After what we must declare a HISTORIC day of work, John Adams sat down to write his wife a little update. Why all the fireworks? There’s a reason–and it’s a lesson for how we manage our people today. Questions? Comments? Ideas for future episodes? Email Mike and Mark. Listen here … subscribe on Spotify, Amazon or Apple … or watch …
Workplace lessons from a social media hit (Karen Cass!)
She has 2.4 million followers on TikTok–and she has some things to teach you about finding your customer niche, improvisation at work and daily habits. The podcast is proud to present improv comedy great Karen Cass! (Forgive me “ums” and “uhs” … I was excited.) Follow her on TikTok, Instagram and YouTube. And check out improv theater legend Dad’s Garage …
Size matters: Debunking the conventional wisdom of team size with David Adamec
Mark interviews one of the savviest coaches he knows, David Adamec, on his research into the best size for a team. There is a formula … Steve Jobs even had a Rule about it … and Dave wishes he had known all this when he assembled a team to break a Guinness World Record. For more on how David can …
Want a hit? What are you putting in to your system?
Ryan Holiday, author of best-sellers about stoicism, has a researcher who I have discovered on Twitter: Billy Oppenheimer. He shares amazing stories of famous breakthroughs in art and business, with suggested (usually research-based) takeaways for each. The connection between two of these stories and takeaways caught me. (I’ve included the tweets below.) Folk artist Maggie Rogers had a viral breakthrough …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: Modern Love
Another Bowie song, this from the pop album Let’s Dance, produced by Nile Rodgers, featuring other elements of Chic. (And an unknown Stevie Ray Vaughn!) I have been dutifully chided by my much cooler brother for really liking this album. Sometimes you just can’t help being mainstream. Those horns, though. … I will note a sequence that I think is …
Want innovation? Cultivate humility.
Do you want employees who buy in to being proactive, constantly improving, adding value? If so, you’ll need to foster a culture of humility. Take it from Japanese factories–and medieval monks. Humility is the secret weapon of innovation. The reasons are both spiritual and practical. Let’s start with the Japanese. Specifically: Toyota. “The workplace is a teacher.” I saw a …
AI rewrites a memo: From foul-mouthed to corporate vanilla–is this a good thing?
Have you ever wanted to tell off a coworker? AI can help you … not get fired. A memo rewrite has gone viral–but is the rewrite really any better? “Karen from Accounting” is going to be replaced … but what are the human soft skills that AI can’t replace? And could AI be a tool to help you engage with …
Questions: Not just for coaching (Or: You got to stop saying ”You got to …”)
Do you have a vision or expectation you need your people to embrace? You can tell them … you can push … or you can ask questions that allow them to “trip over the truth.” Questions? Comments? Ideas for future episodes? Email Mike and Mark. Listen here … subscribe on Spotify, Amazon or Apple … or watch below. #coaching #leadership #management …
AI and customers: Which way are you going to lean in?
They’re not happy about it Let’s say you are a car salesperson, and you are greeting a couple of prospective customers who first interacted with your website’s chatbot. The chatbot was good enough to get them to your lot. But they aren’t exactly happy about it. They knew they were playing a game with a computer. They wanted information, the …
Horn Sections Make Rock Better: Because I’m Me
It is difficult to explain exactly what the Avalanches are. It’s like dance music completely made of samples. I wrote that sentence, then looked up the band. Wikipedia tells me they are an example of plunderphonics, plundering other music to create new music exclusively from the samples. When my college roommate and I discovered “Frontier Psychiatrist,” we couldn’t stop quoting …