Podcasts about exco group

Picture this: You're a kid shivering in your home, which never goes above 68 degrees in the winter. And you decide right then– your future includes a thermostat set at 72. That desire sparked Shellye Archambeau's life's ambition. Shellye is our guest this week on Money Tales. Her experience spans from being the new kid at school in seven states to breaking barriers as a Black woman CEO in Silicon Valley. Shellye talks about the intentional financial decisions that shaped her path and the raw, courageous conversations with her then-future husband that helped her build the life she envisioned as a teenager. Shellye's story is a masterclass in ambition and authenticity. Fortune 500 board member, Former CEO of MetricStream, advisor and author Shellye Archambeau is an experienced CEO and Board Director with a track record of accomplishments building brands, high performance teams and organizations. Shellye currently serves on the boards of Verizon, Roper Technologies, Okta and Lineage. She is also a CEO mentor with the EXCO Group and serves on the board of two national nonprofits, Catalyst and Braven. Shellye has over 30 years of experience in technology. She is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based governance, risk and compliance software company. During her tenure, MetricStream grew from a fledgling startup into a global market leader. She is the author of Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers and Create Success on Your Own Terms, a book that will inspire you and provide the tools to enable you to fight the battles, make the tradeoffs and create the life you want. She is also a Forbes contributor and the protagonist of the Harvard Business School Case Study: Becoming a CEO. Shellye is the founder of Ignite Ambition, a community focused on the professional development of people in the early to mid-stage of their career.  Their mission is to provide professionals with the knowledge, inspiration, perspective and tools that they need to overcome their challenges, achieve their aspirations and excel in their professional careers. Shellye enjoys the performing arts, traveling, cooking and writing a blog, shellye.com, that provides career advice, insights and other musings.

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Join Mark on this week's episode of the Chief Executive Podcast for an insightful discussion with Niren Chaudhary, former Chairman of the Board and CEO at Panera Brands, and David Reimer, CEO and Managing Partner of The ExCo Group. Niren and David share strategies for leading in an era of profound change and the evolving demands on today's CEOs. Key takeaways include: The Evolving CEO Role David emphasizes the need for CEOs to stay adaptable in an ever-changing environment. Building a Resilient Pipeline Both leaders stress the importance of fostering curiosity and resilience in future executives, preparing them to lead in unpredictable times. Creating Psychological Safety Niren underscores the value of challenging ideas and embracing dissent: "Don't tell me why you agree with me, tell me why you disagree." Data Meets Judgment Niren encourages leaders to use data for informed decisions but warns against waiting for perfection—act when "70% certain" and trust your judgment for the rest. Discover how today's leaders can stay agile and foster innovative cultures. Tune in to learn these strategies for navigating modern leadership challenges.

Adam Bryant interviewed over 1,000 CEO's. These are the 3 critical skills to running a company. Adam Bryant was a journalist at the New York Times for nearly 18 years. In that time, he interviewed over 1,000 CEOs and found that each one had three key skills that keep their companies, their employees, and themselves, afloat. According to Bryant, being a CEO isn't all private jets and big checks. Since the pandemic, leadership has become even more challenging, as society has turned to companies for direction, support, and even solutions to global issues. Still, founders have found a way to thrive, thanks to these common characteristics. Chapters for easier navigation:- 0:00 Intro 1:07 the actual truth about being a CEO Critical Skills For CEO'S ↓ 3:29 simplify complexity 4:00 being fully accountable 4:21 listening to stakeholders About Adam Bryant: Adam Bryant joined The ExCo Group, a senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm, as managing director in 2017 after a 30-year career in journalism, including 18 years at The New York Times. In addition to his many roles there as a reporter and editor, he created the weekly "Corner Office" column, and interviewed 525 CEOs and other leaders over a decade. He has written four books based on the themes that emerged from Corner Office and from his four current interview series on LinkedIn with board directors, CEOs, CHROs and prominent Black leaders. His latest book, "The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership,” was published in July 2023 by Harvard Business Review Press. Adam is the senior adviser to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University..... Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

What can be done to make a great team out of a variety of people? What makes listening the most important skill for the modern leader? In this episode, Adam answers these questions and more. What You'll Learn: 1. Why you must know what you want before jockeying for promotions. 2. The importance of simplifying complexity as a leader. 3. What listening has to do with leadership. 4. Delegation is a MUST. Learn to give things away and let go. 5. The best managers are coaches. 6. It's great to be a workhorse, but you need to have a little showpony in you to move up. 7. How good managers are talent developers, not talent hoarders. Who is Adam? Adam Bryant is managing director of The ExCo Group and Merryck, a global leadership development consultancy. Prior to working with Merryck, Adam worked as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. Adam has published 4 books, having interviewed over 150 leaders. His new book is The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership. Mentions: The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership by Adam Bryant https://www.amazon.ca/Leap-Leader-Ambitious-Managers-Leadership-ebook/dp/B0B5YGWWW2  The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders by Adam Bryant and Kevin Sharer https://www.amazon.ca/gp/product/B08CNP2G39/ref=dbs_a_def_rwt_hsch_vapi_tkin_p1_i0  Follow Adam: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/  More of Do Good to Lead Well: Website: https://craigdowden.com/ LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/craigdowden/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/craig-dowden/message

Are you looking for a mentor? We've got a surefire way to get as many mentors as you want, thanks to Shellye Archambeau, a Fortune 500 board director and one of the first Black female CEOs in the tech industry.Shellye learned early in her career that you should have multiple mentors and she figured out how to do that—without asking! And it's easier than you think!Suffering from impostor syndrome? Don't worry, Shellye points out it affects all of us, including herself, and she offers ways to beat it when it sneaks up on you. Striving to land a paid seat on a corporate board? Shellye shares how she did it and how you can, too! Want people to remember you? Introduce yourself using Shellye's technique and you'll be on people's minds long after you meet them.With over 30 years of corporate experience, Shellye, author of Unapologetically Ambitious, shares some golden nuggets you won't want to miss! Theme: Don't Do It AloneEpisode Highlights:Mixing business and pleasureAchieving work-life integrationHow to get a mentor without askingGet paid to serve on a boardHow to set goals and stay on trackHow to beat impostor syndrome3 ways leaders can advance multicultural women in the workplaceIntroduce yourself so people remember youMentioned in this Episode:Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers, and Create Success on Your Own Terms by Shellye ArchambeauLinkedIn Learning Course: Unapologetically Ambitious by Shellye Archambeau2023 Gender Diversity Index Report by 50/50 Women on BoardsShellye's Bio: Shellye Archambeau is an experienced CEO and Board Director with a track record of accomplishments building brands, high performance teams, and organizations. Currently, Shellye serves on the boards of Verizon, Roper Technologies, and Okta. She is also a CEO mentor with the EXCO Group and serves on the board of two national nonprofits, Catalyst and Braven. Shellye has over 30 years of experience in technology. She is the former CEO of MetricStream, a Silicon Valley-based, governance, risk, and compliance software company. During her tenure MetricStream grew from a fledgling startup into a global market leader. Shellye is the author of Unapologetically Ambitious: Take Risks, Break Barriers and Create Success on Your Own Terms. A book that will inspire you and provide the tools to enable you to fight the battles, make the tradeoffs and create the life you want. Shellye enjoys the performing arts, traveling and cooking. Connect with us on our social media: Instagram and LinkedInJoin our LinkedIn community where we discuss rule-breaking strategies for multicultural women.More from Alisa Manjarrez: Instagram and LinkedInMore from Courtney Copelin:

Janice Ellig is Joined by Adam Bryant, Senior Managing Director and Partner at The ExCo Group, to discuss what he has learned from interviewing over 1,000 leaders. Adam explains how the ExCo Group is helping boards, executives, and teams unlock their full leadership potential and deliver high-impact performance for their enterprises.tags: lr, janice ellig, adam bryant, exco group, leadership, ceo, chro, diversity, equity, inclusion, career, work, team, performance, business, board, executive, corner office, linkedin

