Podcasts about organizations

Leadership gets tested when the stakes are high and failure isn't an option — and few understand that better than someone who led where decisions carried life-and-death consequences. In this episode of Cut to the Chase, Gregg Goldfarb sits down with Jacob "Jake" Bustoz, a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel, on how military leadership translates to the civilian business world. From combat medic to the Medical Service Corps and operations across NATO missions and military medical institutions, Jake brings a perspective that's equal parts disciplined and deeply human. Now working with organizations in healthcare, technology, and government, he explains why clarity is a leader's most overlooked strategic asset — and how a company's handling of complexity, talent, and internal politics determines whether it scales or stalls.   Join Gregg and Jake as they explore: Why leadership is "relative and contextual," not absolute  What's really behind declining military recruitment and the rise of the trades  Why organizations fail from a lack of visibility, not intelligence or effort  How to navigate difficult personalities and politics strategically  Why the hiring decision may be the most important call a company makes The difference between claiming value and creating it What it means to be a "transformation-focused" leader   TIME STAMPS 0:00 — Cold open: the hook (why organizations fail, leadership, hiring, the human side of healthcare) 1:00 — Welcome: leadership tested when failure isn't an option 2:02 — From the military to enterprise operations: how the transition happened 3:09 — Why the U.S. military may be the best leadership academy in the world (and the Army turns 250) 4:01 — College, trades, AI anxiety, and declining military recruitment 5:35 — Life after retirement: reinventing identity and seeking out discomfort 6:49 — Helping enterprises operate in complexity, and clarity as a strategic asset 8:12 — Why organizations really fail: visibility into how value gets created 8:52 — Taking the personality out of the equation at the top 10:23 — Talent and team building: why hiring is the most important decision  12:26 — Finding talent in healthcare and remembering it's still a business 14:27 — Empathy, conviction, and the human dimension of care 15:39 — What to do when the "head honcho" is the problem 16:58 — Being a "transformation-focused" executive and challenging the status quo 18:00 — Closing: how to reach Jake    Jacob Jake Bustoz is a retired U.S. Army Lieutenant Colonel and a transformation-focused operations executive. He began his career as a combat medic before commissioning into the Medical Service Corps, going on to lead across NATO missions, healthcare systems, and military medical institutions — including operations supporting roughly 30,000 patients and 200 staff, alongside colleges, research centers, and faculty. Today, Jake helps organizations in healthcare, technology, and government sectors design the systems, operating models, and capabilities they need to scale and perform reliably. His work centers on a single idea: that clarity — visibility into how a business truly creates value and makes decisions — is one of the most powerful strategic assets a leader can have. He is also affiliated with Duke University.   Contact Jacob Bustoz: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jake-bustoz-978896161/ Email: jbustoz@icloud.com   Want more insights on leadership, talent, and the decisions that define careers and companies? Subscribe to Cut to the Chase with Gregg Goldfarb for new episodes every week.

The Self-Managing Enterprise: Eradicating Decision Fatigue and Decentralizing Corporate Governance with Lizzie BentonIn a recent episode of The Thoughtful Entrepreneur Podcast, host Josh Elledge sat down with Lizzie Benton, the founder of Liberty Mind, to dismantle the legacy hierarchical structures that trigger executive burnout and stall organizational velocity. As an international keynote speaker, progressive culture architect, and host of the Make It Thrive podcast, Lizzie specializes in transforming traditional top-down corporate operations into highly adaptive, self-managing ecosystems. This conversation serves as an essential strategic manual for mid-market founders and enterprise leaders who are ready to eliminate the administrative bottlenecks of centralized authority, foster absolute psychological ownership among teams, and construct an agile infrastructure that drives long-term valuation without demanding the daily tactical intervention of the CEO.The Architecture of Autonomy: Implementing Decentralized Decision-Making and Co-Created Organizational SystemsThe primary bottleneck restricting the growth of a scaling business is rarely the capability of the workforce, but rather an executive authority bias that funnels all critical choices up to a single leader. Lizzie Benton notes that when a company scales rapidly, founders routinely fall into the trap of hiring layers of middle management and vice presidents to filter daily operational requests, inadvertently multiplying corporate bureaucracy and creating rigid communication silos. This systemic centralization breeds severe decision fatigue for the entrepreneur, while simultaneously conditioning frontline employees to upwardly defer simple responsibilities out of a fear of making mistakes. True operational optimization is achieved by defining explicit decision rights and shifting authority directly to the teams best positioned to execute the work, establishing clear, co-created guardrails that transform unpredictable, reactive tasks into highly scalable, automated corporate routines.Building a resilient, progressive workplace culture requires corporate leaders to look past surface-level employee perks and establish deep psychological safety across all functional lines. When a business mistakes material benefits like office snacks or recreational break rooms for authentic organizational health, it overlooks the structural systems that actually dictate employee behavior and retention. Real scalability is unlocked through the practice of co-creation—actively involving cross-functional teams in engineering the direct hybrid work policies, operational processes, and workflow roadmaps that govern their daily production. This inclusive design philosophy eliminates the natural human resistance to top-down mandates, driving deep internal alignment and cultivating a vibrant workspace culture where team members treat the enterprise with genuine psychological ownership.To successfully transition into a self-managing corporate asset, executive tiers must lean into small, calculated workflow experiments rather than attempting an overnight organizational overhaul. Founders can begin by piloting decentralized governance in a single low-risk department, granting the team total budget and execution autonomy over a specific marketing campaign or product launch to benchmark performance metrics. Providing targeted coaching and framing initial errors as mandatory optimization data points allows the workforce to safely develop its independent decision-making mechanics. When an enterprise synthesizes this empowered labor framework with objective visual dashboards and transparent information systems, the company successfully insulates its bottom line. This active distribution of leadership responsibility liberates the CEO's cognitive capacity, moving the founder into a purely strategic role focused on capital allocation and long-term enterprise value.About Lizzie BentonLizzie Benton is the Founder of Liberty Mind, a premier progressive culture coach, and a globally recognized keynote speaker specializing in organizational design and workplace autonomy. Combining deep operational insights with behavioral psychology, Lizzie has dedicated her career to helping companies replace rigid corporate command-and-control systems with self-managing frameworks. She is the host of Make It Thrive: The Company Culture Podcast and a trusted advisor to high-growth executives looking to eliminate leadership burnout and maximize team performance.About Liberty MindLiberty Mind is an elite corporate culture consultancy and strategic advisory firm designed to help organizations build adaptive, organic, and self-sustaining business infrastructures. The company specializes in executing deep cultural audits, custom team self-management training, and structured co-creation workshops to optimize cross-functional alignment. Through data-driven governance frameworks and practical risk-management playbooks, Liberty Mind enables mid-market enterprises to remove operational friction, accelerate delivery speeds, and scale profitability.Links Mentioned in This EpisodeLiberty Mind Official Website: libertymind.co.ukLizzie Benton on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/lizzie-bentonKey Episode HighlightsThe Perking Fallacy of Culture: Understanding why material employee benefits fail to replace robust operational systems and clear decision-making processes.The Authority Bias Bottleneck: Navigating the internal structural habits that trap founders in severe decision fatigue and cause frontline staff to upwardly defer tasks.The Co-Creation Framework: Utilizing collaborative focus groups and workshops to design internal operational policies that drive immediate employee buy-in.The Safe-to-Try Pilot Method: Implementing low-risk, decentralized workflow experiments within specific departments to safely scale autonomous team operations.Eradicating Bureaucratic Silos: Eliminating redundant layers of middle management by giving functional teams direct budget control and clear strategic aims.ConclusionThe conversation with Lizzie Benton underscores that true corporate optimization is a direct downstream consequence of distributing authority and building high-accountability systems. By standardizing internal corporate governance, removing process friction from the frontline, and fiercely protecting automated team self-management, business leaders can transform a volatile, founder-dependent operation into a highly structured, self-sustaining corporate asset.More from The Thoughtful Entrepreneur

Today, we are dropping another episode in our series The AI Control Loop, How enterprises govern the AI they've already deployed - sponsored by our friends at Wallarm.Wallarm is the AI Control Platform for Enterprise AI, protecting every AI workload, API, and application in production, giving CISOs the governance they need and CIOs the speed they demand. Organizations choose Wallarm for a complete inventory of APIs, AI agents, and AI apps, patented AI/ML-based threat detection and blocking that operates at production traffic speeds.In this episode, Craig Thomas, Sr. Solutions Engineer at Wallarm, examines what rogue AI actually means in practice, where the risk materializes, and what it takes to move from detection to control.QuestionsWhen we say "rogue AI," what do we actually mean? Is it only malicious AI, or can legitimate systems become risky too?What are the most common ways AI systems drift outside intended boundaries? Once an organization understands what rogue AI looks like, where does that loss of control typically begin, and who is responsible for preventing it?How do shadow LLMs, unsanctioned agents, and unmanaged AI workflows create risk even when no attacker is involved? If AI drift often starts with normal business activity, where do shadow AI systems fit into that picture?Why can an AI action look legitimate in isolation but still create serious business, security, or compliance risk when viewed as part of a larger sequence of actions? As these shadow systems become more embedded in everyday workflows, why is it so difficult to recognize risk in real time?How do APIs, integrations, and connected systems amplify the impact of those seemingly legitimate actions? What changes once those actions begin flowing across APIs, business applications, and interconnected systems?What kinds of unexpected outcomes worry CIOs and CISOs most today when AI systems are operating across those interconnected environments? As that connectivity expands, what are security and business leaders most concerned about?And given those concerns, what does meaningful oversight actually look like when AI systems can act at machine speed? How should organizations distinguish between the experimentation they want to encourage and the unmanaged AI behavior they need to control? One challenge is balancing governance with innovation. How do organizations avoid slowing down AI adoption while still maintaining control?We know that many organizations can detect risky AI behavior after the fact. But if they can't stop it in real time, what critical gap still remains? Even with governance programs in place, many organizations are still operating reactively. In closing, what's the key difference between detecting AI risk and actually controlling it?Linkshttps://www.wallarm.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/cu-craigthomas/Full AbstractIn this episode, Craig Thomas, Sr. Solutions Engineer at Wallarm, examines what rogue AI actually means in practice, where the risk materializes, and what it takes to move from detection to control.Not every AI threat starts with an attacker. Some of the most consequential AI risks organizations face today come from systems that are working exactly as designed, just not quite as intended. An agent that calls an API it was never supposed to reach. A workflow that exposes PII because nobody mapped the data path before deployment. A shadow LLM standing up in an AWS account because a developer needed to move fast and approval processes were slow. None of these require malicious intent to create serious business, security, or compliance exposure.Rogue AI is a broader category than most governance frameworks account for. It includes the unsanctioned, the unmonitored, and the unpredictable: AI systems that drift outside intended boundaries, take actions that look legitimate in isolation but create risk in sequence, and operate at machine speed in ways that make after-the-fact detection feel like a consolation prize. The gap most organizations have is not in detecting that something went wrong. It's closing the loop fast enough to matter.Meaningful AI governance requires more than policy and discovery. It requires the ability to observe AI behavior at runtime, understand what triggered each action and what it touched, and enforce boundaries before consequences compound. That closed AI control loop, from knowing what is running to seeing what it does to stopping what it should not, is the operational standard AI transformation demands. Most organizations are not there yet.Our Sponsors:* Check out Cash App and use my code CASHAPP10 for a great deal: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/mt82fpxl #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.* Check out Plaud AI and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://plaud.aiAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Reflections from host Sarah Olivieri ... The Resource Problem Most Nonprofits Mistake for a Funding Problem Ask any nonprofit leader what their organization needs most, and you will hear the same answer almost every time. More money. We need more funding. We need to hire. The whole nonprofit resource problem, in their telling, comes down to a number that is too small. I have worked with hundreds of organizations, and I have stopped taking that answer at face value. Not because leaders are wrong about feeling stretched. They are absolutely stretched. But when you peel back the layers, the constraint is rarely the money itself. It is the system nobody built. The process nobody owns. The skill gap nobody named. The tool the team already has and does not use. When those things are missing, leaders do the most natural thing in the world. They compensate with effort. And then they reach for funding to buy their way out of a problem that money was never going to solve. I've been thinking about this lately I recently had a conversation about exactly this with Andrea Ortega, the founder of Palante Nonprofits, and it sharpened how I think about what actually holds organizations back. Not because the idea was new to me, but because she named the mechanism so cleanly. When an organization says it needs more funds, what it usually needs is to look underneath that statement and find out what is really going on. The funding answer is a symptom, not a diagnosis Here is what happens inside most organizations. A program is overwhelmed. The work is piling up. Someone says we need to hire. To hire, we need more money. So the leader goes looking for grants. But hiring is a solution to a specific problem, and that problem is usually not the one in front of you. The pile of work might exist because the process has no owner. It might exist because a system that should take thirty seconds is taking five hours by hand. It might exist because two people are doing the same task and neither knows it. Throw money at that and you get a bigger version of the same mess. You have simply hired someone to keep doing the thing the system should be doing. The clearest example I see is fundraising itself. An organization comes to me and says we have a fundraising problem. We do not bring in enough money. So I ask one question. Who is in charge of fundraising? And often the answer is no one. Nobody owns it. There is no fundraising system, no plan, no person accountable for making sure the money comes in. That is the core of the funding problem, and no grant is going to fix it. When systems are unclear, people compensate with effort This is the pattern underneath almost every "we need more money" conversation. When the system is clear, people follow it and the work flows. When the system is unclear, people fill the gap with their own time, energy, and heroics. That works for a while. It is also the fastest route to burnout, because the organization is running on individual effort instead of designed structure. The more unclear the system, the harder everyone has to work just to stay in place. Leaders read that exhaustion as a sign they need more hands. Sometimes they do. More often they need the work to be designed so it does not eat people alive in the first place. The reframe is simple to say and harder to live. Before you hire, look at your systems. Before you buy, look at your processes. Before you assume you need more, find out what you already have and whether it is working. You already own more capacity than you think One of the most useful things Andrea named is how much capacity organizations already have sitting unused. Most nonprofits qualify for free or deeply discounted versions of Google Workspace or Microsoft 365. Inside those tools are project management features, internal sites, shared calendars, document collaboration, and automation that organizations pay other vendors hundreds of dollars a month to replicate. The tool is already there. The license is already paid. What is missing is the knowledge of how to use it and the discipline to actually adopt it. This is where the real cost of a tool hides. The sticker price is the smallest part. The expensive part is the time and energy it takes your team to adopt it. A platform that costs three hundred dollars a month and makes everyone's life harder is not a deal. A free tool nobody learns to use is not a deal either. The return on a tool is not in buying it. It is in adopting it well. One line from that conversation has stayed with me: "We tend to fix a lot of problems with people. And then it's always, we need more funds because we need to hire. But if you peel back the layers, it's your systems, it's your process, it's a skill gap with the people you currently have." What I appreciate about this framing is that it explains the mechanism. The funding request is real, but it is pointing at the wrong target. When you trace the overwhelm back to its source, you almost always land on a design problem, and design is something you can fix without waiting for a single new dollar to arrive. Adoption is the real work, not the purchase Here is the part most organizations skip. Buying the tool feels like progress. Adopting the tool is the actual work, and it takes far longer than anyone budgets for. Real adoption can take months. It means deciding the tool is essential for every person who touches it. It means training, and training again. It means watching where people get stuck and smoothing those spots. It means building the onboarding so the next hire learns the system instead of inventing their own workaround. Without that, you spend the money, see no return, and conclude the tool does not work. The tool was fine. The adoption never happened. This is why the smart move with anything new is to pilot it. Pick one thing. Roll it out to a small group. Watch how people respond. See where the friction is. Offer the support that gets them over it. Once it clicks for one team, you have proof, and proof beats convincing every time. Then you can take on something harder. Build the plumbing before you scale the bill The thread running through all of this is sequencing. Organizations reach for the expensive, visible solution before they have built the quiet infrastructure that makes it work. They buy the platform before they have the process. They hire before they have the system. They chase the grant before anyone owns the function the grant is supposed to fund. Build the plumbing first. Get the process clear. Make sure someone owns it. Use what you already have, fully, before you assume you need more. Then, when you do add money or tools or people, you are adding them to a structure that can actually hold them. What this makes possible When a leader sees this clearly, the panic around money settles. The question stops being how do we get more and becomes what do we already have that we are not using well. That is a question an organization can answer this week, without a single new dollar. The work does not get smaller. It gets lighter, because effort stops leaking out of unclear systems and starts flowing through designed ones. People stop compensating with heroics. The organization stops running on exhaustion. And the money conversation, when it comes, lands on a foundation strong enough to make the money matter. The bottom line This is not about doing less. It is about doing work that compounds. Nonprofits can have enough. They can use what they already own. They can grow without buying their way out of every problem. Not by chasing more before the foundation is built, but by making what they have work first. About the Guest Andrea Ortega, PhD, is the Founder and CEO of Palante Nonprofits, LLC, a consulting practice that strengthens systems, strategies, and leadership capacity for mission-driven organizations. She guides nonprofits through strategic planning, compliance, and sustainable growth, bringing both academic expertise and real-world experience to her work. With a PhD in Public Affairs specializing in Nonprofit Management and Compliance. Dr. Ortega offers deep knowledge in nonprofit finance, governance, and capacity building. A Colombian-American and proud #Gator and #Knight, she is committed to making compliance and technology accessible so nonprofits of all sizes can thrive. Connect with Dr. Andrea Website & Resources:https://linktr.ee/palantenonprofits Instagram: @palantenonprofits LinkedIn: Palante Nonprofits LLC Podcast on Buzzsprout: https://www.buzzsprout.com/2345463/episodes  Podcast on Apple: Listen on Apple Podcasts Be sure to subscribe to Inspired Nonprofit Leadership so that you don't miss a single episode, and while you're at it, won't you take a moment to write a short review and rate our show? It would be greatly appreciated! Let us know the topics or questions you would like to hear about in a future episode. You can do that and follow us on LinkedIn.

