The Engineering Leadership Podcast

The Meaning Revolution with Fred Kofman Advisor, Leadership Development @ Google #4


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The hardest business problem has a soft solution. Scientists and engineers display a (well-deserved) skepticism toward touchy-feely ideas such as leadership. Fred shows there's a very technical way to understand why most organizations, from couples to multinational corporations, die a premature death... and what can be done to extend their lifespan.

 

FRED KOFMAN - Advisor, VP of Leadership Development @ Google (@fredkofman)

“No gun in the world can get your best. No incentive can get your best. You can only give your best because you want to. It’s not contractible. And that’s the difference between leadership and management for me. Leadership is about eliciting internal commitment. You do it because it comes from the inside.” - Fred Kofman

Fred Kofman earned his PhD. in Economics from the UC Berkeley, is Google’s Vice President and advisor of leadership, a director of the Conscious Leadership Center at the Monterrey Institute of Technology, & a founder and president of the Conscious Business Center International. Previously, he was a VP of Executive Development at LinkedIn & a co-founder of Axialent, a global consulting company that has delivered leadership programs to more than 15,000 executives around the world.

Fred is the author of the trilogy Metamanagement ('01), Conscious Business ('06) and The Meaning Revolution: The Power of Transcendent Leadership ('18). Since 1990, Fred has designed and facilitated programs on leadership, personal mastery, team learning, organizational effectiveness and coaching for thousands of executives, and consultants worldwide. His book, Conscious Business, has been translated to more than ten languages, received numerous awards and was recently named by Sheryl Sandberg in her New York Times interview as "the business book every executive should read"

 

RESOURCES
  • Meaning Revolution
  • Conscious Business
     

SHOW NOTES

  • You don’t know your job. (2:52)
  • Why you’re wrong, how this organizational disease works and kills your organization (8:19).
  • Looking at the whole organizational system vs. the parts. (10:24)
  • The problem you can not avoid. (13:25)
  • Why doing your job may be hazardous to your career. (15:38)
  • Why we’re screwed - the two issues in economics of information. (18:28)
  • Issues with decentralization vs centralization of the system. (27:27)
  • So we’re screwed... but here’s the solution. (33:56)
  • The assumptions you need to change. (36:27)
  • What makes you give your best effort. (37:21)
  • The two tools incentivizing people’s best. (41:33)
  • The absolute human need. (43:36)
  • Q & A. (48:14)
     
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The Engineering Leadership PodcastBy The Engineering Leadership Community (ELC)

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