Utter Brilliance

By Marisa Keegan

Sounding off with the best of the best about Business, Leadership and Engagement... more

· Business

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FAQs about Utter Brilliance:

How many episodes does Utter Brilliance have?

The podcast currently has 30 episodes available.

Utter Brilliance episodes:

October 02, 2019 (UB 027) Women and Negotiation
Episode 027: Women and Negotiation
On this episode, Master Negotiator Allan Tsang taps into over twenty years of negotiating expertise to help dig into the tricky subject of women and negotiating.
If you’ve ever felt like you’ve left money on the table, have been passed over for a big financial win because you’re waiting to be ‘seen’ or have failed to negotiate effectively for yourself, your business or your career, this is an episode you don’t want to miss.
Together, Allan and I tackle questions such as:
Do women tend to miss out on opportunities to negotiate because they believe their hard work will naturally be rewarded?
Are women weaker negotiators than men? If so, why?
What role does fear play in negotiation?
What are the biggest misperceptions when it comes to negotiating?
What are the top tips women need to know before entering into a negotiation?
For more information on Allan Tsang you can find him at 88Owls.com or on LinkedIn.
...more
44min
April 24, 2018 (UB026): Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers The World's Best Companies. Featuring Denise Yohn - Brand Leadership Expert, Speaker and Author.
Don’t miss Denise Yohn, the go-to expert on brand-building for national media outlets, an in-demand speaker and consultant, and an influential writer. In addition to FUSION, she is the author of the bestselling book What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest and the e-book Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do.
News media including FOX Business TV, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal , and NPR call on Denise when they want an expert point-of-view on hot business issues and I'm thrilled to have her sharing her tips and tricks with our listeners on this episode.
Today we sound off about:
How the war for talent has led to a more intentional focus on culture within the business world
Why it's important for companies to understand the impact that Culture has on Brand
What leaders at the top of an organization need to understand about their role in driving a single vision for their organization and why they can no longer delegate Culture and Brand to HR and Marketing exclusively
The power of combining vision, culture and brand together to ensure a company is living their brand inside and out
Why honest leaders are still questioning the strategic link between culture and business results
Tips, Tools and Resources:
Foundational steps leaders should take in order to integrate their brand and culture
5 Strategies for achieving Brand culture fusion
Specific questions leaders can ask when trying to align vision, culture and brand
Free access to Denise's Brand Assessment can be found here
...more
33min
April 23, 2018(UB026): Fusion: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers The World’s Best Companies. Featuring Denise Yohn - Brand Leadership Expert, Speaker and Author.
Don’t miss Denise Yohn, the go-to expert on brand-building for national media outlets, an in-demand speaker and consultant, and an influential writer. In addition to FUSION, she is the author of the bestselling book What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest and the e-book Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do.

News media including FOX Business TV, CNBC, The Wall Street Journal , and NPR call on Denise when they want an expert point-of-view on hot business issues and I'm thrilled to have her sharing her tips and tricks with our listeners on this episode.

Today we sound off about:
How the war for talent has led to a more intentional focus on culture within the business world
Why it's important for companies to understand the impact that Culture has on Brand

What leaders at the top of an organization need to understand about their role in driving a single vision for their organization and why they can no longer delegate Culture and Brand to HR and Marketing exclusively

The power of combining vision, culture and brand together to ensure a company is living their brand inside and out

Why honest leaders are still questioning the strategic link between culture and business results

Tips, Tools and Resources:
Foundational steps leaders should take in order to integrate their brand and culture
5 Strategies for achieving Brand culture fusion

Specific questions leaders can ask when trying to align vision, culture and brand

