Design Environments, Not Willpower, for Peak Performance
🧠 We often think of accomplishing our goals as a matter of willpower. But behavioral science suggests that our environment often plays a bigger role in our success than our resolve. How can a leader engineer their surroundings to make peak performance the path of least resistance? In this sneak peek of the upcoming season of Tippie Leads from The University of Iowa Tippie College of Business , Rob Rouwenhorst joins us to discuss the role friction plays in our daily lives—and why the most effective CEOs stop relying on discipline alone. Fun fact: Rob and I have known each other since 6th grade. And if you knew us then, you can breathe a sigh of relief because Star Trek doesn’t come up once during this interview. 🖖 This episode is live today as a preview of Season 4: Be the CEO of Your Life. The season officially kicks off next Wednesday, March 25th, with full-length video episodes and audio available wherever you listen to podcasts. https://lnkd.in/gEZsgtKJ
AI Transformation Demands CEO Commitment, Not Delegation
No, you can’t hand off AI transformation. It starts from the top. The most cracked out founders I know are sleeping far less (9-figure+). They’re deep in Claude Code and the Claws. All the hackathons, office hours, AI specialists, etc. won’t help if the...
Teamwork Fueled Dubai Airport’s Rapid Recovery After Shutdown
Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths speaking to CNN's Becky Anderson: the key to keeping flights moving at DXB during the recent suspension was the outstanding teamwork from all parties... airport, airlines, ground handlers, emergency services. IMO: it’s easy to criticise when...
Ask for Decision Steps, Not Vague Processes
Never ask: "What's your decision-making process?" Instead ask: "What steps does your company need to take to make a confident yes or no decision?" Same intent. Completely different depth of response. Then DON'T take their answer at face value.
Nvidia CEO Learns Long‑term Thinking From Gardener
Nvidia CEO received his best career advice from a gardener on long term thinking and doing https://t.co/9uar3tYXfT
Surround Yourself with Truth‑Telling Allies, Says Bezos
Successful people surround themselves by supportive truth tellers — a masterclass by Jeff Bezos on the importance of seeking the truth https://t.co/fvYXNVvBbz
Blind Spots: Organizations Miss External Warning Signs
“Some orgs. are sailing along happily, not realizing that some woes are around the corner—despite warning signs that are clear to people outside. People inside the org. are unable to smell the rotting fish for all sorts of reasons.” 🔎 https://t.co/TR9SgSUXwm #changemanagement https://t.co/rMByOhtuHz
From CEO to Chief Scientist: Vembu’s New Tech Vision
In conversation with @Zoho's co-founder and Chief Scientist Sridhar Vembu. I had the opportunity to sit down with Zoho's Sridhar Vembu. Sridhar co-founded Zoho, is their former CEO and current Chief Scientist. I ask Sridhar about moving from the CEO role to...
One Core Metric Drives Alignment as Companies Scale
As companies scale, they add more metrics. Then metrics for the metrics. Eventually, people forget what matters. Great companies focus on ONE number that aligns everyone. Fewer metrics. More meaning. #Strategy #Leadership #Metrics #BusinessStrategy #growthhacking https://t.co/Nq2uoUOUnl
Three Bold Moves Needed to Revive Disney Stock
Will Disney CEO Josh D'Amaro Do What Iger and Chapek Would Not? $DIS We believe there are three bold moves that D’Amaro must make to reinvigorate Disney’s lackluster stock price performance over the past decade… https://t.co/caZGmSaw6j
Leaders Must Prioritize Dedicated Time for Managerial Culture
Strategic Questions Leaders Must Answer About Middle Managers https://t.co/eZsbM2ddLv Reality check: most #managers don’t have a single hour in the week explicitly devoted to #culture. They have meetings, tasks, fire drills. Culture becomes what gets squeezed into the margins. https://t.co/k8nXsQMc24
Banking Leaders Must Keep Learning or Risk Stagnation
The biggest risk for banking leaders today is not disruption. It is standing still. In this episode, I discussed why continuous learning is the key to staying relevant in a rapidly changing industry. Watch the full episode: https://t.co/niO7fXOQML https://t.co/ypX1PHvuCB
Choose Speed when Mistakes Are Cheap, Slow when Risky
If a fast decision is wrong, that’s more OK, because you find out fast, and change it fast. Slow decisions, the opposite. If “slow” dramatically decreases risk of it being wrong, make it slow. Else, make it fast. More fast/slow tips: https://t.co/KbLhQOhKZH
Leadership Trumps Culinary Skill in Becoming a Chef
How about leading a team…? Forget all that other stuff, or at least set it aside. You can have all of the culinary skill in the world, but if you can’t lead a team, you can’t be a chef.
