Episode #259 // I’ve been doing quite a few guest appearances on other people’s podcasts in recent weeks, and I’ve been asked on several occasions, “ Marty, what do you know now, that you wish you’d learned earlier? ”… There are any number of life lessons that I could absolutely have used earlier on, and lots of stuff that would have made me a better leader way sooner. But, then again, with the benefit of hindsight and wisdom, I’ve come to realize that the depth and value of any les...
Aug 15, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 259
Moment #29 // Having close friends is one of life’s ultimate joys. But, as a leader, that’s the last thing you want. Being friends with someone who works for you dilutes your objectivity. And no matter how much you think you can overcome this, the reality is… you can’t! A friend in your team will take advantage of your good nature… and you’ll cut them more slack than you should. It’s not intentional, but it is unavoidable. This kills the meritocracy culture. When friendliness turns i...
Aug 13, 2023•4 min
Episode #258 // One of the principal occupations of many consultants, speakers, and business experts is to try to predict the future. And, although this is virtually impossible, it doesn’t stop them from trying! If you’re a regular listener, you’ll know that I try to stay away from predictions for the most part. I’d rather deal with the leadership imperatives that drive performance, and work out how to apply these timeless principles to any given context… This is a subtle but ...
Aug 08, 2023•17 min•Season 1Ep. 258
Moment #28 // How do you go about making an outsourcing decision for your company? It’s important to be clear on exactly why you want to outsource, and to understand the relative cost of doing something yourself, as opposed to having a specialist external firm do it for you. Knowing when to outsource is as critical as any skill you need in business, and this Moment exposes the key questions you need to ask to nail it. You can take a deeper dive into these insights by listening to Ep.95: Th...
Aug 06, 2023•5 min
Episode #257 // I came across an article by Shanna Hocking , which introduced me to the concept of the Leadership User Manual . Hocking credits its origins to Adam Bryant, who wrote an article almost 10 years ago titled, What if you had to write a user manual about your leadership style? Imagine the power of a physical document that can help your people to understand how they can best work with you. What a great idea! Knowing how your boss operates, and what he values, could save y...
Aug 01, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 257
Moment #27 // Weak leaders are characterized by what they’re not prepared to do. Weak leaders are unwilling to push back on the boss; they don't put the team's interests ahead of their own; they’re unwilling to set ambitious goals; they’re afraid to challenge, coach, and confront their people; and they’re reluctant to challenge the status quo. What's the price of leadership weakness? Unrealized potential; poor performance; lack of market competitiveness. Eventually, this leads to job cuts, restr...
Jul 30, 2023•5 min
Episode #256 // The concept of EQ isn’t new. It was the subject of academic research way back in the 1960s, but it took another 30 years before we gained widespread awareness of it through Daniel Goleman’s classic book, Emotional Intelligence . These days, we have fairly robust tests to measure a person's EQ, and I would never hire a senior executive without having them take those tests… it’s not the be-all-and-end-all , but it does provide another data point to calibrate the observations you ma...
Jul 25, 2023•32 min•Season 1Ep. 256
Moment #26 // Of the many mistakes that new leaders are prone to make, over-functioning for certain individuals is one of the most common, and the most insidious. When you do this, it tells your people that what they're doing isn't good enough. It trains them to be lazy and complacent, because you'll always step in to finish their job for them if you’re not happy. And they'll keep getting paid for not doing their job to the standard you expect. Excellent leaders give their people cla...
Jul 23, 2023•4 min
Episode #255 // Ralph Waldo Emerson once said: “ Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door! ”. This quote, espousing the value of innovation, has been liberally used and abused over the years. I came across it again recently in an article from McKinsey: Turning Around the Productivity Slowdown … so, what is productivity? And what’s the relationship between productivity and innovation? In today’s episode, I look at productivity from a number of different angles. What d...
Jul 18, 2023•18 min•Season 1Ep. 255
Moment #25 // High-performance is fragile. Teams can lose their lustre for a whole range of reasons, and leading a team of high performers can be incredibly challenging. The best teams push each other pretty hard, and it can be difficult to maintain constructive tension, without it boiling over into acrimony. And, yes, sometimes your people just stop listening to you. Over time, familiarity breeds contempt, and the downside of consistency (a much sought-after leadership characteristic) is predic...
