Are you ready to transform your career journey with science-based strategies? What if it wasn’t about power but about status ?

A fun & candid conversation with Alison about how as women we can move out of frustration and into personal agency and results in today’s workplace. Navigating the complexities of the workplace can often feel like an intricate dance, especially for women striving to make their mark and navigating status and the use of status can be useful here. Alison & I discuss navigating these challenges by understanding the dynamics of status, power, negotiation, and influence, and understanding what it means for us as individuals.

We particularly explore the importance of status—rooted in both titles and personal qualities—for success and well-being, as well as fostering genuine networking and the concept of “assertive warmth” to gain respect through a blend of care and competence - being a likeable badass ! But how ?

Authenticity and strategy can coexist harmoniously : Imagine having a playbook that teaches you how to be both kind and assertive right from the beginning of your career - without compromising who you are, what you think or your intrinsic value base.

Likeable Badass is full of actionable strategies for building and communicating your authentic self more strategically and more effectively. These strategies work across different contexts and scenarios and give you the flexibility to adapt to every situation - you may find you are already doing some of them without realising ! Asking for help, finding mentors, intentionally crafting your approach are all strategies touched upon in Alison’s book.

Alison shares her stories, research and insights into how to craft being assertive and likeable and how to recognise your contributions without waiting for formal acknowledgment. An absolute must read for all women leaders !

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- Applying the science of human beings to work applications within the framework of organisational psychology and behaviour, in particular to help women, given that the workplace for women is not the same as it is for men.

- Success depends on influencing people and fundamental to this is the importance of status, a label that affects everyone but without us necessarily understanding what it is and knowing how to manage it strategically.

- Status is the respect and regard others have for you and can derive from many channels other than category, title, position or power - we must understand the science of respect and then act with authentic intention.

- Status is a non-negotiable basic human need as life is better when you feel respected; status decisions are not random and we must convince others that we are caring and capable and demonstrate this with authenticity.

- Assertive warmth is crucial: Are you good at what you do? Organised? In control of your environment? Confident? But are you also other-oriented and warm? Both are needed to convince people and earn respect, and women often feel that they can’t be both.

- Dual promotion is about celebrating your successes while shining a light on others at the same time – the concept of ‘other promoters’ is backed up by science and is particularly relevant for women in terms of caring and connecting.

- Science gives us a label for what women are already doing and provides women with a space to dial it up and help others; one effective way is via fractal...

"More than 95% of the strategies that comes across my desk are highly dependent on cross functional work. The ability to execute cross functional things will be a question of competitive advantage"

Johan and I delve into the world of strategy and execution and how to obtain aligned results. How do we ensure alignement when executing strategy in the digital business landscape ? What effect is AI having on these strategies and operations ?

We discuss the need for simplified methodologies inspired by Agile practices and the fact that despite technological advancements, current strategic processes remain manual, necessitating better use of data, A/B testing, and AI for automated reporting and enhanced strategy execution. Executing strategy effectively is about refocusing on what matters – strategy must be simplified for busy managers to aid implementation, given that the CEO/strategic process is far less digitised than other parts of organisations.

Digital tools enable frequent monitoring and adjustments, moving away from infrequent reviews, while transparency in communication aids progress tracking and alignment. Storytelling is crucial for connecting strategy formation with execution during digital transformation and successful execution requires stepping out of the overwhelm, narrowing initiatives and effective resource allocation.

‘Future’ trends in strategy execution are happening now thanks to AI. We discuss how AI helps leaders focus on strategic activities, identify key initiatives and analyse unstructured data. AI also offers help for reactive leaders by providing meta data to suggest activities and support priorities and by creating space for senior leaders to make quality decisions, keep across operations and empower their teams.

We explore the critical role of proactive leadership in connecting operational practices with strategic discussions. By translating concepts like digitalisation and sustainability into actionable projects, organisations can achieve clarity and accountability in their initiatives. Think about how your organisation is adapting to these challenges and where the pitfalls are for you.

