Winning Teams

 

Since its birth in 1994, Amazon has grown and found massive success. It has innovated, strategized, and won its way past the competition in the digital era, and the company’s success is one that countless business leaders would love to emulate. If you are one of those leaders, you’re in luck—-John Rossman returns to our show to talk about his newest book, Think Like Amazon: 50 1/2 Ideas to Become a Digital Leader.

As some of you might already know, John is the managing partner of Rossman Partners. He’s an expert in digital and e-commerce business. John launched and scaled the Amazon Marketplace business, which now accounts for 50% of Amazon’s business. In this episode, John talks about lessons from Amazon on how to become a digital leader. He goes into detail on a number of those ideas, giving us a neat preview of his book.

 

Make sure to read the highlights to see the ideas he discussed. Then, dive into the episode to get all the fine details of his thoughts.

Resetting Your Clocks (2:34)

Innovation into digital requires patience, and businesses will have to “reset their clock.”

Resetting the clock means looking beyond just three years for your business, and sticking with plans for five to eight years ahead instead.

Amazon’s patience can be seen in the kind of business cases they approve: those that have a five- to eight-year time horizon.

Going digital needs both speed and agility.

Speed refers to operational excellence. Agility is the ability to sense and make changes happen.

Data and intuition come hand in hand. Data helps in achieving operational excellence, while intuition directs the innovation.

Converting Employees Into Missionaries (7:07)

Missionaries make better products because they care deeply about the products.

Not everyone enters the business with the same passion as missionaries.

Use the passionate people in the business to spread the passion.

Use what motivates people to fit them into their role in the organization.

Keep the mission on top of everyone’s minds.

An example is Amazon’s customer obsession—every discussion or meeting starts with why the topic is vital for the customer.

Enterprise Remuneration (13:18)

John starts by saying that he’s not necessarily advocating Amazon’s mode of compensation to everyone.

Enterprise remuneration comes in the form of purely salary compensation with enterprise value compensation, which comes in stocks. 

Use compensation as a tool to enforce the idea that the organization is all about enterprise optimization.

Some forms of compensation focus on short-term optimization of the organization’s components: team members, individuals, organizations, etc.

Short-term optimization gets in the way of long-term enterprise optimization.

Your organization’s compensation strategy should be in line with your company’s strategy—including timing.

Day One and Day Two Companies (16:08)

A Day One company is set to create the future.

A Day Two company only reacts to what the future could hold.

Businesses who want to be innovative will have to learn how to become a Day One company.

Companies have to realize that they are at risk when they are becoming stagnant.

Owning Dependencies (19:33)

Getting along shouldn’t get in the way of achieving great results.

 

Every organization recognizes that workplace culture plays a vital role in achieving success. Still, members of the organization aren’t always living up to the organization’s supposed culture, or feel powerless to go against a culture they don’t embody.

In this episode, our guest Devin Halliday shares how organizations can use culture to succeed. Devin is the founder and Chief Belonging Architect of Rudiment Solutions, a consulting agency that empowers people and unlocks their full potential. He hosts the Belonging Factor Podcast, and he also wrote the book BE/LONG/ING FACTOR.

 

Make sure to check this episode’s highlights and tune in to the show for the specifics of how to properly build your organization’s culture.

Building Cultures Your Members Could Identify With (7:13)

A vast majority of culture statements don’t resonate with the members of their organizations.

Many organizations are too focused on their output. In reality, they have to focus on their members and the values of their organization.

With a good set of values that your members could adhere to, the excellent output will follow.

People could feel uncomfortable with the culture of the organization and feel powerless to change it.

There should be an alignment of values, with a clear definition of each individual’s role in the organization.

A culture statement could produce unintentional culture when there is no clear definition of roles that relate to the values of the organization.

Making Time for Culture Building (13:19)

Everybody recognizes that culture is essential, but 41% of leaders say they are too busy to manage the culture of the organization.

Managers become too focused on delivering KPIs and lose time to build up the people who help them achieve their outputs.

Organizations that can establish a culture of collaboration, trust, belonging, diversity, and inclusion develop better results.

Culture building has to be intentional, where the management’s goal is to build up its team holistically.

Many managers miss the connection between culture and results.

Making Diversity and Inclusion Real in the Organization (19:19)

Hire based on culture “add” instead of culture “fit,” hiring people who could add something to the team instead of just fitting in.

