Midwesternish: A Podcast Midwesternish

This episode’s guest is Sarabeth Berk, PhD. Sarabeth has pioneered a new concept called career hybridity, and recently published the book More Than My Title: The power of hybrid professionals in a workforce of experts and generalists. Through research and a deep understanding of the modern economy, Sarabeth deconstructs and rebuilds our notions of what careers can be, while providing a path forward for those whose value transcends traditional roles.

Candidly, this is a deeply personal concept for me, as I’ve never really felt like I truly “fit in” with any organization or job. I’m always drawn to do more than my role requires, I find myself getting bored easily, and I am always seeking new challenges. I often have difficulty defining myself through traditional titles and roles. All this time, I’ve been a hybrid professional, and Sarabeth’s work has taught me that not only is that a great thing, but that I need to own that identity in order to find true fulfillment in my career.

Ryan McCarty is the co-founder of Culture of Good. The philosophy of Culture of Good is this: When your employees and your customers rally to a common cause, good things, even great things, result. Today’s workers seek out workplaces that embrace a bigger cause. That means that if you want to attract, or even keep, your best employees, you might need to rethink the connections between doing work and doing good and how they can be directly related.

Listen in as we discuss remote shifts in a pandemic and how it impacts culture, why fear among executives holds companies back, and what those of us in non-executive roles can do to create impact.

Welcome to Season 2 of Midwesternish, a podcast where we discuss philosophies of work, culture, and everything in-between. The first guest of season two is Brock Leach. Full of wisdom and life experience, Brock is a personal mentor to me. Brock worked at PepsiCo for nearly 30 years where he served at various times as CEO of Tropicana, CEO of Frito Lay, and Chief Innovation Officer of Pepsi. You probably snack on some of the products he helped lead to market: Fritos Scoops, Restaurant Style tortilla chips, and more. Join us as we discuss how to create innovation in large organization that resist change, why executive fear often stifles innovation and how to overcome it, why mistakes are always learning opportunities, and how we can begin to create meaningful diversity in our organizations.

In this episode we explore the topic of promotions during a pandemic. With millions of Americans currently out of work, it can seem strange to discuss promotions. However, at several high-growth companies, promotions are still occurring. Such is the case for Spring Venture Group, which just announced a 400 person hiring surge due to increasing demand for its insurance products.

Join us as we explore this topic with three newly promoted managers at Spring Venture Group. Peyton McNeil, Jordan Criddle, and Blaine Fisher have just been promoted from the role of sales agent to sales manager and will begin managing new sales teams in June.

In addition to discussing the new hurdles of becoming a manager in a fully remote environment, we also discuss their own leadership philosophies, using this time before they formally begin their roles as an opportunity to articulate their own management beliefs.

Our guest for Episode 3 of the Remote Leadership Series is Courtney Carpenter. Courtney is a sales manager at Spring Venture Group in Kansas City, where for months she has been leading a distributed workforce sales team pilot, the first of its kind for the company prior to the coronavirus pandemic.

Join us as we talk about the future of remote work, what remote leaders need to be thinking about that we aren’t, and how to foster a winning culture from afar.

Cody Ball is a Senior Sales Director with Spring Venture Group in Kansas City. Join us as we discuss what it looked like behind the scenes to transition a company remotely overnight, the challenges leaders face in remote environments, what he’s learned about himself as a leader, and what he hopes to bring with him into his work moving forward.