Lead From the Heart

Being a CEO at any of the world’s largest companies is among the most challenging roles in business. Billions, and even trillions, are at stake – and the fates of tens of thousands of employees often hang in the balance. Yet, even when “can’t miss” high-achievers win the top job, very few prove to excel. According to the New York Times & Wall Street Journal bestseller, “CEO Excellence,” “Thirty percent of Fortune 500 CEOs are booted from their jobs in three years or less, and two-out-of-five new CEOs are perceived to be failing within eighteen months.”  Uneasy lies the head that wears the crown, apparently. Seeing these statistics and wondering what behaviors prove to distinguish the very best CEOs, three McKinsey senior partners – including Carolyn Dewar – identified over 2400 public company CEOs before distilling that group into a smaller elite corps. And sixty-seven of that final group agreed to in-depth, multi-hour interviews including Microsoft’s Satya Nadella, American Express’ Ken Chenault, Sony’s Kazuo Hirai & GM’s Mary Barra. From what’s been described as being “frank, no-holds-barred conversations” the three McKinsey partners were able to pin down the uncommon mindsets these top performing CEOs shared in common. And Carolyn Dewar joins us to explore all they discovered. As Carolyn repeatedly affirms in our conversation, the behaviors that define top CEOs prove to be ones that define the top managers at almost all other levels of an organization.  And the leadership thinking Carolyn affirms as being critically needed in our workplaces today has surprising resonance with pretty much all of the themes we address on this podcast. Heading into the interview, I’m not sure I expected this from a senior partner at McKinsey! As you’ll hear, Carolyn exudes a wonderful and enlightened balance of mind and heart. The post Carolyn Dewar: Six Mindsets That Distinguish The Best Leaders appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Tiffani Bova is the global growth evangelist at Salesforce and the author of the Wall Street Journal bestselling book “GROWTH IQ: Get Smarter About the Choices that Will Make or Break Your Business.” She’s been named to the latest Thinkers50’s list of the world’s top management thinkers.  Along with Columbia University and Stanford University, Bova recently authored a study which averaged data from 1,000 brick and mortar stores of a major American retailer (Walmart? Target? She can’t reveal).  And the research proved what most of us have always suspected: there’s a causal relationship between employee satisfaction and well-being – and the revenues the stores produce. She not only found that the stores that “did the employee experience well,” elevated revenue – revenue per hour increased by a full fifty percent. Bova’s confirming conclusion is that when leaders focus on employee satisfaction in the most sincerest of ways, “it produces hard financials, not the soft stuff.” Highly regarded in Silicon Valley for her work in creating bold strategies for sales and growth, she was previously a Distinguished Analyst and Research Fellow at Gartner where she won the Thought Leadership award. Our conversation digs into her research study and it’s guidance to all managers who lead front-line teams. How you treat them truly does affect the bottom-line, for better or worse. The post Tiffani Bova: Salesforce’s Growth Guru Explains Why Employees Must Come First appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Uncertainty in life is, ironically, certain. Amid a pandemic, the past two years have been no exception. None of us needs to think very hard to recall the unprecedented and sudden need we had to move employees en masse to their homes to work, the lingering fears we all had around an unknown virus, and the challenging decisions we later faced about the future of the office in light of the Great Resignation. Over the course of his career as a professor at the prestigious Insead business school in Paris, Nathan Furr interviewed many of the world’s greatest entrepreneurs including Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk. And along the way, he made the extraordinary discovery that rather than being scared by uncertainty, these people all seemed to thrive on it. And this influenced him to ask the big question, “How might the rest of us learn to embrace uncertainty – and use it to our advantage – at a time when modern day life is proving to be its most ambiguous and unpredictable?” From that question comes the new bestseller Furr wrote with his wife Susannah, “The Upside of Uncertainty,” a book that offers extremely powerful ways of approaching all the ambiguity in our lives, and shows us how to reframe it in a way that helps us use it to our advantage. As science proves our brains are wired to fear uncertainty’s downsides, the Furrs have uncovered clever ways of facing the unknown and teaching us how we can far better cope with it ourselves. In their research, the Furrs tapped into neuroscience, psychology, innovation and behavioural economics to develop a four-stage toolkit to help people overcome their fears of uncertainty. And, lest anyone doubt that living with uncertainty is on the rise, the authors point to the World Uncertainty