Jul 16, 2023•4 min
Episode #254 // We’re approached all the time to interview other thought leaders on this podcast. However, since No Bullsh!t Leadership is predominantly a solo cast, we reluctantly decline 99% of these requests. But one email popped into our Inbox a few months ago, and we couldn’t resist it: Scott Jeffrey Miller is a speaker, author, and podcaster (sounds familiar, I know!) What’s different about Scott is that he’s worked for over 25 years with FranklinCovey, the legendary company ...
Jul 11, 2023•48 min•Season 1Ep. 254
Moment #24 // As a leader, how do you set appropriate boundaries in your work relationships? How do you strike the balance between establishing trust-based, caring relationships with your people, and maintaining professional distance? The social pendulum has really swung in the last 3-5 years. Organizations are increasingly seeking to impose themselves in the personal decisions of their people. As a leader, you need to be hyper-vigilant about how these shifting dynamics can potentially aff...
Jul 09, 2023•4 min
Episode #253 // In life, there tend to be two kinds of people: there are lifters and there are leaners . Lifters carry the burden for themselves and others… they take on more accountability than the average person, and they don’t rely on anyone else to make things happen. And leaners are happy to let them do so! In this episode, which I hope you find to be pretty straightforward and easy to absorb, my goal is to do just one thing: to explain the differences between lifters and lean...
Jul 04, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 253
Moment #23 // You don't want your business to suffer the impact of poor decisions that are driven by fear. If you can sense, and then short-circuit your physiological reactions as they arise, you’ll be in a better position to implement some coping strategies, rather than just letting nature take its course. If you learn to control your physical state, it opens up the pathways for your conscious mind to handle things. Once your response is in the conscious, you can ask yourself a series of questi...
Jul 02, 2023•4 min
Episode #252 // Chris Licht, the former CEO of CNN, resigned recently after a scathing exposé in The Atlantic. What was supposed to be an opportunity to provide a firsthand account of a miraculous company turnaround, ended up in embarrassment, reputational damage, and the inevitable sacking. This isn’t the first time someone has invited the media to make a contemporaneous record of a firm’s excellence, only to have it backfire spectacularly! In the 1970s, British Steel was the subject of a docum...
Jun 27, 2023•17 min•Season 1Ep. 252
Moment #22 // Some people really don't want to lead. But they don’t necessarily know that they don’t want to. So, why would they take on a leadership role if they have no desire to lead? And how do you identify a reluctant leader? The clue is in the expectations they place upon their team? Do they lead them to greater heights, or just accept whatever an individual chooses to do on any given day? Weak leaders lower the standard to meet the performance, strong leaders lift the performance to meet ...
Jun 25, 2023•4 min
Episode #251 // There are a range of competencies required to forge a successful career. On this podcast, of course, we focus predominantly on how to develop and improve your leadership capability to uplift your team’s performance. Leadership competency gives you leverage : it enables you to multiply and accelerate the results you can achieve through others. And the higher up you go, the more valuable this capability becomes. But there are a number of other vital ingredients that I speak ...
Jun 20, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 251
Moment #21 // There are a few key things you need to do in order to maximize your promotability. How do you stamp yourself as a trusted advisor, rather than just a workhorse? Why should you strive to make yourself redundant, rather than indispensable? And why is it critical to focus on your leadership capability just as much as your business acumen? Your goal should be to position yourself as a trusted advisor, who thinks about the broader issues, while energizing your team to deliver ext...
Jun 18, 2023•4 min
Episode #250 // One of the most intractable issues affecting gender equity in the workplace is maternity leave. Companies and countries are trying to find ways to make it easier for women to have families, without significant disruption to their careers. Our CEO, Emma Green recently became a mother. She’s just flown half way around the world, by herself with 9-month-old Florence to attend a Mastermind of elite business owners who’ve built huge companies, while balancing the demands ...
Jun 13, 2023•25 min•Season 1Ep. 250
Moment #20 // In a hot job market, you can't retain every one of your people, which is why it’s important to think about who your star performers are, and to make sure they don’t go anywhere. This necessitates a very deliberate approach to talent management and retention. Looking at individual performance first, identifying any critical roles, and understanding which core functions truly enable your business to compete, will enable you to target the people you really need to retain. You can take...
