Greatness Podcast

Margot Brassil, Director, Construction Leadership Group, Infrastructure New South Wales (NSW), the state containing Sydney in Australia, joins the Greatness podcast.  With A$118 B in infrastructure projects in the state over the next four years, NSW is committed to creating a more gender balanced construction industry to facilitate success. An initial A$20.2 million investment has been renewed, fu...

When I first saw Perlla Deluca speak at the Women Construction Owners and Executives National Conference last March I knew that she was not only a force in the construction industry but a deeply caring person. Perlla makes many great points during our discussion of how to attract more women into construction trades, including the fact that they must like it. She also provides concrete tips for how...

I had so much fun appearing on Karalynn Cromeens' podcast to talk about my book about women leaders in construction that I invited Karalynn onto my podcast to discuss her three books on construction law! Karlynn is an amazing leader in our industry and has a wealth of practical knowledge about construction contracts. Are contracts fun? No! But contracts drive behavior in our industry and I wa...

Work Futurist and leadership authority Cherie Mylordis spent five years delivering the 2000 Sydney Olympics, a daunting yet fulfilling adventure that shape her as a leader. Cherie shares her thoughts on how leaders create psychological safety and empower high performing teams. I appreciate her three "D's" - Dare, Ditch, or Dial,  the concept of "consious unbossing", and ad...

I feel so fortunate to have met Jeffery Tobias Halter, Founder of YWomen, a decade ago. Like many of us, it was a story told to him by a Black friend of being stopped weekly in his Jaguar, in his neighborhood, because he was a Black, that caused Jeffery to realize that not everyone is experiencing life in the same way. What differentiates Jeffery is that he had the courage to step up in a big way...

One of the best outcomes of appearing on construction industry podcasts like Justin Neagle's Building Scale to talk about my new book is the connections I continue to make in the industry with people who care about helping women thrive. Justin introduced me to Move Over Bob founders Angie Cacace and Kate Glantz, two tradeswomen who are doing amazing work to attract teenage girls into the cons...

Do I know all there is to know about leadership? Absolutely not! Which is why I love bringing leadership experts like William Davis onto the Greatness Podcast to share their insights. William's book, How to Lead Without Just Managing, is an excellent resource on how to serve those you lead and develop the leadership skills that lead to high-performing teams of people. 

Do you matter? Do the people you work with feel that they matter? Employee engagement, despite becoming a $1 billion industry, is at a 10-year low. Only 39% of employees say someone cares for them. My good friend and fellow PhD student Zach Mercurio joined the Greatness Podcast to share research-based insights from his latest book, The Power of Mattering . Sixty-percent of people are in what Zach...

What I love about former Microsoft executive and management and leadership expert Sabina Nawaz is that she is so forthright with her own challenges as an inspiration for her coaching and books. Sabina joined the Greatness Podcast to share her top tips from her new book, You're the Boss: Become the Manager You Want to Be (And Others Need), taken from 12,000 pages of data from interviews of lea...

What better way to celebrate Women in Construction Week in the US than a podcast about my soon-to-be-released book, Building Women Leaders: A Blueprint for Women Thriving in Construction. I'm grateful to fellow author and friend Gabrielle Dolan for taking the time to interview me about the book on my Greatness podcast. It's been an honour to write this book and I look forward to kicking...

How do you double the percentage of women on a construction project? Improve wellbeing? And achieve better project outcomes?  Dean Riha of Fulton Hogan shares an incredible case study of the implementation of the construction industry Culture Standard in Australia that focuses upon increasing 1) time for life, 2) wellbeing, and 3) diversity while improving productivity and project outcomes.  This...

I love connecting with women throughout the world who are working to lift up other women. Uma Thana Balasingham, Founder and CEO of ElevateAsia and builder of Lean In Singapore shares her incredible life journey of personal success. From growing up in Malaysia to now focusing upon helping other women succeed, Uma is making an incredible impact in the world. She credits having a strong "why&qu...

