People First! with Morag Barrett

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and John Warrillow discuss his book, Built To Sell!

Chapter Breakdown:
0:00 - Show Open
1:12 - Origin Story
2:11 - Pivot Point
4:47 - Basics of Entrepreneurialism
8:18 - Inflection Points
13:22 - Pulling Levers
15:33 - 8 Drivers
17:13 - 2020 Cocktail Shaker
22:03 - M&A Frenzy?
24:37 - Successful Exit
28:41 - Learn More & Wrap
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Websites:
Free Gift! https://learn.builttosell.com/people/

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and David Nour discuss his book, "Curve Benders!"

Chapter Breakdown:
0:00 - Show Open
1:11 - Origin Story
4:47 - Inspiration for Curve Benders
8:24 - Be A Curve Bender
10:42 - Jim Thorpe
16:36 - K Shaped Recovery
18:04 - S Curve
30:35 - Wrap & Close

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Websites:
https://nourgroup.com/

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Michelle Wucker discuss the concept of risk!

Chapter Breakdown:
0:00 - Show Open
1:20 - Origin Story
1:53 - Pivot Point
4:06 - The Menagerie
8:30 - Unprecedented
9:43 - Risks We Are Ignoring
14:08 - 35K Choices A Day
14:59  - Everyday Risk
20:53 - Risk Fingerprint Change
23:58 - 20 lbs of Butter
30:48 - Wrap

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Websites:
https://www.wucker.com/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/wucker/

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Troy McLaughlin discuss cutting through the million distractions that we all face, everyday!

Chapter Breakdown:
0:00 - A Note From Troy McLaughlin
0:18 - Show Open
1:11 - Origin Story
2:05 - Leadership Journey
12:06 - Pandemic Habits
14:22 - Through The Camera Eye
20:07 - Different Hats
22:59 - Wrap

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Websites:
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/troy-mclaughlin-0930b877/
Podcast: This Undivided Life
Insta: https://www.instagram.com/troy__mclaughlin

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Ramon Ray discuss being the celebrity CEO of your career!

Chapter Breakdown:
0:00 - A Note From Ramon Ray
0:17 - Show Open
1:37 - Origin Story
3:13 - Jack Bauer
4:46 - Define Small Business
7:35 - Personal Branding
9:44 - LinkedIn Advice
12:49 - Secret To Your Energy
16:54 - Bring back the Fun
21:16 - Let It Go...
22:36 - Wrap

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Websites:
smarthustle.com

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Ron Carucci talk about leading with the power of truth, justice, and purpose!

Chapter Layout:
0:00 - Open
0:55 - Origin Story
2:29 - Fifteen Year Study
4:00 - What Is Dishonesty?
6:52 - Honesty
8:18 - Just Do It!
11:50 - The 4 Domains
24:23 - Contact Info & Wrap 

Links:
https://tobehonest.net/
https://www.linkedin.com/in/roncarucci/

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Dr. Jeffrey Hull discuss leadership for a vibrant future!

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Websites:
https://www.jeffreyhull.com/
https://instituteofcoaching.org/

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Gerald Kane talk about his book, The Technology Fallacy!

Chapter Layout:
0:00 - Open
1:34 - Origin Story
4:40 - Fax Machines
8:25 - Knowing Doing Gap
11:02 - Successful Digital Transformation
13:35 - Golden Age of Corporate Leadership
19:04 - How Paranoid Do We Need To Be?
22:11 - Contact Info & Wrap

Links:
Website: https://www.geraldckane.com/

- [Intro] Welcome to Skye team's "People First" with Morag Barrett.

- Welcome to this week's episode of People First and my guest this week is Dr. Gerald Kane, who is a professor of information systems and faculty director of the Edmund H. Shea Jr Center for entrepreneurship at Boston College's, Carroll School of Management. Wow, I can only imagine the width of that business card.

- Yes absolutely.

- Jerry researches and teaches about how companies can understand and respond to digital disruption to undergraduate, graduate and executive education students worldwide. He's published more than a hundred papers, articles and reports on these topics. And today we're going to be talking about his book, "The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation". And you might also be getting a sneak peek of his upcoming book, "The Transformation Myth: Leading Your Organization through Uncertain Times". So Jerry welcome to "People First."

