Podcasts about theory y

What truly shapes a thriving organization—clever strategy or meaningful culture?In this powerful conversation, host Denis Gianoutsos is joined by Ken Wilcox, former CEO of Silicon Valley Bank and author of Leading Through Culture. With a background in philosophy and a career that spanned from Silicon Valley to Shanghai, Ken shares how leadership rooted in values and emotional intelligence can outperform even the sharpest strategic plans.Denis and Ken explore the challenges of launching a bank in China, the cultural dynamics that shape leadership styles, and why leaders must walk the talk to build teams that thrive. From Theory X vs. Theory Y to real-world examples of cross-functional collaboration, this discussion offers practical insights and timeless principles.Tune in to hear a thought-provoking exchange that redefines leadership—and invites you to lead with both head and heart..From Academia to the BoardroomPassion for philosophy shaped his worldviewPivoted from teaching to banking during inflationMoved to Silicon Valley to fuel tech innovationBuilding a Bank in China: “One Bed, Two Dreams”Led a joint venture with the Chinese governmentFaced cultural and political complexitiesGained deep respect for Chinese business cultureLeading Through Culture: Legacy of His Father's LessonsInspired by his dad's leadership teachingsBuilt culture around motivation and meaningLeaders must intentionally design cultureHeart Over Mind: Culture That Drives PerformanceCulture trumps strategy in impactFostered horizontal, team-based collaborationReinforced values through actions and rewardsWhat Makes a Great Leader: Lessons from LincolnLincoln embodied humility and visionEmbraced disagreement to make better decisionsGreat leaders inspire with purposeThe Future of Leadership in a Polarized WorldGlobal shifts are reshaping leadershipPeople now seek protection, not just inspirationLeaders must model behavior and stay curiousKey Quotes:"Strategy speaks to the mind, but culture speaks to the heart." - Ken Wilcox"Every organization has a culture—whether they want to or not." - Ken WilcoxBook a Strategy Call with Denis https://app.leadingchangepartners.com/widget/bookings/callwithdenisgianoutsosThe 10 Proven Ways to Lead and Thrive in Today's World Executive Guide Featuring 10 Key Themes and 42 Strategic Insights from Worldwide Leaders https://crm.leadingchangepartners.com/10-ways-to-lead Connect with Ken:Website: https://kenwilcoxauthor.com/books/leading-through-culture/LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kenwilcoxsvb/Connect with Denis:Email: denis@leadingchangepartners.comWebsite:

Dawn's got a story about a conspiracy theory involving Katy Perry. Bradley's looking for dinner recommendations. Dawn's got publationship updates for JLo, Pedro Pascal and Channing Tatum. Then, we're talking TV. Bradley's deep in Dateline and Dawn finally started watching Righteous Gemstones. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit podcastchoices.com/adchoices

In this thought-provoking episode of the Mob Mentality Show, we are joined by Ariel Pérez to explore the fascinating intersection of Complex Adaptive Organizations, Organizational Topologies, and the FAST Agile Framework. Together, we dive into the challenges and opportunities of modern software development and organizational dynamics, offering actionable insights for leaders, teams, and anyone navigating complexity in their work. Highlights from the Episode... Complex Adaptive Organizations and FAST Agile: Manufacturing vs. Software Development: Why building the same product repeatedly differs from creating custom software . Complexity Theory in Software Development: How unpredictable side effects shape outcomes and the pursuit of predictability in organizations. Fixed Scope and Fixed Date: Are they real business needs, or just external motivators? What are their long-term impacts on quality and delivery? Theory X vs. Theory Y (management theories): How a leaders' management principles and practices influence autonomy, trust, and collaboration. Dynamic Teams in FAST Agile: The pros and cons of adapting teams dynamically to match work needs versus forcing work into rigid team structures. Story of Transitioning to FAST: A tale of initial resistance to the FAST Agile approach and the eventual embrace of its benefits. Building a Culture of Experimentation and Learning: Experimentation as a Foundation for Innovation: How to test hypotheses in product development and team practices without compromising quality. From Fear to Trust: Encouraging experimentation in new teams or under new leadership while creating safety for bold ideas. Practical Experiments: Implementing small feature flags, A/B testing (comparing two versions in production), and time-limited trial runs to foster innovation. Respect and Radical Candor: Building trust through open communication, mutual respect, and the occasional dose of healthy banter

In this episode of the Leading in Dentistry podcast, Dr. Wes Eggett shares an exclusive clip from his 90-Day Leadership Development Program, offering insights that will transform how you approach leadership. Dr. Eggett introduces the concept of "leading musically," where leadership transcends technical correctness to create a more authentic and impactful connection with your team. Drawing on real-world examples, he illustrates how bringing personal passion and heart to leadership makes all the difference in team engagement and morale.Additionally, Dr. Eggett discusses Simon Sinek's "Start with Why," challenging leaders to identify the deeper purpose behind their work. He also unpacks Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y, highlighting how a leader's assumptions about their team can shape outcomes and behaviors. Tune in to discover how to elevate your leadership by balancing practicality with purpose, creating an environment where both you and your team can thrive.Music from #Uppbeat (free for Creators!): https://uppbeat.io/t/matrika/funk-style - License code: KUYOIZCBFCF1FOMP https://uppbeat.io/t/roo-walker/bolt - License code: RS1AU6Y5DGD5A3H8.

Over the last nine years, The Ready has seen firsthand how organizations designed to be people positive (a.k.a. a foundational belief that people are eager to contribute and capable of change) outperform those that aren't. Turns out when you treat people like adults, it boosts your team's motivation, adaptability, and contribution. The only catch? Unlearning nearly everything traditional leadership and management science has taught us for decades. Once beliefs like “People are lazy,” “People can't be trusted,” and “People will actively abuse any flexibility they get” get baked into an organization's culture, it's tremendously hard to change. But not impossible. In this episode, Rodney and Sam get candid about the fears that come with letting go of control, offer real-world examples to help skeptical leaders flip the script on trust, and explore how people positive principles can lead to long-term benefits. -------------------------------- Want future of work insights and experiments you can try delivered to your inbox? Sign up here. Follow us on your favorite platforms for more org design nerdery: LinkedIn Instagram -------------------------------- Mentioned references: "the tower" Theory Y vs Theory X "Dan Pink stuff" mastery: BNW Ep. 63 "psychological safety episode": AWWTR Ep. 20 "nature vs nurture" "complexity conscious" "discretionary spending discussion": AWWTR Ep. 16, question 3 negativity bias

Powerful insights often arise when leaders question the traditional norms of leadership. In this episode, we delve into the concept of leaderless teams and explore the shift from traditional to non-traditional leadership approaches. Join host Winnie da Silva as she engages in a transformative conversation with Dr. Debra France, an expert in organizational practices and leader behaviors that foster innovation. How can leaders balance power over and power with their teams? Winnie and Debra uncover the key insights in this intriguing discussion.Leaderless Teams: Exploring the concept of leaderless teams and how it fits into modern leadership and understanding how to empower team members to make decisions on their own.Traditional Leadership: Definition and characteristics of traditional leadership in organizations.Non-Traditional Leadership Approaches: Discussing alternatives to traditional leadership, including leaderless teams, in today's complex corporate environment.Experience and Background: Dr. Debra France's background and experience in leadership development and organizational practices and how it aided her in helping leaders.Innovation and Strategic Thinking: Importance of fostering innovation, strategic thinking, and exploring futures in leadership to futher the goals of teams and organizations.Power Over vs. Power With: Contrasting the concepts of power over management (illusion of control) and power with management (create the environment for greatness) in leadership approaches.Theory X and Theory Y: Understanding the motivational theories of Theory X, which includes cajoling, and Theory Y, which is more intrinsically motivated, in the workplace.Trust and Collaboration: Building trust and fostering collaboration in teams to enhance productivity and job satisfaction.ResourcesDr. Debra France on LinkedIn

You've probably heard of the adage that too much of a good thing can actually be bad. It turns out, even something as beneficial as psychological safety in the workplace might have its drawbacks. In this episode, Dr. Peter Cappelli, Management Professor and Director of the Center for Human Resources at the Wharton School of Business, reveals surprising research findings about the potential downsides of positive psychology, like how it can hurt performance, especially in non-creative jobs. We also discuss how to balance fostering creativity with maintaining accountability, tools to measure psychological safety, and historical insights like Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y. You'll learn how to improve your team's performance while keeping them engaged and accountable.   ________________ Start your day with the world's top leaders by joining thousands of others at Great Leadership on Substack. Just enter your email: ⁠⁠https://greatleadership.substack.com/

Ryan Anderson is Vice President of Global Research and Insights at MillerKnoll leading research and providing workplace strategy and application design advisory services. He also hosts MillerKnoll's “About Place” podcast. With much experience at the intersection of workplace research, innovation, and technology, Ryan discusses evolving working needs un/tethered by technology. He explains how urban landscaping concepts support human-centric office-based design. Ryan recommends incremental office improvements to match evolving work needs and change management to support any facility update.     TAKEAWAYS   [02:19] A random decision to study marketing, however Ryan finds he loves the audience focus.   [03:55] In furniture product development, Ryan finds the commercialization process tough, but learns a lot.   [04:24] Ryan is drawn to the conceptual phases, empathizing to understand unmet needs.   [06:07] How West Michigan has a concentration of workplace design companies.   [06:54] Ryan grew up thinking furniture was boring but learns how much more there is to it.    [08:35] In Chicago, Ryan meets his wife and studies purpose-driven business and ethics-based leadership.   [10:27] Ryan transitions to a corporate/design role as technology integration changes work settings.   [11:19] Commercial interior design and Ryan respond to employees' new technology setups.   [13:14] A history lover, Ryan describes key design people and an office landscape movement.    [13:37] The fascinating use of urban planning principles for office landscaping.   [14:30] Desk-based workers' needs drive workspace planning and fuel industry growth.   [15:00] The original goal of the cubicle—to provide workplace variety!   [16:08] Workspaces need to evolve to keep in tempo with work.   [17:07] Tech trends dictated earlier workplace constraints and are now releasing us from them.   [18:36] Understanding evergreen needs while envisioning and maturing ideas through experimentation.   [20:00] Ryan moves company to align with designing for the tech user not the technology.    [21:42] Mid-2010's, The Living Office anticipates and amplifies the consumerization of technology.   [22:52] Partnering with big tech companies to revisit office landscaping for the modern era.   [23:40] Exploring ‘prop tech' – the technological evolution of the building – smart buildings.   [24:30] Sensors and other tech enhancements start to personalize office experiences.   [25:00] The SaaS business model interest Ryan who joins a fast-growing prop tech venture.   [26:18] Ryan shifts focus to changing digitized work experiences rather than tech integration.   [26:59] The workplace ‘product' must support diverse teams' evolving digitalized work needs.   [31:08] Douglas McGregor's framework of Theory X and Theory Y management.      [32:45] With distributed work, designing spaces to supervise work is unrealistic.   [33:58] Community building and urban planning are enabling an ecosystem of people.   [34:51] Optimizing for office-based work activities, such as for longer form collaboration.   [35:53] What do offices best provide – structured collaboration and focused concentration?   [37:03] Understand teams operating in a facility to address their changing activities and needs.    [38:25] Not many organizations are supporting their employees' home working settings yet.   [39:51] The prospect of major projects and expensive capital are stalling renovation plans.   [42:03] Service As A Space concepts also involve investing in space that evolves over time.   [43:55] AI has the potential to create safer, healthier, smarter buildings.   [44:56] The possibilities of AI tools to augment the design process.   [48:28] Work is best determined by a social contract that's beneficial not location-based or too restrictive.   [49:52] Ryan shares how his team updates their team working agreement protocols.   [50:49] Rewind assumptions to consider old and new ideas to support teams' needs.   [51:10] Neighborhood-based planning allows connectedness, attachment, and scalability.    [54:18] New office landscaping uses neighborhoods similarly to 15-minute cities.   [55:00] Why strong and weak ties matter.   [50:49] IMMEDIATE ACTION TIP: Real estate strategies follow talent—so develop incremental office improvements that purposefully encourage connection and interaction. Create in-office neighborhoods to support teams' sense of community and belonging with flexibility for regular updates responding to evolving work needs.     RESOURCES   Ryan Anderson on LinkedIn MillerKnoll's website MillerKnoll on Instagram HermanMiller on Instagram Knoll on Instagram HMInsightGroup on X MillerKnoll on X Douglas McGregor's framework of Theory X and Theory Y     QUOTES (edited)   “We're all looking at what is the post desktop, post cubicle era of working looks like.”   “You design for the technology user, not the technology. You have to understand the patterns of behavior, even though the tool sets evolve.”   “Recognizing that our work experiences are increasingly becoming digitized and virtual, the work is becoming digital, but that we're physical beings and physical spaces. We need to figure out how to allow people to exist in these physical spaces and use those tech tools in a really healthy, fun, productive way.”   “Facility managers and corporate real estate leaders are product owners that own the product—the workplace. The focus is on helping them better understand their teams, the diverse nature of those teams, the evolving nature of the work, and trying to conceptualize a space that gets better over time.”   “Regardless of your inherent perspectives on management, the thought of using a space to supervise work in an era of digitized distributed work is extremely unrealistic.”   “What can this space do to help our employees to collaborate in new ways, offer them experiences they can't have at home. That is a healthy and better approach. It's just complicated. It's more complicated than saying, well line 'em up in rows so that I can watch them effectively.”   “It's urban planning. We're taking these principles, we're bringing them inside the building. We're enabling an ecosystem of people.”   “Any facilities project is a change management project, and any real estate strategy has to follow talent.”

In this insightful episode of "Manager to Manager," host Kamaria sits down with Phil Nahajewski, a seasoned CFO and partner at the Florida CFO Group, to explore the delicate balance between achieving business results and maintaining strong relationships with team members. Phil shares his journey from a results-driven manager to a well-rounded leader who values both performance and people. Join us as we delve into: The importance of Theory X and Theory Y in management. Phil's personal stories and experiences that shaped his leadership style. Strategies for maintaining balance during both prosperous and challenging times. How to leverage strengths-based management to enhance team performance. The role of humor and positivity in the workplace. Phil's practical advice and engaging anecdotes provide valuable insights for managers at all levels, especially those navigating the complexities of today's business environment. Don't miss this episode if you want to learn how to lead with both your head and your heart. Tune in to discover how to be a 10/10 leader in both results and relationships! Show Notes: Connect with Phil on Linkedin Watch Phil's DisruptHR Presentation: Let's Get Fractional

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1321: Brian Tracy introduces a novel perspective on motivation and ambition in his article "Something For Nothing: Ambition," expanding on the traditional Theory X and Theory Y with his own Theory Z. Tracy explores the complexities of human motivation, proposing that individuals are motivated by a variety of factors beyond mere financial incentives, ultimately seeking freedom and fulfillment in their lives. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.briantracy.com/blog/general/something-for-nothing-ambition/ Quotes to ponder: "Theory X was defined as the idea that employees were basically lazy, and had to be continually motivated to do their jobs by using the 'carrot and stick' method of rewards and punishment." "Theory Y, which said that people are basically positive, desire to do a good job and will strive toward excellence in their work if the proper incentives exist." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Discover all of the podcasts in our network, search for specific episodes, get the Optimal Living Daily workbook, and learn more at: OLDPodcast.com. Episode 1321: Brian Tracy introduces a novel perspective on motivation and ambition in his article "Something For Nothing: Ambition," expanding on the traditional Theory X and Theory Y with his own Theory Z. Tracy explores the complexities of human motivation, proposing that individuals are motivated by a variety of factors beyond mere financial incentives, ultimately seeking freedom and fulfillment in their lives. Read along with the original article(s) here: https://www.briantracy.com/blog/general/something-for-nothing-ambition/ Quotes to ponder: "Theory X was defined as the idea that employees were basically lazy, and had to be continually motivated to do their jobs by using the 'carrot and stick' method of rewards and punishment." "Theory Y, which said that people are basically positive, desire to do a good job and will strive toward excellence in their work if the proper incentives exist." Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Is your timid tech team constantly seeking direction and second-guessing themselves? Improvement is possible - if you create frequent accountability. Discover how your team can get a "message to Garcia", by tuning in this episode of Troubleshooting Agile. Links: - Patrick McKenzie tweet: https://twitter.com/patio11/status/1781424185094402558 - Sammy (Patrick's EA) on agency: https://hath.blog/posts/cultivating-destroying-agency/ - Message to Garcia: https://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.803/pdf/hubbard1899.pdf - Theory X and Theory Y: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-we-cannot-learn-damn-thing-from-semco-toyota-niels-pflaeging/ - Briefing and Back Briefing:https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/briefing-and-back-briefing - Radiating Intent:https://agileconversations.com/blog/driving-lessons/ -------------------------------------------------- Order your copy of our book, Agile Conversations at agileconversations.com Plus, get access to a free mini training video about the technique of Coherence Building when you join our mailing list. We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us at info@agileconversations.com -------------------------------------------------- About Your Hosts Douglas Squirrel and Jeffrey Fredrick first met while working together at TIM group in 2013. A decade later, they remain united in their passion for growing organisations through better conversations. Squirrel is an advisor, author, keynote speaker, coach, and consultant, helping companies of all sizes make huge, profitable improvements in their culture, skills, and processes. You can find out more about his work here: https://douglassquirrel.com/index.html Jeffrey is Vice President of Engineering at ION Analytics, Organiser at CITCON, the Continuous Integration and Testing Conference, author and speaker. You can connect with him here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jfredrick/

Welcome to Compromising Positions! The tech podcast that asks non-cybersecurity professionals what we in the industry can do to make their lives easier and help make our organisations more prepared to face ever-changing human-centric cyber threats! This week we are joined by Bec McKeown, a chartered psychologist with extensive experience in carrying out applied research for organisations including the UK Ministry of Defence and the founder and director of Mind Science, an independent organisation that works with cybersecurity professionalsIn this episode, Hands Off My Amygdala! The Psychology Behind Cybersecurity, we are going to hear about Bec's varied and interesting career in advising people in highly stressful situations to be reflective and not reactive, and how they cannot only learn from their actions but become masters of them. This episode is a smorgasbord of psychological concepts that will make you think twice about how you normally run your security awareness programme and but also your tabletop exercise too. And crucially, learn why people act the way they do during an actual cybersecurity incident. Key Takeaways:The curse of knowledge: Understanding what it's like to not understand cybersecurity from a technical perspective can be an advantage in helping you communicate better. By putting yourself in the shoes of the listener, you can convey complex ideas in a way that is easy to understand and relatableZero trust: While zero trust may make sense from a technical standpoint, it can lead to frustration and workarounds when it hinders employees. Theory Y suggests that people given more agency and autonomy are likely to work well, if not harder, than when constantly surveilled.Just culture: Accepting that mistakes will be made and analysing the steps that lead to that mistake happening with a view of learning how to avoid it without blame can improve the learning culture. Most people don't come to work to be malicious, if a mistake happens it is due to other factors like stress or bad processes.Microlearning: Nobody wants to sit in training for three hours! Microlearning helps by breaking up information into bite-sized chunks that are easy to digest. It's also important to account for different learning styles and provide information in various formats.Amygdala hijacking: Cybercriminals leverage amygdala hijacking, which occurs when the amygdala activates the fight-or-flight response when there is no serious threat to a person's safety. It's essential to recognize the contextual cue that led you to act that way and develop strategies to deal with it before it happens.Links to everything we discussed in this episode can be found in the show notes and if you liked the show, please do leave us a review. Follow us on all good podcasting platforms and via our YouTube channel, and don't forget to share on LinkedIn and in your teams.It really helps us spread the word and get high-quality guests, on future episodes. We hope you enjoyed this episode - See you next time, keep secure, and don't forget to ask yourself, ‘Am I the compromising position here?' Keywords: cybersecurity, curse of knowledge, covid, zero trust, psychology, reciprocity, autonomy, security awareness, military, learning styles, gamification, leader boards, crisis, tabletop exercises, amygdala hijackingSHOW NOTESImmersive LabsBec's Article in Immersive Labs on Workforce ResiliencyChristian Hunt's episode - Compromising PositionsArticle on Theory X and Theory Y - Mind ToolsInfluence by Robert CialdiniActionable Gamification - Yu-Kai ChouABOUT BEC MCKEOWNBec McKeown CPsychol is the Founder and Director of Mind Science, an independent organisation that works with cyber security professionals. She helps businesses to advance the human aspect of system resilience, so a collaborative culture of innovative thinking and an agile threat response becomes the norm.As a Chartered Psychologist with extensive experience of carrying out applied research for organisations including the UK Ministry of Defence, Bec has gained a unique perspective on the ways humans react in times of crisis. She works at both operational and strategic levels, with a focus on situational awareness, decision-making and problem-solving in complex environments.LINKS FOR BEC MCKEOWNBec's LinkedInMind Science LTD

