In this course, from expert strategist Aaron Marshall, PhD, you'll learn how to strengthen your organizational culture, which will improve communication, boost morale, and foster trust. You'll learn how to truly understand the roots of your culture, honor its best parts, and then translate those values into optimal behaviors. you'll discover how to draw out your “hidden” culture, create feedback loops, and open up communication between layers.

Building A Great Company Culture By Aaron Marshall

You'll learn how to truly understand the roots of your culture, honor its best parts, and then translate those values into optimal behaviors. you'll discover how to draw out your “hidden” culture, create feedback loops, and open up communication between layers.

It's important to know the roots of your company. In this lesson, you'll learn how to look back together, call out positive contributions, and look at how far things have come.

Values are the cornerstone of culture. In this lesson, you'll learn how to identify your values landscape.

Values can be vague. After this lesson, you will be able to make your values tangible by translating them into behaviors you'd like to see in your team.

What is your company's cause?  After this lesson, you'll be able to make your cause explicit, train around it, and allow employees to take pride in working for your organization.

Clean out your cobwebs. In this lesson, you'll learn to close the gap between how you want work to get done and how it actually gets done.

Misalignment leads to confusion and frustration. After this lesson, you'll learn how to be more open about goals, roles, hierarchy, and responsibility with your team.

When things change, there's room for misunderstanding. In this lesson, you'll learn how to talk to your team about changes before, during, and after they occur.

Feedback drives clarity and re-clarification. In this lesson, you'll learn how to establish a culture of feedback so that everyone is saying and hearing the same thing.

Like seeds, trust needs certain conditions to grow. In this lesson, you'll learn how to strengthen the communication between front-line staff, supervisors, and high-level leaders.

Trust takes time but you can accelerate the process by designing shared experiences. In this lesson, you'll learn how to build trust by organizing projects and events with real meaning.

Value personal sharing amongst your employees. In this lesson, you'll learn how to foster empathy and friendship building in your team.

Asking for help and receiving it reinforces vulnerability and support. In this lesson, you'll learn how to engage feelings of reciprocity and generate team buy-in.

Feedback is essential for progress. In this lesson, you'll learn ways to systematize feedback in your organization by regularly asking your employees for feedback.

Mistakes happen, but they are rarely rooted in vindication. In this lesson, you'll learn exercises for assuming positive intent, always.

Positive feedback is critical to establishing relational equity.  In this lesson, you'll learn how to give real, specific, and timely encouragement that is delivered authentically.

Difficult conversations are easy to avoid, but putting them off only makes things worse. In this lesson, you'll learn tips for how to have difficult conversations that still build trust.

Without clear lines, work falls through the cracks. In this lesson, you'll learn how to identify clear roles and still encourage teams to support one another before things fall through the cracks.

Ground rules make everything run smoother. In this lesson, you'll learn how to incorporate employees to establish expectations, roles, and deliverables as a group.

Problems arise, but blame doesn't have to. In this lesson, you'll learn how to problem solve without placing blame, and encourage innovation, honesty, and courage.

Regular check-ins with your team are sacred time that belongs to them. In this lesson, you'll learn how to use the time as an opportunity to support their work, offer clarity, and be a resource.

Fostering relationships extends to fun things, too. In this lesson, you'll learn how to incorporate social and family gatherings into your company culture.

Start incubating culture from the very first touchpoints. In this lesson, you'll learn how to reflect your company culture in the onboarding process for new employees.

You never know where the next best idea will come from. In this lesson, you'll learn how to set up cross-functional groups to ideate and get creative.

There's a reason there are so many book clubs out there! After this lesson, you'll learn how to implement a book club for professional development and to stimulate creative thinking.

Use Book Clubs To Accelerate Trust-Building

Everyone wants to be seen, known, and valued. In this lesson, you'll learn how to write impactful, genuine letters to your team members that make them feel valued.

Use Letter Writing To Encourage Your Directs

In this episode, Aaron will share further resources on understanding an organization culture and how to improve it.

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Start-up coach and trainer David McNeill knows more than a thing or two about solving complex business problems and enabling great teams. In this series, he shares tips on effective delegation from his 30 years of experience in managing diverse businesses and mentoring leaders.