Eliminate the “Echo Chamber Effect” by creating a system where constructive dissent is encouraged.

When the organization doesn’t have a system where people could speak up in a way they think they could contribute, they become silent. Thus, diversity and inclusion disappear.

Becoming an Authentic Leader (22:46)

Be who you say you are.

There are two critical pieces: the ability to self-analyze and 360 feedback.

To self-analyze, deliberately take steps to evaluate.

360 feedback means you are constantly curious to learn and seek input from others.

At the end of the day, other people decide whether they see you as authentic or not.

Authenticity requires transparency and displaying vulnerability.

Combining the two critical pieces will help you see clearly how well you’re doing and where you could improve.

Book Recommendations and Habits (28:13)

Chicken Soup for the Soul by Jack Canfield

Waking up early in the morning and connecting very clearly with his wife.

 

Whether we like to admit it or not, most organizations fail massively when it comes to communication. In fact, I bet no company has ever raised their hand and claimed that they have 10 out of 10 communication.

Now, when ineffective communication sets in, this is where misunderstandings enter, resulting in failure and errors. What’s even worse is the huge losses a business could face from these problems. For sure nobody wants that to happen, that’s why we made sure that this topic will be really interesting for those who are fascinated or challenged by effective communication.

To start off, I will be talking to Liz Evenden and Matt Spencer, owners of Business Speakeasy. We will be discussing what it takes to really eliminate and reduce the cost of poor and ineffective communication, tackling three valuable areas as we go, namely: 1) The art of presentation; 2) The unheralded art of effective facilitation and its importance; and 3) The way we approach meetings.

You’re going to learn a lot from this episode so be sure to stay with us until the end.

 

Topics We Discuss Include:

How Liz and Matt deliver on the promise of creating a culture of effective communication in a business

The horrifying results of counting the losses that a company faces due to poor collaboration

What they ACTUALLY do to make effective communication strategies

How they change the traditional setup of meetings

Techniques and advice on how to organize meetings efficiently

Four principles to follow for effective business communication

What is a bad facilitator? What makes a great facilitator?

Difference between facilitation and running effective meetings

Three things you can do to make your next meeting more productive

Books that created an impact on their lives

Matt’s and Liz’s daily rituals

And much more!

 

Contact Liz Evenden and Matt Spencer:

Website

LinkedIn

 

Our Guests:

Liz Evenden and Matt Spencer are the owners of The Business Speakeasy, and their aim is to help in creating a culture of effective communication IN and FOR your business. They consider effective communication as a vital part of every business’ success. It is their life’s calling to promote and make the business world a nicer place to be in through effective communication.

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The Winning Teams Podcast is powered by the winning team at Valher Media.

Are you ready to be a great leader?

10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders

 

These 10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders can set you on your journey to lasting success!

Click HERE to download.

 

 

Today’s guest in the Winning Teams Podcast is a real joy to have here. He is Valerio Pascotto, Psy. D, one of the co-founders of IGEOS, together with Tim Gallwey (author of Inner Games). He’s also an official member of the Forbes Coaches Council and has been involved at the highest level of coaching individuals and teams. 

Valerio got a doctoral degree in psychology from Pepperdine University, has an extensive background in marriage, family and child counseling. He was always fascinated with human dynamics because he was, according to himself, poor at them early on in his life.

“I have to say, though, that my heart is much more into working with people making a difference, helping people be proud of the difference that they are making with their work and in their lives.” – Valerio Pascotto

Valerio started working and interacting with people and noticing when interactions have positive or negative impacts. 

In this episode, Valerio shares with us a lot of fascinating and useful topics:

How coaching is critical to leadership and has become a valued part of professional development

The best teaching that takes place is when the teacher learns rather than the pupil.

To see the impact of individual and/or team mindset using “mirror, activity and consequences” – both positive and negative

Not teaching a skill, rather, unearthing a skill we already have as a species

“The weakness of most team building interventions is that they do not cut deeply enough to the core of what keeps intelligent people from effective cooperation” – Valerio Pascotto

The leader’s hat could be a coach’s hat.

Listen to understand, not to respond.

What is servant leadership – team mindset and equal responsibility?

Difficult questions to ask yourself:

What am I doing that I should stop doing?

What am I not doing that I should start doing?

The importance of psychological safety and the idea of a fixed and growth mindset.