911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. Behind Every Emergency Call Is Someone Carrying the Weight of Another Person's Worst Day. When most people think of first responders, they picture police officers racing toward danger, firefighters battling flames, or paramedics fighting to save lives. The episode is available to listen to Free. The Podcast is available for free on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast website, also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartradio and most major podcast platforms. #LawEnforcementTalk #Free #Podcast #Radio But there is another group of heroes who experience unimaginable tragedy every day without ever leaving their chairs. The Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast social media like their Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , Medium and other social media platforms. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too. Their battlefield isn't on the streets. Supporting articles about this and much more from Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast in platforms like Medium , Blogspot and Linkedin. It's Trauma on The Phone. Every scream... Every desperate plea... Every child crying... Every gunshot... Every final breath... It all comes through a headset. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. On the latest episode of the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast, host John Jay Wiley welcomes Alex LeFever, a veteran 911 dispatcher who shares what many dispatchers have silently carried for years. The episode is available across major platforms including their website, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, with highlights shared across their Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn profiles. His story reminds listeners that emotional scars don't require physical danger. Sometimes the deepest wounds are heard, not seen. The Calls That Never Leave Alex worked as a 911 dispatcher in both Arkansas and Pennsylvania. Like many emergency telecommunicators, thousands of calls blended together over time. But a few never disappeared. One involved a three-week-old baby. Another involved a woman trapped in a violent domestic abuse situation, who shot her attacker. Alex listened helplessly as the assault unfolded over the phone. Those voices never truly left him. "There are calls you never forget," Alex explains. "They stay with you long after your shift ends." Unlike police officers or firefighters who eventually arrive at a scene and begin resolving the crisis, dispatchers often experience something mental health experts call truncated trauma. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. Available for free on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast website, also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, Youtube and most major Podcast networks. They hear the terror. They imagine the scene. Then the phone disconnects. Most never learn how the story ended. Their minds are left to fill in the blanks. 911 Dispatchers Are Often the First First Responders Whether dispatchers are officially recognized as first responders depends largely on where they work. Many states, including California, Washington, and Delaware, have passed laws officially recognizing emergency dispatchers as first responders. Federal classifications have historically categorized them as administrative employees rather than protective service professionals. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. The Podcast is available for free on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast website, also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartradio and most major podcast platforms. That distinction has sparked ongoing bipartisan efforts in Congress to update federal classifications through legislation such as the 9-1-1 SAVES Act and the Enhancing First Response Act. Regardless of job titles, dispatchers perform life-saving work every day. They calm panicked callers. Guide CPR. Provide emergency childbirth instructions. Coordinate police, fire, and EMS responses. Gather critical intelligence. Save lives. Long before emergency vehicles arrive, dispatchers are already working to keep victims alive. "They're often the first voice people hear during the worst moment of their lives." Trauma on The Phone Is Real Mental health professionals increasingly recognize that dispatchers experience extraordinarily high rates of Secondary Traumatic Stress (STS) and Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD). The Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast continues bringing listeners real conversations from the front lines of crime, policing, trauma, survival, and healing. Unlike field responders, dispatchers experience trauma through sound alone. The human brain reacts as if it is physically present. Adrenaline surges. Heart rate increases. Stress hormones flood the body. Yet dispatchers must remain calm. Professional. Focused. They cannot panic. They cannot cry. They simply answer the next call. Hour after hour. Day after day. Over time, that emotional weight accumulates. Symptoms may include: • Reliving disturbing calls • Hearing callers' voices long after work • Difficulty concentrating • Hyper-vigilance • Emotional numbness • Burnout • Insomnia • High blood pressure • Chronic stress Many dispatchers suffer silently because few people understand what their job truly involves. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. The complete interview is available as a Free Podcast on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, and major podcast platforms. Healing Doesn't Always Come Easy For Alex, recovery became intentional. He found one powerful outlet inside the gym. Weight training became more than exercise. It became therapy. "Training should enhance your life, not consume it," Alex says. His fitness journey actually began at just ten years old. By age seventeen, he had already set four International Powerlifting Association world records in the 198-pound class, including a remarkable 490-pound deadlift that stood for years. Today his philosophy is much different. Rather than chasing perfection, Alex helps people create sustainable health around real life. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. Listeners can hear the complete interview on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartRadio, and other major Podcast, Radio, News, and Media platforms. "Life still needs to happen," he says. "Cake at birthday parties. Family dinners. Saturday morning French toast." Instead of unrealistic fitness expectations, Alex teaches balance. He specializes in helping first responders, shift workers, and everyday people overcome obstacles traditional fitness programs often ignore. Irregular schedules. Old injuries. Chronic stress. Sleep disruption. Mental fatigue. His coaching adapts to reality instead of demanding perfection. Supporting the People Behind the Headset Mental health experts continue emphasizing that dispatchers need the same support systems increasingly available to police officers, firefighters, and paramedics. The podcast is available on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, LinkedIn, and other major podcast platforms. Peer support. Critical incident debriefings. Professional counseling. Trauma education. Preventative mental health training. Organizations dedicated to dispatcher wellness continue advocating for stronger mental health resources while many states are expanding PTSD workers' compensation protections for emergency telecommunicators. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. Recognizing dispatcher trauma isn't simply about changing job titles. It's about acknowledging invisible injuries before they become life-changing ones. A Story Every First Responder Should Hear Alex LeFever's conversation offers an honest look inside one of public safety's least understood professions. Listen to the full story on the Free Podcast, available on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast Website, on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, Apple, Spotify, and more. His story is about resilience. Trauma. Recovery. Fitness. Mental health. And recognizing that heroes aren't always the ones wearing body armor. Sometimes they're wearing a headset. Sometimes they're the calm voice who answers when someone dials three simple numbers. Listen to the Full Conversation Hear Alex LeFever's remarkable story on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast, available on their website, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, LinkedIn, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, iHeartradio and most major Podcast platforms. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. Watch, listen, and share this Free Audio interview across your favorite Social Media channels and help shine a light on the invisible trauma experienced by emergency dispatchers every single day. Because 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too, and understanding Trauma on The Phone may be the first step toward helping those who spend their careers helping everyone else. The episode is available to listen to Free. The Podcast is available for free on the Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast website, also on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, YouTube, iHeartradio and most major podcast platforms. Learn and get access to money saving tips and how to increase your net worth at www.LetSavings.com Listen to this powerful #Free Podcast episode featuring Marci Hopkins on Facebook, Instagram, Youtube, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and major Podcast platforms nationwide. Download the Free Ebook about ways and tips to improve your health. You can get the ebook for free at www.LetHealthy.com Get the Free Clubhouse App, it is Drop In Social Audio. Think of it as your own talk radio show on your phone, and best of all it is free. Be sure to look for me and follow me, that's John J Wiley or @letradioshow  you can do all that here. The Law Enforcement Talk Radio Show and Podcast social media like their Facebook , Instagram , LinkedIn , Medium and other social media platforms. You can contact John J. “Jay” Wiley by email at Jay@letradio.com , or learn more about him on their website . Find a wide variety of great podcasts online at The Podcast Zone Facebook Page , look for the one with the bright green logo. Be sure to check out our website . Be sure to follow us on X , Instagram , Facebook, Pinterest, Linkedin and other social media platforms for the latest episodes and news. 911 Dispatchers Suffer Too: Trauma on the Phone. Attributions Adaptable Strength Wikipedia Facebook Facebook Group Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Dr. Capozzi is a board-certified orthopedic surgeon with specialty training in joint replacement surgery. After receiving his bachelor's degree from Columbia University, he obtained his medical degree from Mount Sinai School of Medicine. He completed his orthopedic training at Mount Sinai and the Otto Alfrank Adult Joint Reconstructive Fellowship at the New England Baptist Hospital in Boston. In addition to performing hip and knee replacements, Dr. Capozzi specializes in difficult revision surgery, utilizing the newest techniques in joint reconstructive surgery.   Part 1 This presentation is about tenets of high reliability organizations involving modes of communication errors and communication training. When looking at studies of large organizations that perform complex and dangerous tasks, a couple of principles stand out that have some common themes. One is that the work tends to be highly technical and inherently dangerous. Very often there are high time constraints and time pressures that entail rushing to complete work in very tight environments, which sounds like any of our operating rooms or ICUs. At some point, most of these entities are going to fail spectacularly. The government defines a high-reliability organization as one that can operate in complex, high-hazard domains for extended periods of time without serious accidents or catastrophic failures, which pretty much defines what we do every day in the hospital. These organizations tend to have five key principles that define all of them the same way. One is a deference to expertise. Second is a reluctance to simplify. Third is a sensitivity to operations. Fourth is a commitment to resilience. Fifth is a preoccupation with failure. Two not-too-distant past failures are interesting. One is the Chernobyl nuclear disaster and the second is the Avianca plane crash on Long Island.

