Utter Brilliance

(UB017) Can You Fake EQ By Slowing Down IQ? Is Engagement Art or Science? Has the transition to Holacracy been smooth for Zappos? This episode is a must listen mashup. Featuring Jamie Naughton, Chief of Staff @ Zappos

Don’t miss Jamie and I sounding off about:

• Our reactions to something Sean Knapp, CEO @Ascend.io said in episode #6
• The debate about whether engagement is art or science
• Why her initial reaction is that engagement is an art but now that she thinks about it...
• Whether EQ can be faked if someone slows down their IQ
• How one leader systematically gets his people to stop and think about how their decisions will impact their employees emotionally
• Why Zappos hired a social scientist and the value that person added
• How science helped Zappos create their culture
• How Tony Hsieh blows her mind and has worked really hard to turn his IQ into EQ
• The role that listening has played at Zappos
• Zappos move to self-organization (Holacracy) and the patience and commitment it has taken
• The reason Zappos made the decision to self-organize and what it is about self organization that allows employees to make decisions quickly
• Some of the common misunderstandings about Holacracy
• Biggest challenges they’ve faced switching to self organization and getting employees comfortable with the changes

(UB 016) What I Didn't know About Podcasting A Year Ago That I'm Glad I Know Going Into 2017

Join me as I recap my year in podcasting and share the drama and excitement (mostly the drama though) that I've experienced taking this project from 0 - 16 episodes. You'll hear about:

• Why I started a podcast
• Why I suggest you ignore everyone out there trying to convince you to start a podcast (especially if they make money off this advice in any way)
• What I've loved about the past year
• The biggest mistakes I've made
• The biggest misconceptions surrounding podcasting
• What I'd do differently
• The real cost of setting up a podcast
• Why technology sucks
• What I'm looking forward to in 2017
• The moments I'm the most proud of

(UB015) Taking a closer look at the scrutiny Amazon is under when it comes to employee engagement and why you should think twice before believing what The New York Times has to say.

In today’s episode you’ll hear me rant about:

• Why writers who don’t have a clue should stop trying to pretend they understand employee engagement
• Why the original New York Times article bashing Amazon actually proves that Amazon is doing more than a few things right
• The biggest mistake CEOs make when trying to institutionalize a set of values and how Amazon has shown they’re actually ahead of the game
• The program Amazon is going to roll out in 2017 as a first step towards improving employee engagement
• My thoughts on what else Amazon needs to do in 2017

How transparency, strategic alignment & a CEO’s focus on engagement allowed his company to Make Work Better for over 5 million employees around the world. Featuring Daniel Kraft, CEO @ Sitrion

In today’s episode you don’t want to miss our discussion on:

• Whether or not people actually love work
• The role Transparency plays at Sitrion
• The three most important things you can do to increase transparency at your company
• When and why Daniel became passionate about engagement
• Why Daniel says he’s still has a lot to learn about engagement
• The new team at Sitrion in charge of customer experience, why it was created and where they are today

UB013 Designing Company Culture: Don’t let culture happen to your business, design it to work for you. Three things you can do today to ensure the culture developing within your organization is going to take your business to the next level. On this episode you’ll hear:

• Why you should never let your culture ‘happen organically’
• The difference between ‘fun events’ and ‘engagement’
• Some of the biggest misperceptions about what it takes to create a great company culture
• That fun isn’t engagement and unless you want to waste a lot of money on fun that doesn’t help you achieve your goals you have to understand the difference

UB012: Leading in times of growth: Don’t miss out on learning how this leader grew his company over 1,000% in 3 years and has become a key advisor to others looking to achieve the same goal. Featuring Pat Matthews, CEO @ Filestack. Today you’ll hear:

• The biggest changes he’s experienced running companies in the past ten years

• How Technology is changing the way small businesses are run

• About his first big success story where he grew his email hosting company, Webmail.us, to 10 million in revenue with some speed

