40% Better - Engineering Leadership

Bill
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Every week, we invite 1 expert on employee engagement and deep-dive into unlocking previously unheard of performance levels in teams and leaders. 40 Percent Better https://40pb.com

  1. 1D AGO

    Why Employee Loyalty Has Nothing to Do With Salary | Ian Watts

    In two decades of coaching leaders across startups to multi-billion dollar corporations, Ian Watts discovered that companies lose talented people not because of compensation, but because they treat employees like replaceable widgets instead of human beings with aspirations beyond their job description. As founder of Employee Success Company, Ian developed the ACTS Method after reverse-engineering what allowed him to build teams with minimal turnover across 60 locations nationwide, recruiting over 400 loyal team members who knew exactly how much he cared about their personal success. Ian shares why the best leaders work themselves out of a job by making themselves unnecessary, why vulnerability combined with security creates magnetic leadership people want to follow, and how systematic support during critical life moments builds loyalty that salary alone can never buy. Discover why doing hard things literally grows your brain's capacity for more challenges, how treating people as individuals rather than production machines transforms retention, and why the secret to employee engagement isn't complicated—it's just caring about their personhood, not just their productivity. Key Topics: The ACTS Method: Aspirations, Calling, Transformation, and Support as the framework for employee retention Why companies that invest 3% of annual revenue into their people dramatically outperform competitors How creating deep reciprocity through systematic care during life moments (college, home purchases, loss) builds unshakeable loyalty Why vulnerability and security in leadership creates cultures where people don't want to leave The cost of treating people like widgets: $50,000+ per hire and 1-4x salary to replace employees Why most HR departments lack capacity to execute retention strategies even when they have the desire How doing hard things (cold showers, polar plunges) trains your mid anterior cingulate cortex to embrace discomfort Why knowing when to be tough versus tender separates good managers from transformational leaders The power of helping employees achieve personal goals unrelated to their job performance Why modeling uncomfortable behavior yourself is the only way to credibly ask your team to grow Connect with Ian Watts LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/ianmwatts/ Website: https://employeesuccesscompany.com/ Book a complimentary strategy session to discuss employee engagement, performance, and retention challenges Subscribe for conversations with leaders who understand that your greatest competitive advantage isn't technology or strategy—it's how well you invest in the humans who make everything else possible. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    52 min

  2. 5D AGO

    From Dial-Up Belarus to 350 Engineers | Andrei Yurkevich

    In 2002, a 25-year-old Andrei Yurkevich started a software outstaffing business in Belarus with internet speeds under 100 kilobits per second for the entire country—slower than a dial-up modem. Twenty-two years later, he's President and CTO of Altoros with 350+ engineers across 25 countries, plus multiple spin-off companies including Protofire, a Web3-focused venture. Andrei shares why he spent two years answering seven questions that should have taken two hours, why distribution must always come before delivery, and how giving everyone equity ownership creates the type of organization where people leave, gain experience, and choose to return. Discover why Andrei's biggest hiring mistake was starting initiatives without a "single thread leader," why he motivates leaders with revenue shares but learned that scaling teams before having solid sales pipelines is fatal, and how following the Scaling Up methodology's "7 Strata" document became their most powerful alignment tool. Learn why Altoros operates as a venture studio with each business having separate leadership, cap tables, and P&Ls, why they explored but ultimately didn't fully implement DAO principles, and how their back-office shared services model enables spin-offs to focus purely on delivery and customer acquisition while finance, legal, marketing, and HR serve everyone. **Key Topics:** - Starting a software business in 2002 Belarus with dial-up internet speeds and no venture capital - The "7 Strata" strategy: why answering seven questions took two years instead of two hours - Distribution first, delivery second: why you can't scale teams without solid sales pipelines - Why single thread leaders are non-negotiable before starting any new initiative - Building a venture studio: separate P&Ls, cap tables, and equity ownership for every business unit - How giving everyone shareholder stakes (from 0.5% to 25%) creates retention and commitment - Why people leave, gain experience elsewhere, and choose to return years later - The pivot from serving startups at $50/hour to Fortune 500 clients at $150-200/hour - Exploring DAO principles in Web3: what worked, what didn't, and the governance challenges - Managing 300+ people across 25 countries with no physical offices post-COVID - Why Scaling Up by Vern Harnish became their foundational methodology across all businesses - Selling imaginary products first: never build before you verify someone will buy it Connect with Andrei Yurkevich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreiyurkevich/ Title: President and CTO Companies: Altoros (https://www.altoroslabs.com/) | Protofire (Co-Founder, Web3/Blockchain) Subscribe for conversations with technology leaders who've built organizations from Soviet-era constraints to global venture studios, and understand that trust, autonomy, and shared ownership create the conditions where talent chooses to return. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    53 min