Why Effective Delegation Results In Success

Delegation is an essential skill in successful leadership, and it is possible to master it. It is the solution to be more productive, develop a stronger team, and lead a happier life. Learn how failing to delegate is undermining your leadership. Here's why it is imperative to delegate.

Rise in organizational authority leads to a decrease in organizational IQ. Leaders' accessibility is a casualty of growing organizations. Build trust by delegating.

If you are unsure of what to delegate and the volume of work to be handed out, this will provide direction. Understanding your weaknesses and others' strengths can help. Identify projects that are holding up other key developments and hand out the job to your team instead.

Delegate jobs that you are not good at and others are strong in. Don't delegate just tasks, give authority to grow leaders.

As a leader, you are responsible for the outcome of projects, so it pays to enable your delegates without diving in too deep. Learn how to tread the fine line between outlining the objective without getting too involved in these three steps.

Bring clarity to the project. Share your insight but let the delegate figure out the how of getting the job done.

You delegated work but the outcome is not how you visualized it at the outset. Acknowledging that everyone handles problems in their unique ways can help. Resist the urge to take back control. Keep these five mission-critical points in mind as you hand out responsibility.

Delegated Projects Won't Always Go Perfectly

When things go wrong, lead the way by letting the team own their actions. Be ready to be uncomfortable with your delegation.

Have you planned to be unavailable at work for a while, days, weeks, without stressing out on the finer details? The answer to that lies in aligning projects and the people that you handle. In an ever-changing world, keeping these four things in mind will help run the organization productively.

Leaders need to keep identifying and encouraging opportunities for individuals and teams to expand their responsibilities.

Whether you're starting a business or making a career decision, figure out the Why before you get to the What and How. That is how successful people attract and retain employees, and that is how brands build stickiness, In this series, we present the science, compelling case studies and sound logic that author and motivational speaker Simon Sinek uses to make a strong case for 'why'.

Unconvinced with his choices, Simon Sinek moved from law to advertising to anthropology. Find out how the discovery of the golden circle of 'what', 'how' and 'why' changed his life.

Successful people and companies know their Why—their purpose and passion—and make it the center of all their actions.

For any company, answering the 'why'--the reason why they exist-- will win followers and inspire loyalty.

Do you tinker with a problem hoping to get it right through trial-and-error? Instead of leaving it to chance, get your plan perfect from the beginning.

How do brands and leaders inspire loyalty? By motivating their followers and tying them to a shared, well-articulated purpose.

By articulating their purpose clearly, brands and leaders can strike up a sense of kinship and loyalty in their consumers and their people.

Every organization wants its employees to bring their  sense of purpose to work. As a manager, you can achieve this by letting everyone know how vital their role is.

Infuse your team with a sense of purpose by telling them how important they are to the organization’s goals.

Avoid platitudes to define your vision. Replace verbs with nouns to come across as more accountable and authentic.

The carrot or the stick is an age-old question. Simon Sinek votes clearly for the carrot because the lure of incentives is more effective than the fear of punishment.

To motivate and inspire continued productive behavior, use the carrot approach. Give timely rewards for jobs well done.

Wouldn't it be great to have the roadmap to glory? Stephen Covey's 7 Habits of Successful People sets you on the right track. By adopting these habits, you can build up character ethics that are common to people who achieve what they want in life.

7 Habits Of Highly Effective People By Stephen Covey

Stephen Covey uses the Maturity Continuum to offer his ideas on success. Your chances multiply when you build a strong foundation marked by a sound character ethic, as opposed to a personality ethic based on outward traits. That is the hallmark of success.

To inculcate a habit, you need to know what goes into building one. Being proactive is the first routine to develop, says Stephen Covey. Learn about the Circle of Concern that you have no control over and the Circle of Influence that is under your power.

Habit 1: Successful people make a habit of focusing attention on the things they can influence, rather than what they can't. You may not be able to control a situation, but you can control your reaction and how you deal with it.

