C-Suite Intelligence

In today's episode, we're joined by Courtney Hamilton, Senior Managing Director at TMG, to discuss one of our favorite coaching concepts: shifting to a manual operating mode. As leaders succeed in their careers, they often start defaulting to autopilot. However, there are situations where making the conscious decision to "go to manual"–a process that involves consciously hijacking your automatic response to an event and taking a new, more deliberate approach–will help you become a more effective leader.Join us as we discuss:How slowing down and staying open can help you avoid stasis and maintain a growth mindset.Ways to shift out of automatic mode in everyday activities, such as meetings, to consistently show up as the best version of yourself.The importance of shifting to manual during times of crisis to ensure you're acting as an absorber and not an amplifier.

Join TMG’s CEO Stephen Miles and COO Taylor Griffin as they unpack the secrets to developing the next generation of general management talent. From doing a staff job to taking something good and making it better, they walk through key experiential moves that can help you take your career to the next level. Whether you're focused on your own development or tasked with developing people, this episode is your go-to guide for rounding out general management talent.Join us as we discuss:The challenges facing general managers and practical skills that can help you lead more effectivelyThe importance of learning how to make your mark as a leader, whether you’re turning something around or working to improve something that is already successfulHow staff and headquarters positions can help you develop a deeper understanding of how your organization operates

Today, our host Stephen Miles, CEO of TMG, is joined by Senior Managing Director John Nasr for an insightful discussion on how executives can effectively lead during turbulent times. In today’s high-velocity, high-stakes environment, understanding the intricacies of leadership under stress has never been more important. From practical tips on turning outward and leveraging your team to the nuances of decision-making and prioritization, Stephen and John break down the hallmarks of effective leadership and pitfalls to avoid. This episode is packed with actionable advice to help you and your team navigate the storm.Join us as we discuss:Balancing instinct and data to ensure best outcomes during a crisisLearning to turn stress into strengths for effective leadership. How absorptive leadership allows you to manage your emotions, slow down decision-making processes, and foster team cohesion.

While the world is saturated with content on leadership, most of us spend the majority of our careers as followers. Today's guest, TMG SMD John Nasr, joins us to explain effective followership and why it's essential for career advancement.In this episode, we discuss practical strategies for creating a low-friction relationship with your leader and how to manage interpersonal dynamics between different personality types, such as introverts/extroverts and thinkers/blinkers. Together, we provide actionable advice on adjusting your energy levels and approach to match your leaders' goals, reducing friction and opening doors to new opportunities.Join us as we discuss:The importance of understanding a leader's preferences for communication and interaction.What distinguishes thinkers from blinkers, and how these two personality types can work together more efficiently.How adapting to your leader's preferences reduces friction and drives results.

Micromanagement gets a bad rap, but could more involvement in the details be the key to successful leadership?This week, Stephen Miles and Taylor Griffin dive deep into the difference between detail-oriented micro leadership and overbearing micromanagement. Listen in as we uncover how a hands-on approach empowers leaders, enhances team alignment, and boosts organizational velocity.Learn more about:A disciplined management operating system that helps leaders remove obstacles for their teams while staying immersed in the details that matter. How the weaponization of micromanagement has caused many leaders to take a hands-off approach centered on delegation that’s detrimental to team building.Why detail matters for leaders and how micro leadership helps create psychological predictability for teams while maintaining healthy tension in the system.

In part two of our discussion on the challenges facing CEOs in 2024, Stephen and Taylor dive deeper into the mechanics of the return to office, the ins and outs of virtual collaboration, what to expect from the regulatory environment in an election year, and the importance of embracing generative AI.Join us as we discuss:How CEOs can help teams balance the need for in-person socialization and collaboration while maintaining flexibility.Our predictions on how political change could affect M&A activity in the U.S. Why CEOs should stop fearing Generative AI and start preparing for how executive, legal, and people teams will put guardrails around its use.

”What you actually hear from CEOs is that they're more in Crisis Leadership planning mode than ever before.”From the issues surrounding return-to-office policies and decreased headcounts to broader geopolitical challenges, Taylor Griffin, Chief Operating Officer at The Miles Group, joins us to talk about how CEOs can navigate the ambiguity of 2024.Join us as we discuss:Leadership strategies for CEOs facing challenges to their company’s license to operate, including ESG, regulation, and more.Learning to plow 40 fields instead of 5: how a dynamic approach to prioritization can help CEOs drive efficiency.The importance of friction for CEOs and why being more involved in day-to-day challenges could actually open up capacity, as opposed to bogging you down.