  3. 5D AGO

    SE1E94 - From Dial-Up Belarus to 350 Engineers | Andrei Yurkevich

    In 2002, a 25-year-old Andrei Yurkevich started a software outstaffing business in Belarus with internet speeds under 100 kilobits per second for the entire country—slower than a dial-up modem. Twenty-two years later, he's President and CTO of Altoros with 350+ engineers across 25 countries, plus multiple spin-off companies including Protofire, a Web3-focused venture. Andrei shares why he spent two years answering seven questions that should have taken two hours, why distribution must always come before delivery, and how giving everyone equity ownership creates the type of organization where people leave, gain experience, and choose to return. Discover why Andrei's biggest hiring mistake was starting initiatives without a "single thread leader," why he motivates leaders with revenue shares but learned that scaling teams before having solid sales pipelines is fatal, and how following the Scaling Up methodology's "7 Strata" document became their most powerful alignment tool. Learn why Altoros operates as a venture studio with each business having separate leadership, cap tables, and P&Ls, why they explored but ultimately didn't fully implement DAO principles, and how their back-office shared services model enables spin-offs to focus purely on delivery and customer acquisition while finance, legal, marketing, and HR serve everyone. Key Topics: - Starting a software business in 2002 Belarus with dial-up internet speeds and no venture capital - The "7 Strata" strategy: why answering seven questions took two years instead of two hours - Distribution first, delivery second: why you can't scale teams without solid sales pipelines - Why single thread leaders are non-negotiable before starting any new initiative - Building a venture studio: separate P&Ls, cap tables, and equity ownership for every business unit - How giving everyone shareholder stakes (from 0.5% to 25%) creates retention and commitment - Why people leave, gain experience elsewhere, and choose to return years later - The pivot from serving startups at $50/hour to Fortune 500 clients at $150-200/hour - Exploring DAO principles in Web3: what worked, what didn't, and the governance challenges - Managing 300+ people across 25 countries with no physical offices post-COVID - Why Scaling Up by Vern Harnish became their foundational methodology across all businesses - Selling imaginary products first: never build before you verify someone will buy it Connect with Andrei Yurkevich: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/andreiyurkevich/ Title: President and CTO Companies: Altoros (https://www.altoroslabs.com/) | Protofire (Co-Founder, Web3/Blockchain) Subscribe for conversations with technology leaders who've built organizations from Soviet-era constraints to global venture studios, and understand that trust, autonomy, and shared ownership create the conditions where talent chooses to return. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast This episode includes AI-generated content.

    53 min

  4. FEB 6

    Run to the Inevitable: High-Trust Engineering Teams | Josh Carroll

    When Josh Carroll tells his engineers not to bring him their hard problems, he's actually doing the opposite—he's making sure they feel resourced enough to tackle anything. As an engineering leader with 20+ years of experience who's scaled teams at agencies, startups, and now Skylight, Josh has learned that leadership is problem-solving with people, not code. He shares why his old boss told him to "run to the inevitable"—why waiting to have hard conversations makes everything worse—and how discovering he has ADHD transformed his listening skills after painful 360 feedback revealed he was making conversations about himself when trying to show empathy. Josh reveals Skylight's "say the thing" principle for psychological safety, why they measure velocity by setting aggressive roadmaps they can't hit and aiming for 80-90%, and why hiring engineers just to write code leaves half their value on the table. From understanding stakeholder success metrics to avoiding pet agendas, Josh shares battle-tested frameworks for creating environments where brilliant engineers with low egos ship customer-delighting products at high velocity. Key Topics: Why "run to the inevitable" means having hard conversations immediately, not later How 360 feedback and discovering ADHD transformed Josh's leadership approach Skylight's "say the thing" principle for creating psychological safety Why hiring engineers just to write code wastes half their problem-solving value The three-sprint maximum rule: forcing teams to ship iteratively and learn fast Measuring velocity without silly metrics: aggressive roadmaps at 80-90% completion How past company dysfunction creates self-fulfilling prophecies at new companies Why Josh rarely shares his solutions anymore, even when he's seen the problem before Building high-trust, low-ego teams: avoiding pet agendas and command-and-control baggage Connect with Josh Carroll: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/josh-carroll-83637912/ Company: Skylight (MySkylight.com/careers - hiring 20+ engineering roles!) Skylight is actively hiring Ruby on Rails, TypeScript/React/React Native, and Android Kotlin engineers. Check out their careers page if you're looking for a high-trust, low-ego engineering culture that values autonomy, rigor, and care. Subscribe for more conversations with engineering leaders who understand that leadership is a series of humbling lessons, and growth means constantly discovering new mistakes to work on. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    53 min

