LeaderLab TILTCO

In this episode, Mike James Ross, Chief Human Resource Officer of Simons and recent author of “Intention: the surprising psychology of high performers” discusses what intention is, why it is important, and how individuals and organizations can unlock it to achieve high performance.
“High performance is about doing subjectively different things.” High performance is not about external manifestations of success like money or fancy titles. It’s about doing things that are hard. High performance looks different for each of us. It’s about pushing yourself beyond preconceived notions of what’s possible.  “Intention is about accepting responsibility for my achievements.” Many of us are not making active choices in how we live our lives contributing to feelings of languishing, disengagement, and dissatisfaction. Living an intentional life is living a life of choice. “Start by asking yourself: ‘if you could choose, what would you really choose?’” Challenge yourself to get clear on what you really want from life. If you could choose anything for yourself, what would it be? Then, use this as an anchor to structure how you live your life. “There are 5 ingredients to living with intention”. Willpower, attention, curiosity, integrity, and habits make up intention. “The limit of willpower is actually usually based on your own perception.” Our conceptions of our own willpower limit have an incredible effect on our ability to do things. We can do more, achieve more than we believe. “Being curious is being open to what’s happening in the world and being open to maybe not being right.” Curiosity is essential. It’s good to be clear on what you think the right answer is, but you need to stay open to new information and new ideas so that you can change the answer as needed. “Integrity is being aligned with your values.” An intentional life starts with clarifying what you value. With this clarity you can make choices that are aligned to who you are. Values matter at individual and organizational level. “Attention is about where you choose to focus.” We all have many distractions in our lives, attention is about being intentional about where you choose to focus your time and energy.  “Practicing good habits allows us to achieve the things that are important to us.” If you know how you want to live your life, you can put practices in place to make it easier to just habitually do the things required to achieve your goals. Meet Mike James Ross
Mike is currently the Chief Human Resource Officer of Simons, a Canadian retailer where he helps to motivate and engage more than 5,000 employees. Prior to Simons, Mike founded a leadership development firm that counselled companies like Google and Cirque du Soleil. Mike has had a diverse career – he’s been a finance lawyer, private equity investor, and peace negotiator. He recently co-authored the book “Intention: the surprising psychology of high performers”.
Connect with Mike Ross on LinkedIn here. Discover his book – Intention: the surprising psychology of high performance here.  Check out his co-authors at Decision Lab here.
About TILTCO
Founded by Tineke Keesmaat, TILTCO is a boutique consulting company that helps leaders define and execute their strategies to achieve extraordinary business and personal results. As the host of LeaderLab, Tineke brings her more than 20 years of leadership consulting experience rooted at McKinsey & Company and Accenture to explore how today’s leaders can achieve exceptional results. Connect with Tineke on LinkedIn here.

