I Have Some Questions...

Erik Berglund
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Most people know the headline of a leader’s story. Few know the path it took to get there. This podcast goes beyond titles, book launches and business wins, to explore the lived journey behind the thought leader. Through deep, unhurried conversations, we uncover the moments that shaped them—the doubts, pivots, convictions, and quiet breakthroughs that built their body of work. Each episode features authors, coaches, executives, and bold thinkers who have forged their own path. Instead of rehearsed talking points, they’re invited into a space where thoughtful questions unlock something more human. The result is a layered conversation that reveals not just what they preach, but how they became the kind of person who can teach it.Because we believe the best stories aren’t always told—they’re revealed. And when brilliant people are given the right questions and the room to answer them fully, what emerges is insight you can feel, frameworks you can apply, and a deeper understanding of what it truly takes to lead, create, and contribute at a meaningful level. 

  1. hace 9 h

    252: Jason Lauritsen: "Connection as the #1 Performance Booster in the Workspace"

    Erik and Jason Lauritsen dig into what “connection” really means at work, what drives it, and how it translates into motivation, performance, and retention. Jason shares findings from the Human Connection Study, including why “resonance” with purpose can matter more than human-to-human rapport. 👤 About the Guest Jason Lauritsen is CEO of Connected Performance Group and an advisor to leaders who refuse to choose between results and people. He developed Connected Performance Systems and helped publish the Human Connection Study, based on 286,000+ employee responses across 1,600+ organizations. He also authored Unlocking High Performance and speaks on cultivating high performance through connection. 🧭 Conversation Highlights Connection is defined as meaningful engagement with something that matters to the person, not merely relationshipsThe study found two distinct types of connection, with resonance connection showing stronger correlation to performance outcomesConnection acts as a leading indicator for motivation and engagement, while engagement is more of a trailing indicatorOrganizational resonance and manager skills are key levers, and the “fully on-site” group reported the lowest connection💡 Key Takeaways If you want impact, focus on moving people from moderately connected to highly connected, not obsessing over the most disconnected groupInvesting in connection is a cultivation shift, not a short-term tactic, and it can be implemented in everyday management momentsEngagement and connection are related but not the same, and connection is upstream of engagementPhysical proximity does not automatically create connection, so leaders must design connection conditions intentionally❓ Questions That Mattered What is connection, really, and how do you measure it without assuming you already know?Why does the data show non-human-to-human “resonance” can drive work outcomes more strongly?What should leaders stop doing, and what should they reprioritize, to make connection possible at work?How can managers hold people accountable without breaking trust or turning accountability into fear?🗣️ Notable Quotes “Connection is an experience of meaningful engagement with something that matters to you.”“Connection seems to be more of a leading indicator… engagement is on the output.”“It’s not an argument for remote work, it’s just evidence that physical proximity does not automatically create the conditions that connection requires.”🔗 Links & Resources Follow Jason Lauritsen on LinkedInCheck out Jason’s WebsiteReach out to Jason via email at jason@jasonlauritsen.comDownload the Human Connection Study ReportThe Future of Management by Gary Hamel

    252: Jason Lauritsen: "Connection as the #1 Performance Booster in the Workspace"

  2. hace 5 días

    251: "The Best Leadership Fix Is Focusing On The Fundamentals" (Reflections On Michael Summers)

    🧠 Erik’s Take Erik framed the episode as a leadership question, not a political one: how to lead people who genuinely disagree without losing the thread of what actually matters. He kept coming back to a quiet but demanding discipline, holding convictions while staying curious enough to notice what his own first instincts miss. He also noticed how often organizations confuse novelty for progress, especially in education, and how that pattern can steal attention from fundamentals like reading, math, and attendance. 🎯 Top Insights from the Interview Michael’s school-improvement philosophy centers on fundamentals and individual student support, not chasing constant new initiatives.The goal “make school board meetings boring again” signals a shift from show to outcomes, so educators can do their work.Political tension can function as quality control in purple districts, forcing negotiation and better information into decisions.Bridge-building starts with interrupting reaction and choosing curiosity, treating frustration as a signal that something important is missing.🧩 The Personal Layer Erik connected Michael’s approach to his own parenting and leadership instincts. As a dad, he wants the basics handled well before layering on more priorities, and he sees the same pattern in organizations that feel compelled to announce change rather than prove improvement. He also reflected on how easy it is to treat disagreement as dysfunction, when it may actually be a system feature. The most personally resonant contrast was Michael’s ability to disagree firmly without turning people into enemies, based on how you treat others when you do not need their agreement. 🧰 From Insight to Action Audit the “fundamentals first” layer: list the outcomes you claim to care about, then check whether your current initiatives reliably support them.Create a standing practice for disagreement: ask what tension might be protecting from a bad decision, and invite the opposing view to contribute evidence.Adopt a curiosity interruption habit when triggered: pause, assume you are missing something, and ask one sincere question before defending your position.Strengthen trust through fair process: treat minority voices with real seriousness now, not only when you are guaranteed to win.🗣️ Notable Quotes “The board’s job isn’t necessarily to be the center of attention.”“Make school board meetings boring again.”“Disagreement can operate as a quality-control mechanism.”“When somebody reacts in a way that doesn’t make sense to him, he tries to remind himself, ‘I’m missing something.’”🔗 Links & Resources Listen to Michael Summers's Episode