The playbook for navigating the transition from manager to leader has only become more difficult in recent years. Today's guest understands the challenges leaders face and what it takes to be an effective leader in today's workplace.   Adam Bryant is the senior managing director of The ExCo Group, a leadership development and executive mentoring firm. He is a respected and noted expert on executive leadership who has interviewed more than 1,000 leaders for the “Corner Office” series he created at The New York Times and for his four current leadership series on LinkedIn — with CEOs, CHROs, board directors, and prominent Black leaders.   After years of interviewing CEOs about their business strategies, Adam pivoted toward what he found to be a much more interesting topic — how leaders get to where they are. The key distinctions between managers and leaders are highlighted in Adam's new book, The Leap to Leader. Adam encourages anyone who is considering making the leap to write down three questions — what is the difference between management and leadership, do you really want to lead, and who are you as a leader? The answers to each of these questions will help identify your strengths and potential as an effective leader.   There are three key currencies of effective leadership. Insights, storytelling, and framework are the languages that leaders speak to connect with and inspire their teams. Leaders are the chief storytellers who provide a sense of alignment and shared narrative for the team. If your team can quote you or copy what you are always saying, you're doing your job right.   Quiet quitting, return to office, and the great resignation have posed incredible new challenges for leaders. The human element of leadership requires leading from the front unless you are told to lead from the back. The contradictory advice that comes to leaders abounds, and Adam's advice is to remain cautious and simplify — but not oversimplify — the challenges of leadership.   Interview Links: Adam Bryant   Resources: Growth Navigator Coaching Scaling Up Summits (Select Bill Gallagher as your coach during registration for a discount.) Bill on YouTube Recruiter.com Short List (use code scaleup)   Scaling Up is the best-selling book by Verne Harnish and our team for Scaling Up Coaches (formerly Gazelles). We share how the fastest-growing companies succeed where so many others fail.   Bill Gallagher, Scaling Coach and host of the show, is an international business coach who works with C-Suite leaders to achieve breakthrough growth.   We help leadership teams with the biggest decisions around People, Strategy, Execution, and Cash so that they can Scale Up successfully and beat the odds of business growth. Scaling Up is based on Verne's original best-selling business book, Mastering the Rockefeller Habits.   Did you enjoy today's episode? If so, then please leave a review! Help other business leaders discover the Scaling Up Business Podcast so they, too, can benefit from the ideas shared in these podcasts.

Adam Bryant: The Leap to Leader Adam Bryant is Senior Managing Director and Partner at the ExCo Group, where he works with hundreds of senior leaders and high-potential executives. As the creator and former author of the iconic “Corner Office” column in The New York Times, Adam has mastered the art of distilling real-world lessons from his hundreds of interviews and turning them into practical tools, presentations, and exercises to help companies deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams. Adam works with executive leadership teams to help drive their transformation strategies, based on a best-practices framework he developed for his widely praised book, The CEO Test. He's also the author of The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership*. Many of us have our career trajectories planned out in our minds. While we know it's not going to happen exactly the way we've planned, it's still is jarring when we find ourselves on a different path — or presented with a different opportunity — than we anticipated. In this episode, Adam and I discuss the mindsets and actions that will help you take the next step in your career. Key Points There can be a large gap between how assertive you are and how people perceive you. Think about your career like a pyramid — building a strong foundation across many areas of practice. Bloom where you are planted. Don't just solve the problem your manager tells you to solve. Find (and start solving) the bigger problem that isn't even on the radar screen of senior leadership. Use these words: “I need your help.” When seeking advice in the context of someone that might mentor you, make your ask specific and then loop back to share what you did with their advice. When someone asks how you are, instead of just saying “fine,” tell a story about what you're working on. Peer relationships are a common blind spot. Early promotions may come from your manager, but higher level promotions comes moreso from the relationships with your peers. Resources Mentioned The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership* by Adam Bryant Interview Notes Download my interview notes in PDF format (free membership required). Related Episodes How to Nail a Job Transition, with Sukhinder Singh Cassidy (episode 555) How to Start a Big Leadership Role, with Carol Kauffman (episode 617) How to Start Better With Peers, with Michael Bungay Stanier (episode 635) Discover More Activate your free membership for full access to the entire library of interviews since 2011, searchable by topic. To accelerate your learning, uncover more inside Coaching for Leaders Plus.

