Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership

Can you believe what Ted said to me? Did you see what Janet did at our last meeting? What is your attitude when you walk into a meeting? What is your intention for your next 1:1 with your direct report? Please join us for our next Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership Radio show where we will be tackling these questions with our guests Nancy Smyth and Sharon Eakes. These authors wrote “Chocolate or Lunch—How Choices Impact Relationships.” We will be covering case studies from our professional experience and coaching clients to share how to get the most out of your relationships in all areas of life. We will provide tools and tips on how to achieve greater results and help you hit your goals while also increasing your satisfaction.

Join us for a conversation with Cynthia Rancourt, CEO of Polymer Solutions Incorporated (PSI), named one of Virginia’s Best Places to Work. PSI is an independent materials testing lab and strategic resource for the testing of polymers, plastics, metals, gases, and much more. The PSI team shares a passion for great science! The team is one that loves a great challenge and is curious in nature. The PSI company culture is fun and quirky—for example they recently had a Company BBQ where they raced remote control cars around a track designed to emulate the chemical structure of caffeine. The scientists at PSI know how to work hard but they also know how to play hard. Join Voltage Leadership’s Jeff Smith and Jennifer Owen-O’Quill for a lively roundtable with Polymer Solutions CEO Cynthia Rancourt and their Chief Growth Officer, Caitlyn Scaggs, about building great culture while driving exceptional results. This is an hour you won’t want to miss!

A fresh new year is well underway and we are into an intense time known as “Q1”. Are things unfolding as you had planned during strategy sessions at the end of 2016? If so, great and congratulations. If not, what actions should be taken and how should they be communicated? In other words, how hard should leadership push for results and how should they go about it? This is a question that all leaders face at different times. The answer to it often determines how culturally engaged the workforce is. Are leaders “pushing” on the right things? Are these things fully understood before actions are taken? Are the right actions being taken at the right time vs prematurely? What are the leadership skills necessary to rally the troops during these trying times? If you have been there, or are there now, you will not want to miss our next Voltcast as we explore the use of an excellent management tool called iPUSH® to hit the finish line strong and move the needle. iPUSH®, how about you?

Have you ever thought of starting your own company? Are you already there and need some inspiration and motivation? Are you a leader in an organization that needs to think more entrepreneurial? Host Jeff Smith and Jay Markiewicz, Executive Director of Entrepreneurship Programs at Virginia Commonwealth University will be talking about their leadership journey and sharing lessons learned from their journey. They will also be sharing best practices from coaching, teaching and working with entrepreneurs. Jay will be sharing a model called the Entrepreneurship Journey during the show. Success in the entrepreneurship journey is driven by three domains; Human Story, Mindset, and Set of Activities. Where these three domains intersect is the entrepreneur's (Leader's) unique value contribution (UVC). The job of the entrepreneur (leader) is to navigate and align these domains in order to live their very own Unique Value Contribution (UVC). Please join on Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership.

Today’s business world has us working in groups and teams more often every day. Some of you love this collaboration and get excited to learn from others, brainstorm and find creative solutions. Others dread going to team socials, team-building and the dreaded team meeting. Jennifer Owen-O’Quill and Jeff Smith will be sharing best practices for leaders of teams and groups to help get the most out of their team. We will share case studies, review several models and offer suggestions on how to handle challenging situations. We will give the listeners ways to help with decision making, roles and responsibilities and conflicts on teams. Please join us at 1:00pm EST on Tuesday, January 24th for Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership.

Time, the indefinite continued progress of existence and events that occur in an irreversible succession from the past through the present to the future. How many times have you been asked, Got a minute…?” We can think of 10,080 reasons why this is an important question to answer. We all have 168 hours in a week (10,080 minutes.) How we spend them and who we spend them with often defines our success and quality of life. Is your calendar out of control? Do you find the time for the things that are really important? Do you often feel drained of energy due to competing time demands? Are there too many distractions? Would you like helpful ideas and practical tips for “creating” time? As with many things, Time can either be a terrible task master or a great servant. Please join Jeff Smith and Lee Hubert for the answers to these and other important questions. Got a minute…?

