Throttle Up Leadership Podcast

We Say We Want Innovation, Then Punish It

Episode 193

Organizations say they want innovation, then quietly punish the behavior that produces it. Dr. Melisa Buie on courage, failure, and the experimental mindset that solves hard problems.

Curiosity gets labeled a distraction. Experiments get labeled risk. Failure gets treated as something close to fatal, so people stop trying things, and the safest path becomes the only path anyone walks. The result is a workforce full of capable adults doing careful, forgettable work.

Dr. Melisa Buie (PhD, nuclear engineering and plasma physics; leadership roles at Lam Research, Coherent, Applied Materials, and Advanced Energy; author of Faceplant: Free Yourself From Failure's Funk) joins Dr. John Dentico on why fear of failure stops people from trying, how to get through failure's funk, and how leaders make experimentation a normal part of how work gets done.

Key takeaways

Fear of failure is close to universal: nearly half of people worldwide won't try something new because of it, and 80% of risk-taking founders and CEOs say it keeps them up at night.

The goal isn't to stop feeling failure. It's to get through the funk and turn those emotions into energy and curiosity.

Limit the blast zone: small, incremental experiments beat betting the whole farm on one big launch thrown over the fence.

Strategic planning looks for answers; strategic thinking makes sure you are asking the right questions, and risk-based thinking belongs in the boardroom, not only in the quality department.

A pre-mortem asks, "It's four years out and this failed. What happened?" No one is attached to a failure that hasn't happened yet, so people name the red flags freely.

Many failures are really gaps between expectations and reality; spell out expectations and plan what you will do if they aren't met.

Nested mission statements give every team its own marching orders tied to the larger mission, turning people into self-leaders.

00:00 — Welcome: when organizations punish the behavior that produces innovation

00:58 — Meet Dr. Melisa Buie

01:49 — An Alabama family farm, math with Dad, and Auburn's farm experiments

03:55 — After the PhD: design of experiments and a mentor at Applied Materials

07:14 — Faceplant: courage and the global fear of failure

09:19 — "Successful attempts" and the emotional side of failure

11:28 — Getting free of failure's funk

13:27 — The safe cracker: keep what you've learned

15:26 — Bureaucracy, big bets, and limiting the blast zone

18:45 — Strategic thinking vs. strategic planning

21:33 — Risk-based thinking belongs in the boardroom

24:50 — The pre-mortem, explained

28:28 — Pre-mortems as simulation: reverse-engineering failure

32:03 — Failure as a gap between expectations and reality

34:11 — Forward deployed engineers and nested mission statements

39:03 — Cascaded missions create self-leaders

40:20 — What's next: Faceplant for organizations, two new books, a project with Mom

42:27 — Perseverance, resilience, and close

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Episode 192

In the highest-stakes rooms, the costliest move is often saying nothing. Dr. Karalee Picard on silence, psychological safety, and leadership that holds under pressure.

Someone sees the flaw in the plan, weighs what speaking up will cost them, and lets it go. The briefing ends, the decision moves forward, and nobody logs the moment the organization chose silence.

Dr. Karalee Picard (DIA / U.S. Strategic Command; founder, Insight Leadership Consulting) joins Dr. John Dentico on why capable people stay quiet, what silence costs the mission, and how leaders design culture so truth can be said without being sidelined.

Key takeaways

• Silence in high-stakes rooms is a leadership design failure: without psychological safety, people will not risk humiliation, ridicule, or being sidelined — even when the mission depends on it.
• Dual chains of command (and relationship-based workarounds) quietly degrade quality when the people with the best insight are bypassed.
• Values on the wall are decoration until teams define how they run meetings, hold each other accountable, and practice psychological safety — then point to that agreement when behavior slips.
• Put the leader in the room as a participant, not a director; culture work without the boss present rarely changes anything.
• Nest the mission: a lofty command or corporate statement does not tell people why their piece of work matters — local purpose and shared language do.
• Strategic planning finds answers; strategic thinking makes sure you are asking the right questions (and naming the real threats/gaps) first.
• Power AI cannot replace is relational and expertise-based influence — used to fix processes, win informal champions, and put decisions where they belong.