Adam Bryant is a Senior Managing Director and Partner at the ExCo Group, where he works with hundreds of senior leaders and high-potential executives. As the creator and former author of the iconic “Corner Office” column in The New York Times, Bryant has mastered the art of distilling real-world lessons from his hundreds of interviews and turning them into practical tools, presentations and exercises to help companies deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams.  He also works with executive leadership teams to help drive their transformation strategies based on a best practices framework he developed for his widely praised book, THE CEO TEST: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders.   Questions  •  We always like to ask our guests in their own words, could you share a little bit about your journey, how it is that you got to where you are today. •  What would you say the ratio was in terms of gender, and even generation in terms of the number of CEOs that you interviewed? Would you say you got a wide cross section of different generations? And would you say it's more of a male to female higher ratio, or vice versa? Or do you think it was balanced? And did you find any differences based on those considerations that I just mentioned? •  What would you say are three overarching themes that you'd have picked up or trends that you picked up from those interviews? •  What are some ways that you believe the leaders can help to reinforce at least to strengthen any doubts that employees may have to ensure that they recognise that the technology, that artificial intelligence is not there to get rid of them, but rather to make their jobs easier. •  Could you also share with our audience what's the one online resource, tool, website or app that you absolutely cannot live without in your business? •  Could you also share with us maybe one or two books that you have read that have had a great impact on you? It could be a book that you read a very long time ago, or even one that you've read recently. •  Now, we have a lot of listeners who are business owners and managers who feel sometimes that their products and services, of course, are the best, but sometimes they lack the constantly motivated human capital. And so, if you're sitting across the table from that person, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to have a successful business? •  Now, could you also share with us what's going on in your life right now that you're really excited about? Either something you're working on to develop yourself or your people. •  Where can listeners find you online? •  Now, before we wrap our episodes up, we always like to ask our guests, do you have a quote or saying that during times of adversity or challenge, you will tend to revert to this quote if for any reason you got derailed, or you got off track, the quote kind of helps to get you back on track.   Highlights Adam's Journey  Adam shared that he was a journalist for 30 years, 18 years he was at the New York Times, spent a lot of years as a business reporter and interviewed a lot of CEOs. And he just found over time, the more he spent with CEOs, the more he wanted to set aside the usual questions people ask of CEOs about their company strategy and their products and services and things like that. And just ask them kind of how do you do what you do? And how did you learn to do what you do? So, he rolled that impulse up into this very simple “What if” in 2009 and it was what if I sat down with CEOs, and never asked them a single question about their companies? And instead just ask them about personal leadership lessons they've learned over the course of their lives and how they think about all the universal challenges of leadership, like hiring and building teams and culture and all those things. So, that was kind of the initial idea, and sort of brought him very much into the leadership space.  So, he did that for a decade, interviewed more than 525 CEOs, started writing books and teaching leadership and all that was a side project in addition to his day job managing teams of reporters at The Times. And he left The Times 6 years ago to join his current firm, the ExCo Group. And as said, their core business is kind of one on one mentoring and leadership development and he's got 4 interview series on LinkedIn, and continue writing books and interviewing leaders about leadership, not about company strategy. So, that's kind of the thumbnail.   Gender or Generation Influence on Leadership Me: So, leadership is your thing, Adam, and I heard that you interviewed 500 and odd people, that's a lot of people to be talking about. And I can imagine that, what would you say the ratio was in terms of gender, and even generation in terms of the number of CEOs that you interviewed? Would you say you got a wide cross section of different generations? And would you say it's more of a male to female higher ratio, or vice versa? Or do you think it was balanced? And did you find any differences based on those considerations that I just mentioned?  Adam stated that he appreciates the question. And it was the 500 plus for the New York Times, and with all the interviews that he's been doing on LinkedIn since, he's now passed the 1000 interview milestone, but to your question. So, he told the story of how he created the Corner Office column based on that simple “What if” and the other sort of guiding principle he set for himself from the very start was that he was going to embrace diversity in every sense of the word - race, gender, nationality, for profit, not for profit, size of company, really want to get as much of a cross section as he could. Interviewed a couple of leaders from Jamaica as well, a guy named Lloyd Carney, who ran Brocade Communications.  And so, his goal was very much to not just go down this sort of fortune 500 list of CEOs, because then it's going to be overwhelmingly white males, of course. And he really wanted to get a complete view of leadership.  And to your question about patterns that he was looking for, he thinks there are pretty clear patterns, like talking to young CEOs who run tech companies in Silicon Valley is a slightly different conversation than somebody who's running at Fortune 20 company, for example.  But on the specific question of gender and being in first couple of 100 interviews he did, he's always sort of looking for patterns and sometimes when he would give talks, people would say, “Have you noticed any differences between men and women leadership styles?” And he has to say, where he comes down is that he doesn't, there's just too many exceptions to the generalizations and stereotypes that people have about men and female leadership styles. So, to the point is like there's so many exceptions that for him, the generalizations and stereotypes do break down at the sort of CEO level.   People have written a lot about it and talk a lot about how one of the differences between men and women when they're coming up in their careers that women will sometimes feel like they need to be 100% qualified for a job before they go for it. Whereas men are much more willing to raise their hand even if they're not ready. And that may be true. And there's a lot of research around that. But for people in the CEO role and their leadership style, he really didn't see the difference, to be clear, not in terms of whether they were the same, they had different leadership styles, but just around EQ or IQ or extrovert, or introvert or different styles, it didn't break down along gender lines for him.   Three Themes/Trends Identified From Leadership Interviews Me: Now, you said you've way surpassed 1000 mark as it relates to CEO interviews, especially with your LinkedIn profile of interviews added to that. Across the many different interviews you've done, I imagine for CEOs across many different industries, what would you say are, let's say three overarching themes that you found that is critical for a leader to be successful, especially if the leader is trying to ensure that customer experience is one of the KPIs that they believe in, not just about operational of the business or making the profits, but having a culture where people value the internal customer experience and of course, there's some, I would say, measurement, or some assessment that's being done to ensure that it's been transcended to the external customers as well. What would you say are three overarching themes that you'd have picked up or trends that you picked up from those interviews? Adam stated that it's a great question about what are sort of the common themes that through lines from all the interviews. And he'll start with the idea of simplifying complexity, which he thinks is an art form, it's a skill. And he doesn't think you can be a CEO or an effective leader if you're not good at simplifying complexity, there's a lot going on in the world, in different industries, inside your company and he really feel like it is a leader's job to be able to stand in front of their entire team at an all hands meeting or on a zoom call, and just answer those really simple questions that frankly, little kids ask in the backseat of the car, like, “Where are we going? How are we going to get there? When are we going to get there? And not everybody does that.  We've all encountered people who actually seem to add more complexity to things, but you've got to be able to simplify complexity and boil it down to the 3 or 4 things that are really going to matter at your company. And he just thinks that's a really critical skill and depending on the nature of your business, but if you are in a customer service business, and that's crucial to your success, then you've got to be really clear about how that is going to drive your success and you can't be the leader who says we have 20 priorities and customer service is one of them. If it really is critical to driving your success, it has to be one of a hit handful of key priorities and there's got to be a way to measure it, you have to talk about it all the time, you have to role model it, and just keep shining that bright spotlight on why it's important. So, he thinks that's one.  In terms of a couple of other things, because people often wonder, like if I want to be a CEO? Like how do I get to the corner office?  And he finds people are often trying to think of like, well, what's the right path? And they wonder, you know, am I on the right path if I want to get that job. And based on all the interviews he's done, he's come down on the idea that there really is no right path per se, directionally, there's obvious things if you want to get to a certain place, you have to be moving in the broadly in the direction toward that. But in terms of the specific path, it's not about sort of checking boxes and getting certain titles, but the thing that has really struck him about all the leaders that he's interviewed is that they make the most of the path that they are on.   So, it's not like they're wondering, am I on the right path? It's whatever they are doing, they've realized that there are life lessons and leadership lessons everywhere, and you can always be learning. And to him, that's one of the skills that really sets people apart that whatever experience they're having, and the metaphor he likes to use is that your experience is like this sort of wet towel, like it absorbs all this experience. But then, what do you do with that, and he thinks the best leaders take that talent, they sort of twist it and wring it, and just get every last drop of insight and lesson around it, from it. Because, again, there are lessons everywhere, you can learn from a bad boss, you can learn from a good boss, you can learn from watching teams.  And so, the really high performers to him is they're always making time to process and reflect and say, “Okay, what did I experience? What did I see? What are the patterns? What are the lessons that I can learn from that?” And the final point he'll make in terms of how you succeeded, we could talk about this for hours, but just one of them that he thinks really sets people apart is the simple idea of being a good listener. Because he feels like it's one of those things it's not taught in business schools, he doesn't know of any business school that teaches a course on listening, but he feels like it's really an underappreciated superpower of good leaders.  Because whenever you start thinking, like, I've got all the answers, like, that's when you're dead in the water. And so, you have to just have a really great skills as listener to get everybody's best thinking out on the table so that you really know what's going on in your organization, because history is filled with stories of big companies that got into trouble because nobody wanted to tell the boss the bad news.  So, you've got to not only be a good listener, one on one and in team settings, but you've almost got to build an infrastructure at your companies so that you know what's really happening and so that there's not some like, bad news on the front lines or trouble spots that you're not hearing about. So, to him, those are the three things that jumped to mind when you asked that question.   Ways Leaders Can Help Reinforce to Employees the True Role of Artifical Intelligence Me: So, leadership is very important, as it relates to delivering a strong customer experience. And I always tell my clients that mud flows from the top of the stream, so meaning, if the leadership is poor, and customer service, or customer experience is not important to them, it really flows all the way down to the end user, which is the customer, whether it's digital experience or face to face.   In your experience, especially with so much technology happening out there nowadays, we have Chat GPT, there's a lot of artificial intelligence coming on board. And I mean up to last night, I was watching the local news, and they had a question poll that they were posing to Jamaicans stating did they feel that their jobs are in jeopardy as it relates to AI being so evolving and coming about.  And so, I wanted your views on as it relates to leadership, what are some ways as I don't think that people's jobs are going to become obsolete. I believe that human interaction is something that we will always need, regardless of the industry that you are in, and I believe the technology is there to definitely enhance the experience not to replace it.   But based on your research across the different industries, what are some ways that you believe the leaders can help to reinforce at least to strengthen any doubts that employees may have to ensure that they recognize that the technology, the artificial intelligence is not there to get rid of them, but rather to make their jobs easier? Adam stated that to him, what Yanique just said is the answer. The point of AI and technology is to take care of much more of the routine things so that we as human beings can add more value and let the machines take care of stuff. So, ideally, it will take care of just those rote aspects of our jobs so that we can figure out better ways to add value, because that's ultimately what's about, right, like, how are we individually and as teams creating value for the company.   And in terms of leadership's role in all this, he often comes back to the power of stories, which is a big part of communication, because he thinks there are some leaders who are good at saying the right words and phrases, and it's easy to stand on a stage and say customer service is really important. But he thinks telling and sharing stories is how you make that real. And whether that story is about how you as a leader, customer service is really important to you and your experience in your life and the success of the company, and then to sort of tell stories to highlight people on the team who have really gone above and beyond and make them the heroes.  Because he thinks company culture, maybe everybody talks about values, and a lot of culture is determined by who gets fired and who gets promoted and compensation structures. But he often thinks about culture is determined in large part by the hero narratives that the companies tell because if you think of companies like tribes, they are tribes in a sense, that it's really like who does the tribe hold up as a hero? And what did they do? And if customer service is really key to your success, then how do you as a leader tell the hero narratives, tell the stories, highlight the people that went above and beyond.  To him, that's one of the ways from a leadership point of view, you make people feel like, “Wow, this really is important.”  And it's not just the heroes within the company, but also telling the stories about your customers, and how you are helping them and having an impact on their businesses in their lives. So, he often come back to this idea that leaders in many ways are like the storytellers and chief and so they've got to tell those stories and share those narratives.   App, Website or Tool that Adam Absolutely Can't Live Without in His Business When asked about online resources that he cannot live without in his business, Adam shared that he probably do spend a lot of time on LinkedIn. He mentioned that sounds like a really obvious answer, but just in the work that he does, and he's got 4 interview series, and he really believes that LinkedIn is emerged as kind of the Facebook for business, and everybody's on it.  And people have written about this before, but he also thinks it's just an important reminder that there's a lot of toxic stuff on different social media sites and he just stated the blindingly obvious, but he does find LinkedIn is a pretty positive place. Like people are generally pretty supportive of each other, and then they kind of put their best selves there. So, that's where he spends a lot of time.   Books that Have Had the Biggest Impact on Adam When asked about books that has had a great impact, Adam stated that in terms just in terms of fiction. He recently finished a book called Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner by Barbara Kingsolver, he thinks it won the Pulitzer Prize. It's been a long time since he's read a work of fiction that had as much insight about human nature and just packed with wisdom. So, he does recommend that.  Non-fiction, he really like adventure books, he has to say. So, stories about whaling adventures in the old days and how people survived, he's really drawn to stories about resilience and what people do when they're facing a really tough task. So, he's often drawn to that.   Advice for Business Owners and Managers Who Have Great Products and Services but Lack the Constantly Motivated Human Capital  Me: Now, we have a lot of listeners who are business owners and managers who feel sometimes that their products and services, of course, are the best, but sometimes they lack the constantly motivated human capital. And so, if you're sitting across the table from that person, what's the one piece of advice that you would give them to have a successful business? Adam shared that to him, it's about constantly going back to the why. And people talk a lot about mission and purpose. And he'll be honest, he finds that conversation, especially happened after in the last few years, just companies have been talking a lot about their purpose and mission statements. And some of them he will confess does make him a little sceptical, because they are often very broad and general, and at such a high altitude, they feel kind of disconnected from the business. And very often they're just some version of make the world a better place.   But he thinks there is an art form to doing that, right, which is to constantly be communicating people and reminding people about the impact that you're having as a business. Because his prediction and not asking you to bet 20 bucks on his prediction, but he feels like this moment we're in where purpose discussions are so front and centre, he thinks those are going to be shifting more towards impact over time. And to him, the difference is that when you talk about purpose, that's really about your intent. And that's the very internal, you're basically saying, “When I get up in the morning, this is my purpose. Nobody can question that.” Because you say this is in my heart.  He thinks one of the things that special and unique about business, is that it's more about impact, which is how do you show that purpose in action? So, to him, that's much more about like almost proof, like we said, this is our purpose, but this is what we're doing. We want to show you, we want to be able to document and show you the impact that we're having.  And he thinks as a leader, we can all get kind of pulled down to just the day to day of the business. But you often have to sort of pick your head up and remind people and just sort of take stock and say, “Look at the difference we're making in people's lives.” And when you say those things, they should be tied directly to the business, it shouldn't feel disconnected. And you don't have to worry about being so lofty, and everybody's making the world a better place, you can be very much like look at the difference we're making for our customers and what we're doing. Because that helps bring out people's like, passion and pride. And then you're going to get that extra effort from them.   What Adam is Really Excited About Now! When asked about something that he's really excited about, Adam stated that at a personal level be very mundane at the risk of oversharing, but he's really focused on ping pong these days. Me: Really? Are you trying to master it?  Adam stated hardly master it, but he's sort of living in New Orleans now. And they moved there a few years ago, their two daughters moved there, and so, they joined them. And as he recently passed a birthday with a number six in front of it, he sort of decided he wanted to get back in touch with his inner teenager and start taking up some sports and things. So, he actually has a ping pong coach. He stated that he knows that sounds pretty unusual. Me: That is brilliant. Adam stated that he trains with him a couple of days a week. And his metrics scoreboard about whether he's getting better or not, is he played his son-in-law once a week for a couple of hours, and what's cool is when you're 61, and you say, I want to get better at that, and you actually get better at it. That's pretty cool. So that's his very personal thing he's focused on right now.  But much more broadly, he's been in the leadership field and he's pretty passionate about it for a couple of reasons. He will say that if you give him a really big magic wand with three things to do it, he would get rid of racism, inequality and bad bosses because there are still too many bad bosses in the world.  And he thinks sometimes we under appreciate what a toxic effect they have on individuals and by extension their families. And that's not just to be negative about that but what also gets him out of bed is just trying to help people be better leaders for those who do want to be better managers and leaders. And he thinks there's a huge responsibility and privilege that comes with that.  His approach to leadership, he doesn't wake up in the middle of the night pretending he's come up with some new theory, he takes more of a journalistic approach to understanding leadership and interviewing people who are leading and have been leading for a long time. And then what he tries and do is sort of share the insights and the stories and the frameworks and really open up that conversation so that people could say, “Wow, that's a great tip, I can take that and use it with my own team.” So, if at the end of the day he could make a small contribution and help people become better as managers and leaders, that's pretty motivating.   Where Can We Find Adam Online LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/   Personal: https://adambryantbooks.com/about-adam/ Book:https://www.amazon.com/Leap-Leader-Ambitious-Managers-Leadership/dp/1647824893/ref=sr_1_1?crid=3GPHBI3CJH7I1&keywords=leap+to+leader+adam+bryant&qid=1682433550&sprefix=leap+to+leader+adam+bryant%2Caps%2C76&sr=8-1 Twitter: https://twitter.com/adambbryant Website: https://www.excoleadership.com/   Quote or Saying that During Times of Adversity Adam Uses When asked about a quote or saying that he tends to revert to, Adam shared that there's probably a couple that he always falls back on. And he's heard this from CEOs he's interviewed, but one of them is that “95% of the worst things that happen to you in your life very often turn out to be the best things that happened to you in your life.” And that's not to say all of them, right. And some things that happened to you there's nothing good about them. But when you think back on your life, and sort of those moments of adversity that you've faced, very often they did turn out to be like, really important pivot points that helped you grow and build character. And there's a lot of lessons and insights there. So even though when you're in the middle of something it feels pretty dark, sort of know that over time, you're going to learn a lot from that.  And there's a couple of other short answers. There's that expression, “You're either winning or learning. It's not about winning or losing, but it's about winning or learning.” So, there's always lessons that you can and should be taking from whatever adversity you're going through. If you feel like you've failed or disappointed yourself, it's like that happens to everybody. Right? But the question is, what do you do with it? What is that wet towel of experience that you can then take and ring and say, okay, “What are the insights here and keep squeezing it for that?”  Me: Thank you so much for sharing. We'll definitely have those two in the show notes of this episode. Well, Adam, we are at the end of our interview, I can't believe it feels like we just started talking but thank you so much for jumping on this podcast today and sharing all of these great insights and nuggets as it relates to leadership, all of the great information and experiences that you've garnered over the years talking to CEOs as you had mentioned from so many different industries from all different walks of life across the world. I am sure that anyone who listens to this episode will pick up at least one thing that they can run with to help them sharpen their leadership skills. So, thank you so much.   Please connect with us on Twitter @navigatingcx and also join our Private Facebook Community – Navigating the Customer Experience and listen to our FB Lives weekly with a new guest   Links •     Demon Copperhead: A Pulitzer Prize Winner by Barbara Kingsolver   The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience   Grab the Freebie on Our Website – TOP 10 Online Business Resources for Small Business Owners  Do you want to pivot your online customer experience and build loyalty - get a copy of “The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience.” The ABC's of a Fantastic Customer Experience provides 26 easy to follow steps and techniques that helps your business to achieve success and build brand loyalty. This Guide to Limitless, Happy and Loyal Customers will help you to strengthen your service delivery, enhance your knowledge and appreciation of the customer experience and provide tips and practical strategies that you can start implementing immediately! This book will develop your customer service skills and sharpen your attention to detail when serving others. Master your customer experience and develop those knock your socks off techniques that will lead to lifetime customers. Your customers will only want to work with your business and it will be your brand differentiator. It will lead to recruiters to seek you out by providing practical examples on how to deliver a winning customer service experience!    

