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

This week, I’m reflecting on a great conversation I had with Andrew Grill a little while ago. Andrew is an experienced corporate leader and a former IBM Global Managing Partner. He has launched and run technology companies in Europe and Australia and worked with (and for) some of the world's leading companies, including Vodafone, Nestle, BBC, American Express, and Unilever. He is also a seasoned speaker and has presented at four separate TEDx events. He speaks to and consults for organizations to develop their strategy around digital disruption, social selling, the workplace of the future, emerging technologies, and digital diversity.  

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… believers of Andrew’s motto: if you want to get digital, you have to be digital. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Andrew and I live in the thought leadership space and share similar viewpoints on innovation and disruption. We both believe that the nature of work is changing, especially as technology continues to lead our lives and as Millennials begin to speak their voices in the professional world.   

WHEN YOU WORK FOR A COMPANY AND YOU WANT TO GROW YOUR DIGITAL FOOTPRINT… never forget that your employer doesn’t own you. No matter what, we’re all building our personal brands. Of course, it’s helpful to be attached to a brand that already has a following, but you’re still growing your own brand while you’re renting your time to that employer.   

LET YOUR DIGITAL SELF FLOURISH… sharing your life online and being a consumer/seller in the gig economy is not going anywhere. When you (and businesses ) begin to see this, you can shape your digital self around this changing workforce. Andrew believes that when you allow your digital persona to morph between private, public, and inside the organization, there will be broken rules but more human interaction. Are you ready for this kind of disruption? 

Running Time: 29:43

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

I’m eager to share my conversion with this week’s guest, Marga Hoek. Marga is a rare combination. She’s a true visionary on sustainable business, capital and technology, and a successful business leader. As a three-time CEO, board member, chair and founder of Business for Good, she applies her vision on how businesses can be a true force for good in practice. She's also a bestselling and multi-award-winning author of Trillion Dollar Shift and now her latest book, Tech for Good. She continues to champion a phrase she coined: “Business for good is good business.” 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders who want to utilize technology for societal impact.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… business growth and societal impact are not an either/or decision. In this episode, Marga highlights how embracing technology allows leaders to address global challenges while driving business growth.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Marga cites the statistic that 69 of the 100 largest economies by revenue are businesses, not countries. This is a wake-up call to business leaders who have the power to drive change to create a better future. 

Running Time: 26:42

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Marga’s Book: 

Tech For Good: Imagine Solving the World’s Greatest Challenges

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

This week I have the pleasure of welcoming Jeremy Utley to the show. He is the Director of Executive education at Stanford's d.school and an adjunct professor at Stanford School of Engineering. He is also the co-host of the school's widely popular program, Stanford's Masters of Creativity. He's the co-author of Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who wants to develop their creative muscle.  

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… everyone has the capacity to be creative, but over time, many lose touch with these instincts. Jeremy brings a refreshing take on how to regain a mindset of exploration in a world that often prioritizes conformity over innovation. He challenges listeners to push beyond the seemingly “bad” ideas, and even the first idea that seems good enough, to unlock new possibilities.  

WHAT I LOVE MOST… so much of our thinking is about our environment. I love when Jeremy says, “If you want to think outside the box, get out of the box.” He shares the story of Steve Jobs, who, frustrated by the design challenges of the first Macintosh computer, drove to Macy’s, bought a food processor, and presented that to his team as the vision for the design. He sought out a new and unexpected input to trigger his imagination and was able to create something new and innovative. 

Running Time: 21:27

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How To Fix It

Beyond The Prompt

Jeremy’s Book: 

Ideaflow: The Only Business Metric That Matters

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

This week, I’m excited to share a replay of a great conversation with Maria Konnikova. 

Maria graduated from Harvard and earned her Ph.D. in psychology from Columbia. She’s written two New York Times bestsellers: The Confidence Game and Mastermind: How to Think Like Sherlock Holmes. While she had zero poker experience before her first trip to Las Vegas in the fall of 2016, she has now won multiple tournaments, including the PCA National Championship, and finished second at an Asian Pacific Tour, Macau event. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… those looking to be confident when facing change. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… you might think that it’s all about luck when it comes to being successful in life, but Maria differs. The old adage that luck is opportunity and preparedness meeting sounds great in theory but is only applied to positive aspects of people’s lives.   

Luck just happens. It’s not personal. It’s not about a linear career path that led you to a moment of success. In fact, successful people often come from the outside.  They have a true advantage because their mind is more flexible; they are not hemmed in by convention to behave in a certain way. They are free from preconceptions. 

IF YOU’RE A BUSINESS LEADER… be willing to make good decisions right now and being willing to change later. Many leaders don’t want to change once they've already invested significant resources into a project, but change will always come.  