Visualize how you want others to perceive you. With that goal in mind, work towards building a character that matches your vision. The second habit tells you to reflect on the consequences before acting and move with that result in sight.

Habit 2: Picture the future you want then plan and work towards it. Live every day as a contribution towards that vision.

Prioritize! This one word sums up the third habit of successful people. Think of one positive change that you would like to effect in each - your personal and professional life. This four-step matrix will light your way.

Habit 3: Consider your single most important personal and professional priorities. Your other priorities should stem from these; organize and execute around them.

Opt for the win-win paradigm as a fourth habit. There are five points to embrace before you set out. From dependence to independence and finally, to interdependence, the journey is well-mapped in this episode.

Habit 4: At its core, a win-win approach is based on trust, an agreed-upon set of outcomes, and acceptance of those outcomes. Ultimately, everyone involved should benefit from the outcome.

Listening well with the intention of understanding is the first step to grasping the fifth habit. Very few pay attention when others speak and that is why developing Empathetic Listening is so crucial. It also makes the other person as interested in your views.

Habit 5: Seek First To Understand, Then To Be Understood

Habit 5: Active listening is critical to productive relations. If you listen with the intent to understand, you will engender openness and trust and this will lead to a better outcome.

Stephen Covey's sixth habit is all about synergy. He explains how to achieve this creative process, with four keys, as you interact with a diverse group to create a whole.

Habit 6: Synergy involves balancing individual differences to create new paradigms of thought and action. Experts working together yield better results than the same experts working independently.

Find time to hone your skills and get the tools ready, that's the crux of the seventh habit you need to imbibe on the road to success. Set the four dimensions of renewal in motion and you are bound to see sustainable changes in your moral makeup.

Habit 7: Your habits will be most effective if you take time for self-care and renewal. As you work on each habit, your experience with these habits will then deepen.

It doesn’t matter how much data you have. How you use it successfully is what counts, says Big Data guru, Bernard Marr. But how do you know what data to collect and how to use it? In this series, Mike Sheehan, a principal at thoughtLEADERS, LLC helps you determine your strategic data needs and offers actionable advice on how to use your data to improve business performance. This is a primer for businesses wanting to create a robust data strategy and gain a competitive advantage.

Today, data is transforming how we live and work. But how does one harvest benefits from Big Data? Understand how to build a robust data strategy for your organization by getting inspiration from real-world examples and get yourself ready to drive your business success through data.

There are three key aspects around using data to better understand your market and customers and even your competitors. Find out what they are in this video.

Analyzing market data can help you understand your customer requirements, spot marketing trends, and learn about competition, all of which can improve your decision-making.

Big data has the ability to improve internal logistics and IT operations in your company. This video details how data will help you in achieving that.

Don’t get caught up in the sea of possibilities of big data. Focus on the right datasets for your sector to make the most impact on internal operations.

Data, by itself, is an asset, a source of revenue that goes beyond providing analytical support. Every business can make money directly from its data. This episode gives examples of two methods that your company can use to monetize its data.

Bear in mind that data itself is an asset and holds value. Irrespective of the size of your business, ensure that you are always collecting data and finding different ways to sell it.

How do you decide what sort of data to collect? Marr simplifies this for you by narrowing down your focus to key business questions for four areas of your organization.

Collecting the right data starts with determining what it is you want to understand by correlating it to your business goals and overall strategy.

As with anything that holds great power, data also has the potential to become a liability. In this video, you will understand the steps you can take to make sure your data doesn’t become a burden.

Make sure your organization’s data strategy addresses all potential pitfalls related to data ownership, privacy, and security risks for your business.

To develop data-related competencies, your data scientists need to focus on five key skills. This video details what they entail.

Remember, data science is an evolving field, so there are no pre-determined formulas to get it right. It is key for data scientists to be creative such that they can find new ways to analyze, gather, and use data to drive your business.

In order to truly reap the benefits of big data, organizations need to go beyond defining a data strategy to foster a data culture. Learn how to make data an intrinsic part of organizational culture in this episode.

Creating A Culture Of Data At Your Organization

Fostering a data culture requires a mindset shift to get employee buy-in. A top-down approach wherein business leaders lead by example helps build trust in data-driven decision making.