The Leap to Leader Attention all aspiring leaders! Get ready to bridge the gap between managers and true leaders. It's time to step up and become the influential figure your organization craves. The verdict is in: Leadership is an essential skill. But here's the kicker: most companies only provide leadership training after a decade in a leadership role. Don't wait that long! Join us on a transformative journey to unlock your leadership potential. We've got the tools, insights, and strategies to help you soar. Are you ready to seize the moment and become the leader you were destined to be? It's time to make your mark. Let's dive into The Leap to Leader: From Ambitious Manager to Leadership Mastery.  In the world of Leadership, there's always been a lot of talk about climbing the corporate ladder, but do you believe there's a way to go from being an ambitious manager to an outstanding leader? I ask because everyone in Leadership will tell you there is a vast difference between managing and leading your people.   Today's guest is here to share exactly how to take that leap, Adam Bryant. Adam joined The ExCo Group, a senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm, as managing director in 2017 after a 30-year career in journalism, including 18 years at The New York Times as creator of the iconic Corner Office column in the New York Times.  Adam Bryant has interviewed more than 1,000 CEOs and other senior leaders over the last dozen years, and his focus for the conversations has been on the crucial leadership lessons learned rather than asking them about their company strategy. All those insights help contribute to the books he has written and his work in leadership development and executive mentoring for the ExCo Group. Adam has written four books based on the themes that emerged from those interviews, and his latest book is, "The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership." Website https://adambryantbooks.com Social Media https://twitter.com/adambbryant     https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership Part 2) What Specifically Makes a Bad Boss/Leader Place Your Bets Please, Confronting the Strategy Lie  Leaders and Decision Making Compartmentalization, The Truth and Lies The Psychopathic Leader Great Manager Who Become Shitty Leaders Being Crushed, Being Human, Remaining Compassionate Confronting The Born Leader Trap The Growing Complexity of a Post-Pandemic World This is Your Lizard Brain on Trust The Shocking Leadership Trust Survey   Leadership in The Grey Dropping Your Purpose Anchor in Any Storm The Call to Abandon Values The 3 Big Questions That Will Define Your Leadership ___________________ Dov Baron's brand new course has just been released on coursifyx.com/belonging Titled: "CREATING A CULTURE OF BELONGING." The course is separated into eight sections that will take you by the hand and walk you through exactly how to create a culture of belonging. Because: CREATING A CULTURE OF BELONGING MAXIMIZES PERSONAL AND CORPORATE SUCCESS.   Get Ready to strap on the tanks and Dive Deep into, What it Takes to Create a Culture of Belonging in your organization! Curious to know more, coursifyx.com/belonging  "Those Who Control Meaning for The Tribe, Also Control The Movement of That Tribe" #videopodcast #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #emotionsourcecode #neuroscience #emotional #meaning #emotional #logic #culture #curiosity #humanbehavior #purpose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

