Best-Self Management
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Top 10 Best-Self Management Episodes
Goodpods has curated a list of the 10 best Best-Self Management episodes, ranked by the number of listens and likes each episode have garnered from our listeners. If you are listening to Best-Self Management for the first time, there's no better place to start than with one of these standout episodes. If you are a fan of the show, vote for your favorite Best-Self Management episode by adding your comments to the episode page.
Best-Self Management Returns January 14th
Best-Self Management
12/20/19 • 1 min
David and Shane tease a little bit of what's to come when Season 3 of Best-Self Management returns on January 14th. This upcoming season will feature David and Shane going deeper on the pillars of building an incredible culture, plus more incredible expert interviews, techniques, and mindset shifts to help transform your company's culture and drive incredible results.
Best-Self Management podcast where we explore the brave new world of bringing your whole self to work. Best-Self Management proposes that if leaders build cultures and institute practices that support people in being and becoming their Best Selves, then high performance and uncommon loyalty is the result.
Co-hosts, David Hassell and Shane Metcalf, regularly discuss the uniquely healthy and productive cofounder relationship they’ve built at 15Five over the last 7 years. They also interview academics, business leaders, and coaches, who are revolutionizing our understanding of human performance and what it takes to build a thriving culture that celebrates every employee and guides them towards greatness.
Links
Understanding Your Strengths To Build Stronger Teams w/ Darren Virassammy
Best-Self Management
08/26/20 • 42 min
Meaningful organizational change comes when we focus on what’s right with people rather than what’s wrong. This means understanding that not everyone thinks and operates the way that you do. When we appreciate these differences, we see them as assets that create stronger leaders, teams, and organizations.
Darren Virassammy is a TEDx speaker and the Co-Founder and COO of 34 Strong. His team believes that everyone deserves a great place to work and that any workplace can be great. As a leading expert in the global workplace engagement community, the 34 Strong team leverages a strength-based approach to human development to create massive shifts within organizations.
When you understand how people in your organization learn best, you can identify how to best apply their strengths. Everyone thinks and processes information and ideas differently. Understanding this allows everyone to show up at their best. This creates a more effective and supportive work culture.
To breathe life into your strengths, Darren urges leaders to guide their people to identify what exhausts them as well as energizes them. To create the foundation for great workplaces, leaders should support an environment of trust, compassion, stability, and hope.
How can you recognize the individual strengths of your people? Let’s talk about it in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode
- What happens when we view differences as strengths
- How team-awareness starts with self-awareness
- The power of empathy to eliminate frustration
- Encouraging your team to pursue what gives them energy
- Leveraging the team’s strengths to succeed in challenging times
Quotes
“It has to start with how we look at ourselves. It’s the self-awareness to team-awareness when we’re working on the culture side. But we have to start with self-awareness.” [7:35]
“We have so many unknowns that are coming at us, whatever comes at me, whatever comes at our team, I just want to make sure that people’s minds and emotional energy is showing up at the strongest level that it possibly can.” [18:49]
“If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go with others. Our differences can be our greatest advantages.” [38:59]
Links
Follow 34 Strong on Facebook | Twitter | YouTube
Why 2020 Is 'The Year of HR': A Conversation with Josh Bersin
Best-Self Management
07/14/20 • 36 min
Perhaps now more than any other time in History, demands on People Operations roles are incredibly high. Handling just the administrative side of HR while establishing a remote workforce can be a full-time job, let alone the all-important human element that requires your resources and attention. Because the true power of human resources lies in unlocking the potential of every employee, many HR leaders are discovering or refining new skills in 2020: “The Year of HR.”
Josh Bersin founded Bersin & Associates in 2001 (later acquired by Deloitte) to provide research and advisory services focused on corporate learning. He expanded the company’s coverage to encompass HR, talent management, talent acquisition, and leadership and became a recognized expert in the talent market. In 2019, Josh also founded the Josh Bersin Academy, an online professional development resource that has become the “Home for HR” in recent months.