How do we create a Coaching Culture inside our organization? Culture can be loosely defined as the connecting rod that makes things happen. In other words it's, the way we do things around here. It has a direct impact on a company's ability to deliver on its mission over the longer term. What is a coaching culture? A coaching culture is one that allows people to: take responsibility for their own actions, to take risks and contribute their own creative ideas, treats mistakes and set-backs as valuable learning experiences, people speak up, challenge and express conflicting views, offer constructive and motivating feedback, feel appreciated and know that their contributions matter, raises motivation and performance to achieve better results and forms highly cohesive teams. If we accept that coaching cultures are desirable, what should we do implement one? Please join Jeff Smith and Lee Hubert for the answers to these important questions.

It is that time of year where we set goals, make resolutions, assess our life and profess our need for change. Yet, most of us revert back to our old ways by mid-January to early February. Are we just fooling ourselves into thinking we need to change? Is our will power just terrible? Is change really even possible? These are all good questions. I believe many of us have good intentions to change but we do not really have a path that will lead us to change. Additionally, many of us try to change too much or too quickly to be successful. Okay, should I just give up now? No way! Please join Jennifer Owen-O’Quill and Jeff Smith as we will share some of our best practices about goal setting and provide inspiration for you from our client’s stories. We are looking forward to you joining us at our next Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership and hearing some of your best practices around goal setting.

Wow, 2016 was a fast-paced, full of change and interesting year. We will be reviewing lessons learned from our own business and from our client’s experiences. We will be sharing thoughts on acquisitions, new product launches, hiring new talent, firing some talent, moving to new locations and other case studies that we worked with in 2016. Please join Jeff Smith on Voltcast Illuminating Leadership as he will also share his own learning's from launching a radio show, writing a book and other thoughts from a successful year.

We are blessed to work with amazing leaders all over the globe, and we are going to share some of the tools, tips and best practices from leaders we work with. These tips from CEO’s, CFO’s, Directors, Front Line Managers, Team Leads and Project Managers. This fast-moving dialogue will include stories, successes and challenges that our leaders have experienced. Join us as Jeff Smith, Jennifer Owen-O’Quill, and Lee Hubert share our stories and ideas. We believe this will help give you ideas to continue to grow to your next level of leadership and performance in the coming year.

Are you ready to Compete for Talent? As our economy cycles things change and people move. According to recent job satisfaction surveys, about 1 in 3 workers will change jobs in the next 6 months, (Saba), 49.5% of employees are not engaged and another 16.5% are “actively disengaged. (Gallup) Significant numbers of people have stayed in jobs that are less than optimal for various reasons waiting for their “window of opportunity.” Many organizations are now taking a fresh look at making Winning Cultural Moves in order to foster better workforce engagement and retention. As the economy creates better jobs, employers who are unprepared will pay a high price in turn over. There is an old business saying that says, “Culture beats strategy every time. What then should forward looking leaders be thinking about? Please join Voltage CEO Jeff Smith, and his guest Principal Consultant Lee Hubert on the next Voltcast to explore the answers to these and other questions. Are you ready to Compete?

To perform with excellence leaders must be both prepared themselves and capable coaches of others. As the year comes to a close and we turn to the New Year, what new ideas and skills will you and your team need to add to succeed? Join us as Jeff and Jennifer share best practices for creating and shepherding Individual Development Plans, and the top resources they use personally and with their clients to ensure that all of us continue to grow to our next level of leadership and performance in the coming year.

How often do you work on your strategy? Are you like most companies that do it once a year and then revisit at the next strategic planning offsite? How do you balance the need for fantastic results while trying to maintain an awesome culture? Is it possible to talk strategy monthly and not be in meetings all the time? What happens to culture when you try to get more aggressive in your market? If you are curious about any of these questions, please join us for our next Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership. Host Jeff Smith will be talking with Amy Ankrum, President of Qualtrax, which is a compliance software company. We will learn about Amy and her team’s unique approaches to strategy, culture and achieving fantastic results while still having a good life. Amy is based in Blacksburg, VA and will share her best practices and tips with our listeners.

Have you heard the term Serving Leader and wondered what that means? Have you wondered if you are engaging enough with your team? Would you like to learn more about how to increase engagement and motivation of your leaders and staff? What models and tips could I use to help co-create ideas with my team? If you are curious about any of these questions, please join us for our next Voltcast: Illuminating Leadership. Jeff Smith will host Cara Wilson for a discussion about how to develop and coach serving leaders. Cara and Jeff both led leadership programs for Cleveland Clinic across the globe and they will be sharing their insights. Cara is now a facilitator and coach at Tableau in Seattle, WA and will share her current thinking on leadership trends and how to apply them to your organization.

