The Business Thorcast: Business Improvement | Business Strategy | Leadership | Business Agility | Continuous Improvement | Team Building

The market is moving faster than ever before, and that requires corporate teams to constantly evolve to keep up.

It’s human nature to resist change; even change that is positive and desperately needed. So how do you overcome this challenge as the leader?

Our guest, Sujith Abraham, Group VP at Oracle, shares his experience leading transformations, initially in the automotive industry, and now at the tip of the innovation spear in technology with Oracle.

Sujith successfully grew the Oracle sales organization by 1,000 new reps. From the start of this initiative, his objective was to hire and onboard new team members that would grow and be successful in their own careers at Oracle.

Learn more about Sujith’s success and the importance of leadership alignment and buy-in from the existing team.

“The meaning of extreme is relative to the people you hang around with.”

Progress happens behind the scenes. It’s getting out of your comfort zone and going on the journey marked with pain, failure, and struggle – the moments that didn’t make the “highlight reel”.

Recently, Thor dove out of his comfort zone and went on a freediving trip to Bonaire with his fellow YPO members. These individuals were able to push themselves to hold their breath for 3 and even 4 minutes reaching depths of over 100 feet on a single breath.

These incredible accomplishments were not achieved without struggle. What you may not see are the times they dove down only 20 feet, panicked, and came back up for air.

By using discomfort as a tool, this group faced their fears and pushed themselves to achieve success. This growth mindset directly translates to business and is the reason Allan Young, Beau Durham, and many others make bolder decisions (and bolder mistakes) in business and have achieved such high levels of success.

As a SEAL on active duty in Afghanistan, John Allen’s unit was under a full-blown ambush. The result? The most spectacular performances of executing under absolutely imperfect and terrible conditions. This was an elite team executing their mission and saving the lives of everyone on the team. Now, as the CEO of Elite Meet, John pairs up elite military members with the leaders of elite business corporations to show both sides the unique skill sets each brings to the table in the corporate world. 

Michelle “Sonic” Ruehl was flying combat missions at night and teaching English to the men in the Afghan village that she was protecting by day. At first, the men rejected her as an instructor and warrior based on her gender, but she used music in a war zone to reach beyond the cultural barriers of prejudice that separated them. It’s a story you’ll have to hear to believe.

If you haven’t heard of Matthias “Super Frenchie” Giraud, I guarantee that you’ve seen him. He’s a Pro Skier and B.A.S.E. Jumper – the ones that get dropped off at the top of a mountain by a helicopter, skis down the mountain, and looks for a cliff to jump off. Matthias understands what it’s like to operate in a high-stakes, zero tolerance for error world. In this episode, Matthias tells Thor about the methodology he applies behind the scenes to stay safe and succeed in one of the harshest environments in the world.

What’s the most hotly contested and disruptive market today? End User Computing. In this episode of The Business Thorcast, we talk to Jeff Mitchel, the Senior VP of EUC Sales for VMware. As a leader, Jeff had his back against the wall with multiple challenges in a marketplace that was moving faster than anybody in the sector could keep up with. In a short period of time, Jeff turned that situation into one of the biggest success stories that I've seen. Hear how he did it and what tools and processes behind the scenes were critical to this successful transformation.

John Hunter, CFO of Buffalo Construction, Inc., tells Thor how his teams use Debriefs to identify Lessons Learned and standardize best practices to positively impact each of their future projects. John breaks down how the effects of the Debriefs can be seen across the organization (and with their clients!) and is responsible for 15% profit increase.

In this episode of The Business Thorcast, Thor discusses how you can align your desperate teams – or even two companies that compete with one another – around a common goal and execution process. The result? Elevated success that is more than any group could ever have individually. 

This episode of The Business Thorcast is unlike any before. Instead of diving into business initiatives and flying airplanes, Thor recounts his experience of climbing Mt. Kilimanjaro with an elite team of executives. Thor and VMware CEO Pat Gelsinger, SVP of Customer Experience, Scott Bajtos, and Global Accounts Leader, David Kluzak apply Afterburner’s Flawless Execution methodology not only in the business world but in situations outside of the office. Thor describes how the team used Afterburner’s methodology of Plan, Brief, Execute, and Debrief to reach the summit of Mt. Kilimanjaro and reach their goal of raising funds to build schools for the impoverished girls of Kenya. 

These days you hear a lot of talk about diversity and inclusion. It seems like every company we work with has some sort of initiative around creating a more diverse environment and leveraging the diversity of their team members through a more inclusive culture. But how do you create that inclusive culture? In this episode of The Business Thorcast we bring back Tracy “JackieO” LaTourrette, one of the first female fighter pilots, to talk with us about what she learned about diversity and inclusion in elite military teams and helping corporations across the globe succeed with Afterburner.