Index (created by economists at Stanford University) which shows that uncertainty has been steadily rising in recent decades. As there is no longer a linear route forward to success in any endeavor in life, we’ve invited the Furrs to the podcast to explain how we can be more fearless, especially when our lives feels truly uncertain and unsettled. The post Nathan And Susannah Furr: A Guide to Finding Possibility in the Unknown appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Alan Murray is the CEO of Fortune (Magazine) Media. He’s the former president of the Pew Research Center & the Deputy Managing Editor – & Washington Bureau Chief – of the Wall Street Journal. And, for decades, he’s had tremendous access to the world’s top CEOs. In his new book, “Tomorrow’s Capitalist: My Search For The Soul Of Business,” Murray makes the clear & direct assertion that senior business leaders are suddenly discovering a moral compass. He says we’re living through a moment of profound change in how chief executives understand their role, & argues that this shift is already changing the way that business operates. If this sounds too good to be true, this may be the first time in our podcast’s history where our guest was asked to endure some cynical grilling (& he responds to every question with aplomb). In rather interesting language given the theme of this podcast, Murray says “it’s not that CEOs have grown bigger hearts,” but rather that they’re pivoting in a pragmatic way. They’ve come to understand that their organizations can only grow & prosper if they invest in their employees, serve their customers, support their communities, & recognize their responsibility is to help lift up all of society — rather than (in the words of JPMorgan Chase CEO, Jamie Dimon) “ignore or ‘drive by’ those who have been left behind.” Few of us could argue that Capitalism doesn’t require a major upgrade, & Murray has been sincerely persuaded that CEOs realize the historic blindness of corporations to social issues like climate change, the “Black Lives Matter” movement, discrimination of all kinds — & income inequality – is no longer sustainable or viable. In his book, & in our conversation, Murray emphasizes that CEOs — the ultimate pragmatists — have simply realized they could lose their “operating license” if they fail to lead in a new way, not to mention ensure that it’s no longer shareholders who have a say in how their corporations are run. Few people on the planet have had the access to CEO thinking as Alan Murray, & his perspective on the future of CEO leadership practices will surely leave you encouraged. One very interesting insight he shares here: it’s vocal employees & customers who are holding chief executive’s feet to the fire to evolve. And, Murray makes a compelling case that they finally are. The post Alan Murray: Is The Shift To Stakeholder Capitalism For Real? appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

When Bo Seo was 8 years old, he and his family migrated from Korea to Australia. At the time, he didn’t speak English and struggled at school. But, in the fifth grade, something happened to change his life: he discovered competitive debate. It turns out the seemingly shy and introverted kid had a knack for persuasion – and he went on to become a two-time world champion debater and the coach for the Harvard College Debating Union. Seo also graduated from Harvard, earned a masters degree from Tsinghua University and is about to graduate from Harvard Law School.  Somehow, he also found time to write the surprising bestseller, “Good Arguments: How Debate Teaches Us To Listen And Be Heard,” a book Wharton’s Adam Grants says ”has the potential to make you smarter—and everyone around you wiser.” As you’ll hear, the twenty-eight-year-old Seo is wicked smart and equally articulate. But we invited him to the podcast because he’s discovered the art of having arguments that don’t go off the rails or leave other people fuming.  Seo believes that, far from being a source of conflict, good-faith debate can enrich our lives and elevate our influence – and being an effective debater is inherently essential in leadership. In debate competitions, topics are announced just minutes before participants must make their case on stage – and which side a debater gets to argue is randomly assigned. So, for example, if the topic is “It’s time marijuana use become legal in America,” a debater could end up arguing in favor of an opinion they don’t personally hold. As Seo describes this experience, you learn empathy through the process of understanding how other people perceive an issue.  And because no one is allowed to interject a comment or speak while another debater is on stage, contestants also learn to deeply listen to what other people say. In an era where it seems so hard to disagree with someone without being perceived as disagreeable, Seo shares practices he mastered while becoming a two-time world champion debater.  And there’s a lot of heart in them. The post Bo Seo: Timeless Secrets Of Effective Communication And Persuasion appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