I believe that being intentional about your personal leadership brand and how you are authentic to your personal purpose and values is critical to great leadership. Harrison Monarth, Executive Coach and NY Times Bestselling Author, agrees, and I was inspired by his HBR article on the topic to invite him to share his wisdom on the Greatness podcast. This is not about disingenuous manipulation. It i...

Suicide has impacted so many of our lives and I'm saddened by the high rates of suicide in the construction industry. In Australia, someone in the construction industry commits suicide every other day, and workers are eight times more like to die by suicide than by a job site accident. Brad Parker, CEO New South Wales (Australia) of Mates in Construction, joined the Greatness Podcast to discu...

Do you know a gender diverse person in the construction industry? You may have seen my earlier LinkedIn post about the amazing Evelyn Lai, Site Engineer for Nacap, A Quanta Services Company. Evelyn participated in a recent leadership panel I facilitated at the Australian Pipelines and Gas Association annual conference and shared their experiences of being a gender diverse person in our industry. I...

Everyone needs to listen to this Greatness podcast with Vanessa Bennett, neuroscience expert, coach, and speaker. Why? We have learned more about the brain in the last five years than in the history of humankind and that knowledge is invaluable to us all. Vanessa shares concrete tips about how to "optimize your cognitive energy" in a way that allows you to improve your mental health and...

Delegation is a challenge for many leaders at all levels. I believe delegation is a critical skill because those who do not delegate drown in low-priority tasks. Author and consultant Shanna Hocking joined the Greatness Podcast to share tips on what to delegate and how to delegate from her insightful HBR article on the topic . She explains practical actions to take to improve your ability to deleg...

Do you sometimes feel like you are failing at everything? Not juggling fast enough? Not prioritizing your health? Danielle Dobson, author of Breaking the Gender Code, joined the Greatness Podcast to share the insights she gained through dozens of interviews and research on why many  women have these feelings. Danielle shares that women often work "the triple shift" - paid work, domestic...

Concrete examples of how artificial intelligence (AI) is helping organizations accelerate performance are quite helpful to me. I was completely blown away by a CURT presentation by TD Industries Vice President Jamie Dabbs and Barry Nelson, Founder and CEO of FactorLab, describing how they used an app to collect 500,000 daily planning conversation videos, then analyze 90,000 of these videos. The ou...

How do we attract more women into construction, and specifically into the trades? And keep them? Jennifer Wilkerson, Vice President of Innovations and Advancements for the National Center for Construction Education and Research (NCCER) joined the Greatness Podcast to share the results of a recent research, In Her Own Words: Improving Project Outcomes , that explores why we need more women in the t...

Is your organization developing an AI strategy? If not, you should be. Dr. Sarah Buchner, Founder and CEO of Trunk Tools, started out working in the trades in construction, and now is driving artificial intelligence (AI) innovation and practical implementation. It's mind bending for me to think about how millions of pages of construction documents can be loaded into an AI application that all...

I admire people who consider themselves to be "servant leaders", and John Foong, Chief Commercial Officer of Domain and former Google executive, exemplifies this concept. John recently joined the Greatness Podcast to share his leadership experiences including his passion for unleashing the best in others and leading the change necessary to enable long-term success. John's ideas abou...

Long-time friend and amazing author/speaker Gabrielle Dolan, "Ral", and her amazing podcast partner, executive coach and Director Jac Phillips, started their podcast, "Keeping it Real with Jac and Ral', to share their incredible insights out into the world. They describe it as a "live free coaching session" and I agree, fabulous insights into topics like confidence, n...

Do you dread "networking" but believe you should be spending more time doing it? Speaker, coach, and author Deborah Grayson Riegel joined the Greatness podcast to discuss her thinking on going both "broad and deep" on relationships; and how to think strategically about the types of people you might need to connect with for both your short and long-term needs. Deborah's tip...

Wendy Swire, global leader, coach, author, and speaker, joined the Greatness Podcast (and created a unique page of resources for you listeners - https://swiresolutions.com/greatness/ ) to share her incredible insights on Brain Science and how to get the most out of your brain. This includes sleeping more which lets your brain "clean itself"; focusing on mental fitness to generate positiv...