Grody & UnPrOfEsSiOnAL

Host Justin McMenamy continues the multi-episode conversation with Jim Weber about leadership lessons and innovation, revisiting Jim’s advice that companies should declare themselves innovative even if they aren’t.   The conversation centers on how widespread “innovation” claims make the term vague, drawing a parallel to corporate “greenwashing,” and debate whether innovation is a thing, a feeling...

Host Justin McMenany welcomes back sales leader and coach Drew Norton to discuss Norton’s personal health journey, including losing about 100 pounds from a high of roughly 265 through cutting soda, increasing activity, and later hiring a fitness coach to reach about 165 pounds and 5% body fat.   Norton describes how responsibility, enlisting allies (brother, gym friend, coaches), and making goals...

Host Justin McMenamy welcomes sales leader and coach Drew Norton to discuss sales and leadership. Norton explains that salesmanship often comes with a negative stigma (e.g., “used car salesman,” “sales is a four-letter word”) driven by bad actors and buyer’s remorse; however good salesmanship is rooted in honesty, integrity, and trust, including being willing to recommend against a purchase.   The...

Host Justin McMenamy and guest Jim Weber continue discussing how to lead and sustain innovative organizations, including leadership styles, developing people, and rewarding performance.   Weber describes an over-enthusiastic “Woody Woodpecker” management style that pecks people into working quickly but can ultimately lead to high turnover. They discuss instances where innovation tsunamis ultimatel...

Host Justin McMenamy interviews Michael Kainatsky, a former corporate leader and recruiter, about leadership lessons, the broken hiring ecosystem, and the proper role of LinkedIn within a healthy professional network.   Kainatsky recounts an accidental, fast-rising career from sales to C-level roles, then into recruiting, arguing the hiring ecosystem is broken and candidates, recruiters, hiring ma...

Host Justin McMenamy interviews Dale Koch, a longtime product developer/manager at Precision Planting, about creating products within new product categories versus iterative “bigger, faster, cheaper” product development projects. Koch recounts being a third-generation Caterpillar engineer, leaving Caterpillar after five years to join the then-small Precision Planting, while being recruited via a r...

Justin McMenamy continues his multi-episode conversation with Jim Weber.  In this portion of the conversation, they tackle topics like leadership, innovation, and hiring in organizations built to create the future rather than optimize the past.   They discuss how innovation is fragile as companies scale, drawing on ideas from Clayton Christensen’s “The Innovator’s Dilemma”, Lawrence Miller’s “From...

Host Justin McMenamy continues his conversation with Brent Adamson, co-author of “The Challenger Sale” and “The Framemaking Sale”.   When asked if Challengers are born or taught, Adamson argues Challengers are made, not born, noting their research focused on trainable skills, knowledge, and behaviors rather than traits like charisma.  Adamson reframes the key question from “Which profile am I?” to...

This is the first of two episodes in which Justin McMenamy interviews Brent Adamson, acclaimed author of The Challenger Sale.    Justin leads off the conversation by sharing how The Challenger Sale helped codify Precision Planting’s customer-education approach to sales and marketing, highlighting that concepts of the book permeated both the global growth strategy as well as employee recruiting and...

Host Justin McMenamy and guest Jim Weber discuss techniques by which innovative teams can survive inside large bureaucracies.  They discuss the need for the innovative leader to set a different “cultural thermostat,” from the broader organization; allowing for some of the organization to be in a flexible gaseous state while the rest of the company remains a solid structure focused on optimizing th...

Host Justin McMenamy interviews Steve “Roach” Roehrich, a veteran naval aviator, former Fortune 50 Chief Business Improvement Officer, and aerospace manufacturing CEO, about leadership lessons acquired and deployed in military and corporate theatres.   Across the wide-ranging conversation, Roehrich recounts growing up poor in rural Minnesota, joining the Navy as an aviator, traveling the world, st...

Host Justin McMenamy welcomes Leo Salotti, co-founder of Terranova, to discuss leadership lessons learned from cross-cultural management and career transitions.    Across the episode, Leo describes lessons learned after being promoted to leading a team which spanned Argentina and Brazil, including choosing humility by delivering a full leadership presentation in Portuguese and tailoring solutions...

