Inside Steve's Brain Interview With Leander Kahney

This week, we talk with Leander Kahney and his new book Inside Steve's Brain.

Kahney has been covering Apple as a journalist for over a decade. He started writing from MacWorld and now writes for Wired.

In the book, Kahney tries to get beyond the typical media depictions of Jobs as either industry god or managerial tyrant. We talked about design as more than veneer, how the best programmer is 100 times better than the average one, and how Jobs wants to "put a ding in the universe."

mp3, 37:56, 26 MB

Go Green, Live Rich: An Interview with David Bach

In today's podcast, we speak with David Bach, author of the popular Finish Rich series of personal finance books and the man who coined the term Latte Factor. His latest book, entitled Go Green, Live Rich: 50 Simple Ways to Save the Earth and Get Rich Trying, is a quick and interesting read, filled with a sense of purpose and easy steps that one can take to become a smarter consumer and live a greener lifestyle. We spoke last month about why he chose to write this book, and how--contrary to popular misconceptions--going green can actually save you money.

mp3, 27.10, 18.7MB

Leadership Therapy with Anna Rowley

For 14 years, Dr. Anna Rowley consulted as a psychologist for Microsoft. You can imagine the pressure Microsoft's employees are under. Anna helped employees overcome stumbling blocks and build their leadership skills. In her book Leadership Therapy, she introduces readers to the common run-ins associated with leadership and helps people become their own therapist through self-knowledge.

This podcast is a piece of the introduction. Here's how it starts.

"So, tell me about your childhood." This may seem an odd question to ask a manager--any employee, really--within the confines of company walls. But it's a commonplace one at Microsoft. Not that people walk around carrying boxes of Kleenex and confessing their innermost thoughts to their cube mates. Yet it is often one of the first things I ask when I walk into my clients' offices.

I'm not your typical therapist. I don't run a private practice catering to a wide range
of patients struggling with eating disorders or ruined marriages or agoraphobia. In fact,
my patients are some of the most successful, powerful, put-together, take-charge people
in the corporate world. So what are they doing in therapy? And why are we having our
sessions right in the middle of the workday, at the office?

Download the mp3 here.

Minutes: 12:25
File size: 11.4MB

Also, there are a few text excerpts available on Anna's website. Find them over here.

Meatball Sundae Interview with Seth Godin

This week's interview is with Seth Godin, author of Meatball Sundae: Is Your Marketing Out of Sync?.

Seth is the author of several books and in his latest he talks about how commodity products do not match well with the new marketing methods. We talk about how his books fit together (he says it has turned out they do), why he chooses marketing at end point of attack for the woes of businesses (when is the last you heard of a brave new way to do accounting?), and how every industry is the fashion industry (books are fashions). And that only get you about halfway through the interview.

mp3, 26:12, 18MB

Punching In interview with Alex Frankel

Alex Frankel spent the better part of two years applying at and working as a front-line employee for a variety of companies, including UPS, The Gap, Enterprise, The Apple Store, Starbucks, and others. The book, titled Punching In, shares his stories and insight into the heart of the American marketplace - it's companies, people, and brands, and how these things effect both customers and employees alike, sometimes turning them into fanatical endorsers and workers. In the interview, Alex goes into further detail about which companies truly know how to turn their employees into loyal team members and how they do it.

About Alex Frankel:
"Alex Frankel is a writer based in San Francisco. He has written about business culture and adventure for Wired, Fast Company, The New York Times Magazine, and Outside, and he is the author of Wordcraft: The Art of Turning Little Words into Big Business."

mp3, 24:33, 16.7MB

Peak Interview with Chip Conley

This week's interview is with Chip Conley, author of Peak: How Great Companies Get Their Mojo from Maslow.

Chip runs San Francisco based hotelier Joie de Vivre Hospitality and he is a big fan of Abraham Maslow. Chip has adopted Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs to apply to employees, customers, and investors. It is intriguing stuff.

mp3, 34:10, 23.5 MB

How Starbucks Saved My Life Interview with Michael Gates Gill

If you haven't heard about Michael Gates Gill, the author of How Starbucks Saved My Life , he's lived a pretty incredible life that was turned completely upside-down. But, he's risen back to the top -- albeit in a much different way than his "old life." It was a real pleasure to speak with him about the value of serving and respecting others. Two points that might seem obvious, but it's a lesson that so many people, like Michael, learn the hard way. Hearing about his experience, and reading his book, are great ways for the rest of us to be more conscious of how we interact with others.

About Michael Gates Gill:
"As a successful creative director for one of the largest advertising agencies in the world, Michael Gates Gill had it all. But in a few short years, he lost his job, divorced, and was diagnosed with a brain tumor. With no money or health insurance Gill took a job at Starbucks where, with the help of an unlikely mentor, he learned the value of hard work, humility, and what it truly means to help another person. In his book, Michael Gates Gill shares how he had it all, lost it all, and was finally redeemed by a new job and an incredible friendship."

mp3, 20:58, 14.4MB

Leadership Challenge Interview with Jim Kouzes

In this interview, I talk with Jim Kouzes, co-author of The Leadership Challenge.

