Truly Human Leadership

Imagine going to get coffee for your team and finding your coffee maker had been repossessed. In the early 1980s, Barry-Wehmiller was in trouble as a business, but we learned to embrace the lessons that arise during times of adversity and uncover the opportunities hidden within periods of crisis. BW CEO, Bob Chapman, tells this story in his book,  Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Cari...

Here are some insights on the effects of burnout:  The World Health Organization (WHO) officially recognized burnout as an occupational phenomenon in 2019. It estimates that over 75% of professionals worldwide experience burnout at some point in their careers. According to Gallup, burned-out employees are 63% more likely to take a sick day and 2.6 times more likely to actively seek a new job The A...

A few years ago, the World Health Organization added "burn-out" to the International Classification of Diseases. Here's how they define it: Burn-out is a syndrome conceptualized as resulting from chronic workplace stress that has not been successfully managed. Quite a while ago, we learned from the Centers for Disease Control that your immediate supervisor is more important to your health than you...

As we've talked about in several past episodes of this podcast, Barry-Wehmiller's CEO, Bob Chapman, has a passion for transforming the way business education is taught in our universities. We want to transform these institutions that train people to manage into institutions that foster Truly Human leaders who honor individual dignity and demonstrate the courage to care for others. It's why we help...

Throughout his writing career, Raj Sisodia has put together a roadmap of how businesses can be a powerful force for good in the world through powerful stories of conscious organizations and their leadership. However, in Raj's new book, Awaken, The Path to Purpose, Inner Peace and Healing , he uses his own story to show others how to turn inward if they want to be an effect, empathetic and truly hu...

It was  Simon Sinek  who coined the term "Truly Human Leadership." Simon and Barry-Wehmiller CEO Bob Chapman became fast friends when they first met years ago. Simon wrote about Barry-Wehmiller in his book, Leaders Eat Last, and he also wrote the foreword to Bob and Raj Sisodia's book, Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring For Your People Like Family. He is a significant voice and o...

In 2016, Harvard Business School published a case study on Barry-Wehmiller's approach to leadership that is now taught at 80 business schools. In this episode of our podcast, its authors, Jan Rivkin and Dylan Minor talk about the case study method of teaching, why they chose Barry-Wehmiller as a subject, how business school students are responding to people-centric principles and how Truly Human L...

Joey Coleman is the founder and Chief Experience Composer of Design Symphony – a customer experience branding firm and also the author of Wall Street Journal bestseller, Never Lose a Customer Again . Joey has a new book that very appropriate for our current times where we've had a Great Resignation and people are demanding better leaders and better work experiences, Never Lose an Employee Again: T...

What if the best workplace we've ever experienced is just a fraction of what is possible? Dare we dream of something so far beyond 'business as usual' that it feels like a fantasy? ...to venture past the workplaces of the past and into the unknown to imagine and create something recognizably different. To create Truly Human work. The preceding passage is from the introduction of the book,  Human W...

Does your organization have a Speak Up Culture? One where people feel it is safe and worth it to share their ideas, concerns, disagreements, and mistakes? Are you a leader who listens? What are you doing to make sure all voices in your organization are heard? These things are vital to having a thriving organization. You may recognize Stephen Shedletsky from his work with Simon Sinek. On this podca...

Howard Behar, former president at Starbucks and a key figure in establishing their culture, talks about his views on leadership, his time at the coffee giant, Uber, Lyft, Amazon, Whole Foods and a whole lot else.

Over the past several years, for multiple reasons, we've seen an upheaval in the workplace. Not least of which is the so-called Great Resignation. But could the turmoil of the last few years result in better workplaces? Could business leaders really understand the value of caring for their people? Could we really see a massive shift from traditional management to Truly Human Leadership? Dr. Alise...

You may have heard our CEO, Bob Chapman, say that the person you report to at work is more important to your health than your primary care physician. It sounds outrageous, but it underscores one of the profound truths we've discovered at Barry-Wehmiller: That the way we lead impacts the way people live. The research to back it up can be traced to Dr. L. Casey Chosewood, the Director of the Office...

