The Marcel Podcast

Are women better leaders than men? Tomas Chamorro-Premuzic is an international authority on psychoanalysis, talent management, leadership development, and people analytics. He’s also an author, and his latest book is rather controversial. He asks the question: Why so many incompetent men become leaders? And why are women so good at it?The Controversy That Isn’tTomas’s book sparks controversy as soon as you read the title: Why Do So Many Incompetent Men Become Leaders? (and how to fix it). He notes there are 3 general reactions: those who immediately approve, those who are scandalized and defensive, and those who are willing to read and understand the argument, whether they agree or not. Those who read it realize it’s really a book about leadership and competence, and not quite as divisive as the title suggests. It’s about how we mistake confidence for competence, and Tomas explains what that means and how it affects work.Incompetent Leadership TraitsThere are three traits that lead to poor leadership: overconfidence, charisma, and narcissism. Often, there is no skill or ability to back them up, but because we reward these traits by assuming there must be, we end up putting the wrong people in leadership roles. Consider the ‘charisma’ myth. Many leaders have the power of drawing people in and persuading them, but it certainly doesn’t make them good leaders.Mentally Ill LeadershipHow do you recognize when you’re working for a leader with psychopath or narcissist tendencies? These people - in differing degrees - lack empathy, have a strong desire to break rules and defy status quo, are likely to engage in manipulation to advance themselves at the cost of others and are extremely socially skilled with aggressive underpinning motives. There are some surprising qualities here that, when the ‘dark side’ is kept in check, make for great leaders, and Tomas reveals what they are.Replace Men With Women… Or NotIt seems like the easy answer is to remove incompetent men with these traits and replace them with women. But that’s not the correct way to look at solving the problem and for larger corporations, it actually hurts women. Instead, Tomas proposes a true meritocracy where we pay more attention to skills rather than traits, and he explains what that looks like and why more women will naturally rise to the top. He also explains why we’ll have a different type of men rise with them.Universal Qualities of Good LeadersTomas wrote that the very traits that propel more men into leadership are the same traits that get them fired. In other words, what it takes to get a leadership role are nearly opposite of what it takes to do it well and keep the role. Tomas goes into more detail about the universal qualities that make all leaders more effective: competence, people skills, integrity. He also dives into the topic of IQ and how it relates to good leadership.Tools for Selecting Better LeadersDevelopment is super-important for leaders, but selecting good leaders to start with is key. Sure, you can always work with people to make them better, but your return on investment will be substantially higher when you select great people, to begin with. Tomas reveals several of the tools he teaches to other companies, some of which have been around for decades, yet no one uses. He points out an interesting trend: the people who most need coaching and development will be the least likely to accept it.ResourcesWebsite | Twitter | LinkedIn | Forbes

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What does it take to reboot a company from the ground up? Joining us on this episode is Doug Conant, the Founder of ConantLeadership and Former CEO of the Campbell Soup Company. Today, Doug is sharing about how he turned Campbell around, and how he’s able to create leadership connections in the smallest of moments. Campbell before and afterWhen Doug entered, Campbell had lost half its market value in one year, they were under investigation by the SEC and the Justice Department, and many people were being let go. Business was not good, morale was not good, and it was a toxic environment. Doug’s core belief is that leadership is all about the art and science of influencing others in a specific direction. It’s all about the people and nothing to do with him. He could not expect the employees to value their agenda as a company until they tangibly demonstrate to them that they value their agenda as people. The challenge was to step up and start demonstrating that. They went from having the worst employee engagement in the Fortune 500 to having the best employee engagement — something that had never been done before over that timeframe. Campbell Success ModelYou cannot win in the marketplace if you don’t first create a winning workplace. And when you begin to win in the marketplace, you’re going to be able to win with your community. And underneath winning in the workplace, marketplace, and community, you need to be winning with integrity. Doug quotes Stephen Covey: ‘You cannot talk your way out of things you behaved your way into. You’ve just got to behave your way out.’ And so as a management team, they had to behave their way out with the people that worked there. Play the long gameIn any position you go into, you have three years. The first year, it’s the other guy’s fault, and you’re doing the best you can with what you’ve been dealt with. The second year, you’re learning. And by year three, you’re supposed to have it. With every job you go into, take the long view. It’s never going to be a one-year wonder turnaround; it has to be a culture of continuous improvement.  TouchPointsThe world is now morphing into a place where you have to be very fluent in very small interactions: touchpoints. For the most part, we all do this by the seat of our pants. But we’re best served if we don’t — and we can learn how to be powerful and effective in these micro-moments. There is a simple process for getting good at managing the small moments: enter the moment with a “How can I help?” mentality, and exit with a, “How did it go?” mentality. You can process almost anything in one to two minutes, which is important, because you need to be ready to talk when your people are ready to talk. People have to know you’re really listening, that you understand what they’re saying, and that you want to see them make progress. Head, heart, and hands Be tough-minded on standards, and tender-hearted with people. Head: make sure there is a logic to what you do because your people are hungry for consistent thinking. Heart: show up with great authenticity. Hands: develop the practices that allow you to bring your logic and authenticity to life when you show up in these moments. Resources for Doug ConantTwitter | LinkedIn | Facebook | ConantLeadership | TouchPoints