Jodi Baker Calamai, Deloitte Canada’s National Managing Partner of Human Capital shares perspectives on how the future of work is now, the unparalleled opportunities it creates to make work better for humans and humans better at work, and how leaders can embrace this once in a lifetime opportunity to innovate.
It’s a unique time for humans around the world to figure out what the next phase of ‘work’ looks like. We are experiencing seismic and simultaneous shifts – AI, multi-generational workforces, geopolitical dynamics, expectations around work – that are requiring us to re-think our approach to work. The future of work is here – it’s no longer 30 years out.  COVID's impact on work was much bigger than shifting just where we work. COVID changed how we work, where we worked, and how we collaborated. It also changed perspectives on productivity and how we measure work outcomes and performance. Making work better for humans and humans better at work matters. Businesses that prioritize people and put the right investments in place to drive people outcomes have 1.75 times better business performance. It’s about human and business performance. Generative AI provides a unique opportunity for organizations to consider what they want humans to be doing. The impact of Generative AI is real, and it is immediate. Curious organizations are being proactive in considering how they want to harness the power of Generative AI to drive better results for the business and for their teams. Leaders need to be curious, collaborative, and innovative. Change is here. Great leaders are learning how to get smart about these shifts and to consider the impact on their teams. They are learning how to build trust to give employees confidence in the evolution. Dynamic leaders are proactively experimenting with new ways of getting things done. Ambitious HR teams should ask their business partners: What’s OUR vision for the future? What outcomes are we driving? By aligning the business around the future and the implications for people, HR teams can become stronger strategic partners and business enablers. Jump in. Don’t get bogged down. Be part of the solution. Individuals should embrace the uncertainty and be part of the solution. Doing so will allow them to learn, reskill and create spaces to perform their absolute best. Interested in learning more about the future of work? Generative AI and the Future of Work (Deloitte US) Generative AI will reshape - not replace - the workforce | LinkedIn Workforce strategies in a recession Deloitte Human Capital Trends (Deloitte) Meet Jodi Baker Calamai
Jodi is Deloitte’s Canada’s National Managing Partner of Human Resources. She and her teams are focused on end-to-end people, culture, and HR uplift to make work better for humans and humans better at work. She is an accomplished thought leader having published numerous books and articles.
Connect with Jodi Calamai on LinkedIn here. 
About TILTCO
Founded by Tineke Keesmaat, TILTCO is a boutique consulting company that helps leaders define and execute their strategies in order to achieve extraordinary business and personal results. As the host of LeaderLab, Tineke brings her more than 20 years of leadership consulting experience rooted at McKinsey & Company and Accenture to explore how to support today’s leaders achieve exceptional results. 
Connect with Tineke on LinkedIn here.
 

In this episode, Maggie Clinton the Founder of Trinity Leadership Coaching, shares how expectations of people leaders have changed and provides practical ideas on how organizations can better prepare and support their people leaders.
Leadership is a relationship between those who aspire to lead and those who chose to follow [1] . Leadership is not about the title or position it is about the relationship between two individuals. Leaders are choosing to lead. People are choosing who they want to follow. And both are aspiring to grow.  Our environment is changing at an unprecedented rate. Digitization, AI, remote/hybrid work, generational shifts, etc. are influencing a shift in what it means to lead. People want more from their people leaders. They want inclusive and holistic leadership so they can bring their whole self to work. This requires leaders to communicate in ways that are inspiring, to be able to make sense of the changing context, to be able to articulate clear outcomes, and hold employees accountable to clear expectations. For new people leaders, a big mindset shift is from being the “doer” to being the “enabler”. The first role as a new people leader is a big transition. It requires a shift in mindset from the person who does the task to the person who creates the environment for others to get the tasks done. The ability to understand your impact on the team and those people around you is important. People leadership requires deep self-awareness and humility. Self-awareness can be built through psychometric testing, gathering feedback, self-reflection, and coaching. Great organizations invest in selection, preparation, and support to create strong people leaders. Organizations need to think carefully about the leadership traits they want in their people leaders – and then to select people with these traits into roles. They also need to prepare people leaders earlier in their careers – ensuring they have the skills and mindsets to be successful. Finally, they need to ensure that people leaders can access ongoing support to learn, develop, and grow. Peer networks are a highly effective tool for people leaders. Connecting people leaders together as peers is a low-cost, effective tool to help people leaders grow their confidence and skills.  Interesting reads on people leadership
Managers are burned out. Here’s how to help them recharge (HBR)
Investing in middle managers pays off – literally (McKinsey)
What does it meant to be a manager today
Google spent a year researching great managers. The most successful ones shared these traits.
Meet Maggie Clinton
Maggie is passionate about building better people leaders by designing and developing high-impact leadership programs and through effective 1:1 coaching. Maggie has an MA in leadership from Royal Roads University focused on post-leadership programs sustainment where her work convinced her of the power of peer coaching. Maggie is also certified in MBTI, Hogan Assessments, EQi-2.0 and EQ 360. Connect with Maggie Clinton on LinkedIn here and Trinity Leadership Coaching here.
Thought pieces by Maggie:
What I learned in my first year since launching Trinity Leadership
4 ways to drive impact in your leadership programs – Part I
4 ways to drive impact in your leaders programs – Part II Prioritize community over content

