Innovating Leadership: Co-Creating Our Future

Featured Guests: Tom Grote and Christoph Hinske Many -- perhaps too many -- corporations think they're transforming their business models...but in reality continue to do the same old stuff; they just put fancy new words around it.  Innovative leaders focus more on real systemic change than on the vocabulary.  Many of those change leaders take lessons learned from organizations such as the Innovative Leadership Institute, merge them into their business models, and develop unique new ways of improvement and change. Two of the Innovative Leadership Institute’s certified facilitators join us to discuss how they took the concepts they learned and applied them to their business functions.  Graduates Tom Grote and Christoph Hinske join Maureen to discuss how they have extended the program content, and built a values-based systems mapping technique that helped shape both of their professional and personal journeys.

Featured Guest: Greg Moran The pandemic accelerated discussions and forecasts about the future of work.  But there's a relative dearth of study about the future of leadership.  This is a critical gap:  as work changes, leadership must also change to ensure organizations can meet their objectives. After all, effective change always starts at the top.  It is essential for leaders to "innovate how they lead" to keep pace, but what does that mean? Greg Moran joins host Maureen Metcalf to explore the changes leaders need to make, both in how they think about and how they perform the essential work of leadership.

Featured Guest: Eric Redmond Deep tech describes capabilities that were impossible yesterday, barely feasible today, but tomorrow will be so pervasive it will be hard to imagine we ever lived without it. In this early stage of the digital age, understanding how deep tech is disrupting the world is no longer a competitive advantage—it's a matter of survival.  Eric Redmond joins us to discuss his new book, Deep Tech: Demystifying the Breakthrough Technologies That Will Revolutionize Everything. Eric know of what he speaks; he's the Forrest Gump of technology: a twenty-year veteran technologist who always happens to show up where deep tech history is being made, from the first iPhone apps to Bitcoin. He has advised state and national governments, Fortune 100 companies, and groups as varied as the World Economic Forum and MIT Media Lab.

Featured Guest: Sean Castrina Disruption to the norm, unexpected events, uncertain times: these are part of life, not just limited to pandemic times.  These disruptions force companies to rethink how they have done business, and how they can continue to stay in business. Leaders are daily faced with tough decisions on how to lead in this new and different environment. Sean Castrina launched over twenty successful companies.  He joins the show to discuss his story of overcoming a setback, how he moved beyond it to start multiple new businesses, and the leadership lessons he has learned from his experiences.

Featured Guest: Jeff Wald The world has witnessed three-step functions in technological change: mechanization, electrification, and computerization. These industrial revolutions led to massive increases in productivity and thus we need far fewer workers. With each of these technological breakthroughs, the power balance between companies and workers shifted heavily to companies. The abuses of that power by companies instigated employee unrest. Counterbalancing forces rose to constrain companies’ power, eventually prompting unions, regulation, and the social safety net to bring stability to the relationship. As we enter the fourth great leap forward in technology with robots and AI, we face the first services revolution. The power balance will again shift massively to companies as new technologies drive productivity increases in the service industry, much as the last three industrial revolutions transformed manufacturing. Jeff Wald joins Maureen to discuss his book, The End of Jobs, and what the future of work is.

Featured Guest: Eric Douglas Keene  Diversity recruiting and retention is a hot topic in HR departments and the board room.  Their DEI initiatives often fall short, though; many organizations don’t understand the nuances of recruiting, nor how to navigate the complexities of retention. Ensuring candidates and organizations create the best experiences and a path for mutual success isn't difficult. Eric Douglas Keene joins Maureen to discuss changes occurring in the world of diversity recruiting, with tips on helping your workforce benefit from the rich diversity of our citizenry.

Featured Guest: Jeff DeGraff Everyone can be creative in their own way. Creativity skills can be learned and developed. The creative process is iterative: we typically fail many times before we succeed. We learn from those failures and approach the next experiment with new information and an improved understanding.  Yet it can be different in the workplace; particularly in large organizations, the innovative leader is often pushed down by stagnant thinking up the chain. Jeff DeGraff joins Maureen to share how you can tap your individual creativity…and how to deal with the realities of how true innovation is received in the workplace.

Featured Guest: Jonathan Reitz  Coaching skills are not just for the life coach or the executive coach, they are every leader’s secret weapon.  Managers can become the leaders that are needed when they understand how to use coaching skills that put the development of their team as the top priority and multiply their impact.  Want to move from managing your team to leading your team? Coaching skills are the key.  Jonathan Reitz joins Maureen to share how managers can move toward leading by learning some simple coaching behaviors. 

Featured Guest: Liane Davey Business today is more competitive than ever; staying ahead requires you to make tough calls, face hard choices, and work through conflict. But productive conflict is so rare. Why? Because productive conflict requires a different mindset, new skills, and repeatable processes -- none of which come naturally.  Liane Davey joins Maureen to discuss building a productive conflict culture.

Featured Guests: Rich Fernandez and Peter Weng Even before Covid-19, employees reported record rates of burnout and stress; Gallup studies show only 15% of employees are fully engaged at work. Organizations need well-being development for their employees. It is essential for today’s workplaces to provide well-being support, every bit as much as traditional professional development. Supporting the long-term mental health of your team can mean the difference between an engaged, collaborative and productive organization, or one riddled with toxicity and turnover. With 71% of U.S. office workers either curious about or already practicing meditation, now is the time to signal your long-term support for employees, and bring in the neuroscientifically proven benefits of contemplative practices, such as meditation.   Peter Weng and Rich Fernandez discuss mindfulness and employee well-being with Maureen.