    251: "The Best Leadership Fix Is Focusing On The Fundamentals" (Reflections On Michael Summers)

  3. hace 5 días

    250: "Are You Solving the Right Bottleneck with AI?" (Reflections On Drew Mehta)

    🧠 Erik’s Take Erik treats this episode as a strategy debrief, not a tech demo. The part that stayed with him is that AI adoption often fails when businesses chase automation before they diagnose the real bottleneck. He also reflects on how consulting handoffs, while efficient at scale, break down for founder-led companies. That framing leads to his bigger, more vulnerable point: leadership change is about redesigning work without accidentally taking away the experiences people need to grow, make judgment calls, and build trust. 🎯 Top Insights from the Interview Smaller businesses should resist the “separate strategist and implementer” consulting model and instead look for enough generalist depth to solve the problem end-to-end.AI value shows up as one of three outcomes: increase revenue, decrease costs, or improve quality, and “saving time” is often only a mechanism.Before automating, businesses should ask what actually blocks performance, then check whether people, processes, or existing tools are the real constraint.Resistance to AI is frequently not fear of technology but grief over lost inefficiencies that people have come to equate with their value and identity.🧩 The Personal Layer Erik recognizes a tension he sees in himself and in others: it is easy to get excited about the capability of tools and forget to measure whether the whole system improves. He also hears a leadership warning in the examples: if AI speeds up communication and decisions, the organization must still preserve the human situations where leaders learn. In his view, the goal is not to remove friction everywhere, but to remove the wrong friction so people can spend more time on judgment, relationships, and meaningful work. 🧰 From Insight to Action Audit one business process end-to-end to find where time is actually lost, and verify whether AI reduces the true bottleneck or just compresses the visible steps.Replace “strategy then implementation” thinking with a forward-deployed approach where a single person can understand the business problem and build the solution.Prioritize AI only after diagnosing people and process constraints, including whether training, role design, or feature adoption is the missing piece.Communicate the human “why” of changes: explain how automation will shift value toward judgment and growth, and protect the feedback and trust-building moments leaders need.🗣️ Notable Quotes “The goal isn't to implement more AI. It's to build better businesses.”“Saving time isn't necessarily the outcome. It's one of the mechanisms that gets you there.”“The person who understands the problem can increasingly be the person who solves it.”“Efficiency and development aren't necessarily the same thing.”🔗 Links & Resources Listen to Drew Mehta's Episode

    250: "Are You Solving the Right Bottleneck with AI?" (Reflections On Drew Mehta)

  4. hace 6 días

    249: Michael Summers: "Can You Run for Office Without Becoming a Walking Controversy?"