Jun 11, 2023•4 min
Episode #249 // Did you know that while 83% of organizations acknowledge the importance of developing leaders, only 5% actually follow through? It's no wonder many leaders feel lost and unfulfilled. If you've been yearning for a more fulfilling leadership career, this episode is for you. Imagine taking control of your own development, transcending the boundaries set by others. The truth is, nobody will care about your career growth as passionately as you do. If you're unsure where to begin, we'v...
Jun 06, 2023•31 min•Season 1Ep. 249
Moment #19 // To make any serious change requires a change of culture—the way we do things around here—and changing culture is not for the faint of heart. It takes discipline, perseverance, time, energy, some pain, a bunch of momentum, some tough decisions, courage, influence, collaboration - it’s not at all easy to change a culture. If you want to be a leader who drives change, who creates a high performance culture, then you’d better pay attention to your people, and you’d better burn th...
Jun 04, 2023•3 min
Episode #248 // We still seem to be witnessing some pretty spectacular failures in corporate governance. Every week, the financial press manages to uncover some sort of personal scandal, a sudden and unexpected decline in performance, or a breach of a company’s social license to operate. Even more common now, is the reporting on companies’ handling of workforce issues, like layoffs, and return to the office policies. I came across an interesting interview with one of Australia’s leading company ...
May 30, 2023•16 min•Season 1Ep. 248
Moment #18 // How do you know when the right time is to let a poor performer go? Many leaders sit back and just hope that the person will improve. But hope isn’t a strategy. And when you’re dealing with a historically poor performer, it's rarely the case that they lift to meet the minimum acceptable standard. The most commonly cited regret of great leaders, as they reflect on their careers, is that they didn't move quickly enough to remove the people who they knew couldn’t do the job . If ...
May 28, 2023•4 min
Episode #247 // Virtually every organization has some form of operational delivery capability for its products and services. More often than not, your ability to compete in the market can be strengthened through operational excellence. But operational excellence is elusive, and many of the programs that companies invest in to deliver improved operational performance only ever realize a fraction of the potential benefits. Senior leaders often focus purely on the technical and process elemen...
May 23, 2023•21 min•Season 1Ep. 247
Moment #17 // Low accountability cultures are riddled with barriers to performance. The leaders resign themselves to the fact that gaps and overlaps are inevitable, and they rationalize that strong single point accountabilities aren’t really necessary. What are the 5 hidden drivers of low accountability ? And how do you find them before they damage your team’s performance? Everyone deserves to be treated equally, but they also have to be held to account for the way they behave and perform… other...
May 21, 2023•4 min
Episode #246 // One of the most widespread and seemingly intractable problems facing leaders and organizations everywhere, is the drive to focus only on short-term results. And this condition doesn’t discriminate between industries, countries, or cultures. Almost everything that happens in our work lives locks us inside the prison walls of an ever-present, high-demand, short-term focus. Very few leaders develop the type of long-term perspective that enables genuine attention to where a co...
May 16, 2023•19 min•Season 1Ep. 246
Moment #16 // Some companies have turned the concept of believing your own bullshit into an art form! It’s really easy to convince ourselves that we are achieving amazing things when, in actual fact, very little is changing. Do you believe your own bullsh!t? For more depth on this insight, listen to Ep.143 of the No Bullsh!t Leadership Podcast : Believing Your Own Bullsh!t . ———————— FREE 5 DAY LEADERSHIP CHALLENGE: Want to boost your leadership capability? This challenge will start you down the...
May 14, 2023•4 min
Episode #245 // I’m a vocal advocate of strong leadership: the need to stretch people to achieve extraordinary performance, with a single-minded focus on value creation (bearing in mind, of course, that value comes in many different forms: it’s not just financial results). Recently, we’ve seen two cases from opposite sides of the world in which the stated drive for improved performance has resulted in serious allegations of bullying. The first, is Dominic Raab, the UK’s Deputy PM, who was forced...
May 09, 2023•20 min•Season 1Ep. 245
Moment #15 // The primary function of a leader is to create and maintain a culture that’s conducive to performance excellence… a culture where every individual is committed to giving their best every day. More often than not, cultures just grow organically, as people learn over time what the expectations and limits of the leader truly are. If you don’t focus, deliberately and explicitly, on creating the type of culture that drives genuine performance, then the culture you get will be… what...
May 07, 2023•3 min
