The Future of Work

Agile Relationships to Accelerate Business

Building strategic relationships for agile business results are key for 21st Century results.  In our book, Future-Proof Workplace, we highlight that relationships are one of the key factors for success. They need to be deep, networked, and ever evolving. Relationships enhance innovation and speed.

Joining us this week is David Nour, a relationship expert and author of over ten insightful books on how to leverage relationships, will be discussing how to build them and make then last. He has consulted with some of the leading CEO’s in the world and has been a key influencer in this area. His most recent book Co-Create is a seminole work for business leaders that is a must-read.  We will be discussing how you as a leader can build deep relationships that accelerate your personal growth and business success.

David Nour is a growth strategist, thought leader and global keynote speaker on Relationship Economics®, the concept of the quantifiable value of business relationships. Through his best-selling books, compelling speeches and valuable consulting, Nour demonstrates how relationships are the greatest of-balance-sheet asset any organization possesses, large or small, public or private. He is a popular speaker and delivers over 50 global keynotes a year explaining the hidden assets of relationships, and the art and science of investing in them. He is CEO of The Nour Group, Inc., a consulting firm that advises top global leaders and boards of corporations, associations and academic forums on disruptive innovations to fuel their growth. The Nour Group, Inc., has worked with leading global companies such as Disney, Cisco Systems, Deloitte Consulting, Hilton Worldwide, HP, IBM and more.

Creating a Learning Culture within the State of Tennessee

When looking to become an employer of choice, or create a learning culture, many look to the corporate sector for innovation, assuming, wrongly, that the public sector is “behind the times.” This couldn’t be further from the truth within the State of Tennessee, which is seen as a role model for employee development.

Listen as Morag Barrett talks with Dr. Trish Holliday, Assistant Commissioner & Chief Learning Officer for the State of Tennessee, about how the state has transformed their work culture and invested in the development of more than 40,000 employees, ultimately positioning the state as a learning organization.

Tennessee was the first state in the country to establish the executive position of Chief Learning Officer (CLO), appointing Dr. Trish Holliday to this role. Trish fosters a culture that promotes engagement, encourages retention, and provides continuous learning and leadership development for all employees, ultimately positioning the state as a learning organization.

High-Stakes Leadership

Why are some leaders in high-stakes situations and crisis highly effective, while others disappoint, and some utterly fail? What is the difference? Why are some able to not only survive but thrive, even in tumult?

The answer is, that high-stakes leaders demonstrate three critical aspects that ensure they perform well in a crisis. The good news is that these three qualities can be strengthened, taught and honed in those who have a thirst to learn.

Listen as Dr. Linda Sharkey and Morag Barrett talk with Constance Dierickx about the insights from her new book High-Stakes Leadership, Leading Through Crisis with Courage, Judgment, and Fortitude. You’ll learn why leading is high-stakes – and why leaders who don’t know they are in high-stakes situations are at the most risk. Why courage, judgment and fortitude are the essential elements needed by leaders.

Constance specializes in working with organizations in high-stakes transitions, including mergers, acquisitions, divestitures, CEO succession, strategic change, and crisis. Her clients include AAA, AT&T, Belk, Boys and Girls Clubs of America, Cox Enterprises, DIRECTV, IBM, NextGear Capital, Olive Garden, and others. She has advised over 500 executives, on five continents in 28 industries.

The Future of Education in the 21st Century

How have innovations in technology impacted learning and transformed education? What are the big trends on the horizon in the education industry? Houghton Mifflin Harcourt (HMH) is a global learning company focused on creating and delivering solutions that empower educators and improve student outcomes. Rose Else-Mitchell, HMH’s Chief Learning Officer, will join us to discuss the future of education in the 21st century. We’ll explore how digital innovation is impacting the classroom environment, the power of learning science, and the importance of going beyond the latest trends to use technology to truly enhance the learning experience.

Rose joined Houghton Mifflin Harcourt as part of the Company’s acquisition of Scholastic’s Educational Technology and Services business in May 2015. Now as Chief Learning Officer and EVP, Rose oversees HMH’s Efficacy Research, Learning Science and Data Analytics teams, as well as its Teaching and Learning Platforms and best-in-class-class Professional Services business. At Scholastic, Rose was Executive Vice President of K-12 US & Global Product Development, responsible for the company’s Ed Tech product strategy and development, including world-class products such as READ 180, MATH 180, System 44, and iRead. Rose has worked as a professional development publisher, for education non-profits, as a television book reviewer, an educational researcher, and a classroom teacher.

Future-Proof your Career for Long-Term Success

How can you future-proof your career for long-term business success? This week we welcome Jill Johnson, president and founder of Johnson Consulting Services. Jill is a sought-after consultant and thought-provoking speaker who shares her insights on the critical market forces and critical skills needed to thrive in today’s complex business environment. Jill will share her advice on how to become more strategic in our thinking, better at decision making, and build our confidence for long-term business success.