    Michael Summers shares how he went from professional musician and third-generation business owner to a politics-and-education leader, and why his north star is replacing fear with wisdom. From school board chairing during COVID to running for Oregon House District 53, he argues that bridge-building, disciplined priorities, and the “main thing” mindset can help communities disagree well and deliver better outcomes. 👤 About the Guest Michael Summers is a Central Oregon business owner and community leader with deep ties to Redmond. Before politics, he played drums professionally and has led a third-generation flooring business. He chaired the Redmond School Board through COVID, focusing on consensus, “science of reading,” attendance, and student outcomes. He and his wife, Ally, raise four daughters and he is now a candidate for 🧭 Conversation Highlights How politics often rewards fear and incentives instead of wisdom, and why he treats fear as a warning lightBridge-building as a practice: curiosity, treating people as whole humans, and protecting relationshipsWhy “purple” participation and moderation can improve legislation, not weaken itWhat worked at Redmond Schools: keep the main thing the main thing, focus on math and reading, and improve attendance through knowing every student💡 Key Takeaways Fear can be useful as a warning, but it should not drive decisionsDisagreement is healthy when opponents feel heard and champions are in the ringEducation gains come from basics, focus, and accountability, not culture-war distractionsIntegrated leadership means boundaries, delegation, and bringing your family into the mission in meaningful ways❓ Questions That Mattered What does it actually feel like to notice fear in the moment and choose wisdom instead?What is the root cause of people’s sense that politics is “rigged” against good faith?How do you tactically maintain curiosity when emotions and assumptions are running hot?What specifically helped Redmond schools improve by keeping math and reading prioritized?🗣️ Notable Quotes “Fear is a warning… not there to drive the vehicle.”“Every man sounds correct until another man speaks.”“Let’s make school board meetings boring again.”“I wanna mess up the really nasty political system… get back to where we disagree and then go grab a beer.”🔗 Links & Resources Follow Michael Summers on LinkedInCheck out Michael’s Website: electsummers.comThe Righteous Mind by Jonathan Haidt

    249: Michael Summers: "Can You Run for Office Without Becoming a Walking Controversy?"

  5. 21 oct

    248: Drew Mehta: "Why Most AI Projects Deliver Faster Garbage Instead Of Business Value"

    Drew Mehta explains why so many “AI strategies” fail in practice, and why owner-operators need end-to-end workflow decomposition, not deck-first consulting. We dig into the difference between consultants and builders, the “garbage equation,” and why AI should be used to fix weeks-long process bottlenecks, not just minutes of work. 👤 About the Guest Drew Mehta is an AI and product builder with 20+ years of experience creating data, analytics, and AI products for Major League Baseball, KKR, and PepsiCo. He founded ThinkFraction to help small owner-operated businesses ship AI-enabled improvements by decomposing workflows, measuring impact, and pairing advisory with implementation and education. 🧭 Conversation Highlights How consulting incentives (deck deliverables, time and materials) can create a strategy-to-execution gap in enterprisesWhy AI “faster garbage” happens when leaders optimize the wrong thing, leaving queue time and handoffs untouchedThe emerging FDE (forward deployed engineer) mindset, and why AI makes that hybrid role more valuable. It’s basically what the technical product manager role has been at many firms for many years. New name, a few distinctions playing the same game. Leadership and learning: cheap signals get cheaper with AI, but trust and development still require real human feedback and mentorship 💡 Key Takeaways If AI only speeds up the minutes, but the process still takes weeks, you did not fix the problem.Consulting and building need different incentives: decks don’t equal shipped ROI.Decompose workflows first, then decide what to change across people, process, and technology.AI can force better self-diagnosis, but leadership still depends on high-quality human signals and feedback. ❓ Questions That Mattered Why do large companies so often split strategy from implementation, and how does that mismatch harm outcomes?What does it mean to avoid “the garbage equation” when adopting AI?How should owners and leaders think about governance vs guardrails when using AI with sensitive data?As AI cheapens communication signals, what becomes the risk to trust and leadership development? 🗣️ Notable Quotes “Broken process plus AI equals faster garbage.”“If AI cuts the work from 60 minutes to 30 minutes, but it still takes 22 days, that’s the problem.” (Credit to CEO of Varick Agents)“The deliverable for a consultant is a deck. The builders ship and demonstrate quantifiable impact.”“A review is qualitative, not just quantitative.”🔗 Links & Resources Follow Drew Mehta on LinkedInCheck out ThinkFraction’s Website

    248: Drew Mehta: "Why Most AI Projects Deliver Faster Garbage Instead Of Business Value"

  6. 16 oct

    247: Are You Building the Future, Or Just Getting Better at Running the Present? (Reflections on Shawn Busse)