Host Justin McMenamy and Jim Weber continue their conversation on fostering a culture of innovation including methods of preventing it from being killed by pessimism and process.   This episode covers innovation’s overlap with creativity and art, and how nearly every company markets themselves as innovative, sometimes despite objective evidence to the contrary.   Justin introduces the “Trellis and...

Host Justin McMenamy interviews entrepreneur and marketer Danny Kirk.  The conversation spans topics like defining failure and success, the place for pessimism in business, and leadership lessons drawn from the great philosopher Shaquille O’Neal.   Kirk shares his unconventional background, raised by academics and musicians, a high-achieving classical trumpet player who dropped out of high school,...

Host Justin McMenamy interviews Andy Pearson, creative director at Liquid Death.   Through the conversation, Pearson recounts stories, from early in his career, of buying taxidermy squirrels and navigating eBay’s ban on selling human body parts.   Andy then contrasts the philosophies of various ad agencies and stresses the importance of a shared creative vision and engaged leadership, ideally with...

Host Justin McMenamy and guest Jim Weber continue their multi-episode discussion around the many ingredients which comprise a successful culture of innovation.    On the topic of brainstorming both Justin and Jim agree that scheduled brainstorming sessions with idea voting and ranking are mostly unproductive. Jim argues effective brainstorming consists of informal, rapid idea vetting with colleagu...

Host Justin McMenamy welcomes Kristen Patty to discuss leadership and HR lessons from their time at Precision Planting during a decade of growth from under 100 employees to over 500, including global expansion across more than 15 countries and the acquisition by AGCO. Kristen shares why she left a large multinational retailer early in her career for a startup, emphasizing self-discovery, taking th...

In this episode host Justin McMenamy welcomes fellow leadership podcaster Erin Thorpe.  Across the conversation each discusses formative early-career experiences and how they shaped their mid-career focus on leadership. Both reflect on how not fitting within organizational norms can bleed into lowered self-worth, and they discuss a framework of being “refined” versus “consumed” by adversity, empha...

In the first episode of the mini-series entitled “ Innovation: Is It More Than a Feeling? ” host Justin McMenamy and Jim Weber explore the concept of innovation. The episode delves into defining the necessary components of innovation, contrasting it with being merely clever or even foolish.  Jim shares his career experiences as an innovator within a Dow 30 organization and discusses his personal t...

This episode features host Justin McMenamy and guest Caleb Schleder discussing the Situational Leadership model. They delve into the four leadership styles (L1 through L4) and their applications based on employee competence and confidence. The conversation emphasizes the importance of recognizing and adapting to these styles to enhance team performance. They also explore challenges like managing '...

In this episode, host Justin McMenemy is joined by Caleb Schleder to discuss the framework of Situational Leadership. They delve into the importance of tailoring leadership styles to specific situations and the pitfalls of a one-size-fits-all approach. Justin emphasizes the significance of avoiding the 'because I said so' attitude and introduces Situational Leadership as his go-to advice for new l...

In this episode, host Justin McMenamy interviews John Seabrook, an author and journalist, about his recent book 'The Spinach King.' The discussion centers on the dual legacies of John’s grandfather, Charles F. Seabrook, a pioneering yet controversial figure in agriculture. Known for his innovative work in industrializing vegetable farming and his collaboration with Clarence Birdseye, Charles is de...

In this episode host Justin McMenamy and guest Bryce Baker discuss the evolution of sales strategies, homing in on the Challenger Sale method. With nearly 15 years of experience in sales at Precision Planting, Bryce shares the transition from Solutions-based selling to the more effective Challenger approach. They outline how this method disrupts traditional practices by emphasizing commercial teac...

In this episode Justin and guest Jeff Snowden discuss a variety of topics ranging from leadership lessons, marketing strategies, and personal struggles, both personal and professional.  They delve into Jeff’s background, his career transitions from photography to marketing, and his foundational marketing philosophies. Jeff emphasizes the importance of making differentiated and believable promises...

In this episode, Justin McMenamy converses with Jason Stoller about their joint experiences at Precision Planting. The discussion focuses on the distinguishing factors between large corporations and smaller startups in terms of product development processes vs. recipes. They delve into the importance of proximity to customers, iterative development, and the freedom to take risks and even fail with...