00:00 — Welcome: when the most dangerous thing is nothing

01:42 — Meet Dr. Karalee Picard

01:58 — North Dakota roots, Navy intel, and a doctorate in culture

07:55 — When a capable professional decides not to speak

11:19 — Values alignment, personal agency, growth trajectory

13:32 — Culture workshops that make values usable

18:26 — Simulations, mental models, and nested missions

22:36 — Branding vs. mission: purpose people can feel

25:47 — Strategic thinking vs. strategic planning

28:20 — INTEL decision model for non-supervisors

33:29 — Human Powered: power AI will never replace

36:37 — Two definitions of leadership

39:56 — Informal power, trust, and winning change champions

45:31 — Bureaucracy as the court — creativity still plays

48:45 — What's next: consulting, a book, and a Memory Café

50:23 — Close and thanks

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Description: Episode 191

Guest: Ekta Agarwal, senior technology leader turned startup founder and AI enthusiast

After 20 years driving results inside someone else's system, Ekta asked a harder question at 39: what happens when you stop optimizing another person's vision and start building your own? We talk about starting when you're stuck, leading without a title, why AI should amplify judgment instead of replacing it, and how belonging is something you sometimes have to create.

Takeaways

If you don't feel you belong, create your own space rather than waiting for permission.

AI's real power is amplifying judgment and speeding good work, not replacing capable people.

Keep learning the new tools; engineers who adapt keep building, they don't get sidelined.

Treat ideas as living: watch what's already working elsewhere, refine fast, and stay open to change.

Use AI with standards (especially in healthcare): privacy, security, and human review still own the outcome.

Leadership is a process, not a bottleneck at the top; invite more minds into decisions as speed increases.

Self-doubt is common; capability is often larger than the story you're telling yourself.

Chapters

0:00 Welcome and why Ekta left certainty for possibility

1:33 Growing up in India, moving to the U.S., and creating belonging

4:41 Early career and the boss who saw more potential

6:16 Leaving corporate, reclaiming hobbies, and stepping into leadership roles

7:50 Does AI replace software engineers or make them faster?

12:33 Finding ideas, learning from what already exists, and building in public

15:39 Using AI for honest critique, not flattery

17:13 Local AI, Apple's pace, and healthcare data privacy

21:56 Leadership as process when one person becomes the bottleneck

25:05 How AI changes the speed and shape of building companies

29:47 Women in tech: capability, multitasking, and moving past self-doubt

34:28 What's next for Ekta: startup goals and helping others

Links

Throttle Up Leadership: https://throttleupleadership.com

LinkedIn (Dr. John P. Dentico): https://www.linkedin.com/in/johndentico

Guest: https://cdn.bmapinc.com/shareables/20043159/articles/iw_4065-2026-07-20-19-00-39-square.png

Meaning is the new money.

Episode 190

Founders and operators: strong EBITDA means nothing if the bank balance is empty. In this episode, Dr. John Dentico talks with chartered accountant and non-executive director Ayanda Vabaza-Mvandaba (Outsourced CFO) about cash vs. profit, customer-acquisition costs, mission alignment across functions, and why cutting people is the wrong first lever.

Takeaways: • Profit on paper can hide a cash crisis — watch runway, not just EBITDA • Fragmented strategies nobody can recite are a leadership/structure problem • Every function needs its own mission that supports the whole • Compliance lag and product irrelevance kill scalability quietly • Cyber resilience starts with basic education and enforced policy

00:00 – Welcome & Guest Introduction 01:48 – Early Life, Influences & Path to Chartered Accountancy 05:47 – Cash Flow vs Profit: The Quiet Crisis Scenario 08:48 – Customer Acquisition Costs in Downturns 10:30 – What a Non-Executive Director Really Adds 12:30 – Aligning Mission, Strategy & the Whole Team 16:10 – Why Finance (and Every Function) Needs Its Own Mission 20:30 – AI Financing Realities from a South African Lens 23:50 – Healthcare Cyber-Attack Case Study & Lessons 28:20 – The Compliance Blind Spot Founders Share 30:50 – Two Leadership Mistakes Seen Across Every Sector 34:00 – South Africa's Entrepreneurial Future & Closing

Listen + resources: https://www.throttleupleadership.com/podcast

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/throttle-up-leadership-podcast/id1613171927

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3i8W3PvFJz9rQuD2uQ7FIY

If this helped, leave a rating — it helps other leaders find the show.

About the guest: Ayanda Vabaza-Mvandaba is a chartered accountant and non-executive director with Outsourced CFO in South Africa, with audit, valuations, and board experience across financial services and public entities.

Episode 189

If your purpose statement can't survive a quarterly scorecard, it's decoration. Dr. John Dentico runs a LeadSimm-style micro-simulation with purpose practitioners Jennie McLaughlin and Sarah Rozenthuler on values alignment vs. utilization metrics — and why only about 10% of organizations reach real purpose alignment.