There are many lessons to be learned from one of the world's most elite forces. Former SEALs Jocko Willink and Leif Babin's book Extreme Ownership offers a window to a world seen merely on the silver screen, until now.

Extreme Ownership By Jocko Willink And Leif Babin

Willink and Babin dig into their war experience to reveal maxims that make SEALs stand out as they blend in. Adapt their principles to ensure longevity in the corporate world and develop resilience in everyday life.

By taking ownership of everything that happens within the team, true leaders never pass the buck. Accepting the fall for mistakes while heaping credit on the team is good leadership. Focus on a successful outcome rather than the process.

As a leader, you own the entire project. That includes every task that impact your success. All mistakes are yours and all credit belongs to the team.

Discover how to be the type of leader your team looks up to and the one who takes them to the finish line first. Look closer to home if you and your team are not winning, suggest Willink and Babin.

If things aren't going well, the leader is responsible, not the team. Don't focus on poor performance, figure out your goal and how to achieve it.

An effective leader's attitude is contagious. Their legacy lives long after the leader has moved on. Here's what you can do to be a leader who creates this culture of excellence.

To create an effective team culture, set high standards and expectations of improvement. Then ensure the team works together to achieve them.

Finding a purpose in what you do is at the core of good performance. If you are unable to understand the reason behind a directive, always ask. The reason might motivate you to get the job done faster and better.

It's the leader's responsibity to communicate the purpose behind actions and ensure that teammates share the same goal.

Accomplishments and humility go hand in hand in leadership. Keep your personal agenda aside and learn to train your sight towards the team's success.

Effective leadership requires humility. To maintain humility, focus on the project's success, not your own.

Master the art of cover and move that SEALs employ in enemy territory. Any slip-up in teamwork can see the organization collapsing. Learn to cross-collaborate with varied teams for a common goal and stay clear of turf wars.

Team work involves your team as well as others. The leader's responsility is to lead across teams by emphasizing the unified goal and shared purpose.

The real and reel are entirely different, stress Willink and Babin. A lot of planning goes into a mission. Simulation and rehearsal are part of the prep that SEALs undergo before a task. Practice your reactions in all scenarios. Stay battle-ready!

Be prepared for changes. Practice scenarios and tune your responses.

Shaji Mathews breaks down what it truly means to build an AI-ready workforce—not through technology alone, but through capability, mindset and organisational design. This episode explains how leaders can equip teams with AI literacy, encourage experimentation and redesign roles for human-plus-machine collaboration. Shaji highlights practical steps to develop confidence in using AI tools, create learning pathways that keep pace with innovation and shift managers from task supervision to value-creation. The conversation offers a clear roadmap for organisations accelerating their AI transformation.

Building an AI-Ready Workforce with Shaji Mathew – CHRO, Infosys

'The Hard Thing About Hard Things' tells the story of how computer science graduate Ben Horowitz came to be regarded as one of the world's most respected techpreneurs. Based on his varied experiences, from how to run a start-up to wisdom about dealing with uncontrollables, this 9-part series is an entrepreneur’s guide to survival.

The Hard Thing About Hard Things By Ben Horowitz

When Ben Horowitz gets real about the 'hard things' any business leader has to face, you have to listen. It won't always be easy but he can show you how to thrive.

Watch Horowitz guide chief execs on how to accept situations that are out of their sphere of control.

Fine tune your radar to pick up early signs of brewing trouble. When trouble comes, accept it, decide what to do, and act fast.

If you have made the first mistake in your endeavor, worry not, Horowitz has the answer. Find out how to get your act together as soon as you realize your mistake.

To bounce back from major struggles in their business,leaders must focus on winning back their employees' trust and reigniting clarity in their vision.

The success story of an organization is written by its people. Perfect the rules of hiring with Horowitz who drives home the point with a personal example.

There are two rules of smart hiring: Choose for strengths, rather than rejecting on weaknesses. Match experience to the size of the company.

Culture impacts and drives the performance of any business. Learn how to design the culture of your workplace.