Join Elevated GP by visiting THEELEVATEDGP.COM   In Part 2 of his conversation with Dr. Melissa Seibert, periodontist Dr. David Wong unpacks why patients actually decline treatment — and it's rarely the money or the dentistry. It's the connection you failed to build. He walks through the soft-skill work that's defined his career: reading where a patient sits on the decision-making scale, designing a separate consultation room so he can sit beside patients instead of across from them, and disarming fight-or-flight by finding common ground fast. He also shares one of the most underrated networking moves in dentistry — joining your local Chamber of Commerce — and how it helped him launch a practice from scratch. The second half pivots to the clinical: ridge preservation as a high-ROI skill for general dentists, how to think about bone graft material selection without getting overwhelmed by terminology, membrane selection for beginners through advanced users, and the specific brands David reaches for day to day. About the Guest Dr. David Wong is a board-certified periodontist and Fellow of the International Congress of Oral Implantologists — the only periodontist in Oklahoma to hold that distinction. He completed his periodontal training at the University of Missouri-Kansas City as chief resident, earned advanced implant and oral plastic surgery credentials from Temple University and the Misch International Implant Institute, and has published in the field of oral plastic surgery. Beyond his clinical work, he has spent his career studying the art of case presentation and patient communication. Chapter Markers Time Section 00:00 Pre-roll: Elevated GP 00:49 Welcome and episode preview 02:14 Why patients decline treatment — the connection problem 04:24 The mistake of trying to build trust in one appointment 05:06 Recommended books and resources on soft skills 06:44 Why David joins mastermind groups outside dentistry 08:35 The Chamber of Commerce — an untapped networking resource 10:41 How the Chamber helped David launch his practice from scratch 11:20 Ridge preservation as a high-ROI skill for GPs 12:30 Honest take on dental photography ROI 13:27 Bone graft material selection — keeping it simple 14:38 Allografts vs. xenografts and the global supply reality 15:18 Membrane selection: beginner, intermediate, advanced 16:19 The handling reality of amnion-chorion membranes 17:19 When primary closure matters 17:53 Non-resorbable / PTFE membranes — when they help, when they hurt 19:04 Subscribe CTA 19:20 The specific brands David uses day to day 20:35 The one thing David has invested most in: case presentation 21:09 Inside David's consultation room setup 23:04 Three resources for learning case presentation Key Takeaways On why treatment plans get declined. When patients say "I'll go home and think about it," dentists default to "they don't value the dentistry" or "they can't afford it." David's argument: the most common reason is that you didn't build trust or form a connection. People will spend $20,000 on a European vacation but not on asymptomatic dental work — that's a comparison about trust and felt need, not budget. Connection is a long game, not a five-minute pitch. New dentists try to close trust in a single appointment. David's reframe: you'll see this patient over years. Foster the relationship as long as it takes, and they will do the treatment — maybe not all at once, but eventually. The "I'm the doctor, you're the patient" model breaks in fee-for-service. Patients in a fee-for-service practice are decision-makers, not compliant subjects. You have to meet them as one. Design the room around the conversation. For any case over roughly $1,500, David moves the patient to a dedicated consultation room and sits side-by-side at a table — not across the operatory chair. He pays attention to where he's seated relative to the patient and the door. He has even recorded his own case presentations on camera and had them coached. The Chamber of Commerce is one of the most underused networking moves in dentistry. Every city has one. Dues are minimal or free. You get a room full of local entrepreneurs — publishers, contractors, surgeons, service providers — solving the same problems you are, just in different industries. When David launched his practice from scratch, the Chamber funded part of his open house, ran his ribbon-cutting, and brought a crowd. Get your CE ROI right. Start with skills that pay dividends immediately — molar endo, ridge preservation/socket grafting. They have low downside (a missed socket graft is no worse than not grafting at all), short learning curves, and you'll actually use them weekly. "Sexy" CE without immediate clinical application sits unused. Keep ridge preservation simple. Don't get lost in the 70/30 vs. 50/50 mineralized/demineralized debate. David teaches just two categories: mineralized cortical bone, or mineralized cortical-cancellous bone. That's it. For membranes, beginners should default to a long-lasting resorbable collagen membrane. The fancier options (cross-linked, titanium-reinforced, amnion-chorion, PTFE) are handling-skill problems before they're outcome problems. Case presentation isn't about "salesy words." It's about reading non-verbal cues, responding appropriately, and conducting the conversation — not delivering the right script. Notable Quotes "It's not necessarily just because they don't want it. It's not necessarily just because of financial constraints. It's because we didn't build the trust. We didn't form that connection." "You're going to see this patient more than one time. Hopefully ten years from now they're still your patient — so you have to foster that relationship as long as it takes." "We'll spend $20,000 on a European vacation. We won't spend $20,000 on dentistry when we're asymptomatic and have no known issues." "You spend all that money [on a photography setup] and you still use your intraoral camera to sell single-tooth dentistry. Good job." "Two, three years later, I am the guy where they're just like, 'Dr. Wong, just take my money and do it.'" "A lot of times dentists think that case presentation is using the right words — salesy words. That's not it at all." Resources Mentioned Books on influence, communication, and mindset Influence — Robert Cialdini Pre-Suasion — Robert Cialdini (the "second one" referenced in the conversation) Vanessa Van Edwards' work (and her courses on the Masterclass app) How to Win Friends and Influence People — Dale Carnegie How We Decide — Jonah Lehrer Books by Jonah Berger The E-Myth Revisited — Michael Gerber As a Man Thinketh — James Allen (~50 pages, mindset) Organizations and programs Your local Chamber of Commerce Local Toastmasters (for speaking) Spear Study Club masters program The Elevated GP (Dr. Seibert's virtual study club) Paul Homoly's case presentation program Clinical products David uses day to day Membrane: Mem-Lok resorbable collagen (BioHorizons) — current default Membrane (when available): OsseoGuard / Ossix Plus (Dentsply Sirona) — currently on hold Bone graft: MinerOss mineralized cortical or cortical-cancellous (BioHorizons) Bone graft (alternate supplier): Symbios mineralized cortical (Dentsply Sirona)

Silence in meetings costs everyone. It silences voices, stalls accountability, and signals that thinking isn't happening in real time. But silence isn't inevitable. It's a leadership choice. In this episode, Jill Griffin breaks down what silence actually means, why AI-generated content is training us to consume instead of engage, and the specific moves leaders and peers can make to bring people into the conversation. Leadership is a lifestyle and an inside job. Here's how to show up.You're in a meeting and nobody's talking. What's actually happening?The silence in your meetings is costing you more than you realize.Most leaders have it backwards about what silence means in the room.Show Notes: Workslop: The Hidden Cost of AI-Generated BusyworkSupport the showJill Griffin, is a leadership strategist, executive coach, and host of The Career Refresh. She works with senior leaders to navigate complexity, strengthen teams, and lead with greater clarity and intention.With 20+ years of experience at companies like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Hilton, and Martha Stewart, Jill brings a practical, real-world lens to leadership, decision-making, and career strategy. Visit GriffinMethod.com to learn more about working together:The Next Era Leader An 8-week cohort for women leaders ready to expand their capacity and lead through complexity with clarity and intentionExecutive Coaching & Leadership Advisory 1:1 strategic partnership for leaders navigating growth, transition, and what's nextConnect with Jill for Leadership Development for Organizations and Speaking & WorkshopsInstagram: @JillGriffinOffical

The conversation around AI often focuses on speed, automation, and productivity. Yet one of the most important lessons emerging from modern software development is that Hero Culture Risks become more visible as technology removes traditional bottlenecks. In Building Better Developers Season 28 Episode 8, Dave Borzillo shared a perspective many experienced developers recognize immediately: being the person who always saves the day feels rewarding, but it often masks deeper organizational problems. As AI accelerates software creation, those hidden weaknesses are becoming harder to ignore.   About David Borzillo David Borzillo is an Agile coach, author, speaker, and organizational improvement advocate with more than three decades of experience spanning software development, leadership, Agile transformation, and product delivery. Through his Better Ways of Working platform, he helps organizations improve collaboration, reduce operational friction, and create sustainable delivery systems. He is the author of Sanity at Scale and Who Killed Agile? (co-authored), and United Agility, and hosts the Better Ways of Working podcast. Follow David at: https://betterwaysofworking.com/about.htm Bonus: Free Kindle Promotion

Video Game playthrough updates, upcoming releases, PlayStation and Xbox news, Nintendo breach, Game Pass impact, and a retro review of Yu‑Gi‑Oh! Forbidden Memories. 00:00 Introduction 03:15 Game Pickups and Collectibles 06:22 Current Gaming Experiences 09:17 Investments in Gaming Stocks 12:15 Upcoming Game Releases 15:23 Remote Play and Gaming on the Go 18:13 Industry News: PlayStation Exclusives 21:11 Future of Gaming: Digital vs Physical 24:12 Nintendo Data Breach Discussion 33:18 The Future of Xbox Exclusives 39:15 The Impact of Game Pass on Console Sales 48:12 Studio Closures and IP Ownership 57:13 Yu-Gi-Oh! Forbidden Memories Review 01:09:05 Outro Video John and Ryan jump into another packed week of gaming talk, starting with what they're currently playing. Ryan shares his time with Mina the Hollower, while John continues working through Killzone Shadow Fall. The conversation then shifts to upcoming releases the duo is excited about before moving into a discussion on remote play and gaming on the go. Industry news takes center stage as they explore the latest updates around PlayStation exclusives and what those decisions mean for the platform. That leads into a broader conversation about the future of gaming, specifically the ongoing debate between digital and physical media. The episode also covers the recent Nintendo data breach and what's known so far, followed by a look at where Xbox exclusives may be heading. John and Ryan then break down the impact Game Pass is having on console sales and how subscription models continue to shape the market. They wrap up the news segment with a discussion on Xbox studio closures and IP ownership. To close out the show, the Inflation Deflation Game of the Week takes a nostalgic turn with a review of Yu‑Gi‑Oh! Forbidden Memories, as the guys revisit the PS1 classic and evaluate its place in today's retro market. Find us on TheGameDeflators.com   Twitter - www.twitter.com/GameDeflators Facebook - www.facebook.com/TheGameDeflators Instagram - www.instagram.com/thegamedeflators   The views and opinions expressed on this channel are solely those of the author. The content within these recordings are property of their respective Designers, Writers, Creators, Owners, Organizations, Companies and Producers. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted. Permission for intro and outro music provided by Matthew Huffaker http://www.youtube.com/user/teknoaxe 2_25_18

Most organizations are extraordinarily good at activity and extraordinarily bad at progress. Meetings that produce more meetings. Initiatives launched before the last ones landed. Leaders who are permanently busy and chronically stuck. This is not a strategy problem. It is a pattern problem, and patterns live in culture, not in org charts. This episode examines the invisible cycles that keep organizations in motion without forward momentum: the norms, assumptions, and unspoken rules that make dysfunction feel like diligence.  In this episode: Meagan Bond, Tom Bradshaw, LindaAnn Rogers, Nic Kruegar, Stacy Lee, Rich Cruz I/O Career Accelerator Course: https://www.seboc.com/job Visit us https://www.seboc.com/ Follow us on LinkedIn: https://bit.ly/sebocLI Join an open-mic event: https://www.seboc.com/events References: Dweck, C. S. (2006). Mindset: The new psychology of success. Random House. Edmondson, A. C. (1999). Psychological safety and learning behavior in work teams. Administrative Science Quarterly, 44(2), 350–383. https://doi.org/10.2307/2666999 Edmondson, A. C. (2018). The fearless organization: Creating psychological safety in the workplace for learning, innovation, and growth. Wiley. Gallup. (2025). State of the global workplace: 2025 report. Gallup. Glassdoor. (2025). The hidden costs of layoffs: Workforce trust, engagement, and organizational performance. Glassdoor Economic Research. Keller, S., & Aiken, C. (2009). The irrational side of change management. McKinsey Quarterly. McKinsey & Company. (2021). The state of organizations 2021: Ten shifts transforming organizations. McKinsey & Company. Overmier, J. B., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1967). Effects of inescapable shock upon subsequent escape and avoidance responding. Journal of Comparative and Physiological Psychology, 63(1), 28–33. https://doi.org/10.1037/h0024166 Peterson, C., Maier, S. F., & Seligman, M. E. P. (1993). Learned helplessness: A theory for the age of personal control. Oxford University Press. Russell Reynolds Associates. (2025). Global CEO turnover index: 2024 year in review. Russell Reynolds Associates. Samuelson, W., & Zeckhauser, R. (1988). Status quo bias in decision making. Journal of Risk and Uncertainty, 1(1), 7–59. https://doi.org/10.1007/BF00055564 Society for Human Resource Management. (2019). The high cost of a toxic workplace culture: How culture impacts the workforce—and the bottom line. SHRM. Society for Human Resource Management. (2024). SHRM Q4 2024 civility index: The state of workplace civility in the United States. SHRM.

Welcome to episode #1041 of Thinking With Mitch Joel (formerly Six Pixels of Separation). At a time when every leadership team is being told that artificial intelligence will change everything, Charlene Li has spent her career helping organizations separate signal from noise. A New York Times bestselling author and trusted advisor to CEOs and boards, Charlene first became widely known for helping leaders understand transformative shifts through books like Groundswell, Open Leadership and The Disruption Mindset. Her latest book, Winning With AI - The 90-Day Blueprint For Success, co-authored with Dr. Katia Walsh, tackles one of the most pressing questions facing business leaders today: not what AI is, but what to do about it. Drawing on research, executive interviews and practical experience, Charlene argues that organizations do not need an AI strategy… they need to rethink how AI serves their existing business strategy. In our conversation, she explores why most organizations are still struggling to move beyond experimentation, why leadership and transformation matter more than technology selection, and why the greatest opportunity may not be efficiency at all, but creating more human-centered organizations. Along the way, Charlene challenges conventional thinking about AI pilots, workforce transformation, organizational design and the future role of leadership in an era where intelligence itself is becoming abundant. Enjoy the conversation… Running time: 1:01:50. Hello from beautiful Montreal. Listen and subscribe over at Apple Podcasts. Listen and subscribe over at Spotify. Please visit and leave comments on the blog - Thinking With Mitch Joel. Feel free to connect to me directly on LinkedIn. Check out ThinkersOne. Here is my conversation with Charlene Li. Winning With AI - The 90-Day Blueprint For Success. Dr. Katia Walsh. Groundswell. Open Leadership. The Disruption Mindset. Charlene's other books. Follow Charlene on LinkedIn. Chapters: (00:00) - Introduction to AI and Leadership. (03:02) - Navigating the AI Landscape. (05:57) - Understanding AI's Impact on Organizations. (09:09) - The Human Element in AI. (12:10) - Rethinking Workflows and Decision-Making. (14:45) - Strategic AI Roadmaps. (17:54) - Investment and Governance in AI. (20:52) - Creating Value with AI. (23:53) - Emergent Thinking and AI Adoption. (31:00) - The Role of Leadership in AI Implementation. (34:50) - Ownership and Accountability in AI Strategy. (39:01) - Creating Value Beyond Efficiency with AI. (45:07) - Navigating Workforce Changes and Reskilling. (48:59) - Addressing Employee Concerns About AI. (54:54) - The Case Against AI Pilots. (55:54) - The Importance of Speed in AI Adoption.

