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Episode 9: Tim Fort On Leadership And Integrity [The Amiel Show]

Episode 9: Tim Fort On Leadership And Integrity [The Amiel Show]

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The most I laughed in graduate school was in a class on Business Ethics.

Does that surprise you?

It sure blew my mind. After all, ethics has a reputation for being part tranquilizer, part antagonist. If it doesn’t put you to sleep with simple axioms, it rankles you through coerced thinking.

Right?

Not in our classroom that term at the University of Michigan. It was more like that famous shot of adrenaline to the heart in Pulp Fiction? Every hour we spent together was filled with rancorous debate, frank stories, and unexpected laughter. This wasn’t just because we had a great teacher and a bunch of characters in the room. What made our conversations so engrossing–and fun–is that we had a safe space to rigorously and respectfully air our differences–not only with each other, but within ourselves. To challenge each other’s assumptions, bring undiscussable topics into the light of day, and wrestle with the complexity that underlies every single business situation–if you know where to look.

Two decades later, I invited the teacher of that class, Tim Fort, now at the Kelley School of Business at Indiana University, to join me for a conversation.

Tim Fort cropped

In Episode 9 of The Amiel Show, Tim Fort and I discuss:

  • Why it’s important and difficult to know which virtue to use in which situation
  • What we can learn about trust and business ethics from Star Wars and football marching bands
  • How integrity is neither simple nor idealistic but a practical confrontation with a complex world
  • How organizations can make it easier for people to speak candidly about difficult issues
  • What leaders can do to deliberately practice high integrity behavior on the job
  • What Tim is personally practicing to develop as a human being

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The 6 Causes of Overscheduling–And What To Do About Them

The 6 Causes of Overscheduling–And What To Do About Them

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Let’s talk about overscheduling. Are you wishing you could spend more time in meetings?

I didn’t think so.

Most people managers have entered the era of back-to-back-to-back-to-back meetings—and that’s on a light day! Apart from being a time drain, this crazy schedule makes people tired and grumpy. Not exactly a recipe for success.

Indeed, research shows that high performers in every field do exactly the opposite. They go through a perform-renew-perform-renew cycle that gives them a break every 90 minutes.

overscheduling

Do you take a break every 90 minutes?

Again, I didn’t think so.

In the immortal words of Yoda, overscheduled you are. [Read more…] about The 6 Causes of Overscheduling–And What To Do About Them

Episode 8: Kerrie Halmi on Women’s Leadership And Strategic Networking [The Amiel Show]

Episode 8: Kerrie Halmi on Women’s Leadership And Strategic Networking [The Amiel Show]

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There’s something special about women’s leadership–and it’s not what you think.

If you’re a woman, women’s leadership can feel like my world–or, perhaps, our world. It’s the planet you inhabit 24/7. If you’re a man, women’s leadership can feel like their world. It’s a distant planet you occasionally visit.

So, which is it?

Both. Women’s leadership is all of our world. When women lead skillfully, our organizations prosper, and all of us within them experience greater engagement. When women lead poorly–or aren’t matched well to opportunities–we all lose.

Kerrie-Hamlin

In Episode 8 of The Amiel Show, Kerrie Halmi and I discuss:

  • 8:15 Why it’s useful for women to build their leadership skills together with other women
  • 13:30 How to advocate for yourself and get sponsors to do the same
  • 23:00 How everyone benefits from women in positions of leadership
  • 26:00 Men supporting women’s success in corporate America
  • 30:30 Why and how to strategically network
  • 42:00 The power of “superconnectors”
  • 49:30 What Kerrie is deliberately practicing in her life

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Episode 7: Bob Dunham On Reliable Promises And Listening For Commitment

Episode 7: Bob Dunham On Reliable Promises And Listening For Commitment

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Amazing things happen when you remove your blinders and see what it actually takes to coordinate action with others. First, you focus on how we make commitments to each other through conversation. Then, you realize that listening isn’t about being nice. It’s about producing reliable promises. Finally, you take seriously the notion that your public identity–or “personal brand”–depends on your understanding of others’ concerns, the offers you make to address those concerns, and your emotional mood as you walk down the hallway.