Jill Johnson, president and founder of Johnson Consulting Services, is a management consultant specializing in strategy development. She has personally impacted more than $4 billion worth of business decisions for clients located throughout the United States, as well as in Europe and Asia. Jill is a two-time business hall of fame inductee and has received numerous honors for her business acumen, leadership savvy, mentoring impact, and her entrepreneurial success. She has been quoted in The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Money Magazine, Inc., and Success.

Culture is King in the 21st Century

Companies can crash quickly today, as we have learned through social media. They can be up today and down tomorrow. When you scratch the surface, you find that a toxic culture is always a root cause. Typically, these are organizations with leaders who foster fear or turn a blind eye to those that do. Our special guest this week is Tim Kuppler, Director of Culture and Organization Development with Human Synergistics, a premier organization for culture development and change. Listen in as we discuss insights about the past, present and future of culture development and the connections to performance that are not widely understood.

Tim Kuppler is Director of Culture and Organization Development with Human Synergistics and Founder of CultureUniversity.com. Human Synergistics is a 40+ year pioneer in the field of workplace culture and home of the most widely used and thoroughly researched culture assessment in the world, the Organizational Culture Inventory® (OCI®). Tim has nearly 20 years of experience in the culture field as a top leader, consultant and educator. He is the author of Build the Culture Advantage, Deliver Sustainable Performance with Clarity and Speed. He co-facilitates the annual Ultimate Culture Conference and collaborates with many top experts and consulting firms in the culture field.

What is your WQ? (Workplace Intelligence)

This week we welcome Mark Babbitt, President and Senior Partner of WorqIQ, a consultancy that helps organizations and their leaders improve the experience of work by helping them understand, then raise, their collective level of Workplace Intelligence, or “WQ.” We will discuss the role of Workplace Intelligence (WQ) in future-proofing your organization and creating a great place to work. We will also explore the seven elements of Workplace Intelligence:

• Organizational Culture and Workplace Climate
• Transformational Leadership
• Employee Engagement (Reimagined)
• Purpose-driven Performance
• Creating an Optimistic Workplace
• Social Intelligence
• Community Building

A prolific blogger, Mark’s thought leadership can be found on Entrepreneur, Inc., Harvard Business Review and many other outlets. An in-demand speaker, Babbitt was also named to Inc. Magazines Top 100 Leadership Speakers. Mark is co-author of A World Gone Social: How Companies Must Adapt to Survive. (AMACOM, August 2014). Tens of thousands of followers benefit from Babbitt’s daily doses of workplace, leadership and social intelligence how-tos on Twitter at @MarkSBabbitt‪.

Transforming Business Through Leadership

Our special guest will be Dr. Peter Fuda, a leadership expert who is obsessed with the transformation of leaders, teams and entire organizations. Over the past 15 years, his consulting firm has supported more than 50 cases of large scale business transformation, and more than 1,000 cases of senior executive transformation, in many of the world’s leading organizations. In a world where 70% fail, Peter has a success rate above 90%. Dr. Peter Fuda will share strategies on how to make an impact, increase your influence, and transform results.

Peter has personally coached 250 CEOs to reach measurably higher levels of effectiveness. He’s also a professor of management, best-selling author, documentary film maker, sought after public speaker and a successful entrepreneur in his own right.

Career Literacy as a Means to Workforce Readiness

We’re thrilled to welcome Melissa Risteff – CEO & Co-Founder of Couragion to the show! Founded in 2015, Couragion is generously supported by the National Science Foundation – with an undertaking to improve the awareness and perception of STEM careers and to meaningfully broaden participation in these fields. Couragion strongly believes that career literacy should be integrally woven into education experiences to better inform student choice around pathways and increase retention in real-world career paths.

The Power of Fusing Brand and Culture

Independently, culture and brand are powerful, often unsung, business drivers. But when you fuse the two together—when you create an interdependent and mutually-reinforcing relationship between how your organization thinks and acts on the inside and how it is perceived and experienced on the outside—you create new growth that isn’t possible by simply cultivating one or the other alone. 

If you or your organization is experiencing high turnover or low recruitment success, employee or customer surveys that show lots of room for improvement, or financial performance that is shaky or unpredictable, make sure to join us as we discuss with Denise Lee Yohn, author of FUSION. How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies, and learn how Brand-culture fusion has the potential to improve the competitiveness and accelerate the growth of any organization, regardless of its size or type.

Denise Lee Yohn is the go-to expert on brand-building for national media outlets, an in-demand speaker and consultant, and an influential writer. Denise is the author of the bestselling book What Great Brands Do: The Seven Brand-Building Principles that Separate the Best from the Rest (Jossey-Bass), the e-book Extraordinary Experiences: What Great Retail and Restaurant Brands Do, and the highly anticipated new book FUSION: How Integrating Brand and Culture Powers the World’s Greatest Companies (Nicholas Brealey/Hachette Books).