The Leadership Forum Podcast

In this podcast, James Felton and Keith Hadley discuss the importance of developing a three year vision. This allows the team to get aligned over a core set of hopes and dreams ...a common picture around the future. The team can then map out how to get the company from where they are to where they want to go over the next three years. 

There is a quality that can set a great organization apart from the rest – the ability to make bold, effective decisions in difficult and uncertain times. As you'd expect, it starts with the leader. After all, leaders are deciders. Yet many leaders struggle with this essential duty – making the decision and asking people to commit. In this podcast, James Felton and Keith Hadley discuss the importance of making faster, better decisions and four fears that often make this difficult. 

James interviews Pat Vihtelic, founder and CEO of Home Chef. Home Chef is a subscription based meal kit company that delivers quality meals to millions of subscribers each month. In this podcast, Pat discusses his evolution as a leader, the traits he looks for in his employees, and the successful merger of his company with Kroger, currently one of the largest supermarket chains. 

James is joined by Tim Leman, the chairman and CEO of Gibson located in South Bend, Indiana. He is on a number of boards and is the author of the book rEvolution: Turn Crisis into Clarity and Ignite Growth. He shares his experiences about creating a healthy company that is built upon a strong leadership model, his hiring practices, and his emphasis on connecting with his employees in a genuine way. 

James Felton and fellow colleague Keith Hadley, interview Jon Brady, President of Midtown Athletic Club. Jon shares his unique experiences prior to Midtown that crafted the philosophies he holds today. Jon also shares that he was on the trajectory to having one of the best years yet because he took the time to develop a cohesive team and create clarity that has been adopted company wide. While COVID has presented a challenge to the industry, he's confident that because of the solid foundation, Midtown will continue down its strong path. 

James interviews Keith Hadley, friend and colleague. They discuss a variety of lessons that they learned from working with leadership teams during 2020. 

James interviews Mitch Bell, Vice President and Co-Producer at Marvel Studios. Mitch shares about the culture at Marvel and why it has become so successful over the past several years. He shares that the passion for making these movies, along with several other core values, is what brings back quality staff and loyal fans time and time again. 

Debbie Ellisen, formerly a Table Group consultant, shares about her experiences transitioning from a career of coaching CEO's and executive teams to being the CEO of a company called TeamSight. TeamSight specializes in helping teams work together more effectively by leveraging the strengths of each team member. Check out more about the company by visiting https://teamsight.co/ and enjoy a 30-day free trial to find out more. 

James interviews founder of Hudson Jeans, Peter Kim. In this interview, they discuss the challenges and the opportunities that came out of his family background and his experiences establishing a healthy culture at Hudson Jeans. He also will share about the exciting new work he is doing creating a "brand laboratory".

In this episode, James interviews Stanford volleyball coach, Kevin Hambly. Kevin has had great success over the years coaching at both Stanford and University of Illinois. He attributes a lot of his success to building a positive culture, growing in self-awareness, focusing on peer to peer accountability, and looking for both athletic ability and a positive culture fit when recruiting new players. 

James interviews Ben Westra, CEO of WDS Construction. He explains how he evolved as a leader throughout his time working and leading the company. 

James is joined by friend and colleague, Mike McHargue. Mike has 20+ years of leadership experience and is now serving as a Table Group consultant. In addition to being a consultant, he recently wrote the book "Rookie Mistakes". In his book, he provides a collection of wisdom and advice from some of the top executives in the US. On this podcast, he shares some of the leadership advice he has gleaned over the years from these leaders and how to apply it into a variety of situations.To find out more about Mike, feel free to visit his website www.mike-mchargue.com and be sure to check out his book Rookie Mistakes on Amazon. 

Today's topic is all about the advantage a strategic HR leader brings to an organization. James brings in friend and colleague Joyce Schaefer. Joyce has been with the Table Group for 3 years. Prior to that, she founded the successful company, "Breakthrough ROI". Before starting her own company, she worked at Monsanto for 20 years where she made the unique career transition from accounting to HR. That pivot made her a valuable strategic HR business leader - the basis for our topic today. 

Keith Hadley, a Principal Consultant with the Table Group, shares his insights on Leading Through Crisis. Keith brings over 20 years of organizational and strategy leadership to his partnership with The Table Group. Keith provides expertise in helping CEOs build cohesive teams and competitive advantage. Whether he's consulting to CEOs one-on-one or with their teams, or leading a large workshop, Keith's passion and excitement are contagious. His skill for helping teams tackle complex issues has made Keith a sought-after advisor.For more of his articles, please go to keithhadley.com.