Out Of The Comfort Zone

Most of us avoid getting things done either from fear or self-doubt or lack of time. Regardless what you need to get done or your temperament on planning, this episode will give you fabulous tips for how to get things done and get over the inner critic.

Stress comes from the big events at work and outside of work as well as in all the small micro moments. Managing stress levels may well be the most important thing for leaders to do to keep from over-reacting, stressing their teams and amplifying negative energy. Breathing is the best way to manage your stress in the moment. But there is more to breathing than just taking in a gulp of air and letting it out. Science is showing us the power of specific breath exercises. Listen in to hear about the latest and the impact it could have on you.

If you are leading a team, you probably spend a lot of your time solving problems with or for the team. And, perhaps you spend more time than you like persuading others, especially senior most leaders, that those solutions are good or that change is necessary. Is there a better way to solve problems – one that encourages innovation and that fosters transformation? That is the focus on this episode.

Taking time to explore is one of the things that we need to do more of but that is out of the comfort zone for those that are task focused and time starved. Yet exploring is a precursor to being strategic, to spotting opportunities, to growing and even to being innovative – whether that’s big innovation like a new service or small innovation like a streamlining process. Listen in for why you should explore, what you might gain if you tried and how to do it.

This is part of the motivation series. In this episode, we turn to science to ask what research tells us about motivating ourselves and others.

One of the most common questions I get is about how to motivate a team, and yourself as a leader. In this multi-part series, we address that question with the best in research and in practice. In this episode, we are asking what really motivates and drives people and how is that related to personality. Then we will talk about the practical implications in the workplace. Listen in to hear some of the best advice on how to keep yourself and your team motived.

This is part of a series on motivation where we explore what you can do to motivate your team and yourself. The focus in this episode is incentives. What does the research say about incentives as an means of motivating and driving change? What does experience say about how to use incentives to create change? What works and what doesn’t work? Listen in for significant insights.

This is another installment in the series on motivation, a key concern for many leaders. This episode focuses on the lessons of experience from a leader who has lead in many countries across many groups. Listen in to hear an on the ground perspective of what it takes to keep your team and your organization motivated.

Communication is the means for inspiring, motivating, persuading, transforming, sparking innovation, developing and nuturing a talented team. This episode focuses on transformation and how to use communication to get the outcomes and engagement you are seeking. Listen in for great advance on leveling up your communication.

Which leaders do we gravitate to in time of stability versus in time of crisis? Are leaders changed by events or not? What does that say about how you should think about your leadership and situation in which you are leading? Listen in for a fascinating, extremely relevant perspective from history and answer the question of whether events make the leader or vice versa.

Do you feel that you are stuck in mire and can’t get things done? Is your organization wasting a lot of time with inefficiency? Are seemingly simple actions overly complicated? Tune in to understand the causes of friction and what to do about them.

Being a people leader has never been more important and never more difficult at the same time. Demands, expectations, work load, burn out, complexity, hybrid working, quiet quitting to name a few have altered the landscape for leaders and employers. What does it take to succeed and to win in this climate? Tune in to hear the 10 truths you need to master to be an effective people leader.

None of us, regardless how competent or cautious we are, are immune from being fooled. If you doubt that you can be deceived, then tune in to hear how it happens. If you know you can be deceived, then tune in to hear how to navigate without becoming hyper cynical. How do scams work, how do you get fooled and what can you do about it?

Those giving you advice about how to improve your leadership typically start with the advice to “know yourself”. But have you ever stopped to think about what constitutes your sense of self? How do you define your self? What does that say about how you can change yourself or can you change? How does this help us understand how we find meaning? How does this help us understand identity and conflict between groups? Listen in to hear what the latest thinking has to say about how you understand who you are.

One way or another, every leader is trying to create change. However, organizations are extremely slow to adopt change even when the logic for doing so is compelling. We are missing something. Tune in to hear what we know about when and how change happens, what you need to do as a leader and how you can best cascade the change your organization so desperately needs.

Regardless where you sit in an organization or the part of the world in which you reside, I think we can all agree that the quality of our conversations has declined in the last few years. Time is in precious supply, the task list is unending, the coordination burden is high and the channels have multiplied. All of which put pressure on our ability to talk. There are four ways to engage with someone else but we are not using all four effectively. Listen in to hear what the four are, how to develop capability and thus, how to have better conversations.

What holds you back? Most of us create our own traps that keep us from stepping out of our comfort zone. What are the common mindtraps? How are they created? How do we find the courage and wisdom to make a change? Tune in to learn how.

Great leadership involves a complex set of demands – often ones in conflict with each other. In this episode we begin with the eight biggest paradoxes leaders must learn to balance to be truly exceptional. Then we turn to a more recent paradox – that of trying to understand and manage multiple generations in the workplace while being fair to all and still driving performance. Tune in for insight and tactics.

Getting out of your comfort zone means learning to cope with mistakes and set-backs – in other words being resilient. In fact, senior leaders often give the feedback that people in the organization need to be more resilient particularly given the change, uncertainty and chaos around all of us. But, what does that mean – being resilient? Why? Beyond sleeping well, what else can you do to develop resilience? Tune in to find out.

Advancing your career today is harder than ever for many reasons from economic pressures to competition, uncertainty, changing expectations, leadership commitment – the list is a long one. How do you tackle the problems that plague individuals such as perfectionism, exclusion, aspiration and confidence? And as a leader, how do you navigate the changing expectations of what you should be doing? Tune in for great advice based on an extensive data base analysis.