En este episodio, hablamos sobre la famosa teoría "Déjalos" o en inglés "Let them". También tocamos el tema trending de los "Sephora kids". Join the club! Episodios extra todos los Viernes y contenido exclusivo https://www.patreon.com/alcontrariopodcast Envíanos un mensajito al buzón secreto aquí http://bit.ly/buzon-al-contrario --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/al-contrario-podcast/message Support this podcast: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/al-contrario-podcast/support

Episode 28: Management Theories | I'm a Little Chai This week, Zak give shares the basics you need to know about our motivational theories of management. Come have a listen and enjoy some Chai on this one! 1. Under Herzberg's Two-Factor Model, which of the following would be considered a hygiene-maintenance factor?  A. Annual cost of living increase B. Promotion  C. Employee of the Month posting  D. Growth opportunities 2. Based on McClelland's Model, employees have a desire for:  A. Achievement, Money, Power  B. Power, Money, Individuality  C. Power, Affiliation, Winning  D. Power, Affiliation, Achievement  3. Theory Y implies:  A. Employees hate to work and need to be punished to complete work  B. Employees love to work and don't need to be managed to get work done  C. Employees work better with a moral desire for higher quality  D. Employees will be more productive if they know their productivity is being tracked DM for your RD Exam tutoring needs! Instagram: @zak_snacks Youtube: Zak Kaesberg MS, RDN

Success is usually thought to be built on a combination of personal attributes such as intelligence, technical knowledge, street smarts, hard won experience (built on failures from pushing too hard), guts and tenacity.  Our varsity halls offer a vast array of academic knowledge, information, insights, concepts, theories, tomes, technology and debate.  Company education is usually focused on producing detailed product knowledge and navigation clarity around the organizational labyrinth. Tick the boxes on all of these and you are off to the races for career progression.  Trouble usually starts though when they recognize you and start to expect leverage from your personal abilities.  Leverage means not just what you can individually contribute, but your capacity to get contribution from others they have placed in your charge.  As the old saw goes "all of our troubles in life walk on two legs and talk back".  Welcome to management! Even if you are a powerhouse, a total workaholic,  pounding out 100 hours every week, your 5 staff working 40 hours  a week are doing twice as much as you are.  By the way, if you are putting in 100 hours a week, we need to talk! The tricky part though is you got recognized for your personal qualities, which quite frankly, you are depressed to discover are not universal within your team.  You might even become a Theory X manager, who sees the glass as very much half full.  You have become a legend at finding faults and shortcomings in your team.  You perceive them as useless. They can't be trusted, they are lazy, they make mistakes all the time, they don't take responsibility, they don't have the required commitment, etc .  Theory Y managers, on the other hand, see the glass as half full.  They see their people as decent, capable, honest, doing their best, wanting to succeed, etc.  McGregor, who termed Theory X and Y, concluded that how you see them is what you will create for yourself. Uh oh! This means we really have to be careful about our own attitude, more than worried about our staff's attitude.  We have to be walking around looking for the ten things people are doing well rather than the one thing they are not doing well.  Leveraging strengths is more effective than trying to minimise weaknesses. "Gotcha" however is a popular pursuit for bosses. They really enjoy finding fault and spend their time whining into their beers about what a pitiful deck they have been dealt back at the office.  Could they themselves be part of the problem?  Impossible they believe, why they are in this position of leadership, accountability and responsibility because they are superior!  If this is you, by the way, get ready for 200 hour work weeks.   You will have no leverage and will have to do all the work.  "Delegation" will be but a distant dream. Here is a simple hint for looking for the good:  when wandering around, tell your team what they are doing now that is "good" in your opinion and then ask them what they think they could do "better".  Here is another idea: "make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest".  Sounds simple, but how does that actually work?  Normally everyone thinks they are busy enough already thank you very much or they are deep in their comfort zone around the way things are done around here.  Usually the boss's suggestion represents more work or doing things differently – neither considered particularly attractive prospects.  So how do we get people to engage?  Instead of giving orders we could ask questions.  This "self discovery" process leads to greater ownership and commitment to the execution of the task.  We could break the task down to smaller pieces ("eat an elephant one bite at a time") and "praise the slightest improvement and praise very improvement".  It is too late to wait until task completion to tell people they did a good job.  We need to be intervening part the way through to recognize and appreciate their efforts. We could follow Theory Y and "give the other person a fine reputation to live up to".  That means we assume they are good, serious, capable and treat them and communicate with them in that way.  They feel it and won't let our expectations down. We could also "talk about our own mistakes before criticizing the other person".  If we reflect that we are asking people to step out of their comfort zone, to do new things or things in a new way, how smart is it to whack them whenever they make a mistake?  There is always going to be differences in performance between doing something well practiced and something new – that is the messy innovation process.  We are all the embodiment of all of our own mistakes.  We gained experience by being able to discern what works and what doesn't, mainly by finding out the hard way.  We have to appreciate that our own team can't be expected to be perfect at the beginning.  Shock, horror - they will be just like we were at their level or stage!  So we should share the mistakes we made to show it is part of the learning process.  We then plumb the depths of what was good and explore what we need to do better. Being smart is not enough.  We have to be "people smart" and that is a learned skill available to all, regardless of rank or stage.  Congratulations on becoming smarter!

Theory X Theory Y Positivity .Leo ✨️ ♥️ Diwali Purchase ✨️

Self-Management Self-Discipline and Self-Motivation Demonstrate the ability to take initiative. Demonstrate the ability to work independently. Family Time 139: Intrinsic Motivation Discuss intrinsic and extrinsic motivation. Consider the risks and benefits of each. Discuss Theory X and Theory Y. Do you agree with one or the other? Describe a time you had to take initiative and work independently. lukenielsen.com instagram.com/lukenielsenmedia facebook.com/medialukenielsen twitter.com/MediaNielsen YouTube: www.youtube.com/channel/UCcfY... Spotify: open.spotify.com/show/490xCoj... Luke Nielsen Media on SoundCloud, Apple Podcasts, and other streaming services.

In this episode, MJ the tutor touches upon the topic of motivation at work once again, but this time, discussing the concept of Theory X and Theory Y, and how management uses this theory to affect employees' productivity and satisfaction at work. Accounting Makes Cents is biweekly podcast dedicated to CIMA accounting students and those still thinking about it. Episodes will range from providing study tips and resources to brief discussions of CIMA syllabus topics. If you like the show, please hit subscribe to add it to your listening queue and to ensure you do not miss an episode. MJ the tutor would love to hear from you if you have ideas for future episodes. You can reach out by leaving a voice message. Thanks for tuning in and see you on an Accounting Makes Cents episode soon! The show transcripts are available on www.mjthetutor.com Let's connect: Facebook: facebook.com/mjthetutor Instagram: @mjthetutor Twitter: @mjthetutor Credits: “Ding Ding Small Bell” (https://freesound.org/s/173932/) by JohnsonBrandEditing (https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1RImxnsbfngagfXd_GWCDQ) licensed under CC0 Licence. --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/mjthetutor/message

Kirill Golubev: The Pitfalls of a Project Management Mindset in the Product Owner role Read the full Show Notes and search through the world's largest audio library on Scrum directly on the Scrum Master Toolbox Podcast website: http://bit.ly/SMTP_ShowNotes. The Great Product Owner: Building a strong relationship between Scrum Master and PO, a critical contribution to the success of the team Kirill talks about how important it is for Scrum Masters to build a close understanding and trusting relationship with the product owner (PO), and how that relationship is critical for the success of the team. He emphasizes that if there is no chemistry between the Scrum Master and PO, it's better not to join that team. When there is good chemistry, the team will benefit much more from both Scrum Master's and PO's presence. Kirill also stresses that the PO needs to have guts and be clear about prioritizing the backlog. He warns against the anti-pattern of conflict between the Scrum Master and PO.  The Bad Product Owner: The Pitfalls of a Project Management Mindset in the PO role In this segment, Kirill shares why he thinks that the PO role is a cornerstone role in Scrum and without a PO, a Scrum team cannot even get started properly. We explore how POs that come from the project management field, often have a project management mindset, which hinders their ability to grasp the PO role. Kirill shares an example of 3 POs for one team who were new to the role and to Agile. The POs did not trust the team to self-manage, and wanted to control everything by telling the team what they had to work on, and when. We discuss how we can help the PO understand that it helps the team to trust and help them self-manage. We also refer to the concepts of Theory X and Theory Y and how, knowing about that can help the PO's understand their role as a leader.   Are you having trouble helping the team work well with their Product Owner? We've put together a course to help you work on the collaboration team-product owner. You can find it at bit.ly/coachyourpo. 18 modules, 8+ hours of modules with tools and techniques that you can use to help teams and PO's collaborate.   About Kirill Golubev Kirill considers himself an Agile and common-sense apologist. He wants to see simple processes in place, when people self-organize and manage themselves without constant push from management. You can link with Kirill Golubev on LinkedIn.

I received a leave application request on a Saturday from one of my staff. It reminded me that we had missed our weekly meeting.  In fact, now that I think about it, we have missed quite a few of them, because of various scheduling conflicts.  My busyness has been a factor.  This made me recall that fantastic Bill Oncken and Don Wass article in the Harvard Business Review (HBR) back in 1974 titled, “Management Time: Who's Got The Monkey”.  In fact, HBR notes that this article is one of two of their best selling reprints ever.  If you haven't read it, then take a look, it is gold. In this article, a classic, they are talking about staff accountability and boss delegation.  The boss always has more interest in keeping abreast of what staff are doing than the staff have any interest in their accountability. Missing sessions with the boss is a plus from their point of view, because they are not having to provide any answers about their results or lack thereof.  With a bit of deft scheduling change, they can go for long periods with no actual supervision.  I know that I am packing my schedule, that I am taking 100% accountability for the company's results and this is the problem.  I haven't factored in enough slack to deal with people who prefer to keep no profile or a low profile with the boss. It is very hard for the boss to turn the switch down from “full bore ahead” to “I am going to do less”.  What often makes us the boss in the first place is our drive, determination, pain threshold, commitment and ambition.  All sterling stuff, but sometimes we have to remember that the monkey is kept firmly on our back in these types of situations. When we delegate and staff don't match our expectations with the speed or quality of the work they are doing as part of the delegation, there is an overwhelming boss urge about to kick in.  That urge is called “buying back the delegation”.   We start having extremely dangerous thoughts such as, “it will be faster if I do it myself”.  Before you know it, your schedule is packed and you have no slack for checking up on slackers.  We are moving too quickly sometimes and that momentum just keeps carrying us forward.  As I mentioned, these life-long habits are what have spring boarded us to the boss position and they are hard to shake. McGregor in his Theory X boss and Theory Y boss declaratory study said that, in simple terms, the X boss sees the bad side of people and the Y bosses see the good side of people and treat them accordingly.  I have to keep reminding myself of this when I gets thoughts like, “I wonder if this staff member is being clever about manipulating the boss's busyness to escape from any accountability”.  I have to replace that thought with a more Y boss contribution like, “Everyone wants to do a good job and this person is just busy too. Our schedules are just not matching well enough and I need to cut myself some slack here to be more available”. I am always amazed when people own up to the fact they don't plan their day, based around the priorities they have set themselves for their work.  Actually, I was teaching a leadership class recently and roughly half of the class said they didn't set daily priorities for their job.  I don't understand that and of course I am religious about planning my day.  Naturally priorities can change but that is okay because I can get back to what I should be doing after the diversion.  Certainly those days when I am not able to do that classic Time Management Quadrant Two – not urgent and important – planning function are never as productive or as satisfying as when I can do it.  Being able to tick that a task has started and then being able to add that additional tick to note it has been completed is an absolute  dopamine rush. This may be part of the problem though. I am too tightly bound in that scheduling to leave any slack for myself.  My super efficiency may not actually be enabling me to be as effective as I need to be. As the boss I need to keep that monkey of delegated tasks off my back and I need to be leavening the day with little blank spaces to make sure I can spend the time with the team where it is needed.  When I am in my super commander mode, I start barking out orders like a pirate captain and I am missing important leadership aspects like asking questions instead of telling people what to do.  Command mode also means that any coaching is out the window and a rain of orders are flowing forth from me to everyone. Bill Oncken's article is always a good reminder of what I should be doing as opposed to what I am actually doing.  When I got that leave request it triggered the thought that “oh yeah, we have been missing meetings and these are my opportunity to coach this staff member and to make sure all relevant monkeys are sitting firmly on their back and not on mine”.  How about you?  How are you going building some slack into your day to be less efficient and maybe more effective.  For me it is a constant struggle, and while I am far from perfect, at least I know I am operating with some awareness of the issue.  That awareness is the first step to finding the balance and solution I need.  How would you calibrate your own awareness of this issue?          

In this episode, you'll learn about some theories of human motivation particularly in the workplace. You'll also learn some important principles regarding management. Management is a big section covered on the RD exam and many dietitians end up becoming managers. So having a good understanding of what motivates people will not only help you on the exam but will help you when you become a dietitian.  This is what you'll learn in this episode:  A review of communication and types of communication within an organization An overview and breakdown of different theories of human motivation that can help you when managing people A discussion of motivation based on outcomes versus needs What the Peter Principle is and what organizations can do to prevent it Here's a glance at this episode: [07:24] The one thing Warren Buffet says is the key to making more money and increasing your success [08:40] A motivational interviewing tool I use when communicating with people in the workplace especially when receiving a task [14:30] A review of McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y on how managers address human motivation [18:30] An overview of the Expectancy Theory of Motivation [19:44] A discussion of two theories of human motivation based on human needs starting with Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs [22:43] A review of another theory of human motivation based on needs called Herzberg's Two Factor Theory [29:05] What the Peter Principle is and what it means

Motivation is one of the hardest things to understand in others and one of the easiest thing to destroy, yet it is also one of the things leaders tend to get wrong.  One of the key things to do is explore motivational theory and use what we can find to help us in our practice. In the first of a new 3-part mini-series we will explore four key studies into motivational theory; Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs (1943), Harlow's Intrinsic Motivation (1949), Herzberg's Two-Factor Theory (1959) and McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y (1960).

There is a lot of focus on conscious and unconscious biases at the moment given the  amount of attention being directed at Diversity, Equity and Inclusion.  In Japan's case, for  the most part, this is a discussion  about gender and to some extent age.  The leader however faces other challenges, apart from addressing these topical subjects.  We are all witnessing major changes in the workforce driven by Covid.  Many companies have staff continually working from home or are executing a dual shift approach where half the crew take turns attending on specific days.  Leading a remote team is not how we leaders were trained, so there is a lot of gritting of teeth going on.   Leaders are smart enough not to be voicing their preferences for everyone back in the office, under the careful gaze of the supervisors.  The hesitancy is fairly simple – staff retention.  If you are forcing people to work in the office, they may just quit and go to your competitor, who has a more flexible leadership approach and doesn't demand too much, in exchange for people staying put wherever they want to work.  The unconscious bias is that this is not a proper, logical or efficient arrangement and we should all get back to what the boss is used to.  This version of reality is based on inertia for the most part.  This is how is was done when we started working and so that is how is should be today.   There is a McGregor Theory X boss moment going on here.  Under this theory workers cannot be trusted and have to be carefully watched all of the time for slacking off and not doing the right thing and putting in the required effort.  The underlying culture is “if I cannot see them, then they will be cheating the organisation by not taking their work seriously”.  In Japan however, there is a pride in work and a sense of responsibility which doesn't easily fit into McGregor's model.    As an example, I remember a bleak, sleeting, winter's day in the Yurakucho area, when I emerged from a subway entrance and here was forlorn, frozen young woman, diligently handing out tissue paper packs, while sheltering under an umbrella.  Without thinking about it, I knew she would stand out there in the cold and hand out all the packets, until her task was completed.  If that was a Western country, probably the packets would be in a dumpster and the shelter would be moved to a nice warm bar close by.   Given we all know about the loyalty and responsibility aspects of Japanese work culture, why are we letting our unconscious bias tell us that we should worry about people not taking their work seriously, simply because they are at home?  Theory Y bosses would believe that people inherently want to do a good job and want to enjoy pride in their work, so we don't need some invasive checking going on all of the time.  I believe, if the boss trusts their team, they will reciprocate of their own volition.   The lack of trust stems back to the culture of the organisation and that in turn is a product of the leader's imagination.  How we see the culture we want is a key to what we create.  If we make our values a central piece of how we lead, then inevitably we will come up with some wonderful guideposts.  I cannot imagine a leader proclaiming values such as: no trust, no integrity, no accountability, etc.  Values are always highly aspirational elements, reflecting the world we want to experience.    Engagement is another critical element of work.  All of the surveys I have ever seen for engagement scores in Japan tell you that the highly engaged proportion of the work population is very, very small.  I am a bit dubious about some of the questions in those surveys and how relevant they are to determining a Japanese team's level of engagement. The survey asks “would you recommend your firm as a place to work to your family or friends?”.  I don't think Japanese people want to have that degree of exposure to such heavy responsibility.  If their friend screws it up, they will feel responsible. If their friend hates the place, they will feel responsible.  That is not very attractive. Better to mark that question with a very low score. One of the leader's jobs is creating an environment where people can become engaged with their work.  If we are doing our job, then our unconscious biases need to be suspended and replaced with the hard work of building that high trust environment.   Rather than worrying about the work location, we should be worried about have we built the right culture in the team? Do we have the right work human relations principles in place?  Have we forged the required mindset to win in the market?  Are we focused on our external competitors or on our internal rivals within the firm?  There are so many bigger issues than having everyone confirm our biases and conform with how we were brought up in business.    

How to Manage People and Be a Better Leader - Market Leader Learn how to manage people and be a better leader by applying one of two management theories: X or Y. http://www.VictorAntonio.com #managepeople #betterleader #business

This episode is excerpted from a one-hour webinar presented in collaboration with Puzzle HR, KettleSpace, and Ripple Analytics. It has been close to seven decades since the evolution of office worker to knowledge worker began. While office workers required a top-down “command and control” management style, that approach to management is ineffective with today's knowledge worker and is a key factor driving the Great Resignation. After reviewing the evolution of management practices over the years, Tony and Brian compare the former approach (labeled Theory X in Douglas McGregor's 1960 book The Human Side of Enterprise) with the latter (Theory Y) across the multiple factors driving the Great Resignation.

