Lancefield on the Line

Do you let the little things get to you as a leader? Everyone has those moments of irritability that you regret afterwards. You were stressed. It happens, doesn’t it? But it doesn’t have to if you know how to manage your microstresses and what causes them. As a leader you can be more resilient and create a stronger, richer identity if you know how to deal with microstress. Karen and Rob reveal not...

Why should companies encourage their employees to build their personal brand?    A question that many companies shudder at the thought of. Individuals sharing their own ideas and opinions can’t be good for the company, right? Wrong. Personal branding can be used by companies to share values and ideas through the individuals that work for them with far wider reach.   In this conversation Amelia Sor...

Do you get enough sleep?  The answer to that question has far reaching implications for your health, performance and wellbeing. As leaders there are many benefits to ensuring sleep is prioritised over work, from being able to make better decisions, improving your mental and physical health, to getting the best out of your teams. But how do you ensure you get enough?  In this episode, Dr. Els van d...

How do you create the best places to work? This is a question many leaders are asking themselves as they figure out new hybrid environments. To do this, they need to understand the features and characteristics of high performing workplaces and the enabling organisational culture. In this podcast, Julia Hobsbawm, author of The Nowhere Office and Bloomsburg columnist, gives her insights into the wor...

How do you lead a group of clever, brilliant people? That’s a question I posed of Francois Ortalo-Magne, Dean and CEO of the London Business School.  We delve into his world as the leader of the one of the world’s most prestigious business schools.  We talk about: Harnessing the collective intelligence of his faculty and students for the greater good – making connections and creating the condition...

How good is your writing at work? It's rather important. Think about your bids, pitches, presentations, Executive or Board papers, investment cases and, of course, emails. Too often writing is dry, technocratic, and overly complex. It makes it hard for the reader to understand in one go, or at all. It limits your ability to convince them of your thinking, and tarnishes your brand.  In this po...

The news is littered with examples of ethical lapses and corruption. In fact, a Strategy& study showed that it was the biggest reason for CEOs resigning. Yet, compliance is still a word and a practice that is not always considered pivotal to the success of organisations. It’s often perceived as part of the bureaucracy that stops or slows down progress. Who better to talk to than a man who has...

How much do you suppress your emotions at work?  What if you could be more aware of them, in control of them, and learn from them?  That’s the topic of my conversation with Liz Fosslein in this episode. She shares her stories, research, and experience of tapping into Big Emotions, captured so brilliantly in her book of the same name, co authored with Mollie West Duffy.  We talk about how to handle...

You’re looking to build a higher performing team, or organisation, where more people can do their best.  Sounds simple, right? But there are some biases and blockers in the way. You know that you’ve got work to do but you’re not sure where to start. You look around and realise that you hire and promote people who look like you and the other members of your leadership team, whether intentional or n...

What can a banker who built one of the biggest financial empires in the world and was a major philanthropist teach us about strategic leadership? A lot, in fact.  I talk to Dan Gross, the author of a biography on Edmond J. Safra called ‘A banker’s life’. It’s a fascinating counter to many of the practices we hear and see – for better or worse – in modern day life.   Safra was incredibly ambitious,...

Bill George tells me that this the most difficult time to be a leader he’s seen in his life as they face major generational, political, societal shifts and challenges. The traditional command and control approach to leadership and management doesn’t work. Instead, we need more authentic leaders have a clearer, longer-term view of what it takes to make their organisation successful. Leaders who tak...

What would it take to show and give your absolute best at work? Even having to ask the question suggests there’s something amiss.  Perhaps it’s because we’ve been told what we’re not good at that we’ve forgotten what we are good at. Or we’ve been wearing a mask for so long that it’s all become part of a performance.  Andy Woodfield has spent his career trying to figure out the uniqueness and the d...