Takeaways: • Purpose is a design problem and a conversation problem • Scorecards that only measure utilization punish doing the right thing • The purpose lifecycle dies when words aren't wired into strategy and numbers • Burnout and cognitive load are structural, not personal weakness • AI belongs where it reduces load — leaders still own judgment

00:00 Two Purpose Practitioners, Two Continents

02:22 Applied Math, Startups and the Sinek Spark

03:32 Happy and Useful: The Road Into Dialogue

05:38 Joyful Eating: When Purpose Survives a Sale

08:09 The Purpose Lifecycle and the Ten Percent Problem

13:37 Scratchy Rooms and the Listening Posture

16:34 Micro Simulation: Amy and the Stainless Steel Promise

18:56 Rude Awakenings or Collateral Damage

26:29 Seven Words and the Bank Teller Test

31:58 Burnout, Fumes and the 170 Percent Conversation

41:31 Cognitive Relief: Who Is Actually in the Loop

48:06 Team Purpose, Following the Money, What Comes Next

Listen + resources: https://www.throttleupleadership.com/podcast

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/throttle-up-leadership-podcast/id1613171927

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3i8W3PvFJz9rQuD2uQ7FIY

If this helped, leave a rating — it helps other leaders find the show.

About the guests: Jennie McLaughlin founded Purpose Led Transformation (ex-EY purpose practice, APAC). Sarah Rozenthuler is a chartered psychologist, founder of Bridgework Consulting, and author of Now We're Talking.

Episode 188

Leaders: your annual cyber "maturity score" may describe a world that no longer exists. Dr. John Dentico talks with Charlene Deaver-Vazquez (38 years in IT, DoD, NRC risk modeling; CyberRiskModels.com) about why compliance frameworks mislead, why AI is a Bayesian tool not a conscious mind, and why leadership, not IT alone, must own the risk.

Takeaways: • Treat AI like a capable intern: direct it, watch it, check it, own the output • Maturity scores without dollar risk translation can actively mislead boards • Attacks increasingly bypass the perimeter — defend at machine speed • Cyber is a leadership/structure problem, not just a tech ticket • Stress-test systems before someone else does

00:00 The Report Describes a World That No Longer Exists

02:07 Farm Country Lessons and the Value of Doing the Work

05:44 Why Compliance Frameworks Actively Mislead

07:19 It Is Not Conscious, It Is Bayesian

09:31 Treat Every AI Like a Brilliant Unsupervised Intern

12:14 Open Source, Training Discipline, and the Risk Gap

15:40 The Pivot Point in Malicious AI

16:41 Attacks the Perimeter Cannot See

18:00 When Cyber Becomes Part of the War Platform

21:15 Defending at Machine Speed

26:39 Inertia, Perks, and the Agility Problem

36:00 Stress Test It Before Someone Else Does

Listen + resources: https://www.throttleupleadership.com/podcast

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/throttle-up-leadership-podcast/id1613171927

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3i8W3PvFJz9rQuD2uQ7FIY

If this helped, leave a rating — it helps other leaders find the show.

About the guest: Charlene Deaver-Vazquez has 38 years in IT, from corporate networks to DoD compliance and NRC risk quantification; she founded CyberRiskModels.com.

Episode 187

Month-end isn't a scheduling problem; it's structural. Dr. John Dentico talks with Dr. Errol Brandt (Nestlé, Amcor; Kiraa) about why acceleration projects never stick, why nobody reads 1,300 metrics, and how one page of actionable insight beats dashboard theater; including a live micro-sim with a sales manager drowning in tabs.

Takeaways: • Work expands to fill every efficiency gain, fix structure, not just speed • Personas and behaviors beat metric piles for real coaching • Servant leadership + small accountable teams beat lone heroics • Agree the problem statement before anyone leaves the room • Tacit knowledge walks out the door when experienced people leave

00.00 Welcome and why this conversation has two halves 02.39 Country Queensland, an Amstrad, and a childhood spent coding 04.01 Three hundred month ends and the entropy that eats every efficiency gain 08.57 The M1 moment: betting on local AI before ChatGPT existed 12.57 The bubble, the arms race, and why business needs determinism 17.49 Apple's missing plumbing and the gap Kiraa is built to fill 21.53 Dashboards, traffic lights, and the story the numbers never tell 27.25 Servant leadership, personal agency, and hiring smart lazy people 31.48 Part two: meet Jennifer, six tabs and a Sunday at the kitchen table 41.44 Personalized, actionable insights instead of 1,300 KPIs 51.10 Steve Jobs at MIT: fix the structure, stop treating symptoms 63.33 Photocopier economics and the private data center

Listen + resources: https://www.throttleupleadership.com/podcast

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/throttle-up-leadership-podcast/id1613171927

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3i8W3PvFJz9rQuD2uQ7FIY

If this helped, leave a rating; it helps other leaders find the show.

About the guest: Dr. Errol Brandt spent 30 years at Nestlé and Amcor and works on putting intelligence back on the device through Kiraa.