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How many conventional leadership ideas do we take as the truth but turn out to be lies? We’re joined today by Ashley Goodall, the author of Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World, and the Senior Vice President Leadership and Team Intelligence at Cisco. Ashley separates fact from fiction in the realm of workplace and leadership misconceptions, and what the truths really are. The premise There are a few themes that run through the book that really resonate with an audience who is jaded about conventional wisdom at work. They can see with their own eyes it’s not true. (1) We’ve lost sight of individual human beings at work. We all feel like we’re meant to be cogs in a machine. (2) Small, good things become big, bad things when we try to scale them and turn them into systems. All of a sudden, the humanness is gone. (3) We seem to pay much more attention to what doesn’t work in the world. But what does work? It’s better to focus on that than on our shortcomings. Lie: people care which company they work for A large company can have tens of thousands of employees. You’re never going to know them all. The reality is, when you join any large group, your experience is always a local experience — and that experience lives in your team. Your company culture is abstract and distant. The experience of the team always trumps the experience in the company. You can’t get work right if you can’t get teams right. Lie: people need feedback This lie comes from the fear that, if we don’t give people feedback, they might not do their job. And if they don’t do their job, our teams will fail, then we as leaders will fail. But when you look at what people do need to get better, feedback does the opposite. When people feel like they’re about to be judged, their brain leaves the conversation and it’s no longer around to do learning. People learn best when you pay attention to them and, especially, to what worked. You should stay on your side of the conversation. React to what they did, without judgment, and it serves to help them uncover what they did well so they can lean into it. Leadership What is the thing we call leadership? We might enumerate characteristics that leaders have, but if we were to look at any accomplished leader in the real world, you’ll find exception after exception. What leaders have in common are not a set of characteristics. There's just one thing: followers. If you want to answer the question, “Am I a leader?” — look behind you. Is there anyone there? If yes, then you’re a leader. If no, you’re not. It’s a very simple test. This means that leadership isn’t about leaders. It’s about followers. We humans are fearful of the future, and we follow people who help lessen that uncertainty. That bit of confidence is worth a lot.The Quote:"The set of characteristics of who you are, what you have to contribute, and how you acknowledge other people around you: those are the characteristics we need to build more of and allow to flourish."Resources LinkedIn | Website | Nine Lies About Work: A Freethinking Leader’s Guide to the Real World (Amazon)Freethinking Leader Coalition

