Business Toolkit – thoughtLEADERS, LLC: Leadership Training for the Real World

How Smart Leaders Get Their Teams to Exceptional Results

July 1, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

In this episode of Innovating Leadership Maureen Metcalf, thoughtLEADERS Principal, interviews Victor Prince, a fellow thoughtLEADERS Managing Director, about guiding leaders to exceptional results.

In today’s interview, Victor talks about the power of applying the “Leadership Matrix” -the box- to team management.

He will describe what exactly the Leadership Matrix is, how it works, and how it will help you get the best out of yourself and your team.

Victor, through all of this, will also answer a few of the below questions:

Who should read Lead Inside the Box?

What problem does it help them solve and how do you help people solve that problem?

He will walk us through the different parts of the Leadership Matrix, explain the four boxes and how to utilize this tool to allocate leadership time by the various groups. Victor provides great insights about how this structure helps managers and leaders think through what employees need using a framework to categorize where they are right now. This tool can also help shift people to become more productive.

Stay tuned for more of these leadership discussions between Maureen and Victor, along with a few other team members from thoughtLEADERS, being featured on the Innovating Leadership podcast.

Leadership the AirBnb Way

June 29, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Guest Blogger, Leadership /by Ryan Shaw

Sometimes the best leaders are the ones at the back of the pack, helping to drive everything forward and sometimes they are out front, and other times it benefits to be both, just like AirBnb.

Today’s post is by Joseph Michelli, author of The AirBnb Way (CLICK HERE to get your copy).

Around 2007, Simon Cooper was the CEO of the Ritz-Carlton Hotel Company, where I was working with their senior leadership team. Simon and I were exploring how Ritz-Carlton could adapt to meet the needs of changing luxury travelers without losing the company’s legacy customer base. Simon offered an example of the challenges faced by the luxury hotel company in 2008, “I had a guest complain to me that he saw one of our bartenders serve a young guest a bottle of beer without a glass. When I looked into it, I informed the complaining guest that the service was a result of the young guest having asked for his beer to be served that way a day before. That is the challenge … to customize the experience to the guest, ensuring that traditional and new-generation guests are each treated respectfully in accord with their wishes.”

In that same year, two men in San Francisco (Brian Chesky and Joe Gebbia) were facing a very different accommodation challenge. They were trying to make rent for their apartment after a third roommate moved out. Since Brian and Joe had recently graduated from the Rhode Island School of Design and given that a design conference was coming to San Francisco, the roommates decided to create a make-shift website targeted to conference attendees. They planned to place three air mattresses in the spare room and offer breakfast (in the form of uncooked pop tarts) for $80 per night, per guest, for the duration of the conference. A little over a decade later, that air mattress bed and breakfast arrangement has turned into Airbnb (a company that lists more than seven million properties on its well-evolved digital marketplace – 14,000 listings are tiny homes, 2,500 are tree houses, and 5,000 are castles).

In my book, The Airbnb Way, I detail the business strategy that fueled Airbnb’s meteoric rise. For the purposes of this article, I’ll focus on the three elements of leadership, which set the foundation for Airbnb’s impact on the hospitality sector. Those three components are:

Identification of a Disruptive Gap and Innovation to Fill It

Open Mindsets of Founders and Leaders

Clarity of a Branded Experience

Applying Storytelling to Leadership

June 17, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Paul Smith, thoughtLEADERS Principal, sat down with Jim and Jan of The Leadership Podcast to discuss storytelling and how it can apply to your leadership ability and skill

In continuation of our new collaboration with The Leadership Podcast, Paul breaks down just how storytelling can make you a better leader in this short form “chalk talk.” These chalk talk series are bitesize sessions on a common (but challenging) leadership issue.

Paul gives Jim and Jan some background on the current renaissance and rediscovery that is happening in relation to the power of storytelling, and the distancing away from the heavy focus on analytics that happened around the same time as the expansion of the digital age, and the return to a more human-centered approach.

Paul elaborates on the definition he shares with executives and leaders on what exactly ‘storytelling’ is, and how we can continue to blend the two worlds of data-centric and human-centric to tell better, more compelling stories.

Stay tuned for more of these brief Chalk Talks featuring Paul, as well as many more members of the thoughtLEADERS team.

What is the biggest impediment to you making a big change in the way you work?

June 11, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Career, Communications, Leadership, Poll, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Our reader poll today asks: What is the biggest impediment to you making a big change in the way you work?

I like my routine and simply don’t want to change. 16.10%
I don’t know how to make the required changes. 9.52%
People around me refuse to change with me. 20.49%
I’m afraid to change. I might fail or things won’t go well. 6.82%
I don’t have the resources I need to make the change. 17.56%
I love change and always embrace it. 29.51%

Many obstacles to change. There isn’t a dominant reason for change resistance, apparently. Sometimes it’s our desire for routine or it’s others’ desires not to change. Whatever the reason for change resistance, identify it, give it a name, and compare the cost of not changing with what the value of the obstacle is. Many times we don’t do this math and we let inertia lead us to a bad outcome. For the 30% of you who love and embrace change, help those around you do the same. Share the techniques you use to overcome fear or routine inertia. Don’t push them to change — lead them to change. Also don’t let your love of change turn into change for the sake of change. Some of us love change too much and make changes that might not be necessary. Understand this is a risk for you 30% and could cause unnecessary turmoil for the 70% of your colleagues.

Do you agree with these poll results? Let us know in the comments below!

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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Transforming Misunderstanding Into Trust

June 10, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

Devin Singh, thoughtLEADERS Principal, sat down with Jim and Jan of The Leadership Podcast to discuss his thoughts on transforming misunderstanding.

In continuation of our new collaboration with The Leadership Podcast, Devin gives his tips and tricks for transforming misunderstanding into trust in this short form “chalk talk.” These chalk talk series are bitesize sessions on a common (but challenging) leadership issue.

Misunderstanding is not an uncommon part of any environment, especially business, but Devin breaks down that we have tools to break down these misunderstandings and how it can lead to greater innovation, happier workplaces, and deeper relationships.

Jim and Jan ask Devin where he starts when he is working through this course material with people, asking if he starts at the base level that all of our memories are flawed and tainted. Devin goes further into some of his basic tools for trying to mitigate misunderstanding and how to recover and move forward with it after the fact.

Stay tuned for more of these brief Chalk Talks featuring Devin, as well as many more members of the thoughtLEADERS team.

How To Lead Inside The Box

June 3, 2020/0 Comments/in Business Toolkit, Communications, Leadership, Strategy /by Ryan Shaw

In this episode of Innovating Leadership Maureen Metcalf, thoughtLEADERS Principal, interviews Mike Figliuolo, thoughtLEADERS Managing Director, about what it means to lead inside the box.

Mike will talk about his book: Lead Inside the Box: How Smart Leaders Guide Their Teams to Exceptional Results.

In this episode Mike will discuss his thoughts and perspectives on a few of the following topics:

Why he decided to write this book

What he hopes readers take away from it

The questions the book answers that successful people need to know

His Top 3 points he wants readers to take away that will encourage them to learn more

What guidance he would give leaders based on his experience

Mike will further discuss his legacy as a leader, the way thoughtLEADERS operates as an organization, and how thinks of training and development in a very easy to apply and practical manner. Mike uses this time to share more depth to his experience with some easy practices for leaders at any level to apply to become more effective.

Stay tuned for more of these leadership discussions between Maureen and Mike, along with a few other team members from thoughtLEADERS, being featured on the Innovating Leadership podcast.