This week, we bring you one of our most popular previous episodes to refresh your memory or listen to for the first time. The first chapter of Agile Conversations is all about people-centred development, and we tell the story of our own journey from over-determined software factory to today's feature factories, with similar Taylorist theories of management in both. In today's episode, we go into more depth on the causes of this tragic journey, touching on old and new topics like Theories X and Y, the Cynefin framework, and why there isn't a JIRA plugin for conversational quality. SHOW LINKS: - Taylorism: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management - Theories X and Y: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - 12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory by John Cutler: cutle.fish/blog/12-signs-youre…n-a-feature-factory - Cargo cults: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult and www.jamesshore.com/Blog/Cargo-Cult-Agile.html - Cockburn on people: web.archive.org/web/2014032920365…tware+development - Cynefin: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework Episode transcript: https://agileconversations.com/blog/software-factory-to-feature-factory/ --- Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See agileconversations.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. 
 Email us at info@agileconversations.com

Learn about Theory X and Theory Y, Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs and Herzberg's Hygiene Factors in Chapter 2 Work and Motivation from Business Course by English Plus Podcast. Practice, Share and Discuss on https://englishpluspodcast.com/business-course-chapter-2-work-and-motivation/Support me to keep English Plus alive on https://www.patreon.com/dannyballanAccess the full archive of English Plus on https://englishpluspodcast.com/english-plus-podcast-archive/English Plus Vocabulary Building Series:Preview Crossword Puzzle Vocabulary Building Book SeriesPreview Word Search Games and Activities Book SeriesBuy Crossword Puzzle Vocabulary Building Book Series

Dave and Chris discuss McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y management theories and how they relate to leaders in the Bible. Theory X is command and control, while Theory Y aligns personal goals with organizational goals for fulfillment and motivation. This podcast uses the following third-party services for analysis: Chartable - https://chartable.com/privacy Podtrac - https://analytics.podtrac.com/privacy-policy-gdrp

Join us for our weekly discussion about The School for Change Agents. On Episode 3 as we discuss all things around power, including find and retaining your power. Discussion around our case studies of Mo and Benash, as well as pirates and Theory X and Theory Y. Featuring Kerry McGinty @KerryEMcGinty Zarah Mowhabuth @ZarahMowhabuth Leigh Kendall @LeighAKendall Olly Benson @ollybenson

“That's what keeps me going is I don't need anymore financial wealth, I need more human capital wealth to really feed my purpose and my why.” -Scott Lewis   Today I am interviewing Scott Lewis who is the CEO and Co-Founder of Spartan Investors, a once residential developing company, turned strategic direction for investing in commercial assets in real estate. Scott, a US Army Reserves and Combat vet, specializes in leadership and working with a team of experts in real estate investing, which consist of 34 employees in 31 states around the US. Spartan Investors mission is improving the lives of others using real estate, which mirrors some of the core values I hold in educating people about investing. I met Scott during the 2021 Intelligent Investors Conference. He is an educator, a speaker at national events and has been featured on numerous podcasts and youtube channels.  Scott Lewis: Became interested in building in high and continued building until college. He graduated from Michigan state university with degrees in Marketing and Chemistry, a MS in Management from Catholic University, and a certificate for Project Management from Georgetown University. He is based in Colorado.    TOPICS COVERED IN THE EPISODE The importance of strength of character  Experts that empower The 3 e’s Recession resistant assets What is the military decision making process  The transition from flipping residential to commercial  Evaluation criteria  Why invest in storage units Leveraging strategic planning  What is the experts approach  Theory Y leader  Making it all about your team  What are the difficulties for new investors How to be grounded and process oriented  Standardized returns  Why Scott stays away from coastal markets  Investing in storage units    Listen now on Spotify or Apple iTunes or watch on Youtube to find out how Scott found his Real Estate Breakthrough! The Real Estate Breakthrough Show with Christina Suter is where we talk about the reality of real estate, the mindset you need and the tips and tricks to get you moving forward in investing. Join us every week and learn everything you need to know to invest in real estate education and create real wealth for a lifetime.   Find out more about Scott here:  Website www.spartan-investors.com Email Scott@spartan-investors.com

Harvard Professor Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” to describe how nations can achieve their aims through persuasion and the ability to attract.  Can soft power in our businesses achieve persuasion and attract cooperation?  Here are four soft power plays that persuade and attract the team to outperform the competition.   Play One:  work on our communication.  The WHY of the vision as well as the what and the how need to be explained in ways that inspire the troops to care. We own the world we create, so include our people in creating the vision.  Plenty of corporate offices have elaborately framed Vision, Mission, Values statements that hardly anybody can recall.  How hard is it to get all of your work units starting with a daily WHY recharge?  It takes a few minutes and costs almost nothing.   Play Two: According to McGregor's Theory X, Theory Y staff motivation models, if we see our team as basically good, loyal people doing the best they can, then we can switch our gaze to becoming a “good” finder to recognise them, rather than to scold them.  So leaders need to take a Theory Y “happy pill” every morning before work and decide they will be a good finder.    Play Three: emphasise “valuing your people” rather than parroting the “corporate values”.  Our global engagement survey, validated in Japan, showed that the feeling of being valued was the trigger point sparking inspiration, empowerment, enthusiasm and confidence.  Communicating to each individual “you are valued” is using soft power.   Play Four: ask questions instead of giving direct orders.  Engaging people in the front line, through valuing their input, produces outperformance.  Don't miss it – the crowdsourcing of ideas from the team is a soft power play that pays off.    The end is nigh for those organisations who don't introduce Professor Nye's soft power play into their leadership armory.    Action Steps   Start with the WHY before explaining the What and the How Become a daily Theory Yer, seeking out the positives in your people Ensure your people feel they are genuinely valued every time, all the time Become an “ask” rather than “tell” leader Commit to persuade and attract your way to success

Trust is not something anyone gives freely, no matter the terms of the relationship. It’s even harder to earn in professional settings. However, it’s a foundation for leadership and one that today’s guest Jef Graham wholly believes in. Graham has spent his career in leadership positions with large companies, currently serving on the board of NETGEAR, while also being a professional CEO for several startups in Silicon Valley.What exactly, is a professional CEO? Graham explained, “Such a role is about scaling the company. In the first 30 days, it’s a time of discovery and understanding. I want to know what’s working and what’s not. On the people side, it’s about getting to know them—the employees, customers, partners, investors, and board. I’m trying to build trust.”Graham believes trust is a process and the result of behavior. “My role is to become a leader that’s trusted. Behavior builds trust. I’m transparent and personal, even with something as simple as learning people’s names,” he said.Being ultra-transparent as a leader isn’t mainstream, and Graham gets that. “If you’re open, people believe in you. When you’re not, they don’t. As my father said, ‘Always tell the truth then you’ll remember what you said,’” he commented.He also has the perspective that the goal of trust is to minimize risk. “Startups have failures, but it’s an opportunity to show customers how good we can be in difficult times. It bonds relationships,” Graham shared. Graham and Fox also talked about Theory X and Theory Y. Theory X is authoritarian, while Theory Y is participative and evident of leaders trusting people to take ownership. Graham’s a huge proponent of Theory Y. He said, “You get more out of employees, faster decision-making, and produce more results. People are happier and work harder.”

Douglas McGregor was a founding faculty member of MIT’s Sloan School of Management. In 1960 he published, “The Human Side Of Enterprise.” The book is most noted for introducing the world to Theory X and Y. Simply put, Theory X assumes workers are lazy and unambitious while Theory Y assumes workers are internally motivated, want … The Human Side Of Enterprise, Douglas McGregor and The Quest For The Ideal Outcome – Season 2020, Episode 32 Read More »

This is a follow-on to an episode on Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Y, reflecting two different set of assumptions that managers operate with when running an organization. I recount the theories here and the assertion that Theory Y -- where managers assume workers are trustworthy and wish to be active participants in organizational success -- is preferred. But why then do managers tend to default to Theory X assumptions -- is it learned behaviors or is it innate, part of so-called "human nature"? What do we do about it?

A client tells Squirrel about a "horrible" meeting where his team accused him of pushing them to overwork and take shortcuts, but we discover it was actually a great breakthrough. Learning is the detection and correction of error, and in this case, Squirrel's client discovered a major cultural problem that he's now able to correct. We reflect on why feeling horrible can be a great indicator of valuable learning. SHOW LINKS: Burn up chart: https://www.modernanalyst.com/Careers/InterviewQuestions/tabid/128/ID/3433/What-is-a-Burn-Up-Chart-and-how-does-it-differ-from-a-Burn-Down-Chart.aspx Kathryn Schulz on being wrong: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QleRgTBMX88 Theory X and Theory Y: https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/why-we-cannot-learn-damn-thing-from-semco-toyota-niels-pflaeging/ Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list! We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. 
 Email us at info@conversationaltransformation.com

In the 1950s, a distinction was made between the underlying beliefs about workers – Theory X and Theory Y.  Depending on which you believe, it would influence your behavior as a manager, causing you to either be more controlling or more empowering.  Theory X was a representation of the assumptions [...]

This episode is to discuss about the motivation theory related to leadership theory of McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y.

Tobi is a developer, leader, benchmarker, Rubyist, Elixir fan, learner, teacher and agile crafter by passion. He loves collaboratively creating just about anything people enjoy - be it the Ruby User Group Berlin, SimpleCov, benchee, or other projects while thinking about new ideas to push boundaries. Currently he's helping companies onboard onto Elixir and creating wonderful web applications in his journey as a freelancer. Show Notes Ruby User Group Berlin (https://www.rug-b.de/) rubycorns (http://rubycorns.club/) SimpleCov (https://github.com/colszowka/simplecov) benchee (https://github.com/bencheeorg/benchee) shopify (https://www.shopify.com/) pivorak (https://pivorak.com/) Aaron Cruz (https://www.parallelpassion.com/13) Shoes 4 (https://github.com/shoes/shoes4) why the lucky stiff (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_the_lucky_stiff) wroclove.rb (https://wrocloverb.com/) Arne Brasseur (http://devblog.arnebrasseur.net/) Steve Klabnik (https://steveklabnik.com/) AlphaGo (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AlphaGo) 2 hard problems tweet (https://twitter.com/minsuk_chang/status/1277502761697861632) Theory X and Theory Y (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y) Piotr Szotkowski (https://www.parallelpassion.com/14) code curious (https://www.codecurious.org/) Ruby Monstas (http://rubymonstas.org/) metasploit (https://www.metasploit.com/) The Agile Samurai (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1934356581/parpaspod-20) Rework (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0307463745/parpaspod-20) A Guide to the Good Life (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0195374614/parpaspod-20) Tao Teh King (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/087573040X/parpaspod-20) The Art Of War (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1599869772/parpaspod-20) The Manual: A Philosopher's Guide to Life (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1545461112/parpaspod-20) RSA Animate: Drive (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc) Punished by Rewards (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0618001816/parpaspod-20) Recommendations Sophie's World (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0374530718/parpaspod-20) All Quiet on the Western Front: A Novel (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/0449213943/parpaspod-20) Drive: The Surprising Truth About What Motivates Us (https://www.amazon.com/o/ASIN/1594484805/parpaspod-20) Tobias Pfeiffer Twitter (https://twitter.com/PragTob) Personal Page (https://www.pragtob.info/) Parallel Passion Patreon (https://www.patreon.com/parpaspod) Twitter (https://www.twitter.com/parpaspod) Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/parpaspod) Facebook (https://www.facebook.com/parpaspod) Credits Headway (https://unsplash.com/@headwayio) for the header photo Tina Tavčar (https://twitter.com/tinatavcar) for Parallel Passion logo Jan Jenko (https://twitter.com/JanJenko) for intro/outro music

In this HCI Podcast episode, HCI Research Associates Dr. Maria Blevins, Dr. Leandra Hernandez, and Dr. Jessica Pauly discuss statistics around the current work-from-home (WFH) context, challenges of working from home, advice for managers during this time, and general tips to ease this transition. Douglas McGregor's Theory X and Theory Y are brought into the conversation to better understand the importance of the managerial perspective, specifically how it can hinder or support relations with employees.

Masha Sedova - Founder, Elevate Security   Topic ideas from the PR company:   Inability to measure human security behaviors leads to increased risk in our computing environments. For too long, we’ve accepted training completion and mock phishing data as a sufficient way to measure this risk. But where do the vulnerabilities and strengths truly lie?    The secret is, security teams have installed tons of security tooling that can give insights into how our employees are behaving. But we just leave this data on the cutting room floor. Masha Sedova can talk about where to find this goldmine of data and what security teams can do to leverage this new found knowledge.    Technology like vuln scanners or something more?         Study after study shows that the reason why people don’t do things is not always because they don’t understand, it’s because they are not motivated. Motivating employees to change their cybersecurity behavior can seem like an overwhelming task but there are simple behavioral science techniques cybersecurity professionals can leverage to motivate employees to do the right thing. Masha Sedova will discuss the power of integrating elements of behavioral science into security in order to influence positive behavior.      Motivation Theory (deming): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/W._Edwards_Deming#Key_principles   X&Y  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y   Ouchi Z theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_Z_of_Ouchi   http://www.yourarticlelibrary.com/motivation/motivation-theories-top-8-theories-of-motivation-explained/35377   Masha’s suggested topics:    Why do security teams have difficulty in understanding their human risk today? What are the blockers?  What should security teams be measuring to get a holistic view of human risk?  What's the difference between security culture, security behavior change, and security awareness?  Is security culture a core capability in security defense? Why or why not?     Quantifying risk…   Is investing in human training a waste of time?   Phishing - mock phish or real phishing Pull data to see who is clicking on links Send an ‘intervention’   Gotta move away from training The ‘security team’ will save them…   https://www.ncsc.gov.uk/guidance/phishing   Books:   https://www.amazon.com/Nudge-Improving-Decisions-Health-Happiness/dp/014311526X   https://www.amazon.com/Drive-Surprising-Truth-About-Motivates/dp/1594484805/ref=sr_1_1?crid=2QQ59YRRU89YX&dchild=1&keywords=drive+daniel+pink&qid=1588733551&s=books&sprefix=drive%2Cstripbooks%2C240&sr=1-1   Reality broken: https://www.amazon.com/Reality-Broken-Games-Better-Change/dp/0143120611   People centric security: https://www.amazon.com/People-Centric-Security-Transforming-Enterprise-Culture/dp/0071846778/ref=sr_1_1?dchild=1&keywords=people+centric+security&qid=1588733580&s=books&sr=1-1   Deep thought: a Cybersecurity novela: https://www.ideas42.org/blog/project/human-behavior-cybersecurity/deep-thought-a-cybersecurity-story/ https://elevatesecurity.com/ @modmasha Check out our Store on Teepub! https://brakesec.com/store Join us on our #Slack Channel! Send a request to @brakesec on Twitter or email bds.podcast@gmail.com #Brakesec Store!:https://www.teepublic.com/user/bdspodcast #Spotify: https://brakesec.com/spotifyBDS #Pandora: https://pandora.app.link/p9AvwdTpT3 #RSS: https://brakesec.com/BrakesecRSS #Youtube Channel:  http://www.youtube.com/c/BDSPodcast #iTunes Store Link: https://brakesec.com/BDSiTunes #Google Play Store: https://brakesec.com/BDS-GooglePlay Our main site:  https://brakesec.com/bdswebsite #iHeartRadio App:  https://brakesec.com/iHeartBrakesec #SoundCloud: https://brakesec.com/SoundcloudBrakesec Comments, Questions, Feedback: bds.podcast@gmail.com Support Brakeing Down Security Podcast by using our #Paypal: https://brakesec.com/PaypalBDS OR our #Patreon https://brakesec.com/BDSPatreon #Twitter: @brakesec @boettcherpwned @bryanbrake @infosystir #Player.FM : https://brakesec.com/BDS-PlayerFM #Stitcher Network: https://brakesec.com/BrakeSecStitcher #TuneIn Radio App: https://brakesec.com/TuneInBrakesec

Bad Bosses In Covid-19   Douglas McGregor coined the descriptors Theory X and Theory Y bosses back in the 1960s.  Basically, Theory X bosses doubted people working for them and felt their worst elements had to be watched carefully.  Theory Y bosses saw the potential in their team and wanted to develop them further.  It was not quite black and white, one was 100% good the other was 100% bad.  It was more a question of where to sit on the scale in view of the team and circumstances you faced.  Theory X bosses did have to deal with people who were not motivated and couldn't be trusted.  The problem became that they started from a negative position, rather than a neutral one.  Another researcher into human motivation, Abraham Maslow, presciently warned us, “if all you have is a hammer, everything looks like a nail”.   Here we are today, with a lot of our staff out of sight, locked away at home.  How do bosses know what they are doing?  Have some bosses moved more to the Theory X side of the equation, expecting the worst behaviour from their people? Is this what you feel from your boss – suspicion, distrust, doubt?  A Theory Y boss would trust the team to pull together during these hard economic times and work harder for the common good of the survival of the whole enterprise.   Theory X bosses are more likely to enter into the sordid world of power harassment with their attitudes and language when times get tough.  They are likely to be more harsh in their words, adding innuendo and veiled threats if the team doesn't keep production up.  Fear is relied upon as the hammer and people are not left in doubt that they are disposable.   There is also the issue of firing people to save money or improve shareholder returns.  In America, companies were very fast to furlough people, which is American English for sending you home without any salary, until things improve.  Bad times brings out the worst in bosses and these are bad times indeed.  In Japan, this sets up the tension between the solidarity of the group and the enterprise's survival.  There is a major difference between last resort and first impulse to fire people.  There is a massive mental wall between “cut deep and early” and “we leave nobody behind”.   Once upon a time in Japan, when staff were plentiful and the resumes were many, being choosy was normal.  Times changed with demographic downturns.  Until February, we had a labour shortage across most industries, especially around hiring young people.  Now the unemployment rate is rocketing, the number of jobs open relative to those seeking work is dropping. Small and medium companies, in particular areas like hospitality, retail and the service sector are going out of business.  When people shortages reigned, bad bosses were lovey dovey, but now the faux smiling faces have been replaced with the original scowling issues.   The mark of a person's character and true belief system is revealed in these Covid-19 times.  Japan has done an amazing job of observing governmental requests to stay home.  In Australia, we fine you over a thousand dollars for lockdown rule non-compliance, to keep our wild colonial boys and girls in line.  Horses for courses.  What about the boss in Japan?  Are the worst boss aspects emerging and being given free license because of the times?   This virus will not last forever.  Business will gradually reopen as it has in China, Korea, Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand, Australia and New Zealand as they have flattened the curve of outbreaks.  Looking back at the boss's language, behaviour, demeanour and outlook during the crisis, what will staff conclude about where they want to work?  The demographic trend will last a lot longer than the virus and the realities of finding and keeping good people won't switch course.   Keeping the team together, until the last yen and tear has been expended, makes sense in Japan.  Bosses need to show their commitment to their people.  The staff will show their commitment to the organisation with accepting salary cuts and furloughs if needed, and they will return.  “Cut deep and early”, “protecting shareholder value”,  “pragmatic choices” may work in other countries, but not in Japan.   Start wielding Maslow's hammer in your hand in haste and repent at leisure. When the dust clears, your people will know who you really are.    

The first chapter of Agile Conversations is all about people-centred development, and we tell the story of our own journey from over-determined software factory to today's feature factories, with similar Taylorist theories of management in both. In today's episode, we go into more depth on the causes of this tragic journey, touching on old and new topics like Theories X and Y, the Cynefin framework, and why there isn't a JIRA plugin for conversational quality. SHOW LINKS: - Taylorism: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_management - Theories X and Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - 12 Signs You're Working in a Feature Factory by John Cutler: https://cutle.fish/blog/12-signs-youre-working-in-a-feature-factory - Cargo cults: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cargo_cult and https://www.jamesshore.com/Blog/Cargo-Cult-Agile.html - Cockburn on people: https://web.archive.org/web/20140329203655/http://alistair.cockburn.us/Characterizing+people+as+non-linear,+first-order+components+in+software+development - Cynefin: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework Our new book, Agile Conversations, is out now! See https://conversationaltransformation.com where you can order your copy and get a free video when you join our mailing list!