He’s a New York Times bestselling author, a former White House advisor to four American Presidents – both Republican and Democrat – a long time senior political commentator on CNN television, and the founder of the John F. Kennedy Center for Public Leadership at Harvard University, where’s he been Director or co-Director for almost two decades. Gergen is also the author of the new bestseller, “Hearts Touched By Fire: How Great Leaders Are Made,” a book he wrote to share everything of value that he’s learned during his over five-decade career. Gergen has been a student of leadership ever since graduating from Harvard Law School and beginning to coach, counsel and write for Richard Nixon, Gerald Ford, Ronald Reagan and Bill Clinton. Leadership guru, Warren Bennis, once said that becoming a leader is fundamentally the same as becoming a fully developed person. We can have companions along the way, but we must ultimately make the journey ourselves. In that vein, Gergen tells us that becoming a great leader demands that we take a two-part journey toward self-awareness and self-mastery – one that is inner journey and one that is an outer journey. During this process, our personal growth and professional development become interdependent. In this highly inspiring conversation, Gergen explains how to embark on this two-part journey while also weighing in on the Great Resignation, the most essential qualities demanded of managers today, leading through ambiguity – and overcoming life’s most painful setbacks.  If you’ve ever seen him on television, you know he’s a profoundly kind and wise man who seeks to find common ground rather that amplify differences.  He’s a sage with wonderful insights to share. The post David Gergen: How Great Leaders Are Made appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

We’ve all been told that thinking rationally is the key to success. But at the cutting edge of science, researchers are discovering that feeling is every bit as important as thinking. All of us make hundreds of decisions every day — including what to eat for breakfast & how we should invest our money — & not one of those decisions would be possible without emotion. It has long been said that thinking & feeling are separate & opposing forces in our behavior. But as Leonard Mlodinow, author of the new bestseller, “Emotional: How Feelings Shape Our Thinking,” tells us, “extraordinary advances in psychology & neuroscience have proven that emotions are as critical to our well-being as thinking.” One of the cornerstone ideas of the Lead From The Heart philosophy is that human beings are far more influenced by feelings & emotions than most people (leaders) realize. And Mlodinow’s work offers a state-of-the-art understanding of how to apply this knowledge in the workplace. “Emotions shape virtually every thought we have,” he writes. “They contribute, moment to moment, to all our judgments & decisions,” even when we believe we are exercising cold, logical reason. If we understand that human beings are greatly influenced by their feelings, then it becomes incumbent upon workplace managers to support people in ways that inspire the feelings which motivate great performance.  And we discuss how to accomplish all this in this episode. Leonard Mlodinow is a theoretical physicist, a former professor at the California Institute of Technology (CalTech) & author of five best-selling books. His book “The Grand Design,” co-authored with Stephen Hawking, reached #1 on the New York Times best-seller list. As you might expect, he brings uncommon brilliance to this conversation – & shares insights that will prove invaluable to workplace leaders everywhere. The post Leonard Mlodinow: People Aren’t As Rational As We Think appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Most books about time management are written as guides to creating the perfect schedule or productivity method for cranking through as many items on our to-do list as we possibly can. Even when those methods work, they somehow still leave us feeling stressed & overwhelmed, paddling frantically against a current whose strength we can never match. The fundamental problem is that none of the typical time management books address the very grim fact that our lives on planet earth are woefully brief – & so managing to clear out all our e-mails every day no longer holds up as being one of our most essential accomplishments once we confront how absurdly, terrifyingly, insultingly short life really is. Oliver Burkeman is an award-winning writer for the Guardian, who one day did the math most of us would rather avoid. If we live until we’re 80, all we get are four thousand weeks. In his new uber-selling book, “Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals,” Burkeman asserts that given the relatively short time frame of even the longest life, time management should be everyone’s most pressing concern. “Arguably,” he points out, “time management is all life is.” Formerly obsessed with finding the best ways of getting more accomplished every day, Burkeman found (just as we have) that none of the productivity hacks he learned truly lived up to their promises. And so he turned his focus to ways of getting the most out of life tied to one’s personal dreams, aspirations & purpose. And that led him to asking some rather pointed questions about how we unwittingly