About TILTCO
Founded by Tineke Keesmaat, TILTCO is a boutique consulting firm that helps leaders define and execute their strategies to achieve extraordinary business and personal results. As LeaderLab host, Tineke brings her more than 20 years of leadership consulting experience rooted at McKinsey & Company and Accenture as she explores how to help today’s leaders achieve exceptional results.
[1] Kouzes, J. M., & Posner, B. Z. (2012). The Leadership Challenge. San Francisco: A Wiley Brand.

In this episode, Ryan Burwell, Director of Training & Facilitation at TwentyOne Toys shares how leaders can use the joy, curiosity, and experimentation of play to create stronger teams and improve business results.  
Play is a mindset of curiosity, experimentation, learning from failure and embracing diversity – it’s not about ping pong tables and team karaoke events. While social moments are important, play runs deeper. It is about how leaders invite teams to ideate, to try new things, and to think beyond what’s been done before.
Leaders have a critical role in unlocking play for their teams. Great leaders allow teams to truly ideate in early stages of projects, are choiceful in their language (e.g., "let’s play with that more”), and avoid ‘shutting down’ ideation too quickly after failure.
Play can drive better performance. Better business results are driven by the new, creative, and stronger ideas that are unlocked through play-inspired experimentation and open-minded thinking. Teams may experience stronger retention by creating an environment where individuals are having fun, thinking big, and feeling like they can introduce new ideas.
Strong emotional intelligence is critical for leadership success. Empathy helps leaders tap into diversity and unlock innovation. Embracing failure helps leaders develop resiliency, strength, and confidence. Connect with Ryan Burwell on LinkedIn here. Check out TwentyOne Toys here.
Meet Ryan Burwell
Ryan is passionate about play. He believes that organizations who approach work and teams with curiosity, experimentation, open-minds, fun and joy will ultimately achieve better results. Both for the business and for the human beings inside. As the Director of Training and Facilitation at TwentyOne Toys, Ryan has worked with executives, post-secondary organizations and teams all over the world increase their emotional intelligence through play. Ryan believes that playing is learning – and that we’ll never be too old or too accomplished to benefit from both. 
About TILTCO
Founded by Tineke Keesmaat, TILTCO is a boutique consulting company that helps leaders define and execute their strategies in order to achieve extraordinary business and personal results. As our LeaderLab host, Tineke brings her more than 20 years of leadership consulting experience rooted at McKinsey & Company, Accenture, and TILTCO to support today’s leaders achieve exceptional results.