Right now, in addition to staying in business during an economic downturn, companies are struggling to meet the demands of a workforce coping with a rapidly evolving world. Dealing with a global pandemic and escalating conversations about race and inclusion, every company must ask itself what type of citizenship they want to practice. This begins with how they treat their people, and then echoes out into the marketplace and beyond. HR has an ongoing role to play in aligning the mission of the company with the mission of its people—this not only determines how employees perform but what kind of citizen the company will be.
In 2020, companies are working proactively to create a sense of stability and safety for people, Josh sees the role of HR expanding more and more to fill this need.
How have you seen the role of HR evolve in your company? Let us know in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode
- How current trends in HR are leading to more workplace creativity
- Creating values alignment between companies and their employees
- The economic factors that actually matter right now
- How companies can provide stability for their people in unstable times
- What companies can do to promote equity in the workplace and society
Quotes
“Companies exist in a world of societal issues. Every employee and every customer has a perspective on the role they want to play in society.” [9:21]
“It always pays off to think more about your role in society. It seems to always make the company more successful.” [18:39]
“I think DNI is a critically important program, but I hope it isn’t getting in the way of the real issue of pay transparency, pay fairness, and talking about these issues so people can share their fears and concerns.” [24:46]
“2020 is the year of HR in every single company. We are being asked to take on heroic roles.... Try to enjoy this as stressful and difficult as it is.” [38:08]
Links
Follow Josh on Twitter | Facebook | Linkedin
White Fragility by Robin DiAngelo
Follow 15Five on Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin
Business Leaders Having Uncomfortable Conversations About Race w/ Willie Jackson
Best-Self Management
06/30/20 • 45 min
Since late May 2020, there has been an accelerated evolution of the conversation around race and our roles as human beings, citizens, and business leaders. With this latest round of high-profile deadly police encounters with Black Americans and the massive response to it, many of us are at a loss about how to best respond. Business leaders especially may be avoiding the conversation because they are afraid to risk their futures because they said the wrong thing.
Today, we welcome Willie Jackson back to the podcast to continue the important conversation we began last time. More and more difficult conversations are happening across the country and around the world that require vulnerability and discomfort. Staying in the discomfort and being curious about it along with a willingness to be vulnerable and make mistakes, will lead to meaningful conversations that may in turn lead to long-lasting change in a country drenched in systemic racism.
We recognize that this is a time of opportunity, and these opportunities go far beyond simply issuing statements of support and solidarity. We can use the current situation to make sure that our organizations have an equity-informed view of how they operate that leads to sustainable shifts toward inclusion.
Being an ally is not enough. It takes more than just doing something within your comfort zone to feel like you’re on the right side of history. Actual meaningful change takes moving from the noun of “ally” to the verb of “accomplice”—taking action to restore equity and justice to a system that is sorely lacking in those fundamentally important principles. This means examining power and privilege and being vocal, even if it comes at personal cost.
How can you as a leader model become an accomplice in creating equity and inclusion in your organization? Let’s talk about it in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode
- Why it may feel awkward to discuss race and how to address these feelings
- Embracing the discomfort of not knowing what to say or do, getting informed, and taking the risk to speak out from a place of vulnerability and knowledge
- Creating the conditions so that our organizations organically develop into equitable environments
- Acknowledging the social and historical context that affects everyone
- Being an accomplice rather than an ally
Quotes
“Many of us are ill-equipped to navigate the conversation at all. I think that it’s such an honest thing to say that it just feels awkward to name it. A lot of the conversation right now is about not burdening people of color in general, and black people specifically, about the dialogue.” [2:55]
“Talking about race is awkward. It is challenging. Like anything - running a business, making money, playing the piano - it takes practice.” [3:51]
“Acknowledging and repairing harm is a key part of how we can show up for each other.” [21:31]
“In order to fully participate at a baseline level, we might need to radically reimagine how we’re thinking about performance reviews, the stereotypes that get perpetuated, the training that managers get, because people don’t leave companies. People leave managers.” [27:12]
“It’s natural to want things to go back to normal. My fear is that we will forget that normal for a lot of people is suffering. It is fraught, and it brought about the conditions for the uprising that we’re seeing right now.” [31:16]
Links
Slavery by Another Name by Douglas A. Blackmon
Follow 15Five on Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin
Getting Serious About Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion w/ Willie Jackson
Best-Self Management
06/23/20 • 55 min
We stand at a pivotal moment in American history, one when there is an opportunity to correct massive injustice, dismantle the structures of systemic racism, and co-create a new future where all people can have true freedom, equal rights, and equal opportunities for a life of safety and prosperity.