    Erik walked away from his conversation with Shawn Busse thinking less about technology itself and more about what it actually takes to create something new inside a business. Shawn described business as “the hardest art project ever,” and the idea stuck. Artists create through experimentation: they make something, react to it, change it, throw pieces away, and keep going. Businesses call those same behaviors prototyping, testing, iteration, and product-market fit. The tension is that businesses eventually become very good at doing something else: execution. They optimize processes, improve margins, create predictability, and protect what already works. Erik’s question coming out of the conversation is a provocative one: Have companies gotten so good at operating businesses that they’ve gotten worse at creating them?  🎯 Top Insights from the Interview Creation and execution require different muscles. Optimization rewards consistency and predictability. Creation requires curiosity, taste, experimentation, and making decisions without complete information.Your org chart is a statement about power. Training, quality, R&D, innovation, brand, and other long-term capabilities can be called “strategic,” but their position in the organization reveals how much influence they actually have.Technological disruption isn't necessarily something you can wait out. Shawn contrasted recessions, where disciplined businesses may be able to preserve cash and ride out the cycle, with disruption like AI, where companies may have to innovate their way through it.Innovation needs multiple survivable bets. Don’t make a bet that kills the company if it fails. Make more than one bet. Learn what’s true before becoming overly committed.Outside perspective matters. Shawn’s memorable version: “Your mom might not be right.” Innovation needs people willing to tell you which ideas have legs—and which ones need to die. 🧩 The Personal Layer What Erik keeps returning to is the emotional difficulty of being wrong once you’re invested. It’s easy to say companies should test ideas and kill the ones that don’t work. It gets much harder after someone has spent money on the idea, attached their reputation to it, or publicly announced that it represents the future. At that point, learning has a social cost. That makes genuine experimentation as much a leadership challenge as an innovation challenge. Leaders need to create enough separation between “this idea failed” and “I failed” that people can respond to evidence instead of defending their identity. And there’s another tension: the people optimizing today’s machine and the people imagining tomorrow’s machine are doing fundamentally different work. As Erik puts it, the R&D lab can’t really live on the factory floor. Both functions matter—but forcing creation to follow the rules of optimization too early can kill promising ideas before the organization discovers what they could become.  🧰 From Insight to Action Look at your org chart as a map of power. Which capabilities actually influence strategy—not just appear in company messaging?Separate creation from optimization. Give experimentation enough room to operate before demanding the efficiency and predictability expected from mature operations.Build a portfolio of survivable bets. Instead of staking everything on one “big idea,” run smaller experiments that generate useful information without creating existential risk.Get comfortable killing ideas. Decide what evidence would cause you to stop an experiment before ego, money, and reputation become attached to it.Find someone who isn’t your mom. Build relationships with people who can challenge your assumptions without needing to protect your feelings or validate your ideas. 🗣️ Notable Quotes “Business is the hardest art project ever.”“An org chart isn’t just a reporting structure. It’s a statement about what has power.”“If the people with the most power are primarily responsible for protecting revenue, controlling cost, and keeping the existing machine running, it shouldn’t surprise us when the business gets very good at operating the present, but has trouble inventing the future.”“Agility isn’t just speed. It’s the ability to learn without putting the company at existential risk.”🔗 Links & Resources Listen to Shawn Busse's Episode

    247: Are You Building the Future, Or Just Getting Better at Running the Present? (Reflections on Shawn Busse)

  7. 14 oct

    246: Shawn Busse: "The End Of Cheap Customer Acquisition Is Here. Now What?"

    Shawn Busse argues that “growth marketing” hits an inherent ceiling when it becomes a commoditized, copyable process. He uses Hotelling’s law and the “Google beach” to explain why competitors converge, prices collapse, and differentiation fades. The antidote is creative, cross-functional marketing that also shapes product, pricing, and delivery. 👤 About the Guest Shawn Busse is the founder of Kinesis, a Portland growth studio helping businesses compete on creativity instead of conformity. A former sculptor and art professor, he later built businesses through making, teaching, and practicing creative problem-solving. His contrarian thesis: most companies over-rely on predictable channels and under-invest in true innovation. 🧭 Conversation Highlights Hotelling’s law: rational competition drives companies to converge on the same “middle beach,” especially in digital channels.Commoditization turns marketing effort into a race to the bottom; creativity and radically different value are harder to copy.Silos kill creativity: innovation requires collaboration across functions and top-level sponsorship.New opportunity emerges when the market becomes “ready” and technology catches up, making previously “unbuyable” ideas viable.💡 Key Takeaways When a tactic becomes repeatable and widely accessible, it commoditizes and its value compresses.Differentiation must be product-level and delivery-level, not just messaging on existing channels.Creativity is a practice and a muscle, not a weekend workshop.Go-to-market and customer readiness matter as much as the idea itself.❓ Questions That Mattered What happens to a product or process once it becomes commoditized and competitors converge?Where should marketers stop playing defense on the “Google beach” and move to a different field?How do companies build a sustainable creative practice without burning out or reverting to best-practice optimization?How do founders maintain flexibility and learn product-market fit early enough to avoid painful pivots?🗣️ Notable Quotes “The job of marketing generally is to differentiate.”“The really sneaky part is that the number of beaches vavailable to customers is actually reducing.”“Creativity is done in collaboration and across functions.”“What has changed where there’s now opportunity and where the market aligns with you?”🔗 Links & Resources Follow Shawn Busse on LinkedInAmericana: A 400-Year History of Capitalism by Boo SrinivasanGreat by Choice by Jim CollinsAntifragile by Nassim Taleb