“People don't do what you expect, they do what you inspect” Dre Baldwin Top Five Tips for Eliminating Execution Drift in Growing Organizations1.  Define Behavior, Not Just Outcomes2. Build a measurable execution scorecard    3. Remove Ambiguity from Roles and Standards4. Systematize “The Same Things, The Same Way, Every Time”5. Enforce accountability through structure not emotionTIME STAMP SUMMARY04:03   Importance of team leaders communicating that activities are being tracked to ensure compliance.08:58  Consistent enforcement of standards is crucial for maintaining order and respect.17:58   Systems can be simple but effective, and they are essential for managing growth.20:10   Accountability should be based on consistent processes, not personal relationships or moods. Where to find Dre?Website                        https://www.dreallday.com/LinkedIn                       https://www.linkedin.com/in/dreallday Dre Baldwin Bio Dre Baldwin is the creator of Work on your game, the operating system for high performance entrepreneurs.After a 9-year pro basketball career, Dre has delivered 4 TEDx Talks, authored 43 books, and built a body of work consumed over 100 million times. His framework installs discipline, structure and presence into experts and service pros ready to scale from six to seven figures with clarity, confidence and control. 

Can a company reach 1 billion users before figuring out how to make money—and still dominate the future of AI?This week's AI news cycle delivered a fascinating mix of milestones, competitive shakeups, enterprise AI breakthroughs, security concerns, and agentic innovation. OpenAI crossed the historic 1-billion-user mark, Microsoft opened Copilot CoWork to the masses, SpaceX made a massive move with its $60 billion Cursor acquisition, and new open-source challengers emerged to challenge the industry's biggest players. For business leaders, the message is becoming increasingly clear: AI capabilities are no longer the bottleneck. Adoption, governance, employee enablement, and operational execution are now the real competitive advantages. Organizations that successfully train their teams and embed AI into daily workflows are already seeing dramatic productivity gains and measurable business outcomes. In this session, you'll discover: Why OpenAI's 1-billion-user milestone may be more complicated than the headlines suggest  How ChatGPT's market share slipped below 50% while Gemini and Claude continue gaining ground  OpenAI's new $150 million partner network and what it means for enterprise AI adoption  Why Microsoft Copilot CoWork could become a game changer for organizations already invested in Microsoft 365  The strategic implications of SpaceX acquiring Cursor for $60 billion  How new open-source coding models are challenging leading closed-source AI systems  Why AI governance and international cooperation became a major focus at the G7 Summit  The growing scrutiny facing OpenAI ahead of its anticipated IPO  New developments in agentic AI platforms from Databricks and Vercel  How leading companies are using AI agents to transform productivity and operations  What business leaders need to know about AI's growing impact on jobs, hiring, and workforce planning  Why employees who openly use AI may still face workplace stigma despite widespread adoptionAbout Leveraging AIThe Ultimate AI Course for Business People: https://multiplai.ai/ai-course/YouTube Full Episodes: https://www.youtube.com/@Multiplai_AI/Connect with Isar Meitis: https://www.linkedin.com/in/isarmeitis/ Join our Live Sessions, AI Hangouts and newsletter: https://services.multiplai.ai/eventsIf you've enjoyed or benefited from some of the insights of this episode, leave us a five-star review on your favorite podcast platform, and let us know what you learned, found helpful, or liked most about this show!

In this episode of Fringe Radio Network, Bruce Collins sits down with Michael Letts to discuss the growing challenges facing law enforcement agencies across America. The conversation explores how many police departments are operating under increasing financial pressure while simultaneously dealing with staffing shortages, public criticism, and rising expectations from the communities they serve. Michael Letts shares his perspective on the impact of underfunding, the effect of negative public narratives on officer morale, and the difficulties departments face in recruiting and retaining qualified personnel. The discussion examines the relationship between public safety, community trust, and the resources available to local law enforcement organizations. The episode also addresses broader societal questions surrounding crime prevention, policing strategies, officer support systems, and the future of public safety in the United States. Whether listeners agree or disagree with the viewpoints presented, the conversation offers insight into the challenges currently facing police agencies and the communities they protect.

Send us Fan MailWelcome back to Rational Black Thought, the podcast where we challenge the narratives, question the assumptions, and examine the evidence behind the stories shaping our lives.I am your host, Neo Griot.This is Episode 287 and our title is: "Revolutionary curse words. First come, first served. It ain't no lost love. Freedom cost blood."Those lyrics from dead prez caught my attention because they contain an uncomfortable truth that most societies would rather avoid. Freedom has a cost. Not simply the cost of winning it, but the cost of maintaining it.Every generation inherits institutions that somebody else built. Governments, courts, schools, churches, civic organizations. Because these institutions seem permanent, we rarely stop to think about how fragile they actually are. We assume they will continue functioning tomorrow because they functioned yesterday.History suggests otherwise.Institutions rarely fail all at once. More often they drift away from their stated purpose and become increasingly concerned with preserving themselves. Rules that were designed to protect people become tools for protecting power. Organizations that once solved problems become more focused on defending their legitimacy than confronting reality.What's interesting is that this process usually happens in plain sight. The warning signs are visible. The contradictions are visible. The incentives are visible. Yet people continue granting trust long after trust should have become conditional.That raises an important question.How should we decide who deserves our trust?Most people inherit their answer from the institutions around them. Trust the government because it is the government. Trust the court because it is the court. Trust the pastor because he is the pastor. Trust the expert because they are the expert.I've never found that particularly convincing.Authority may deserve respect, but authority is not evidence. A title does not make someone correct. A position does not make someone honest. A claim does not become true simply because it comes from an institution that people have learned not to question.To me, trust should be earned the same way every other claim is earned: through evidence, accountability, transparency, and results.That's the lens I want to use tonight.Not because skepticism is an end unto itself, but because skepticism is often the first step toward understanding what is actually happening beneath the surface.Let's get started.Intro: Quote of the Week: Kimberlé Crenshaw Unmasking the News: Democracy Watch: Trump's Iran Deal and the Politics of Selective Memory HBCUs and the Cost of Neglect When Faith Becomes a Weapon Good News: Building Black Economic Power Bible Study with an Atheist: The Prophet Test Reflections and Call to Action:Closing/Outro: Sources:https://www.reuters.com/world/middle-east/how-trumps-deal-with-iran-compares-obamas-2026-06-18/?https://www.highereddive.com/news/how-higher-ed-would-fare-in-trumps-latest-budget-proposal/816653/?https://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/superseding-indictment-returned-new-jersey-pastor-and-self-proclaimed-prophet-who-compelled?https://news.crunchbase.com/diversity/black-startup-founder-venture-funding-data-q1-2026/?Power Concedes Nothing without a Demand...

Why do organizations lose their spirit?It happens to startups. It happens to family businesses. It happens to Fortune 500 companies. It happens to institutions that once seemed unstoppable.In this solo episode, Jay Doran explores one of the most important questions in business, leadership, and culture: what causes an organization to lose the very thing that made it special in the first place? Drawing from organizational psychology, leadership theory, business history, family enterprise dynamics, and cultural philosophy, Jay examines the invisible forces that shape organizations over time. He explores how founders influence culture, why values must be codified before they disappear, and how the transition from founder-led organizations to future generations often determines whether a company thrives or declines. Topics explored in this episode include:Why every organization eventually faces a loss of spiritThe relationship between founders and organizational identityHow culture survives after leadership transitionsLessons from Sam Walton, Walmart, Warren Buffett, Charlie Munger, and Berkshire HathawayWhy values matter more than policiesThe role of stewardship versus leadershipThe tension between preserving a legacy and creating the futureHow organizations become bureaucratic, disconnected, or stagnantWhy culture is ultimately carried through people, not documentsThe importance of codifying beliefs before they disappearJay also explores the idea that culture is not something an organization possesses. Culture is something people create, maintain, transmit, and reinvent through their behaviors, relationships, stories, rituals, and decisions. When those feedback loops weaken, the spirit of the organization begins to fade. At the heart of this conversation is a powerful realization:Organizations themselves are not the spirit.People are.The spirit exists in the space between leaders and teams, employees and customers, institutions and society. The challenge is not preventing change. The challenge is carrying forward what matters most while continuing to evolve. If you've ever wondered why some organizations endure for generations while others lose their identity along the way, this episode offers a deeper framework for understanding the invisible forces that shape every culture. 

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Here’s a structured summary of the Leona Barr‑Davenport interview with Rushion McDonald from Money Making Conversations Masterclass, including its purpose, key takeaways, and notable quotes.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Here’s a structured summary of the Leona Barr‑Davenport interview with Rushion McDonald from Money Making Conversations Masterclass, including its purpose, key takeaways, and notable quotes.

In this spirited episode, the challenges and paradoxes of modern leadership are brought to the forefront, grounded in the world of philanthropy. My guest this week, Glen Galaich, author of the provocative book Control: Why Big Giving Falls Short and CEO of the Stupski Foundation, invites listeners to reconsider the myths surrounding control, generosity, and decision-making. He makes the compelling case about how organizational norms, incentives, and personal ego can unintentionally limit positive impact, even in the most purpose-driven organizations.During out discussion, we reflect on tough questions: What's the real difference between intentions and measurable outcomes? How do process, relationships, and results shape lasting change? Through first-hand stories and data, this episode reveals how well-meaning leaders too often mistake intention for impact and how letting go of control, building clear processes, and inviting feedback can dramatically enhance outcomes.For executives, nonprofit leaders, and anyone invested in meaningful change, this episode offers actionable advice: embrace self-awareness, question inherited processes, and trust the people closest to the work. It's a call to action for listeners to examine their own patterns and to move beyond good intentions to do good by leading well.What You'll Learn- The importance of letting go of control for greater impact.- Rethinking thoughtful giving.- Process, results, relationships: The leadership triad.- The temptation of control when doing good.- The power of systems, incentives, and leadership norms.- Lead with empathy across difference.- The critical role of self-awareness: Feedback as a gift.Podcast Timestamps(00:00) – Welcome to the Show and Guest Introduction(00:03:13) - The Motivation Behind "Control"(00:10:00) - Control, Psychological Safety, and Power in Leadership(00:14:29) - Process, Results, Relationships: The Leadership Triad(00:17:38) - Misconceptions and Accountability in Leadership(00:22:04) - The Temptation of Control When Doing Good(00:30:02) - Leading with Empathy Across Differences(00:34:14) - Systems, Incentives, and Leadership Norms(00:38:16) - The Critical Role of Self-Awareness(00:42:59) - Leading Through Uncertainty(00:47:33) - Key Mindset Shifts: Moving from Intention to ImpactKEYWORDSPositive Leadership, Philanthropy, Thoughtful Giving, Community Engagement, Control Mindset, Process in Organizations, Psychological Safety, Accountability, Feedback, Ego in Leadership, Power Dynamics, Self Awareness, Organizational Culture, Social Impact, Norms and Incentives, Empathy, Letting Go, Impact versus Intention, CEO Success

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Here’s a structured summary of the Leona Barr‑Davenport interview with Rushion McDonald from Money Making Conversations Masterclass, including its purpose, key takeaways, and notable quotes.

Understanding these key points is what actually moves the needle on AI gains. Today, we're talking to Kyle Lagunas, analyst and founder at Kyle & Co, and Allyn Bailey, senior director of communications at SmartRecruiters, about why AI momentum in HR is stalling and what's actually moving the needle. We discuss why the organizations leading on AI aren't doing anything flashy, how the most boring red-tape work turns out to be the biggest unlock, why HR's instinct for risk avoidance is exactly the wrong posture for this moment, and what a surprising finding about EU companies under heavy regulation reveals about the relationship between guardrails and speed. All of this right here, right now, on the Modern CTO Podcast!  To learn more about SmartRecruiters, check out their website here. To read Kyle and Co's full AI Momentum Model, check it out here.