Businesses are rightly being called to take meaningful action towards racism and that includes the policies they put in place to have more diverse and inclusive workplaces. We invited today’ guest on the show to share his wisdom about what we as business leaders can do to ensure diversity, equity, and inclusion in the workplace.
Willie Jackson is a keynote speaker, consultant, and facilitator at ReadySet who helps leaders and organizations advance vital conversations that unlock connections across differences. His belief in the transformative power of media to change narratives led him to found Abernathy, a magazine for black men backed by companies like Mailchimp, Atlassian, and WeWork. Willie served as Founding Technical Lead of Seth Godin’s altMBA program for high-performing individuals who want to level up and lead. Willie is an avid houseplant aficionado and loves to spread the gospel of self-watering planters whenever possible.
COVID-19 has highlighted and put stress on numerous structural inequities, and it’s clear that some groups of people have been hit harder than others by the economic downturn. Willie explains why this is partly the result of a lack of workplace diversity. While lack of diversity is seldom intentional, it can be intentionally addressed. To that end, Willie shares his advice for engaging people in change-making conversations.
Willie urges business leaders to embrace their sense of curiosity. Getting to know people with different experiences than you in an empathetic manner will lead to positive change. If there’s something that makes you uncomfortable, investigate that discomfort and see what it has to offer.
It takes work to diversify your workforce, but it's important work. It will lead to having a variety of perspectives, increased market opportunities, and a workforce more representative of the world we want to create.
How can you foster empathetic conversations in your workplace? Let us know in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode
- The many societal disparities that the covid pandemic has exposed
- Why functional segregation exists and leads to a lack of workplace diversity
- Advice for engaging in difficult conversations
- How to help people lean into empathy
- Where to look for insight into unfamiliar life experiences
- The power of storytelling to foster empathy and increased trust
- Common implicit biases to be aware of
Quotes
“I think of COVID as an accelerant. It puts additional pressure on friction points that already exist in society.” [2:31]
“There’s a different lens that has to be brought to bear when you think about how we’re representing the cities in which we live. How are we representing the societies we want to see? And how are we bringing into our teams and organizations a diversity of perspectives, bodies, and lived experiences?” [5:35]
“When we make the time and space to genuinely ask somebody, and listen to what they have to say, I think it can add some powerful richness and dimensionality to all of our relationships. Simply the act of getting curious.” [22:40]
“We all have blind-spots and we can make a mess of things even and especially when we’re trying.” [35:52]
Links
The Real Key to Talent Development is Authentic Caring
Best-Self Management
02/11/20 • 48 min
Today we’re diving into an important pillar of Best-Self Management -- Being and Becoming Your Best Self. While everyone must take responsibility for their own evolution, managers and leaders have an opportunity to contribute. By creating an environment that invites your people to be their best on a daily basis, you will inherently have an organization in which people produce high-quality work.
Accepting that things are already great does not mean that no one should strive for improvement. Rather, it becomes a good jumping-off point for striving to fulfill your highest potential. Recognizing this will provide the space and compassion needed to support your people as whole human beings.
As leaders, compassion is one of the most powerful tools you have to accomplish this. It will allow you to support your people through their crises and challenges and help them grow towards their best selves throughout that journey. Often at work, we want people to push through these challenges and get sh*t done, but making space for employees to work through these experiences often facilitates immense growth.
You also have the opportunity to create an environment of belonging. In such a place, you’ll be able to better recognize everyone’s potential. This helps everyone feel their worth as members of your organization. That, in turn, will lead to improvements in self-esteem. That’s where the magic happens.
How do you show your people that you recognize their potential to become their best selves? Let us know in the comments on the episode page!