- And it's great to be here. Thank you for having me.

- All right. So as all of this, this is a podcast for leaders by leaders and it's exploring the journeys that we are all taking or have taken to get to where we are today. So I'm going to take you back. Flashback to elementary school. You're sitting there in class, your teacher has just asked you to draw a picture of what you want to be when you grow up? So when you were a wee lad, Jerry, what was your answer?

- Gosh, that's actually a hard question. Perhaps I will just answer it with what was I, when I grew up before I became a college professor. And for 10 years I was actually a United Methodist minister working at a large church in Atlanta. I really enjoyed my time there. It was a great experience but it was sort of like serving in the military. I did my tour of duty and I realized it was time to move on and went back to get my PhD. So I have two hats. One is the... I'm officially Reverend Dr. Kane, even though sort of my job is fully in academia now.

- Okay. Well, wow. I wonder so how has that informed the research and the work that you do now?

- In all sorts of different ways. So my early research was in social media. So the first day... My first day as a college professor was the day that Facebook launched this new feature called newsfeed. And all my students came into class mad because how dare they, this is an invasion of our privacy. We're going back to Myspace. And so my first day as a college professor I called an audible, and basically explained to them the business reasons why they wouldn't leave Facebook and lo and behold, 15 years later, that lesson proved right. As I got into social media there's a lot about working in a community-based organization where you don't have the traditional command and control structures of a traditional business that really aligns well with the sort of rough and tumble organic nature of the social media space. And I actually think informs very well many of the challenges that companies are facing as we move into a more digital world when you don't have all the bureaucracy and the level of control that you're used to because you need to empower people. You know, working with volunteers was a great way to learn those skills because if you can't fire people and you don't have a paycheck for them, you need to learn to motivate them and lead an organization in fundamentally different ways. And a lot of that experience actually informs sort of how I'm thinking about organizations transform in the 10 to 20, one year for the COVID and then five to 10 years beyond that.

- Essentially I'm looking forward to diving into your book and a reminder it's called "The Technology Fallacy: How People Are the Real Key to Digital Transformation." And two quick stories. Well, quickish, in terms of my own journey through that digital transformation. If I flashed back to my first career in banking, I remember the moment when a fax machine was delivered and installed in our branch. And we thought we had reached nirvana.

- The pinnacle of-

- The pinnacle-

- Of technological advancement.

- Now I realized this is not the main focus of your research but can you answer for me why is it that we still have fax numbers on business cards? I don't know the last time-

- I actually can answer that it's because we actually have this in the technology fallacy books that the real challenge is not that technology moves fast, it does. The challenge is there's differing rates of change between technologies, individuals, organizations and public policy. And there were some rules about fax machines, you could do things over fax that you still can't do over email. And so it's a lot of the regulatory stuff that hasn't caught up to the new environment.

- And we'll talk about that later. 'cause there's the ethical piece too-

- Ooh absolutely

- That is gradually eating sometimes different pace. All right, so fax machine arrived, six months later it's catching dust. The other digital transformation that I remember seeing again in the nineties was smart boards and I remember all the companies that invested in these phenomenal white board kind of computer things that would download everything that you write. And they sat there like the white elephant, nobody dared use them in case that you use the wrong pen which brings me back to the subtitle of your book that people are the real key to digital transformation. You can buy the bells and whistles, but if I'm too afraid to use it, or I use it in appropriately that investment is going to be wasted. What are your thoughts?

- Yeah, and so as we research companies, really what the technology fallacy, we actually came up with a title last. So we never actually describe what it means in the book. But since then, I've come up with the definition which is basically the technology fallacy is this mistaken belief that just because an organization's challenges or problems are caused by digital technology that the solutions involve digital technology as well. Many of the biggest challenges were not technological. They were organizational, they were talent-based, they were leadership style based strategy. And those were much more of the challenges to get them up to speed, to working in a digital world. And I actually think COVID has basically proven our hypothesis true because the tech that, it's really been remarkable at how quickly organizations have been able to flip switches and adapt to, you know remote work, to all sorts of different approaches. And the technology has been strong. You know, I was a little nervous as we were flipping schools and everything to Zoom and online, and by and large the technology has been rock solid. So the technology has always been there. It's the people side that we haven't been sort of able to change as quickly as the technology and nothing like an existential event for organizations like COVID to get peop...