Have you ever wondered if you have what it takes to be an Executive or even the CEO? Do you wonder if your organization can achieve amazing growth? Who are your key relationships and how are they helping you grow? Are you curious about a CEO’s leadership lessons? This week on Voltcast Illuminating Leadership we will be interviewing Jonathan Hagmaier who went from being a teacher to starting a software company that provided educational solutions. He grew the company to almost 100 employees before selling the company in February of 2016. We will be discussing his journey, how he created the Small Business of the Year in Virginia, why values and relationships matter so much to him and leadership lessons he learned along the way. Jon was also named Entrepreneur of the year and his story will be sure to inspire you and others. We look forward to sharing his story and leadership thoughts with you on Illuminating Leadership.

Are you achieving important desired outcomes for the day, the week, month or year? Are you managing your time or is it managing you? Does it feel like there is never enough time to focus on what is really important to you? How would those around you, your boss, your direct reports, your family describe your ability to be present with them? If you have pondered those or other questions about how to best manage your time in order to be the best you can be at what you do, please join us for our next VoltCast ‘Taking Time to be Present.’ Jeff Smith will explore these and other questions about managing time with Lee Hubert, Principal Consultant with Voltage Leadership. This promises to be a fast-moving practical discussion on time management with insights on how to design your time for the highest levels of personal and team effectiveness.

Do you ever wonder what happens behind the closed door? Are you curious if you are having the right types of conversations with your employees? Do you wonder if you are the only one that leaves some of the conversations with headaches? Are you curious if there are better ways to structure tough conversations with employees? If these questions intrigue you, then please join us for our next Voltcast. Jeff Smith will explore these and other critical questions that manager’s must address with Lee Hubert, Principal Consultant with Voltage Leadership. We will discuss best practices for 1:1 meetings, how to deal with a challenging employee, motivational ideas, disciplinary conversations, giving recognition and even effective team meetings. This practical conversation will help leaders become better at the challenging conversations and help them enter these conversations with more confidence.

Are you a Victim of Drama? Ever wonder why there seems to be so much drama on your Team or at your company? How much does drama cost your organization in lost productivity, turnover, absenteeism and low morale? On our next Voltcast, Jeff Smith will explore these and other questions surrounding the impact of 'drama' in the workplace with Lee Hubert, Principal Consultant with Voltage Leadership. When colleagues adopt one of three primary dysfunctional roles at work, the result is often what we term a 'Cultural Bermuda Triangle.' This can be a place where the company or Team's vision, mission, and productivity can be 'lost.' As David Emerald points this out in his book 'The Power of TED, The Empowerment Dynamic' the antidote to the Dreaded Drama Triangle starts with understanding what role a person may be in and then taking steps to move into healthy roles by focusing on what we want -vs what we don't want.- Tune in to this week's Voltcast and Make'Shift' Happen...!

How do we develop and retain high performing talent? By paying attention to our people. But how? This week Jeff and Jennifer will discuss ways to develop your skill at developing others so that you have successful employees and a winning team. From defining roles and setting expectations, to spotting success and sharing appreciation, they will share best practices for communicating, coaching, encouraging and correcting your team. Learn about the High Potential Zone, a playing field where, with the right moves our teams can cross home plate again and again by hitting the bases of Roles, Recognition, Review and Refine. This week, Jeff and Jennifer take you from the pitcher’s mound and around all 4 bases, with the tips and tools to get your people off the bench, and from hitting the first pitch to rounding home plate. It is our people that win the game for us, and for our businesses to grow and thrive our people need to be growing too.

Hello leaders, yes I am talking to you! Engagement can't just be a buzz word you throw around. You can't just want your 'employees to be engaged' or 'your customers to be engaged'. It has to be a strategy that is embedded throughout your entire organization and this requires dedication, commitment and an understanding of what engagement really is -an emotion-. It also requires that you have the right resources to help them take your vision of engagement and make it a reality in every corner of the company. If you care about creating a company where your employees and customer are so engaged that they become brand champions you have to be intentional and focused on processes that lead to emotional outcomes. Please join us as we cover best practices and tips on creating an engagement culture. Joining Jeff on the show will be Marisa Keegan who is the host of the engagement focused podcast Utter Brilliance and wrote the book Culture: More than Jeans and Margarita Machines.