Free access to Denise's Brand Assessment can be found here
...more
33min
April 22, 2018 (UB025): Psychology and Leadership: How a disadvantaged and troubled childhood became a Leadership Superpower when it comes to growing her people. Featuring Lisa Myers, CEO and Founder @ Verve Search
Follow along as Lisa Myers, CEO and Founder of the SEO Agency Verve Search, shares the story of how her childhood led to an intense focus on understanding what drives, motivates and inspires people. From a young age she knew she was going to be a leader but the path to becoming an award winning agency hasn’t always been easy.
Today we sound off about:
Stories:
Being Female in a Male Dominated Industry: Including examples of being targeted negatively because of her gender, specific things that were said and done along the way, how she choose to pick her battles
Having a People Focused Vision: Why she started her own business as a way to prove to others that her vision had credibility and would lead to success
Leading Through Growth: The biggest challenges she’s faced ensuring her company was people focused through times of quick growth
Psychology in Business: Why she relies so heavily on cognitive and behavioral psychology as a leader and why you should too
Compelling Message: The message she’s compelled to share with other leaders and how she was able to achieve a Mic Drop Moment that would make most leaders envious
Tips, Tools & Resources:
Characteristics of a Good Manager: Including how she grooms leaders & why it’s important to focus on people who have the makings of a naturally good leaders
Fitting People Into Boxes: Why you’ll have more success as a leader if you stop trying to fit people into a box
Seeing Potential in Others: How to elevate people who can't see their own potential
Healthy Conflict in Companies: Why she forced her entire company to spend an hour arguing and why they were better off for doing it
Rubber Band Theory: The power of stretching people past their comfort zone and seeking out leaders who have had tough life experiences
Authenticity: Stop worrying about what others think, start being more ‘you’ and use human emotion to better connect and inspire others
...more
53min
April 18, 2017 (UB024) Using Customer Feedback to Fuel Success: Increasing the odds of a powerful product launch with help from customers. Featuring Belsasar Lepe, SVP of Product and Solutions @Ooyala
Join in as Belsasar talks about his journey starting and growing his own business in a competitive environment that required them to find and utilize their biggest advantage - their customers and the customers of their competitors.
Stories:
How his family history shaped his aversion to ‘serial entrepreneurship” and led other leaders to dub him one of the “hardest working people I’ve ever met”
Why they try to learn from their competitors in the space ‘by proxy’ and how they get in front of customers who are using other platforms
Why listening to customers who had been brutally honest in the past led to a stronger product launch
A Mic Drop Moment that proved that sometimes it’s okay to push hard on customers

Customer Experience:
How they ensure they’re meeting the needs of their customers through experimentation
Why they don’t like to go more than a month without getting a product in front of their customers value getting products and updates in front of their customers early and often
How understanding your customers competitors sets you ahead
Using customer feedback to amplify your success
How Agile methodologies help improve customer experience
Tips, Tools & Resources:

Net Promoter Score: How to use it to gather customer feedback and what to do with the data collected
Top 3 Tips: For leaders who care about customer experience
Hiring Athletes: Why they make the best teammates in business
...more
47min
April 04, 2017 (UB023) Becoming a Best Place to Work: How one CEO took his company to the #1 slot in the country and what it would take for you to do the same thing. Featuring Shawn Boyer, Founder @ Snagajob
Listen in as Shawn Boyer talks about why it was important for his company to become a Best Place to Work and how it allowed them to beat their competitors and bring in high returns for their investors. We dive deep into the relationship between this CEO and his Chief People Officer to better understand how that partnership led to such high levels of success.
Join us as we sound off about:
Stories:
Why Shawn made culture such a high priority and how it led to them having over 65 million profiles on their site and over 200,000 companies using their services
The story of the day Snagajob found out they were the #1 Best Place to Work in the country in the small and medium category.
Why being on the Best Place to Work list mattered to Shawn and when he set that goal for the company
What being on the list does to employees and how it’s a double edged sword for leaders
What he does when employees want something he can’t give them
The role storytelling and testimonials played in keeping employees and leaders connected to the mission of the company
How he took his vision for creating a great culture and turned it into a reality
The impact his Chief of People had on their ability to become a Best Place to Work and why he’s glad he hired a CPO as early as he did
Tips, Tools & Resources:
Advice to the CEO: Tips and guidance for the CEO of a small company who wants to be known for having a great culture
4 Characteristics of a good Chief People Officer: Seriously, don’t miss out on this part of the podcast
Engagement Surveys and Pulse Checks: How they gathered employee feedback at Snagajob, their strategy and process for capturing data and doing something with it including the role of the Culture Team on collecting cross departmental feedback
Organizational Alignment: How they cascaded their Mission Statement with values, vision, a 3 year plan, a 1 year plan and goals to make sure there was a strong correlation between the heart of the business and the quantitative data and measures. Why this allowed their employees to connect with the mission of the company in an emotional way
Keeping HR From Being Marginalized: How he made sure the CPO was seen and treated as an important asset to by his senior leadership team and the rest of his company
...more
1h 19min
March 21, 2017 (UB022) Resiliency and Perseverance: How a kid from foster care became a Navy SEAL, CEO & motivational speaker to leaders all over the world. Featuring John McGuire, CEO @ Seal Team Physical Training
Don’t miss the amazing story of a leader who has overcome a lot on his journey to success - the foster system, being the underdog at boot camp, becoming a Navy SEAL, 29 broken bones including a neck and being told he’d never walk again. His story is truly inspirational and is packed with solid leadership advice that helped one team increase sales 40%.
Today John sounds off about the following stories:
Why his desire for family drove him to become a Navy SEAL
Three crazy boot camp stories including why he and his bunkmates had to be “Quiet Ninjas”
How he made sure he had enough mental and physical strength to achieve his goal of being a SEAL
How and why he hustled to start his physical training company which has expanded to six cities and has had up to 210 people in a single class
Why the Discovery Channel is creating a documentary about his work
How he made it through a neck injury that caused the doctors to say he’d never live through the night or walk again
...more
45min
March 07, 2017 (UB021) Transforming a Struggling Company: How one leader proved that the right focus on people and process can turn any company around. Featuring Ryan Hagan, COO @Qualtrax
Don’t miss Ryan Hagan talk about what he learned leading teams at an ‘idyllic’ company that was growing quickly, had some of the top customer engagement, employee engagement and manager effectiveness scores in the country and was a nationally recognized Best Place to Work. More importantly, hear about how he applied those philosophies to a struggling software company to completely transform the way they do business.
Today we sound off about:
Stories:
Why Ryan took on the challenge of turning around a struggling software company as a way to prove that his methodologies are sound
When and why he became focused on being a great leader
How the book “Drive” by Daniel Pink changed the way he leads
Tips, Tools & Resources:
Lack of discipline: How it gets companies into trouble
Agile Philosophies & Daily Standups: How they helped strengthen the company
Performance Review Process: Why they blew theirs up
Employee Engagement Surveys: Why they matter and how he uses them
Intentional Process Design: How he transformed the product development process, the sales process and the culture
Net Promoter Scores: What it is, why and how they use it
Strengths Profile and DISC: Two tools that help him build strong relationships with the members of his team
One on One’s: Why you need to do them weekly even though you don’t agree
Culture Change: The number one thing he’s done
...more
52min
February 21, 2017 (UB020) Leading with Empathy and Vulnerability: Increasing productivity and connectivity by tapping into the human side of people. Featuring Bart Lorang, CEO @FullContact
Listen in as Bart and I sound off about the business power that can be unleashed by tapping into the human side of people.
You’ll hear us talk about:
Stories:The powerful story about why he has a conference room named after his grandmother
The story of how people reacted the first time he showed vulnerability as a leader and why it changed his perspective
The ‘why’ for his business
The radical self inquiry he has gone through to get to where he is today
Why he’s compelled to share a message of empathy