You can figure out solutions by learning the hard way. Or you can build a network of seasoned, successful people and ask them how they did it.

Build a network of experienced, successful people. Then listen to them.

How CEOs react to errors in judgement can make all the difference. A mistake is not failure. Learn to deal with it head-on and chalk it up to experience.

Mistakes are not failures. They are lessons that you learn to become better at your job.

CEOs need to change their tactics just like any military general. Go on a war footing when the stability of the company is under threat but ease up when the going is good.

The hardest thing for any entrepreneur is to give up control or ownership of the business they have created. How will you know if it is the right time to bite the bullet?

The hardest thing for any entrepreneur is to give up control or ownership of the business they have created. Know when it is the right time to bite the bullet.

Build your ability to connect with your audience and convey your ideas in a clear and resonant way. Mike Lynn and Rob Salafia, principals at thoughtLEADERS, LLC share how to create meaningful connections between you and your audience to build momentum and buy-in.

Messengers are connectors. They bring truth, meaning, insight, and news to their recipients. That’s a big job. Of course, we all should work on conveying the right words in a thoughtful, structured way, but we should also learn to be effective messengers.

The course will have multiple benefits in your work. You’ll put yourself on the path towards congruency and consistency in how you come across.

Getting Present is the ability to eliminate distractions and bring your full attention, confidence, and focus to the person or matter at hand. This addresses self-regulation techniques to stay emotionally grounded in stressful situations.

Executive presence is how we show up and the impact that we have on others in a specific role and environment.

Getting present is a vital first step for high performance in any activity. Accomplished athletes, artists, and professionals in every industry strive to do it well, because clearing your mind to be in the here and now lets you focus on the task at hand.

Getting present is a vital first step for high performance in any activity.

Breathing is the basis for getting grounded, for developing self-regulation, resilience, and accessing our critical thinking under stress.

Think of every exit as an entrance to somewhere else and develop a practice you can maintain and show up with consistently.

Executive presence is something you convey all the time. You don’t just put it on or take it off in certain settings, like a mask. Before you enter a room, you need to be aware of who you are as a unique person, so you can bring your best self forward.

If you can work hard to get authentic in your interactions, you’ll not just fulfill your duty to be a messenger, but also your obligation to be yourself.

Executive presence is not about being stoic and looking like we have all the answers. Vulnerability is not about weakness. Confidence and authenticity are earned through our personal experiences and revealed by how much we’re willing to be transparent, open, genuine, and vulnerable.

Compelling executive presence means that you’re intentional and deliberate in the way others think about you, because you have found a way to bring your authentic self to the table.

Hone your executive presence, take a more relational approach. How do you relate to the person or people in the room? How do you seek to connect with them? Of course they’ll receive your carefully written presentation, but how do you connect and interact with them to foster working relationships and build shared outcomes?

One of the most impactful ways for you to actively listen is to paraphrase or clarify what the other person is saying.

One of the areas that we can develop and that has the most immediate impact on this is our physical presence. The expression that we wear on our faces, the way we hold or fold our arms, the way that we stand either tall or small, sends signals to others and determines whether we are seen as confident and trustworthy or not."

One of the easiest ways to develop and expand our physical presence is to focus on our facial gestures. Our face is the first thing that another person looks to for signals of trust.

Our tones of voice, the speed, volume and words we say all leave a lasting impact on our audiences. We all have the power to create connection through not just what we say, but how we say it. This is called vocal presence.

It’s important to adjust our tone of voice to the situation and the effect we’re trying to create.

Virtual interactions are a reality of our working world. If you’re mindful of applying the best practices of compelling executive presence when you’re in-person or operating remotely, you’ll build a consistent executive persona that is present, authentic, and connected.

Authenticity is all the more important in virtual interactions. Be warm. Be expressive. Be human.

Have you ever said to yourself, “why won’t they do what I tell them to do?” Driving audiences to action is about enlisting others to take up our mission and execute on it like it was their own. It takes delivering a compelling message that resonates with one’s intended audience. To achieve this takes thoughtful preparation, listening, empathy, and insight.