  5. JAN 23

    How Failure Made Her a Better Engineer | Sairan Aqrawi

    When Sairan Aqrawi decided to become a swimming coach as a teenager in Iraq, she discovered something critical about leadership: passion alone isn't enough. You need skills, responsibility, and the willingness to take action. That early lesson would carry her through 30 years of engineering across the Middle East and United States, where she learned that failure isn't the end—it's where real growth begins. Sairan shares why she tells young engineers that no one will die from their mistakes, using this extreme framing to help them understand that taking risks is essential for growth. Discover why she believes the jobs you hate teach you the most, how aging actually made failure easier to handle, and why the most important question isn't whether you'll fail but what you'll learn when you do. Learn why Sairan refuses to respond immediately to harsh emails, understanding that pausing and replying professionally instead of reacting emotionally often means the problem resolves itself by noon. She reveals the critical difference between competence and confidence—you can't fake confidence, but when you're truly competent, your body language naturally communicates it without you having to perform. Sairan breaks down why having an impressive LinkedIn profile full of certifications means nothing if you can't communicate effectively in meetings, how she learned to be curious about her team members instead of assuming she knows everything, and why being a role model as a leader is exactly like parenting—your actions speak louder than your words. From working on multi-billion dollar transportation projects with Homeland Security and Boeing to mentoring the next generation of women in STEM, Sairan explains why innovation keeps you young, how taking scary risks in your 30s transforms you into a better version of yourself, and why the first time she spoke on stage about women's empowerment she literally forgot her name and started thinking about dinner. Discover why engineers who only know one discipline won't thrive in today's world, how Western engineering practices have evolved to require T-shaped knowledge, and why your degree is just a plus—not the pathway to success. Sairan reveals her three-step framework for becoming an effective leader, born from 35 years of experience across small companies, big corporations, county government, and international projects. Whether you're a young engineer afraid to take risks, a midlife professional looking to reignite your career, or a leader trying to build psychological safety on your team, this conversation offers hard-won wisdom from someone who's failed, learned, and succeeded across two continents and three decades. Connect with Sairan Aqrawi: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sairan-aqrawi-m-sc-993bb61a3/ Website: https://www.sairanaqrawi.com/ Download Sairan's free three-step checklist to becoming an effective leader—created from 35 years of engineering experience in the Middle East and United States.  https://pro.speakerhub.com/speaker-feedback/?qr=db5082b4-078d-41ee-b934-c4a961e8413c Subscribe for more conversations with leaders who understand that action breeds confidence, not the other way around. Share this with engineers who need permission to fail, learn, and grow into the leaders they're meant to become. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    57 min

  6. JAN 20

    How Clear Communication and Calculated Risk-Taking Built a Leadership Career | Sebastien Jean

    When Sebastien Jean was five years old, he organized all the neighborhood kids into a military parade after seeing his first air show. Kids much older than him willingly followed this little commander up and down the street for 20 minutes while parents watched from their porches. That early leadership moment would eventually lead him to become CTO of Fizon Electronics, a company that makes 20% of the planet's SSDs. Sebastien shares how his unconventional path through the Army Reserve Signal Corps taught him that to be a good leader, you first have to be a good follower. Discover why he believes the most important leadership skill is understanding that everybody has a boss, and if your ego is always involved, you'll never succeed in a larger organization. Learn why Sebastien deliberately adds extra words and pauses to his speech to avoid shutting down conversations, how he coaches his nine-year-old son that politeness requires longer explanations, and why saying "I don't know" creates psychological safety that unlocks better solutions from your team. He reveals the critical difference between over-specifying requirements and giving talented engineers ownership through clear objectives without prescribed implementation. Sebastien breaks down why the number 648.973256 and 650 convey the same thing in presentations but one creates unnecessary cognitive load, how forward framing gets people to care before you present technical details, and why you should round complex data to the nearest multiple of 50 unless you're building car motors. Discover how Sebastien helps risk-averse engineers get comfortable with uncertainty through strategic proof of concepts and staging devices, why he believes he's "at least as dumb as that other guy over there" to give himself permission to ask for help, and how creating safe spaces for incomplete answers leads to breakthrough innovations. From building enterprise SSDs to launching new product classes in 2026, Sebastien explains why the quiet people in meetings are his canary in the coal mine for team health, how he balances aggressive risk-taking with calculated experiments, and why great leaders focus on enabling their teams rather than micromanaging implementation details. Whether you're leading hardware teams, managing firmware development, or trying to build a culture where smart people feel comfortable being wrong, this conversation offers battle-tested frameworks from someone who's led technical teams for decades across continents. Connect with Sebastien Jean: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sjean233/ Company: Fizon Electronics (Enterprise brand: Piscari) Subscribe for more conversations with technology leaders who understand that your job as a leader is to make your boss's life easier while simultaneously enabling your team to do their best work. Share this with leaders who need permission to say "I don't know" more often. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    1h 21m