When you’re feeling life is tough, you’re typically told to ride it out, put your head down, get through it. That might help some people, for a while. But it’s missing something. Only when we reach out to others, find a connection, get some support that we truly feel better – using fortitude. In this podcast Bruce Daisley challenges conventional wisdom by arguing that the power of social connectio...

Inclusion has been one of those terms we might reserve for HR, an initiative, or a special interest group. Wrong. It’s critical to the success of any organisation, and a moral responsibility. For too long, traditionally disadvantaged groups – by race, gender, sexuality – have progressed slower and had poorer experiences at work. Their leaders – from a majority group – have employed avoidance tacti...

We’re moving into the age of psychological capital based on curiosity and creativity. We need to harness data on behaviours more effectively to help us understand people in an unbiased, objective, and meritocratic way. It might sound straightforward but it will require overcoming resistance especially from those who have grown into senior leadership roles in the system; they fear what the data may...

How strategic are you with your time, attention, and energy? Many successful executives aren’t, surprisingly. Their days are overly busy (some feel proud of this), as if their schedules run their life. They’re racing against the clock, trying to get through never-ending to-do lists. They feel exhausted by the weekend, and frustrations fester as they don’t progress important professional or persona...

Work relationships can be hard. Too often we grin and bear it as if we have no choice. Or throw up our hands because one-size-fits-all solutions haven't worked. Many of us walk away, avoiding difficult people. But we can only endure so much thoughtless, irrational, or malicious behaviour—there's your sanity to consider, and your career. In her book Getting Along, workplace expert and Har...

Time is running out for our planet. We are taking more than we are giving. CSR targets don’t go far enough. And societal inequality is on the rise. It requires a rethink of how we do business, how we lead organisations, how we measure impact. Who better to set out the manifesto for change than Paul Polman, the former CEO of Unilever and co founder of Imagine One. He’s done what he’s advocated; tur...

You feel there’s something important to say at work. An idea that could make a big difference. Or a behaviour that’s not good. But you’re not sure whether you should because there isn’t enough psychological safety. Perhaps there’s toxicity in the culture or a strong prevailing way of doing things. You calling something out might be risky to your standing and your career. What does it take to be co...

Many organisations say that they are customer-centric. But when you look inside they’re far from it. Customers come a distant second to their product or service. And when they do focus on them, they often apply simplistic assumptions about how we think, feel, and behave. Andrea Olson is a behavioural scientist who has studied how to learn what customers need, but don’t always tell you. In this pod...

About Jeffrey: Jeffrey Shaw is a speaker and small business coach who helps self-employed and small business owners gain control of their business in what seems like otherwise uncontrollable circumstances. Drawing on his experience as a renowned portrait photographer, Jeffrey shows business owners how to see business through a different lens and strategies to compose the often-chaotic pieces of li...

You're a founder, Board member or Senior Executive. Tasked with scaling your business profitably and sustainably. But you're facing a complex, dynamic, volatile and uncertain environment. How do you make smart decisions about where to focus, and how to stimulate innovation in a world of ecosystems? How do you use venture capital wisely? How can you upskill your team to make important dec...

How do you scale-up a start-up? How do you make sure a large corporate doesn't stifle innovation?  These are questions - and many more - that Steve Blank has been addressing for decades as one of the world's leading authorities on entrepreneurship and innovation. In this podcast find out what: Companies do to innovation as they grow. The problem with innovation theatre is. It takes to cr...

Summary : Imagine your daughter or son, niece or nephew telling you that they couldn’t access the facilities like a museum, taxi, or arts gallery. What would you do? You’d feel disappointed. You might even write a letter to complain. But would you try to overhaul the system? That’s a big ask for any parent or relative.  But that’s exactly what Janice Lintz did. Over the last twenty years she has f...

Summary: Whether we realise it or not, we all use mental models to think about our context (customers, competitors), make choices, structure work, and undertake key activities (such as doing innovation or pursuing M&A).  But how often do you stop for a moment to challenge them? Often we operate on autopilot. If they don't work, we try again, and again, without thinking of an alternative....