Work And Life With Stew Friedman

John Baldoni is an internationally recognized leadership educator, executive coach, and author of 14 books including GRACE: A Leader’s Guide to a Better Us; Lead with Purpose, Lead Your Boss; and The Leader’s Pocket Guide.  He’s been named a top speaker and leadership guru by Inc.com, Trust Across America, and Global Gurus. In this episode, Stew and John discuss his book Grace, which focuses on how and why it’s essential for leaders -- for all of us -- to pay attention to common courtesy, comity,  and civility in building connections in all parts of life. They note that in today’s toxic and sometimes vulgar public square these old-fashioned values are needed now more than ever. John defines grace as a combination of generosity, respect, action, compassion, and energy. He describes some inspiring examples of leaders who exemplify and model these important qualities. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

Jamie Ladge and Danna Greenberg are co-authors of Maternal Optimism: Forging Positive Paths through Work and Motherhood. Jamie Ladge is a Professor of Management and Organizational Development at Northeastern University. Her research explores the psychological and career implications of working parents.  Danna Greenberg is a Professor of Organizational Behavior at Babson College. She studies work/life transitions. Their work has been published in top management and human resources journals and in the popular press.Stew talks with Jamie and Danna about their findings, including the ways in which the transition to motherhood (and fatherhood) can, despite popular notions,  have a salutary effect on your work life. They’ve found that many mothers report becoming more empathic toward coworkers and that, forced to prioritize, they tend to delegate more to others, thereby helping to develop people at work. Ladge and Greenberg found there is no one-size-fits all solution; every working family requires a di

Michael McDerment is CEO and Co-Founder of FreshBooks, the #1 accounting software in the cloud designed exclusively for service-based business owners and independent professionals, with more than 20 million users worldwide. Mike has spent the last decade making accounting software accessible to small businesses and is co-author of Breaking the Time Barrier, which helps professionals better price their services, and has seen more than 350,000 downloads since its release in 2013. Since its inception, FreshBooks has scaled to almost 300 employees and is consistently recognized as one of Canada's best places to work.In this episode, Stew and Mike talk about how Mike has created a workplace culture in which his employees don’t have to wear what he calls a “work face”; where they can feel safe to bring their whole selves to work. They discuss some of the creative “culture hacks” Mike uses to build an environment that breeds empathy.  Examples: every hire starts by working in customer service for a month, every

Caitlyn Collins is an Assistant Professor of Sociology at Washington University in St. Louis and author of Making Motherhood Work: How Women Manage Careers and Caregiving. Her book is a cross-national interview study of 135 working mothers in Sweden, Germany, Italy, and the United States. Her research has been published in peer-reviewed journals and has been featured in the popular press including The Atlantic, Forbes, The New York Times, and The Washington Post. She is a 2019 Nancy Weiss Malkiel Scholar, a 2018 Work and Family Researchers Network Early Career Fellow, and a contributor for The Atlantic, The New York Times, and Slate.In this episode Stew and Caitlyn discuss the cross-national differences Caitlyn observed in her research on working mothers in four countries. It was only the American women who blamed themselves for the stresses and strains of life as a working mother. In the other nations, women understood there were external constraints, out of their immediate control, that affected the stress

Shawn Askinosie is CEO and Founder of Askinosie Chocolate as well as author of the book Meaningful Work: A Quest to Do Great Business, Find Your Calling, and Feed Your Soul. Askinosie Chocolate is a small batch, award-winning chocolate factory located in Springfield, Missouri, sourcing 100% of their beans directly from farmers in regions all over the world and sharing the profits with them. The Askinosie Chocolate mission is to serve farmers, their neighborhoods, their customers, and each other by leaving the world a better place than they found it. So far the company has provided over a million school lunches to malnourished children in Tanzania and the Philippines, without any donations. Askinosie Chocolate was named by Forbes as “One of the 25 Best Small Companies in America” and Shawn was also named by O, The Oprah Magazine, as “One of 15 Guys Who Are Saving the World.”In this episode, Stew and Shawn discuss Shawn’s remarkable personal journey from being a phenomenally successful criminal lawyer, who neve