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What does “we’re all in this together” look like? Join us on this episode as we sit with Terry Turner, the President and CEO of Pinnacle Financial Partners. Today we’re talking about cultivating a culture of ownership, keeping employees engaged, and how love can still manifest in action — even at companies like banks. Ownership Pinnacle associates are treated like they’re owners — because they are. Everybody wants to feel valued, included, and that they’re part of the company, so it’s been an important concept at Pinnacle to give shares to all associates in the firm. It gives them a sense of being in the game, a part of the family, a part of the team. Everyone is pulling in the same direction. Engagement Engagement begins with who you hire. If you want happy, successful people in your firm, then make it a point to hire happy and successful people. They also have employees go through a three-day orientation process where they take the time to explain the company’s values and what they’re trying to achieve. Another thing they do is hold the leaders accountable for engagement. You can fill a company up with good people, but the question for leaders is: have you done what is necessary to engage your people? That’s a crucial relationship, because people leave managers, not companies. Live life with your associates This idea builds on the sense of family. If we’re all in it together, then I’m excited about what you’re excited about, and hurting and concerned whenever you are. It’s company culture to be in touch with the people you work with and what their life situations are. Leading with love at a bank As mentioned earlier, Pinnacle grants its associates equity — today, to the tune of 400 million dollars. People’s lives have been changed by that, and it’s what Terry calls a compassionate system. They also include 100% of their associates in annual cash incentives, and the way those incentives are earned is based on corporate results, not individual scorecards. If the team succeeds, then everyone succeeds. But what really makes Pinnacle a great place to work is how well you love each other, picking up the phone when somebody needs help. It's not the kind of systems you have running. The Wow Budget You can’t treat your associates like dogs and have them run out and give unparalleled service. That’s not going to happen. One of the things they try to get right is the associate experience, like, for example, with the Wow Budget. It’s money that can be spent to wow a client: no guidelines, no script. They simply hire people who have a heart, tell them to act like it’s their money (“Does this make sense to you? Is this an appropriate amount to spend? If it is, spend it”) and turn them loose. Turn the command and control management style around The first step, says Terry, is to research and find out if leading with care and kindness really works. It sounds counterintuitive, but the reason he says to start there is because you can’t fake it. You have to believe that it works. Invest the time to develop a genuine and firm commitment to it before you launch. Resources M. Terry Turner | Love Works: Seven Timeless Principles for Effective Leaders | Sacred Marriage: What If God Designed Marriage to Make Us Holy More Than to Make Us Happy?

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Times are changing. There is a movement happening: are you in? Joining us today is Mike Vacanti, the founder of the HumansFirst Club, and today we’re talking about the hope of being able to create positive change in the workplace, and how to lead from a humans first perspective. The HumansFirst Club Movement:We are at an inflection point where we’re realizing we can do better. The HumansFirst Club is an opportunity to have positive, constructive dialogue around what it is we’re experiencing now in the workplace, and the ideas we can share and build upon as a community to take the steps forward toward a future that really does value people first. What happens at a HumansFirst Club event:At HumansFirst Club events, we have people from all different perspectives and job roles, from business leaders, to HR, to authors, and instructors. They have unique and proven ideas and these ideas are gaining traction. At the center of it all, these people and their audiences have that great need of wanting to be happier and better.Business benefits of the movement:Given the opportunity, people will amaze you. By putting in a lot of the processes and operations and controls we feel are there to drive business results, we’re actually creating barriers to things that would happen naturally if we empowered people to deliver. If we create this transparency where our employees can attach their beliefs to the company beliefs, what they will contribute will far exceed what we could demand that they contribute.Leadership the HumansFirst way:We’re taught to look at the quantitative measures of people: what are they capable of from a statistical standpoint? But what about looking at the core of who our people are? What drives them? What are their true values? How are they influencing other people around them? What type of energy do they show up with during the day? How much do they smile? Do they lift the energy of other people? From a leadership standpoint, one of the most important things we can do is choose what to stop doing. What we stop doing is probably more important than what we do next. Take away the historic processes that may actually be barriers to high achievement — don’t add more to the bucket. Make sure you have the right things in the bucket. Why people lead with fear:Mike puts forward three theories. First, people think: this works because I experienced this, because I’ve now risen to a level of authority. This is the path to leadership and achievement. Second, there’s not much incentive to let go of it. To protect pride and ego, people cast fear so they can’t be challenged on their position and authority. Finally, laziness. It’s just easier to throw fear out there. You can detract, deflect, and don’t ever have to be vulnerable and be exposed for your insecurities. It’s a wall people hide behind.Final thoughts:We all have the ability for deep thinking, higher consciousness, and the opportunity to create positive change for at least one other person. We need to get rid of our limiting beliefs, choose what to stop doing, and fill in those gaps with things we know are important — so we can enhance our lives, and the interactions and relationships we have with others. Know that you’re part of something bigger than yourself. Resources for Mike Vacanti: LinkedIn | Twitter | Facebook | Website | HumansFirst Club | Brave Leadership