The Leap to Leader Calling all aspiring leaders! It's time to bridge the gap between managers and true leaders. Get ready to take the leap and become the influential figure your organization needs.  The research is in, and it's crystal clear: Leadership is a must-have skill. But here's the catch; most companies only offer leadership training after a decade of experience in a leadership role. Don't wait that long! Join us on this transformative journey and unlock your leadership potential. We have the tools, insights, and strategies you need to jump. Are you ready to step up and be the leader you were meant to be? It's time to seize this opportunity and make your mark. Let's do this!   Let's talk about how to take The Leap to Leader: How to go from Ambitious Manager to Making the Jump to Leadership.  In the world of Leadership, there's always been a lot of talk about climbing the corporate ladder, but do you believe there's a way to go from being an ambitious manager to an outstanding leader?  I ask because everyone in Leadership will tell you there is a vast difference between managing and leading your people.   Today's guest is here to share exactly how to take that leap, Adam Bryant. Adam joined The ExCo Group, a senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm, as managing director in 2017 after a 30-year career in journalism, including 18 years at The New York Times as creator of the iconic Corner Office column in the New York Times.  Adam Bryant has interviewed more than 1,000 CEOs and other senior leaders over the last dozen years, and his focus for the conversations has been on the crucial leadership lessons learned rather than asking them about their company strategy. All those insights help contribute to the books he has written and his work in leadership development and executive mentoring for the ExCo Group. Adam has written four books based on the themes that emerged from those interviews, and his latest book is, "The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership." Website https://adambryantbooks.com Social Media https://twitter.com/adambbryant     https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership Part 1) Why the Best Leaders Are Reluctant Leaders The Cost of Bad Bosses Why Leadership is Incredibly Hard for Caring People Do You Really Want to Lead The Power and Integrity of a Reluctant Leader Who are you as a leader  The 2 Elevator Pitches You Must Have  How One Question Can Transform You and Your Leadership The Purpose of Personal Excavation Navigating The Two Career Rivers Not Everyone Wants to Be a Leader The Salary Bump Trap Where's Balance in Serving Others, Serving Self ___________________ Dov Baron's brand new course has just been released on coursifyx.com/belonging Titled: "CREATING A CULTURE OF BELONGING." The course is separated into eight sections that will take you by the hand and walk you through exactly how to create a culture of belonging. Because: CREATING A CULTURE OF BELONGING MAXIMIZES PERSONAL AND CORPORATE SUCCESS.   Get Ready to strap on the tanks and Dive Deep into, What it Takes to Create a Culture of Belonging in your organization! Curious to know more, coursifyx.com/belonging  "Those Who Control Meaning for The Tribe, Also Control The Movement of That Tribe" #videopodcast #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #emotionsourcecode #neuroscience #emotional #meaning #emotional #logic #culture #curiosity #humanbehavior #purpose Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In 2017, Adam Bryant transitioned into his role as Managing Director at The ExCo Group, a renowned senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm. This move came after an illustrious 30-year career in journalism, with a noteworthy 18-year tenure at The New York Times. During his time at the publication, Adam assumed various roles, including reporter and editor, and was the visionary behind the popular "Corner Office" column, where he conducted insightful interviews with 525 CEOs and other influential leaders over the span of a decade. Based on the invaluable insights gleaned from his "Corner Office" series and his extensive experience interviewing board directors, CEOs, CHROs, and prominent Black leaders in well-regarded interview series on LinkedIn, Adam authored four books. His most recent work, "The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership," was released in July through Harvard Business Review Press. Continuing his dedication to the field of leadership, Adam authors a monthly leadership column for Strategy+Business magazine and serves as the Senior Advisor to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. Find Adam on the internet: Website | Books | LinkedIn | Twitter

Adam Bryant shares powerful insights on how to get promoted and be successful as a leader. — YOU'LL LEARN — 1) What every aspiring leader should know about themselves. 2) How to get promoted without asking for a promotion. 3) The key ratio that positions you for advancement. Subscribe or visit AwesomeAtYourJob.com/ep886 for clickable versions of the links below. — ABOUT ADAM — Adam Bryant is Senior Managing Director and Partner at the ExCo Group, where he works with hundreds of senior leaders and high-potential executives. As the creator and former author of the iconic “Corner Office” column in The New York Times, Bryant has mastered the art of distilling real-world lessons from his hundreds of interviews and turning them into practical tools, presentations, and exercises to help companies deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams. He also works with executive leadership teams to help drive their transformation strategies, based on a best-practices framework he developed for his widely praised book, THE CEO TEST: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders. • Book: The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership • Book: The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed • Website: AdamBryantBooks.com • Company Website: ExCoLeadership.com — RESOURCES MENTIONED IN THE SHOW — • Video: “Two Monkeys Were Paid Unequally: Excerpt from Frans de Waal's TED Talk” • Book: The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company by Robert Iger • Book: In the Heart of the Sea: The Tragedy of the Whaleship Essex by Nathaniel Philbrick — THANK YOU SPONSORS! — • BetterHelp. Make better decisions with online therapy. Get 10% off your first month at BetterHelp.com/awesome. See Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.

If you had the chance to talk to hundreds of business leaders at the top of their game, what habits and patterns would you learn? Adam Bryant has done just that. He's the senior managing director of the ExCo Group and founded the “Corner Office” interview series at The New York Times. Along the way, he has identified the mindset and attributes that the world's best leaders have acquired to truly influence and change their organizations. He shares what they are and how to develop them in your own career. Bryant wrote the HBR article “The Leap to Leader” as well as the book The Leap to Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make the Jump to Leadership.

Is there such a thing as leadership in business? Or is it a manufactured concept to sell books and executive education courses from big-name business schools?To shed some light, we talked to Adam Bryant, who has made leadership into his own field of expert knowledge and professional practice. He did so by interviewing over 1000 business leaders, both CEO's and other senior executives, in multiple industries and stages of business growth and at every scale. He's published his findings on LinkedIn and in the “Corner Office” column he created for The New York Times.  His latest book on the subject is The Leap To Leader: How Ambitious Managers Make The Jump To Leadership. He is the senior managing director and a partner at the Exco Group, an executive leadership development firm. For full show notes visit, thevaluecreators.com

This week Adam Bryant joins Craig to discuss his book, The CEO Test, and provide tools you can use to master the challenges that make or break all leaders. They discuss what to look for in a mentor, building strong teams, and where Adam sees the future of leadership heading. Adam Bryant is managing director of The ExCo Group and Merryck, a global leadership development consultancy. Prior to working with Merryck, Adam worked as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. His book, The CEO Test, is a strong resource filled with a wealth of knowledge. What You Will Learn: 1. What is expertitis 2. What to look for in a mentor 3. How to build trust within your team 4. Finding a confidant 5. Handling a crisis and how to emerge stronger Mentions: https://adambryantbooks.com/ --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/craig-dowden/message

Adam has written three books, including his latest “The CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders” and is a senior adviser for Organisational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. As a New York Times journalist & editor, Adam had an extraordinary front row seat listening to more than 525 CEOs and growing through their experiences. Today as Managing Director of The ExCo Group, an executive mentoring firm, he continues to observe and capture the essence of the leaders he interviews. Together we discuss how to set yourself apart as a leader; why your personal brand really matters, why less talking and more walking is needed to close the gap on diversity and how the world has changed and skills like humanity, empathy and compassion matter more than ever.