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and David Burkus talk about leading remote teams!

Chapter Layout:
0:00 - Open
1:55 - Origin Story
5:42 - Smooth the Waves
7:30 - Pain Points
10:30 - Remote Community
14:03 - Scheduled Spontaneity
18:09 - Pretending Asynchronous Communication is Synchronous
19:13 - Virtual Job Market
22:13 - Effect of Lockdown on Networks
27:40 - Contact Info & Wrap 

Links:
Website: https://davidburkus.com/
TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/david_burkus_why_you_should_know_how_much_your_coworkers_get_paid?language=en
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/davidburkus/

Transcript: 
- [INTRO] Welcome to SkyetTeam's "People First" with Morag Barrett.

- I'm excited to welcome this week, a friend and colleague from the Marshall Goldsmith 100, David Burkus. He is one of the world's leading business thinkers, forward-thinking ideas and best-selling books are helping leaders and teams to do their best work ever. He's the author of four books about business and leadership that have won numerous awards and been translated into dozens of languages. His insights on leadership and teamwork have been published and shared through The Wall Street Journal, Harvard Business Review amongst many others. He's an international speaker, both in this little three-by-five box but also in 3D too and his TED talk has been viewed more than 2 million times. This guy is worth listening to. David, welcome to "People First."

- Oh, thank you so much for having me, you know, you point out something interesting. I'm going to have to update that bio because in a zoom first world, international speakers not as impressive, I guess, is that you back when you had to get on an airplane to go speak somewhere it was a commitment now, I guess not so much. Right? So yeah. I'm going to have to update that.--

- Have camera will travel and I know we're going to get to talk about your latest book, which is so pertinent for all of us, your newest book, "Leading From Anywhere: The Essential Guide to " finish it for me.

- "Managing Remote Teams."

- There you go, and all of us are part of a matter of remote teams whether we're the team leader or the team participant. And what I love about your book is it's got practical tools and techniques for all of us, wherever we are in our career to make this work from home and work remotely work, but more on that in a moment. So, David, I do want to go back to your origin story. So, let's take you back. You're a wee lad, however tall you are at this point you're back at school and your teacher comes to you and says, "okay, David, what do you want to be when you grow up?"

- Yeah, so I'm pretty sure if we go back to like elementary school, that the answer would be that I wanted to be a professional wrestler. You know the big muscular dude who did the whole showmanship thing in the ring and went up, actually, it's funny, I have a replica of an old WWE belt right here on the screen. I don't know if you can see that, but that one--

- Okay, it's not crocodiles that you were going to wrestle then.

- No, no, no, but what's funny about that is as dumb as we all are in childhood with that sort of thing, there's a storytelling element that goes into that. By the time that I was in high school, the storytelling had pivoted from being a professional wrestler which is a little weird to wanting to be a writer. To wanting to be a novelist, et cetera. I went to university to study that, I studied English and Creative Writing as an undergrad and while I was studying that, I found Science Writing and Narrative Non-fiction and Long-form journalism and people who were using storytelling to tell true stories that helped people, right? And I thought, wow, that's fascinating. That's what I actually want to do, right? And so I went on to partly because I got married to a medical student, I went on and did a graduate program in Organizational Psychology, now with a dimension of ever being an academic, of ever doing research or anything like that, but just a pairing the two together, pairing the writing that I got as an undergrad and the Organizational Psychology as a grad to be able to tell those same stories but tell stories about the research that actually helps people live better lives, do better work, et cetera. And so in a way, I'm still doing the same thing. I kind of think it'd be cool maybe to have the long hair and the giant championship belt, like a pro, but at its core--

- And you get taught why not come across so well on camera.

- That's true, that's true.

- Yes, we'll have to say, so I'm curious 'cause I know you for your Non-fiction writing. So do you still dabble in fiction?