IF YOU’RE A STUDENT (OR PARENT OF A STUDENT)… Maria encourages you to read fiction and poetry. Get curious about the world, beyond your current interests and skill-sets. Consider what you’ll learn from taking the “outsider” courses that make you more curious.  

WHAT I LOVE MOST… the marriage of psychology, game theory and poker that uncovers insights to be a better leader and change agent. Being an outsider may come with challenges, but having a fresh perspective on the established set of wisdom may be the key to unlocking the unmet potential in yourself and your company.   

Get uncomfortable - seriously, it makes you (and your business) better. 

Running time: 42:17

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

This week I have the honor and privilege of welcoming Bob Sutton to the show. We’ve been social media buddies for many, many years and I thought it was about time that Bob would join me on the podcast. 

Bob is an organizational psychologist and professor of Management Science and Engineering at the Stanford Engineering School. He has written eight books, including his latest, The Friction Project, which is what we're going to talk about today. He also wrote other bestselling books, including The No Asshole Rule; Good Boss, Bad Boss, and Scaling Up Excellence. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… any leader or individual contributor who wants to become a friction fixer in their sphere of influence.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… there’s friction in every organization. Some friction is good and fosters creativity and innovation but bad friction can seriously impede progress. Often, areas of friction are unresolved for long periods of time and if they get attention, it’s often by addition, which just piles on layers of complexity. Bob strips things back and describes how anybody at any level can make a difference in reducing inefficiencies.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Bob’s example of how the DMV has reduced friction through a single person, a greeter, who helps cut down the dreaded time that people spend waiting. As Bob says, “If the DMV can do it, so you can you!”.

Running Time: 27:27

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Bob’s Book: 

The Friction Project

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

This week, I’m reflecting on a great conversation with Steve Blank, a career entrepreneur and academic. 

Steve is a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in eight startups over two decades with four IPOs, and currently, he is an academic teaching at Stanford, Berkeley, Columbia, and NYU. Steve is also the author of The Four Steps to the Epiphany, which is credited with launching the Lean Startup Movement and the best-selling book The Startup Owner's Manual. Steve has been named to Thinkers50 top management thinkers, and recognized by the Harvard Business Review as one of 12 Masters of Innovation. He is also a senior fellow for Entrepreneurship at Columbia University.  

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… startups or those who want to be more innovative.  

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Steve begins our conversation by reminding us what a startup truly is: a temporary organization designed to search for and find a repeatable and scalable business model or repeatable and scalable sales model.  

Many times, startups are pressured to act like big companies, and established companies are encouraged to think like a startup. But the two are very different and deserve to be treated as such. Those caught between those two is what Steve calls “the frozen middle.” 

IF YOU WANT TO BE MORE AGILE IN YOUR COMPANY… step back and start by determining if you are an entrepreneur or an innovator. An innovator is the idea person who needs help with the physical work or with the business process. Whereas an entrepreneur is someone who knows how to make things happen. Steve opines that it is rare to have both skills.  

IF YOU’RE AN ENTREPRENEUR… get comfortable with chaos and uncertainty. You have to be tenacious and resilient. Steve declares that if you’re an entrepreneur who is succeeding, you’re beating all the odds.  

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Steve’s insight around the frozen middle got me thinking about different mental models, business models, and metrics, and how complacency can leave you stranded in a no man’s land of little differentiated value.   

Running time: 41:25

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

This week I have the honor of welcoming Dr. Neha Sangwan to the show. 

Dr. Neha is the CEO and founder of Intuitive Intelligence, is an internal medicine physician, international speaker, and corporate communications expert. Her private practice in corporate consulting addresses the root causes of stress, miscommunication, and interpersonal conflict, often healing chronic conditions such as insomnia, anxiety, depression, and burnout. She is the author of Talk RX and Powered By Me.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who has dealt with burnout our overwhelm and leaders who want to learn how to proactively fight against burnout in their teams. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… burnout is a common feeling, sometimes so common that you might not even realize it’s happening to you. Many of us are conditioned early on to prioritize external demands and ignore the internal signals that are telling us it’s too much. This is exactly what Dr. Neha faced in her role as a physician, but it took the people around her to help her realize that she desperately needed a break. In this episode, Dr. Neha discusses how to recognize the symptoms of burnout and how to treat the root cause. 

WHAT I LOVE MOST… it’s not just about hitting pause on your daily obligations. Dr. Neha goes deep and looks at the mental, emotional, and social sides of burnout and how to sustainably heal those. 

