Culture Cast

I first met Christine Tao about two years ago when working with her as a guest on a panel that I was facilitating. I was immediately taken back by her thoughtfulness and incredibly insightful approach to thinking about people and business. I also remember thinking, wow, the world needs more CEO's like Christine. 

She is the Co-Founder and CEO of Sounding Board an organization focused on developing managers to be best equipped for the human demands required of them, especially as we retool our organizations moving forward. 

It is always a treat to spend time with her and I knew that she had to be part of this series. We had a great time talking about:

2:30 - The cry/laugh - the best way to describe her sentiment in this time.

5:25 - The value of sitting with the uncomfortable, especially during long lasting events like this.

5:50 - What she has to share from the CEO perspective

10:25 - The massive shift in Training and Development, particularly for managers.

12:55 - Community and it's growing importance now more than ever.

14:25 - What is most important for leaders right now.

17:55 - HR Tech tools and what is needed.

21:25 - What she would like to see different in the world when this is over.

After meeting Emily at a conference following her amazing talk on Imposter Syndrome, I knew that this was somebody that I wanted to stay connected with. Since that time we have had a number of amazing conversations as well as worked together in organizing a panel on the destigmatization of mental health in the work place. One of the things that I admire most is her fearless approach to bringing mental wellbeing out of the shadows and bringing it to the forefront. 

As much as I enjoy our conversations, I knew that I had to bring her on and share one of these with you. In this conversation, we discuss the mental health implications of the impact from COVID-19 and what we need to be thinking about in our organizations. 

Here is an episode breakdown:

4:10 - Overview of  COA - a gym for mental health and fitness - Brick and mortar therapy studios. 

Check out Joincoa.com to look at many of the offerings they are giving during this time. 

6:10  - The power of community to remove shame from mental health 

8:00 - Meta take on what is going on from the Therapists point of view.

10:20 - A collective sense of sadness and finding beauty in what we are dealing with.

11:50 - Themes in dreams and collective anxiety.

12:55 - Holding contradicting ideas at the same time.

• The “Depressive Position” 

14:16 - Her work as it relates to organizations

• Balancing performance while managing trauma
• Disrupted boundaries between work and home ** ironically as my kids come in to the audio
  

17:10 - the changing world of boundaries and connection

18:20 - Tips on ways to take care of ourselves

19:50 - When this is over, what do you want us to hold on to?

This is the audio from a live interview that I conducted with Claude Silver and Katelin Holloway. Hands down, these are two of the most insightful voices when it comes to leading businesses that foster healthy humans as a means towards long term success.

Katelin is the former head of people at Reddit, currently a partner at Initialized Capital

and 

Claude is the Chief Heart Officer at VaynerMedia 

This is by far my longest podcast and originally it was intended to be a LinkedIn Live session for one hour. However, this interview is simply too good to chop up and it had to be shared in its entirety. 

I also optimized for speed on this one and currently do not have the interview notes prepared.

I hope you enjoy and as always, would love to hear your thoughts. 

You can reach me on:

Twitter - @CultureCraig 

and 

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/cforman/

Dan Mahle is the Head of Story and Culture at Avanoo (Now Open) - A technology company focused on organizational story telling to create a sense of belonging and connection. Facilitator and coach. Helping people connect in new ways. Dan is a storyteller, facilitator, and leadership coach with a background in HR and 12 years of experience leading transformational learning programs.

I have gotten to know Dan over the past six months and always find myself deeply engaged in our conversations, walking away feeling like, wow, I wish that I would have recorded that conversation. So this is what we did. I asked Dan to spend a few minutes discussing what we are seeing in the world and how our work informs how we are making sense of all of this. 

I hope that you enjoy; I know that I did!

Podcast Notes:

3:30 - Storytelling and the meaning this takes on while we are dealing with COVID-19

6:15 - Times of disruption bring us opportunities to rethink about what comes next. 

8:00 - Dealing with fear 

9:45 - Managing feelings of gratitude in times such as this.

10:45 - Looking at privilege in times like this. 

12:55 - The work of Brene Brown and how vulnerability is more important now than ever and as leaders.

15:45 - The tricky ways that distraction shows up

17:15 - Storytelling in the workplace

21:45 - How our experience in mens work ties in to this experience?

24:55 - Change begins from within.

27:35 - END

Amira is making an amazing offer to fellow biz leaders + execs: She is opening up her calendar to offer free exec coaching in this season of uncertainty. Getting clarity + peace while taking compassionate action is difficult right now. She's available if you need a partner to listen, guide, encourage, mirror. Schedule here:http://bit.ly/AEGExec30

Amira's LinkedIn Page - https://www.linkedin.com/in/amiraelgawly/

Notes from call:

We open with conversation about Manifest and why she started this and how they are handling this situation.

3:52 What is the gift that Manifesta can offer the world in this time of need?

5:52 What are the core areas that Manifesta is focusing on now? Culture Design and rethinking physical space and what comes next.

10:35 Where are we going around connection and working together

12:52 Amira’s offer to the world for how they can help

In this episode, I recorded a call that I had with Cheryl Mobley. Cheryl spend 12 years with the Texas Health Specialty Hospital, five of these as the President. During her time as President, she led the hospital through the Ebola crisis, having infected patients at her hospital. She also maintained a 99 percentile score for both Patient and Patient satisfaction; quite a feat in healthcare. She now uses her experience to support leaders and organizations as the CEO and Co-Founder of reCalibrate consulting. 

At the end, Cheryl makes a generous offer to support organizations and teams along with how to best get in touch with her. 

In our conversation, we discuss:

Drop right in with us discussing the current state of affairs and what I see coming.

4:15 Health cares historic plan around contingency planning and how this has and has not worked.

5:10 FMEA - Failure Mode Effect Analysis - how much pressure a system can take.

7:20 - Looking for the opportunities in this challenging time and how do we design for this.

9:15 - Organizational capacity for change.

11:30 - Leading through crisis in the time of Ebola

15:50 - Working through chaos and fear

19:15 - Staying positive during challenges

20:40 - What did she learn as as leader going through the Ebola crisis

23:45 - Cheryl’s offer to support the world in these times

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Thanks

I recently had the opportunity to take part in an Experience Design workshop put on by Jenny Sauer-Klien

In this podcast, I give a high level over view of the workshop itself and then discuss a few of the core themes that we covered during the two days.

Here is the episode breakdown:

• Introduce Jenny Sauer-Klien
• Discuss the workshop itself
• The Dramatic Arc - Moving from traditional "yawn" events to events that are engaging, educational and transformational
• The Transformation Circle
• Different modes of human connection
• Power of play
• Critical importance of Guidelines in any event you organize