Any powerful HR Strategy must take into consideration the structural and cultural context. This first episode about the context focusses on the way employees are perceived and the nature of the tasks. All slides of the entire series can be downloaded here: https://armintrost.de/en/professor/digital/human-resources-strategies/

Any powerful HR Strategy must take into consideration the structural and cultural context. This first episode about the context focusses on the way employees are perceived and the nature of the tasks.You'll find all slides here: https://armintrost.de/en/lehrer/my-slides-for-download/

Bienvenidos/as de nuevo a La Taberna del Androide! Noveno programa de la sexta temporada en el que, a pesar de haber sido una semana en cuanto a noticias, Cesar “El Profesor Falken” y Pere vuelven repasar la actualidad y analizan la industria del videojuego . Y ¿Qué os vais a encontrar en este programa? Aquí tenéis el resumen del contenido, esperamos que os guste: - Noticias destacadas: Plague Inc número uno en ventas en China a causa del Coronavirus, Captain Tsubasa Rise of New Champions, Nintendo gana varias demandas. - Reportaje Especial: Ninja Theory su modelo de desarrollo Dreadnoght y el proyecto Insight Project, que cristaliza en el anuncio de Project Mara. - Biblioteca Gamer: Armada y Ready Player One. - Impresiones: Dragon Ball Z Kakarot.Comentarios de los oyentes. - Tema musical post-créditos: Edge of Soul (Suzi Kim) - Soul Edge. Además recordad que La Taberna del Androide forma parte de la iniciativa La Embajada Podcaster, sobre la que podéis tener más información aquí: https://latabernadelandroide.home.blog/la-embajada-podcaster/ Como siempre muchas gracias por decidir escucharnos! Y si te ha gustado el programa no dudes en dejarnos tu comentario y, por supuesto compartirlo en tus redes sociales y darle al corazoncito de Ivoox, para tí es sólo un pequeño gesto, pero a nosotros nos ayuda muchísimo, así que muchas gracias por adelantado. Hasta el próximo programa!

Bienvenidos/as de nuevo a La Taberna del Androide!Noveno programa de la sexta temporada en el que, a pesar de haber sido una semana en cuanto a noticias, Cesar “El Profesor Falken” y Pere vuelven repasar la actualidad y analizan la industria del videojuego .Y ¿Qué os vais a encontrar en este programa? Aquí tenéis el resumen del contenido, esperamos que os guste:- Noticias destacadas: Plague Inc número uno en ventas en China a causa del Coronavirus, Captain Tsubasa Rise of New Champions, Nintendo gana varias demandas.- Reportaje Especial: Ninja Theory su modelo de desarrollo Dreadnoght y el proyecto Insight Project, que cristaliza en el anuncio de Project Mara.- Biblioteca Gamer: Armada y Ready Player One.- Impresiones: Dragon Ball Z Kakarot.Comentarios de los oyentes.- Tema musical post-créditos: Edge of Soul (Suzi Kim) - Soul Edge.Además recordad que La Taberna del Androide forma parte de la iniciativa La Embajada Podcaster, sobre la que podéis tener más información aquí: https://latabernadelandroide.home.blog/la-embajada-podcaster/Como siempre muchas gracias por decidir escucharnos! Y si te ha gustado el programa no dudes en dejarnos tu comentario y, por supuesto compartirlo en tus redes sociales y darle al corazoncito de Ivoox, para tí es sólo un pequeño gesto, pero a nosotros nos ayuda muchísimo, así que muchas gracias por adelantado.Hasta el próximo programa!

Bienvenidos/as de nuevo a La Taberna del Androide! Noveno programa de la sexta temporada en el que, a pesar de haber sido una semana en cuanto a noticias, Cesar “El Profesor Falken” y Pere vuelven repasar la actualidad y analizan la industria del videojuego . Y ¿Qué os vais a encontrar en este programa? Aquí tenéis el resumen del contenido, esperamos que os guste: - Noticias destacadas: Plague Inc número uno en ventas en China a causa del Coronavirus, Captain Tsubasa Rise of New Champions, Nintendo gana varias demandas. - Reportaje Especial: Ninja Theory su modelo de desarrollo Dreadnoght y el proyecto Insight Project, que cristaliza en el anuncio de Project Mara. - Biblioteca Gamer: Armada y Ready Player One. - Impresiones: Dragon Ball Z Kakarot.Comentarios de los oyentes. - Tema musical post-créditos: Edge of Soul (Suzi Kim) - Soul Edge. Además recordad que La Taberna del Androide forma parte de la iniciativa La Embajada Podcaster, sobre la que podéis tener más información aquí: https://latabernadelandroide.home.blog/la-embajada-podcaster/ Como siempre muchas gracias por decidir escucharnos! Y si te ha gustado el programa no dudes en dejarnos tu comentario y, por supuesto compartirlo en tus redes sociales y darle al corazoncito de Ivoox, para tí es sólo un pequeño gesto, pero a nosotros nos ayuda muchísimo, así que muchas gracias por adelantado. Hasta el próximo programa!

In this episode, we examine Douglas McGregor’s most famous work, The Human Side of Enterprise, that proposed two “theories” encapsulating management assumptions about human behavior. His Theory X described the dominant thinking of the 1950s, where managers held a dim view of employees, who were assumed to be disinclined to work and had to be coerced into doing so. McGregor felt that Theory X led to adversarial relationships between managers and workers, resulting in poorer performance and an unhealthy environment. His Theory Y saw employees as wishing to be challenged and fulfilled if properly empowered and engaged.The book has become a staple of management literature. Numerous studies of organizations have confirmed the benefits of Theory Y assumptions serving as the foundation for performance appraisals, reward systems, working in teams, and building worker commitment to the organization. The Annotated Edition of the book, published in 2006, includes dozens of additional callouts and citations of research and vignettes of management experience, demonstrated the continued relevance of this master work.

Would you believe that a simple business initiative can decrease turnover by 50% AND inspire double-digit improvements in engagement and productivity? And it all starts with making work more human. Today, we're joined by Derek Irvine, the Senior VP of Client Strategy and Consulting at Workhuman, the fastest-growing social recognition and continuous performance management platform in the world. Workhuman is on a mission to shape the future of work by helping organizations connect culture to a shared purpose. In his role, Derek supports clients in leveraging proven strategies and best practices to elevate employee engagement, increase retention and improve bottom-line results. A renowned speaker and author on the topic of making work more human, Derek is the coauthor of Winning with a Culture of Recognition and The Power of Thanks, and his work is regularly featured in the country's top HR publications. Derek starts by sharing Workhuman's mission to help people bring their humanness to work, discussing how anyone in an organization can initiate that change. He describes Workhuman's dual focus on gratitude and employee recognition as well as continuous performance management. Derek also offers insight around how a high frequency of recognition positively impacts other business metrics, including productivity, engagement and employee retention. Listen in to understand what differentiates Workhuman Live from other conferences of its kind and learn how to make the business case for making work more human. Themes explored in this week's episode: How Derek's background in performance improvement and brand marketing inform his work at Workhuman The difference between Theory X and Theory Y management styles The toxicity of a work culture where feedback is weaponized Workhuman's aim to help people come to work as themselves and how anyone can initiate that change in the workplace Workhuman's dual focus around gratitude and employee recognition + continuous performance management How the concept of social recognition empowers ALL employees to recognize each other How a shift from governance and control to humanness impacts pay equity, diversity and inclusion, and performance management How recognition leads to double-digit improvements in business metrics like productivity, engagement, retention and connectedness The disproportionate focus on constructive over positive feedback in traditional performance management systems What differentiates Workhuman Live from other conferences of its kind and how organizers live the message with unique opportunities for gratitude and recognition Leaning into your values and having the courage to bring them to life Resources from this episode: Connect with Derek at https://www.workhuman.com/ Access the Workhuman Resource Center for Case Studies Visit the Workhuman Blog or attend Workhuman Live Learn more about Derek's books on social recognition Explore the work of Gary Hamel, Brené Brown and Dan Pink Meet FOCUS Brands President Kat Cole or Urban Monk Pandit Dasa Understand Brené Brown's system for living into our values We would love to hear from you! Have an idea for a podcast or a question you want us to address? Interested in additional support, resources and workshops? Here are all the ways you can interact with us! Tweet us! @tegantrovato and @TeamAwesomeMKE Email us: tegan@BrightArrowCoaching.com and Katie@TeamAwesomeCoaching.com Follow us on Facebook @BrightArrowCoaching and @TeamAwesomeCoaching Follow us on Instagram @TeganTrovato and @katie_rasoul Connect with us on LinkedIn: Tegan Trovato and Katie Rasoul Download free tools and sign up for our newsletters, events and workshops by visiting: https://www.brightarrowcoaching.com/ and https://www.teamawesomecoaching.com/

Zach Stone on Drunken PM, Etienne de Bruin on Programming Leadership, Josh Seiden on The Product Experience, Pooja Agarwal on Coaching For Leaders, and Cate Huston on Distributed, with Matt Mullenweg. I’d love for you to email me with any comments about the show or any suggestions for podcasts I might want to feature. Email podcast@thekguy.com. And, if you haven’t done it already, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button, and if you like the show, please tell a friend or co-worker who might be interested. This episode covers the five podcast episodes I found most interesting and wanted to share links to during the two week period starting September 30, 2019. These podcast episodes may have been released much earlier, but this was the fortnight when I started sharing links to them to my social network followers. ZACH STONE ON DRUNKEN PM The Drunken PM podcast featured Zach Stone with host Dave Prior. Dave and Zack talked about Motivational Interviewing or MI, a technique for helping a person navigate the process of making changes in their life. They first talked about what doesn’t work. Walking up to a smoker of twenty years and listing to them all the reasons why smoking is bad for them is not going to change their behavior. It is the same thing when you are trying to change the way a person does their work. Listing the reasons you think they should change makes the change all about what you want when it should be all about what they want. The person you want to change is an expert in their own life. A big part of Motivational Interviewing is finding the natural desires, reasons, and needs for why they should change and making them visible. Dave likened the difference between telling people to change and using motivational interviewing to the difference between extrinsic motivation and intrinsic motivation. Zach shared a quote from Lao Tzu: “A leader is best when people barely know they exist. When their work is done, their aim fulfilled, the people will say, ‘We did it ourselves.’” At the core of that quote, he says, is a sentiment around empowerment and autonomy. If we want to create an environment where people feel ownership and create sustainable change, people need to feel like that change came from them and is owned by them. Change is a never-ending process; it is not an event; it is not something that happens overnight. Dave asked, if we’ve been dealing the problem of organizational change for so long, why have we not yet solved it? Zach went all the way back to Theory X and Theory Y and how we are still often stuck in Theory X even today. He pointed out that the habits of how we work become almost like addictions we can’t shake. Dave says he tries to be a Theory Y person, but finds himself falling into Theory X all the time. Zach says that this is “change fatigue”. A big part of motivational interviewing is recognizing that we have within us the “righting reflex”: the reflex to correct and inform and tell people how they should be acting. It is not something that you can really escape; you can just own it, be aware of it, and work around it as much as possible. Zach says organizations have immune systems that fight the change you try to inject into them. The reason MI is so elegant, he says, is because it maximizes the work not done. In MI, you try to pull change by igniting the natural mechanisms that are already there rather than asserting yourself on top of that system. The textbook definition of MI is that it is a collaborative conversation to strengthen a person’s own motivation for and commitment to change. It is both a set of principles and a framework of techniques. The five main tools are open-ended questions, affirmations, reflections, summarizing, and informing. Zach told the story of speaking with a CIO about their technology stack. He shared with him that the developers at that company thought that innovation was stalling and technical debt was piling up. The CIO answered that they needed to develop new features and there was no time to address technical debt. Zach tried to affirm by talking about having seen some great innovation coming from this CIO’s teams and asking how they could keep it going. What became apparent was that the CIO was not going to budge. So he asked an open-ended question: “What do you think will happen if you let your technical debt pile up?” The CIO replied, “It is probably going to slow us down and hurt our ability to recruit top talent.” So Zach used reflection. Zach said, “On one hand, you feel you need to keep moving on developing features even if it means technical debt cleanup takes a backseat. On the other hand, if you do this, it is going to hurt your ability to recruit talent and eventually will slow down feature development.” He let that sit and thanked the CIO for his time because it was clear that the CIO was not ready to make a shift in his thinking. Two and half months went by and Zach leveraged the power of the group of this CIO’s technical leads. At a gathering of these leads where the CIO was present, Zach asked what their number one obstacle was and they all said, “Time.” Hearing it from people he trusted and respected, the CIO said that they would be launching an effort to address the technical debt issue. He used “change talk”: he made a commitment to change in a public forum. The research shows that the more people engage in change talk, the more likely they are to put plans into action. The next day, emails were flying back and forth, meetings were set, mechanisms were getting put in place for the tech leads and their teams to address this issue. Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/motivational-interviewing-zach-stone/id1121124593?i=1000447916792 Website link: https://soundcloud.com/drunkenpmradio/motivational-interviewing-zach-stone-august-2019 ETIENNE DE BRUIN ON PROGRAMMING LEADERSHIP The Programming Leadership podcast featured Etienne de Bruin with host Marcus Blankenship. Etienne is the CEO of 7CTOs, a company that puts Chief Technology Officers into a peer mentoring environment to help them learn everything from situational leadership to achieving personal and professional goals. When he started the 7CTOs community, Etienne thought the conversations would focus on the software development lifecycle, technical debt, and managing the CEO’s expectations, but every time the focus went to the people challenges. He attributes the success of 7CTOs to how it addresses problems that require emotional intelligence (EQ) rather than IQ. Etienne told a story about when he first started a startup twelve years ago, he thought he was a fantastic CTO: he knew his stuff and he built the product’s first iteration with his bare hands. He had a reality check when he and his team did a retreat where they attempted to brainstorm ideas. He thought he was succeeding on inclusion and making every voice count from the most junior to the most senior. He was surprised to find that very few were participating. Until that moment, he hadn’t been aware of how fearful everyone was of collaborating with him because he was so blunt in his feedback and he was only happy if the idea was his own. He realized that he wasn’t going to succeed in the next level of his company’s development if he didn’t change. He had to let go of the idea that his employees were just there to execute his ideas and to see them as independent, creative human beings. He read the book Creative Confidence and it showed him that every single person is creative and we just vary in our confidence about our creativity.  Marcus said that if employees are not there just to be extensions of ourselves, what kind of employees should we be looking for. Etienne said that there are two things we want to do when we hire. First, we want the candidate to fulfill the minimum requirements of the job spec. Second, we want the candidate to be set up to succeed inside of the team. Etienne has used personality tests like DISC profiles and enneagrams to get an idea of how well the candidate can meet the second criterion. They got into a discussion about the difference between avoiding emotions and having emotions but realizing you have a choice in how you respond to them. Etienne pointed out that you can rely on other people to help you through your emotions. You can increase your EQ with the help of others. Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/putting-the-emotion-into-eq-with-etienne-de-bruin/id1461916939?i=1000447505984 Website link: https://programmingleadership.podbean.com/e/putting-the-emotion-into-eq/ JOSH SEIDEN ON THE PRODUCT EXPERIENCE The Product Experience podcast featured Josh Seiden with hosts Lily Smith and Randy Silver. Lily, referring to Josh’s new book Outcomes Over Output, asked Josh how he defines an outcome. He says it is a change in human behavior that drives business results. One reason that this is a useful definition is that it is specific. When you use outcome in the broad sense, it can be heard as a synonym for result or goal. A second reason is that human behavior is observable, concrete, and action-oriented. This definition for outcome lets you ask the questions, “What are we going to do to deliver these outcomes? How can we change people’s behavior through the systems that we are building?” These questions lead to concrete answers where you can observe the results. The reason Josh says “human behavior” is because he is referring to any actor in the system. In UX design, the actor is usually assumed to be the user. But, in this case, it can be the user, the customer, an internal person (such as someone in customer support), a journalist you want writing about your product, or any person who is participating in the system that is to be built. Lily said that in her own attempts to move more towards outcomes, she has had the problem of having too high-level an outcome. Josh says that the Logic Model framework from the non-profit, social-good sector can help with this. In this framework, high-level measures like profit, cost, net promoter score, or customer retention are called impacts. It is unlikely that an individual team can move such numbers on their own. So you ask what outcomes will create the impact that you seek and you get something that is scoped down enough to be actionable on the team level. Randy asked why it is so hard for organizations to change their thinking about this and stop setting goals around milestones, dates, projects, and outputs. Josh says that you can’t get around the problem of output because making stuff is how you get to the outcome. He gave the example of Scrum. Scrum is built around the sprint. The sprint isn’t complete until you create a finished piece of software you can ship. This is important, but it doesn’t mean that what you created has the effect in the world that you want it to have. Randy asked about the problem of the increase in dependencies and complexity as companies grow. Josh says you have to think about how to increase the independence of the teams. He says you should think of your internal teams (those that are not customer-facing) as having customers. If you are an internal team, you can ask, “What does the customer-facing team that is our customer need and what is the smallest thing I can give them so that they are unblocked and can start serving their customer.” By remodeling this relationship from a dependency to a customer service model, you can string outcomes down the value chain and hopefully reduce dependencies that way. Another alternative is to give teams a shared or aligned outcome. They compared Josh’s terminology with that of Objectives & Key Results (OKR). Josh agreed with Lily that his definition of an outcome matches up with a key result. He used the John Doerr example of how Google once had an objective of solving the problem of the Internet being too slow by making browsing feel more like flipping through a magazine, which became the Google Chrome program. The key result was based on the number of users actively using Chrome. It wasn’t that they shipped it. It wasn’t the number of downloads. When you ensure a KR is not an output but a meaningful result in the world, it drives you to an outcome-centric definition. Josh talked about a section from his book called “the three magic questions.” The first question is, “What are the user and customer behaviors that drive business results?” The next question is, “How do we get people to do more of these things?” The last question is, “How do we know when we’re right?” Lily asked how you build outcomes into your roadmap. Josh told the story from his other book, Sense and Respond, about a large startup in New York whose annual planning process was to produce an outcome-based roadmap. They might say something like, “We want to increase our marketshare in Europe” or “We want to shore up our business with this customer segment.” The product teams listed all the projects they could do, the demand from the market, and the things that need fixing. The product managers would try to reconcile those two things and choose the body of work that aligned with leadership priorities. They would commit to leadership to, say, increase marketshare in Europe by some percentage, but would not sign up for outputs. Instead, they would reserve the right to swap in and out projects based on whether they were moving the needle or not on the outcomes. Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/outcomes-over-outputs-josh-seiden-on-product-experience/id1447100407?i=1000445191364 Website link: https://www.mindtheproduct.com/2019/07/outcomes-over-outputs-josh-seiden-on-the-product-experience/ POOJA AGARWAL ON COACHING FOR LEADERS The Coaching For Leaders podcast featured Pooja Agarwal with host Dave Stachowiak. Dave brought up that, in her book, Pooja says that the science of learning sits dormant in academic journals rather than being easily accessible. She says that we are all learners and we are all teachers. Teaching is something we do everyday even without thinking about it. Dave asked about the three stages of learning that Pooja describes in her book. Pooja pointed out that the three stage model is a simplistic model but is a helpful framework. The first stage is encoding or getting things into our heads. The second stage is storage. The third stage, retrieval, is where we pull information out. In higher ed, she says, we often think of retrieval as showing what you know, but we learn when we retrieve. By that act of retrieving, we are helping ourselves remember something in the future. Dave gave an example from a previous episode on delegation. He said that, after delegating a task, leaders often ask, “Do you understand?” A better question would be something like, “What are the key deliverables of what I have delegated to you?” This question gets the employee to articulate it to not only assess where they are in their learning but also to reinforce their learning. Dave asked about the statement in the book to stop reviewing things and instead ask for what was discussed. Pooja said that as leaders we often start meetings with, “Here’s what we did at the last meeting, so here’s what we’re going to accomplish today.” Instead, ask people to take a minute and write down what they can remember from the previous meeting. This engages them in such a way that it helps them to better understand the content of the present meeting.  Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/421-help-people-learn-through-powerful-teaching-pooja/id458827716?i=1000445006344 Website link: https://coachingforleaders.com/podcast/learn-through-powerful-teaching-pooja-agarwal/ CATE HUSTON ON DISTRIBUTED, WITH MATT MULLENWEG The “Distributed, with Matt Mullenweg” podcast featured Cate Huston with host Matt Mullenweg. Cate leads the developer experience team at Automattic. This team is concerned with what it means to be a developer at Automattic, including the challenges of distributed, remote development, how developers can learn from each other, and how developers can get the support they need to chart their own career paths. She says a critical part of the developer experience is the connection between the hiring process and the on-boarding process. They are thinking about how to make the hiring process a good experience where the candidate can see if Automattic is the right fit for them and Automattic can see if the candidate is the right fit for the company. They want this to carry through as the new employee joins the team and becomes successful in their new role. Because the Automattic organization is so large and the developer experience team is so small, they look for pivot points to maximize their impact. She gave an example: when a team gets a new lead, that is a pivot point. They support this new lead and help them develop and iterate on their process. Cate’s advice to Automattic job candidates is to be patient because distributed companies take longer to hire and there is a lot of competition for remote jobs. A well-crafted cover letter is a must. When Cate is hiring an engineer, she is looking for two things. The first is the ability to work with the kind of complex, legacy codebase they have. The second is to be able to respond well to feedback because you are expected to grow over time in your career. She talked about self-awareness. As an example of low self-awareness, she talked about how some people need to be seen as being “nice,” regardless of whether it is true or not. The gap between the way somebody talks about themselves and their actions reveals their lack of self-awareness. She listed some things that increase self-awareness: reading a broad variety of fiction, cultivating a broad network of people, and traveling outside your comfort zone. Matt added that you can travel outside your comfort zone without leaving your city by visiting parts of your city you haven’t traveled to before. Cate also recommends shedding defensiveness and getting curious. She also recommends asking for advice. People often don’t give advice when they think you are doing a good job. When she gives feedback to people, she asks them if they felt seen when they received the feedback. Matt tries to remind himself that feedback is a gift. Cate says that if somebody cares about you enough to tell you that they think you should do better, that means they think you can do better. Cate also recommends that we stop giving advice, especially without context or understanding of what someone is trying to achieve. Instead, pause, ask questions, get context, and reflect back to someone what they are saying to you. Last, Cate says to own up and admit what is not going well. She gave an example of her team recently doubling in size. Seeing her job changing, she asked the team what the most useful thing she does for them was and what she should stop doing. Matt asked what else makes a great engineering culture. Here is Cate’s answer: Apple Podcasts link: https://podcasts.apple.com/ca/podcast/automattics-cate-huston-on-building-distributed-engineering/id1463243282?i=1000447512202 Website link: https://distributed.blog/2019/08/22/cate-huston-distributed-engineering/ LINKS Ask questions, make comments, and let your voice be heard by emailing podcast@thekguy.com. Twitter: https://twitter.com/thekguy LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/keithmmcdonald/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thekguypage Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_k_guy/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/TheKGuy Website:

The Mental Game Of Coaching In Businesss   Today there is a lot of discussion about conscious and unconscious bias in the workplace, especially when directed towards women.  This is a significant issue. What a lot of people don't realise though, is that this also extends into the coaching area as well.  The heart of the problem is how we see our people.  In the 1960s, Douglas McGregor was researching the sources of motivation in teams and he came up with an interesting insight called Theory X and Theory Y leaders.    Theory X leaders see their people as being basically stupid, lazy, unreliable and disloyal.  They have to be managed very closely and watched all the time.  This means anticipating trouble, catching errors, looking for mistakes and watching their behavior carefully.  They require very close supervision.  We need to tell them what to do and how to do it in great detail, because left to themselves, they will make a big mess of it.  We expect they will fail, so a lot of leader time is taken scanning the horizon for trouble, observing them closely for poor performance and berating them when they make mistakes.   This bias in how we see our people spills over into how we coach them.  For a start we probably avoid coaching them at all, because we think it is pointless.  Time is short, so we minimize our time spent with them. When we do spend time with them we are firing out orders, rather than letting them say much.  We do most of the talking, we don't try to source their input and we feel we have to guide them in everything, because they are so useless. They feel this too and they tend to respond by fitting in with the way we treat them.   In the case of Theory Y leaders, they see the potential in their people.  They believe that basically the vast majority of people are smart, honest, decent, hardworking, loyal individuals, doing their best for the organisation and their families. They have good abilities, are committed and want to work hard. They can be trusted to run projects delegated to them.  They can take ownership and can be held accountable for results.   When it comes to coaching these team members, we apply a different approach to Theory X leaders. We get them talking during the coaching session.   We encourage them to come up with ideas.  We use good listening skills, because we know that we all “own the world we help create”, so to get ownership, we want them to determine how the project should be run.  We expect they will have ideas and that they are coachable.   Now there are four competency levels applying to our team members (and ourselves by the way).  The unconscious incompetent is the person who doesn't realise they lack skills.  They think they are better than they actually are in reality. The conscious incompetent understands they need to become better because they are not at the level they need to be and they know it.  The conscious competent knows their own ability quite clearly.  The unconscious competent is someone who has great, as yet, unrealised potential.  They have abilities but something is hiding it from their view.  Depending on whether we are a Theory X or Theory Y leader we will approach each of these situations quite differently.  Theory X leaders are looking to fire people, while Theory Y leaders are looking to build people.  If you are thinking I don't care about the people, because I am here to get results then you are looking at trouble brewing.  In today's market for staff, retaining people is going to be the critical leadership skill.  The way to do that is through the combination of training and coaching.  Those who don't get it will eventually work it out, when they have staff turnover issues, find they can't replace people so easily and the fees for doing so are very high.  This will be pure pain.   For the leader taking a positive view of their team, the unconscious incompetent needs coaching and training.  They lack self awareness and exposure to training with others shows them where they have gaps.  The conscious incompetent actually demands training and coaching because they know they are accountable for their results and they see their lack of skills as a career progression blocker.  They are usually open to advice and are hungry to move forward.    The conscious competent wants recognition for their contribution and abilities.  Funnily enough, as leaders we think they don't need anything, because they are already very good.  We tend to leave them alone and work on the people who are struggling or not performing.  With the people who are good, we need to tell them are good and encourage them to aim even higher because we can see they have the potential.  They recognise their potential too and are open to having resources made available to help them, to go further in their careers.  If we don't invest time in them, they are capable and will be likely to leave, seeking faster progression somewhere else.  They need to be coached to get to the highest level possible and retained in the organisation. s The unconscious competent is like finding a gold nugget.  Here they are working away under the radar, only doing a fraction of what they are capable of.  They are not expensive and relative to their potential productivity are a bargain. We see the spark inside them and through and coaching start to help them see what they could become.  They are often holding themselves back through lack of confidence.  We need to help them gain that confidence by giving them progressively more and more responsibility to show where they can shine.  Through training an coaching they can unlock their hidden abilities and become a strong contributor in the organisation.   So as a coach, how do you see your people?  Theory Y leaders build organisations.  They see their people in different stages of development and adjust their approach to suit rather than bundling many of them into the “hopeless” category and giving up on them.  Take another look at your own unconscious biases towards your people. Check to make sure you are not creating a leadership nightmare for yourself, by the way you see your people in the team.  Are you a theory X or theory Y leader?  Have you segmented your people into the four competency levels and adjusted your coaching to suit?

Hear how to really bring about real change! Carsten Tams and I have a lot in common. We both work with organizations that need or want to change. And, we both know the challenges of helping people transform their company, unit, department, or just themselves. Human brains hate to change, even when they're facing a crisis or anticipating one coming soon. What to do? Carsten's process, deeply embedded in humanism and the power of human agency, helps organizations change. In our talk, you'll hear about his own experiences, research and case studies. Ready to change? Listen in and let us lend a hand. A shift in how to help organizations change Not all that long ago, leading change management processes — from John Kotter’s 8-Step Process for Leading Change to Jeff Hiatt’s ADKAR Change Management Model to Kurt Lewin's Unfreeze, Change, Freeze Model of Change — preached approaches that companies embraced. All too often, however, these processes met with serious resistance (70% of the time, says McKinsey and Company) and limited positive change. Humans do believe in change, as long as it's not them who's expected to change. Are we surprised at this? Of course not! Carsten gives us two things to remember: What you believe about people will greatly influence what you do to help them change. If you think people are lazy, insolent and need to be directed and driven (Theory X), you will have a hard time overcoming their resistance. They will be happy to watch you fail. If you believe people are smart, caring and engaged in helping you build your organization, you have a big opportunity to engage with them to help you take your business in new directions with greater results (Theory Y). It sounds simple but all too often, what you believe is what you create It is not the people working with you. It is you and how you think about what your employees can do. This is how you mobilize them to do great things. As culture change experts, you can read more about our own approach to helping businesses change in my book, "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights."  Read the first chapter for free here! About Carsten Tams A consultant, author and highly sought-after speaker, Carsten Tams is fascinated with the power of human agency. People aspire to regulate their own lives and participate in shaping the world around them, and so the question is: how can we design organizations in ways that unlock this creative life force and channel it toward positive organizational objectives? Answering this question is Carsten's passion and the focus of his company, Emagence, a New York City-based consulting boutique. Partnering with influential leaders in performance-focused, values-driven companies, he helps them develop human-centered strategies for strengthening ethical performance. Drawing on 17 years' experience designing innovative and award-winning solutions in the organizational development, human resources and ethics space, Carsten builds on the best available insights in behavioral science to achieve optimal employee engagement and performance. Carsten earned a Bachelor’s Degree in European Studies from Institut d'Études Politiques de Paris, a Diploma in Political Science from Freie Universität Berlin, and an MPA2 in Public Administration from the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University. A sampling of Carsten's articles written for Forbes.com The Moral Law Within: The Scientific Case For Self-Governance It Takes A Village: Change Management As Community Building Bye-Bye, Heroic Leadership. Here Comes Shared Leadership Human-Centered Design Enables Organizational Change Why We Need To Rethink Organizational Change Management For more on change management, we suggest these blogs and podcasts: Blog: What Time Is It? Time To Change Blog: How's Your Culture? Doing Fine Or In Drastic Need Of An Overhaul? Blog: Why Change Is So Scary—And Why That Dooms Businesses To Fail Podcast: Ask Andi—How Do You Change Your Culture? Podcast: Warren Whitlock—How to Overcome the Pain of Change Podcast: Ask Andi—How To Successfully Achieve Change Management Step 1 Additional resources Carsten's company/website: Emagence My book: "On the Brink: A Fresh Lens to Take Your Business to New Heights" Our website: Simon Associates Management Consultants

Honey works better than vinegar in attracting people and their cooperation.  We know that, so why do we forget this at work.  We are short with people and too much occupied with our immense status and authority.  This is all vinegar. Others are not attracted to this approach.  We need to work on our people skills if we want to have influence and get cooperation.  How do we do that? Welcome back to this weekly edition every Tuesday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan and best selling author of Japan Sales Mastery. We are bringing the show to you from our High Performance Center in Akasaka in Minato-ku, the business center of Tokyo. Why the Cutting Edge?  In this show, we are looking at the critical areas for success in business in Japan.  We want to help advance everyone's thinking so that we be at the forefront, the Cutting Edge, of how to flourish here in this market. Before we get into this week's topic, here is what caught my attention lately. There is an acute shortage of delivery drivers in the transport business that is impacting companies like Amazon and Rakuten.  According to the Ministry of Health, labor and Welfare there were two point seven jobs for every driver application in June.  A separate government survey in two thousand and sixteen found that eighty three percent of transport companies were overworking their drivers.  This high demand situation has led to higher salaries, with the resultant costs increasing delivery rates.  Amazon and Rakuten have been moving their business to Japan Post which has increased its share to twenty percent, third after Yamato at forty three percent and Sagawa Express at twenty nine percent. In other news, the pickup in land prices has been fueled by the Bank Of Japan's monetary easing programs.  The gains have been particularly steep in the areas popular with tourists.  The booming tourist trade has pushed up demand for Hotels an shops that cater fir tourists.  Land prices in Ginza keep rising and Kyoto is also doing very well. The biggest jump was in Kutchan in Hokkaido, the location of the internationally popular Niseko ski resort. Last year the number of inbound travelers to Japan hit a record twenty eight point seven million.  The total this year topped twenty million in mid august and appears on course to exceed thirty million by year's end. The governments target is fifty million by twenty twenty. This is episode number fifty-five and we are talking about  Lead To Outperform The Competition Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going. Harvard Professor Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” to describe how nations can achieve their aims through persuasion and the ability to attract.  Our world bristles with nukes.  Testosterone fueled fighter pilots duel at supersonic speeds over rocky outcrop flashpoints.  Drones have 007 licenses to kill and volatile dictators strut, posture and provoke. Hmm…having a soft power alternative to World War Three sounds attractive.    Closer to home, can soft power in our businesses achieve persuasion and attract cooperation? There are plenty of testosterone fueled dogfights going on in the C-suites amongst colleagues and between Divisions.  Corporate leaders strut and posture, while middle managers whip the troops to do more, faster with less.  Power, status, authority, rules, regulations, contracts etc., keep people in line, but none of this engages them.  Time for some fresh thinking! Here are four soft power plays that persuade and attract the team to outperform the competition. Play One:  work on our communication.  The WHY of the vision as well as the what and the how need to be explained in ways that inspire the troops to care. We own the world we create, so include our people in creating the vision.  Plenty of corporate offices have elaborately framed Vision, Mission, Values statements that hardly anybody can recall.  How do you live it, if you can't remember it?  Well you don't and this is a failure of communication.  The Ritz Carlton Hotel chain became famous for having every shift start their day by re-visiting their WHY.  Good organisation creates good communication.  How hard is it to get all of your work units starting with a daily WHY recharge?  It takes a few minutes and costs almost nothing. Play Two:tap into the emotional wellsprings of engagement. Intention is important here. Following Douglas McGregor's Theory X, Theory Y staff motivation models, if we see our people as lazy, inept, untrustworthy then we have to ferret out their failures and fix them.  If we see our team as basically good, loyal people doing the best they can, then we can switch our gaze to becoming a “good” finder to recognise them, rather than to scold them.  So leaders need to take a Theory Y “happy pill” every morning before work and decide they will be finder of good work and praise it, rather than becoming a Theory X carping dud detector.  Try it for a week and see the difference. Find out more when we come back from the break   Welcome backPlay Three:emphasise “valuing your people” rather than parroting the “corporate values”.  Our global engagement survey, validated in Japan, showed that the feeling of being valued was the trigger point sparking inspiration, empowerment, enthusiasm and confidence.  Innovation is directly correlated to engagement, because if you don't care, why make it better? Communicating to each individual “you are valued” is using soft power. Play Four: ask questions instead of giving direct orders. Based on their hard skills credentials, supervisors believe they have super vision, so they can tell people what to do.  One brain's output, no matter how good, is still only producing a narrow sliver of ideas. Actually the further up the chain of command you fly, the more distant you become from the action and informed perspectives.  Engaging people in the front line, through valuing their input, produces outperformance. Don't miss it – the crowdsourcing of ideas from the team is a soft power play that pays off.    The end is nigh for those organisations who don't introduce Professor Nye's soft power play into their leadership armory.  As we say in Japan, “time flies like an arrow”, so let's all commit to going “soft” and persuading and attracting our way to success. Action Steps Start with the WHY before explaining the What and the How Become a daily Theory Xer, seeking out the positives in your people Ensure your people feel they are genuinely valued every time, all the time Become an “ask” rather than “tell” leader Commit to persuade and attract your way to success THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show is here to help you succeed in Japan.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching this episode and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, dalecarnegie.com, it is awesome value, so check it out. In episode fifty six we are talking about How To Not Blow Your Acceptance Speech. Find out more about that next week. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show We are here to help you and we have only one direction in mind for you and your business and that is UP!!!

Sales guru Zig Ziglar had a great saying, “If you can help enough people get what they want in this life, you can get what you want”.  Pretty simple idea isn't it.  It is the same idea when we are the boss.  Don't focus on what we want, focus on what our people want.  If we do that then we will have great results being created by highly motivated people.   Welcome back to this weekly edition every Monday of "THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show" I am your host Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan Well, where is this Cutting Edge?  For all of us, the quality of our people is the cutting edge for success in Japan. In this show I will: Stimulate your thinking about ramping up your business Bring you insights from the best training organisation on the planet Provide you with the highest quality Japan information Motivate you to motivate yourself and motivate those around you Help you to shoot the lights out at results time I don't want to just help you succeed.  I want you to dominate!   This is episode number 4and we are talking about  #4 Motivational Leadership Part Two   Soredewa ikimasho, so let's get going.     In the last episode, we have covered what we should not be doing if we want to motivate our people.  If you haven't listened to that episode, go back and learn about the 7 things we should stop doing.   In today's episode we are going to take a positive slant, and focus on what what we should be doing instead.   Abraham Maslow's 1954 book “Motivation and Personality” introduced the now famous “Hierarchy of Needs”.  He theorized that each individual is motivated by a progression of needs, represented in a pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom and the highest order of needs at the top.  He believed motivation is driven by the individual satisfying each level of need, in a progressive sequence from bottom to top.  He asserted that people are generally motivated to move to the next level when the  more basic order of need is satisfied.   We start our careers focusing on getting some money together to live independently, make the credit card payments, etc.   As we progress in our careers we gradually get more focused on security, being a contributing member of the team and earning the respect of others. Eventually, we focus on aspects of work that are personally fulfilling, that make a significant contribution and that maximize our potential.    In Maslow's theory, the boss must create a motivational environment that meets the needs of team members at each level of the hierarchy, in order to inspire them to strive to the next level.  To do this the boss has to know their people, to be sensitive to where they are in their current career stage and aspirations.  The boss needs to communicate hope and the way forward together, so the employee can get through to the next stage.  Are you actually doing this?   As leaders, how well do we know the hopes, fears, dreams and situations of our team? In the old model, the personal lives of the team members was thought to be an off limits area for bosses.  Not today.  The team want to know the boss is in their corner, actively working to help them further their careers.  The younger the generation the more vivid this idea becomes.  Of course, the boss can't do it for us, but the boss can create the environment where we can do it ourselves.  To get people motivated, get busy building that supportive environment. Understand where your individual team members are in that hierarchy of needs.   In 1959 Fredrick Herzberg published “The Motivation to Work” where he theorized that workers face two basic sets of factors in their jobs: maintenance factors and motivating factors.  He related the level of job satisfaction to the presence or absence of motivating factors.   Maintenance factors included things like relationships with team members, work conditions, salary, status and security.  This is an interesting viewpoint, because many of us today may believe that salary is a highly motivating, rather than maintaining factor for our team.    Perhaps for the one percent on huge salaries, this is probably quite true, but for the majority of employees this is not the case.  Unless we want to start paying everyone huge numbers, we need to look for other areas to engage them.  One of my clients returned to the same company after being posted overseas. Now as the boss, he noticed that motivation levels were lower than previously. He instituted an incentive scheme to boost individual motivation but to his amazement it had no impact at all.   Herzberg found that motivational factors referred to achievement, recognition, the work itself, responsibility, advancement and personal growth.  Every one of these rely on the communication skills of the boss to create that environment where people feel appreciated, relevant, appreciated and inspired to try even harder.  How good are your communication skills in this regard?   Working in big organizations it is hard to feel that your role has any meaning. This is where the boss connects the dot for you and demonstrates how important you are to the company.  Your ideas are sought, your input valued, your work noted, recognized and praised.    Praise is one of the nascent arts of leadership today.  There is plenty of praise in stock because so few bosses draw down on it.  It is a bit like not telling your partner that you love them.  You assume they know that, so why do you have to state it? Recognizing employees gets the same treatment – somehow they know you appreciate them, even though you never bring it up.  Maybe not!   We have to re-examine some of our basic assumptions.  There was a global research on engagement which was duplicated in Japan.  The results were shocking.  Of those employees who stated they were “very satisfied” with their boss, less than half said they felt “engaged”.  Most bosses would be relieved to have staff say they were “very satisfied” with them and would therefore expect that they would also be highly engaged.  Until I saw this research, I would have been pretty happy to read my staff were very satisfied with my leadership. The research results showed that we cannot be so optimistic!  This underlines the need for the leaders to look for the points of motivation in their team, work hard on those and to clearly isolate out and understand what are purely maintenance factors.  Can you discriminate which are maintenance factors and which are motivators for each of your direct reports?   In the 1960 book “The Human Side of Enterprise” Douglas McGregor introduced Theory X and Theory Y management.  Theory X is top down management, authoritative in nature and McGregor found it produced poor results.   Theory Y leaders see their people as shirking work, lazy, untrustworthy, avoiding responsibility, etc.  They must be threatened with punishment to meet objectives, given directions and told what to do and how to do it.  This is the boss ignoring the nine things done well and zeroing in on the one thing done incorrectly.  The micro-manager, the “bad finder”, the “have to watch em like a hawk” boss.  By the way, do you recognize anyone here – is this you?   Theory X management by contrast creates a participative, team oriented environment where management frees individuals to produce better performance, while allowing them to grow and develop their skills.  Leaders believe workers are capable of controlling and directing themselves, are more motivated by rewards than punishment, enjoy responsibility and have capacity for creativity and ingenuity.  This type of boss is open to ideas from the team, prepared to delegate responsibility and someone trying to both build people and manage processes.  They are a “good finder”. If we surveyed your team about you, would the results show up Ys or Xs?   Predating Herzberg and McGregor, Dale Carnegie introduced his famous 30 Principles of successful human relations, published in his global best seller “How To Win Friends and Influence People” in 1936.  Carnegie was not an academic but he was a very practical man.  His findings were based on 24 years of observation and experiment in his “real world” laboratory.    His conclusion was that the best way to influence the behavior or motivation of others, is by adjusting your own behavior.  The leader takes 100% of the responsibility for making the relationship as productive as possible by fostering a truly motivational environment.  He did not say the leader was responsible for the followers' actions, but was responsible for the work environment and the controlling their own attitude.   Dale Carnegie's 30 principles focused on providing practical advice on achieving better people skills, including common sense but not common practice advice such as: Give honest, sincere appreciation Arouse in the other person an eager want Become genuinely interested in other people Talk in terms of the other person's interests Try honestly to see things from the other person's point of view Talk about your own mistakes before criticizing the other person Ask questions instead of giving direct orders   This selection from the 30 Principles underline the leader's role in focusing not on what they want, but understanding what their team members want.    Sales guru Zig Ziglar had a great saying, “If you can help enough people get what they want in this life, you can get what you want”.  It is the same idea for the boss.  Don't focus on what you want, focus on what your people want.  Maslow, Herzberg, McGregor and Carnegie have been telling us this for a long time - this is how to get motivation going in the team.    We may be slow learners but now is the time for us to finally get it!  Forget Hollywood!  Go with the research and build the environment most favorable to creating high levels of motivation in your team.   Keep pushing hard with us here at THE Cutting Edge Japan Business Show.  Subscribe on YouTube, share it with your family, friends and colleagues, become a regular. Thank you for watching and remember to hit the subscribe button. Our website details are on screen now, it's awesome value, so check it out.   Next week, we are going to be talking about Cold Calling.  That topic is always of big interest here in Japan. So Yoroshiku Onegai Itashimasu please join me for the next episode of the Cutting Edge Japan Business Show Until then, create seriously outrageous levels of massive success. Dale Carnegie Training Japan has only one direction in mind for you and that is UP!!!