Elite Success Comes From Peer‑level Leadership
Top talent follows leaders who can work alongside them as peers. The luck of being in that room is what turns you into elite level
Redesign Entry Roles, Pair Talent with AI for Apprenticeships
RT If genAI handles the grunt work, how can leaders develop an apprenticeship model? Leaders must: (1) Redesign Level-1 roles, (2) Pair talent with AI agents, (3) Make learning and reflection explicit, not accidental. #AI #Hiring #CIO #CHRO @Star_CIO https://t.co/W7YbwP6jrL
Founders Must Cut B‑Players to Kill Mediocrity
Your most important job as a founder: eliminate mediocrity. And here's my favorite quote on this from Frank Slootman: -- "Mediocrity is the silent killer. Organizations are not getting killed by their C players. Everybody knows who they are, and performance eventually is...
Founders Must Own Storytelling; Strategy Can't Be Delegated
The story has to come from the founder. This frustrates people. Founders want to delegate storytelling the same way they delegate other functions. Hire a head of marketing and let them own it. Bring in a communications expert and hand...
Teach Your Team an Infinite Mindset in 90 Minutes
The leaders who stay calm when everything shifts have something in common. They think differently. We built a workshop taught by our Master Trainers to show your whole team how. 90 minutes. Up to 300 people. An Infinite Mindset that...
GStack Automates Role‑specific Review Tracking for Startups
New innovation: Just as at a well-run startup, there are CEO, engineering manager and design reviews, GStack now helps you keep track of what reviews are run, figures out what is appropriate (e.g. CEO doesn't have to look at infra...
Productivity Now Means Orchestrating AI, Not Coding Faster
We measure productivity wrong. Lines of code written, tickets closed, hours logged, typing speed. All metrics built for a world where humans do the work themselves. That world is ending. When everyone on your team has an agentic workforce of...
Audit Your Day: Stop Firefighting, Build Scalable Engines
There's a specific kind of exhaustion that comes from being busy on the wrong things. Being stuck in tasks that don't compound is one of the worst things that can happen to a founder/CEO. Before I stepped down as CEO, I tracked...
Operational Chaos Is Fueling Founder Anxiety
Most founders would never admit this, but they've had panic attacks or anxiety episodes because they're stuck to the business. How much is the ops chaos costing you?
AI‑Native Companies Outpace Legacy Firms Through Built‑In Intelligence
🚀 You’ve probably heard the term AI-native company, but what does it really mean and why is it becoming so important for business leaders? In this video, I explain the critical difference between AI-enabled companies and AI-native companies, and why...
Avoiding Tough Talks Costs $7,500 and Days
Every tough conversation you avoid costs your company $7,500 and 8 lost work days. That's not my opinion. That's VitalSmarts research across thousands of organizations. Now multiply that by how many conversations your leadership team dodged this month. The most successful companies I...
Automating Entry Tasks Risks Losing Essential Skill Training
I have been thinking about the impact of AI on junior roles. If AI can handle the entry-level work, the obvious question is where people learn the craft. In a lot of careers, the “boring” tasks are also the training ground. You...
New Copilot Chief to Unify Consumer and Commercial AI
Microsoft has a new Copilot boss who is about to focus on unifying the consumer and commercial Copilots. The changes will see Microsoft AI CEO Mustafa Suleyman dedicated to creating Microsoft’s own AI models instead. Full details 👇https://t.co/lZdvkvOwlb
Embrace “Good Enough” Speed, Focus, and Delegation
"What would an incompetent CEO do that would still outpace me?" I added this one question to my morning planning/journal sesh and it's had an impact. It spurs thoughts that I probably wouldn't have otherwise: - They'd say good enough, ship it, improve...
Iger Excelled Everywhere but Succession, Costing His Legacy
“If the succession had gone right with Chapek, Iger would be just a hero at this point. It’s like, ‘You did everything right,’” says Wharton's Henning Piezunka. Iger “probably stayed around too long. He succeeded at everything except succession.” https://t.co/zmQnYUUxDV
Bob Iger’s Transformative Disney Reign Ends, Legacy Mixed
As Disney CEO Bob Iger Steps Aside, a Look at His Tenure as a Dynamic, Transformative Leader — With an Asterisk or Two https://t.co/zmQnYUUxDV via @variety
Extraordinary Leaders Ask Five Critical Self‑questioning Strategies
RT @JoeContrera The challenges facing today’s leaders are greater than ever. Here are five questions that extraordinary leaders continuously ask themselves: https://t.co/zxZmyyfRrK #leadership #leadershipdevelopment #leadershipskills https://t.co/DPX6d6HzgG
Active Listening: Essential Skill for Modern Sales Success
What is active listening and why it’s no longer a buzzword but a critical skill today https://t.co/KvfSbwuz8I via @DLAIgnite #SocialSelling #DigitalSelling #Sales #SalesLeader #Leadership #Culture #Motivation #Marketing #Success #Mindset #Entrepreneur #Management #Productivity #Inspiration
Fair Conflict Resolution: Inclusive, Flat, Kind, Non‑judgmental Listening
Fight Fair: Keep it small. Involve people with skin in the game, no one else. Flatten the group. Leaders and decision-makers participate with everyone. Say what you really think with kindness and openness. Withhold judgment. Never attack a person. Train people to listen.