Special guest Harley Finkelstein, President of Shopify, joins TMG CEO Stephen Miles to discuss their successful coaching relationship and what an ideal high-performance coaching experience can achieve. For executives and founders who may have never considered executive coaching or are unsure of what a coaching relationship looks like day-to-day, Stephen and Harley illustrate what the very best executive coaching relationship can provide.

Employees and teams are experiencing burnout across all levels of the organization. Burnout challenges not only workforce engagement, but quality, productivity, and problem-solving abilities. Courtney Hamilton and Christina Woodard discuss the causes of burnout and the strategies to combat it in order to reconnect teams to their company, culture, and meaningful work.

Every time there’s a threat against a company, there is almost always a weak signal or a whiff of smoke that can serve as an early warning of the risk to the organization. If that threat is dismissed or ignored, the whiff of smoke can turn into a forest fire. Then the organization faces a much bigger problem, with fewer options to solve it. CEO Stephen Miles and Managing Director John Nasr discuss the importance of embedding weak signal detection in the company culture.

Without trust, there is no shared or mutual accountability, and teams do not have strong enough foundations to accomplish their goals. Yet, many people cannot articulate what they and their teams actually need to do in order to form that trust. Stephen Miles and Maizie Nelson share the 8 ways to build trust on your team and inside your company.

Derailment rates for executives in transition, particularly in senior level roles, tend to be higher because they don’t always have the proper understanding of the degree of difficulty related to a given transition. Courtney Hamilton and Christina Woodard discuss how to develop an effective onboarding plan for the first year, allowing proper time to connect with stakeholders, build alignment on the mandate, and prioritize your time effectively, among other strategies.

Regardless of raw potential and natural talent, every person who is serious about their leadership development and growth demonstrates coachability. Taylor Griffin and Samantha Smith explore the concept of coachability – openness to feedback and new ways of doing things, and following through with those changes as part of an iterative, ongoing process.

Culture is most often shaped and fortified on the margin, when leaders must make hard choices. Depending on what they can tolerate, their decisions will either result in a high-performing company culture or one that leads to high levels of conformity and stasis. TMG CEO Stephen Miles and Managing Director John Nasr discuss the criticality of a company’s culture to its longevity and long-term success; and explore the dark side of corporate culture – stagnation that can lead to an organization’s irrelevance and decline.

HR has changed dramatically over the last few years, growing well beyond recruiting and development. Jeff Vijungco – the former Chief People Officer at Rubrik and VP of Global Talent at Adobe, and now Partner at One North Talent – joins The Miles Group COO Taylor Griffin and Managing Director Samantha Smith to discuss the changing landscape of the industry and the needs of today’s Chief People Officers, senior talent executives, and CEOs.

Frustration among leaders is mounting when it comes to the overall effectiveness and collective performance of their leadership teams. Amplified by the shift to the virtual world, the transition has lowered shared context while increasing the default to individual executives executing in their own lanes. As a result, companies and leadership teams became more vertical and less horizontal, decreasing the sense of team, and increasing the cost of coordination. CEO Stephen Miles and COO Taylor Griffin focus on the areas where leaders can lower the cost of coordination in order to better establish high-performing leadership teams.

Special guest Tom Williams discusses key issues CEOs are facing today – and will face tomorrow. Executive chairman and former CEO of Parker Hannifin, the multi-billion-dollar, Fortune 250 global leader in motion and control technologies, Tom joins TMG CEO Stephen Miles to discuss leadership challenges such as driving productivity during high inflation, performance optimization, and utilizing AI.

Employees crave feedback on how to improve their performance, but according to workplace surveys, most say they don’t get it. Taylor Griffin and Samantha Smith suggest asking for advice, not feedback. Advice changes the content from backward-looking and often negative to something that is forward-looking and framed in a more constructive, developmental manner.

The world is less predictable – for many leaders and people inside companies, it’s hard and stressful. TMG CEO Stephen Miles and featured guest, Oracle EVP Rob Tarkoff, continue their discussion about how best to lead in stress events; the importance of “high context” leaders; building organizational capacity; and using resilience as a learning opportunity. 

TMG CEO Stephen Miles invites a special guest, Oracle EVP Rob Tarkoff, to explore the preparedness playbook for leaders in difficult times. In this first of a 2-part series, they share their thoughts on performance leadership, rethinking basic assumptions, the necessity of triangulation, the importance of high content friction and low behavioral friction, and more.