    246: Shawn Busse: "The End Of Cheap Customer Acquisition Is Here. Now What?"

  8. 9 oct

    245: "Treating Rejection as Information" (Reflections On Wanda J. Herndon)

    🧠 Erik’s Take Erik frames this as a short, high-leverage review of his conversation with Wanda Herndon, using her career as a mirror for a recurring workplace pattern: people who are ready to grow run into organizations that only know how to say “no.” What stays with him is Wanda’s ability to treat rejection as information, not identity. He also leans into the nuance that her story is not a simple “leave when it’s hard” message. It asks harder questions about timelines, internal opportunity, and what companies owe when they actually see someone’s potential but fail to communicate a path forward. 🎯 Top Insights from the Interview Wanda’s stalled growth wasn’t a lack of ambition, but a failure of internal communication: the company valued her, yet withheld clarity about opportunities.She learned to hear “yes” in every “no,” without turning that into passive waiting forever; eventually, the yes had to come from somewhere else.When she joined Starbucks, she built what wasn’t there and made earned media tangible by showing the relationship work behind the story.Her book’s core idea lands as a leadership challenge: if you’re invited into the room, you already belong, and leaders must make belonging real through real contribution.🧩 The Personal Layer Erik is struck by the contrast between how organizations interpret “readiness” and how individuals experience the same reality. Wanda’s perspective shows what it feels like when your performance is strong, but the doors inside the company stay locked without explanation. Erik recognizes that tension from his own leadership mindset: you can respect someone’s potential and still fail them by not translating that respect into concrete next steps. He also appreciates Wanda’s balance of gratitude and urgency, especially her warning that other people’s doubt can become your own conclusion if you let 🧰 From Insight to Action Audit your “no” signals: write down what you were denied, what you asked for, and what alternative growth path was offered or missing.Practice the Wanda filter: treat refusal as a data point, then decide a clear timeframe for trying internally before seeking opportunities elsewhere.If you lead, make belonging practical: explain why someone is in the room, name what success looks like, and give them ownership.Track earned media as behavior, not luck: identify who is doing the relationship work that creates attention and scale that system intentionally.🗣️ Notable Quotes “If you’re invited into the room, you already belong.”“She kept making that ambition clear.”“Eventually, the yes had to come from somewhere else.”“That’s a pretty consequential failure to communicate.”🔗 Links & Resources Listen to Wanda J. Herndon's Episode

    245: "Treating Rejection as Information" (Reflections On Wanda J. Herndon)
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Most people know the headline of a leader’s story. Few know the path it took to get there. This podcast goes beyond titles, book launches and business wins, to explore the lived journey behind the thought leader. Through deep, unhurried conversations, we uncover the moments that shaped them—the doubts, pivots, convictions, and quiet breakthroughs that built their body of work. Each episode features authors, coaches, executives, and bold thinkers who have forged their own path. Instead of rehearsed talking points, they’re invited into a space where thoughtful questions unlock something more human. The result is a layered conversation that reveals not just what they preach, but how they became the kind of person who can teach it.Because we believe the best stories aren’t always told—they’re revealed. And when brilliant people are given the right questions and the room to answer them fully, what emerges is insight you can feel, frameworks you can apply, and a deeper understanding of what it truly takes to lead, create, and contribute at a meaningful level. 

Información

  • Creador
    Erik Berglund
  • Años de actividad
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodios
    250
  • Clasificación
    Explícito
  • Copyright
    © 2026 I Have Some Questions...
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    I Have Some Questions...

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