Here's what kills growth quietly: not bad strategy or tired teams, but leaders who stop showing up with intention. When you're busy, when uncertainty rises, when the pressure mounts — that's exactly when trust starts to leak. And by the time you notice, it's already become your biggest liability. Trust isn't an intangible value or a soft skill. It's measurable, concrete operational infrastructure. And when leadership is stretched thin, self-care gets deprioritized, and uncertainty becomes the norm, the organizations still standing are the ones who never let trust get blurry in the first place. Jess Dewell talks with Kim Bohr, CEO at SparkEffect, on how high-trust organizations outpace uncertainty and build the resilience that allows businesses to scale. Kim has seen what happens when managers are left to navigate change alone, and what it takes to rebuild credibility with teams that have grown skeptical of leadership. In this episode, you'll discover: Why continuous re-evaluation of systems and priorities isn't a luxury — it's how leaders stay credible and effective How trust between team members and self-trust are deeply connected and directly impact organizational performance Why measuring trust matters — it moves trust beyond concept and into actionable improvement The real cost of ignoring your own limits and energy — and how self-care directly affects your credibility with your team What transparency and fairness look like during organizational change — and why employees notice the gap between stated values and actions. How tailored leadership and adapted communication prevent misunderstandings and strengthen team alignment Why manager enablement isn't a side project — it's the primary strategic infrastructure for scaling trust The organizations winning when uncertainty rises aren't the ones with the most sophisticated systems or the largest budgets. They're the ones with trust and discipline. They resisted the pressure to chase every new initiative. They invested in their frontline managers. They built credibility through intention, not volume. Distrust in organizations is growing, and the companies feeling it most are the ones that prioritize tactical execution at the expense of people's investment. Trust is the competitive advantage that holds. And in a landscape increasingly driven by change and complexity, choosing to slow down and develop your managers is itself a bold business decision. If your organization's growth has plateaued, your team is reacting to changes instead of leading with strategy, or you're wondering whether your current manager development investment is actually moving the needle, this conversation will reorient your thinking. —--------- If you're ready to build the kind of organization that doesn't just survive uncertainty but leads through it, check out the Present Retreat, your weekly practice that reclaims executive bandwidth, sharpens business instinct, and replaces reactive goal chasing with strategic compounding, all with measurable reduction in decision-cycle time. --------------------   You can get in touch with Jess Dewell on Twitter,  LinkedIn or Red Direction website.

The conversation around artificial intelligence often creates the impression that software development has already been transformed beyond recognition. Social media feeds are filled with stories about AI agents replacing teams, generating applications automatically, and eliminating the need for traditional development processes. The Enterprise AI Reality is much more nuanced. While AI has become a valuable tool inside software organizations, large enterprises are approaching adoption far differently than many public conversations suggest. The gap between experimentation and production remains significant, especially when millions of dollars, regulatory requirements, and customer trust are involved. About Samuel Otero Samuel Otero is a Software Solutions Specialist with Deloitte US and a technology consultant with nearly 14 years of experience spanning enterprise software development, government projects, commercial consulting, and large-scale digital transformation initiatives. His career began with an early Microsoft internship that shaped his approach to continuous learning and technical humility. Since then, he has worked across media, public-sector, and enterprise environments, helping organizations deliver complex software solutions while mentoring the next generation of developers. Based in Puerto Rico, Samuel is also an advocate for developer growth, career development, and practical AI adoption in modern software engineering. Links LinkedIn Enterprise AI Reality Is Different from Social Media One of the strongest observations Samuel shared was the contrast between what people see online and what happens inside large organizations. Social media often highlights extreme success stories. Teams appear to build entire products using AI agents. Individual developers showcase impressive workflows that dramatically accelerate delivery. Those examples are real. However, enterprise software operates under different constraints. Systems support financial transactions, critical business processes, compliance requirements, and large customer bases. Mistakes carry significant consequences. As a result, organizations are adopting AI incrementally rather than replacing existing development practices overnight. Enterprise AI Reality Requires Trust Before Automation Every technology faces a trust curve. Before organizations automate critical workflows, they need evidence that systems perform reliably under real-world conditions. Samuel described how enterprises often use AI first in lower-risk scenarios before allowing it to influence more critical components of a platform. Features with limited business risk become testing grounds for new approaches. This pattern mirrors previous technological shifts. Cloud adoption happened gradually. DevOps adoption happened gradually. AI adoption is following a similar trajectory. The technology may be powerful, but trust must be earned through consistent results. Enterprises don't adopt technology because it's impressive. They adopt it because it's reliable. Enterprise AI Reality Still Depends on Human Expertise One misconception surrounding AI is that generated code eliminates the need for technical understanding. In practice, the opposite may be true. The more organizations rely on AI-generated outputs, the more important validation becomes. Developers must understand architecture, business requirements, security concerns, and implementation details well enough to verify what AI produces. Samuel emphasized a simple but powerful habit: asking AI to explain exactly what it did and why it made certain decisions.   That approach transforms AI from an answer machine into a learning tool. Developers who understand generated solutions become more effective. Developers who blindly accept generated solutions create risk. Never merge AI-generated code until you can explain its behavior to another developer. Enterprise AI Reality Is Creating New Skill Gaps The rise of AI is changing how developers gain experience. Historically, growth came from solving difficult problems manually. Developers researched documentation, struggled through debugging sessions, and built mental models through repetition. AI reduces much of that friction. While this increases productivity, it also creates new challenges. Developers may complete tasks successfully without fully understanding how those tasks were accomplished. Over time, this can create a dangerous gap between perceived capability and actual expertise. Organizations must address this by emphasizing understanding rather than output alone. The future belongs to developers who combine AI acceleration with deep technical comprehension. Enterprise AI Reality May Increase Software Complexity An interesting prediction from the discussion involved software quality. As AI accelerates development, more software will be produced. More features will be released. More experiments will reach production environments. That acceleration creates opportunity. It also creates risk. Samuel suggested that many organizations are still learning where AI performs exceptionally well and where it struggles under enterprise-scale conditions. During that learning period, users may experience more bugs, patches, and corrective updates as teams discover limitations. This isn't evidence that AI has failed. It's evidence that every transformative technology goes through a maturation phase before reaching stability. Faster development cycles can produce bugs faster if organizations don't maintain engineering discipline. Enterprise AI Reality Still Comes Back to Problem Solving Perhaps the most important lesson from the entire conversation is that technology itself is rarely the source of professional value. Languages change. Frameworks change. Platforms change. AI models will change. The underlying business need remains consistent: solving problems. Samuel's closing advice focused on developing problem-solving skills rather than attaching identity to a specific technology stack. That mindset provides resilience regardless of how quickly tools evolve. Developers who can understand problems, communicate solutions, and create business value will remain relevant long after today's AI tools are replaced by tomorrow's innovations. The most durable technical skill isn't coding. It's problem-solving. Conclusion The Enterprise AI Reality is neither the dystopian future predicted by skeptics nor the fully automated paradise promised by enthusiasts. Instead, it's a period of careful experimentation, measured adoption, and ongoing learning. Organizations are discovering where AI delivers value, where human expertise remains essential, and how both can work together to build better software. The developers who succeed during this transition won't be the ones who resist AI or blindly trust it. They'll be the ones who learn how to use it responsibly while continuing to strengthen the problem-solving skills that define great engineers. Stay Connected: Join the Developreneur Community

This is a special episode reflecting on my experience at AccelerateOTT and Ottawa Conversations with Sonya Shorey (Invest Ottawa), Aydin Mirzaee (Fellow.ai), Ashley Faus (Atlassian), and Sarah Sedgman (LearnExperts) Innovation Week, a city-wide celebration of innovation featuring events across technology, healthcare, defence, the arts, entrepreneurship, and much more. At the center of the week is AccelerateOTT, Ottawa's flagship entrepreneurship conference. This year's theme, Built for the Age of AI, brought together founders, investors, and innovators for a full day of practical insights, honest conversations, and meaningful connections about building and growing in an AI-driven world. Both AccelerateOTT and Ottawa Innovation Week are led by Invest Ottawa, which is the lead economic development agency for Canada's capital. In this episode, I sit down with Sonya Shorey, President and CEO of Invest Ottawa, to discuss some of the highlights from the week and what they mean for founders, businesses, and the future of innovation in Ottawa. As I reflected on the conversations, three themes stood out. First, AI is no longer an experiment, it's a transformation. Organizations are rethinking products, workflows, and entire business models. Second, while technology is advancing rapidly, success remains deeply human. Relationships, trust, community, and collaboration were recurring themes throughout the week. And third, innovation happens at the intersections, when different industries, disciplines, and perspectives come together to create something new. In addition to my conversation with Sonya, you'll hear three short interviews recorded on the conference floor immediately after the speakers' sessions, so please forgive the lively background noise. You'll hear from Aydin Mirzaee, CEO and co-founder of Fellow, on transforming a company for the AI era and why waiting for certainty often means moving too late. You'll also hear from Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing at Atlassian and author of Human-Centered Marketing, on building trust, finding your voice, and creating lasting relationships in the age of AI. And finally, Sarah Sedgman, CEO of LearnExperts, shares why staying closely connected to your customers is one of the best ways to uncover new opportunities for growth and innovation. Together, these conversations highlight a community embracing technological change while staying grounded in what matters most: people, relationships, and continuous learning. Interviews: (05:15) Sonya Shorey, President and CEO of Invest Ottawa (27:45) Aydin Mirzaee, CEO and co-founder of Fellow (39:15) Ashley Faus, Head of Lifecycle Marketing at Atlassian and author of Human-Centered Marketing: How to Connect with Audiences in the Age of AI (45:45) Sarah Sedgman, CEO of LearnExperts

Today, we are dropping another episode in our series The AI Control Loop, How enterprises govern the AI they've already deployed - sponsored by our friends at Wallarm.Wallarm is the AI Control Platform for Enterprise AI, protecting every AI workload, API, and application in production, giving CISOs the governance they need and CIOs the speed they demand. Organizations choose Wallarm for a complete inventory of APIs, AI agents, and AI apps, patented AI/ML-based threat detection and blocking that operates at production traffic speeds.We all know that you can't secure what you can't see, which is why AI discovery is a first principle for AI security, but what's really required for AI discovery? It's more than just LLMs and agents. Today's episode is entitled AI Discovery isn't just AI, and joining us is Tim Ebbers, Field CTO at Wallarm. Tim and I discuss the real requirements for AI discovery, and why the connections between assets and infrastructure are part of the puzzle.QuestionsSecurity teams often say, “You can't secure what you can't see.” In the context of AI, what exactly do they need to see? What supporting infrastructure matters most when mapping AI risk, such as APIs, cloud services, Kubernetes workloads, data stores, identities, and external integrations?Where does shadow AI typically appear first inside an enterprise environment? How can it be prevented?How do relationships between assets change the risk picture? For example, why does it matter which API an agent can call or which data source a workflow can reach?What makes AI discovery harder than traditional application or cloud asset discovery? What are the similarities and differences?How should organizations prioritize what they find? Is every AI asset equally risky?What does “continuous discovery” mean in a world where AI services can be deployed, connected, or changed in minutes?Once an organization has visibility into its AI footprint, what's next? What are the biggest gaps in today's AI security programs?Linkshttps://www.wallarm.com/https://www.linkedin.com/in/tebbers/Full AbstractMost security teams know that you can't secure what you can't see. In the context of AI, that rule turns out to be a lot harder to satisfy than it sounds.AI discovery isn't just a matter of cataloging your LLMs and agents. The real picture includes the APIs those agents call, the data sources they reach, the infrastructure they run on, and all the AI that got deployed without anyone telling security. Building that picture requires understanding relationships, not just inventories, because risk doesn't live in assets in isolation. It lives in what those assets can do together.In this episode, Tim Ebbers, Field CTO at Wallarm, examines what a complete AI control loop actually requires at the discovery stage: what needs to be visible, why the connections between assets change the risk calculation, where shadow AI tends to appear first and how it becomes unmanaged risk, and what makes AI discovery structurally different from traditional cloud or application discovery. It also looks at what organizations should do once discovery is in place, and where the biggest gaps remain in AI security programs today.If your team is building toward continuous AI governance, this is where that work starts.Our Sponsors:* Check out Cash App and use my code CASHAPP10 for a great deal: https://click.cash.app/ui6m/mt82fpxl #CashAppPod. Cash App is a financial services platform, not a bank. Banking services provided by Cash App's bank partner(s). Prepaid debit cards issued by Sutton Bank, Member FDIC. See terms and conditions at https://cash.app/legal/us/en-us/card-agreement. Cash App Green, overdraft coverage, borrow, cash back offers and promotions provided by Cash App, a Block, Inc. brand. Visit http://cash.app/legal/podcast for full disclosures.* Check out Plaud AI and use my code CODESTORY for a great deal: https://plaud.aiAdvertising Inquiries: https://redcircle.com/brandsPrivacy & Opt-Out: https://redcircle.com/privacy

Dr. Drew Brannon welcomes the newest AMPLOS team member, Dr. Alissa Zawacki, for a conversation about industrial-organizational psychology and what it takes to help people and organizations thrive. Together, they explore common workplace challenges, including hiring, performance management, employee feedback, and organizational culture. Alissa shares why clarity, structure, and thoughtful systems matter when developing people, while highlighting practical ways leaders can create healthier, more effective workplaces where both employees and organizations can grow.