Ellen Kossek is the Basil S. Turner Professor at Purdue University’s Krannert School of Management and the Research Director of the Butler center for Leadership Excellence. Ellen is an internationally recognized thought leader on employer support of work and personal life integration, gender, diversity, human resource innovation, and social change. She has won a Work-Life Legacy award for helping to build and advance the work-life movement. She has also won the Rosabeth Moss Kanter work-family research excellence award and the Sage Scholarly achievement award for advancing understanding of gender and diversity in organizations. Prior to becoming a professor she worked on human resource issues for major corporations in the U.S., Asia, and Europe. Ellen is the first elected President of the Work-Family Researchers Network. In this episode, Stew and Ellen discuss the various ways by which we manage interruptions or negotiate boundaries across different domains of life; some people tend to integrate or blend, som

Hal Gregersen is Executive Director of the MIT Leadership Center and Senior Lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of Management. His new book is Questions Are the Answer: A Breakthrough Approach to your Most Vexing Problems at Work and In Life. Hal has been ranked one of the world’s 25 most influential management thinkers by Thinkers50 and was winner of the 2017 Distinguished Achievement Award for leadership. He’s co-authored ten books, including The Innovator’s DNA: Mastering the Five Skills of Disruptive Innovators. He is also founder of The 4-24 Project, an initiative dedicated to rekindling the provocative power of asking the right questions in adults so they can pass this crucial creativity skill onto the next generation. He is the creator of a unique executive development experience Leadership and the Lens: Learning at the Intersection of Innovation and Image-Making a course that draws on his two passions – photography and innovation–to teach participants how to ask radically better questions and change thei

Reem Kassis, an alum of Stew’s Total Leadership course at Wharton, is a Palestinian writer and her debut cookbook, The Palestinian Table, was nominated for a James Beard award, short-listed for the Andre Simon Award and the Edward Stanford Award, and won The Guild of Food Writers First Book Award. The book received rave reviews from Anthony Bourdain and Michael Solomonov, was named one of NPR’s best books of 2017, and has been featured in The New York Times, The Financial Times, The Washington Post, New York Magazine, and The Guardian among others. Born and raised in Jerusalem, Reem holds two undergraduate degrees from the University of Pennsylvania, an MBA from Wharton, and an MSc in social psychology from The London School of Economics. A former McKinsey consultant, today Reem is using the power of food and storytelling to share the Palestinian narrative with the world. She is currently working on her second cookbook about the evolving, cross-cultural food of the Middle East.In this episode Stew and Reem di

Adam Alter is an Associate Professor of Marketing and Psychology at New York University’s Stern School of Business and a New York Times bestselling author of two books on addictive behavior, Irresistible: The Rise of Addictive Technology and the Business of Keeping Us Hooked and Drunk Tank Pink: And Other Unexpected Forces That Shape How We Think, Feel, and Behave. Adam’s academic research focuses on behavioral economics and human judgment and decision-making, with a particular interest in the effects of environmental cues on human cognition and behavior. He has written for the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Washington Post, the Atlantic, and WIRED, among other publications. He has shared his ideas at the World Economic Forum, and with dozens of companies, including Google, Microsoft, Amazon, and LinkedIn, as well as numerous design and ad agencies around the world.In this episode Stew and Adam discuss the insidious, incredibly powerful ways by which new technologies have created, perhaps in an unintende

Julia King Pool is an alumna, and now on the faculty, of the University of Pennsylvania’s Master of Applied Positive Psychology (MAPP) program and is Founder and CEO of Burn-In Mindset. Advised by Angela Duckworth and Claire Robertson Kraft, Julia and Sophia Kokores co-authored a study on the mindsets of exemplar teachers in urban education. Their research became the inspiration for founding Burn-in Mindset.  Julia worked in urban education for a decade. She helped to lead the opening of two public-charter schools and has been an elementary and middle school teacher in the public and public-charter schools of Los Angeles, Gary, Indiana, and Washington, DC.  She has received numerous awards for her contributions to K through 12 education, including the Sue Lehmann Excellence in Teaching Award from Teach For America. She was also named the 2013 DC Teacher of the Year.In this episode, Stew and Julia discuss the extraordinary stress and strain experienced by teachers in K- 12 that too often results in e

