Navigating the Growth Dilemma with Ryan Hamilton

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I’m thrilled to welcome Ryan Hamilton to the show this week. Ryan is an associate professor of marketing at Emory University's Goizueta Business School. He has consulted on branding with Walmart, FedEx, Home Depot, Caterpillar, ConAgra, Cigna, Visa, and Ipsos, among others, and has been a keynote speaker. He cohosts a podcast, called The Intuitive Customer, which applies the insights of behavioral science to customer experience. He has produced lecture series on both marketing and human decision making for The Great Courses. He is the co-author of a new book, The Growth Dilemma. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…anyone navigating brand growth and customer strategy decisions across evolving markets and customer segments.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…growth is a natural goal for businesses, but attracting new customers can unintentionally alienate the ones you already have. Ryan calls this the growth dilemma. As you expand your customer base, you risk creating conflicts between different groups of customers, conflicts that can undermine your success. Ryan outlines four kinds of customer conflict and how businesses can better anticipate and manage them before making big moves.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Growth can backfire if you don’t manage customer conflicts

• Start by maximizing value from existing customers before chasing new ones

• The four common conflict types are functional, brand image, user identity, and ideological

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Ryan’s insight that brands often chase new customers without realizing the conflicts it creates, when the gold might already be in their existing customer base.

Running Time: 27:02

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Ryan & Annie’s Book: The Growth Dilemma: Managing Your Brand When Different Customers Want Different Things

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week, I’m eager to replay a conversation with Hal Gregersen. Hal is Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center and Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His book, Questions Are the Answer, builds on 200+ interviews with renowned business, technology, education, government, social enterprise, and artistic leaders. Ranked one of the world’s 25 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50, and winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award for leadership, Hal regularly delivers inspirational keynote speeches, motivational executive seminars and transformational coaching experiences. He has co-authored ten books and is the author of more than 50 articles, book chapters, and cases on leading innovation and change (with more than 10,000 citations by other scholars). His research has been highlighted in global media such as BBC, CNN, The Economist, Fast Company, Financial Times, Forbes, Fortune, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal. He is also the founder of  The 4-24 Project, an initiative dedicated to rekindling the provocative power of asking the right questions in adults so they can pass this crucial creativity skill onto the next generation. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who wants to get better and rekindle his or her curiosity!

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Hal teaches us all about asking questions and really listening to the answers. Are you stopping and reflecting on how many and what kinds of questions you ask? Are you getting and acting on good feedback? Hal helps us pause and take a moment to rediscover our child-like curiosity and move forward as better leaders, better employees, and better humans!

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Hal’s 24-hour question audit. We all should be doing this!

Running time: 36:02

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Hal’s Website: 

halgregersen.com

Hal’s Book: 

Questions Are the Answer

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week I’d like to share a conversation I had a while back with Liz Fosslien. Liz is the co-author and illustrator of the Wall Street Journal best-seller No Hard Feelings: The Secret Power of Embracing Emotions at Work. She’s also the Head of Content at Humu. Humu is a company that makes work better by using behavioral science and machine learning to make change easier. Liz's writing and illustrations have been featured on or by The New York Times, the Harvard Business Review, The Economist, WNYC, and NPR’s Marketplace. I am absolutely thrilled to have her as a guest!

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…anyone experiencing burnout, remote workers, and those who have experienced a lack of belonging at work.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…Liz teaches us about the secret power of embracing your emotions in the workplace in an appropriate and productive way. She talks about creating an environment of belonging and preventing the infamous office blow-up. She breaks down emotion, expression, and burnout, and talks about how we can be more productive leaders when we are reflective by employing EQ to create a healthy and productive work environment. Becoming a more present leader can help keep you and your team from experiencing productivity-killing burnout! Liz also discusses practical strategies for efficiency and efficacy in the workplace.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…“You can’t pour from an empty cup.” Liz flags this analogy and its importance in the workplace, especially for leaders.

Running time: 37:26

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Liz’s Website: 

www.fosslien.com

Liz and Mollie’s Book: 

No Hard Feelings 

Liz and Mollie’s Website:

www.lizandmollie.com

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I’m thrilled to welcome Jenny Wood to the show this week. She had an 18-year career at Google, where she grew from entry-level to executive, and she most recently led a large operations team that helped drive tens of billions of dollars in revenue per year. In 2021, she started a passion project within Google called Own Your Career, which grew to one of the largest career development programs in Google’s history. Through the programs she founded, she has trained tens of thousands of people on acing a job search, building relationships, personal branding, effective email writing, increasing confidence, and so much more. She also has a new book out called Wild Courage, which has just hit the New York Times list. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…anyone looking to grow their personal brand, boost confidence, and take bold steps in their career.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…many people feel stuck in their careers not because they lack talent, but because they hesitate to speak up, stand out, or take action. Jenny shares a roadmap for building confidence and personal brand by overcoming fear and embracing thoughtful risk. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS

• Personal branding starts with solving a real problem and thinking out loud.