Bob Dunham has been introducing leaders and coaches to these points for three decades–and helping them practice their way to excellence. In Episode 7 of The Amiel Show, Bob distilled these lessons into an hour of actionable insights. Bob and I discussed:

  • 2:00 Our blindness that action starts with commitment
  • 7:00 How understanding conversations demystifies innovation
  • 13:00 Bob’s rapid success as a manager by evoking reliable promises
  • 21:00 The conversation for action, listening acts, emotions, and body language
  • 33:30 Getting people to say “yes” is an absolute disaster
  • 40:00 Having opinions but no evidence
  • 51:00 Personal brands and influencing senior leaders
  • 57:30 What Bob is personally practicing in his life

BD-edited

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Resolving Conflict: The One Thing You Need To Know [Ask Knockman the Magnificent]

Resolving Conflict: The One Thing You Need To Know [Ask Knockman the Magnificent]

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It’s that time, friends. Knockman the Magnificent is here to answer your questions.

If you’re over 30, you may recall Carnac the Magnificent, the Eastern mystic on The Tonight Show who could divine unknown answers to unseen questions. He looked like Johnny Carson but wore a turban. His trick was to hold hermetically sealed envelopes up to his head and “ascertain” the answers to the unseen questions within.

Knockman the Magnificent is similar. He provides answers to important questions and aims for your funny bone. But there are three differences:

Knockman pic

  1. The questions come from you, not a sealed envelope, and are about real issues and concerns
  2. Unlike Carnac, Knockman is a genuine mystic. He is inspired by the great 18th Century Jewish mystic, Nachman of Breslov, who believed each person has the potential to be virtuous and happy
  3. Unlike Carnac, Knockman is a pragmatist interested in producing useful results

Here is your first chance to ask Knockman a question, and he will give you his answer in a special episode of The Amiel Show.

What’s one thing you want to know more about successfully resolving conflict at work?

Flipping Complaints to Commitments (Jedi Leadership Tricks)

Flipping Complaints to Commitments (Jedi Leadership Tricks)

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As you spend more time watching how you interact with others, you may notice something about your conversations.

Specifically, that you bitch and moan about things that bother you. Maybe not every minute, but probably a few times a day.

What’s the problem with bitching and moaning? After all, everybody does it.

flip pancakes

Three things:

  1. You feel lousy. Maybe not at first, but within a few minutes, kind of like eating french fries with ice cream—something I loved doing after high school soccer games at Wendy’s fast food restaurant.
  2. People see you differently. It’s the weirdest thing: even though we all complain, when we hear somebody else doing it, we quickly make a judgment about them. You can lose credibility that you worked so hard to build up.
  3. It dampens the mood of your team. When people hear you making negative comments, it affects their emotional state. This is because, as brain science teaches us, our nervous systems are intertwined. Your periodic complaints about, say, how IT or HR let you down, can shift others into moods of resignation, resentment, or fear.

[Read more…] about Flipping Complaints to Commitments (Jedi Leadership Tricks)

Episode 6: James Flaherty on How People Change and Where Excellence Lives

Episode 6: James Flaherty on How People Change and Where Excellence Lives

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James Flaherty taught me how to coach, created the organization where I met my wife, and challenged me to grow myself as a person.

That’s quite an influence for one person, don’t you think?

In Episode 6 of The Amiel Show, I had the privilege to talk with James about some big stuff I’ve learned from him. We discussed:

  • 3:00 So much of our experience is an interpretation versus a fact “out there”
  • 8:20 Why self-observation is as important as 360 feedback
  • 13:30 Truly changing involves our bodies, social worlds, and language
  • 24:00 Excellence is evoked in relationship rather than something we create alone
  • 30:30 Aristotle’s notion of excellence, including all parts of ourselves
  • 35:45 What’s up with emotions in our culture
  • 43:00 Executive presence happens in the body
  • 51:50 What James is deliberately practicing to develop himself

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