Ettienne Brandt Named Astound CEO Amid Google Fiber Merger
Ettienne Brandt, a vet of both broadband and mobile, is the new CEO of Astound Broadband, which just struck a deal to combine with GFiber (@googlefiber). Brandt most recently led Frontier's commercial business unit. @Light_Reading https://t.co/QQkVv0H6y6
Disney Appoints Ex‑Google Product Chief to Lead Streaming
🔥 The most interesting/exciting part of Disney's leadership reorg that is not getting talked about is that former Google/YouTube chief product officer Adam Smith has been elevated to co-head of Disney's DTC businesses. Placing a tech/product person, without legacy...
Real Leaders Confront Challenges, Don't Disappear
Tired of bosses who vanish when things get tough? True leadership means facing challenges head-on, not hiding from them. Stream now: 🔗 https://t.co/JgtHAvt0Jg 📽️ https://t.co/ZUgNnzEnoz 🔗 https://t.co/DmYp21NDA3 https://t.co/RQhrS6W64N
Humility Beats Arrogance: Work Hard, Stay Curious
Nvidia CEO: “you cannot show me a task that is beneath me.” The enemy of continuous progress and growth is arrogance, a zero sum mindset, and a sense of entitlement. Stay humble, curious and kind. And work hard. https://t.co/DpugJBDmtO
OpenAI's “Do Everything” Strategy Sparks Focus Concerns
"Current and former employees said that last year’s “do everything” approach sometimes created a lack of focus, and that it was at times difficult to understand OpenAI’s strategic direction." https://t.co/omLqyiRhtE
Master Board Dynamics and Team Trust with Rich Liu
If you're an operator figuring out board dynamics, or a founder thinking about how to build trust with your leadership team - you are in for a treat from Rich Liu ! Check out this great interview below 👇
Honest Direct Talk Prevents Bigger Blindside Hurt
So many “leadership” challenges could be solved if people just talked to each other, and were direct and honest. Often times, people think direct = hurtful. But you hurt people more when you blindside them with something they could/should have...
Effective Strategy Balances Data with Judgment
Strategy often fails at the boundary between numbers and judgment. Lean too heavily on qualitative views and you drift into narratives that feel right but prove little. Lean too heavily on data and you risk mistaking measurement for understanding. The...
OpenAI Urged to Ditch Side‑quests, Focus on coreOpenAI Urged to Ditch Side‑quests, Focus on Core.
Fidji Simo has asked OpenAI staff to stop getting distracted by "side quests" and to focus on nailing their core business products as they are getting increasingly outflanked by Anthropic. Sam tried to run OpenAI like a VC by making lots...
AI Overload Blurs Minds—Leadership Must Protect Teams
Your team isn’t slower because they’re lazy. They’re slower because their brain is fried. AI brain fry is real. BCG just named it. More AI. More cognitive fog. More errors. That’s not a tech problem. That’s a leadership problem. Are you protecting your team’s mental...
Seeing Through Customers' Eyes Drives Better Leadership
Toyota Built a Fake Dining Room to Teach Execs About American Size. It’s a Lesson for Every Leader: Your customers may see things very differently from you. https://t.co/ZCuwrJke1H #customerexperience #customerunderstanding https://t.co/JNkKkhPwTb
Higher Ranks Blur Problems, Making Decisions Seem Worse
The Peter Principle says people rise to their level of incompetence. What it doesn't say: as you rise, your decisions will look progressively worse to people on the outside - because the problems get fuzzier, context gets wider, all of your...
Debra O'Connell Elevated to Disney Entertainment TV Chairman
New: ABC News Group President Debra OConnell is being elevated to chairman of Disney Entertainment Television… Move is part of Disney restructuring that unites streaming, film, and television businesses with games and digital entertainment under one division.
One Goal, Two Habits, No Distractions
I went from rehab at 17 to running dozens of companies at 46. Here’s 3 steps to make winning inevitable: 1. Pick a single goal 2. Choose two daily habits aligned to that goal 3. Say NO to everything else
Middle Managers Need Leadership Support When Culture Meets Performance
How Middle Managers Can Avoid Becoming the Forgotten Middle (or Turn It Around) https://t.co/IRwvSOkfCK They should answer: “When culture and performance collide, do you feel supported to choose culture? And can you think of a time when leadership backed you...
Blueprint for Running Perfect Leadership Meetings
How to run the perfect leadership meeting 👆🏼 If you want to dive deeper on this topic, comment “MEETING” and I’ll send you an article I wrote on Leadership Team Meetings.
Prove Your Head of Product Worth Before Promotion
Happening today. How to become a Head of Product Monday 16 March 17:00 – 18:00 GMT Hosted by Ed Biden (Hustle Badger co-founder) Register: https://luma.com/0ogtitig Moving from an individual contributor (PM / Snr PM) to a manager (Group PM / Head of / Director) is...