The book is a classic and was the first to look at leadership from a research-based perspective. I could have talked with Jim for three hours. If you are not familiar with this title, listen to Jim talk about the difference between management and leadership, his thoughts on how leaders made, and why he named the book Leadership Challenge.

mp3, 47:14, 32.4MB

Super Crunchers Interview with Ian Ayres

In this podcast, I talk with Ian Ayres, author of Super Crunchers: How Thinking by Numbers Is the New Way to Be Smart.

The book is a great survey of how analytical tools are allowing us to reach a whole new set of understandings about how the world works. Netflix uses regression to figure out what movie you may like, as eHarmony does the same for mates. Randomization allows JoAnn Fabrics to figure out if the picture of a sewing machine or a starburst with 20% will work better at getting customer to buy. Governments, medicine and filmmakers are all making use of Super Crunching.

Ian and I talk about tools, the wisdom of crowds, when super crunching doesn't work, and how he used all of this to improve his book.

mp3, 28:09, 19.3MB

Unstoppable Interview with Chris Zook

After a summer hiatus, we return with a great interview.

In this podcast, I talk with Chris Zook, author of Unstoppable: How to Identify Hidden Assets, Redefine the Core, and Fuel Future Growth. This book is the final in a business trilogy of sorts. Profit From the Core and Beyond the Core were his prior titles from Harvard Business School Press.

We cover a group of topics that Zook has explored in all of his books: focus, leadership economics, and profit pools. We also talk specifically about the challenges of redefining a business core and whether these same issues apply to small businesses.

mp3, 51:10, 35.1MB

How to Work a Room Interview with Susan RoAne

I had the pleasure of talking with Susan RoAne last week. There is a new edition of her classic How To Work a Room that Collins has just put out in paperback. Susan has updated alot of the antecdotes and adding a chapter on working the "virtual" room.

The interview last about 30 minutes. We cover the fear people have with mingling in social settings, the skills can we learn to be better in these situations, and some specific hints for specific settings like trade shows and reunions.

mp3, 30:04, 20.6MB

Ignited Interview with Vince Thompson

This interview is with Vince Thompson and we talk about his new book Ignited: Managers Light Up Your Company and Career for More Power More Purpose and More Success.

We talk about the state of middle management, the disconnect in business literature for middle managers, and the quandry of "banging pots".

mp3, 29:25, 20.1MB

Citizen Marketers Interview with Jackie Huba

In this interview, I talk with Jackie Huba, co-author with Ben McConnell of Citizen Marketers: When People Are The Message.

Citizen Marketers is the next step for Ben and Jackie after their word-of-mouth marketing bible Creating Customer Evangelists. Here are the questions you'll get answered if you listen to this podcast:

• Why should I care about citizen marketers?
• How can your company engage citizen marketers?
• How can citizen marketing build the skills of your employees?

mp3, 29:01, 20 MB

Strengths Finder 2.0 Interview with Tom Rath

Strengths Finder 2.0 is a short book, so Tom Rath and I did a short interview. We talk about things like:

• What is changes have been made in the Strengths Finder 2.0 tool?
• Do strengths change over time?
• At what age can you start assessing strengths?
• Can you use Strengths Finder as a hiring tool? (Hint on this one: No.)

mp3, 15:42, 10.8MB

Building On Your Strengths

I did a interview with Tom Rath of Gallup on Monday. We will be posting that in a couple of weeks, but I wanted to share something that he said during the interview.

A little background first...if you are familiar with with Now, Discover Your Strengths then you are familiar with Gallup's Strengths Finder survey. Playing to your strengths is a philosophy that Gallup has been advocating for over 40 years and is a key consulting practice for them. NDYS came out in 2001 and web based survey was an immediate hit. You answered a series of questions and they delivered back to you your five strengths. The book as well as the online commentary help you get your bearings. Now, Discover Strengths was really designed for managers and there were many suggestions on how to manage employees with these wide variety of strengths. The book has sold more each year than the prior and last year, it spent 50 weeks on the Wall Street Journal Bestsellers List.

Here was the amazing stat for me: 2.5 million people have taken their Strengths Finder survey [mouth dropped open]. Given the number of books they have sold, they have determined that somewhere between 80% and 90% of those who buy the book go on to take the assessment. How is that for response rate?

Add this one to it: With 34 possible strengths and each user's five strengths displayed in the order of importance, there are 16.4 million possible combinations. Tom said that chances are when you take StrengthFinder that you will get a result that has not been shown before.

The book featured on the podcast is Strengths Finder 2.0. This is the new book from Gallup and is meant for frontline employees. They have updated the assessment with better accuracy from their questions and more personalized insights on the results (i.e. even if two people both display the same strengths, they could get different suggestions for improvement based on how they answered the questions).