In this podcast recorded at QCon London 2019, Shane Hastie, Lead Editor for Culture & Methods, spoke to Randy Shoup, VP of Engineering at WeWork about what is needed to create a high-performance culture. Why listen to this podcast: • Theory X leaders believe that people are inherently lazy and need extrinsic motivation which results in micromanagement and disempowerment • Theory Y says that people are intrinsically motivated and want to perform well, the role of management is to remove impediments and enable people to do their best • Organisations with generative cultures based on trust and learning consistently perform better than bureaucratic cultures based on rules and standards • The worst performers are characterised by pathological cultures based on fear and threat • With a piece of software, it doesn’t matter how much effort we’ve put in to producing it, if we haven’t shipped it there is no value More on this: Quick scan our curated show notes on InfoQ https://bit.ly/2KI6vWW You can also subscribe to the InfoQ newsletter to receive weekly updates on the hottest topics from professional software development. bit.ly/24x3IVq Subscribe: www.youtube.com/infoq Like InfoQ on Facebook: bit.ly/2jmlyG8 Follow on Twitter: twitter.com/InfoQ Follow on LinkedIn: www.linkedin.com/company/infoq Check the landing page on InfoQ: https://bit.ly/2KI6vWW

Buckle in, ladies and gentlemen, for some straight talk about the future of work, the nature of the universe and the power of changing systems to change behavior. Today I'm sharing a deep and rambling conversation I had a few months back with Aaron Dignan, author of Brave New Work and founder of the Ready, an org transformation partner to companies like Airbnb, Edelman and charity: water. He is a cofounder of responsive.org, an amazing community of like-minded transformation professionals. If you haven't checked out their conference, it's great. I co-facilitated some sessions there last year and I can highly recommend it. You should also check out the episode I had recently on asking better questions with Robin Zander, who hosts the conference. http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2019/4/23/robin-p-zander-asking-better-questions I owe a debt of gratitude to Aaron. It was his OS Canvas, published in 2016 on Medium, that got me thinking differently about my own work in Conversation Design and led me to develop my own Conversation OS Canvas. His OS Canvas clarified and simplified a complex domain of thinking – organizational change – into (then) just nine factors. In the book it's evolved into 12 helpful prompts to provoke clear thinking and to accelerate powerful conversations about how to change the way we work – if you are willing to create the time and space for the conversation. Aaron doesn't pull any punches – as he says, “the way we work is badly broken and a century old”. And he figures that “a six year old could design a good org, you just have to ask the socratic questions.” His OS Canvas can help you start the conversation about changing the way you work in your org and his excellent book will help you dive deep into principles, practices and stories for each element of the OS. You'll find in the show notes some deep-dives on the two core principles of org design from the book. The first principle is being complexity Conscious. The second is being people positive. For more on complexity – dig into Cynefin (which is not spelled the way it sounds). And for more on people positivity, there's a link to Theory X vs Theory Y, a very helpful mental model in management theory. Another powerful idea that I want to highlight is Aaron's suggestion that we all have our own “system of operating” or “a way of being in the world” which is “made up of assumptions and principles and practices and norms and patterns of behavior and it's coded into the system.”  Aaron goes on to say that “people are chameleons and people are highly sensitive to the culture and environment they're in. And the system, the aquarium, the container tells us a lot about how we're supposed to show up. And over time it can even beat us into submission. And so we have to change the system and that's hard to do when we're reinforcing things that we ourselves didn't even create,” From my own work on conversation design, it's very clear to me that communication is held in a space, or transmitted through an interface – the air, the internet, a whiteboard. The space your culture happens in is one very key component of how to shift your culture. Check out my episode with Elliot of Brightspot Strategy for more on changing conversations through changing spaces: http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/7/24/elliot-felix-of-brightspot-strategy-on-changing-conversations-through-changing-spaces Changing your physical space is easy compared with shifting power and distributing authority more thoughtfully in your organization. To do that, we need to shift not just our org structures, but our own OS:  we need more leaders who can show up as facilitators and coaches rather than order-givers. And that takes, as Aaron points out, a brave mindset.  If you want to become a more facilitative leader of innovation and change in your company, you should definitely apply before August to the first cohort of the 12-week Innovation Leadership Accelerator I'm co-hosting with Jay Melone from New Haircut, a leader in Design Sprint Training. It kicks off in NYC with a 2-day workshop in September, runs for 12 weeks of remote coaching and closes with another 2-day workshop. We'll have several amazing guest coaches during the program – a few of which have been wonderful guests on this very show: Jim Kalbach, author of Mapping Experiences and head of Customer Success at Mural and Bree Groff, Principle at SY Partners and former CEO of change consultancy NOBL. http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2018/2/5/jim-kalbach-gets-teams-to-map-experiences http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/season-three/bree-groff-grief-and-change Show Notes The OS Canvas Medium post that started it all for me: https://medium.com/the-ready/the-os-canvas-8253ac249f53 The Ready https://theready.com/ Brave New Work https://www.bravenewwork.com/ Complexity Conscious: Cynefin https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework Being people positive: Theory X vs Theory Y https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y Capitalism needs to be reformed: https://www.cnbc.com/video/2019/04/05/capitalism-needs-to-be-reformed-warns-billionare-ray-dalio.html The Lake Wobegon Effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lake_Wobegon Game Frame https://www.amazon.com/Game-Frame-Using-Strategy-Success/dp/B0054U5EHA The Four Sons as four personalities at work in us:  https://reformjudaism.org/jewish-holidays/passover/which-four-children-are-you MECE https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/MECE_principle Fish and Water:  https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/97082-there-are-these-two-young-fish-swimming-along-and-they The Finger and the Moon: https://fakebuddhaquotes.com/i-am-a-finger-pointing-to-the-moon-dont-look-at-me-look-at-the-moon/ also from Amelie! https://www.goodreads.com/quotes/tag/am%C3%A9lie Zen Flesh, Zen Bones https://www.amazon.com/Zen-Flesh-Bones-Collection-Writings/dp/0804831866 Agile https://agilemanifesto.org/ Open Source Agility: http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/6/23/dan-mezick-on-agile-as-an-invitation-to-a-game The Heart of Agile  http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2017/7/19/alistair-cockburn-on-the-heart-of-agile-jazz-dialog-and-guest-leadership Lean https://www.lean.org/WhatsLean/Principles.cfm Open https://opensource.com/open-organization Information Radiators http://www.agileadvice.com/2005/05/10/bookreviews/information-radiators/ Asking better questions: http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2019/4/23/robin-p-zander-asking-better-questions Loss in Change:  http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/season-three/bree-groff-grief-and-change Mapping experiences: http://theconversationfactory.com/podcast/2018/2/5/jim-kalbach-gets-teams-to-map-experiences  

Wie gestaltet sich ein moderner Führungskontext in Bezug auf Aufgabensicherheit und -dynamik. Wer hat die fachliche Überlegenheit? Was sind relevante, dominierende Führungsrollen und wie ist diese im Einklang mit den Erwartungen der Geführten? Theorie X und Y nach Douglas McGregor

01:04 - Suzan’s Superpower: Asking Powerful Questions The Compassionate Coder (https://compassionatecoder.com/) 07:30 - Blending Technology and Coaching 10:32 - Blending Technology and Humans; Working Distributed/Remotely 15:32 - Creating Organizational Divides (Intentional and Unintentional) 20:24 - Company Cultures That Lend Themselves Well to Remote Work Theory X and Theory Y (Douglas McGregor) (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y) 25:19 - Autocratic vs Autonomy 26:23 - Becoming a Coach and Learning Coaching Skills Emotional API (https://emotionalapi.com/) 30:46 - Listening to Yourself and Intuition “Good decisions get better; bad decisions get worse.” 33:28 - Management vs Leadership / Developing Leadership Skills: Deliberation and Introspection Julia Cameron’s Morning Pages (https://juliacameronlive.com/basic-tools/morning-pages/) Reflections: Coraline: Powerful questions. Coaching by asking powerful questions. Suzan: The word “autonomy”. John: Asking questions to illicit insight, movement, and motivation. Ask Powerful Questions: Create Conversations That Matter by Will Wise (https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/1545322996/ref=as_li_qf_asin_il_tl?ie=UTF8&tag=therubyrep-20&creative=9325&linkCode=as2&creativeASIN=1545322996&linkId=0e95cb5b59005b62e0cdd8b7e430b78f) This episode was brought to you by @therubyrep (https://twitter.com/therubyrep) of DevReps, LLC (http://www.devreps.com/). To pledge your support and to join our awesome Slack community, visit patreon.com/greaterthancode (https://www.patreon.com/greaterthancode) To make a one-time donation so that we can continue to bring you more content and transcripts like this, please do so at paypal.me/devreps (https://www.paypal.me/devreps). You will also get an invitation to our Slack community this way as well. Amazon links may be affiliate links, which means you’re supporting the show when you purchase our recommendations. Thanks! Special Guest: Suzan Bond.

The agile principles talk about empowerment and autonomy, but do we have to make a complete switch from our current centralised-decision culture to a fully autonomous one? The Satir curve, six thinking hats, and a theory of Tic Tac change (really!) from Jeffrey and Alistair Cockburn, shows us a way to make a series of small changes rather than one big shift. SHOW LINKS: - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - The Uncanny Valley of A Functional Organization: https://stratechery.com/2013/the-uncanny-valley-of-a-functional-organization/ - Satir curve (J-curve): http://dhemery.com/articles/managing_yourself_through_change/ - Tic Tac presentation (Fredrick/Cockburn): http://blog.jeffreyfredrick.com/wp-content/uploads/2008/07/sdbp06tictactalk.pdf - Six Thinking Hats: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Six_Thinking_Hats *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Theory X organisations don't trust their people - or do they? To be agile we have to move our organisations to a Theory Y model with empowerment and autonomy - or do we? Organisational change has to be painful - or does it? And what does all this have to do with creepy robots? SHOW LINKS: - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - J Jonah Jameson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mhDBWiTfNCU - The Uncanny Valley: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncanny_valley - The Uncanny Valley of A Functional Organization: https://stratechery.com/2013/the-uncanny-valley-of-a-functional-organization/ *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Due to illness and travel, Jeffrey and Squirrel present one of their greatest hits of the past! *** Squirrel and Jeffrey look at a recent article by Luke Tomas on the "employee engagement industry" (we didn't even know it *was* an industry!) Jeffrey rapidly links this to Brian Marick's idea of Ease and Joy at work and we all agree that engagement, happiness, and joy are all useful, but lagging, indicators of team success - so you can't improve them directly with bigger bonuses or tougher objectives. Instead alignment, focus, and autonomy work to create these results by creating the conditions for happiness and good performance. SHOW LINKS: - Luke Tomas, The Employee Engagement Myth: medium.com/@lukethomas14/the-e…t-myth-3885526782d7 - Brian Marick, Ease and Joy at Work: exampler.com/ease-and-joy/ - Previous episode on technical excellence: Troubleshootingagile – Fowlers-state-of-agile-part-two - Reinventing Organisations (Teal and other colours): www.reinventingorganizations.com/ - Theory X and Theory Y: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - Daniel Pink, Drive (video): www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc - Niko Niko: www.agilealliance.org/glossary/nikoniko/ - Small Improvements: www.small-improvements.com/ - Joy, Inc : www.menloinnovations.com/joyinc/ - Joy At Work: www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troub…d1327456890?mt=2

Leadership as a topic has been written about and discussed ad nauseam, yet good leadership remains elusive for so many organizations and teams. How can the subject of such exhaustive research and discussion continue to be the glaring root cause of business failures, mission-killing morale problems, and weak vision at the top of otherwise strong organizations? Perhaps it’s because talking about optimal leadership will never replace the disciplined practice of good leadership. That’s why for today’s episode on leadership, I wanted to talk to someone who has actually walked the walk of trust based leadership to peel back the layers on what works, and what doesn’t. It didn’t take me long to think of who that would be. All of us can think back to those leaders we have both respected and admired. One of those people for me is Fraser Pajak, a business veteran who has spent most of his career serving in leadership positions in the ICT industry, at one point having responsibility for 1,275 employees and a $133 million budget while running coast-to-coast operations and networks for the second largest telecom carrier in Canada. Fraser later served as chairman and CEO of a global quality benchmarking and standards organization, leading paid staff and volunteer teams across the Americas, APAC, and EMEA regions in responding to the rapid technology changes that have now become the norm for today’s quickly evolving telecom industry. In this wide ranging interview full of real-world war stories and practical advice, Fraser and I discuss his pragmatic tips, lessons learned, and workable strategies for leading teams through organizational changes, power struggles, culture shifts, and other challenging circumstances. In this episode, we discuss: Why gaining trust is more important than having the answers (and how to earn that trust to begin with) The importance of leadership as a learned discipline How to use anger appropriately (the distinctly Canadian way) Dealing with negative players on a team Stepping into a new leadership role within an existing organization Backing your people The importance of “the inevitable test” and standing your ground Understanding what truly motivates people (and what doesn’t) Articulating a vision for “the galvanizing goal” Managing change Tips for leaders in hiring right, and getting hired The proper perspective of mentorship The unseen aspects of adventurous living (bonus topic!) I hope you enjoy this show as we talk to Fraser about the purpose in the process of trust based leadership. Fraser Pajak is the former CEO and board chairman of QuEST Forum, a non-profit organization dedicated to improving the quality of products and services delivered to customers of information and communication technologies (ICT). Fraser has over 30 years’ experience in the ICT industry, having served as VP of National Service Infrastructure Support for TELUS Communications where he directed a team of over 1,200 of the most highly skilled technical people in Canada. Fraser’s team took care of incident management, escalation, resolution, root cause analysis, change management and service performance for the wireline, wireless, internet and TV networks and data centers across Canada. In his spare time Fraser likes spending time with his wife Maggie and their four children as well as flying his airplane, snowboarding and waterskiing. Fraser is an investor and active partner in the Vancouver based 33 acres brewing company, voted best brewery in B.C. for 2018. Canadian olympic coach and business school professor Dr. Peter Jensen wrote the book The Inside Edge: High Performance Through Mental Fitness, recommended by Fraser in learning to use anger productively and in a controlled manner. Here’s also a link to Dr. Jensen’s website covering a variety of topics in sports psychology and more. Some other tools mentioned that you might want to consider for your leadership toolbox: Fraser alluded to Theory X and Theory Y - here’s what he was talking about that we didn’t have time to delve into further. Here’s a good summary of Herzberg’s 2 factor theory of motivation from toolshero.com. An explanation of the Hawthorne effect (the impact of observation). The ITIL change management process “If you can keep your head when all about you  Are losing theirs and blaming it on you,  If you can trust yourself when all men doubt you, But make allowance for their doubting too;  If you can wait and not be tired by waiting, Or being lied about, don’t deal in lies, Or being hated, don’t give way to hating, And yet don’t look too good, nor talk too wise: If you can dream—and not make dreams your master;  If you can think—and not make thoughts your aim;  If you can meet with Triumph and Disaster And treat those two impostors just the same;  If you can bear to hear the truth you’ve spoken Twisted by knaves to make a trap for fools, Or watch the things you gave your life to, broken, And stoop and build ’em up with worn-out tools: If you can make one heap of all your winnings And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss, And lose, and start again at your beginnings And never breathe a word about your loss; If you can force your heart and nerve and sinew To serve your turn long after they are gone,  And so hold on when there is nothing in you Except the Will which says to them: ‘Hold on!’ If you can talk with crowds and keep your virtue,  Or walk with Kings—nor lose the common touch, If neither foes nor loving friends can hurt you, If all men count with you, but none too much; If you can fill the unforgiving minute With sixty seconds’ worth of distance run,  Yours is the Earth and everything that’s in it,  And—which is more—you’ll be a Man, my son!” — If, by Rudyard Kipling (1865-1936)

