Speak In Flow

Have you ever given the same request to eight different people or teams just to see what comes back? We hope not, because that would be a waste of resources. But every time you send one message to a whole team, you’re running that experiment anyway, and the results can look very different from what you expect. Howard Miller, Chief Information Officer at UCLA Anderson, joins Melinda Lee to explain...

Your team is full of brilliant people. So why does it sometimes feel like everyone is playing a different song? Paul Jan Zdunek spent years as an orchestra conductor before spending 20 years leading organizations through crisis, change, and growth, from a five-star hotel to a private school. In this conversation with Melinda Lee, Paul explains what conducting taught him about alignment: you can’t...

If you look at the work environment globally right now, you’ve surely heard people say things like, “Why would I go the extra mile if this company isn’t even mine?” And they have a point. If employees don’t feel that the company’s growth is their growth, they won’t put their max into it. That’s where ownership comes in. Christine Simmons, entrepreneur, strategist, and self-described recovering C-s...

Companies change, and markets shift, but some leadership principles stay the same. In this conversation, Melinda Lee sits down with Kian Alavi, the co-founder and CEO of Mazlo. He talks about the principles that have stayed the same at every stage of his company's growth, explaining why these principles are the key to getting around the “founder's trap.” Basically, when every decision still goes b...

“Alignment” may sound like a buzzword until it results in a strike, diminished performance, or unachieved goals. In this episode, Yvonne Cheng, a member benefits consultant at the California Teachers Association, joins Melinda Lee to discuss what effective alignment looks like in practice. With her experience representing a union of over 310,000 members and two decades in corporate retail leadersh...

AI is automating the paperwork, the reviews, the endless status meetings. So what's left for leaders to do? Sugata Sanyal, founder and CEO of ZINFI, with over three decades of experience, joins Melinda Lee to make the case that AI isn't replacing leadership, but giving teams a 360-degree view that was impossible a year ago. This episode is a must-listen for anyone wondering what leadership actuall...

You've built a successful company, hired the right people, earned your clients' trust. But standing at the top of the mountain doesn't mean you get to stay there. In this solo episode, Melinda Lee breaks down why so many strong, operationally sound companies start sliding backward the moment growth accelerates, and why AI is making that slide faster, not slower. In This Episode, You Will Learn: Su...

Financial stress is a taboo topic at work. Nobody talks about it, even though financial compensation is usually the main reason people show up in the first place. But staying silent doesn't make the problem disappear, it just makes it bigger. In today's episode, Lara Brecher, Senior Manager for Success and Growth at Balance Financial Wellness, joins Melinda Lee to unpack why financial stress is on...

How does a decision stick when priorities and how to accomplish them change every day, creating an environment of hostility and confusion? Michael Bush, founder of GrowthWays and creator of the Guardrailing Framework, has spent over 25 years helping CEOs and leadership teams answer exactly that question. In this episode of the Speak In Flow Podcast, Melinda Lee unpacks Michael's powerful framework...

Being motivated when there's a lack of external incentives is hard. So how do you manage to keep your employees motivated during hardships? In this episode of the Speak in Flow podcast, Melinda Lee sits down with Laurice Gonzalez, Principal Financial Analyst at San Francisco Public Works, to explore what truly drives employee engagement when budget cuts, hiring freezes, and uncertainty are the new...

In any company, the main focus is always to “get the job done,” and training and development efforts are often limited to technology and instrumental labor. This can hinder efficiency, especially as the company grows. In this episode, Melinda Lee sits down with M.K. Palmore, founder of Apogee Global RMS, to discuss why communication is the most overlooked strategic tool in business today. Drawing...

Are you drowning in dashboards but starving for clarity? Sara Wyman, founder and CEO of Stackpack, joins Melinda Lee to expose the dangerous gap between vanity metrics and what actually drives business performance. In this eye-opening conversation, Sara reveals why most companies are measuring the wrong things, and how that's quietly bleeding their margins dry. A must-listen for any leader who's e...

Scaling is every entrepreneur's dream, but when you're actually there, it can quickly become a nightmare. Why does this happen? And how do we prevent it? In this episode of the Speak In Flow podcast, host Melinda Lee sits down with Kishore Rajgopal, CEO and founder of Rapidious, to uncover the critical questions every CEO must ask before scaling. With a background in corporate strategy and five st...