Redefine accountability – default versus opportunity

Impact of perception and bias on leadership, which can be used positively or become an interference

“Should we be accurate in our perception? Or should we frame our perception and in a way that increases our chances to meet our goals, our commitments?” – Valerio Pascotto

Book Recommendation, Habits and Where to Get in Touch:

 

Valerio recommends The Fearless Organization by Amy Edmondson. He had the privilege to interview her and this book explores this culture of psychological safety where people have a voice.

The brain has a negativity bias so Valerio has a ritual that he uses when he talks with someone and he knows that the conversation is difficult. He spends 30 seconds thinking of something he appreciates about the person and it changes his brain chemistry.

Valerio is fairly judgmental and avoids it by rather than fighting the judgment, he makes it a benevolent one. In other words, he looks for the good in intention.

You can reach Valerio any time through sending him an email at...

 

Today’s guest in the Winning Teams podcast is a lady who hails from Brooklyn. She is Mamie Kanfer Stewart, the founder of Meeteor a company whose mission is to help people and organizations work smarter and have more effective meetings. Mamie is also a co-author of the book, Momentum: Creating Effective, Engaging and Enjoyable Meetings.

Mamie is a mother of two kids and enjoys several interesting hobbies such as knitting, fine Trapeze, and rock climbing. After college, she worked in her family’s business called GOJO and ran their philanthropic work. Through that, she learned about how teams work and how organizations function.

When she left that position to do her own thing, she realized that not every organization has the same wonderful practices as GOJO. She launched Meeteor, initially as a tech firm. However, she recognized that instead of software development, the development of people is much more important, with a focus on effective meetings.

Now, they train, coach and work with people to develop skills to help them have effective meetings and improved collaboration. Find out the full story here.

 In this episode, Mamie shares with us:

 

*         Key blocks to effective meetings.

*         Changing the mindset of people to be “prepared in advance” for the meeting.

*         Shift your thinking from “Why are we meeting?” to “What will this meeting accomplish?”

*         The three different kinds of meeting participants.

*         Right culture around technology in meetings.

*         Breaking the cycle of “meeting after meeting after meeting…” inbred habit and routine.

*         Direct the meetings to a clear “Northstar” to avoid getting lost on tangents.

*         Don’t be too internally focused – think through the perspective of your actual customers, stakeholders, etc.

 

Book Recommendation, Habits and Where to Get in Touch:

 

If you want to really redo your meeting culture, Mamie recommends Where the Action Is by Elise Keith. She believes that this book is very different and complementary to the book she wrote. It has helped her think differently about the meeting culture.

Mamie’s cornerstone daily ritual is going through her to-do list at her desk. On Monday mornings, she goes through the entire to-do list and figures out what needs to happen that week and tag them “This Week”. Each morning, she tags anything that needs to be done today with “Today” from her “This Week” list.

Mamie writes down her to-do list on paper and puts it on her digital tool. She likes that it is always visible right next to her. It makes her happy to check things off either on the paper or her digital tool.

You can find out more about Mamie’s business at

 

Recently, someone asked me a really good question. It was,

“What do you believe, based on your experience of working with hundreds of organizations in all different countries and cultures, what is the #1 goal for a CEO?”

Without thinking, the answer I gave was to have high performing teams that deliver results time and time again. I really do believe this because I think it is a massive challenge.

The more I reflect upon my answer, the more accurate I think it is. The key part of that answer is “time and time again”. You can get lucky every now and then but consistently high results is what you are looking for. Consistency is critical to long term success.

On this podcast I share with you:

* What is it that makes up a high performing team?

* Right people in the right roles.

* The team is fully aligned on vision and objectives.

* The team is working together the right way.

* The team needs to culturally fit, one with the other – this is not about being the same as each other, as that is dangerous.

* Leaders set the tone for what behavior is acceptable or not and should not tolerate members who do not fit in the team.

* Lack of alignment at the top results in inconsistency throughout the organization.

* Most of the disappointments in the organizations have been caused by how teams have worked or not worked together.

* Constantly review successes and disappointments, and learn from them in order to go forward.

* Soft skills (behavior, trust, accountability) are every bit as important as hard skills.

 

Don’t undermine yourself as a leader by tolerating the wrong people on the bus. If you don’t have the right people, you’ve got to do something about it.

Get fully aligned on what you all are trying to achieve. Make sure everyone is clear on the vision, mission, purpose, strategy and operational priorities.

Finally, focus on how you work together as a team. Because it will propel you forward to become a really high performing team.

