Do More Great Work - by Michael Bungay Stanier
Michael Bungay Stganier's Do More Great Work
Do More Great Work - by Michael Bungay Stanier
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Scott Wallace

Ten years ago, one company cropped up in all the business books – SouthWest Airlines. They’re still a brilliant company of course, but their story is well known. The new story is Cirque du Soleil, a 25 year old overnight success.

The Cirque recently visited Toronto for their marvelous and jaw-dropping show Ovo. Through a series of lucky coincidences, I got to interview Scott Wallace, the General Manger of that show. I’ve always wanted to peer under the Big Top and learn a little of how this amazing company worked.

Scott showed me around, and here’s what we discussed:

  • The secret to how you manage 200+ people from 15 different countries
  • How to balance providing support and removing responsibility
  • How insights into a good village help to structure the running of the travelling troupe
  • Ways of keeping things fresh when you’re running the same show night in and night out.

You can follow the amazing Cirque story at www.cirquedusoleil.com

Listen to my interview with Scott Wallace

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Posted on April 22, 2010

Seth Goldman

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

Listen to my interview with Seth Goldman

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Posted on March 26, 2010

Tara Hunt

I’ve just returned from the TED conference in Palm Springs. One of the most fun bits was spending time with Tara Hunt. I have high regard for Tara, not just because she’s a fellow Canadian, but because she hangs out on the edge of what’s happening with business and stirs things up. She’s a social media star – but not just as a “I know about the technology” but from the point of view of “How does this matter to us as humans?” and “How does this help us build and shape community?” She is the author of The Whuffle Factor about how social media impacts the way business is done now, and plans to call her next book “Happiness as Your Business Model.”

In our conversation, we discuss:

  • Why business seems to operate in a way antithetical to how we are wired to live and operate as human being
  • The deeper roots of happiness – and why that matters in business
  • The balance between numbers and community
  • How to start building your community around you and your business

You can follow Tara on Twitter at @missrogue and check out her (brilliantly named) website www.horsepigcow.com

Listen to my interview with Tara Hunt

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Posted on March 19, 2010

Lance Secretan

Dr. Lance Secretan is one of the world’s foremost thinkers about leadership.
He weaves together different strands of experience to bring his knowledge to the world, having been a CEO of a Fortune 100 company, an acclaimed business school professor and an accomplished skier.  Of his fourteen books, I’ve been most influenced by his recent ones, Inspire! and One: The Art and Practice of Conscious Leadership and the way they have focused on the concept of higher ground leadership.  Lance has won the International Caring Award and the McFeely Leadership Award.

In this interview Lance and I talk about:

  • The CASTLE principles – six fundamentals concepts that underlie higher ground leadership
  • The power of love in organizations – and why it’s not “California woo-woo” stuff
  • How to harness the art of focus to tackle big challenges
  • What it means to unlearn – and why it’s critical for future success

You can follow Lance at his blog

Listen to my interview with Lance Secretan

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Posted on January 26, 2010
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