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How do you help people bring their whole selves to work? Just ask Claude Silver, the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia. She oversees wonderful people and their heartbeats, and the experience they have within the four walls of the office and even in life. What happens when you make people feel like they belong, that they’re appreciated, and that they’re here to do some incredible, innovative work that excites them? More than you can imagine.Connecting one on onePart of the job description of Chief Heart Officer is, naturally, spending time with people. Claude will either proactively reach out to people, or they will reach out to her, and they spend 15 minutes together. She asks how it’s going, what’s going on, what they’re excited about, and, most importantly, if there’s anything she can help them with, because that’s where curiosity and creativity comes into play. Usually, conversations are about challenges they’re facing, so she goes into every conversation holding two things in her hands: in one hand, non-judgment. In the other, action. Killing cultures“On or off the island,” i.e. favoritism, kills cultures. If you’re saying you’re good today, and today you’re on my island, but tomorrow I kick you out for no reason, it breeds toxicity, gossip, cynicism, and negativity that your people will most definitely feel. It affects people.A lot of what drives this is fear that stems from a lack of self-awareness. We’re worried that if we’re ‘found out’ for who we really are, we’ll be made to leave. This situation leads to hostile, secret-keeping behavior, where everyone keeps their guards up because we’re’re in a workplace that won’t accept us. It’s heartbreaking.Long ago, jobs were about muscle. Today, you need brains. But tomorrow, they’ll be about heart. And tomorrow is here.Tough loveWhen there are disciplinary issues and it’s time for tough love, Claude shares that she practices radical candor. She’s going to give it to you straight, and she’s going to give it to you nicely. You can still be a kind human being and tell people specifically what’s up — and then together, work out a specific action plan. If we put our hearts and minds into our human beings, we will have a knock on success. Not just internally, but to our consumers as well. The HumansFirst MovementThe idea of opening your heart at work is very relevant today. It is just what works. And people are clamoring for HumansFirst to come to their cities because they haven’t had the bravery yet: they haven’t found their voices, or they have, and nobody is listening. So a call for HumansFirst is people’s first step in finding ways to have that conversation with their board, CEO, or managers. Final thoughts As leaders, we are guides, not heroes. If you’re in a leadership role, it isn’t your show. You’re there to coach the people around you. Resources for Claude SilverLinkedIn | Instagram | Twitter | Job openings at VaynerMedia

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What if someone tapped you on the shoulder and asked if you liked your job. Would you say you loved it? Today on the podcast we have Bob Chapman, the author of Everybody Matters, and we’re talking about the extraordinary power of caring: what happens to a workplace when people are cared for and care for others in return? What kind of impact will that make? The journey Bob began his career the traditional way. He had a management degree, so thought his job was to manage people and tell them what to do in order to be successful. He was by no means oppressive, but he saw people as functions: operator, assembly worker, store clerk, engineer. And then he asked himself: why can’t business be fun? Why do we call it work? It occurred to him that we have people in our care for 40 hours a week. Everybody is somebody’s precious child placed in our care, and we are the most significant influence on their sense of purpose and self-worth.The busIf you can build a safe bus (your business model), and find drivers who can drive it safely (your leaders), then anybody who gets on that bus is going to be fine. Leadership is about allowing people to rise to the level of their ability and letting them feel appreciated for whatever that is. Business could be the most powerful force for good if we cared about the people we had the opportunity and privilege of leading. Transforming managers Bob’s greatest fear is to create something great, but be too dependent upon him that if something were to happen to him, it would fall apart. So they created a university to transform managers into leaders — because you can’t manage people. But you can care for them and make sure they succeed in the same way a parent would for their child. It’s stewardship of these precious lives that walk into our buildings every day and they simply want to know that who they are and what they do matters. It’s about sending people home fulfilled and cared for. Care is contagious Caring for people has a ripple effect that extends way beyond the office. When people don’t feel cared for, it’s hard for them to care for others. But when they do feel cared for, it’s contagious. Bob shares the personal story of Steve, who said, “My wife is talking to me.” That’s the difference it made in his life. Because when Bob embraced these practices that made people feel like they were being listened to, and that they were contributing, Steve went home feeling better about himself. When he feels better about himself, he’s nicer to his wife. And when he’s nicer to his wife, she talks to him. The way people are treated for 40 hours a week matters. It’s not about pumping fear out of the room — it’s not even thinking of fear in the first place, and leading out inspiration instead.Justifying care Treat people like you would like your son and daughter treated. Even if they’re not your son or daughter, they’re somebody’s son or daughter, and that should make no difference. Someone once asked Bob how they can show a return on investment of caring for people. Incredulous, Bob asked back why they needed a return on investment to start caring for people. What do you mean, how do you justify caring? How can you justify not caring? ResourcesBob Chapman (LinkedIn) | Everybody Matters | The One Minute Manager (Amazon)