• “Playground time” helps you explore new skills without pressure.

• Confidence is built through action, not perfection.

• Sharing your ideas can boost both your career and your company.

• Rewrite limiting beliefs by separating truths from tales.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Jenny’s reminder that the courage to try, even when you’re not ready, is what separates dreamers from doers.

Running Time: 25:00

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Jenny’s Book:

Wild Courage: Go After What You Want and Get It

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I have the pleasure of welcoming Kristi Herold to the show today. Kristi is the founder and CEO of JAM, a multi-million-dollar global business that has connected millions of people through play since its inception in 1996 and has grown to be one of the world’s largest adult recreational sports leagues. JAM has also produced and delivered over 4,000 playful corporate team-building events in over 30 countries since the summer of 2020, and the JAM team consults organizations, helping them integrate fun and play into their “workPLAYce culture.” She’s also the best-selling author of It Pays to PLAY – How Play Improves Business Culture. She has been named to Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, was a top 3 finalist in the Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards, and was awarded the Governor General’s Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in recognition of her contribution and giving back to the community. Her vision is to get 1 million people playing annually.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…leaders, people managers, and culture-builders who want to strengthen remote and hybrid teams without forcing another Zoom brainstorm or awkward icebreaker.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…you don’t have to choose between productivity and fun at work. Kristi Herold is on a mission to prove you can (and should) have both. In this episode, we discuss how Kristi helps companies around the world integrate play into their culture, virtually and in-person, to boost engagement, build stronger relationships, and drive real business results. From playful daily huddles to rethinking your team-building events, she shares tangible ways to make fun a part of your workplace DNA.

Key Takeaways:

• How virtual play can build culture even across time zones

• Why “laughter guarantees” work better than mandatory fun

• How to structure quick, daily team check-ins that actually feel good

• Ideas to bring play into remote meetings without making it weird

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Kristi’s approach is practical, energizing, and incredibly human. Her belief that “you don’t have to stop working to play” is a game-changer for leaders trying to build stronger cultures remotely.

Running Time: 25:35

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Kristi’s Offer for What’s Next! Listeners:

https://www.kristiherold.com/whatsnext25/

Kristi’s Book:

It Pays to PLAY: How Play Improves Business Culture

RELOAD: Unearth Your Own Potential by Being More Self-Aware with Tasha Eurich

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week I’m looking back to an inspiring conversation with Tasha Eurich I reflect on often. Tasha is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author. Over her 15+ year career, Tasha has built a reputation as a fresh, modern voice in the business world by pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to professional development. She’s helped thousands of leaders—from public company CEOs to early-stage entrepreneurs—improve their self-awareness and success. Her TEDxMileHigh talks have been viewed more than three million times and in 2019, Thinkers50 named her one of the top 30 emerging management thinkers in the world. She was also chosen from more than 16,000 candidates as one of Marshall Goldsmith’s “100 Coaches” to advance the practice of leadership. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… aspiring and current leaders, as well as anyone interacting with other humans in the 21st century who want to become more self-aware.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… as the foundational skill for our success and happiness in both our professional and personal lives, it behooves us to become self-aware both internally and externally, and Tasha breaks it down.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… I have always thought that the conversation around self-awareness, how we lead and how we think we lead, and how we communicate and think we communicate is fascinating and so beneficial. This podcast will open your eyes to the reality of your own self-awareness and how others might perceive you. 

Running time: 34:27

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Tasha’s Website:

tashaeurich.com

Tasha’s Books:

Insight

Bankable Leadership: Happy People, Bottom-Line Results, and the Power to Deliver Both

The Insight Quiz:

The Insight Quiz

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week I am thrilled to share a conversation I had with Doug Stephens a while back. Doug is the Founder of Retail Prophet. He is one of the world’s foremost retail industry futurists whose intellectual work has influenced well-known international retailers, agencies and brands like Walmart, Google, L'Oreal, Disney, BMW, Citibank, and LVMH. Doug is the author of two groundbreaking books, The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism (2013) and Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World (2017). Doug is also the nationally syndicated retail columnist for CBC Radio and sits on multiple corporate and academic advisory boards, including the David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retail & Services at St. Mary’s University. His unique perspectives on retailing, business and consumer behavior have been featured in many of the world’s leading publications and media outlets, including The New York Times, The BBC, Bloomberg Business News, TechCrunch, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone looking to understand the future of retail and what value brands can derive from maintaining storefronts, investing in multi-channel engagement and what disruptions might be right around the corner.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Doug Stephens breaks down the past, present, and future of retail and talks about bringing metrics and experience into the future to keep stores open. Have we come full circle? Doug thinks so, and he is sharing just how. He also shares his insight on giants like Amazon, why he thinks they are ripe for disruption, the retail experience, how our current metrics are living in the past, and how brick-and-mortar stores can be your most powerful and measurable media channel.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…So often ,I get asked about the death of retail, so it was really great to get a chance to talk to an expert like Doug, who can shed more light on the realities.