This week on a special edition of the CEO Series, Karl Moore sits down with Daniel Boulud, award-winning Chef and Owner of the Dinex Group and Adam Bryant, Former Corner Office journalist for the New York Times and current Managing Director at the ExCo Group, a company that coaches CEOs on leadership.

There is practical training and a test to become a driver, yet often, there is no real training or test to become a good CEO. In fact, the research shows that most people in management don't get any real leadership training until they have on average 10 years in management. The result is fumbling or downright failed leadership. Now, you may have been a leader for a long time, but if there was a CEO Test, do you honestly believe you would pass? Let's find out together. Our guest is Adam Bryant. Adam has interviewed more than 700 CEOs about the key leadership lessons they've learned, first as a journalist at The New York Times, and now in his interview series on LinkedIn as part of his consulting work with ExCo Group, an executive mentoring and leadership development firm. Adam's written his third book, "The CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders," with Kevin Sharer, the former CEO of Amgen. The book is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Website https://adambryantbooks.com Social Media https://twitter.com/adambbryant https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership

There is practical training and a test to become a driver, yet often, there is no real training or test to become a good CEO. In fact, the research shows that most people in management don't get any real leadership training until they have on average 10 years in management. The result is fumbling or downright failed leadership. Now, you may have been a leader for a long time, but if there was a CEO Test, do you honestly believe you would pass? Let's find out together. Our guest is Adam Bryant. Adam has interviewed more than 700 CEOs about the key leadership lessons they've learned, first as a journalist at The New York Times, and now in his interview series on LinkedIn as part of his consulting work with ExCo Group, an executive mentoring and leadership development firm. Adam's written his third book, "The CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders," with Kevin Sharer, the former CEO of Amgen. The book is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Website https://adambryantbooks.com Social Media https://twitter.com/adambbryant https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership Part 1) The Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders The Clarity of Strategy The Dangers of Presumptive Knowledge Would You Pass The CEO Test? 4 Step Strategy: What, Levers, Challenges and The Scoreboard Leadership is...Everything The Importance of Specificity Be & Do Use Your Time Machine The Paradoxes of Leadership

Another selection of the best How to be the Difference podcast momentsIn this episode of How to be the Difference, hosts Johanna Molina and Paul Lynskey selected another 7 clips of the most interesting and exciting interviews that were presented this last season. In this special edition, insights were included from experts working in very different industries and sectors: from venture capital and financial development to podcasting and leadership.As a first selection, we revisited the conversation with Dr. Mandeep Rai, an international best-selling author that wrote The Values Compass: What 101 Countries Teach Us About Purpose, Life, and Leadership. Mandeep has an impressive track record having traveled to more than 150 countries, completed a PhD in Global Values, built a career at JP Morgan, and reported as a journalist for BBC World Service and Reuters. She does a deep dive on how she became a global authority on values, and on how to create your own personal values compass.Secondly, the podcast hosts selected the interview with Andres Barreto, a serial entrepreneur, investor and the Managing Director of Techstars Boulder Accelerator Program. In this conversation, Andrés shared with us his first entrepreneurial endeavors and what it was like being a minority founder in the US. Andres also discusses the reason behind starting Coderise, non-profit organization that teaches code in an inclusive environment and the power of mentorships.On the third place, we go back to Eder Holguin's interview, where he talks about how his perspective on success changed as he got older and why he considers himself a professional problem solver. Eder is an award-winning serial entrepreneur, best-selling author, and a digital sales and marketing expert in the US. He also shares with us the basic principles of marketing and sales and how certain skills were vital to helping him move forward in life. Next, we revisited the conversation with Irene Arias Hofman, CEO of IDB Lab, to talk about her +25 years of experience working for multilateral organizations–including 20 years at the World Bank Group. Irene talks about how, having been exposed to different realities and cultures from a young age, she always knew she wanted to pursue a career in which she would be making a social impact. That's how she found her calling working for organizations that focused on promoting financial development in emerging markets through tech innovation. She also believes that the private and public sectors can work together to foster disruptive innovation with the right foundation.Fifth comes the episode where the podcast hosts sat down with Robbie J. Frye, a self-proclaimed professional inceptionist and host of The Frye Show podcast. Johanna and Paul talked to Robbie about the lessons he's learned from his varied work experiences, and how after moving to Colombia in 2012, Robbie immersed himself in the local creativity and innovation space and eventually launched The Frye Show podcast where he has engaging conversations about creativity, innovation, design, productivity, and success with incredible guests. Robbie also gives us a lesson on how to implement innovation and creativity into your life.Then, we revisited the interview with David Reimer, CEO of the ExCo Group (formerly Merryck & Co), a global firm of experienced CEOs, independent directors, and global business leaders providing C-suite mentoring for organizations. Johanna and Paul talk to David about what it means to step forward as a leader during times of crisis and what he thinks we should look for in a mentor. And last, we selected the best clips from Enzo Cavalie's interview. Enzo works as an Investment Associate at Reach Capital, a venture capital firm that invests in early-stage tech tools, applications, content, and services to improve access to educational opportunities. He is also the founder and editor of Startupeable, a platform dedicated to creating educational content in Spanish about startups and venture capital in Latin America. Enzo shares his vision about what are some of the values and skills you need to succeed in this 21st century. Outline of this episode:[01:25]-Dr. Mandeep Rai[02:17] – Becoming a global authority on values[06:00] – On identifying core values[11:24]-Andres Barreto[11:55] – Andres' entrepreneurial journey[22:15]-Eder Holguin[23:06] – Common principles of marketing and sales[25:51] – How to polish your sales skills[28:10]-Irene Arias Hofman[29:00] – An interest in development[32:40] – Public versus private sector[35:30]-Robbie J Frye[35:59] – Innovation and creativity[38:48] – A forced jump versus ignorant jump[42:00]-David Reimer[42:55] – The importance of mentorship[44:41] – Criteria for bringing on a CEO[46:41] – On finding a mentor[49:47]-Enzo Cavalie[50:24] – Enzo's non-negotiable[51:51] – Skills to succeed in the 21st centuryResources and people mentioned:Johanna MolinaPaul Lynskey Mandeep RaiThe Values CompassAndres BarretoTechstarsCoderiseEder HolguinIrene Arias HofmanIDB LabRobbie J FryeThe Frye ShowDavid ReimerThe ExCo GroupEnzo CavalieReach CapitalStartupeable

Adam Bryant is managing director of The ExCo Group, a senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm. Prior to this, Adam worked for 30 years as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. He interviewed more than 500 CEOs for “Corner Office,” a series on leadership that he created in 2009. He also writes a monthly column for Strategy+Business magazine and is the Senior Advisor to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. Adam is the author of three books: His new book is THE CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders, published by Harvard Business Review Press, which he co-authored with Kevin Sharer, the former President and then CEO of Amgen during which he grew the company to $16 billion in revenue from just $1 billion. Adam's first book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, was a New York Times bestseller, drawing on insights from CEOs to identify the qualities that help explain why certain executives are promoted over others to become CEOs. In his second book Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, Adam distilled the wisdom of hundreds of business leaders to identify the secrets to a high-performing corporate culture. In this podcast he shares: The seven most critical tests that determine the success of a CEO Advice on how to simplify strategy so that everything can get on boardWhy we should be thinking about strategy as “making bets” rather than plansA compelling metaphor for strategy and leadership—think of it as keep bunnies in their boxes__________________________________________________________________________________________"I think that is one of the things that set effective leaders apart...is they have the skill of simplifying complexity. So take all the complexity in the world, in your industry and your company, and boil it down to a simple framework because I always say it's one of the leader's tests is to be able to stand on a stage at an all-hands meeting...and answer the questions that little kids ask...like 'Where are we going? How are we going to get there? '...To be able to do that takes a certain habit of mind...it is a muscle that you need to develop."-Adam Bryant__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Adam Bryant + The topic of today's episode2:32—If you really know me, you know that....3:24—What is your definition of strategy?6:10—Can you explain more what you mean about leaders lacking "shared language"?6:40—What has been your biggest surprise in interviewing so many CEOs?9:07—Could you tell us about the seven key attributes that you discovered throughout your work?11:40—Is the skill of demystifying and clarifying the complex a skill that can be learned?14:00—Why do people have a tendency to overcomplicate ideas and use hundred-dollar words?15:10—Getting people accept ideas is more than just simplifying; can you explain the importance of repetition?16:48—You talk about business being about bets—could you elaborate on that?18:40—How can people follow, find and learn from you__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Company page: https://www.excoleadership.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/adambbryantLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/Personal Site: https://adambryantbooks.com/