So, I challenge you to have a look at your team and ask yourself, as a leader, these questions:

* Have you got the right people?

* Are they fully aligned?

* How are they working together?

* What can you do to actually make your team significantly better?

 

 

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Thanks to Jodey Smith, my podcasting technical genius, who does all the bits I don’t

like –the editing, the uploading etc. He is a gem and can be contacted at JodeySmith.com.

Are you ready to be a great leader?

10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders

 

These 10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders can set you on your journey to lasting success!

Click HERE to download.

 

“If you are a full time Mum, you haven’t lost skills, you have gained them. You have developed resilience and commitment. As a full time Mom, you are working! It is love’s labor and it’s about building confidence.”

– Barbara Verner

 

It is often difficult for mothers who, having gone on maternity leave, now wish to return to their workplace. Our guest for today in the Winning Teams Podcast is a long-time friend of mine who is no stranger to this issue.

Barbara Verner is the founder of Mumstuck, which provides online career coaching to these women returners. She is also certified and trained in Reality Therapy, Choice Theory, Positive Psychology, and an E-therapist.

Barbara started as a career guidance counsellor and has a long track record in this profession. During those years Barbara has witnessed huge change and challenge for women in the workplace.

For 17 years in Ireland, Barbara was involved in the training of Career Guidance Counsellors and was a part-time member of staff on the Master’s degree, Career Guidance and Counselling program at Dublin City University. However, in 2014, she moved to the UK to live permanently with her family.

Barbara became a registered member of the British Associate of Counsellors and Psychotherapist. To continue working with her client-base network in Ireland, she added online counselling to her repertoire.

Listen to the full story here.

In this episode, Barbara talks about:

* The effectiveness of online counselling and creating the right type of online presence.

* Developing her website, Mumstuck, which gives career guidance counselling and helps women returning to the workplace to find alternatives.

* Her passion to address the societal attitude and assumption of mothers taking the backseat or letting go of their careers.

* Redesigning another website,  Barbaraverner.com to give a blended approach and have both counselling and online career coaching to reach men and women alike.

Book Recommendation, Habits and Where to Get in Touch:

Barbara recommends two great books, Patrick Casement’s  Learning from the Patient and Charles Handy’s  Empty Raincoat.

In Learning from the Patient, the patient is the classical reference to the client. It teaches humility, willingness to be self-reflective, maturity and honesty to learn and the skill of listening to become more effective.

While Empty Raincoat, a classic and the metaphor for the empty organization that doesn’t have soul and heart. If the organization has soul and heart, it’ll be able to hear and listen to its own prejudices around this issue about women returners.

You can reach Barbara through her websites – Mumstuck or Barbaraverner.com

 

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Today’s guest in the Winning Teams Podcast is a lady who hails from Manhattan, New York. Phyllis Weiss Haserot works in cross-generational relationships. She focuses on how to unite and build relationships at work from a cross-generational perspective.

Phyllis took a master’s in Urban Planning but got interested in Marketing and Communications for professional services. She realized the young generation is not getting the attention and guidance of busy seniors.

Fascinated by all things generational, Phyllis decided to help organizations solve inter-generational challenges, such as succession planning and knowledge transference.

In this episode in the Winning Teams Podcast, Phyllis shares about:

* Cross-generational conversations at work.

* Trust, empathy and making other people feel relevant and reciprocity.

* Learn to use the curiosity muscle and ask the “good” questions.

* Explanation of transition fluidity across generations.

Chronological age doesn’t matter- active minds, the drive to learn and do new things and energy are what matters.

Certainly, Phyllis has lofty goals and objectives. She has made her mark in this space as the Cross-Generational Voice!

Where to get in Touch with Phyllis:

 

* Email her at [email protected]

* Chat with her on LinkedIn

* Check out her book You Can’t Google It!: The Compelling Case for Cross-Generational Conversation at Work

* Visit her websites at You Cant Google It and Practice Development Counsel

 

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Thanks to Jodey Smith, my podcasting technical genius, who does all the bits I don’t

like –the editing, the uploading etc. He is a gem and can be contacted at JodeySmith.com.

Are you ready to be a great leader?

10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders

 

These 10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders can set you on your journey to lasting success!

Click HERE to download.