In an era where the pace of change is rapid and relentless, the need for effective team communications is critical. People leaders will be the primary point of contact, and will need to be prepared and equipped to effectively engage and guide their teams forward.  
In this episode, we dive into the art of team communications with Lisa Durante, Chief Content Strategist at Jack Communications. She shares how people leaders can build personal connections with their teams to engage in two-way, productive conversations. 
In our conversation, Lisa shares the following insights:  
●      People leaders are the conduit of company messages, contextualizing information for their teams.
“The vision, the plan, the context of what is changing really does need to come from the top of the house, but the people leaders need to translating that for the employees. Oftentimes that’s missed. So, it’s providing people leaders with the information and time to consumer and digest it, as well as providing them the skills to be able to communicate it in a way that will resonate with their team.
●      The art of conversation is the foundation for effective communications for people leaders
“We’re actually losing the art of the conversation. We text, email. We spend time on Zoom or Teams – it’s a lot of one-way of conversing. And then we’re not in the office, so we’re not having those hallway interactions. We’re losing that art of the conversation – that ability to look someone in the eye, translate their body language or read the energy in a room – all of that is really important and necessary for communicating effectively.”
●      Connection fosters more open and receptive communication environments
“It’s the humanness of each of us, that we are more receptive and more willing to listen… Leaders that spend time connecting before sharing messages, especially if there’s going to be any hard message coming down, so being prepared and having that connection is the strong foundation that you can depend on no matter which way the business or environment requires you to go.”
●      Leaders should use any and all available communications methods to connect with their people
“I really think more leaders need to be active externally. This isn’t to share company information externally. It’s another way where your team is seeing you, where they can engage with you, where they can see what you’re thinking about or talking about. It will give another dimension of them to connect with you.”
Connect with Lisa on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ldurante/. Learn how Lisa can help you communicate internally and externally https://jackcommunications.ca/. 
Meet Lisa Durante
Lisa Durante is a storyteller obsessed with telling authentically human stories that help businesses and leaders build authentic connections with their people. Her 20+ year career started in journalism and has evolved with the ever-changing field of marketing and communications, spanning executive and internal communications, content marketing, thought leadership and social media marketing. She has successfully supported organizations from start-ups to F500 global companies, including KPMG, CPP Investments, Siemens and MetLife, better connect with their audiences and more successfully achieve their business objectives. Visit https://jackcommunications.ca/ for more information.
About TILTCO
TILTCO is a boutique consulting company that helps leaders define and execute their strategies in order to achieve extraordinary business and personal results. Founded by Tineke Keesmaat, she brings her more than 20 years of leadership consulting experience rooted at McKinsey & Company and Accenture to supports today’s leaders achieve exceptional results.

The rapid and frequent changing dynamics affecting teams demands innovation. It also demands people leaders more actively facilitate innovation on their teams. 
In this episode, we talk with Robyn Bolton, Chief Navigator of innovation consultancy, MileZero, about how people leaders can create the synergies on their teams to innovate focused ideas that will move a business forward, while setting in place the structures to move ideas forward.
In our conversation, Robyn shares the following insights: 
●      Leadership matters more today in part due to innovation and evolving dynamics
“Leadership has always mattered, it matters more now than ever because change is happening so fast, and things are so uncertain and work requires so much interaction. And so, leadership is no longer managing and making things happen. It’s very much about truly leading people and setting a vision and encouraging people to follow you.”
●      Unlocking productive innovation starts with defining the problem clearly for your team
“If there is a problem that needs to be solved, frame it and give people somewhere to focus their attention. A lot of leaders worry: am I shutting down creativity. No, you’re not. Creativity thrives within constraints.”
●      Listening and critical thinking will fuel innovation on your team
“When you see a leader actually listening to someone, it changes the whole mood on the team, the whole atmosphere. The other thing is leading with questions, genuine questions, and then listen to the answer so you can engage in a conversation about ideas.”
●      Leverage the human-ness of your teams to innovate ideas
“Humans are messy and we can’t eliminate the mess. So how do we work with it? How can we take the things that make us human, our emotions, our perceptions, our intuition, and instead of being scared and trying to minimize them, how can we actually turn them into tools and data that help us work better?”
Connect with Robyn on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/robynmbolton/. Learn how Robyn can help you and your team innovate at https://www.milezero.io/.
Meet Robyn M. Bolton
Robyn M. Bolton is the Founder and Chief Navigator of MileZero, a consultancy that works with leaders of medium to large enterprises to use innovation to consistently and confidently grow their revenue. Her clients include Nike, Medtronic, Warner Bros Discovery, Curriculum Associates, and Motif Food Works. Previously, she was a Partner at Innosight, the consulting firm founded by Clayton Christensen, and also worked at the Boston Consulting Group and as a Brand Manager at P&G where she helped launch Swiffer and Swiffer WetJet. Visit https://www.milezero.io/ for more information.
About TILTCO
TILTCO is a boutique consulting company that helps leaders define and execute their strategies in order to achieve extraordinary business and personal results. Founded by Tineke Keesmaat, she brings her more than 20 years of leadership consulting experience rooted at McKinsey & Company and Accenture to supports today’s leaders achieve exceptional results.