Gaining momentum around our ideas and initiatives can be a frustrating activity, yet it’s a critical step for teams and organizations achieving their goals.

Narratives structures are powerful containers for values, insights, and meaning. They help point out the blind spots and common threats as well as lift us up above the fray to see an inspired future.

Narratives allow us to slow down and pull into the station to pick up the very passengers who will be responsible for executing on our aspirations and high hopes.

Our journey of developing our executive presence covered four main areas of focus. Getting present, authentic, connected, and momentum all contribute to supporting executive presence.

The inner journey work of getting authentic allows us to get connected with others. We become approachable, curious, and empathetic.

Compelling executive presence is not a one-time fix. It’s an ongoing journey to help build the best interactions that you can with your professional relationships. We need to work every day to be present so that we can be fully engaged in every interaction.

Beyond getting yourself present, compelling executive presence requires being true to who you are as your best, most authentic, and intentional self.

If you are always second-guessing yourself,  these learnings from The Confidence Code by journalists Katty Kay and Claire Shipman will resonate with you and help you bridge the confidence gap. Particularly for women, who, the authors found, are more prone to doubting their capabilities.

The Confidence Code By Katty Kay & Claire Shipman

Understand why women are often held back by self-doubt in a male-dominated world, despite their competence.

While women typically tend to undervalue their competence, men overestimate theirs, showing what the authors call 'honest over-confidence'.

For both men and women, confidence helps determine success. Competence alone isn't always enough.

Confidence grows from practicing skills but since women don't want to risk being wrong, they don't participate. This feeds a vicious cycle of under-confidence.

Fear of failure can hold women back from taking action and trying something new. To gain mastery and build confidence, you have to step out of your comfort zone and act.

While girls rock academics, boys outperform them in the real world. The reason is often the need for perfection in women.

Your quest for perfection can become a major obstacle to fully realizing your potential.

Learn why it is important to fight your fear and voice your opinion. Sometimes the best way to get what you want is by just asking for it.

Fight the urge to stay invisible. Ask for what you want. You'll never know what difference you can make unless you voice your opinion.

Are men wired to be more confident? Learn more about the science behind diffidence or outspokenness, and if there is a gender gap.

Though there are confidence-determining chemicals in our body that affect our behavior, there is no specific confidence gene. Men and women are equally likely to grow up confident or competent.

If you've seen the previous episode, and are feeling let down by your genes, worry not. You can train your brain to adopt or change specific behaviors.

Rewire your brain for greater confidence by reframing negative thoughts into positive thoughts.

You don't have to be like a man to win in a man's world. Make your own rules to strategize wins.

Women can build confidence by daring to use their differences to their advantage.

Learn how to coach employees for performance and development more effectively by helping them identify and pursue their own solutions. Sabrina Smith, a principal at thoughtLEADERS, LLC shows you how to create the right environment and conditions to help them grow.

In this course, you’ll learn what coaches do to drive these kinds of business results. You’ll also discover how to coach your team to unlock their greatest potential.

People who are coached at work have improved communication skills are more effective individual contributors, and they increase their ability to exceed their goals.

At the heart of coaching is learning how to have a conversation with someone. This kind of conversation empowers others to gain clarity about the desired goal and the desired outcome, as well as get clarity around the actions it will take to achieve their goal.

By coaching your people on how to develop new skills and improve performance, you’re grooming the next generation of leaders for your organization.

Training and coaching are two different things altogether. As a coach, your role is to facilitate someone’s thinking and help them learn by working on live or real workplace issues they face each day.

When trying to develop your employees, know when they need training and know when they need coaching. There’s a big difference between the two.

Training is designed to teach general knowledge and skills.

Mentoring is a great way to share personal experiences to help someone develop.

Shoe Dog By Phil Knight

Shoe Dog By Phil Knight

Shoe Dog By Phil Knight

Episodes

1. How He Just Did It

2. Do What You Love

3. Your Belief Can Sway Others

4. Inspiration Can Come From Anywhere

5. Like Attracts Like

6. Are You Prepared For Success?

7. Why Time-Outs And Laughter Matter

8. What Makes Your Target Tick?