Brain food, what food can help you with your studies. We’ll find out later, but first, lets find out what being a virtual assistant is all about as we chat to Louisa van Vessem, who is the owner and VA for Workflow Virtual Assistant. Louisa’s mantra is to run straight ahead at those things that put fear into you. Scared of heights? Why not do a skydive? Introverted and don’t like talking to crowds – do a podcast or stand up on stage! That’s why in this episode Louisa talks about Time Terrorists and Money Laundering, oh and also all things VA.   Takeaways - A Virtual Assistants (VA’s) job can vary massively from admin tasks to web design. They can even be used as a sounding board – so getting the right fit with a client is hugely important for Louisa, which is great to hear as this means all of her clients will be as much of a great fit for her as Louisa is for them, win / win. - Admin tasks have changed. We are taking on more and more without the increase of any time (we all still have 24 hours in a day), which can lead to mistakes and missed elements as we can be so focussed on other areas, be it in a business or working on our own thing. What tasks are critical and are your sweet spot and which should be pushed down the pecking order? Consider this when doing your research and studies. - Take note of Louisa’s tips for that work-life-study balance and how to stay organised: - Breakdown your tasks into small bites sized chunks - Consider using an online project management tool such as Asana - Don't be afraid to ask for help – and that means your tutors and peers - Set deadline dates and work out what is essential, cutting out the crap - Take breaks – we’ve cover it in previous episodes, make sure you take heed as it is as important as the hours you are putting in   Top Tip – Brain Food If you want to optimise your chances of passing a Marketing qualification, nutrition during studying can play a larger part than you think. Keeping healthy isn’t only good for your…. Health, but also your brain power. Here is a list of those ‘super brain foods’ courtesy of the BBC Good Food: Wholegrains – For concentration Oily Fish – Healthy brain function Blueberries – Boosts short term memory Tomatoes Eggs Blackcurrants – Reduce anxiety and stress Pumpkin Seeds – Boost your mood Broccoli – Improve brainpower Sage – Boost memory Nuts – Protect brain function Enjoy. Happy Marketing Everyone! Peter www.marketingstudylab.co.uk www.linkedin.com/company/marketing-study-lab/ www.facebook.com/marketingstudylab/ https://twitter.com/mktstudylab (@mktstudylab) Music Featured on this Podcast: Sleepy in the Garden Lobo Loco www.musikbrause.de Creative Commons License LinksLouisa van Vessem: https://workflowva.com LinkedIn:https://www.linkedin.com/in/workflowva/ @WorkflowVA:https://twitter.com/WorkflowVA Facebook:https://www.facebook.com/WorkflowVA/ Insta:https://www.instagram.com/workflowva/ Asana Project Management: https://asana.com Trello Project Management: https://trello.com App:LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/ Theory:Douglas McGregor X and Y Theory: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y

Squirrel and Jeffrey look at a recent article by Luke Tomas on the "employee engagement industry" (we didn't even know it *was* an industry!) Jeffrey rapidly links this to Brian Marick's idea of Ease and Joy at work and we all agree that engagement, happiness, and joy are all useful, but lagging, indicators of team success - so you can't improve them directly with bigger bonuses or tougher objectives. Instead alignment, focus, and autonomy work to create these results by creating the conditions for happiness and good performance. SHOW LINKS: - Luke Tomas, The Employee Engagement Myth: https://medium.com/@lukethomas14/the-employee-engagement-myth-3885526782d7 - Brian Marick, Ease and Joy at Work: http://exampler.com/ease-and-joy/ - Previous episode on technical excellence: https://soundcloud.com/troubleshootingagile/fowlers-state-of-agile-part-two - Reinventing Organisations (Teal and other colours): http://www.reinventingorganizations.com/ - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - Daniel Pink, Drive (video): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc - Niko Niko: https://www.agilealliance.org/glossary/nikoniko/ - Small Improvements: https://www.small-improvements.com/ - Joy, Inc : https://www.menloinnovations.com/joyinc/ - Joy At Work: http://www.dennisbakke.com/joy-at-work *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Martin Fowler gives us lots to chew on in the form of a speech on the state of agile software development in 2018. We start a series responding to Fowler by examining the Agile Industrial Complex - proponents of the "one true way" of agile development and out-of-the-box methodologies - and why Squirrel thinks the buyers and sellers of these "solutions" are doomed to failure by their "Theory X" cultures. SHOW LINKS: - Fowler on the State of Agile 2018: https://martinfowler.com/articles/agile-aus-2018.html - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - The Military-Industrial Complex: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Military%E2%80%93industrial_complex - Crossing the Chasm: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossing_the_Chasm - Cynefin Framework: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cynefin_framework - Community of Solutions and Community of Needs: https://theitriskmanager.wordpress.com/2015/04/19/communities-of-need-community-of-solutions/ - CITCON: http://citconf.com/

Sometimes, all you need is a public restroom and a therapy dog to teach you some important lessons about leadership. This episode is such a time.   Why is that important for business? The episode starts with a story about a dog named Max and his annoyed owner, but it turns into a lesson on leadership. There are leaders who micromanage and push and blame their employees when things don’t work. And then there are leaders who are compelling and make a space for people to be their best. People and dogs can tell when you are interested in them, when you are invested in them, and that interest is magnetic. When you make your people do things, versus creating an environment where they want to do the things that you want them to do, you will notice resistance. You want your people naturally engaged. In leadership, it is common to see managers and leaders try to control people’s behaviors in times when it really doesn’t matter.  There is a difference between controlling when and how people do certain things that are vital to the job that they accepted and controlling things that simply satisfy the leader’s need to be recognized or catered to. If you are managing activities and not outcomes, then you have a leader issue, not an employee issue. Interested in telling a story and trying to stump Jodi and Eliot to come up with a good business lesson. Send your entertaining story to Talktous@heresmystory.com and we’ll make some business gold out of your non-business anecdote.  Resources mentioned Want to learn more about the x and y leadership Jodi mentioned? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y    What story do you want to tell? So, that's our story... now, we want to hear yours!   Pull up a chair and join the conversation in our Facebook Group: bit.ly/shmsgroup OR...  Shoot us an email: talktous@soheresmystory.com Connect with @SHMSpodcast on Twitter: https://twitter.com/shmspodcast  Text the word STORY to 345345 to get access to bonus content and weekly episode delivery.   Want to support us? Love this podcast? Please tell your friends, post about us, or take moment to review us & subscribe on iTunes, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to the podcast!  

La 12da temporada será la ultima de ´The Big Bang Theory' Suscribite GRATIS al podcast en:   Apple Podcast | Spotify | Ivoox | Google Podcast | RSS  HOY TAMBIÉN: George Clooney es el actor que más ingresó en un año, según Forbes Paolo Guerrero nuevamente suspendido. Maluma reveló con quién le gustaría cantar proximamente. Y más noticias...   Seguí al Francoinformador en redes sociales: Facebook Twitter Instagram

The final episode of our mini-series on achieving alignment. We list five different objections we hear to the goals or process of alignment, and suggest ways to address them. We also tell a success story based on achieving alignment. SHOW LINKS: - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - Alistair Cockburn's mutiny koan: https://staging.cockburn.us/self-organization-means-mutiny/ *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

Our next instalment on alignment as a tool for agile success. If alignment is as valuable as we claimed in the previous episode, why doesn't every organisation have it? We use ideas from Dr. David Burns to classify resistance to alignment into "outcome" and "process" resistance, then give examples of each and tell a story about a startup where the founders are (according to them) totally aligned, but no one else is. Next time: steps to achieve alignment despite resistance. SHOW LINKS: - Dr. David Burns, Feeling Good: https://feelinggood.com/ - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - Thinking Fast and Slow: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thinking,_Fast_and_Slow *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas, or feedback you have about the show. Email us: see link on troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: https://itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troubleshooting-agile/id1327456890?mt=2

This week, Jeffrey and Squirrel each tell a story about how teams they've worked with handled deadlines. SHOW LINKS: - The 12 Agile Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html - Theory X and Theory Y: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Theory_X_and_Theory_Y - Burndown charts: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Burn_down_chart *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas or feedback you have regarding the show. Email us: agile@troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Also, if you'd like to leave us a review on iTunes (or just like and subscribe), you'll find us here: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troub…d1327456890?mt=2

This week, in Episode 7 of Troubleshooting Agile, we discuss Agile Principle Number 5: "Build projects around motivated individuals. Give them the environment and support they need, and trust them to get the job done." Talking points this week include: -Why perceptions of this principle differ immensely depending on whether your adopt Theory X or Theory Y. -Directed Opportunism - and who used it better, General Clausewitz in 1870 or Darth Sidious a long, long time ago. -How trusting your team and recognising the ingenuity inherent within all employees creates psychological safety that motivates your staff and advances your business. -Different ways to deal with an unyielding Theory X-er. -How to recognise when it's come down to a case of "change your organisation or change your organisation." And finally, can you can think of a good Theory Y boss/environment depicted in TV or Film? (think corporate Mr Miyagi) Let us know down below, or Tweet us @TShootingAgile and we'll give your ideas a shout out in an upcoming episode. *** LINKS: -The 12 Agile Principles: http://agilemanifesto.org/principles.html -Stephen Bungay's 'The Art of Action': https://www.amazon.co.uk/dp/B01HPVHLHG/ref=dp-kindle-redirect?_encoding=UTF8&btkr=1 -The LEAP Institute: http://dramador.com/the-leap-institute/ -Niels Pfläging's blog, 'Why we cannot learn a damn thing from Semco, or Toyota': https://vision.haufe.de/blog/en/why-we-cannot-learn-a-damn-thing-from-semco-or-toyota/ *** We'd love to hear any thoughts, ideas or feedback you have regarding the episode. You can email us, here: agile@troubleshootingagile.com Tweet us, here: twitter.com/TShootingAgile Or find our website, here: troubleshootingagile.com/ Also, here is a link to our iTunes: itunes.apple.com/gb/podcast/troub…d1327456890?mt=2 If you have a moment, please like, share and subscribe. We really appreciate it.

Leadership Soft Power   Harvard Professor Joseph Nye coined the term “soft power” to describe how nations can achieve their aims through persuasion and the ability to attract.  Our world bristles with nukes.  Testosterone fueled fighter pilots duel at supersonic speeds over rocky outcrop flashpoints.  Drones have 007 licenses to kill and volatile dictators strut, posture and provoke. Hmm…having a soft power alternative to World War Three sounds attractive.    Closer to home, can soft power in our businesses achieve persuasion and attract cooperation?  There are plenty of testosterone fueled dogfights going on in the C-suites amongst colleagues and between Divisions.  Corporate leaders strut and posture, while middle managers whip the troops to do more, faster with less.  Power, status, authority, rules, regulations, contracts etc., keep people in line, but none of this engages them.  Time for some fresh thinking!   Here are four soft power plays that persuade and attract the team to outperform the competition.   Play One:  work on our communication.  The WHY of the vision as well as the what and the how need to be explained in ways that inspire the troops to care. We own the world we create, so include our people in creating the vision.  Plenty of corporate offices have elaborately framed Vision, Mission, Values statements that hardly anybody can recall.  How do you live it, if you can't remember it?  Well you don't and this is a failure of communication.  The Ritz Carlton Hotel chain became famous for having every shift start their day by re-visiting their WHY.  Good organisation creates good communication.  How hard is it to get all of your work units starting with a daily WHY recharge?  It takes a few minutes and costs almost nothing.   Play Two: tap into the emotional wellsprings of engagement.  Intention is important here.  Following Douglas McGregor's Theory X, Theory Y staff motivation models, if we see our people as lazy, inept, untrustworthy then we have to ferret out their failures and fix them.  If we see our team as basically good, loyal people doing the best they can, then we can switch our gaze to becoming a “good” finder to recognise them, rather than to scold them.  So leaders need to take a Theory Y “happy pill” every morning before work and decide they will be finder of good work and praise it, rather than becoming a Theory X carping dud detector.  Try it for a week and see the difference.   Play Three: emphasise “valuing your people” rather than parroting the “corporate values”.  Our global engagement survey, validated in Japan, showed that the feeling of being valued was the trigger point sparking inspiration, empowerment, enthusiasm and confidence.  Innovation is directly correlated to engagement, because if you don't care, why make it better? Communicating to each individual “you are valued” is using soft power.   Play Four: ask questions instead of giving direct orders.  Based on their hard skills credentials, supervisors believe they have super vision, so they can tell people what to do.  One brain's output, no matter how good, is still only producing a narrow sliver of ideas.  Actually the further up the chain of command you fly, the more distant you become from the action and informed perspectives.  Engaging people in the front line, through valuing their input, produces outperformance.  Don't miss it – the crowdsourcing of ideas from the team is a soft power play that pays off.    The end is nigh for those organisations who don't introduce Professor Nye's soft power play into their leadership armory.  As we say in Japan, “time flies like an arrow”, so let's all commit to going “soft” and persuading and attracting our way to success.   Action Steps   Start with the WHY before explaining the What and the How Become a daily Theory Xer, seeking out the positives in your people Ensure your people feel they are genuinely valued every time, all the time Become an “ask” rather than “tell” leader Commit to persuade and attract your way to success

Dale Carnegie Training Japan: http://japan.dalecarnegie.com/ Success is usually thought to be built on a combination of personal attributes such as intelligence, technical knowledge, street smarts, hard won experience (built on failures from pushing too hard), guts and tenacity.  Our varsity halls offer a vast array of academic knowledge, information, insights, concepts, theories, tomes, technology and debate.  Company education is usually focused on producing detailed product knowledge and navigation clarity around the organizational labyrinth. Tick the boxes on all of these and you are off to the races for career progression.  Trouble usually starts though when they recognize you and start to expect leverage from your personal abilities.  Leverage means not just what you can individually contribute, but your capacity to get contribution from others they have placed in your charge.  As the old saw goes "all of our troubles in life walk on two legs and talk back".  Welcome to management! Even if you are a powerhouse, a total workaholic,  pounding out 100 hours every week, your 5 staff working 40 hours  a week are doing twice as much as you are.  By the way, if you are putting in 100 hours a week, we need to talk! The tricky part though is you got recognized for your personal qualities, which quite frankly, you are depressed to discover are not universal within your team.  You might even become a Theory X manager, who sees the glass as very much half full.  You have become a legend at finding faults and shortcomings in your team.  You perceive them as useless. They can't be trusted, they are lazy, they make mistakes all the time, they don't take responsibility, they don't have the required commitment, etc .  Theory Y managers, on the other hand, see the glass as half full.  They see their people as decent, capable, honest, doing their best, wanting to succeed, etc.  McGregor, who termed Theory X and Y, concluded that how you see them is what you will create for yourself. Uh oh! This means we really have to be careful about our own attitude, more than worried about our staff's attitude.  We have to be walking around looking for the ten things people are doing well rather than the one thing they are not doing well.  Leveraging strengths is more effective than trying to minimise weaknesses. "Gotcha" however is a popular pursuit for bosses. They really enjoy finding fault and spend their time whining into their beers about what a pitiful deck they have been dealt back at the office.  Could they themselves be part of the problem?  Impossible they believe, why they are in this position of leadership, accountability and responsibility because they are superior!  If this is you, by the way, get ready for 200 hour work weeks.   You will have no leverage and will have to do all the work.  "Delegation" will be but a distant dream. Here is a simple hint for looking for the good:  when wandering around, tell your team what they are doing now that is "good" in your opinion and then ask them what they think they could do "better".  Here is another idea: "make the other person happy about doing the thing you suggest".  Sounds simple, but how does that actually work?  Normally everyone thinks they are busy enough already thank you very much or they are deep in their comfort zone around the way things are done around here.  Usually the boss's suggestion represents more work or doing things differently – neither considered particularly attractive prospects.  So how do we get people to engage?  Instead of giving orders we could ask questions.  This "self discovery" process leads to greater ownership and commitment to the execution of the task.  We could break the task down to smaller pieces ("eat an elephant one bite at a time") and "praise the slightest improvement and praise very improvement".  It is too late to wait until task completion to tell people they did a good job.  We need to be intervening part the way through to recognize and appreciate their efforts. We could follow Theory Y and "give the other person a fine reputation to live up to".  That means we assume they are good, serious, capable and treat them and communicate with them in that way.  They feel it and won't let our expectations down. We could also "talk about our own mistakes before criticizing the other person".  If we reflect that we are asking people to step out of their comfort zone, to do new things or things in a new way, how smart is it to whack them whenever they make a mistake?  There is always going to be differences in performance between doing something well practiced and something new – that is the messy innovation process.  We are all the embodiment of all of our own mistakes.  We gained experience by being able to discern what works and what doesn't, mainly by finding out the hard way.  We have to appreciate that our own team can't be expected to be perfect at the beginning.  Shock, horror - they will be just like we were at their level or stage!  So we should share the mistakes we made to show it is part of the learning process.  We then plumb the depths of what was good and explore what we need to do better. Being smart is not enough.  We have to be "people smart" and that is a learned skill available to all, regardless of rank or stage.  Congratulations on becoming smarter! Related article by Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan: "Are You People Smart Enough?" Related video by Dr. Greg Story, President of Dale Carnegie Training Japan: THE Leadership Japan Series #4 - Are You People Smart Enough

