definitely learnable. But you need life experience, feedback, and practice to get better at it.

Daniel shares why EQ is so important for leaders: “Here's what emotional intelligence tells you. If you're in a negative emotional state, because of the way the brain is wired, you're narrowing the bandwidth of your other capabilities, your cognitive abilities, whatever talents you may have. Because emotions, the way the brain is designed and wired, take up a huge amount of space. In fact, emotional distractions, that thing she said to me that got me so upset, are far stronger than external distractions, it's gonna cap your intelligence, your attention, continually. So emotional intelligence helps you manage disturbing emotions.”

Leaders need to be able to lead themselves first, Daniel says, they have to have control of their emotions. The emotional state of the leader is contagious, so if the leader is negative all of the time, that drives the performance of employees, and production and morale go down. Whereas if the leader is emotionally intelligent and has a positive outlook on life and knows how to manage negativity, employees are more productive and happier too.

It’s not to say leaders won’t ever experience anger, frustration, sadness, etc...All humans experience the full range of emotions. Emotionally intelligent people just know how to manage those emotions and they don’t let the emotions control them.

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There are 6 trends that are transforming leadership forever do you know what they are and are you ready for them? Download the PDF to learn what these 6 trends are and what you should be doing about each one of them. These are crucial for your leadership and career development in the future of work!

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IQ alone is not enough
A majority of the time people are promoted to leadership positions because they are good at a certain task they perform in their current role. They are smart, capable people, but that doesn’t mean they have what it takes to lead people. We are currently seeing what people are calling the great resignation, people are leaving their jobs right and left and a lot of it has to do with leaders. People don’t want to work for horrible bosses who aren’t empathetic, positive, caring, self aware, etc…

“So you may be good at a job in terms of the objective measures of the job, such as--I’m really good at programming. But it turns out that it's all done with people. And if you're the leader of people, you need emotional intelligence to work well with the people you're leading. It's just a fact.”

A certain level of IQ is needed for specific roles like being a lawyer or an accountant, but usually in those types of roles everyone around you has around the same IQ--so the thing that sets you apart is EQ. For people who only have IQ, but no EQ they may be better suited to a job in coding or something with numbers that doesn’t require them to work with people too much. They are not good for leadership roles because it is crucial for leaders to be good communicators.

For people with high EQ but not high IQ they may be best suited for a role in sales or a position where they are building relationships with customers and clients.

Three methods you can use to control your emotions at work
We can all use some techniques that can be utilized when we feel angry, frustrated, sad, etc...Daniel has three main methods that he suggests:

  1. Sympathetic nervous system arousal. It sounds complicated, but actually it’s a breathing technique that helps you recover quickly from being upset. You start out by inhaling as long as you can (at least a count of four), hold it as long as you can (at least a count of four), and then exhale as long as you can. Repeat this six to nine times and it actually shifts your physiology.
  2. Name what you are feeling. It can help to say out loud what you are feeling either to yourself or to someone else. Just saying “I’m getting angry now” is shown to shift the energy from the part of the brain that feels it to the part of the brain that manages it. 
  3. Practice mindfulness. Bring your focus to your breath and keep it there. Keep your attention on the rise and fall of your belly, and the breath in and out. If your mind starts to wander, notice it, and bring it back to your breathing. And do that for 10-20 minutes a day. The action of catching your mind wandering and bringing it back strengthens your mind to stay focused and avoid distractions. 

It’s also important, when you have negative emotions, to take a step back and think twice about your negative thoughts. There are many times when we go to the extreme in our head. You make a mistake at work and your mind starts thinking about how you are going to be fired. When those thoughts pour in, realize that you are being extreme and refocus.

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This episode is sponsored by Workplace from Meta.

Whatever you bring to work to help you be you, Workplace celebrates it. Our familiar features help everyone work together in new ways. To make your place of work a great place to work, visit workplace.com/human

Get the latest insights on the Future of Work, Leadership and employee experience through my daily newsletter at futureofworknewsletter.com 

Let's connect on social!

Linkedin: http://www.linkedin.com/in/jacobmorgan8
Instagram: https://instagram.com/jacobmorgan8
Twitter: http://www.twitter.com/jacobm
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/FuturistJacob

Direct download: Audio_-_Daniel_Goleman_-_Ready.mp3
Category:Business -- posted at: 12:10am PDT

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