At DA, we're all about discovering and harnessing disruption, but sometimes, disruption finds you. It's a fact of life – our car skids on ice we didn't see on the road up ahead. Your boat hits a reef at night. A business deal falls through out of nowhere, and there's nothing you can or could have done. Now that your car's in a snowbank, what's next? Our guest today has been there and back. After the company she worked for collapsed while she was on maternity leave, Carol Fishman Cohen decided to...
Mar 01, 2024•51 min•Ep. 362
When we talk about robots, machines, artificial intelligence, it's usually within the context of something theorists call the singularity. That's the moment when AI figures out how to upgrade itself, and leaves us in the dust. After all, it can learn a library in an instant – the AI doesn't need to stop for a snack and a nap. In the world of the Terminator, it took Skynet a single day to become self-aware, destroy most of human life, and then send Arnold back in time to make sure no one could st...
Feb 23, 2024•52 min•Ep. 361
"If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle and it becomes the bottle. You put it in a teapot, it becomes the teapot. Now, water can flow or it can crash. Be water, my friend." Famous words by Bruce Lee, sure, but when we've felt like a stone our whole lives, what does becoming water actually look like? How do we learn to be more malleable in difficult situations? And how can we be confident we're flowing in the right direction? Samantha Cooprider is the senior ...
Feb 16, 2024•49 min•Ep. 360
After 49 days fasting under the Bodhi tree, Siddhartha Guatama was struck by an idea. We suffer because we are attached to things, to people, to desires. When we can't have it, we feel an emptiness. But what if we never wanted it in the first place? Guatama taught his philosophy for the next few decades, and centuries after that his followers would give him a new name – the Buddha. Total, complete elimination of your yearnings was called Nirvana. In our networked world, where we broadcast on soc...
Feb 09, 2024•53 min•Ep. 359
When's the last time a customer service phone menu left you… genuinely angry? We build these systems to make things easier, layer systems on top of other systems, but who's doing the gardening and pruning – the upkeep? Our guest today calls this phenomenon friction. Robert Sutton has taught at Stanford since 1983, in that time covering everything from psychology to business management. Now he's out with his 8th book, The Friction Project. Bob and his co-writer Huggy Rao took on this idea of a ma...
Jan 30, 2024•45 min•Ep. 358
What does it take, day in and day out, to lead a group of people effectively? It's not easy, that's for sure. On a very granular level, leading is balancing a thousand decisions, huge and small, every day. So what guides your hand? Republican Governor of Utah Spencer Cox is an anomaly in a time of waning bipartisanship. His vice chair in the National Governor's Association is a Democrat – and a close friend at that. He's also been a bit of an anomaly in how he's charted his life, too, turning do...
Jan 23, 2024•49 min•Ep. 357
We find ourselves compromising every day – it's how things get done in a society where we all want something else. But what's the root of compromise? Isn't it this idea that solving the issue, whatever it is, is more important than checking off everything we want? It can seem that those ideals have been left by the roadside in the past couple years, but the issue of honest compromise has crept into our boardrooms, too. Our guest today is working to instill that idea of meeting folks halfway back...
Jan 16, 2024•49 min•Ep. 356
In middle school physics, we learned that an object at rest has potential energy – an amount of currency it has to spend, if it wants to move. When you pull back an arrow, the potential energy flows from your muscles, to the bow, to the string, and then the string pays all that money in one go to propel the arrow – turning potential into kinetic energy in a single motion. Our lives are organized around those same flows of energy, too. We dream, we store energy, and then we trade in potential for...
Jan 09, 2024•48 min•Ep. 355
Do you know that feeling when you're cooking, and you've got all your ingredients chopped and ready to go, spices measured, oven pre-heated? All that's left is for you to spin your magic as a cook. In the kitchen, the French call it mise en place, everything in its place. In that same vein, to disrupt yourself, your strategy and support need to be in place. You need to give yourself the room to roam, so to speak, to realize your full potential. Our guest today is all about creating spaces that l...
Jan 02, 2024•53 min•Ep. 354
Isn't it frustrating when we feel like a passenger to our own thoughts and actions? In Buddhist thought, we're supposed to watch our thoughts pass by like clouds in the sky… but that's the ideal, after all. It's a hard truth to swallow, that the human mind is much more mysterious than we'd hope it to be. So for today's episode, we wanted to bring back a conversation I had back in 2020 with the neuroscientist and author Dr. Tara Swart. She's spent her career tinkering with our brains, as both a d...