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When you think about work, do you think about joy as well? Joining us on this episode is Rich Sheridan, the author of Joy, Inc. and most recently Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear. He leads Menlo Innovations as their co-founder and CEO, and the company has won the Alfred P. Sloan Award for Business Excellence in Workplace Flexibility for 11 straight years. Today we’re talking about how you can bring more joy into your work — and what can happen when you do.Defining Joy At Menlo, Rich shares that their mission from day one is to end human suffering in the world as it relates to technology. And their goal inside of that, since their founding, was to return joy to technology. If you’re going to embark on a joyful journey, ask yourself two questions. Who do you serve? And what would delight look like for them? They may look simple, but Rich warns against picking the easy answers. Fear in the workplace The natural fear in the workplace for any employee is that something bad is going to happen to them: they’re going to lose their jobs, miss the next promotion, or be overlooked for a key assignment. There’s a brand of management that sees that as a good thing … but what kind of culture is that creating? With fear, work is no longer about contributing, it’s about being better than the other guy just so you get to stay. That creates a very debilitating culture. Systems, not bureaucracy Bureaucracy manifests itself as a lot of waiting: waiting for decisions to be made, or answers to be had, or a sign off on an approval. All of this waiting weighs an organization down and robs the energy of your team. After a while, they disengage.But Rich shares the story of his eldest child’s pediatrician. A truly wonderful doctor, yet somehow, he had no patients in his waiting room every time they visited. Was he just bad at business? This place should be filled with patients. It turns out no. He was amazing at systems. One of the most important things we can do as joyful leaders is think about the systems that keep chaos out of our world so we can lift the human energy of our team and keep the weight of our human aircraft as light as possible and fly to heights and distances. The competitive advantage of love Think of what you could accomplish if instead of only 30% of your employees were engaged, 70% of them were? If these people came in every day with a spring in their step, a dedication in their energy, and they engaged in a fundamentally different way? Think about the value that would bring to your organization, how much more output you would get, the quality of the output they would produce, and how much better a reputation you would have, not just with your customers but with the others you’re trying to recruit into your organization. LegacyFamily is of the utmost importance. During Rich’s disillusionment days, he was coming home late having accomplished nothing, and realized the thing that mattered most to him was slipping out of his grasp. Time will pass, and it will pass regardless of whether you’ve enjoyed your work life or you haven’t. Rich wants to be a good example to his kids, to show them that it is possible to have the kind of joyous work life that everyone dreams of.Rich Sheridan: LinkedIn | Twitter | Menlo Innovations | Joy, Inc.: How We Built a Workplace | People Love | Chief Joy Officer: How Great Leaders Elevate Human Energy and Eliminate Fear