• Why he loves the growth stage of a company and how you can better gauge if you’ve achieved Product Market Fit and are gearing up for growth

• Product Market Fit, what it is and why it matters

• How he found his prime leadership spot (growth) and how that discovery influenced the types of startups he advises

• Pat’s thoughts on interviewing, candidates, recruiting, and winning the talent war

• What he looks for in his interview process and in candidates he’s interviewing

• Why he’s know as a leader who speaks his mind, is direct and ‘leaves the happy talk at the door’ and why that’s often exactly what entrepreneurs, senior executives and front line employees need the most

• Traits of an entrepreneur that, if they go unchecked can be detrimental

• How he increases innovation by breaking people out of their title boxes

Winning the war on talent: How one company beat out Google for top talent, turned recruiting into a company wide passion and designed a foolproof interview process that allowed them to achieve 1,000% growth in three years. Today you’ll hear:

• About a little company called Webmail.us that turned out to be an international success

• How the leaders helped ensure they became a great place to work, used employee and customer engagement to their advantage and established an engagement focused organization

• How I stalked the CEO so I could be part of the amazingness

• Why the CEO saw HR as a partnership, not as a department that belonged in a box in the back corner

• How Webmail.us set itself up to compete with Google for talent

• Examples of the type of out of the box thinking around recruiting that led to amazing talent hires

• Why it’s important to set the bar high when it comes to interviewing...and how to get started raising the bar in your company

• How we used our existing culture to bring the best talent into the company.

• How we beat the trendy companies to the top talent in the software development space

• Creating an interview process that allows you to create a best place to work

• Why your interview process is the number one thing you need to re-design if you want to build a best place to work

• The three things you need to know before you start the hiring process for a position

• Why hiring someone for the next step in their career makes all the difference for your culture

• Why you should study Webmail.us if you care about building engagement

Adam Tratt shares how Haiku Deck was conceptualized from his struggle to design a presentation deck that accurately showcased the story he had in his head surrounding his former business. He wanted to create a beautiful presentation for his Board and investors but without a professional designer he was lost. And Haiku Deck was born.

Listen in as Paul Berberian walks us through the life changing events in his personal life that forced him to step down as CEO of his highly successful company, stumble through a slew of business failures and eventually become the CEO of Sphero, the company that worked with Disney to create the BB-8 droid used in the most recent Star Wars movie. In this episode you’ll hear:

• How a life changing event forced him to step down as CEO of his own, hugely successful company and how he processes the professional decisions years later

• How this decision led to a slew of business failures from 2003 - 2010

• How he became the CEO at Sphero

• About the biggest strategic move their company could possibly make

• Their experience with the Disney Accelerator Program

• Story of the day they met Bob Iger, Chief Executive of Disney and how they went from their initial meeting to partners in the creation of the BB-8 droid for the most recent Star Wars movie, The Force Awakens

• The current relationship his company has with Disney

• Example of a meeting his team had with Disney where they were given some Disney Love, Attention and Scrutiny

• Feature of BB8 that ended up being dropped for safety reasons

• Why Sphero cares so much about their customers getting value

• Why they have such a great synergy with Disney

• How they help ensure their customers are satisfied with their product

• They sold 300,000 BB-8 Droids in the first four days

Bismarck Lepe shares insight into how his company has established a framework for improving customer engagement that includes both the Net Promoter Score and a proprietary tracking system that gives each customer an engagement score that is then reviewed by the executive team during regular interviews so a plan can be created to increase the customer engagement rates. Today you’ll hear Bismarck’s perspective on:

• Why Wizeline was created and how they are able to help their customers

• How and why they established a culture focused on the customer experience

• Health of Our Customer meetings and why they’re a major focus at Wizeline

• Why it’s important to keep the leadership team focused on customers

• How the leadership team stays focused on customers

• The difference between customer success teams and technical support

• How the role of Customer Success Managers has impacted their bottom line