squander so much of the precious time we have: Why do we seem to crave distraction from the things we want to do the most? Why do we imagine we’ll someday reach a state of productivity perfection, with nothing left on our to-do lists? How many of us delay a creative project by telling ourselves “I’ll start when I have more time. I’m just too busy right now? Burkeman provides the sobering & insightful answers to all these questions, but his book – the focus of this entire podcast – was really written to urge us to (not morbidly) keep the idea of our mortality always present in our minds, as doing so will steadily influence us to be far more courageous in living the life we really desire. In a moment when all of us are deeply pondering the purpose & meaning of our lives, Burkeman’s insights couldn’t have arrived at a better time! The post Oliver Burkeman:Four Thousand Weeks: Time Management For Mortals appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

Named by Forbes Magazine as one of “10 Must-Read Career & Leadership Books For 2022,” Roger Martin’s A New Way To Think: Your Guide To Superior Management informs us that our collective leadership thinking must stop centering around the organization & begin centering around human value. Martin is Professor Emeritus at the University of Toronto’s Rotman School of Management where he previously served as its Dean. Throughout a career of advising CEOs at some of the world’s most successful companies, Martin noted that almost every executive he talked to had a “model” – a framework or way of thinking that guided their strategy & activities. But these models tended to become automatic, so much so that when one didn’t work, the typical response was just to apply it again – with greater enthusiasm. In our discussion, Martin shares numerous examples of leaders doubling-down on their strategy instead of reconsidering their plan itself. So ingrained are our processes & approaches to managing our workplaces that we seldom step back & assess whether our methodologies need re-thinking. We just add more fuel to the way we’ve always done things. As one example, in an Ernst & Young survey, 81% of executives said they believe data should be at the heart of all decision-making. And while MBA programs have been trying to turn management into a science for the past 6 decades, Martin argues that data implies certainty – something no leader can every rely on. “Creating great choices requires imagination rather than data,” he says. “A purely scientific approach to business decision making has serious limitations.” At a time when managers the world over are seeking to attract and retain great people, Roger Martin joins us to share uncommon advice that’s predicated on the idea that it’s time to re-think leadership from the bottom up. The post Roger Martin: It’s Time For Leaders To Embrace A New Way Of Thinking appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.

The country where people live the longest is Japan where they’ve long had a rich tradition of respecting and honoring older people. In America, & throughout the West, we have especially negative views on aging, & almost treat getting older as being shameful. In her new book, “Breaking The Age Code: How Your Beliefs About Aging Determine How Long And Well you Live,” Yale social psychologist, Becca Levy, tells us that the expectation that aging means decay is actually a major reason it so often does – our negative view of aging is literally killing us. Levy’s remarkable & rigorous research proves that, on average, people with the most positive views of aging outlive those with the most negative views by 7 ½ years – an extraordinary 10% of current life expectancy. There’s a proverb that says, “as a man thinketh in his heart, so he is.” And Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius made essentially the same conclusion two millennia ago when saying, “we become what we think about.” In her book, Levy shows that in memory tests, people with positive age beliefs allowed them to outperform their peers with negative age beliefs by 30%. Levy argues that because our views of ageing are often so negative in the West, our media continues to reinforce them by stereotypically presenting older people as doddering, forgetful, slow & confused. And this plays out in our workplaces where Levy says, “ageism is the most widespread & socially accepted prejudice today.” Levy’s research shows there’s little evidence that people become less useful as they age – nor is there any proof that older people are more resistant to change than people much younger. When he was 14 years old, Paul McCartney imagined his life at age 64 and his famous song about it wondered if he’d still be valued in his “old” age. In 2022, McCartney will turn 80 & he not only still fills large stadiums, he performs for three straight hours. Noting all of us are aging every day, Becca Levy urges us to start re-framing getting older as an experience that doesn’t automatically mean poor health or unsound mind.  “It’s time we all embrace ‘age positivity,’ she says, & explaining all the reasons why is the focus of this wonderful discussion. The post Becca Levy: It’s Our View Of Aging That’s What’s Really Old appeared first on Mark C. Crowley.