In this episode
- Why becoming your best self is a rewarding yet never-ending journey
- How fostering gratitude is the best antidote for negativity and will fuel high-performance
- The power of embracing adversity and the dangers inherent in toxic positivity
- Why compassion is one of the most important qualities a leader can possess
- Maslow’s hierarchy: creating an environment where everyone feels that they truly belong
- How the way you see people influences the way they show up
Quotes
“A little dose of recognizing the perfection of ourselves, the world, and each other, can go a long way as a foundation to then choose growth and development.” [4:59]
“Being able to have an environment of compassion for the hard parts of the human journey is actually one of the greatest things you can do to unlock the potential of your people.” [9:31]
“To help somebody become their best-self you want to create a culture where they can feel like they belong. That’s why diversity and inclusion are so vitally important.” [18:15]
“How you see people changes people. To see somebody’s highest potential is to increase the odds of them realizing that potential.” [33:30]
Links
The Genius Habit by Laura Garnett
LinkedIn’s Jeff Weiner: Compassionate Leadership
Breaking the Rules of the Corporate Offsite
Best-Self Management
02/04/20 • 28 min
Our second episode of this podcast detailed one of the most impactful experiences we create for our employees—transformational business retreats.
We have just returned from our 2020 retreat, which was nearly three times the size and even more powerful than last year’s. As a follow-up to last year’s episode, we interview some of our new employees, so you can hear from the attendees themselves. Chris Hloros, our business analytics manager and Jeff Smith, director of the Best-Self Academy share the profound impact that they experienced in January.
For Chris and Jeff, this retreat really crystallized our company’s new values and brought them to life. We’ve found that these retreats have the power to have everyone create their own personal relationship with our mission, vision, and values in a way that is difficult by simply sharing them in a deck.
More than that, we create experiences that break down barriers, create authentic connection, so that we can deeply see the humans that comprise the company, and then all align around the mission and company objectives. This year, in addition to building camaraderie over meals and downtime, we held workshops that focused on vital company initiatives, taught how to facilitate breakthroughs on the team, and continued the discussion about diversity, equity, and inclusion (along with some vulnerable sharing from the team).
In this episode:
- The power of retreats to reaffirm company values
- How coming together as a whole company can encourage all of us to stop holding back our ideas and our potential
- How to turn our inner critics into our inner champions
- How a retreat shows everyone a more complete picture of the people they work with
- Deeply touching stories from working humans just like you, who are looking for connection and trusting relationships
Quotes:
“It was lifechanging. I know a lot of people say that in a hyperbolic sense. But this is not hyperbolic.” [0:52]
“I was so scared of failing. This retreat made it super clear that that was okay. I didn’t have to worry about messing up or not doing it right or not being good enough for this role.” [7:22]
“Just spending 14 hours a day for four days inside and outside of my comfort zone with people I love and appreciate was really extraordinary.” [13:15]
“If you never see people other than when they’re behind a PowerPoint or in very prepared moments, you can lose that sense of actual human connection with them.” [22:25]
Links:
Best-Self Management Episode 2: Life-Changing Company Retreats
A Proven Process For Overcoming Your Limitations w/ Joseph McClendon III
Best-Self Management
10/06/20 • 47 min
There are so many voices that are not represented throughout society. Be it in business or entertainment, many black people find it hard to be heard. This only deepens the psychological wounds of racism. As business leaders, we have a role in addressing this.
Our guest today is on a mission to rectify this through spreading the message of personal empowerment.
About Joseph McClendon III
Joseph McClendon III is one of the most sought-after Ultimate Performance Specialists in the industry. His unique brand of “tell, show, do” teaching and coaching creates rapid personal change that effectively moves people to take more consistent action to go further faster with their personal and business achievements.
Joseph is a best-selling author and has delivered hundreds of workshops, coaching sessions, keynote addresses, seminars and training programs, and one-on-one therapeutic interventions. He has presented to well over 3 million people around the globe.