The main insights you'll get from this episode :

- Executing strategy effectively is about refocusing on what matters – strategy must be simplified for busy managers to aid implementation, given that the CEO/strategic process is far less digitised than other parts of organisations.

- Moving from strategy to execution requires a good methodology and the model is shifting due to behavioural responses and the inability of the C-suite to give strategy meaning and make it actionable.

- The fast-moving external environment requires agility, but agile has become too binary for the complexity of the topic, which involves two major phases: strategy formation and strategy execution.

- Strategy formation tends to be overambitious, and management consider engagement with strategy execution too low, but from an external point of view, it starts at the top with a failure to prioritise and take a cross-functional view.

- A good strategy formation process is both top-down and bottom-up – good ideas combined with management responsibility – but digital acceleration can be a distraction and dilute strategy.

- The real value of digitalisation is the ability to aggregate deviations to a higher level where they can be resolved quickly and enable faster follow-up – simply ‘beautifying’ the process does not help.

- AI offers help for reactive leaders by providing meta data to suggest activities and support priorities and by creating space for senior leaders to make quality decisions, keep across...

“Empathy flows both ways and it’s not just the leader’s job or the organization’s job to show empathy.”

In today’s rapidly evolving business landscape, one quality stands out as both a humane virtue and a strategic advantage: empathy. Maria and I delve into the dilemmas surrounding empathy and empathy in leadership, which are powerful tools for fostering engagement, innovation, and customer loyalty while simultaneously boosting retention and revenue.

We discuss the multifaceted nature of empathy by distinguishing between cognitive empathy—understanding another’s thoughts—and emotional empathy—connecting with their feelings. We also discuss common misconceptions about empathy, which can lead to burnout and ineffective leadership. We go back to the necessity for human connection to create meaningful relationships and workplaces. Empathy is about connection - understanding other people’s thinking better can result in compromise and fruitful discussions – and can leverage healthy challenge. both these things are necessary for innovation, productivity and ultimately competitive advantage.

Both employees and leaders share the responsibility of navigating workplace challenges with empathy, especially in hybrid settings. Personal agency, self-awareness, and decisiveness are vital, and as automation increases, the relationship between empathy and AI becomes more pertinent. Leaders must continue to develop human skills like emotional intelligence to remain relevant.

Maria shares her insights, models and experience of leading with heart and head—because empathy isn’t just about understanding; it’s about building a brighter, more connected future !

The main insights you'll get from this episode are :

- What is empathy? At work, an accessible definition is the ability to see, understand, and, where appropriate, feel another person’s perspective and use that information to act with compassion.

- Compassion is empathy in action: it is not always necessary to feel, we can use cognitive empathy to imagine what others are feeling. This can then lead to emotional empathy, i.e. experiencing an increased heart rate when feeling someone else’ anger.

- Empathy at work should be seen as a means to gather information – to understand the context and move forward with the right step, e.g. making an informed decision by listening.

- The common misconceptions for leaders are that ‘doing empathy wrong’ means that it goes astray and there are no benefits – it is not about being nice or caving in to unreasonable demands but about balancing decision-making and supporting other people.

- Empathy is about connection not conversion - understanding other people’s thinking better can result in compromise and fruitful discussions – and can leverage healthy challenge.

- There are five pillars of effective and empathetic leadership: self-awareness, self-care, clarity, decisiveness, and joy. Leaders must recognise their blind spots, emotional triggers and patterns and understand the difference between self-care and self-maintenance to resource themselves and react well.

- Empathy centres on balance, but the work/life balance is a myth – it is more of a work/life integration, constantly adjusting on different levels: ‘either or’ leadership in terms of efficiency vs. empathy is also a myth as it is not a binary phenomenon.

- Clarity paves the way to empathy in that leaving a team in limbo, unsure what they are doing and where they are going, is unempathetic; things must be clearly defined; candour must be kind; and feedback constructive.

- Covid proved...