Dec 26, 2023•50 min•Ep. 353
What does it mean to have a friend? What does it mean to be a friend? Someone you can rely on. Someone who understands you, not just the "you" that you project into the world. A friend is someone who knows they can rely on you, too. How many times a week, a day, do you lean on your friends when you feel like you can't stand on your own? Our guest today has built his career on the power of those friends – and being a friend, too. Ken Woolley is the founder of Extra Space Storage, those ubiquitous...
Dec 19, 2023•41 min•Ep. 352
When's the last time you got caught in the expectations others had for you? One person wants one thing, one version of you – another needs you to be someone else entirely… And who do you want to be? Do you even have time to think about that? The things people expect from us has a profound effect on how we act – we are social beings, after all. We aim, to please. Our guest today says that the burden of those expectations in the workplace fall unfairly onto women. Jennifer McCollum is the CEO of L...
Dec 12, 2023•48 min•Ep. 351
There's an allure around the idea of sales. It's the same allure they packaged so neatly in the show Mad Men, all confidence and charisma. But take it from the other perspective – have you ever had such a pushy car salesman, that you just left the lot? Our guest today says that's because charisma isn't a sales strategy. There's no room for building trust in your solution when you're focused on the close. Scott K. Edinger is a sales consultant to Fortune 50 companies, including AT&T, and he's...
Dec 05, 2023•47 min•Ep. 350
Growing your people to grow your organization – it makes sense, right? But what about approaching the problem from the other direction – growing your organization, to grow your people? When's the last time you looked at the state of your org chart? And how willing are you to experiment with it? Today, I want to bring back an old episode. In 2020, we spoke with Alex Osterwalder about his idea of an invincible company – one that is constantly reinventing itself to stay on the bleeding edge of disr...
Nov 28, 2023•51 min•Ep. 349
Coaching often involves speaking a truth the other person doesn't really want to hear. Even when we're lost for direction, being pointed in the right way can feel like this indictment on being lost in the first place. But a lot of clients will describe this idea of the unlock – the a-ha – when that self-doubting voice fades, and the voice of the coach comes into focus. How can we prime ourselves to receive these messages? Our guests today have a new book out on exactly that question. Jacquelyn L...
Nov 21, 2023•56 min•Ep. 348
It's just the nature of our show that we often talk to folks in the mastery part of their professional S-Curve. It's easy to talk to a CEO about leadership. It's also another fact that our guests tend to be older – at least, out of college. But it is rare that we come across an entrepreneur in that very first launch point of their career. A person that put college on hold to pursue an idea, a person willing to put their dreams on hold for an hour to talk to us. Austin Hillam is the co-founder of...
Nov 14, 2023•37 min•Ep. 347
If we're being honest, we've all felt the toll of going into a meeting on a couple hours sleep and a double espresso. The work can often come first, and the body comes second. But as leaders, we can't do our job effectively if we're jittery and wiped. We can't do our job if we've got the worry of heart disease lurking the back of your mind. What if we could take charge of our health before any of these things happen? Not just waiting for the symptoms, but… intecepting them? Dr. Bill Kapp realize...
Nov 07, 2023•48 min•Ep. 346
The last time you had to navigate change – real, structural change – who did you turn to? When we're working from a place of ambiguity, when we're stuck inside our own head, another person can make all the difference. But let's be honest, sometimes, painfully… that person is no one at all. We can have this instinct, as leaders, that reaching out is weakness. We can see it as this flashing neon sign that, hey, I have no idea what I'm doing. Someone, please help. Melissa Werneck's spent her career...
Oct 31, 2023•43 min
We throw around this term a lot in the management profession, in the coaching profession, really everywhere in business – top thinker. But how often do we really interrogate that title? Because, really, wouldn't we all like to think of ourselves as top thinkers? In politics, it's the journalists that hold politicians to account. In the world of management, there are two former journalists who are holding these top thinkers to account as well. Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove used to write columns...
Oct 24, 2023•50 min•Ep. 344
For all the credit Superman gets, for being the Man of Steel, do you think he ever cries? When he's Clark Kent, working at the paper, do you think Superman's ever broken down in a bathroom stall? When he's flying folks out of a burning building, it's easy to forget that his parents are dead, his home is dust and the only family he has wants him dead. All we see is the Man of Steel. For 45 years, James Dixon only showed others what they wanted to see. What they didn't see, was his prosthetic leg ...