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On this episode of Love in Action, we have Howard Behar, the former president of Starbucks. During his tenure, Howard grew the coffee company from 28 stores to over 50,000 locations, and he’s the author of It’s Not About The Coffee and The Magic Cup. Today we’re talking about servant leadership, how to lead with love, and the power of putting people and values first.The Magic CupThe core message of the book is that, as a leader, you need to be focused on what your values are. Live up to those values no matter what your fears are, and get back on track if you ever lose your way. We all have a magic cup, and the cup represents your life. What you put into your cup is what you get out of it, so do we fill it with greed and ambition? Or are we going to fill it with the things we do to help others?Servant leadershipOur primary responsibility in life no matter what we do is to serve others. And sometimes leaders forget that. The goal of any leader should be to help his or her people achieve what they want in their lives, and in so doing, have the people help you achieve what you want in your organization. But you have to serve your people first. You have to give love before you get love. You have to give trust before you get trust. Some people think servant leadership is a “soft skill” and it’s just “being nice.” It’s anything but that. It's still about holding people accountable for their performance, but doing it in a way that builds people up instead of tearing them down. It’s loving, caring, direct conversations, holding each other accountable, and achieving results.As an example, Howard shares the story of Jim and the daily messages on his cups of coffee — and how something so small can mean so much.Love in businessWhen we talk about love, we’re not talking about the same kind of love you might have for your spouse or children. We’re talking about the love that we give to all human beings because they’re human beings.People lead with fear in the workplace, most likely because they’ve never been loved. That’s how they’ve been treated. They learned that yelling, screaming, and blaming are what get people motivated, and if they create fear in their team, people will produce results. That’s certainly something that can happen in the short term. But over the long term? Impossible.Changing our workplace culturesThe first step is to have a leader who wants to be a servant leader. It’s not an overnight process. You have to practice. You have to allow people to hold you accountable. You have to hold yourself accountable. Change yourself first before changing your organization.AdviceKnow who you are, know what your values are, live your life by those values, and understand that in order to have a productive, fulfilling life, you have to learn to serve yourself first, and then serve others. It’s not about being greedy. It’s about being okay with you. If you’re not okay with you, you can’t be okay with others.ResourcesHoward Behar | Website | [email protected] | It’s Not About The Coffee | The Magic Cup

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Join us on this episode of Love in Action as we unpack the true meaning of customer service and servant leadership with Ken Blanchard: consultant, speaker, Chief Spiritual Officer and Co-Founder of The Ken Blanchard Companies, and author of the classics The One Minute Manager and The Simple Truth of Service. Creating raving fansKen shares his three secrets to creating raving fans from a customer service-facing role: (1) Decide what experience you want your customers to have. (2) Listen to your customers to discover what else might make them happy. (3) Deliver.He shares two stories: that of Johnny the grocery bagger who proves anybody can make a difference in their customers’ lives, and another illustrating the significant difference between ducks and eagles.Servant leadership There are two parts to servant leadership. The leadership part is about vision, direction, values, and goals, because leadership is about going somewhere else, and the responsibility of that goes with the hierarchy. The servant part is more philosophical. Turn the pyramid upside down: you work for your people, who work for their people, who eventually work for your customers. It’s not about you, it’s about them. When you serve first and lead second, people feel empowered and important, and they will go out of their way to take care of your customers. Or: “profit is the applause you get for creating a motivating environment for your people.” You want your people to win, and Ken tells the story of how he started doing this as a college professor by giving his students the final exam questionnaire on the first day of class.Love in actionWander around and see if you can catch people doing things right, and praise them and encourage them for it. Listen more than you speak. Ask more than you tell. And should anyone question whether this approach is too soft, Ken is writing a new book that asks, why isn’t common sense common practice? If you create an environment where you’re cheering your people on, they’re going to cheer your customers on, and it works. Hence the working title: “Duh.”Leading with love instead of fear The biggest addictions you see in organizations is the human ego, and there are two ways ego usually gets in the way: (1) false pride and thinking you’re smarter than everyone else, and (2) self-doubt, because when you’re doubtful and fearful, you’re focusing on yourself. CS Lewis said it well years ago: “True humility is not thinking less of yourself; it is thinking of yourself less.”People admire your skills, but they love your vulnerability. It’s okay not to have all the answers. And if you need their help — asking for it and giving them a chance to contribute is extremely empowering.Final thoughtsDon’t you act like you’re better than anyone else. But don’t you let anyone else act like they’re better than you. God didn’t make any junk. AndThe most fun in life is when you’re confused about the difference between work and play. ResourcesLinkedInWebsiteThe One Minute ManagerThe Simple Truths of Service: Inspired by Johnny the Bagger

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