Sharing the Message of Personal Empowerment
Often, just hearing the message that you have the power within you to be empowered is enough to get started. Joseph speaks to the need to address this inner power we all have. Often, the key to unlocking it is as simple as hearing someone else recognize it.
As business leaders, we also have the potential to foster personal growth. Joseph has some advice for us. In order for employees to realize that they can change and get the support they need for it, employers need to take action.
Your people need the opportunity to feel good about themselves. Asking them deep questions about their goals does this. Supporting this with reassurance and processes will lead to happier and more productive people.
In This Episode
- Recognizing your potential amidst adversity [1:25]
- The psychological toll that racial marginalization causes [4:55]
- Thoughts about the current trajectory in racial progress [13:00]
- Discovering your capabilities of growth and learning [15:35]
- How company leaders can create environments to support personal change [17:49]
- The power of words to influence people [26:26]
- Overcoming distrust in a business environment [30:00]
- 3 steps to move from a state of survival to one of thriving [37:50]
Quotes
“Recognize that you got dealt this hand and it is the greatest hand you’re ever going to get, so love it.” [1:32]
“The whole point is the happy employee. A happy employee or employer is going to be more apt to do better because they feel better.” [24:07]
“Any pain is a signal for you to snap the hell out of it. Stand up, shake yourself off.” [41:33]
Key Takeaways
1. There are constant lessons, both subtle and overt, that black Americans are taught about their worth. By being underrepresented, self-esteem in minority communities suffers. However, sometimes just being reminded of the worthiness that all people have is enough to begin making meaningful personal changes.
2. Building and maintaining trust in the workplace requires constant effort. It can be as simple as letting your people know that you are there to support them. Ask them questions about their goals and desires and work to support those on a regular basis.
Links & Resources
Find Joseph McClendon III online
Follow Joseph on Facebook | Instagram
Unlimited Power: A Black Choice by Tony Robbins & Joseph McClendon III
Awesome Sauce by Joseph McClendon III
Think and Grow Rich by Napoleon Hill
Follow 15Five on Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin
Podcast production & marketing support by the team at Counterweight Creative
Okta's Kristina Johnson On Dynamic Work & Moving Beyond Remote
Best-Self Management
09/29/20 • 42 min
The year 2020 has dramatically shifted the role of people leaders in business. COVID and the racial justice movement has rightly forced managers to take a hard look at their organization’s priorities. This is a time when human nature itself is being put back at the center of companies. As we consider the importance of how people feel while at work, good leaders are recognizing the opportunities to improve company culture.
About Kristina Johnson
As the Chief People Officer at Okta. Kristina Johnson leads the organization’s global people function. She is responsible for the company’s human capital management strategy and oversees talent acquisition, talent development, total rewards, and engagement programs.
Kristina brings more than 20 years of human resources experience to Okta and has worked across a variety of industries, including technology, software, consulting, and engineering, ranging from start-ups to large multi-national established businesses. She is an experienced leader of global teams and adept at driving change management across diverse regions.
Bringing the Human Element Back to Work
Despite the massive tragedy it has brought, the global COVID pandemic has had a positive side-effect. It has accelerated the role of remote work and forced many organizations to rethink how they promote efficiency. It has also reemphasized the human element of work. With managers focused on how to support the emotional aspect of work, old paradigms are being re-imagined.
The New Dynamic Workplace
Kristina explains how her company is embracing the new dynamics of the workplace. This involves recognizing that we are all complex humans and work styles should reflect this. Going beyond simply allowing remote work, companies can give their people a huge range of choices to support them. By providing flexibility around this, organizations can better support their people and see a huge return in productivity.