Oct 17, 2023•42 min•Ep. 343
When you're making decisions, professional or personal, what's your north star? How many people know your north star? How many of your colleagues know what you've built your life around? There's this idea, of leaving home at home and only bringing into work your work self. Can you really leave at home what fuels you and drives you? When Lori Winkler at the top of Johnson and Johnson's HR department, she was a high achiever, sure – but as you'll hear her say, no one really know who Lori Winkler w...
Oct 10, 2023•46 min•Ep. 342
Human resources can be a funny term. What kind of resources do we rely on as humans? Food, water, shelter – but what about emotional resources? What about the resources to become a good person, not just a healthy person? In a company, human resources are always comprised of other humans, and Chris Rainey's made it his mission to cast a light on the wonders of this profession. We can forget that HR has a hand in just about everything a company does, and Chris's podcast HR Leaders is out to make s...
Oct 03, 2023•59 min
There's a saying that curiosity killed the cat. Have you ever seen a cat investigate a glass you left on the countertop? Or knock over a shelf of books while they try to perch on top? There's something to admire in that attitude, that kind of pure, unabashed curiosity. You'll find Diana Kander to be that same kind of curious. A self-described serial entrepreneur, she played and continues to play a vital role in building up the Kansas City economic area. Today, she's packaged what she's learned f...
Sep 26, 2023•40 min•Ep. 340
Who were you ten years ago? How did that person think? How did they see the world? And what about today? How have those things changed? How would you feel if you passed that person on the street tomorrow? Would you recognize them? Now instead of who you were, ten years ago, what if it's who you want to be ten years from now? Hal Hershfield understands that connecting with our future selves can feel like a vague, unfulfilling endeavor. But to hear him say it, it's one of the most valuable ways we...
Sep 19, 2023•41 min•Ep. 339
Isn't it frustrating when you just can't say what you want to say? You have all the words ready in your head, you've practiced what you're going to say, but you… just… can't? It's frustrating in part because it seems like we're failing at the basics. Communication? Saying words out loud? Didn't we figure that out around the same time we figured out farming, and the wheel? So why are we sweating and stuttering in a conference room in 2023? Matt Abrahams has an idea. His new book, Think Faster Tal...
Sep 12, 2023•44 min•Ep. 338
To give to another is to give up something you have. It's the basis of the world philanthropy, "phila," meaning love for one another. Two episodes ago we talked with Alan Mulally, about how that kind of love isn't wired anywhere in our brains. We are not that far from our hunter-gatherer ancestors – why would we ever give up our food to strangers? Aren't we hungry too? Our guest today is a philanthropist, to no surprise. Gail Miller is the wealthiest person in the state of Utah, having taken on ...
Sep 05, 2023•45 min•Ep. 337
With ChatGPT now released in a usable format, the world's been abuzz with the potentials – and pitfalls – of artificial intelligence. Our guest today says that the word – artificial intelligence – is misleading. Artificial anything, artificial turf, sweeteners, they all try to get as close to the real thing as possible. Chris Duffey, strategic development manager for Adobe, says that isn't the goal. This tech revolution isn't so much about replacing us, as amplifying the magical powers we alread...
Aug 29, 2023•43 min•Ep. 336
What does it mean to advocate for something? We all know what it's like to give a nervous presentation. But to adjust the question a bit – what does it mean to advocate for someONE? Specifically, yourself? Joining us today is Jayshree Seth, Chief Science Advocate at 3M. Her role today involves clearing away the brush and undergrowth of misinformation to show the world that science is not a scary monolith. She's also coming up with new ways to show us that we're all scientists in our own way. But...
Aug 22, 2023•47 min•Ep. 335
Today, we've got a special episode, one of my personal heroes––Alan Mulally. You've probably sat in a Boeing 777 before. He was the chief engineer on that plane. You might have a Ford sitting out in your driveway. He's the reason Ford was the only major American car company that didn't take a bailout in 2008. Alan Mulally has sat in many seats — President and CEO of Boeing Commercial Airplanes, President and CEO of Ford — but you have to hear it from him personally, how you put together four mil...
Aug 15, 2023•51 min•Ep. 334
Attention is the real currency of all advertising. It's how many seconds they can keep your eyes glued on whatever billboard or TV ad is in front of you at that moment. And then there's the science of why exactly it caught your attention, in the first place. Advertisers represent this fascinating intersection of business and psychology, so today we want to find out what we can glean from this unique industry. Today we're joined by Sam Horn, CEO and founder of the Intrigue Agency, where she helps...
Aug 08, 2023•52 min•Ep. 333