Episode 186

Most R&D never becomes a product that makes money, that's a system problem, not a science problem. Dr. John Dentico talks with Dr. John Scott (ex-NASA astrophysicist; Innventure; Down Select) about why founders fall in love with their own idea, why needs must lead, and how nineteen criteria beat elegant tech that nobody wants.

Takeaways: • Needs lead; economic viability beats elegance • The "founder's deadly embrace" is falling in love with your own idea • Leadership's job is the strategic framework, not managing minutiae • AI should bubble up from people doing the work, not shout down from the bridge • Pick the right game before you build

00:00 The Trillion Dollar R&D Lottery

01:39 Daytona Beach and the Recovering Scientist

02:35 Strategy Without Tactics, Tactics Without Strategy

03:23 Leadership's Real Job Is the Strategic Framework

04:39 Why Entrepreneurs Become Their Own Worst Enemy

06:26 Ninety Percent of R&D Value Never Gets Realized

08:53 The Founder's Deadly Embrace

11:15 AI, Sherpas, and Getting to the Right Person

15:10 Down Select and Choosing the Right Game to Play

18:37 Disruption Is Non-Linear, So You Adapt

23:24 Needs Lead: Nineteen Criteria Before You Build

29:00 AI Bubbles Up, It Does Not Shout Down

Listen + resources: https://www.throttleupleadership.com/podcast

Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/throttle-up-leadership-podcast/id1613171927

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/3i8W3PvFJz9rQuD2uQ7FIY

If this helped, leave a rating — it helps other leaders find the show.

About the guest: Dr. John Scott is a recovering scientist, co-founder and chief strategy officer of Innventure, after founding and scaling more than a dozen technology companies.

Fay Niewiadomski does not teach courage from a slide deck; she learned it in a bombed out office in Lebanon, standing in the ashes of seventeen years of work. Author of Decisions That Matter and founder of ICTN, she has spent three decades advising presidents, ministers and global CEOs, and she arrives with a claim that should unsettle every leadership program in the business: leadership traits do not exist. Behavior does. Values drive decisions, decisions produce outcomes, and people read the outcomes long before they read the résumé.

In this conversation she lays out the three pillars she believes leadership behavior sits on, competence, courage and compassion, and argues that loyalty is not a qualification. She separates strategic decisions from everyday choices, explains why integrity married to credibility is the only authenticity that cannot be faked, and delivers a line that stops the episode cold: perfection is not a goal, it is self-destruction. Along the way she takes on disengagement, the difference between human resources and human capital, and why AI is a library, not a mind.

Chapter Headings

00:00 Welcome and a Disruptor for Good

01:37 Jamaica, Lebanon, and the War That Rewrote a Life

06:33 The Bombed Out Office and Three Impossible Decisions

10:37 Meaning Is the New Money

11:22 Integrity, Credibility, and the Authenticity You Cannot Fake

14:30 Forget Traits: Competence, Courage, and Compassion

20:05 Learning Your Way Into a Better Behavior

25:06 Perfection Is Not a Goal, It Is Self Destruction

26:59 The Phoenix, Joseph Campbell, and the Permission of the Dead

31:04 Only 32 Percent Engaged and the Failure of Purpose

34:20 AI Is in the Loop, You Are the Center

40:22 The Four Journeys of a Leader

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Colin Davis spent two decades in pastoral and nonprofit leadership, including years as a missionary and monk, before founding First Principles Coaching in Richmond. He works with the two to ten person shops that quietly power local economies; too established to wing it, too lean for white glove coaching, too personal for a generic online course. Colin argues that real growth starts with something far older than any tactic or funnel; knowing yourself, clarifying your purpose, and mastering the principles beneath the practices. He diagnoses stuck owners across four areas: mindset, time management, systems and flywheels, and team dynamics.

Drawing on two philosophy degrees and Aristotle's teleology, Colin makes purpose the first principle, because nothing else makes sense without it. He unpacks business identity into business model, values, vision and mission, and marketing identity, then insists a single sentence mission statement is not enough on its own; it needs supporting paragraphs and lived stories to become an active force. Along the way, he and John wrestle with vision versus foresight, values alignment, personal agency, and why trust is the currency every small business runs on.

00.00 The wall small businesses hit

01.58 From Southern California to missionary and monk

05.39 A warning or a calling: watching Dad rebuild

06.39 Working on the business vs in the business

08.56 The big four: mindset, time, systems, team

12.09 Purpose is the first principle

15.16 Business identity in four elements

19.38 Meaning is the new money

23.29 Why one sentence isn't enough

29.25 Vision vs foresight: Jobs, Blockbuster, Netflix

36.47 Values alignment, agency, and trust

45.07 Beyond EOS and Colin's three arenas

If you enjoy our podcasts please like, share and subscribe we genuinely appreciate your support.