- No, no and in fact, one of our mutual friends, Whitney Johnson, and I were hanging out just before the world ended in in London and think it was 15 November and she actually challenged me. She's like, "you need to write a novel, like before you die you need to write a novel 'cause that's what you said you wanted to do." I don't dabble in it mostly because reality is so entertaining, why construct an alternative one? Like I go looking at every book that I write, I go looking for two types of stories. I mean, obviously, there's stories of companies or people that are living the principles from psychology that I'm trying to offer in the book. But I go looking for stories either stories about famous people or companies but stories you've never heard about those people. Or I go looking for stories that are so incredible, these people should be famous, right? And that's entertaining enough. Like I've just never felt the need to construct a fictional story because reality is so amazing. I can have plenty of fun capturing those real-life stories.

- So it's funny 'cause Organizational Psychology when you're studying humans, it's all about the stories and some of them are going to make you laugh. Some of them are going to make you cry and some of them are just that shock, horror, thriller ride. And I just saw a meme that was put up for those of us in the Human Resources profession and I'm going to paraphrase it for this video but along the line of, I can't fix stories but I can document them. And of course, some of the things that people do at work where you go, what on earth were you thinking? How could you think that was going to have a positive outcome for you or others? But I suppose that's what keeps you and I in business, is it helping to smooth the waves and the volatility that happens individually but also on teams?

- Yeah, oh no, that's exactly right. And I think stories are also a powerful way to convey concepts. You know, so I've written four books now and every principle and every takeaway is steeped in research from organizational psychology, social psychology, and every one of them nobody's ever said, you know, I remember that principle of whatever. They never say, you know I remember the story you told about Dana White and Lorenzo Fertitta, finding each other and founding the UFC and how important our old friends and our old colleagues are. They always remembered the stories, right? So what I try and do is just pair that with what we know is true about human behavior but with stories of people doing it right, right? And I think as soon as you see that again, you can't correct other people...

Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First! In this series, we explore the people side of successful business and careers. We all have a story to share, a leadership journey that we are experiencing.

We'll be interviewing authors, business leaders, thought leaders, and people like you to uncover the latest ideas, resources, and tools to help you become more effective at work - and in life. As it turns out, the secret is cultivating winning relationships. Business is personal, and relationships matter!

So, sit back, and grab a coffee as Morag and Darren Kanthal talk about the power of Positive intelligence!

Chapter Layout:
0:00 - Open
1:20 - Origin Story
2:49 - Emotional Arborist
5:46 - Increasing Your Vocabulary
8:13 - Transitions
11:44 - Be Present
13:02 - Positive Intelligence
15:02 - Grudges
18:19 - Take Your Own Medicine
21:51 - Contact Info & Wrap 

Links:
Website: https://www.candidcareercoaching.com/about-us
PQ Saboteur Assessment: https://www.positiveintelligence.com/assessments/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenkanthal/

Transcript: 
- [INTRO] Welcome to SkyeTeam's People First with Morag Barrett

- I'm excited for this week's episode of People First because my guest is my friend and colleague Darren Kanthal who is an executive career coach combining a passion for developing leaders with deep expertise in the career process and more than 20 years of experience in human resources and talent. He knows people. He's a New Yorker at Heart which I think just means he walks quickly. Darren has a uniquely unapologetic yet compassionate style and an individualized results approach, orientated approach to helping leaders show up as the best versions of themselves at every stage of their career. What I do like though is that Darren describes himself as an emotional arborist. He likes "Smokey the Bear" and believes only you can prevent emotional forest fires. So Darren, welcome to People First.

- Thank you, thank you. That's a very well-written bio. I wonder who wrote that?

- Well, I hope it was you, but if not it was me when I'll take credit for it. Hey but I'm going to come back to the emotional arborist piece in just a moment. But I'm curious when you were a wee lad you're sitting at elementary school and the teacher said Hey Darren, hey, Darren, pay attention. What do you want to be when you grow up? What was your answer?

- So two answers. The obvious answer was a baseball player but I was not going to be a baseball player interestingly enough because I formulated a career in human resources. My grandmother was the personnel manager at my pediatrician's office, and I love my pediatrician. And so I wanted to be a doctor. That's what I wanted to be when I was growing up to be a pediatrician.