In This Episode
- How COVID and racial justice awareness has shifted the priorities of leaders in business [0:57]
- Teaching empathy in the workplace [3:00]
- Balancing the needs of remote work with the desire to return to a physical workplace [4:30]
- The difference between dynamic work and remote work [7:35]
- The role of the post-COVID office [10:52]
- Managing communication and getting accurate feedback in a virtual workplace [14:54]
- Recognizing the opportunities that come with crisis [20:50]
- How to incentivize employees not to overwork themselves [25:50]
- Creating environments to support extraordinary managers [30:48]
- How to measure engagement in a meaningful way [37:28]
Quotes
“As tragic as the global pandemic and racial injustice has been - and you can’t ignore that - there have been positive side-effects.” [2:25]
“People are multifaceted. Everyone works differently. People like to be managed differently. People are productive at different times. If we can get out of people’s way and let them work, they would get so much done.” [10:35]
“Now more than ever, we need to invest in managers because they’re the first line of defense in making sure the employees are taken care of.” [31:49]
“If we’re going to have a culture of builders and owners, we need to empower our employees.” [32:39]
Key Takeaways
1. Recent events have shifted the role of people managers. They now play a crucial role in supporting the workforce at an emotional level. Teaching and supporting empathy is a large part of this.
2. Dynamic work goes beyond remote work. With dynamic work, leaders can provide true choices to their employees. Investing in employees through access to stipends supports them in numerous ways. Also, without the geographic constraints of a physical workplace, the talent pool has never been wider.
Links & Resources
Follow 15Five on Facebook | Twitter | Linkedin
Podcast production & marketing support by the team at Counterweight Creative
The Formula for Scaling an Award-Winning Culture
Best-Self Management
01/14/20 • 44 min
In less than a year, 15Five has rapidly scaled up from about 70 employees to over 200. Now many people might assume that the company culture that we strive to nurture has suffered as a result. However, we’re happy to say that our culture is now stronger than it has ever been (and we know this because 15Five is ranked as the #3 best place to work in the country on Glassdoor.) So today we’re talking about how to scale culture while simultaneously undergoing hyper-growth.
We share what we have learned as leaders of a company during this period of rapid growth. We discovered that being attuned to what your people are feeling and thinking is a key part of supporting them during this process. To that end, we discuss how we listen to our people and use their feedback in constructive ways.
While there were a number of things we had in place prior to growing that helped create a strong culture, we also made many changes in the past year. We chat about what those were, such as revamping our onboarding process, to make it successful. Additionally, focusing on honesty, gratitude, and vulnerability was instrumental in this process. We discuss how you can make this part of your successful expansion as well.
How can you uncover the true values and purpose of your organization so that you could scale up while maintaining culture? Share in the comments!
In this episode- How to know if your company has a strong and supportive culture
- Ways that you can best listen and respond to your people through feedback loops
- What happens when you create high levels of trust and vulnerability so that truth can flow more easily through your organization
- What the Best-Self Kickoff is and how you can use it tos set expectations and prepare your employees for the greatest professional experience of their lives
- Ways to maintain a cohesive leadership team as the fortunes of business ebbs and flows
- Universal principles that any company can implement to create a thriving culture
“Fundamentally, as a leader, if you want to scale your culture, you need to get good at listening. You need to be attuned to the human beings inside your organization.” [2:29]
“You don’t succeed in business by staying still. You need to engage. You need to hear things that are happening and then be able to make quick decisions and then act upon them.” [6:07]
“Respect people. Respect that they showed up. Respect and feel honored that they’re interested in working here. Respect their journey even if they’re not a good fit for this role. Respect them.” [27:18]
“Regardless of whether you’re in hyper-growth now or will be in the future, you can never start too early in creating that strong center of gravity of the culture.” [37:19]
LinksCNBC: GlassDoor’s 2020 Best Places To Work
Practices for a Positive Workplace
Center for Positive Organizations
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FAQ
How many episodes does Best-Self Management have?
Best-Self Management currently has 46 episodes available.
What topics does Best-Self Management cover?
The podcast is about People, Management, Entrepreneurship, Performance, Human, Growth, Podcasts, Resources, Business and Interviews.
What is the most popular episode on Best-Self Management?
The episode title 'Best-Self Management Returns January 14th' is the most popular.
What is the average episode length on Best-Self Management?
The average episode length on Best-Self Management is 38 minutes.
How often are episodes of Best-Self Management released?
Episodes of Best-Self Management are typically released every 14 days.
When was the first episode of Best-Self Management?
The first episode of Best-Self Management was released on Jun 20, 2019.
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