Optimize Your Team

Today, I have Kerry Olin, who until recently was corporate vice president of Human Resources at Microsoft. Over his 40-year career, spent almost equally at P&G and then Microsoft, Kerry is focused on helping architect the HR operating model and significantly shape people policy decisions at two of the largest and most successful companies in the world. In our conversation today, I asked Kerry to reflect on his 40-year career and share what he feels like separates the most effective leaders he's worked with from the good leaders. And share some insights into how we can not only develop these traits or aspects in ourselves but also in the people that we lead.

I'm excited to have Chet Kuchinard on the show today. Chet has executive level HR experience at various sectors like retail, consumer products, private equity, working with brands like Nike, Starbucks and McDonald's. Chet currently serves on the board of Jerónimo Martins, a €29 billion international retail company based out of Portugal, serves as board advisor to Recaro Health, and is a board member at Atlas Core, a nonprofit based in Washington, D.C.

Today, we're talking about a transformation in change levers that leaders often overlook in large organizations based on chest experience, leading change initiatives, and lessons that you can apply today in your company.

I’m so excited to have my good friend Dr. Rebecca Newton. Bec is an organisational psychologist and a senior visiting fellow for the London School of Economics. Bec has advised leaders and teams in best in class companies like Accenture, Coca-Cola, Google, The United Nations, and many many others. Her book Authentic Gravitas: Who Stands Out and Why was published in 2019, and in our conversation today we talk about what gravitas is, why it’s even more important in this hybrid world we find ourselves living in, and practical things that you can do to help increase your own gravitas while still being authentic to who you are.

I'm really excited to have my friend and colleague, Kevin Mangum, on the show today. Kevin retired in 2017 after 35 years of service as a 3-star lieutenant general, where he served and commanded one of the most elite units in the world. He then joined Lockheed Martin as Vice President, where he served for four years before joining our consulting team here at Teamalytics. In our conversation today, we focus on Kevin's work in both the military and the business world to understand what the most elite teams do differently from good teams. And how you, as a leader, can take your team's performance to the next level.

In this next episode, I spend time with Lee Bason, one of the founders of our company who has worked closely with thousands of leaders over the last 33 years. As a coach and trusted advisor to senior leaders and CEOs all over the world, Lee shares some of the challenges that he’s seen all leaders face and some of the strategies that he’s used to help them work through these challenges. And as we head into 2023 I hope you’ll draw some encouragement, inspiration, and a renewed commitment to your team from what Lee shares in this episode of Optimize Your Team.

I'm so excited to have a good friend of mine, Richard Tripp, on our podcast this month. Richard has extensive experience as a Chief Product Officer for several tech companies and currently serves numerous companies as an advisor and consultant. Richard has been tremendously helpful to us here at Teamalytics as a sounding board and resource over the years. And in our conversation today, we dive into the concept of Shared Purpose. What is it? Why it has the power to transform your team's ability to work together and deliver exceptional results, and probably most importantly, how to build it as a leader on your team. I hope you take away as much from this podcast as I did.

In today’s episode I am excited to have one of my mentors and someone I am proud to get to work with as a teammate, retired Lieutenant General Robert VanAnterp, who most just call General Van. Van truly is a leader of leaders, serving his country for 39 years.

Van served the military most recently as the 52nd Chief of Engineers and Commanding General of the US Army Corps of Engineers, where he led a large global organization of close to 40,000 people tasked with a complex mission from critical infrastructure construction and maintenance, our nation’s ports and waterways, to power generation, and support of troops and allied nations around the world.

Van serves on our leadership team here at Teamaytics and on the board of several organizations, including USAA.

Today we talk about some of Van’s key leadership lessons when it comes to driving alignment and focus in a large, complex organization and some of his insights on how to get people within your organization to collaborate and work together effectively. I also asked Van to share some of the leadership lessons he’s learned in his lifelong pursuit of leadership. I hope you enjoy and learn from this conversation as much as I did.

We’ve all had to change and adapt the ways we work over the last couple of years in many ways, and in this episode, I sit down with Chick-fil-A operator Brian LaCroix to learn some of the ways he and his team have adapted to the new normal. We also spend some time talking about what he’s noticing about the next generation of leaders: his restaurant hires young people at both the front line and supervisor level: Brian has more than 100 people under 18 working at his restaurant!