On this episode of the STL Bucket List Show, we sit down with filmmaker, storyteller, and My Friends and I founder Cami Cruz Thomas to discuss the making of Red Brick, Blue Tarp, a powerful new documentary examining the aftermath of the May 16 tornado and the ongoing recovery efforts across North St. Louis.Cami shares her journey from growing up in St. Louis and working for companies like Tesla and Red Bull to becoming one of the city's most influential documentary filmmakers. She reflects on how the Ferguson uprising shaped her approach to storytelling, the creation of her acclaimed Smoke City series, and why documenting community experiences has become the driving force behind her work.The conversation explores the making of Red Brick, Blue Tarp, the importance of preserving stories before they're lost to history, and how artists, organizers, and everyday residents have stepped up to support neighborhoods impacted by the tornado. Cami also discusses the role of community-led recovery, the future of North St. Louis, and why she believes St. Louis continues to shape some of the country's most impactful creatives.From filmmaking and activism to community healing and civic responsibility, this episode is a powerful conversation about storytelling, resilience, and the future of St. Louis.They discuss:• Cami's path from St. Louis to Tesla, Red Bull, and documentary filmmaking• How the Ferguson uprising inspired her storytelling career• The creation and impact of the Smoke City documentary series• Building My Friends and I into a purpose-driven production company• The making of Red Brick, Blue Tarp and documenting tornado recovery efforts• Why preserving local stories and community history matters• The challenges facing North St. Louis one year after the tornado• Organizations leading recovery and mutual aid efforts across the city• The role artists can play in crisis response and community building• Why St. Louis continues to attract and shape creative talent• Community screenings and the future of Red Brick, Blue Tarp• The vision for a stronger, more connected St. Louis

Who belongs in America's story? As battles over immigration, public institutions, national celebrations, and freedom of expression intensify, a deeper struggle is emerging beneath the headlines: who gets represented, remembered, welcomed, and heard. In this Arts Freedom Weather Report, Bill Cleveland connects seemingly unrelated events—from the turmoil at the Kennedy Center and preparations for America250, to the FIFA World Cup, Pride festivals, immigrant-rights cultural organizing, and the rise of creative resistance networks. What emerges is a revealing pattern: artists and cultural organizers are increasingly finding themselves at the center of a national debate over identity, belonging, and democratic life. Listen to discover:Why “belonging” may be the most important cultural and political battleground in America today—and how artists are helping communities expand, rather than narrow, the definition of who belongs.How creative action is evolving from expression to civic practice—with artists using festivals, public art, storytelling, music, and cultural organizing not simply to protest, but to build community, visibility, and democratic participation.What today's conflicts over museums, national commemorations, immigration, Pride celebrations, and public institutions reveal about the larger struggle over America's future story—and who gets to help write it. Join us for a timely exploration of how artists, cultural organizations, and everyday citizens are using imagination not only to resist authoritarian pressures, but to create more welcoming, inclusive, and democratic communities. Notable MentionsPeopleJosef Palermo: The Kennedy Center's first visual arts curator offers a detailed firsthand account of the institutional turmoil, political pressure, and operational disruption that followed changes in the Center's leadership.Angel Faz: Dallas-based artist and community organizer whose imagery has become one of the most visible artistic expressions associated with the No ICE in the Cup campaign.Brandi Carlile: Grammy-winning singer-songwriter whose Be Human concert in Minneapolis raised funds for immigrant families while demonstrating how music can function as civic infrastructure and community-building.Organizations & InitiativesNo ICE in the Cup: A growing network of artists, cultural organizations, immigrant-rights advocates, and community groups working across World Cup host cities to create welcoming, creative responses to immigration enforcement and public fear.Free DC: An advocacy organization focused on protecting Washington D.C. home rule while building both political and cultural power through civic engagement and storytelling.Beautiful Trouble: An international training network that teaches creative activism, strategic communications, and imaginative approaches to social change.Center for Artistic Activism: An organization that helps artists and activists design creative interventions capable of producing measurable social and political impact.Minnesota Prison Writing Workshop: A nationally respected literary organization that supports incarcerated writers through workshops, mentorship, publishing opportunities, and public engagement.Cultural Institutions & PlacesJohn F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts: America's national cultural center and a focal point in current debates over artistic independence, governance, and public trust.International Festival of Arts & Ideas: New Haven's internationally recognized multidisciplinary arts festival. The 2026 season centers on questions of home, belonging, and community connection.EventsAmerica250: The official national commemoration of the United States' 250th anniversary, prompting communities nationwide to explore whose stories are included in the American narrative.FIFA World Cup 2026: The largest international sporting event in the world and a catalyst for cultural programming, public art, and debates over immigration, belonging, and freedom of expression.No Kings: A nationwide series of public demonstrations supported by Indivisible and partner organizations, combining civic action, public gathering, music, and cultural expression.PublicationsWhat I Saw Inside the Kennedy Center: Josef Palermo's detailed account of working inside the Kennedy Center during a period of political upheaval.The Unseen Truth: When Race Changed Sight in America — Sarah Lewis: URL not yet verified. Included because of its importance to the discussion of visibility, history, and democratic storytelling.*******Art Is CHANGE is a podcast that chronicles the power of art and community transformation, providing a platform for activist artists to share their experiences and gain the skills and strategies they need to thrive as agents of social change.Through compelling conversations with artist activists, artivists, and cultural organizers, the podcast explores how art and activism intersect to fuel cultural transformation and drive meaningful change. Guests discuss the challenges and triumphs of community arts, socially engaged art, and creative placemaking, offering insights into artist mentorship, building credibility, and communicating impact.Episodes delve into the realities of artist isolation, burnout, and funding for artists, while celebrating the role of artists in residence and creative leadership in shaping a more just and inclusive world. Whether you're an emerging or established artist for social justice, this podcast offers inspiration, practical advice, and a sense of solidarity in the journey toward art and social change.

This week on The Audit Podcast, Angelo Poulikakos, Global Leader of Internal Audit and Financial Advisory Capabilities at Protiviti, joins the show for a wide-ranging conversation on AI, innovation, and what it means to stay relevant in a rapidly changing profession.   Drawing from his experience helping organizations navigate AI adoption, Angelo shares how his own use of AI has evolved, why context matters more than prompts, and how audit leaders can move beyond simply becoming faster and cheaper to delivering deeper insights and greater value. He also discusses Protiviti's internal strategy for embracing AI, building future-ready talent, and transforming how audit work gets done.   The conversation explores the balance between human creativity and AI, the importance of critical thinking in an AI-driven world, and why staying hungry to learn, experiment, and innovate is essential for the future of internal audit.   2:05 - Creativity, Critical Thinking & Technology 8:13 - From Prompt Engineering to Context Engineering 16:58 = What's Next for AI 19:06 - The EAT Framework for Internal Audit Transformation 29:25 - Final thoughts   Be sure to connect with Angelo on LinkedIn.     Also, be sure to follow us on our social media accounts on LinkedIn, Instagram, and TikTok.   Also be sure to sign up for The Audit Podcast newsletter and to check the full video interview on The Audit Podcast YouTube channel.   This podcast is brought to you by Greenskies Analytics, the services firm that helps auditors leap-frog up the analytics maturity model. Their approach for launching audit analytics programs with a series of proven quick-win analytics will guarantee the results worthy of the analytics hype.    Whether your audit team needs a data strategy, methodology, governance, literacy, or anything else related to audit and analytics, schedule.

Every leader has them... the language habits that undercut authority before anyone pushes back. This episode Jill Griffin names them, breaks them down, and gives you a way to unlearn yours. The five communication patterns quietly signaling uncertainty, and how to spot them in real timeWhat leaders and colleagues can do when they see it happening in the roomWhy this is a learned pattern, and exactly how to start unlearning itSupport the showJill Griffin, is a leadership strategist, executive coach, and host of The Career Refresh. She works with senior leaders to navigate complexity, strengthen teams, and lead with greater clarity and intention.With 20+ years of experience at companies like Coca-Cola, Microsoft, Hilton, and Martha Stewart, Jill brings a practical, real-world lens to leadership, decision-making, and career strategy. Visit GriffinMethod.com to learn more about working together:The Next Era Leader An 8-week cohort for women leaders ready to expand their capacity and lead through complexity with clarity and intentionExecutive Coaching & Leadership Advisory 1:1 strategic partnership for leaders navigating growth, transition, and what's nextConnect with Jill for Leadership Development for Organizations and Speaking & WorkshopsInstagram: @JillGriffinOffical

In this episode of The Fearless Mindset Podcast, Host Mark Ledlow interviews Eddie Sorrells, newly named president of ASIS and CEO of a security company,Eddie shares insights on how the security industry has evolved since COVID, highlighting the growing role of technology as a force multiplier and the increasing importance of cyber resilience in today's risk environment.The discussion explores the convergence of physical and cyber security, the emerging threats posed by artificial intelligence, phishing attacks, and digital deception. Eddie also draws on his experience as an attorney to explain legal liability in the security industry, emphasizing the critical importance of training, insurance, documentation, and risk management.Mark and Eddie discuss how boutique security firms can compete against larger organizations by focusing on responsiveness, customer service, and operational excellence. They also preview the upcoming Global Security Exchange (GSX) conference in Atlanta and discuss the value of networking, professional development, and servant leadership within the security community.Learn about all this and more in this episode of The Fearless Mindset Podcast.KEY TAKEAWAYSCyber resilience is the new security mindset — Organizations must prepare not only to prevent cyber incidents but also to recover quickly when they occur.Technology is a force multiplier, not a replacement for people — COVID accelerated adoption of security technologies that enhance operational effectiveness.AI is transforming the threat landscape — Voice cloning, deepfakes, and sophisticated phishing attacks make traditional warning signs harder to detect.Training is your best legal defense — Proper training, documentation, and compliance can significantly reduce organizational liability.Security companies must understand risk beyond physical protection — Legal exposure, insurance requirements, and contractor oversight are critical business considerations.Responsiveness wins business — Clients value organizations that answer calls, solve problems quickly, and make them feel supported.Service outperforms marketing — A strong reputation built on consistent execution generates more referrals than any advertising campaign.Small firms can outperform larger competitors — Boutique organizations often have greater agility, stronger relationships, and faster decision-making.Professional relationships create long-term opportunities — Networking and maintaining authentic connections continue to drive industry growth.Servant leadership creates lasting impact — Great leaders focus on leaving organizations better than they found them.QUOTES "They don't use the phrase cyber security. They only talk about cyber resilience because it's going to happen." "What's suspicious anymore?" "The classic attorney answer is, 'It depends.'" "Make sure you train your staff, you're investing in that, and they're aware of those threats and how to handle themselves.""At the end of the day, a good service and a good product is going to shine through.""It's not about being perfect, it's about being responsive.""People are hungry for that level of service.""We just want to feel special when we call you.""The fastest way you're going to grow is through your team's professionalism and reputation in the field.""I want to make sure that I leave this position better than I found it."Get to know more about Eddie Sorrells through the link/s below.https://www.linkedin.com/in/eddie-sorrells-cpp-psp-pci-b376155/To hear more episodes of The Fearless Mindset podcast, you can go to https://the-fearless-mindset.simplecast.com/ or listen on major podcasting platforms such as Apple, Google Podcasts, Spotify, etc. You can also subscribe to the Fearless Mindset YouTube Channel to watch episodes on video.

Rishad Tobaccowala has spent much of his career breaking out of boxes. First it was the spreadsheet and the idea that organizations can be managed through numbers alone. Then it was the office and the assumptions built into how we supervise and coordinate work. More recently, he has turned his attention to the broader structures that shape how we work and learn. In this episode, Dart and Rishad discuss the limits of measurement, management as a zone of control versus a zone of influence, and why the future may not fit inside the containers we inherited from the past.In this episode, Dart and Rishad discuss:- The containers that shape our thinking- Why spreadsheets can blind us- When measurement becomes the mission- Talent without opportunity- The office as a management tool- Control versus influence- Why companies become zoos- What CEOs say about AI- Why people resist transformation- Choosing with our hearts, not our heads- And other topics…Rishad Tobaccowala is an author, advisor, speaker, and teacher focused on helping people and organizations thrive in times of change. He is the author of Rethinking Work and Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data. Rishad spent nearly four decades at Publicis Groupe, where he served as Global Chief Strategist and Chief Growth Officer. Today he advises leaders around the world on leadership, innovation, technology, and the future of work. He also writes The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past, a newsletter on change and reinvention.Resources Mentioned:Rishad's Book, Rethinking Work: https://www.amazon.com/Rethinking-Work-Seismic-Changes-Where/dp/1400249309 Rishad's Book, Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data: https://www.amazon.com/Restoring-Soul-Business-Staying-Human/dp/1400210542 Rishad's Newsletter, The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past: https://rishad.substack.com/Connect with Rishad:Official website: https://rishadtobaccowala.com/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishadtobaccowala/Twitter/X: https://x.com/rishadWork with Dart:Dart is the CEO and co-founder of the work design firm 11fold. Build work that makes employees feel alive, connected to their work, and focused on what's most important to the business. Book a call at 11fold.com.

Dr. Brick Lantz of the Christian Medical and Dental Association addresses the recent decision by the Cleveland Clinic ending youth transgender procudures, as well Health and Human Services' move to protect the lives of frozen human embryos.  He also talks about a new sunscreen just approved by the FDA.  Vibrant Faith's Rick Lawrence continues talking about Jesus's kindness with us, even when we are dissappointed with Him and what He allows in our lives.   The Reconnect with Carmen and all Faith Radio are made possible by your support. Give now: Click here

In the latest episode of The Science of Personality, Ryne and Blake are joined by Hogan Assessments founder and president, Robert Hogan, PhD, to talk about his new book, Personality and the Secret Life of Organizations. If you've listened to even one episode of this podcast, it is highly likely you have been impacted by this man because that's the magnitude of his legacy on personality psychology. So, we were thrilled to have him on this episode to talk about the book and learn more about what he means by “the secret life of organizations.”Buy the book: Personality and the Secret Life of Organizations

Today, on Crime & Entertainment we have returning guest Pierre Rausini. Pierre once being a high-level trafficker himself sheds light on Criminal Organizations really rule the underworld.Pete's IG  / pierrerausi.  .Bodies in Low Places.https://a.co/d/j4jU8PjLinks to Crime & EntertainmentLike us on Facebook -    / crimeandentertainment  Follow us on IG -   / crimenentertainment  Listen on Spotify - https://open.spotify.com/show/4T67Bs5...Listen on Apple Music - https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast...Listen on Stitcher - https://www.stitcher.com/show/crime-e...Listen on Google Podcast - https://podcasts.google.com/feed/aHR0...Listen on Amazon Music - https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/9cd...

