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Episode 12: Joe Greenstein on Flixster & Mindful Leadership, Pt 2 [The Amiel Show]

Episode 12: Joe Greenstein on Flixster & Mindful Leadership, Pt 2 [The Amiel Show]

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Here is part 2 of my conversation with Joe Greenstein, co-founder of Flixster, about his story of inner growth and business leadership. For part 1, click here.

In this conversation, Joe and I discuss:

  • The three most common thoughts in his mind that he’s learned to take less seriously
  • How he introduced everyone at Flixster to feedback conversations
  • How to use feedback to create a more enjoyable, effective, and real work environment
  • The big illusion in life that there is only one reality
  • InnerSpace, his new nonprofit venture serving start-up founders
  • What Joe is personally practicing today to grow as a person

I really enjoyed this conversation and hope you will, too!

Joe-Greenstein

 

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Episode 11: Joe Greenstein on Flixster & Mindful Leadership, Pt 1 [The Amiel Show]

Episode 11: Joe Greenstein on Flixster & Mindful Leadership, Pt 1 [The Amiel Show]

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Behind every technology story is a business story, and behind every business story is a tale of human beings.

Take, for example, Flixster, one of my favorite iPhone apps. I use it all the time to see what movies are playing in Portland and what the critics think about them. It’s a solid and user-friendly app. That’s one reason why it’s the most popular movie review and showtime app for the iPhone, iPad, and Android. (It owns Rotten Tomatoes).

But that’s not the only reason.

Joe-Greenstein

Flixster also has been a testing ground for creating feedback-rich cultures–places where people build constructive relationships and sustained results by talking candidly and respectfully about their experiences and emotions.

This is unusual!

Equally unusual are startup CEOs willing to talk openly about their own path of personal growth–not just what they’ve accomplished, but what makes them tick, how they’ve screwed up, and what they’ve learned about themselves as human beings.

That’s why I am delighted to share this interview with Joe Greenstein, co-founder of Flixster. It’s so rich I’ve divided it into two parts. Here is part 1.

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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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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 5: Vicki Halsey on “Woo ‘n’ Do” Learning, Email Quality, and Legendary Service [The Amiel Show]

Episode 5: Vicki Halsey on “Woo ‘n’ Do” Learning, Email Quality, and Legendary Service [The Amiel Show]

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In Episode 5 of The Amiel Show, I speak with Vicki Halsey. Vicki has long been one of the key players in The Ken Blanchard Companies and currently serves at VP of Applied Learning. Below is a photo of her with Ken Blanchard, with whom she coauthored the book Legendary Service. In this high-energy conversation, Vicki and I discuss:

  • How to improve the way managers learn by shifting from “Sit ‘n’ Get” to “Woo ‘n’ Do”
  • How to manage email before it manages you by sending fewer emails and increasing the quality of the ones that we do send
  • The difference between legendary service and the ordinary service most of us experience most of the time

Vicki Halsey

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Episode 1: Janet Crawford on Leaders’ Brains, Emotional Literacy, and Power [The Amiel Show]

Episode 1: Janet Crawford on Leaders’ Brains, Emotional Literacy, and Power [The Amiel Show]

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It all starts with those 3.3 pounds of living tissue called the brain. “It” means people’s behaviors, leadership in organizations…and The Amiel Show.

In episode 1 of this podcast, Janet Crawford and I speak about

  • Why neuroscience is the modern day equivalent of the decoder ring
  • How much of people’s behaviors comes from unconscious patterns
  • What it takes to become emotionally literate
  • How to produce more strategic thinking by keeping our prefrontal cortex online
  • The role of GABA Goo in calming down the amygdala
  • Unconscious bias in organizations and what this tells us about why some people become more powerful than others.

Janet-Crawford

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Act In An Instant

Act In An Instant

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At certain times in life, it’s important to act in an instant—even if the results will be less than ideal.

Consider the story of how I shaved my head for good.

Horse in starting gate

It was 2007. Julie and I were in the dining room of a condo in Seattle’s Fremont neighborhood, famous for its 18-foot-tall concrete sculpture of a troll smashing a VW bug in its left hand.

Dinner had just finished. At the table with me were Julie, our host (also named Julie), and her two friends. Four women plus Amiel. [Read more…] about Act In An Instant