We could think that now that information is more accessible than ever, it would be easier for people to find our products, but the reality is quite the opposite. The information overload has buried a lot of great companies, so being "great" is not enough anymore. Borja Cuan, co-founder of 415 Digital, joins Melinda Lee to reveal that the secret to standing out is about the discipline of communicat...

The digital footprint is real, and it applies to work too. Every email, Zoom call, and Slack conversation stays there to be scrutinized later, and these have come with a lot of advantages and some invisible consequences as well. Join Melinda Lee on this episode of the Speak In Flow podcast as she sits down with Kaitlin Fluhler, a Senior VP at PrayTell, to dissect this new reality of digital commun...

Have you ever experienced that familiar feeling of butterflies in your stomach before speaking in public? Even the best speakers have experienced it. The best speakers aren't free of fear; they understand their fears and know how to control them. In this episode, startup advisor, board director, and founding member of Open Water Group, Keith Meyer, joins Melinda Lee to tackle the most common issue...

Uncertainty is an everyday reality, and lately, with the state of the world's economy, it seems closer than ever. How can we move forward with a firm step when the floor is shaking? To answer this, Melinda sits down with Younes Aatif, CEO of Flowsiti, an executive with 25 years of experience navigating some of the most turbulent waters in business. From surviving COVID-era chaos to steering compan...

Why do top performers still leave millions on the table? In this eye-opening episode, host Melinda Lee sits down with Jacob Warwick, the “Billion-Dollar Man” and the secret weapon behind some of the country’s highest-earning executives. Jacob pulls back the curtain on why high-performers consistently get paid less than they’re worth, and why the old rules of compensation are failing both CEOs and...

Do you know how to communicate with intentionality? We communicate practically as a reflex because it's one of the first abilities we learn as babies, and it's fundamental to the human condition. But despite this, we take it for granted, as if knowing how to speak makes us great communicators. Dr. Joy Karavedas, leadership development expert and author of The Leadership TAP, joins Melinda Lee to c...

In 2026, graduates across the country booed any speaker who praised AI. Students are voicing a generation's worth of fear and anxiety over the prospect of losing entry-level jobs to AI. But is the answer to reject AI entirely? In this episode of the Speak In Flow Podcast, Melinda Lee sits down with Oguzhan Aygoren, director of the Institute of Business Innovation at UC Berkeley, to address the fea...

What truly sets your company apart? Most leaders can't answer that question clearly, and that's exactly why their communication breaks down as they scale. In this episode of the Speak in Flow podcast, Legacy Growth Series, Melinda reveals how speaking in flow goes beyond public speaking to transform communication into a standardized system of clarity, one that keeps leadership, internal teams, and...

About 80% of new U.S. businesses survive their first year. However, only about 50% make it to year five, and roughly 35% last ten years. What truly makes the difference between those who survive in the long term and those who don't? In this episode of The Speak In Flow Podcast, fractional CMO Sarah Fruy joins Melinda Lee to unveil how to be part of the success stories while your company keeps grow...

What truly kills trust in a high-stakes conversation? Is it fumbling your words, talking too much, or freezing when you don't have the answer? In this episode of the Speak In Flow podcast, host Melinda Lee sits down with Becca Gordon, entrepreneur, advisor, and founder of Becca Gordon Consulting, with over 25 years of experience, to diagnose the hidden communication problems that sabotage leaders...

In our last episode, we explored the hidden costs of founder dependency, which occurs when all decisions ultimately rest with the CEO and nothing gets done. In this episode of the Legacy Growth Series, Melinda addresses a critical question that every CEO must answer: Can your leadership team effectively represent you when you're not present? She explains why being the smartest person in the room i...

Are you a CEO who still finds yourself overwhelmed, unable to step away without things falling apart? In this Episode of The Speak In Flow Podcast with Melinda Lee, Oscar Zavaleta, founder and CEO of Montez Group, shares his journey from running a one-person operation to leading a team of 35 on billion-dollar infrastructure projects, such as the $12.5 billion VTA Silicon Valley megaproject. If you...