Today’s solo episode focuses on the importance of team chemistry and culture. Regardless of how much talent a team has, the strategy, or even the value of the specific service or product being created and offered, without a strong culture, a team can’t truly succeed. I share some principles and examples of great culture, and ideas for what you can do to infuse your team with winning chemistry.
Scott Shute means business when it comes to bringing your whole self to work. As the Head of Mindfulness and Compassion Programs at LinkedIn, Scott develops and delivers programs that assist in the well-being of leaders, teams, employees, and customers. On the podcast today, he shares his story of growing up as a small town kid from Kansas, with a dual capability in both engineering and the arts. Scott details his own personal experience with meditation and mindfulness practices, and how he has now made a full-time career of normalizing it and advocating for it at LinkedIn and in the larger tech and business world. We talk about compassion as a leadership quality, why it’s so important at work specifically, and how LinkedIn is leading the movement. Scott is committed to changing work from the inside out.
In a world where we are constantly posting our achievements, our successes, and the highlight reel of our vacations on social media, it’s understandable that we would feel jealous from time to time. On this week’s episode, we talk about jealousy and the impact it has on our relationships, our work and even our own feeling of worthiness. We talk about how to deal with the energy of jealousy when it shows up, and even when a little jealousy might be good for us. If you ever find yourself challenged by jealousy in your life it’s important to remember it’s rarely the feeling that holds us back, it’s what we do with it that matters most.
One of the most important things we can do in our work and our life is to trust the process. This is about trusting ourselves, others, and the overall journey, even when things seem difficult or confusing. Patience and trust are essential in business, family, and just about every other aspect of life, but they can be tough to practice, especially when things don’t seem to be going the way we want them to go. Today, we talk about specific ways we can trust the process more effectively and the mindset shift that goes along with accepting (and maybe even welcoming) uncertainty.
For as much as we love to lend our support and help others, many of us find it awkward or uncomfortable to ask for help ourselves. Today, we talk about the top reasons people don’t seek support and ways to shift the mindset on what it actually means about us when we’re willing to reach out to others. When we ask people for their time, feedback, or support in a gracious way, it creates a win-win for everyone. Asking for help is a way to practice vulnerability, which is a necessary aspect of bringing our whole selves to work and to life.
One of my personal challenges, especially in recent weeks (and years), has been exploring how to advocate for things I find important, without creating more division and separation. Learning how to effectively navigate situations that may be different than our vision of the way things should be, without a sense of self-righteousness, is a tricky yet essential aspect of being a good leader.
In groups, teams, and organizations of all types and sizes, it’s common to see divisiveness. It’s important to speak up about this, now more than ever. In today’s episode, we delve into ways we can navigate this so that we create more connection, curiosity and positive change.
This week, we continue exploring the themes of gender, equality, and inclusion and discuss finding a common ground in this time of intense polarization. It’s often a challenging and uncomfortable conversation, but I feel it is a crucial one in order for us to show up authentically and really bring our whole self to work and life. I believe it’s time we stand up, speak up, really listen to each other, and then see if we can find common ground from a place of authentic connection and vulnerability.
For so many reasons, not the least of which is the current news dominating all forms of media here in the United States right now about the Supreme Court nomination of Brett Kavanaugh, gender is such an important issue for us to address. I hear things from women all that time that leave me humbled, confused, angry, and feeling like something has got to change in a big way. Gender can be a messy and confusing topic, but it’s a conversation that must be had in order to move the world towards a real sense of equality and inclusion. As we cover in this episode, it’s so important for us to listen, pay attention, and remember that we are all in this together.
Trust is something I’ve been focused on for most of my life. Sometimes it’s been easy to trust myself and others and sometimes it’s been a real challenge. Today, I’ll share my own insights and breakthroughs on trust and the four different types that are important in every aspect of our life. Trust me, it will be a good one!
This week, we are joined by a powerhouse of a life coach, university lecturer, public speaker, and author, Lauren Handel Zander. Lauren has over 20 years’ experience of challenging people to tell the truth, change their habits and really “cut the crap” in their life. She talks about the steps in her life that led her to found the Handel Group, an International Corporate Consulting and Life Coaching Company, that employs her no-nonsense and practical approach, the Handel Method. Her coaching methodology is not for the faint of heart and is sought out in over 35 universities and institutes of learning around the world including MIT, Stanford, and NYU.
Lauren practices what she preaches, and shares the way she takes the principles of her book, Maybe It’s You: Cut the Crap. Face Your Fears. Love Your Life, and uses them in her work with CEOs, teams, and organizations.
