Be real.
Be whole.
Be innovative.
That’s the essence of Total Leadership, and Stew Friedman is the man behind it and the best-selling book of the same title. He’s been at the forefront of evolution of leadership thinking (and being) for more than twenty year as senior faculty at the Wharton School at the University of Pennsylvania. And he’s honed his thoughts on leadership by spending time as the Director of Ford’s Leadership Develop Centre.
In our conversation we chat about:
- The “Jerry Maguire” moment in his own career, when leadership become critical
- The importance of managing the boundaries
- Why deciding who matters is one of the secrets to “being whole”
You can learn more about Stew and his work at www.TotalLeadership.org.
Posted on April 30, 2010
Honest Tea is not your typical beverage company. Yes, they’re the biggest seller of organic tea drinks in the US. But more interesting for me is how they got there. This is one of those “blue ocean” stories where the founders asked themselves, “What do we need to do that’s different to stand out and flourish?” I’m lucky to be speaking to one of those founders today. Seth Goldman founded Honest Tea back in 1998 with Professor Barry Nalebuff of the Yale School of Management. And in the last ten years they’ve had nothing but success. They’ve had about a 66% annual compound growth, and in 2008, Coca Cola purchased a minority interest in the company so that they’re able to get better distribution around the country.
Seth graduated Harvard in ’87, the Yale School of Management in ’95, he won Ernst & Young’s Entrepreneur of the Year for the Mid-Atlantic region, and was also running his company. He founded Bethesda Green which is a local sustainability initiative helping convert grease waste from restaurants into biodiesel.
We talk about:
- Seth’s surprise to find himself an entrepreneur and a champion of sustainable business
- The basic calculation that allowed him to take the leap to begin Honest Tea
- The dynamic of his partnership with his co-founder – and why being so different is so important
- The impact on their reputation of selling part of the company to Coca-Cola as a feisty independant.
You can read more about the company at www.HonestTea.com and on Twitter at @honesttea
Posted on March 26, 2010
Kevin Carroll has an amazingly cool background. Raised by his grandparents in Philadelphia, his first job really was with the U.S. Air Force where he served as a language interpreter and translator. And in those ten years he became fluent in Croatian and Czech and Russian and German. But while being fantastic at languages, he was also an athlete and soon an athletic trainer. Leaving the Air Force, he worked his way up to be the head athletic trainer for the Philadelpha 76ers. So he’s already cool. But then he was tapped on the shoulder by Nike. He spent a number of years at Nike helping to deepen their understanding of athletic performance and team dynamics and interpersonal connection, basically helping Nike become one of the forces it is today.
And then things shifted again, and he put his experience and wisdom into a terrific series of books, starting with the Rules of the Red Rubber Ball. In this interview we talk about:
- How it was a ball that saved and changed Kevin’s life.
- Why ‘encouragers’ are so crucial to sustaining success
- The role of curiosity and play in connecting with your great purpose and Great Work
- The role of “lonely work” is setting up for success.
You can follow Kevin on Twitter at @KCKatalyst and find him on the web at www.Kevincarrollkatalyst.com.
Posted on March 10, 2010
Jason Fried’s new book Rework comes out today, and I’m delighted that we managed to talk just a week ago in the lead up to its launch. Now here’s a quote to kick us off. It’s from Seth Godin, and he says (and I’m paraphrasing), “Make everything a project – and run it through 37Signals’ Basecamp.” Jason is the one of the founders of 37Signals. They design useful software to help people work better – connect with people, run projects, managing stuff. (I know, because I use it!)
And what’s cool is they haven’t done it by practising business as usual, but by practising business as unusual. In this interview Jason shares some of his successful and counter-intutive approaches to how to get stuff done. We talk about:
- The evolution of 37Signals – and why where you start is not where you finish
- The value of introducing “done enough” as a measure of success
- The problem with meetings – and what to do about it
- Why planning is highly overrated
- And a bunch more…
You can pick up the new book on Amazon , follow Jason on Twitter at @JasonFried, and learn more about 37 Signals’ products at their website.
(And by the way, Jason’s surname is pronounced “Freed” – Apologies to Jason, and please ignore my mistake at the start of the interview!)
Posted on March 9, 2010