Adam Bryant is managing director of The ExCo Group, a senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm. Prior to this, Adam worked for 30 years as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. He interviewed more than 500 CEOs for “Corner Office,” a series on leadership that he created in 2009. He also writes a monthly column for Strategy+Business magazine and is the Senior Advisor to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. Adam is the author of three books: His new book is THE CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders, published by Harvard Business Review Press, which he co-authored with Kevin Sharer, the former President and then CEO of Amgen during which he grew the company to $16 billion in revenue from just $1 billion. Adam's first book, The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed, was a New York Times bestseller, drawing on insights from CEOs to identify the qualities that help explain why certain executives are promoted over others to become CEOs. In his second book Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, Adam distilled the wisdom of hundreds of business leaders to identify the secrets to a high-performing corporate culture. In this podcast he shares: The seven most critical tests that determine the success of a CEO Advice on how to simplify strategy so that everything can get on boardWhy we should be thinking about strategy as “making bets” rather than plansA compelling metaphor for strategy and leadership—think of it as keep bunnies in their boxes__________________________________________________________________________________________"I think that is one of the things that set effective leaders apart...is they have the skill of simplifying complexity. So take all the complexity in the world, in your industry and your company, and boil it down to a simple framework because I always say it's one of the leader's tests is to be able to stand on a stage at an all-hands meeting...and answer the questions that little kids ask...like 'Where are we going? How are we going to get there? '...To be able to do that takes a certain habit of mind...it is a muscle that you need to develop."-Adam Bryant__________________________________________________________________________________________Episode Timeline:00:00—Adam Bryant + The topic of today's episode2:32—If you really know me, you know that....3:24—What is your definition of strategy?6:10—Can you explain more what you mean about leaders lacking "shared language"?6:40—What has been your biggest surprise in interviewing so many CEOs?9:07—Could you tell us about the seven key attributes that you discovered throughout your work?11:40—Is the skill of demystifying and clarifying the complex a skill that can be learned?14:00—Why do people have a tendency to overcomplicate ideas and use hundred-dollar words?15:10—Getting people accept ideas is more than just simplifying; can you explain the importance of repetition?16:48—You talk about business being about bets—could you elaborate on that?18:40—How can people follow, find and learn from you__________________________________________________________________________________________Additional Resources: Company page: https://www.excoleadership.com/Twitter: https://twitter.com/adambbryantLinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/Personal Site: https://adambryantbooks.com/

There is practical training and a test to become a driver, yet often, there is no real training or test to become a good CEO. In fact, the research shows that most people in management don't get any real leadership training until they have on average 10 years in management. The result is fumbling or downright failed leadership. Now, you may have been a leader for a long time, but if there was a CEO Test, do you honestly believe you would pass? Let's find out together. Our guest is Adam Bryant. Adam has interviewed more than 700 CEOs about the key leadership lessons they've learned, first as a journalist at The New York Times, and now in his interview series on LinkedIn as part of his consulting work with ExCo Group, an executive mentoring and leadership development firm. Adam's written his third book, "The CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders," with Kevin Sharer, the former CEO of Amgen. The book is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Website https://adambryantbooks.com Social Media https://twitter.com/adambbryant https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership Curious about how to tap into what drives meaning in your life and create meaningful transformation in the lives you touch? Take a look at DovBaron.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

There is practical training and a test to become a driver, yet often, there is no real training or test to become a good CEO. In fact, the research shows that most people in management don't get any real leadership training until they have on average 10 years in management. The result is fumbling or downright failed leadership. Now, you may have been a leader for a long time, but if there was a CEO Test, do you honestly believe you would pass? Let's find out together. Our guest is Adam Bryant. Adam has interviewed more than 700 CEOs about the key leadership lessons they've learned, first as a journalist at The New York Times, and now in his interview series on LinkedIn as part of his consulting work with ExCo Group, an executive mentoring and leadership development firm. Adam's written his third book, "The CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders," with Kevin Sharer, the former CEO of Amgen. The book is published by Harvard Business Review Press. Website https://adambryantbooks.com Social Media https://twitter.com/adambbryant https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership Part 1) The Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders The Clarity of Strategy The Dangers of Presumptive Knowledge Would You Pass The CEO Test? 4 Step Strategy: What, Levers, Challenges and The Scoreboard Leadership is...Everything The Importance of Specificity Be & Do Use Your Time Machine The Paradoxes of Leadership Curious about how to tap into what drives meaning in your life and create meaningful transformation in the lives you touch? Take a look at DovBaron.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Our guest is Adam Bryant - Managing Director at The ExCo Group and author of multiple books including the most recent "THE CEO TEST: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders,". Adam has a 30-year career in journalism, including 18 years at The New York Times. He created the weekly "Corner Office" column in 2009, and has interviewed 525 CEOs and other leaders over a decade. Since joining The ExCo Group, he has started popular interview series on LinkedIn with board directors, CEOs, CHROs and prominent Black leaders, and he writes a monthly column on leadership for Strategy+Business magazine. Adam also is the senior adviser to the Reuben Mark Initiative for Organizational Character and Leadership at Columbia University. In this episode of Scaling Culture, Ron and Adam discuss: How strategy drives culture and 4 key components for leaders to succeed The power of defining the most critical metric and setting the tone How to have tough conversations and the importance of listening skills  For more information about Adam, please connect with him on LinkedIn or go to adambryantbooks.com. For more information about the Scaling Culture Podcast or our Scaling Culture Masterclass that comes out in the next 5 weeks, go to scalingculture.org.

Guest: Adam Bryant is a respected and noted expert on executive leadership, whose work includes 525 Corner Office columns for the New York Times. He joined The ExCo Group as Managing Director and Partner after a distinguished career as an editor and journalist. Adam has a proven ability to distill real-world lessons and insights from his hundreds of interviews and turn them into practical tools, presentations and exercises to help The ExCo Group clients deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams. He works with executive leadership teams and organizations to foster a culture of innovation, based on a best-practices framework he developed for his widely praised book, "The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders." Before joining The ExCo Group, Adam worked for 30 years as a journalist, including 18 years as a reporter, editor and columnist at The New York Times. He interviewed more than 500 CEOs for "Corner Office," a weekly series on leadership and management in The Times that he created in 2009. Episode in a Tweet: Take the CEO Test! Learn what tests you need to pass to be an exceptional leader and change the world. Quick Background: They had me at the title. A CEO Test??? I hadn't heard of any such thing, and I knew I had to find out if I would pass the test. The average CEO only lasts five years in the job, and I wanted to find out why. What was I doing differently, being that I've been in the CEO role at StoneAge for over 12 years and still have a long runway ahead of me? Would I pass or fail? Have I just been lucky, or am I doing a few things right? I waited with anticipation for the book to arrive. Once I read it, I was a fan. "The CEO Test" is one of the best books I've read in 2021. I appreciate the "tests" Adam and his co-author line out and once I finished the book, I reached out to Adam to get to know him and his firm. During this episode, Adam and I talk about the challenges leaders face today and how they can overcome the obstacles and crises that will undoubtedly continue to come their way. Adam shares his views on a leader's superpower. News flash, it's not what you might think! We also talk about the importance of a clear and simple strategy and a business's reason for existing. Adam also shares what it was like to be a reporter and editor at one of the country's largest newspapers, The New York Times. This is an insightful and motivating episode and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did! How to find Adam: https://adambryantbooks.com/ https://www.excoleadership.com/ https://www.linkedin.com/in/adambryantleadership/ Subscribe to his newsletters: https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/the-new-director-s-chair-6495698283434901505/ https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/leading-in-the-b-suite-6516489087090782208/ https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/art-of-leading-6509860728994881536/ https://www.linkedin.com/newsletters/strategic-chro-6495697551163957248/