Running Time: 32:05

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Burnout Exercises 

Dr. Neha’s Book: 

Powered by Me: From Burned Out to Fully Charged at Work and in Life

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

This week, I’m featuring a conversation I had with Dr. Tony Byers a while back. He is best known for leading Global Diversity and Inclusion (D&I) at Starbucks where he was responsible for developing and leading the strategic direction for D&I to drive engagement, innovation and business growth. He's an accomplished inclusion and change management specialist with 20 years of demonstrated experience leading change in large, multinational organizations. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… people looking for more information on the power of diversity and inclusion to drive growth in business. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Tony begins our conversation by defining diversity simply as who you are (looks, background, etc). Inclusion, however, is a behavior driving people to be involved, respected, valued, and connected. In short, diversity is a noun and inclusion is a verb. These definitions not only encompass everything I (and my past guests have said all along) but is succinct, simple, and spot-on. 

Tony’s research found that leaders do not see the full spectrum of diversity, which results in a lack of innovation. There’s a small chance — the innovation window — when organizations can positively affect their product growth. This window lives at the top of the S-Curve when a product has peaked. How companies uncover  

WHAT I LOVE MOST… the distinction between “D” and “d.” Finding diversity goes beyond gender, race, ethnicity, age and other factors we cannot control. However, what we can control is our thinking styles and the ways in which we behave when working with people who are different in some way. I will continue to think about D&I as an all-encompassing term and will continue to talk about how D&I can help companies be better at growth, product development, and innovation.  

Running time: 33:10

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

This week I want to revisit an insightful conversation about invitation with Dr. Linda Hill. 

Dr. Linda Hill is the Wallace Brett Dohm Professor of Business Administration at the Harvard Business School and the chair of the Leadership Initiative. She is regarded as one of the top experts on leadership and is the co-author of Collective Genius: The Art and Practice of Leading Innovation and Being the Boss. Dr. Hill is also the co-founder of Paradox Strategies and the co-creator of the Innovation Quotient. She was named by Thinkers50 as one of the top 10 management thinkers in the world in 2013 and received the Thinkers50 Innovation Award in 2015.  Her TED Talk, How to Manage Our Collective Creativity, has gotten more than 2 million views.   

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders and aspiring innovators. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… there is a misconception about leadership and leading innovation.  Leadership is communicating a vision and inspiring others to fulfill that vision.  Leading innovation is about creating an environment for people to be willing to go down that innovation path with you. The innovation path is paved with a greater purpose to do the hard, emotional, and intellectual work of innovating.    

According to Dr. Hill, here are the 3 things we know about innovation: 

1. Innovations are not the result of individuals having ‘aha’ moments but are a result of a diverse collaboration of people.  

2. You cannot plan an innovation; it’s a messy process of discovery riddled with error. 

3.  Innovations are a combination of ideas. 

If you want to lead and inspire innovation, you must have a culture where people are willing to get their hands dirty but also feel like they are part of the process. 

WHAT I LOVE MOST… this episode is a crash course in how to be a leader and lead change when you are trying to drive innovation.  Yes, leading change is different from leading innovation - it’s about creating an environment to let people co-create with you. Simply, let yourself breathe and give yourself and your team time to try things. Finally, I love Dr. Hill’s idea that innovation is a voluntary act…a bottom-up journey and not the other way around.   

Running time: 38:42

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TED Talk 

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

I'm really excited about this conversation today with two brilliant women. 

The first is Christiana Smith, the former president of Nike's consumer direct division, leading the company's global retail and e-commerce business. Before that, she was a senior partner at McKinsey. Christiana has been named one of the Most Influential Corporate Directors by Women, Inc. She currently leads Lovejoy Advisors, which is focused on digitally transforming consumer and retail businesses. 

She's joined by Grace Puma, who is the former executive vice president and COO of PepsiCo, who, before that, held senior positions with United Airlines, Kraft Foods, Motorola, and Gillette. A board member of both Organon & Co and Target, she has been ranked on the “Most Powerful Latina” list by Fortune magazine and recognized as the “Executive of the Year” by Latina Style magazine.

Christiana and Grace are here to talk about their new book, Career Forward, which shows how to prioritize a career path, build professional value, and enjoy a full life both in and out of the workplace. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who wants to expedite their leadership development and glean some lessons from those who have built successful careers. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Christiana and Grace are highly successful women in vastly different ways. However, the advice they have for rising leaders and the things that got them to where they are aren’t so different. In their new book, they create a blueprint for those looking to intentionally grow their career path. In this episode, they share some practical advice. 

WHAT I LOVE MOST… many leaders live by the mantra “fake it till you make it,” and while there’s some truth behind it, it’s only a positive mindset if, while you're faking it, you're committed to learning how to do it right.

Running Time: 29:42

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Career Forward Website

Book: Career Forward