Gretchen Spreitzer is the Keith E. and Valerie J. Alessi Professor of Business Administration at the Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.  Her research focuses on employee empowerment and leadership development, particularly within a context of organizational change and decline. Her recent research examines how organizations can enable thriving.  This is part of a movement in the field of organizational behavior known as Positive Organizational Scholarship.  Gretchen co-authored How to Be a Positive Leader: Small Actions, Big Impact with Jane Dutton.  Stew and Gretchen discuss the ways in which we have more control and discretion than we believe we have in order to make small, meaningful changes in our work, no matter what work we do and no matter where we fall in an organizational hierarchy. They talk about the importance of finding meaning in one’s work, of having a purpose, of making an impact, and they explore practical ways to make this a reality in our daily lives.

Kevin Kruse is the Founder and CEO of LEADx and a New York Times best selling author. His latest book is Great Leaders Have No Rules: Contrarian Leadership Principles to Transform Your Team and Business.  Kevin started his first company at the age of 22 and went on to build, and sell, several multimillion dollar technology companies, winning both Inc 500 and Best Place to Work awards. He is also the author of We: How to Increase Performance and Profits Through Full Engagement, Employee Engagement 2.0, and 15 Secrets Successful People Know About Time Management. He is a Forbes Leadership columnist and was named one of the Top Thought Leaders in Trust Across America. Stew and Kevin talk about lessons Kevin has distilled from his experiences, both his failures and his successes.  He shares his somewhat unorthodox views on leadership -- including a closed and not an open-door policy, the importance of picking favorites, and having “no rules.”  This does not mean anything goes, laissez-faire. It me

At age 26 Chip Conley founded Joie de Vivre Hospitality, transforming an inner-city motel into the second largest boutique hotel brand in America. After running his company as CEO for 24 years, he sold it and went on to help the founders of Airbnb transform their start-up into the world’s leading hospitality brand. Chip served as Airbnb’s Head of Global Hospitality and Strategy for four years and today acts as the company’s Strategic Advisor for Hospitality and Leadership. Chip is a recipient of hospitality’s highest honor, the Pioneer Award, and holds a BA and MBA from Stanford University, and an honorary doctorate in psychology from Saybrook University. He serves on the boards of the Burning Man Project and the Esalen Institute, where the Conley Library bears his name. He recently launched the Modern Elder Academy.In this episode Stew and Chip discuss Chip’s latest book, Wisdom at Work: The Making of a Modern Elder and the future of work wherein so many in midlife will be reporting to those younger than the

Dr. Michelle Still Mehta, who holds a Masters in Public Policy from Harvard University’s Kennedy School,  is the author of Silent Sacrifice on the Homefront: Military Spouses Share their Quests to Fit Career with Marriage, Motherhood, and Military Life. Dr. Mehta is a researcher, management consultant, and executive coach, with more than 20 years of experience helping leaders and organizations navigate strategic change and create healthy workplaces. As an active duty military spouse, she is dedicated to improving the lives of other career-oriented military spouses. Her research focuses on the working lives of military spouses as well as the psycho-social impacts of navigating career within the context of military life. Prior to launching her independent practice in 2004, Dr. Mehta was a Senior Manager with Deloitte and an internal consultant with Kaiser Permanente. Stew and Michelle discuss what she found when interviewing military spouses about the profound psychological as well as financial impact of t

Meredith Bodgas was named Editor-in-Chief of Working Mother Magazine and Workingmother.com in December of 2016. Prior to that, she oversaw the relaunch of FirstForWomen.com and Womansworld.com as executive editor at Bauer Xcel Media. She also helped Hearst's WomansDay.com become an online powerhouse as senior editor, and served on the staffs at magazines such as Parenting, Babytalk, and local editions of Brides, published by Conde Nast. She has also worked at The Knot's national and regional magazines, Ladies' Home Journal, and websites like Whattoexpect.com and Businessweek.com.Meredith and Stew talk about the culture change afoot in American companies as they strive to do the right thing by all their employees -- working mothers and fathers, LGBT employees, those with disabilities, both visible and invisible, and our military employees. They discuss the new Culture@Work initiative that provides an anonymous chat room for employees to share what they wish their organization was providing.This feedback is the