Jennifer Wallace recently wrote an article for the Wall Street Journal, "The Power of Mattering at Work" that was forwarded to Barry-Wehmiller CEO, Bob Chapman. Jennifer has written a book that discusses the importance of mattering in children that comes out in August 2023, Never Enough: When Achievement Culture Becomes Toxic-and What We Can Do About It .  Along with her friend, Sarah Bennison, Je...

"Today, leaders need to recognize the impact work has on peoples' overall life satisfaction. It is an antiquated belief that leaders should focus solely on the professional side of team members' lives. Work needs to be a positive influence, given that it consumes much of our waking time. The work we do and how we feel about it shapes our identity. Leaders have a responsibility to help their teams...

Chapman & Co. Leadership Institute is Barry-Wehmiller's consulting arm that helps other companies and organizations through what we have come to call a Truly Human approach to business. They can help companies hire the right people, inspire them through a thriving and inclusive culture, develop and support your leaders and create stronger customer loyalty. Sara Hannah and Matt Whiat are the leadin...

Bill Ury is the co-founder of Harvard's Program on Negotiation and is one of the world's leading experts on negotiation and mediation. Trained as a social anthropologist, Bill has carried out his research on negotiation not only in the boardroom and at the bargaining table, but also among the Bushmen of the Kalahari and the clan warriors of New Guinea. On this podcast, Bill shares his unique persp...

One of the cornerstones of Truly Human Leadership is that everybody wants to know that who they are and what they do matters.  Someone else that came to that same insight in a scholarly manner, through his experiences and his research, is Professor Isaac Prilleltensky. He, along with his wife, Ora, wrote a book on the science and importance of mattering: How People Matter: Why it Affects Health, H...

It's been almost eight years since the publication of Everybody Matters: The Extraordinary Power of Caring for Your People Like Family by Raj Sisodia, one of the founders of Conscious Capitalism and Barry-Wehmiller CEO, Bob Chapman. It's the story of Bob and Barry-Wehmiller's journey from traditional business thinking to Truly Human Leadership. All these years later, people are still discovering t...

At the start of every new year, many people make New Year's resolutions to get in shape. They join a gym, go on a diet. But do we ever think about what shape our leadership is in and do we take steps to change it? On this podcast, David Vandermolen talks about the shape of leadership and offers tips on how you can improve yours.

Matthew Lee, Baylor professor and Research Associate at the Human Flourishing Program at Harvard University and Brian Wellinghoff, Barry-Wehmiller Director of Strategy, Improvement and Culture, recently had the opportunity to speak at the Humanity 2.0 conference at the Vatican. This conference gathered distinguished academics, researchers, philanthropists, and business leaders around the question:...

Rightsizing, de-layering, business re-engineering, streamlining the organization…these are a few of the more current terms for the conventional business practice of eliminating jobs to improve profit. You rarely hear anyone talk about the impact on the lives of the individuals and the family members of those laid off after sending them home with damage to their self-worth and a dramatic loss of in...

We first talked to Mark C. Crowley in May of 2021 when people were starting to return to the office amidst a global pandemic that transformed the remote work paradigm in 2020 Around that same time, something called the Great Resignation was happening and just starting to garner attention. According to a report by the BBC, in 2021 an average of nearly 4 million people left their jobs each month. On...

Our friend Lynne Twist is a global visionary and pro-activist committed to creating a future that is environmentally sustainable, spiritually fulfilling, and socially just. Lynne has written a new book, Living a Committed Life: Finding Freedom and Fulfillment in a Purpose Larger Than Yourself . Its stories demonstrate how a commitment to a purpose larger than yourself can enliven and empower, enab...

Building trust requires constant, authentic communication. Communication is not just about words; it is also based on actions. Every action communicates something to the people in an organization. Too many companies say one thing and do another, breeding deep cynicism among its people over time. This THL Refresher podcast features a discussion on the nature of trust and how to build trust in your...