So for those interested in investing in the next generation, whether a parent or business leader, we learn how Brian and his colleagues look to identify and develop young leaders.

In today's episode, we hear from Jay and Jason, who are co-founders of The Nashton Company: a holding company investing in recurring revenue services businesses.  Nashton builds leading companies in niche markets over a very long period of time. In our conversation, we explore Jason and Jay’s experience buying and growing their first company back in 2008 and what they learned from that experience that can help you think about your leadership journey.

Incidentally, Jay and Jason have run their own businesses and the businesses they invest in remotely over the last 15 years, and we talk about some of the things they have done to make that work effectively.

We also hear about their current business leading a search fund and how their firm is creating opportunities for a new form of entrepreneurship for the next generation of leaders… and what implications this has for us as we look at developing and empowering the next generation of leaders for the companies and teams we lead.

In today’s episode, I spend time with another Teamalytics teammate,  Deondra Pardue. Deondra shares a sneak peek into her upcoming book on impacting work culture based on her experience in turning around underperforming organizations. We also get her insights into what helped accelerate her career as a young minority woman and her advice to leaders who want to accelerate the potential of ALL their teammates, no matter who they are.

Dan Broekhuizen is the Global VP of Leadership Development, Succession Planning, and culture for the 140,000 employees at NTT Data. Dan’s had a fascinating career from undercover narcotics investigator to holding various executive roles in the talent development space for tech companies. Dan shares the leadership lessons he learned as an undercover officer and a couple of the key things he’s helping leaders do to navigate the current environment we all find ourselves in. I hope you’ll take away as much as I did from this short but insightful conversation with Dan.

Bruce Robinson spent several years working for the government in the foreign services and intelligence community, serving law enforcement. Most recently, he was head of global security for a multinational oil and gas firm.

In this episode, we talk about what he’s learned living and working as a diplomat overseas and how we can apply these lessons to our own leadership roles. 

When Rob took over as CEO at IMA in 1998 the company had about $11m in revenue.  Over the last 20 years, IMA has grown to place $8bn of insurance premium with $500m in revenue and just under 2,000 employees all over the US.

I have enjoyed getting to know Rob and his team at IMA over the years and in this episode we talk about some of the lessons learned leading a fast growing firm that has been very acquisitive. We explore how his leadership style has changed as the company he’s led has grown exponentially and learn a little about the unique challenges and opportunities that come from leading an employee owned company.

Donna is a turnaround CEO extraordinaire… she now works with Prophet Equity in Southlake, Texas and has taken on some of their most challenging turnarounds.

Typically when you hear “turnaround CEO” you think of someone coming in to “slash and burn” or taking a cold-blooded approach to people while making difficult decisions…

Ironically, Donna can best be described as kind, thoughtful, and possibly too nice…

So, what’s her secret? How is she so effective while maintaining such a wonderful reputation? What’s her method for turning around underperforming organizations?

That’s our focus in this episode.

 It's impossible to leave a conversation with Karen without feeling encouraged, inspired, and informed!

In this episode, Karen tells us about the ONE CHANGE that made THE difference in her leadership style, what she’s seeing in the next generation of leaders as a professor in the Executive MBA program, and how she helps teams through her consulting practice.

Steve immigrated to the US from Guyana, went to Westpoint, and recently retired as a one-star general. He now runs a financial services franchise in Kansas City.

We talk about the leadership lessons that shaped him and his top tips for what leaders can do to lead more diverse teams…

We also get insights on how to balance two key behaviors that most leaders we coach struggle with AND how that helped shape him as a young leader to go on to become a general.

With nearly four decades of experience, Debra is a former Partner at EY where she specialized in advising rapid-growth companies, and also served as Director of the EY Entrepreneur of the Year Program.

In this episode we dig into the lessons she learned working closely with some of the most successful and well-known entrepreneurs in the world.

Dr. Gibson is a helicopter pilot, a battle-tested Army Commander, a life-long student, and a teacher of leadership at the United States Military Academy at West Point and Harvard Business School. We ask Dr. Gibson what most leaders get wrong when it comes to developing leaders and implementing diversity, equity & inclusion (DEI) efforts in their organizations; and his recommendations on how to do it RIGHT!