Audio File:  Download MP3Transcript: An Interview with Gillian Muessig President and Co-founder, SEOmoz Date: May 9, 2011 NCWIT Entrepreneurial Heroes: Interview with Gillian Muessig [intro music] Lucy Sanders: Hi. This is Lucy Sanders, the CEO of the National Center for Women in Information Technology, or NCWIT. I know our listeners know about our "Entrepreneurial Heroes" interview series, which is a great interview series with women who have started IT companies. This is another in that series. With me is Larry Nelson from w3w3.com. Hi, Larry. Larry Nelson: Hi. I'm happy to be here, of course. We really enjoy the fact that everybody from parents as well as employers and leaders and managers, as well as teenage girls, listen to this show. Lucy: I think the person we're interviewing today is just an expert in search optimization. Everybody knows how important the Internet is, and how important it is to have your business, your organization, your personality, found by the most possible people. The person we're interviewing today is a real pioneer in that field, sometimes called the "Queen of Search Optimization." Larry: You betcha. Gillian Muessig: No, I think I'm called the "mom." I'm known as "SEO Mom." Lucy: SEO Mom? OK. Also a queen. We are very lucky to be interviewing today Gillian Muessig, the president and co-founder of SEOmoz. SEOmoz provides one of the world's most popular search marketing applications. The community it serves is huge, over 300,000 search marketers around the world. She also has a weekly radio show, "CEO Coach." This is really interesting to the people who listen to these interviews, because as part of that show, she's covering really important entrepreneurial issues around funding and finance and staffing and marketing and brand development. Welcome, Gillian. We're really happy to have you here today. Gillian: I'm delighted to be here. Thanks for asking. Lucy: What is happening with SEOmoz? Give us the latest. Gillian: The latest and greatest at SEOmoz. Well, I guess we're taking social signals much more seriously, as are the search engines these days. We are the creators of something called "Linkscape." It is a fresh web crawl of the World Wide Web. In other words, we have code known as "Bots" that run out along the Web itself and catalog the pages, just like Google or Microsoft or Yahoo! And so on, in this case Bing, it would be called these days. Similarly, we have a bot that goes out and crawls the Web. It's called, as I said, "Linkscape." It gives us the link graph of the Web. This means how all the pages are connected together with links from one page to the next. It's interesting stuff. It does not make us a search engine. A search engine can also give back answers when you say, "Gee, I'm looking for something. Where is it?" You could also give that back to somebody. That's what makes a full search engine. So if you think of Linkscape, you might think of it as kind of half a search engine. We know what is. Now, we are taking a look at the social graph. So while we crawl the Web for information about links running from here to there, we know that the social signals, which means the noise or the signals we hear on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn, Cora, Yahoo! Answers -- just thousands of other sites where people gather and talk to each other on the Web. Those are the social sites. When they get busy, the search engines notice, and that kind of information shows up in the search engine results pages, known as SERPs, Search Engine Results Pages. So that's what's new at SEOmoz. We're looking at the social signals and incorporating them into our platform. Lucy: That's amazing. There's so much information going on out there. Absolutely amazing. And great technology. The kinds of algorithms you're doing under the hood there just have to be really fascinating. Gillian: Yeah, they're pretty exciting stuff. If you think of the Google algorithm, I usually say, "Well, it starts somewhere in central Asia and it ends in Sunnyvale, California." It's really large, and it links 1's and 0's. That means it's changing constantly. What is it? 2,500 to 3,000 brilliant engineers are working on it at any given time. What they're trying to do is say, "Gosh, there's a lot of info out there. How would we catalog it and organize it to be on the Web?" And that's the world we deal in. Lucy: I know. Who would have thought it, even 10 years ago? Just amazing. Larry: Whew, not me. [laughter] Gillian: It's a very new industry, and that is one of the interesting things about the world of search. While some technology industries have been around for maybe 30 or 40 years, or much more, the Industrial Age certainly giving way to the Technological Age toward the end of the 20th century. The world of search is pretty much the oldest folks would have been practicing some '97, '98, '99, something like that, when the search engines became of age and became more important, and people began to find things on the Web using a search engine as opposed to using business card that sent them to a specific place. Lucy: It's really changed quite quickly. The historical perspective is fascinating and I think our first question is a little bit of a historical question. How did you first get into technology, Gillian, and what kinds of technologies do you see today that are really interesting to you? Gillian: When I opened my company, it was in 1981, I had one young child a two-year-old at the time. I subsequently raised three children under my desk. The youngest will tell you the color of the blanket he slept on under that desk, so I'm talking literally. I think in 1984, I was doing a consultancy basically, so glorified and employed. I was a consultant. I did traditional media marketing, everything from print media to a little bit of radio and television and so on, but regional stuff. In terms of print media, the first pieces of technology that we really saw came in the late '70's already, when type was no longer moved by pieces. Little slugs of type, and made out of lead, would be moved into place in big wooden boards, and that's how the articles of newspapers were created for advertisements and so on. When it moved from that manual process to something called code type, because the first one was Hocks type. You would actually move the little slugs into place and then melt them together. You would use heat to make sure that they were held together, and then you would break them apart for the next day's news. In this case it was called Cove type, and that was the first computerized type. Maybe that was the first time I got into technology, or really saw it affecting my industry. In 1984, I put a Mac II on my desk. I had more self-control than this advertisement that was coming out of Zenith said I would. It said, "We'll give you one of these Macs for two weeks. You pay us for it, but you can just bring it back and we'll give you your money back if you don't want it." I thought, "Well, I've got more self-control than that. I'm just going to take a look at this thing." Within two hours, of course, it owned me, body, soul and mind, and I never gave it back. [laughter] Gillian: The ad worked, and I bought a Mac. I used Mac for many years. I changed to PC I guess in the '90's. Just recently, we're talking within the last couple of weeks, one of my staff handed me a Mac Air, it's called the MacBook Air, and said, "You're going to love this! It's so lightweight." And I thought, "Really? Back to Mac? I'm an old dog. This is new tricks." [laughs] But yes, I do enjoy carrying it around, because I travel so much that having a very lightweight computer at my fingertips is really nice. So first technology would have been 1979. The First time I owned a real piece of it, if you will, in about 1984. The Web showed up in 1993. Perhaps what you were referring to before, kind of the Grand Dame of Internet marketing, because I was there six seconds before the next guy. In other words, it was just a wild and wooly time, and I was happy to be at ground zero. We had a great deal of excitement and ideas around it. I continued my business for a number of years, but certainly we were beginning to do things like offer websites to our clients, in which we were doing general graphics or advertisements, or perhaps annual reports and logos and that sort of design. We were now adding websites to that, and then we were adding better websites, because we had Flash. Then it was realized that the search engines were becoming more important, and search engines could not read Flash. A search bot is blind and deaf. It cannot see pictures, it cannot hear sound. So we had to go back to HTML and maybe incorporate elements of images and so on, and identify them. With that, search began. As a search engine became more important and required text to be able to find out what a document was about, we had to optimize a page. It meant you couldn't just put a picture on a page, because a search engine cannot see it. You had to tell it what that picture was. That, perhaps, was the very first piece of optimization. How we'd label pages, we'd say, "This page is about something. It's my website.com." Then you would put in a subject, you know, red cars. [laughs] And, "Oh! That page must be about red cars." The very beginnings of search engine optimization were very simple. Today it's a highly complex field. We don't even think of it as SEO. So answering the second half of your question, what do I find interesting in moving forward now? Certainly, we are deep into the information society, where information is power. It always has been, but it's just become more in the forefront. The concept of marketing has changed, both online and offline. It's changing the way we do business and the way we communicate. From governments to private corporations and individual human beings, we think of things now as inbound marketing, as opposed to push marketing. It used to be that I would make an ad, and I would kind of take a megaphone in whatever field I was in, whether it was print or radio or TV or whatever, and shout out to the world what I needed them to know. That's no longer acceptable. People don't like it. They never really did like it, but now they have choices. Now people want me to give them information when they want to see it, when they want to learn about it and when they are ready for it and in the way that they wish to see it. That means multiple-size screens such as iPhones, little phones, Android and things like that, cell phones, web-enabled cell phones, to iPad and similarly-sized screens to the next size, which is Netbooks and then laptops, to the huge screens that sit on our walls at home and sometimes cover entire walls. That would be 55-, 60-, and 70-inch television screens that also serve as interactive, Internet-capable products. I find that kind of technology fascinating and I think that's where we're headed in the future, a multi-sized delivery of information just when the consumer wants it. Larry: Gillian, thank you for sharing all that history. In fact, we are going to make sure that if people want to understand the history, they should come back and listen to this interview. Now why is it that you are an entrepreneur and what is it about an entrepreneurship that makes you tick? Gillian: [laughs] Entrepreneurship is a hereditary disease, not a profession. [laughter] I say to people often (I do a lot of coaching about entrepreneurship and I serve on the board of advisors of companies on four continents now) that entrepreneurship is something that you have to want, and you have to want it so desperately that you are willing to walk through what I call "the Dip." I know Seth Cotton talks about it. There's a fine little book called The Dip. But I see it slightly differently. The very short version is that in order to get to the other side of a chasm of all of the folks who are trying to do what you're doing and overcoming all of the impediments to success, you have to walk through this valley of the shadow of death. After that, we don't get quite that translation correct. It's not that "Yet I fear no evil". It's "If you fear no evil, you will not walk out." [laughter] So understanding entrepreneurship is: You have a great idea, and you decide you want to bring it to the marketplace, but you must walk through this chasm of impediments to success. And sometimes it gets very, very dark. I help entrepreneurs through that space quite often. It is not just that there are financial qualifications. For instance, one needs funding and that can be very difficult. Or perhaps one can fund it oneself, but are you willing to put at risk all of the monies required to do so? People will put their homes at risk. They will mortgage things and sell their vehicles and live with their parents and do all kinds of things in order to afford to make this thing fly. It's like throwing money at a passion. But in some ways it's very analogous to being addicted. You must do this thing once you get it going, right? Now the second piece is not financial stuff necessarily, but how everybody else looks at you. There are a number of entrepreneurs, some of them very amusing, who are radio personalities as well who will say things like the whole world will tell you that you are stark, raving mad. That there's no way you can do this, that it's not possible, and so on. And when all of that volume of voice and noise comes at you, do you have the fortitude to continue to walk and to say, "No, I know in my gut what I've got is right and I'm going to make it happen." Then the last piece would be the strength of this idea you have. If you're building it, for example, in technology and software, will this code hold up to what you need? If you have some kind of success, do your servers crash, do things begin to fall apart, can you do the customer service part, and can you do the company part and not just the idea part? What I say is that every truly brilliant company in the world has two parts. It has a technologist, a wizard, the brilliant idea person. And it has a business person. The business person's responsibility is to protect the wizard. If the wizard is thinking about anything else except what's next, you're losing money. Now any business person can make themselves a business. They can go sell shoes. They can go sell office furniture. They can do whatever they want. They make a decent business and sometimes they make quite a good one. Many, many technologists have brilliant ideas, but cannot for the life of them do the business piece of it. There are far more technologists who cannot succeed in business than there are business people who somehow cannot succeed at all because they don't have the brilliancy. But if you put the two together, you get something that is an explosion, an extraordinary universe of stuff that happens. And that's when you have these brilliant companies like Yahoo, Google, and so on. I was fortunate in my time to have such a technologist and to be able to work with him. I'm really in the end a business person. The technologist is Rand Fishkin, arguably the most famous name in search marketing today. I could build a brand around a human being. I could then build a brand around the company, and then the company has become very powerful in its field. Again, knowing your playing field is an important piece. But I have walked through that dip, that "valley of the shadow of death" when people told us this could not be done. I often say people who say that a thing cannot be done are often interrupted by those who are doing it. So, on October 6, 2008, SEOmoz interrupted a whole lot of people when we created this thing called Linkscape, which is a crawl of the World Wide Web. A whole lot of people said you have to be Google or Bing or whatever to do something like that. It cannot be done. It'll take ten thousand brilliant engineers and millions of dollars and you haven't got that. We did it. And when it was done, it powered all of our tool sets. So why am I an entrepreneur? It's because it's in my blood. It's because I see ideas. I can kind of put together a meal of products out of groups of intellectual properties, if you will. It's like throwing a bunch of ingredients on the table in the kitchen and coming up with a meal. It's like what Iron Chefs do. The same idea happens with entrepreneurship and it's what I do. I look at this collatinus collection of clattering junk and from it comes a product that is saleable. So that is what I think makes entrepreneurs what they are. It's the fortitude to move forward. It's the ability to see a jumble of ideas and possibilities and to create real product out of it. And brilliant companies or really brilliant entrepreneurs, those who have that partner technologist [inaudible 17:05. Lucy: So as an entrepreneur, Gillian, who supported you along this path? Do you have particular mentors or role models? What might you be able to tell the listeners about that? Gillian: Well, I think that's why I became a CEO coach, because there were precious few when I came through this path. I see that Rand, for example, who is now the CEO of SEOmoz, has a number of mentors who are coming to his aid and whom he has been able to seek out. But as we walked the very earliest days, there were things that I would have given my left arm to have known about. There were times when I would call practically a hundred people and not one of them could give me the answer I needed. So in a sense, I was not well-connected and I didn't have entrepreneurs who had been successful on at least one level larger than I was. I think there are very few when you are in the very, very early stages who will reach that hand out. You have to get through a certain barrier first. You have to reach some kind of critical mass before it gets recognized as a viable business and then you get those kinds of mentors beginning to take notice. So I decided that if I ever walked out of that valley, that's what I would do, that's what I would give back. That's why I do CEO coach every week. I don't get paid for this or anything. I promised that I would give answers, that I would name names and give numbers and tell people what to expect and help them to leverage the assets they had and to walk through that very difficult time when you are proving your concept and making it through to the other side. Of course, the scarcity is what makes success. If it were easy, if there were no chasm of all of these impediments-and I only mentioned three, but if it were easy to get from one end to the other, from brilliant idea to successful marketplace for everybody, then there would be no scarcity. Trust me when I say to people who are considering entrepreneurship, it's worth it. [laughter] Larry: I love it! Yes. Gillian: It is so worthwhile on the other side. The answer is, it is all the things that you would dream it would be. There is a certain amount of exclusivity. There is a satisfaction beyond anything else that comes from knowing you did it. Larry: Wow. With all the things you've been through, what's the toughest thing that you've had to do in your career? Gillian: Possibly two pieces and I think they're related. The very first one I had to learn to do was to move from being a consultant, a sole consultant, to being a real entrepreneur, somebody who had a company, who had people working with them, in other words, a team. I used to walk out, shake hands with somebody, and say, "Yes sir, I can do that," and go back and do it. That was easy. Whatever it was, it was easy. It meant I did it. I could rely on me and I knew my own mettle and I could trust me. The first time I walked out and said, "Yes sir, I can do that," and went back to the office and said, "I sure as shooting hope you folks can do that, because I can't," that was scary. To be able to rely on a team of people to do it as well as you would hope them to do because you cannot do a thing, that's entrepreneurship. That's really moving from being a sole proprietor to being a full-size company. The second piece was saying no to a customer, understanding that there are clients and client wannabes. They wannabe a client but they don't wanna pay. Client wannabees. Learning to recognize client wannabes in your business sector is terribly important, because otherwise they will suck the blood out of you and never pay for what they take. Generally they pay very low amounts, the lowest you will charge, and they take the most time. The less a client pays, the more hand holding they generally need. So understanding that you need to fire the bottom four clients on your list every year and make way for new ones who will pay you more, respect you more, understand the value of your service more and so on, that's a critical piece of success in moving forward in being a company. People who cannot let a client go regardless of how much this client fusses and complains and makes it a personal thing as opposed to a business thing and so on, doesn't recognize the value of the service, on and on and on. All of these complaints about the client, if they cannot let that client go they will forever be an individual consultant that's not terribly successful. Those who can get through it and understand the process become successful companies. Lucy: Along our discussion there have been so many characteristics that come across in your answers to these questions that I think make you a great entrepreneur. You're very thoughtful, very persistent. I think you're very funny, you have a great sense of humor and have a great sense of history and analytical, but what other kinds of personal characteristics do you think have given you an advantage as an entrepreneur? Gillian: I think that perhaps that is the most important question. I espouse and I truly believe that people should bring their personal values to the corporate marketplace. Separating them is not possibility and that we kid ourselves when we do it. It also makes for a, not just lesser, but a really foul business environment and I think for centuries we've experienced it. I hope that what I build is not perhaps the world's finest search marketing software company and this and that and the next thing, but another way to do business. Often it's known as theory X and theory Y management. Theory X management being all about the fix, about fear, about worrying about whether the boss is going to dislike this or deduct that or reduce your pay or fire you and so on and so forth. That's theory X stuff, screaming, yelling and so on. Theory Y is somehow coddling, if you will. All about the positive but I think there is more to theory Y than simply coddling or supporting and so on. I think it has to do with bringing your personal values to the corporate marketplace. As an entrepreneur I can't have a company unless I have people doing the things that my company produces whether it's product, service, consulting, whatever it is. They don't work for me, they work with me. Without me they have no job and without them I have no job. It's not that it's really different at all, it's just different roles within an organization. I recognize that there is no complete, flat equality. There is no such ideas, communism if you will. It is a hierarchy and certainly it was my money on the table, it was on my back that this thing got started, it was Rand's ideas and so on that made it happen. All of those things, so it does put a couple of founders in its place that is different than the employee status, if you will. On the other hand, we feel that we work with a team, it's not that the team works for us. When I didn't have two nickels to rub together, when we were having conversations that said things like, 'What will it take to keep body and soul together this week?' Like, who shall take a paycheck this week? When we were having those kinds of conversations, it was that bad, I would pay the medical insurance 100% in full first. I never even thought to give somebody a salary and let them choose whether or not they wanted medical insurance. It's part of the salary, it's part of the package, there is no choice because many of the people who work for me are very young and when you're very young you think you're invincible. Nothing is ever going to happen to you and you will live forever and life is good until somebody gets glioblastoma or somebody gets hit by a bus riding a bicycle to work in the afternoon, that's when things go wrong. It was incumbent upon me to say, "No. I know better, I've lived longer, I'm a parent." Never mind anything else and many of these people are young enough to be my kids, hence the word SEO mom but there were a number of reasons why I got called SEO mom but as a result it was my responsibility to do those kinds of things. So we pay 100% of medical insurance. We do kind of what they call platinum level medical insurance. we don't skimp on those kinds of things. Certainly we do things like tech companies to all over the place like the Googleplex will do and so on. We offer lunch here and breakfast there and something else and we celebrate things and it's a lot of fun But we actually walk the talk, if you look at the SEOmoz website there's something called TAGSEE, T-A-G-S-E-E. The first one stands for transparency, second letter, authenticity, the third, generosity and so on down the road, you can read all about it. We don't just say it we actually live it. We hire for personality first and then we look for skill sets which makes it difficult to find people because you can find a set of skills it's just, does it also come with the right kind of personality? I was talking about it with one of my staff this morning and I said, "You know, I think what happens here is very childlike or perhaps like going to the movies." We suspend belief when we go into the movies. We suspend belief every time we walk into this office. We are complete optimists. We should all have our own [inaudible 26:30] chapter here. We walk in and pretend that it's possible, that nothing is impossible and we do it every single day. We work and live and play with the people here, and they certainly do, they have all kinds of activities around the office and outside the office and just get together because they're friends as well. Because it's like souls, if you will, we all agree that you step into this room there is nothing we cannot do and doggone, we do it. Imagine what you can accomplish. I think that because we spend so much of our time at our workplaces, I know that we change jobs much more frequently than we did a generation or two ago but even still, for the time that we are all together it's much more than just a job. This is about fulfilling the soul as well as the business career requirements of the people who work here. I think of my job as giving everyone here wings to fly and then watch them fly. Larry: Gillian, with all the things that you've done, what do you do to bring balance to your personal and professional lives? Gillian: I guess that's kind of the answer I gave at the last question. Larry: Yeah. Gillian: I bring my personal life to life to the office. I don't think of it as work, I think it was Thomas Edison who said, "'I never worked a day in my life, it's all fun." When I was a little girl of three or four years old and I could turn the pages of a book I wanted to see this big wide world. I am the most fortunate person in the world. I get to run around the world as what's now known as corporate evangelist for SEOmoz. This is what happens by the way when they put you out to pasture. Before, I was the sole business person that was complementing the technologist that was Rand Fishkin. Rand is now the CEO, he has full reigns of the business, but there's only one strange relationship in business, and that's mother and son. You can't be a mommy's boy as a CEO so it was time for me to step way, way back. We have a COO here, we've got a CMO here, we've got a CPO, all of those C level executive places have now been filled and all of the things that I used to do, these eight and nine and ten hats, they're being worn by 10 and 12 and 14 people. If I was still doing all of them we would still be a tiny company. So it's important to seed the company, to let it grow and to let it expand. For me now, my job is to run around the world and make sure people say SEOmoz instead of SEO and so far so good, it's pretty cool. I get to be paid for this, what an extraordinary adventure. For me this balance of life and work and so on, it's fulfilling on so many levels. I'm, as I said, the most fortunate person in the world. Lucy: I noticed when we were researching for this interview that you have given lots and lots of keynotes and talks so you must be quite successful in your evangelist role. Gillian: Yes, I'd say so. I have somewhat of a reputation under SEO mom myself, if you will, under Gillian Muessig but I usually say, I don't go anywhere in the world, SEOmoz goes, it shows up in my body. Yes, I do a lot of keynote speaking, I do a lot of pro bono work and I support a tremendous number of entrepreneurs around the world and it's very gratifying. Lucy: Thank you very much for doing that. You've done so much with your career so far. I am suspicious that there's more to come so why don't you tell us a little bit about what's next for you. Gillian: Probably a book, a number of people are telling me it's time to do that so I have to knuckle down and do that but I think that's just in support of, if you will, a personal brand. I think the next thing, when I grow up, what do I want to be? The next thing that I will do is around entrepreneurship itself. I'm focusing more and more on it over the years. I have a serious interest in what you're doing essentially, in making sure that young women somewhere between the ages of 12 and 20 don't lose themselves and their souls in just societal expectations and norms, but do turn to the hard sciences, to technology, to science, to mathematics, to physics, all of those kinds of things and certainly to web related or intellectual property related fields. All of those things are terribly exciting. Women make very good mangers. They have traditionally not been part of it and I think whatever I do in the future will be helping to open the doors so that women can enter the marketplace in their rightful numbers if you will. We spend a tremendous amount of time in my childhood and youth as women working on those issues. It was the age feminism, it was the age of all of those kinds of rebellions and so on. We worked really, really hard guys but, gosh, we've got a long ways to go so rather than apologizing for the next generation, I think my next deal will be helping that next generation reach goals that we have only dreamed of. Lucy: Thank you for doing that and thank you for all of your hard work for entrepreneurship, in general. We'll look forward to staying in touch, it was great fun talking to you and I want to remind listeners that they can find this interview at w3w3.com and also ncwit.org. Larry: You betcha. Gillian: Thank you, it's been a great pleasure. If I have only one message for the young women listening, it's do it. Don't fear it, just do it. There's lots of women out there ready to extend a helping hand in making sure that you're successful, too. Lucy. Thank you. Larry: You betcha. Lucy: We really appreciate that. Larry: Thank you. Series: Entrepreneurial HeroesInterviewee: Gillian MuessigInterview Summary: Gillian Muessig, aka "SEOMom," is the President and Co-Founder of SEOmoz, providers of the world's most popular search marketing applications. SEOmoz.org serves a community of 300,000 search marketers around the world. Release Date: May 9, 2011Interview Subject: Gillian MuessigInterviewer(s): Lucy Sanders, Larry NelsonDuration: 31:22