 

 

Today’s guest on the Winning Teams Podcast is Tristan White. He is the founder and CEO of the Physio Co, a unique healthcare business in Australia. It has been listed as one of Australia’s 50 Best Place to Work in 2014 and is highly regarded as a great place to work. Tristan also wrote the book Culture is Everything: The Story and System of a Start-up that became Australia’s Best Place to Work.

Tristan is a qualified physiotherapist. He started his career with the dream to work with elite sportspeople, particularly his favorite Australian Football League team The Mighty Richmond Titans in Melbourne.

However, after only one year, Tristan made an early pivot in his career. He chose to work with older people who lived in nursing homes, retirement villages and in their own homes. He realized his passion as a physiotherapist and the opportunity to build a business.

Tristan built Physio Co from a team of less than 10 to 150 team members for the next 15 years. They help senior people to stay mobile, safe and happy.

 

In this episode of the Winning Teams Podcast, Tristan talks about-

* How Tristan became an accidental entrepreneur?

* Creating a value-based business and a strong team culture

* Communication is the essential key to building a strong team culture

* Envision and plan the future, work with the right people and core purpose are critical to building the business.

* The purpose why Tristan wrote his book and his definition of culture.

Tristan shares that their success as one of Australia’s 50 Best Places to Work, is a robust process. Additionally, they are always fine-tuning and refining their process. They focus not only on the skill or competence but also on the character and culture fit.

Book, Daily Habits and where to get in Touch with Tristan:

 

Tristan recommends the book, the New One Minute Manager, an updated version written by Ken Blanchard. It made the idea of managing people straightforward.

Learning and reflecting has been a critical part of Tristan’s family- his wife and three little children. At dinner every night, they asked each other these three questions:

* What is your most favorite part of the day?

* What did you learn or get better at today?

* And, what was the most challenging part of your day?

It’s a wonderful way to learn from other people.

Tristan had set up a special page for anyone who wants to get in touch with him- tristanwhite.com.au/winning

 

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Thanks to Jodey Smith, my podcasting technical genius, who does all the bits I don’t

like –the editing, the uploading etc. He is a gem and can be contacted at JodeySmith.com.

Are you ready to be a great leader?

10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders

 

These 10 Key Traits of Top Business Leaders can set you on your journey to lasting success!

 

Today’s guest in the Winning Teams Podcast is an old friend of ours from Toronto, Canada. Nicky Billou is the host of the business podcast show, Thought Leader Revolution, and the founder of E-Circle Academy. Nicky also wrote two highly recommended books, Finish Line Thinking and his most recent, The Thought Leader’s Journey.

Nicky has an interesting background- a Christian Middle-Eastern born in Iran and comes from a family of entrepreneurs. After the Islamic Revolution in 1979, Nicky’s parents felt it would be better for them to move to the West. Initially, they moved to Greece and then, settled in Canada.

Raised in an entrepreneurial family, Nicky wanted to follow his father’s footsteps and own a business. However, he got sidetracked and worked in the corporate world for a while.

After a few false starts and struggling through a divorce, Nicky finally achieved his dream- to become his own boss. Nicky realised that it was his mission to make a difference and to help people similar to him. Listen here for the full story

Nicky also used to be one of the top fitness trainers in Canada. He had a program called The CEO Health Coach and his clients were mainly CEOs and top performers.

 

In this episode, Nicky shares with us:

* His brief background and how he got to where he is now.

* Overview and discussion about Nicky’s work: The Thought Leader’s Journey, the E-Circle Academy, and The Thought Leadership Revolution

* Leaders are readers.

* Stories are a powerful way to get messages across.

* The focus of the interaction should be on the prospect, not on the salesperson.

* Clarity is very important in business. Don’t act like someone who has commission breath.

Commission breath is a technical term which means a salesperson just wants to sell and doesn’t care how he gets it.

* Why do people need to get emotionally connected to their pain?

* Ways to build and nurture an audience for the longevity and sustainability of your business.

 

Book Recommendation, Habits and Where to Get in Touch:

Nicky recommends The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. It is a marvellous fiction story which outlines the philosophy of individualism, free-market capitalism and pursuing your own dreams. He absolutely loves books by the two authors who have inspired him to write, Og Mandino and Robin Sharma. Their best-known books are The Greatest Salesman in the World and The Monk who Sold his Ferrari, respectively.

Nicky exercises every day. He believes that excising gives you clarity, more energy, and longevity.

Nicky’s exercise routine:

 

* Go to the gym and lift weights 3 times a week.