Running time: 39:50

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Doug’s Website:

www.retailprophet.com

Doug’s Books:

The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism

Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week, I’m looking back to a great conversion I had with Olympic silver medalist John Coyle. Known as “The Time Guy,” John is a thought leader in the field of chronoception—the study of how humans process time— and one of the world's leading experts in Design Thinking. A graduate of Stanford University’s Product Design Program and a Kellogg MBA, John is an NBC sports analyst, two-time TEDx presenter and sought-after keynote speaker. His presentations combine the data and analytics of a professor with the inspired storytelling of an Olympic athlete. He is also a best-selling author of two books, Design For Strengths: Applying Design Thinking to Individual and Team Strengths and The Art of Really Living Manifesto. As a speaker and an author, his talent is in weaving facts, examples, and intellectual principles into engaging stories that leave you with actionable ideas.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone interested in design thinking, optimizing for their strength and maximizing their time to make major breakthroughs. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… John shares his experiences as an Olympian, an innovator, and a world-class “design-thinker.” His personal experiences, metaphors, and practical guidelines serve as a roadmap for innovation and leaning into your strengths as opposed to trying to solve “weaknesses.” He also shares how design thinking can seep into and affect other parts of your life and career to achieve breakthrough performances and create more meaning.  

WHAT I LOVE  MOST… John’s great and illustrative anecdotes that help anyone focus on design thinking, solving the right problems, and learning how to lean into your strengths as opposed to solving for your non-strengths.  

Running Time: 35:55

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John’s Books: 

Design For Strengths 

The Art of Really Living Manifesto 

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week I’m bringing back an episode with the wonderful Cindy Gallop. Cindy has over 30 years of experience in brand-building, marketing, and advertising. Cindy took a risk when she entered advertising, and she hasn’t stopped taking them since. In 1998 she moved from the UK to New York and began building one of the fastest-growing agencies in Europe’s US branch, the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH). Four years later, BBH US was named Ad Week’s Eastern Agency of the Year, and in 2003 Cindy was named Advertising Woman of the Year.  In 2005 she resigned as Chairman of BBH to pursue other projects. She continues to work in advertising and marketing, but is also tending to other fascinating projects of her own as well. At TED 2009, she launched MakeLoveNotPorn, she is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, a co-action software that enables brands to implement the business model of the future: Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social). 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… marketers and anyone on a mission to bring more diversity to their organization and brand, and those interested in learning more about the final marketing frontier!

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Cindy Gallop takes us on a journey through the history of advertising and how we can be more mindful of inclusion and being more diverse moving forward. She also tackles the uncomfortable but necessary topics we simply aren’t addressing and the importance of the final marketing (in her mind) frontier: sex. Cindy is fearless and thoughtful on the topic and presents compelling evidence on the importance of being more willing to take risks when it comes to advertising and sex.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Cindy opens up a dialogue that will make us uncomfortable and get us thinking about all of the opportunities yet to be explored in marketing, as well as thinking critically from a health and wellness perspective.

Running time: 34:43

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Cindy's Website

Make Love Not Porn

Cindy's TED Talk

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I have the honor and pleasure of welcoming Caroline Adams Miller to the show today. 

For over three decades, Caroline has been a pioneer with her groundbreaking work in the science of goal setting, grit, happiness, and success. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading optimistic psychology experts. She is the author of nine books but we’re here to discuss her most recent book, Big Goals.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who wants to set bigger, more meaningful goals and follow through with success.

TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… most people approach goal setting the wrong way—relying on outdated methods, setting goals that are too small, or giving up too soon. Caroline Adams Miller shares why the science of goal setting is crucial for success and proposes new strategies to push past mediocrity and create a more fulfilling life.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:

• Meaningful goals should challenge you and push you outside your comfort zone.

• The best goals align with what you won’t regret pursuing later in life.

• Learning goals require patience and time, while performance goals demand high standards of excellence.

• Who you surround yourself with can determine your success—seek out supporters, not frenemies.

• Goal-setting isn’t about quick wins; it’s about creating long-term strategies for success.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Caroline’s insight that true goal setting isn’t just about ambition—it’s about meaning. The goals that truly change our lives are the ones that challenge us, push us forward, and align with what we’ll be proud of in the long run.

Running Time: 25:53

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Caroline’s Book: Big Goals: The Science of Setting Them, Achieving Them, and Creating Your Best Life