If you enjoy reading interviews of CEOs sharing what shapes their understanding and approach to leadership, chances are you've probably read one of the over 500 interviews Adam Bryant wrote for his popular New York Times column, “Corner Office”. I've been an avid reader of Adam's column for many, many years so I was delighted when his publicist reached out to me to say Adam was interested in appearing on my podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”. For those who might not be familiar with Adam's work, in addition to writing the “Corner Office” column, Adam wrote the New York Times bestseller “The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How To Lead and Succeed” as well as “Quick and Nimble - Lessons From Leading CEOs on How To Create a Culture of Innovation”. On this episode of my leadership podcast, Adam and I sit down to talk about his latest book, “The CEO Test - Master The Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders”*, which he he co-wrote with former Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer. Over the course of my conversation with Adam, some of the topics we discuss include: How leaders can create a simple plan that keeps their focus on their “big idea” despite the numerous distractions and demands for their time and attention.How to ensure your organization's culture and its stated values reflect the everyday reality in your workplace, as opposed to an aspirational concept.4 simple, but powerful questions that lead to more effective team building and collaboration.How to truly listen to others so people are willing to freely share their insights on what's going right and what's really going wrong. https://open.spotify.com/episode/21iswjhjWPsz37R31nsguR As I mentioned at the end of this episode, if you enjoy this or past episodes of my podcast, I'd appreciate it if you could subscribe, rate, and review my podcast on the app you use to listen to my podcast. Notable links: Learn more about Adam's current work at The ExCo Group.Buy Adam's book "The CEO Test" on Amazon* *sponsored link that helps to support this podcast.

If you enjoy reading interviews of CEOs sharing what shapes their understanding and approach to leadership, chances are you've probably read one of the over 500 interviews Adam Bryant wrote for his popular New York Times column, “Corner Office”. I've been an avid reader of Adam's column for many, many years so I was delighted when his publicist reached out to me to say Adam was interested in appearing on my podcast, “Leadership Biz Cafe”. For those who might not be familiar with Adam's work, in addition to writing the “Corner Office” column, Adam wrote the New York Times bestseller “The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How To Lead and Succeed” as well as “Quick and Nimble - Lessons From Leading CEOs on How To Create a Culture of Innovation”. On this episode of my leadership podcast, Adam and I sit down to talk about his latest book, “The CEO Test - Master The Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders”*, which he he co-wrote with former Amgen CEO Kevin Sharer. Over the course of my conversation with Adam, some of the topics we discuss include: How leaders can create a simple plan that keeps their focus on their “big idea” despite the numerous distractions and demands for their time and attention.How to ensure your organization's culture and its stated values reflect the everyday reality in your workplace, as opposed to an aspirational concept.4 simple, but powerful questions that lead to more effective team building and collaboration.How to truly listen to others so people are willing to freely share their insights on what's going right and what's really going wrong. As I mentioned at the end of this episode, if you enjoy this or past episodes of my podcast, I'd appreciate it if you could subscribe, rate, and review my podcast on the app you use to listen to my podcast. Notable links: Learn more about Adam's current work at The ExCo Group.Buy Adam's book "The CEO Test" on Amazon* *sponsored link that helps to support this podcast.

The future of leadership In this episode of How to be the Difference, we sat down with David Reimer, CEO of the ExCo Group (formerly Merryck & Co), a global firm of experienced CEOs, independent directors, and global business leaders providing C-suite mentoring for organizations.Over the course of his career, David has seen companies go through every form of stress– downsizing, mergers, and other massive global changes like leading a team through a pandemic. Johanna and Paul talk to David about what it means to step forward as a leader during times of crisis and what he predicts the post-pandemic workforce will look like. They also discuss the difference between being a coach and a mentor, how to be intentional about your values, and what mixing your career with your identity entails.Outline of this episode:[0:28] - [3:00] - Introducing David[4:14] - Becoming CEO of ExCo[7:22] - The importance of mentorship[9:20] - Criteria for bringing on a CEO[11:20] - On finding a mentor[14:30] - Identity and career[21:55] - Transforming leaders [28:15] - Challenges for attracting global, diverse talent [32:55] - The post-pandemic workforce[35:28] - How can we all be the difference Resources & people mentioned:David ReimerThe ExCo GroupDBMJohanna MolinaPaul LynskeyThe Intern GroupBook: Robert E. Lee and Me

Today's guest is Adam Bryant, Managing Director at The ExCo Group (formerly Merryck & Co. Americas). The Exco Group specializes in helping boards, executives, and teams unlock their full leadership potential and deliver high-impact performance for their enterprises. Adam is also the author of The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders; a book that focuses on the seven most critical reasons leaders succeed or fail. Adam hasn't always been a Thought Leader. For 30 years, he had a successful career as a journalist, editor, and columnist, primarily at The New York Times. As he honed his communication skills and learned the ins-and-outs of complex teams, Adam focused on the question: “What if we interviewed a CEO for an article and didn't discuss their business background?” Instead, he focused the conversation around the lessons of leadership, culture, hiring, and talent, to see what made high-powered leaders flourish and grow.  Over 10 years, Adam interviewed 525 CEOs. Those lessons eventually became a book: The Corner Office: Indispensable and Unexpected Lessons from CEOs on How to Lead and Succeed. In it, he presented the insights and advice he gleaned through those interviews in order to to help others master the steep learning curve of leadership. In today's episode, Adam discusses his skills as a journalist, and how they positioned him to elevate others through the practice of thought leadership. He credits that background with his impressive ability to see patterns, focus on the essence of an issue, and find insights in both challenges and success - and share those gifts with others. If you're feeling blocked, this is the episode that can show you how to find your strengths and bring them into the game! Three Key Takeaways: Non-traditional questions can be a great way for Thought Leaders to gain new insight.  Thought Leaders can find strong, accessible examples of leadership lessons in TV and movies. Thought Leadership might start out as a "side-hustle," but if nurtured properly, can take on a life of its own!

All leaders face their challenges and versions of stress and demands—the intensity and consequences of those challenges grow as they move higher into roles with more width and complexity. Despite all the effort through the years to understand what it takes to be an effective leader, the art of leadership remains enormously tricky and elusive. Leaders at all levels can learn from Adam Bryant, co-author of the book The CEO Test: Master the Challenges that Make or Break All Leaders, as he joins Jason Marc Campbell on Superhumans at Work to share the seven key reasons that explain why leaders succeed or fail in their roles.    Adam Bryant is managing director of The ExCo Group (formerly Merryck & Co. Americas), senior leadership development and executive mentoring firm. He has a proven ability to distill real-world lessons and insights from his hundreds of interviews and turn them into practical tools, presentations, and exercises to help The ExCo Group clients deepen their leadership benches and strengthen their teams. He works with executive leadership teams and organizations to foster a culture of innovation, based on a best-practices framework he developed for his widely praised first book, The CEO Test: Master the Challenges That Make or Break All Leaders. In his second book Quick and Nimble: Lessons from Leading CEOs on How to Create a Culture of Innovation, Adam distilled the wisdom of hundreds of business leaders to identify the secrets to a high-performing corporate culture. He continues to conduct leadership interviews on LinkedIn—with CEOs, board directors, prominent Black executives, and chief human resources officers—with more than 160,000 subscribers.    Listen out for: - The CEO test. - The key responsibilities of a CEO. - Why there are so many bad bosses. - The right culture that a CEO needs to nurture. - The best qualities you need to have to be a successful CEO.   Bonus: - Subscribe to 'Mindvalley Membership' to discover 30+ Mindvalley Quests – at a surprisingly low annual fee. You can also watch our podcast sessions live, interact with the guests, connect with the world's best teachers and find your community here

In this episode, we sit down with Adam Bryant, Managing Director of the ExCo Group and Author of The CEO Test. The conversation explores characteristics of successful CEOs, the idea of “natural leaders,” priorities versus outcomes, and more.