Most organizations do not fail at strategy because the strategy is wrong. They fail because the organization never learns to behave as if the strategy is real. That is the central argument Dr. Kyle Harkema makes in his book Strategic Clarity. He is the creator of the Strategic Orientation Index (SOI™), a diagnostic tool that functions like an organizational MRI, revealing the hidden misalignment between what an organization says it will do and how it actually behaves day to day. In this conversation with Michael D. Levitt of Breakfast Leadership Network, Dr. Harkema explains why strategic drift is rarely dramatic, what the SOI™ measures, and how the three-part framework of think, listen, and act exposes exactly where execution breaks down inside even well-run organizations. Key Topics Covered Why strategy fails quietly. Strategic failure begins with small, easy-to-dismiss signals: the same decision recycled through multiple meetings, departments generating friction, customers noting a decline in responsiveness, or competitors gaining ground one step at a time. Individually, none of those signals is a crisis. Collectively, they signal drift, and organizations that catch the pattern early are the ones that survive disruption. The Monday Morning Test. If employee behaviors have not changed by Monday morning following a Friday strategy rollout, you have produced a plan, not an executable strategy. Strategy must live in decisions and priorities, not slide decks and town hall speeches. The Strategic Orientation Index (SOI™). The SOI™ evaluates three dimensions: how an organization thinks, listens, and acts. Most organizations are strong in one or two areas and significantly weaker in the third. Dr. Harkema shares a case study of an innovation-focused company with excellent thinking and acting but almost no process for collecting customer insight before making product decisions. The diagnosis was not an innovation problem. It was a listening problem. The Ford Taurus lesson. When Ford abandoned the Taurus, then the number one selling car in the world, for the retro Ford 500 name, the sales collapse was predictable and preventable. The organization thought carefully and acted decisively. It did not listen. The Taurus name was eventually restored, but the market position never recovered. Listening is not a soft skill. It is a strategic competency. Notable Quotes: "If your employees' behaviors don't change on Monday morning for a strategy that you rolled out on Friday, you have a plan, not an executable strategy." - Dr. Kyle Harkema "Strategy lives in behavior. It has to." - Dr. Kyle Harkema "When organizations aren't living and breathing the strategic plan, it limits the impact they cause." - Michael D. Levitt, Breakfast Leadership Network https://kylejharkema.com https://kmccontrols.com    

The traditional workplace model, designed in the twentieth century, no longer serves the realities of contemporary life. W. Brad Johnson and David Smith, two former Navy officers turned leading researchers on workplace gender equity, have spent decades studying what actually makes organizations thrive. Their journey from military service to academia reveals that the most pressing business challenge of our time is not technological innovation or market disruption, but rather the fundamental misalignment between how we structure work and how people actually live their lives. Brad and David's research has evolved significantly over their careers. They began by studying mentoring relationships and how men could become better mentors for women, then shifted to examining public allyship and holding men accountable for gender fairness. However, their most transformative insight came when they realized that without changing the fundamental structures of work itself, individual efforts could only go so far. They discovered that most people today live in dual-earner, dual-career families, yet workplaces continue operating as though employees have no caregiving responsibilities. They emphasize that this is not merely a women's issue or a diversity initiative, but rather a fundamental question of organizational design and leadership courage. Organizations must create psychological safety where employees can be honest about their caregiving responsibilities and their needs. They must embrace role modeling from senior leaders who openly discuss their own caregiving challenges and demonstrate that it is possible to be both a committed caregiver and a high-performing professional. To learn more about gender-fair workplace practices and discover how leading organizations are transforming their cultures, visit WorkplaceAllies.com. Get a copy of their latest book, Fair Share, at your favorite bookstore or online retailer to explore their comprehensive roadmap for building workplaces where everyone can bring their whole selves to work. For the accessible version of the podcast, go to our Ziotag gallery.We're happy you're here! Like the pod?Support the podcast and receive discounts from our sponsors: https://yourbrandamplified.codeadx.me/Leave a rating and review on your favorite platformFollow @yourbrandamplified on the socialsTalk to my digital avatar Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Showcase week breakdowns, Nintendo legal updates, rising hardware costs, current playthroughs, and a retro review of Monster Rancher Battle Card. Chapters: 00:00 Intro 09:19 Magic: The Gathering Insights 16:01 Brave Fencer Musashi Thoughts 23:10 Current Gaming Adventures: Killzone Shadowfall 23:40 Exciting Game Pickups 25:27 Digital Gaming Trends and Preferences 31:21 Exploring Mina the Hollower: Gameplay and Mechanics 36:28 Diving into Pathfinder: A D&D Experience 38:01 Nintendo vs. Pow World: Legal Battles in Gaming 42:24 Is Gaming a Luxury Hobby? 51:37 Highlights from Summer Games Fest 2026 58:47 Gaming Showcase Highlights 01:01:13 Nintendo Direct Overview 01:06:34 Ocarina of Time Remake Discussion 01:11:33 Monster Rancher Battle Card Review 01:24:54 Outro Video  John and Ryan are back with a full week of gaming updates, starting with their recent pickups and what they're currently playing. Ryan shares his time with Mina the Hollower, while John dives into Killzone Shadow Fall as part of his ongoing backlog adventures. The conversation moves into Nintendo's ongoing legal situation, as new analysis suggests the company may only receive a $30,000 payout in its Pokémon‑related case involving Palworld developer Pocketpair. From there, the guys tackle a broader industry question: whether rising hardware prices are pushing gaming closer to becoming a luxury hobby. The episode then shifts into showcase season, with full rundowns of Summer Game Fest 2026, the Xbox Games Showcase 2026, and the June 2026 Nintendo Direct. John and Ryan highlight the major reveals, announcements, and trailers across all three events, comparing how each platform approached its big summer moment. To wrap things up, the Inflation Deflation Game of the Week takes a retro turn with a look at Monster Rancher Battle Card on the Game Boy Color, as the duo revisits the spin‑off's mechanics, presentation, and current market value.   Find us on TheGameDeflators.com   Twitter - www.twitter.com/GameDeflators Facebook - www.facebook.com/TheGameDeflators Instagram - www.instagram.com/thegamedeflators   The views and opinions expressed on this channel are solely those of the author. The content within these recordings are property of their respective Designers, Writers, Creators, Owners, Organizations, Companies and Producers. Copyright Disclaimer Under Section 107 of the Copyright Act 1976, allowance is made for "fair use" for purposes such as criticism, comment, news reporting, teaching, scholarship, and research. Fair use is a use permitted. Permission for intro and outro music provided by Matthew Huffaker http://www.youtube.com/user/teknoaxe 2_25_18

Anthony Calleo is an employee experience strategist, leadership advisor, and the founder of Calleo EX. His work centers on a simple but often overlooked idea: many organizational problems are not caused by strategy or talent, but by hidden friction in how people lead, collaborate, and make decisions.With more than two decades of experience across global organizations, startups, and advisory roles, Anthony helps founders, leaders, and teams rethink how work actually happens inside their companies. His approach blends organizational design with deeper exploration of the beliefs and patterns that shape leadership behavior.Anthony is also a certified Reset-It specialist, a methodology focused on helping individuals recognize and release inherited beliefs that influence how they lead and build organizations. In addition to his consulting work, he serves on the Board of Directors for the World Ethics Organization, where he contributes to conversations about ethics, leadership, and the future of responsible organizations.Through his work with both individuals and organizations, Anthony helps leaders move beyond traditional management playbooks and create cultures where clarity, accountability, and human potential can thrive.Contact Anthony Calleo:The best place for people to follow my work right now is on LinkedIn. That's where I regularly share my thoughts and observations on leadership, workplace culture, and employee experience.A lot of what I post comes from real conversations with leaders and organizations, as well as my own reflections on how work is evolving and how people can create healthier, more effective environments for themselves and the teams they lead.If these topics resonate, I'd welcome people to connect with me there and join the conversation.https://www.linkedin.com/in/anthonybcalleo/https://www.calleoex.comhttps://x.com/AnthonyABCNYDr. Kimberley LinertSpeaker, Author, Broadcaster, Mentor, Trainer, Behavioral OptometristEvent Planners- I am available to speak at your event. Here is my media kit: https://brucemerrinscelebrityspeakers.com/portfolio/dr-kimberley-linert/To book Dr. Linert on your podcast, television show, conference, corporate training or as an expert guest please email her at incrediblelifepodcast@gmail.com or Contact Bruce Merrin at Bruce Merrin's Celebrity Speakers at merrinpr@gmail.com702.256.9199Host of the Podcast Series: Incredible Life Creator PodcastAvailable on...Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/incredible-life-creator-with-dr-kimberley-linert/id1472641267Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6DZE3EoHfhgcmSkxY1CvKf?si=ebe71549e7474663 and on 9 other podcast platformsAuthor of Book: "Visualizing Happiness in Every Area of Your Life"Get on Amazon: https://amzn.to/4cmTOMwWebsite: https://linktr.ee/DrKimberleyLinertThe Great Discovery eLearning platform: https://thegreatdiscovery.com/kimberleyl

Current economic growth is being driven by a highly concentrated group of AI-focused companies, yet a significant governance gap threatens the sustainability of this expansion. Organizations are deploying autonomous AI agents at a pace that far exceeds their internal oversight and decision-making frameworks, leading to a high projected failure rate for these initiatives. This friction is most visible in middle management, where leaders are currently overwhelmed by extreme workloads and excessive responsibilities. To address these vulnerabilities, firms must stop treating technical and organizational issues as separate problems. Instead, they should pursue an integrated redesign that simultaneously clarifies AI ownership and reduces the operational burden on their human workforce. Over the next few months, success will depend on aligning agentic capabilities with a robust, sustainable management structure. Schedule your AI readiness assessment today! https://www.breakfastleadership.com/executivediagnostic  

What happens when a company focused on drug discovery and life sciences encounters a data problem that nobody else seems able to solve? Recorded at the IT Press Tour in Boston, this episode explores the fascinating story behind Paradigm4 and how a challenge in large-scale biomedical research ultimately led to the creation of flexFS, a cloud-native filesystem designed to tackle some of today's biggest data infrastructure challenges. Joining me on the podcast is David Freund from Paradigm4, who shares how the company was originally founded to help scientists work with enormous datasets in fields such as genomics, bioinformatics, and precision medicine. As researchers began working with population-scale datasets such as the UK Biobank, the team discovered that existing storage technologies either couldn't deliver the performance they needed, lacked the functionality required, or became prohibitively expensive at scale. Our conversation explores the moment Paradigm4 realized it would need to build its own solution, why traditional approaches to cloud storage often struggle under modern analytics workloads, and how flexFS emerged from a real-world customer problem rather than a technology trend. David also explains why object storage has become such an attractive foundation for modern infrastructure, while discussing the challenges of latency, performance, and cost that still need to be addressed. We also discuss why many organizations investing heavily in AI infrastructure may be overlooking one of the biggest constraints on performance. While much of the industry conversation focuses on GPUs and compute power, David argues that data access, movement, and management are becoming equally important considerations as AI workloads continue to grow. Along the way, we touch on cloud independence, resilience, large-scale analytics, and why flexibility across cloud providers is becoming an increasingly important requirement for enterprise technology leaders. Whether you're working in AI, life sciences, cloud infrastructure, or enterprise data management, this episode offers an interesting perspective on how customer problems can sometimes lead to entirely new categories of technology. Could the next major AI bottleneck be data rather than compute? And are organizations paying enough attention to the infrastructure feeding their most important workloads? I'd love to hear your thoughts.

ActBlue faces tough questions on Capitol Hill, the SPLC gets grilled over its tactics, Ron Klain sparks backlash with his defense of Graham Platner, and World Cup visitors discover what makes America unique. Plus, Senator Eric Schmitt joins the fellas after his viral Congressional Baseball Game highlight. #RuthlessPodcast #Politics #ActBlue #WorldCup #EricSchmitt00:02:50 ActBlue CEO Pleads the Fifth in Explosive House Hearing 00:12:25 House Republicans Turn Up Pressure on ActBlue Investigation 00:13:50 Southern Poverty Law Center Grilled Over Racism Allegations 00:22:45 Jim Jordan Confronts SPLC Over Encouraging Attendance at Hate Rallies 00:29:47 Ron Klain's Defense of Graham Platner Sparks Outrage 00:38:25 Europeans Discover America and Can't Believe What They Find 00:43:17 NYC Democrat Candidate Picks Team CDC Over Team USA 00:49:02 What Would Actually Get a Democrat Candidate Dropped? 00:51:54 Senator Eric Schmitt on His Viral Congressional Baseball Catch 01:00:20 Eric Schmitt's Plan to Fix College Sports and NIL Chaos 01:11:08 #RuthlessPodcast #Politics #ActBlue #WorldCup #EricSchmitt Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

