Meikles & Dimes

217: The Best Leaders Are Tough & Kind | Cincinnati Business School Dean Marianne Lewis on Leadership Paradoxes

Marianne Lewis is dean of the University of Cincinnati College of Business, and she previously served as dean of Bayes Business School at City, University of London. Marianne researches organizational paradoxes, including the tensions surrounding leadership and innovation. She has been recognized among the world’s most-cited researchers in her field, having won numerous academic awards, and her work also appears in media outlets, such as Harvard Business Review, Fast Company, and Newsweek. Her latest book, Both/And Thinking is published by Harvard Business School Press.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• I love Marianne’s insight that the best leaders are not tough or kind, but rather both.  Toughness and kindness are not opposite ends of a spectrum but rather two sides of the same coin. And any leader who pushes too hard on one, while ignoring the other, will not reach their potential.
• And I thought it was especially interesting to hear about the creative geniuses who also appreciated tension and paradoxes: motion vs rest, particle vs wave, harmony vs discord, light vs. dark, life vs death. The magic is in the tension.
• When it comes to leadership the best leaders are both tough and kind.

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216: NIL Attorney Darren Heitner | Continually Challenge Yourself to Be a Student

Darren Heitner is a nationally recognized attorney who specializes in sports and entertainment law. And most recently Darren has become one of the nation’s experts on NIL (name, image, and likeness). His client list is a who’s who of professional sports, including athletes and coaches such as Terrell Owens, Johnny Manziel, Randy Moss, Tyreek Hill, Manny Ramirez, Draymond Green, and Rick Pitino, to name just a few.

Darren earned both his BA and JD from the University of Florida, where he was also a Valedictorian. 

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Darren’s goal to remember why he’s doing it: to help his clients. And one way he does that is by continually challenging himself to be a student. When NFTs exploded onto the scene, Darren learned all he could and became an NFT expert. As NIL transactions ramped up, so did Darren, becoming one of the go-to attorneys for everything related to NIL. Rather than fear new technologies, Darren gets excited by them and then learns all he can about them.

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215: “The More Elite the Player, The More Coaching They Get” | Martin Dubin on Leadership and Self-Awareness

Martin Dubin is a clinical psychologist, serial entrepreneur, business coach, and adviser to C-suite executives and Silicon Valley entrepreneurs. Marty is also the author of the book Blindspotting: How To See What’s Holding You Back as a Leader.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• It’s interesting to hear Marty describe how leaders’ weaknesses are often just the flip side of their strengths. The leader who works hard, and sends emails at 2 am, might be unintentionally modeling a standard that isn’t possible for others to achieve. I also loved Marty’s advice for leaders to prioritize the things that only they can do. And lastly, I was especially intrigued by Marty’s point that the most elite performers get the most coaching.

 

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214: National Surfing Champion Saxon Baltzer | Sacrifice, Persistence, & Passion

Saxon Baltzer, from Huntington Beach California, is a surfer, musician, and skateboarder. And Saxon recently won the National Scholastic Surfing Association Championship. In this episode we discuss the following:

• I’m truly inspired by Saxon’s drive and commitment. Though he started to surf at age two, it was his commitment in high school that set him up for his national championship. Waking up early each weekday to first attend seminary, and then get to the beach, Saxon refined his skill while also learning to surf all kinds of waves. And he was also flexible, willing to focus on long boarding to get on his high school team.
• And what a wild story about his national competition: forgetting his board, borrowing his coach’s, nailing a buzzer beater on Saturday, saying a prayer to find his board, finding it with Dimitri, and then landing another clutch buzzer beater on Sunday for the national championship.
• And most remarkably, Saxon is now giving up surfing for two years and moving across the country to share a gospel message in hopes of helping others.
• As Saxon so perfectly demonstrates, sacrifice, persistence, and passion are key to success.

 

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213: Becoming a Better Listener Every Day of Our Life | Professor Avi Kluger

Avi Kluger is a professor of Organizational Behavior at Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Avi was born in Tel Aviv to Holocaust survivors and is married with three children. And he is also a grandfather.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• I was touched by Avi’s vulnerability in sharing how listening has saved his life—twice. After his daughter died by suicide, it was the listening community that Avi had cultivated that helped him carry on, even as his pain and sorrow endured. One friend, in particular, asked Avi to recount the last day he spent with his daughter—and then told him she’d listen to that story 100 more times if he needed to.
• Listening saved Avi again during an exercise where he realized he’d spent five years on a project simply to prove a point, rather than because he valued it. That moment launched Avi’s mission to become a better listener every day of his life.
• I was especially intrigued by how Avi doesn’t dwell on people’s listening mistakes. Instead, he helps them discover how to improve. And he extends the same compassion to himself when he falls short.  He simply notices and praises his awareness. 
• I was impressed by how present Avi was with me, encouraging me to take my time and then referenced earlier parts of our conversation, demonstrating that he truly heard me. 
• Because of this conversation, I have adopted Avi’s goal: to become a better listener every day. And because of this interview, Avi will soon be coming to Kansas to teach a listening seminar, and I cannot wait to learn more from him.
• When someone truly listens, it creates a magical space-- a meeting of the minds where ideas emerge that could not have been reached alone.

 

 

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212: Moving to China with Five Children | Professor David Hunsaker

Dave Hunsaker is a business professor at Indiana University in the Kelley School of Business where he researches negotiation, teams, and leadership. Dave earned his PhD from the University of Utah and both an MPA and BA from Brigham Young University.

In this episode we discuss the following:

How impressed I am with Dave and Melissa and their ability to face the uncertainty and challenges of moving to China with five kids, something that the system in China is not designed for. From three-hour entrance exams, two-hour daily commutes, and 16-hour days for their children, I can only imagine how difficult this was. And then of course they faced the risk of being separated from their children if any of them ever tested positive for COVID.