- Fair enough. So did you end up studying medicine at all? I mean, how do you make a pivot from wanting to be a pediatrician to now a career coach and a human resources professional?

- No, not at all. I really was not very good at Chemistry nor Biology and it became pretty evident in high school that being a doctor was not my path. And so going into college, right as a 18 year old kid my only idea was my dad was an entrepreneur. And so I was like, oh I'll go after business, I'll be a business major. And interestingly enough my college was so focused on four classes of economics which was yawn boring. But being in business was what I enjoyed. You know, I got a chance to work with my dad and took over his business when he passed away. And that was the runway to being an entrepreneur.

- Entrepreneur, so as I shared in the introduction you describe yourself now as an emotional arborist and along with Smokey Bear that only we, I, can prevent emotional forest fires. Tell me what does that mean?

- All right, so there's a story here of course, right? So for much of my formative years I exhibited really two emotions which was happiness and anger. Those closest to me knew that my range was much deeper and wider but in my immaturity and lack of emotional vocabulary I knew happiness and anger. That's what I had displayed. And it became a joke amongst my friends that I was this rock. Like, you can count on me to be happy or angry, and that was it. And fast forward to 2013, I get divorced happily. It's a good thing. I go to therapy because I'm 50% of this equation. And however much I want to blame my ex-wife I'm still a piece of this pie. And shortly after I started therapy, I cried for weeks. I cried at commercials, at billboards, at songs, driving, sitting, doing nothing. I cried. And I said to my therapist I think you broke me. And she said, no I didn't break you. You're exhibiting emotions you've held in for a long time. And really what came out was I am an emotional being. I have a wide range of emotions. I just didn't have the vocabulary. So that was the first step towards this emotional arborist. Throughout my early career the emotional forest fires that I would ignite were my emotional outbursts. What I've learned is a lot of my actions were to cover up insecurities. And so if I felt challenged in a way I didn't want to be challenged if my control was taken away, I puffed up and I got pointed, and loud and defensive, and accusatory, and all these different things. And those are emotional forest fires. Bridges were burned, I had to apologize, I've been let go or fired from jobs. And it's a difficult place to be.

- It is and it's I listened to that story and I'm thinking, oh my goodness we could be twins because as a British woman, certainly as I grew up displaying emotions was not encouraged. And whilst I don't necessarily have the external forest fires that I've created, I certainly know that they were internal. I tamp them down. And in fact I recently wrote a blog post on LinkedIn that I'll put a link to it, but it was called "if you don't like the show change the channel." Because I had that emotional epiphany the dam well broke only in fall of last year. And I recount that story in that LinkedIn post. So I encourage people to go and have a look because whether we emote them or not we all are emotional creatures. It's just whether we tamp them down or how we let them out appropriately. So for people listening, I mean what are the first steps in terms of increasing your vocabulary from, you know the happy to angry spectrum? What advice do you have for us for even naming, name that emotion?

- Honestly, a cheat sheet. And I'm happy sharing with you, my cheat sheet and it's a pie. And the middle of the pie is kind of the obvious emotion a lot of us feel happy, angry, sad, I said angry already, a couple of others. And then it goes out to the secondary and tertiary sides of that pie to show you, okay, you're angry, maybe you're disappointed, Maybe you're insecure. Maybe you're all these other things. And I didn't have that vocabulary. And so that's how I started. I looked at the primary and the center and I started moving out and realized like, oh my God I'm angry because of these other things.

- So I love that because there are, we're told more than 400 emotions, but we remember the strong ones the intense ones, and I liken it to angry. So is angry incandescent rage that's been my latest phrase or is it miffed? And understanding the degree of anger allows us to think about, and to what reason? Why is it? Is it because I feel disrespected? Is it because I feel that my voice isn't being heard? Is it disappointed because somebody didn't put their mug in the dishwasher? And then once I understand the why and what I'm feeling I can make a choice as to how to respond versus just coming out, fight or flight.

- Yes, and that's the second piece to it is the emotion is the alert signal. My innate way or my old way was to react as soon as I felt whatever. Like I was angry and then I'm enraged and I...