BONUS: Why Your Organization Is Still a Factory — And What an Octopus Can Teach You About Transformation Phil Le-Brun and Dr. Jana Werner both work inside Amazon, advising Fortune 500 leaders on transformation. But before Amazon, they spent decades in the trenches — Phil as International CIO of McDonald's, Jana leading change in banking and logistics. Together they wrote The Octopus Organization (HBR Press) to explain why most companies are still running on a hundred-year-old factory model, and what the alternative looks like. "We Want to Help You Make Your Own New Interesting Mistakes" "We keep saying, as Phil likes to say, can we help you make your own new interesting mistakes and avoid the mistakes that we see again and again."   Jana and Phil are both practitioners who have led large-scale changes — and made mistakes they're now happy to share. Jana describes working with incredible, smart, thoughtful people inside large organizations who weren't trusted, weren't allowed to do the work they could do, and couldn't be their best selves. She managed to turn teams considered underperforming into rock stars simply by listening and giving them space. Phil saw the same pattern at McDonald's — incredible people who knew the answers but weren't allowed to act on them. A disastrous standardization push from 2002 to 2004 taught him that top-down efficiency mandates don't work. The CEO left, and Phil got the opportunity to tap into people lower in the organization, define a common mission, and start building from there. The Factory Model Nobody Questions "There was no upside for her people taking ownership because you could have career-limiting effects if you made a mistake, if you were seen to be making a mistake or overstepping."   Jana shared two sides of the same problem. A CEO of a large investment company told her he has to sign off on every small decision — and his people assume he wants to. Neither side wants this, but nobody questions the processes in place. On the other side, a COO told Jana "my people don't want ownership." After half an hour of coaching, the COO realized there was no upside for her people to take ownership — mistakes meant career-limiting consequences. Jana is honest about her own experience too: a team member told her she was micromanaging, and she denied it. They created a secret signal — scratching an ear in meetings whenever she micromanaged. He was scratching a lot. Phil adds that what he calls "yoga babble" — abstractions like "we're going to become an agile platform-based culture" — lets leaders avoid saying what they actually mean. Nobody challenges it because the boss said it, and it sounds sort of right. The result: completely meaningless direction. The Octopus — Distributed Intelligence in Practice "It has two thirds of its intelligence, its neurons, in its arms. The arms connect independently — they don't always need a central brain, but they also have one, so they can stay aligned but also work independently."   The octopus has distributed neural clusters in each arm. It can adapt, shape-shift, change the texture of its skin, and even alter its RNA to switch between cold and hot water within hours. For Jana and Phil, this is the organizational metaphor: teams that can think locally and act without waiting for permission from the center, while staying aligned on mission. Phil translates this for team leaders of 8-10 people inside traditional enterprises:   Put together teams with cognitive diversity and encourage constructive conflict — what Linda Hill at Harvard Business School calls "creative abrasion" Invest in the storming, norming, performing cycle instead of cutting through it Leave the "how" to the team — the leader's job is the "why" and the "what" Don't jump to the answer — Einstein said if you have an hour to solve a problem, spend 55 minutes understanding the problem Start executing quickly through rapid experimentation; you can't plan your way to success in novel situations Don't Build the Pedestal — The Monkey Comes First "Get to the most tricky problems first, and try and solve them. If you can't, figure out fast — and if you can't, just stop, because your whole project is useless."   Astro Teller, CEO of Alphabet X's Moonshot Labs, says: "If you want to teach a monkey on a pedestal to recite Shakespeare, don't start by building the pedestal." Jana explains that organizations, once they get a project through the gauntlet of approvals and business cases, start working on the easy, visible things to show progress — the pedestal. But if you can't get the monkey to speak, the pedestal is useless. The counterintuitive move: when passionate people dispassionately tell you the hard problem isn't solvable, give them hugs, put them on a pedestal themselves, give them bonuses — because they just freed up resources for something better. Phil reinforces that this isn't a money problem. At McDonald's, before building a handheld order-taking device, they built a block of wood to test how comfortable it was to hold. Organizations waste far more money trying to plan for things they can't possibly plan for than they would by running quick experiments. Single-Threaded Leaders — The Pig at Breakfast "Who's that person waking up every morning saying, are we actually putting the focus on the things that are going to get us to the finish line of delivering value — not within my function, but across the organization?"   Phil tells the classic joke: a pig and chicken are walking down the road. The chicken says "let's open a restaurant." The pig asks what they'll sell. "Ham and eggs, of course," says the chicken. The pig stops: "I need to be far more committed than you." Organizations are full of chickens — people who lay their half-baked decisions, want to sign off, want to say no. What's needed are pigs. Amazon calls them single-threaded leaders. Apple calls them directly responsible individuals. The key: one person owns an initiative end to end, waking up every morning focused on delivering value across the organization, not just within their function. Mow the Lawn — Bureaucracy Grows While You Sleep "Your bureaucracy grows while you sleep. Think about your bureaucracy like mowing a lawn. You can't mow a lawn once."   Jana references Parkinson's Law — a senior Royal Navy leader found that even as the fleet shrank, the number of administrators grew by 5-10% annually. This applies to every organization. Middle managers fill their time by adding processes. One person's mistake becomes a process that penalizes 10,000 people. The solution is continuous gardening. At Google, a senior leader added positive friction: if you want more than 5 interviews in the hiring process, you need my approval. At Amazon, the principle "invent and simplify" asks everyone every year: what are we simplifying? The simplification work has to come from those closest to the problems — most leaders don't know half of what people are actually doing. Innovation Belongs to Everyone — Not a Lab "Psychological safety — it's not even a prefrontal cortex thing, it's not a conscious thought, it's that fight-or-flight reaction you have in the moment."   Phil makes the case that innovation starts with psychological safety at the team level, not an organization-wide mandate. It's the team leader asking questions, being humble, responding to disagreement with "tell me more" instead of "I don't agree." It means celebrating intelligent failures — someone who tested a hypothesis, found it didn't work, and stopped. At Amazon town halls, executives open by making fun of Amazon's failures, like the Fire Phone. The message: if you're thinking big, you'll also fail. The Fire Phone didn't work, but it informed future hardware investments. The only true failure is not learning from experimentation. Phil and Jana both emphasize that once leaders experience what happens when people are truly freed to do their best work, they get addicted to it. About Phil Le-Brun and Dr. Jana Werner Phil Le-Brun is the former International CIO of McDonald's and now leads the AWS Executives in Residence team, advising Fortune 500 leaders on transformation. Dr. Jana Werner is an Executive in Residence at AWS who built their EMEA transformation practice after leading digital change in financial services. Together they wrote The Octopus Organization: A Guide to Thriving in a World of Continuous Transformation (HBR Press).   You can link with Phil Le-Brun on LinkedIn and Jana Werner on LinkedIn.   Book site: theoctopusorganization.com Book on Amazon: The Octopus Organization

Patrick Van Deven: The Frontier Firm Has a Data Problem In this episode of Scouting for Growth, Sabine VanderLinden sits down with Patrick Van Deven to unpack one of the biggest hidden blockers to becoming a true AI-native enterprise: legacy data infrastructure. As organizations rush toward the “Frontier Firm” vision championed by Microsoft — intelligence on tap, human-agent collaboration, and AI-powered workflows — Patrick argues that most regulated industries are still running on fragmented data pipelines built decades ago. Beneath the excitement around agentic AI lies a critical operational reality: data remains horizontally distributed across systems such as SAP, Salesforce, Guidewire, and legacy warehouses, stitched together by opaque code that no one fully understands anymore. Patrick explains why the future of AI in regulated industries depends less on flashy copilots and more on deterministic, governed, audit-ready data transformation. Drawing from his 35 years in enterprise software and his leadership at Volspeed, he outlines how AI is now reshaping data engineering itself — automating the “plumbing” layer while generating the metadata and lineage AI systems need to operate responsibly. Together, Sabine and Patrick explore why re-architecting does not require a dangerous core system replacement, how organizations can solve tractable business problems in months rather than years, and why the next generation of enterprise leaders must bridge business expertise and data intelligence. This conversation is a practical roadmap for any executive navigating AI transformation inside complex, regulated environments.   KEY TAKEAWAYS What stood out most to me in this conversation with Patrick was the reality that the “Frontier Firm” conversation is no longer about experimentation. It is about operational readiness. Every organization I speak to wants intelligence on tap, agentic workflows, and AI-enabled productivity, yet many are still constrained by fragmented legacy systems and undocumented data logic buried deep inside their infrastructure. Patrick made it very clear: if we do not solve the data foundation problem, we simply accelerate complexity and risk. One insight that resonated deeply was the idea that data engineering is entering the same transformation that software engineering experienced with generative AI. The real opportunity is not just automation, but abstraction — enabling smaller teams to solve historically impossible integration problems while creating governed, machine-readable metadata that AI systems can actually trust and consume responsibly. I was also struck by Patrick's perspective on talent. Rather than replacing expertise, AI elevates the importance of subject matter experts who understand the business context behind the data. The future belongs to professionals who can bridge operational understanding with technical fluency and collaborate effectively with AI-enabled systems. Most importantly, this conversation reinforced that becoming a Frontier Firm does not require ripping out every core system overnight. The no-regret move is to start solving tractable, high-value data problems now — especially those tied to governance, lineage, regulatory reporting, and customer intelligence. Organizations that modernize their deterministic data layer today will be the ones capable of building scalable, trustworthy AI tomorrow.   BEST MOMENTS “You can bolt all the AI you want on top of that. It will not make you a frontier firm. It will just make your regulatory problems arrive faster.” — Sabine VanderLinden “AI is coming to data engineering just like it came to software engineering.” — Patrick Van Deven “The board looks at AI at the end of the value chain of data. But how did that data come to be?” — Patrick Van Deven “There is no world where a company would run on one system.” — Patrick Van Deven “Treat the AI agent like an employee. Onboard it, brief it, give it a personality.” — Sabine VanderLinden “The dragon in the basement has finally reached the boardroom.” — Patrick Van Deven “No data lineage. No agent bosses. No governed transformation. No intelligence on tap.” — Sabine VanderLinden “This is a new era for subject matter experts.” — Patrick Van Deven   ABOUT THE GUEST Patrick Van Deven is the CEO of Vaultspeed and a veteran enterprise software leader with more than 35 years of experience in software engineering, predictive analytics, data infrastructure, and venture investing. Patrick began his career as a software engineer, building and selling his first commercial application at just 22 years old. He later spent 15 years at SAS Institute, where he helped build data and predictive analytics applications for enterprise environments. He then transitioned into venture capital as an Operating Partner and General Partner at Fortino Capital, investing in software and AI startups across Europe. In 2025, Patrick stepped back into an operational leadership role as CEO of Vaultspeed, driven by his belief that automating deterministic, governed data transformation is one of the most critical “no-regret moves” organizations can make in the age of AI. Today, Vaultspeed works with major global enterprises, including organizations operating across highly regulated industries such as insurance, banking, and financial services.   ABOUT THE HOST Sabine VanderLinden is a corporate strategist turned entrepreneur and the CEO of Alchemy Crew Ventures. She leads venture-client labs that help Fortune 500 companies adopt and scale cutting-edge technologies from global tech ventures. A builder of accelerators, investor, and co-editor of the bestseller The INSURTECH Book, Sabine is known for asking the uncomfortable questions—about AI governance, risk, and trust. On Scouting for Growth, she decodes how real growth happens—where capital, collaboration, and courage meet. If this episode sparked your thinking, follow Sabine VanderLinden on LinkedIn, Twitter, and Instagram for more insights. And if you're interested in sponsoring the podcast, reach out to the team at hello@alchemycrew.ventures

I can invest in all the systems, frameworks, courses, and tools I want, but none of them execute on their own. Structure only defines the plan. Behavior is what produces the result. In this episode, I explain why access is only the beginning and why consistent action, enforcement, and follow-through are what turn good systems into real outcomes. If behavior isn't there, even the best framework becomes nothing more than decoration. Show Notes: [03:22]#1 Structure defines the process. [06:18]#2 Behavior overrides structure under pressure. [11:28]#3 Organizations mistake design for execution. [17:00] Recap Next Steps: --- Execution is not a talent.   It is a standard. If your results don't match your ability, something in your approach is out of alignment. Most people do not have a motivation problem.   They have a consistency problem. Power Presence is the system for operating with greater discipline, clarity, structure, and execution under pressure. Learn more: → http://www.PowerPresenceProtocol.com  — This show is the public record of standards. All episodes and the complete archive: → http://WorkOnYourGamePodcast.com 

In our ongoing series spotlighting organizations fighting for our rights across the US, we focus on the amazing work (and fun events) of LGBTQ+ organizations in the Midwest.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen and subscribe to Money Making Conversations on iHeartRadio, Apple Podcasts, Spotify, www.moneymakingconversations.com/subscribe/ or wherever you listen to podcasts. New Money Making Conversations episodes drop daily. I want to alert you, so you don’t miss out on expert analysis and insider perspectives from my guests who provide tips that can help you uplift the community, improve your financial planning, motivation, or advice on how to be a successful entrepreneur. Keep winning! Two-time Emmy and Three-time NAACP Image Award-winning, television Executive Producer Rushion McDonald interviewed Nandi Edouard.

Alejandro Peña Esclusa and Ernesto Araújo discuss regional instability in Bolivia and Chile. They highlight the coordinated efforts of the left to provoke social unrest and the impact of transnational criminal organizations. (16)1770

Summer is a perfect time to help our kids learn to look beyond themselves. In this episode, Karen and Emily share simple, practical ways families can serve together, whether that's visiting a nursing home, helping with food recovery, serving on a mission trip, or just paying attention to the needs around you. We hope this conversation encourages you to start small, think intentionally, and discover how serving others can grow your family's faith this summer!Episode Recap:Snack time strategies for summer (2:00)Serving with your kids can feel daunting (3:52)Start small wherever you are (5:36)Organizations like Lighthouse have opportunities for your whole family (13:17)When you open your eyes, you'll start to see opportunities everywhere (15:55)Pray and ask God to show you ways to give back with your kids this summer (18:00)Scripture: Philippians 2:3–4 (NIV) "Do nothing out of selfish ambition or vain conceit. Rather, in humility value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others."Discussion Questions: What opportunities already exist in your community for your family to serve together?What keeps your family from serving more often, and what's one small step you could take this summer?Karen talks about how serving helps us get outside our own "bubble." Where might God be inviting your family to lift your eyes beyond your bubble this summer?Resources:Register for the SOAR Conference today. Second Helpings AtlantaLighthouse Family RetreatsBecome a WT+ Insider today! boaw.mom/insiderWant More of This Conversation?During Wire Talk+, Karen shares a personal story about taking Abby on a mission trip to China when she was just 9 years old - you never know how God is going to use your kids in service!  Head HERE and join us for the full conversation.