And I was especially intrigued by things I learned about China. Getting into a great first grade can be more difficult than getting into college. To reduce the pressure on kindergartners, teaching math was prohibited at schools. But then parents hired tutors to teach math to the kindergartners outside of school, often creating more stress. Many Chinese students are essentially forced to drop out of high school by 9^th grade. And Chinese culture doesn’t always reward problem solving so much as it rewards following rules.

Finally I love the lesson Dave shared about what he learned. It’s important to hold off on judgements, because our assumptions about people are often wrong. However, people are generally pretty reasonable once we understand why they’re doing what they’re doing.

 

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211: How to Use Both/And Thinking | Professor Wendy Smith

Wendy Smith is an award-winning business professor at the University of Delaware, where she also serves as Co-director of the Women’s Leadership Initiative.

Wendy’s research focuses on strategic paradoxes – how leaders and senior teams effectively respond to contradictory agendas. Her research has been published in top-tier academic journals and her book, Both/And Thinking, was published by Harvard Business School Press in 2022.

Wendy earned her Ph.D. in organizational behavior at Harvard Business School.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• When we view our challenges through an either/or lens, we limit our options, often leading to suboptimal decisions. Both/and thinking, on the other hand, enhances creativity leading to better outcomes.
• Take fairness, for example. Some argue it means treating everyone the same. Others believe it requires treating people differently to ensure comparable outcomes. Both views have merit and represent a classic paradox. And this is where Wendy’s process if helpful. First, notice the paradox, notice the either/or. And then change the frame to see if we can accomplish both. Is there a win/win that allows us to do both right now? I love Wendy’s mule analogy here—the mule, a hybrid of horse and donkey, represents the power of combining two different paths. And if we can’t do both at once, maybe we can do both over time. Wendy’s tightrope metaphor was excellent. A tightrope walker stays balanced by making continuous, slight adjustments as they move forward.
• If we stick to either/or thinking we risk getting trapped, incapable of adapting when context changes.

 

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210: How to Get Employees to Speak Up | Professor Ethan Burris

Ethan Burris is a senior associate dean in the business school at the University of Texas at Austin, where he is also a professor of management.

 

Ethan has helped improve operations and employee engagement for several top companies, including Fortune 500 companies in technology, financial services, casual dining, grocery, and retail sectors, along with hospitals, defense contractors, commercial real estate companies, and governmental agencies. He has also acted as a visiting scholar for Microsoft and Google.

 

Ethan earned a PhD and MS from Cornell University where he worked as a lecturer before joining Texas.

 

In this episode we discuss the following:

• In order for leaders to consistently make the best decisions, they need access to the best information. But all too often, employees who have that information don’t speak up.
• To get employees to speak up, maybe the most important thing managers can do is proactively reach out and solicit voice. No good manager has ever said they have a closed-door policy. But if we don’t have systems in place that encourage employee voice, our door will feel much more closed to employees than we perceive. 
• Simple techniques can help employees speak up. For example, managers can use the two-question, two-word response check in at the beginning of meetings: How are you feeling? What’s going on? This gives people a chance to speak, while also creating an expectation that everyone has something to say.
• Eye contact can also be important. When we give deference to people it signals we trust them and helps them feel like speaking up.
• It’s also important for leaders to be consistent, otherwise it feels risky to speak up.
• Proactively seeking voice comes at a cost. Many of the Type A+ people Ethan consults with feel like some of these things are too touchy feel. Some of the activities also take time that could be spent on other things.
• By proactively seeking out voice, we signal that we value it and increase the odds that we get access to the best information from our employees.

 

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209: Listening to Our Inner Voice | Professor Peter Kim

Peter Kim is a business professor at the University of Southern California where he studies the dynamics of social misperception. His research has been published in numerous scholarly journals, received ten national/international awards, and been featured by the New York Times, Washington Post, and National Public Radio. And while not the focus of this interview, Peter is the author of the book, How Trust Works: The Science of How Relationships Are Built, Broken, and Repaired.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• Rather than follow the traditional path in academia and focus on one specific, well-established research area, Peter pursued topics that were interesting to him. And then over time, Peter was able to see that there was a broad theme that connected his research, even if it wasn’t an off-the-shelf research program.
• Peter realized that he had an inner voice that was guiding him. It wasn’t always clear where he was headed. Listening to his inner voice created challenges for him. But the importance of listening to his inner voice is something that has stuck with him ever since. And it’s something he still revisits to this day, because his inner voice keeps guiding him.
• We can pursue any combination of the things we want that fit with what our inner voice is telling us.

 

208: Social Sustainability with Professor Ryan Fehr | Cultivating Solitude that Energizes Us

Ryan Fehr is a business professor at the University of Washington, where he teaches courses on leadership and personal change. His research focuses on helping people build more joyful and energizing relationships, with a particular interest in gratitude, compassion, and forgiveness. His work has been featured in news outlets such as the New York Times and Wall Street Journal.

His first book, focused on helping people build the skills they need for joyful, energizing relationships, is scheduled for publication in the Fall.

In this episode we discuss the following:

• As Ryan said, it’s okay to feel burned out by other people sometimes: 72% of parents say they're constantly stressed, 75% said they're too busy to enjoy their lives, and when workers quit, 57% say it's because their relationships are too much.
• Each of us has a different set point for how much alone time we need, so we should be thoughtful about how to cultivate solitude that energizes us.
• For Ryan, cultivating solitude that energizes him means going to movies, restaurants, or even new cities alone. At his daughter’s elementary school, that meant providing a room for students to take a break from the dance and watch a movie.
• Going to networking events can be overwhelming for some people. So a strategy Ryan recommends is to just try to have one meaningful conversation.