Michele Gelfand is a Distinguished University Professor at the University of Maryland, College Park, and author of Rule Makers, Rule Breakers: How Tight and Loose Cultures Wire Our World.  As a cross-cultural psychologist, Michele uses field, experimental, computational, and neuroscience methods to understand the evolution of culture and its consequences.  In 2016 she received the Diener award from the Society for Personality and Social Psychology, which honors a mid-career scholar who has made major contributions to social psychology. She also received the 2017 Outstanding International Psychologist Award from the APA, the 2018 Outstanding Cultural Psychology Award from SPSP, and the Annaliese Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation.Michele brings her considerable academic expertise to help us understand our own tight-loose mindsets, the degree to which we adhere to or are more comfortable flouting social norms.  She observes that those who veer toward a tight mindset are str

Brigid Schulte is director of The Better Life Lab at New America. The Better Life Lab offers ways to restructure our workplaces and social policy using original research and policy analysis. Before she joined New America, Brigid was an award-winning journalist for The Washington Post and part of the team that won the 2008 Pulitzer Prize. Her book, Overwhelmed: Work, Love and Play When No One Has the Time, was a New York Times bestseller.  It provides a practical perspective on time management based on her personal experience and research. She shines a light on overwork, burnout, and our national obsession with being, and appearing to be, busy.  The book digs into the causes of these pernicious problems and what we can do to reduce the toll they take on our lives. In this episode, Brigid recalls some of her own experiences in being overwhelmed and how that informs her book and the knowledge generously offered in it. Stew and Brigid talk about working mothers and how their time management plays out d

Ashley Whillans is a former actress and now an assistant professor at Harvard Business School in the Negotiation, Organizations & Markets Unit.  She studies how people navigate trade-offs between time and money and whether intangible incentives, such as experiential and time-saving rewards, affect employee motivation and well-being. In 2015 and 2018, she was named a Rising Star of Behavioral Science by the International Behavioral Exchange and the Behavioral Science and Policy Association. In 2016, she co-founded the Department of Behavioral Science in the Policy, Innovation, and Engagement Division of the British Columbia Public Service. Her research has been published in numerous academic journals and in a wonderful piece in the Harvard Business Review, Time for Happiness.In this episode, Stew and Ashley discuss “time poverty” -- the subjective feeling of not having enough time to do the things we want or have to do, whether or not we objectively have enough time. They talk about the benefits of pr

Rebecca Henderson is the John and Natty McArthur University Professor at Harvard University, where she has a joint appointment at the Harvard Business School. She’s also a research fellow at the National Bureau of Economic Research. Rebecca is an expert on innovation and organizational change, and her research explores the degree to which the private sector can play a major role in building a more sustainable economy, focusing particularly on the relationships between organizational purpose and innovation and productivity in high performance organizations. She teaches Reimagining Capitalism: Business & the Big Problems at Harvard, a course that has grown from 28 students to over 300, and is under contract for a book tentatively titled “Reimagining Capitalism in a World on Fire.” In this episode, Stew and Rebecca talk about the ways in which firms have always been values-driven, even if the value was solely profit. Rebecca notes that companies that are actively trying to “make a difference” beyond their bo

Cal Newport is an associate professor of computer science at Georgetown University and author of Digital Minimalism: Choosing a Focused Life in a Noisy World. He is the author of six other books, including Deep Work (see our earlier conversation), which argued that our ability to concentrate without distractions is becoming rare. He sold his first book to Random House in the summer after his junior year of college. You won't find him on Twitter, Facebook, or Instagram, but you can often find him at home with his family in Washington, DC, or writing essays for his popular website calnewport.com.Stew and Cal discuss Cal’s research on digital decluttering and how it increases one’s productivity, maximizes the return on one’s investment in technology use, improves one’s overall happiness, and enhances genuine social connections.  Cal talks about the ways in which social media companies (e.g., Facebook and Twitter), in order to increase their value for initial public offerings, strategically engineered their