All Things Culture:
Including their mission “To Be Awesome with People”
The No Asshole RuleThe role of vulnerability
Getting employees and customers to feel like they’re part of something bigger

Emotion at Work:
What it takes as a leader to get employees to open up at work and how Bart leads the charge
A specific ‘red’, ‘yellow’, ‘green’ technique Bart and his team use to make sure people are being transparent
Why Bart feels comfortable talking about emotion at work and why he thinks you should too
How he makes sure he’s connecting with each of his employees

Tips, Tools and Resources:
Strengthening your EQ - Tips
Utilizing a Chief People Officer to decrease the amount of ‘couch time’ he is spending with people
The obituary exercise: Outlining the kind of leader you’d like to be
Best advice he ever received from a mentor
Advice he’d give his 20 year old self if they were having coffee
Be Awesome with People
...more
35min
February 07, 2017 (UB019) The Link Between Employee Engagement and 12 Million Dollars in Growth: CEO & NYT Bestselling Author Kevin Kruse sounds off about why leaders should care about creating powerful engagement
Don’t miss out on hearing Kevin talk about how his shift from working ‘in’ his business to working ‘on’ his business allowed him to grow his company to 12 million in revenue in 5 years.
You’ll hear us sound off about:
The personal and professional shift that led to Kevin spending more time on leadership, engagement and talent for his company and less time on operations
The role that engagement surveys played in the success of his company and why doing them every 6 months made all the difference
“The Secret” to designing a strong engagement survey strategy and why you should pick one area to work on for every 3 to 6 month cycle
Why so few companies don’t execute on their employee engagement surveys correctly and what it takes to create a strong employee engagement survey strategy
What you can learn from Campbell Soup’s rebound and dedicated focus on engagement
How to tell if a CEO truly cares about engagement and examples of engagement focused CEO behaviors
Kevin’s advice to CEOs who want to take their engagement to the next level
Find out why he believes that if you want to change engagement it has to be from the bottom up - and why I disagree with him
How he keeps engagement top of mind as CEO of his own company with an ICE Triangle (Investors, Customers, Employees)
The mistake he made in his last company by measuring the wrong outcome which led to internal problems around engagement and taught him a big lesson
The advice Kevin has for me on the direction of my career
His number one piece of advice for you around increasing engagement
...more
1h 1min

FAQs about Utter Brilliance:

How many episodes does Utter Brilliance have?

The podcast currently has 30 episodes available.