  7. JAN 16

    From Student Entrepreneur to CTO Leading 371 Engineers | Taran Lent

    From College Meal Plans to Multi-Tenant Cloud Platforms: How a CTO Built an 80% Market Share by Stacking the Odds for His Teams with Taran Lent What started as a hungry college student solving his own problem with slips of paper and a bicycle turned into a career building mission-critical payment platforms serving 80% of colleges nationwide. Taran Lent, CTO of Transact Seaboard (soon to be Illumia), shares how sports taught him that being coached means someone believes in your potential, and why he refuses assignments when he knows they're set up to fail. Discover why Taran believes the most well-intentioned thing leaders do, the hero mentality, is actually destructive. Learn how a 10-minute conversation where he refused to accept an assignment without proper resources turned a $65 million acquisition into a product growing 14% year over year. Taran explains why playing to win means having a full team focused on fewer things rather than spreading eight players across an eleven-player game. Taran breaks down his overarching leadership framework: a leader's only job is to stack the odds in favor of their teams so they have the best chance to win. He shares why conviction requires letting people throw rocks at ideas, why Sullenberger was still asking for better ideas 400 feet above the Hudson, and how going slow to go fast through unit testing, load testing, and security work lets you move fast for two decades instead of limping along forever. From building the first off-campus student debit card system to partnering with Apple to put student IDs on phones and watches, Taran reveals what makes closed campus environments different from traditional payments, why autonomous robots are delivering lunch to students, and how cashless campuses create safer communities with better operational insights. Learn why great leaders define problems instead of dictating solutions, why asking smart people for recommendations always produces ideas two or three times better than yours, and why sustainable high performance over long periods is the only definition of excellence worth pursuing. Whether you're leading product teams, fighting for resources, or trying to build conviction before execution, this conversation offers battle-tested frameworks from someone who's been building and scaling platforms for over two decades. Connect with Taran Lent: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/taranlent/ Company: Transact Seaboard (rebranding to Illumia in 2026) Subscribe for more conversations with technology leaders who understand that short-term wins at the cost of long-term sustainability aren't worth celebrating. Share this with leaders who need permission to refuse assignments that aren't set up for success. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    43 min

  8. JAN 13

    Leading from a higher level | Prashanth Kumar Tondapu

    When Prashanth Tondapu started his company at 27, he had no formal leadership training. What he discovered through building an 85-person engineering team would completely transform his approach to leadership, starting with a personal crisis that became his greatest teacher. In this deeply personal conversation, Prashanth shares how his wife's cancer diagnosis three years ago shattered his illusion of control and led him to discover Advaita philosophy and the power of emotional regulation. Learn why he believes being a witness to your emotions rather than being consumed by them is the first critical skill every leader must develop. Discover the Atakme framework his leadership team uses to make better decisions by mentally projecting problems onto an imaginary company, allowing them to separate ego from problem-solving. Prashanth explains why he tells his team leads that for their reports, they ARE the company, not some abstract entity, and how this shift creates genuine advocacy rather than blind compliance. Prashanth discusses the journey from outcome-driven to process-first to people-first leadership, and why his company is using 2026 to focus on building people, not just the business. He shares practical insights on implementing rewards and recognition frameworks that identify future leaders, and why intent matters more than outcomes when someone makes a mistake. Learn why Prashanth compares humans to large language models, constantly updating our models based on new information, and why he believes we're far more predictable than we think. He reveals how reality is just the product of billions of years of evolution, but our feelings about reality are optional, and why this perspective eliminates so much unnecessary suffering. Whether you're struggling with the weight of leadership decisions, building your first management team, or trying to create genuine psychological safety, this conversation offers both philosophical wisdom and practical frameworks you can implement immediately. Connect with Prashanth Tondapu: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/prashanth-tondapu/ Company: InnoStacks Subscribe to hear more conversations about the intersection of leadership, technology, and personal growth. Share this episode with leaders who understand that the inner work of leadership matters just as much as the external results. I hope you enjoy this episode! Give it a like, share, and subscribe to not miss the content coming your way weekly. – Bill and the 40 % Better podcast team Connect with Bill on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wblennan/  Visit the 40 Percent Better website here: https://40pb.com/ Listen to 40 % Better on these podcast platforms: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/6qkqdMPkR9BqYPM7UPa4P0 Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/40%25-better---engineering-leadership/id1709546347  Amazon Podcasts: https://music.amazon.com/podcasts/01ad162e-7a33-4df4-8c29-04c4af0405fc/40-better---engineering-leadership #40PercentBetter #BillLennan #Leadership #TeamPerformance #EmployeeEngagement #PsychologicalSafety #BusinessGrowth #Kaizen #EngineeringLeadership #Coaching The 40% Better podcast with Bill Lennan unlocks previously unheard-of performance levels in teams and leaders. Bill Lennan, founder of 40 Percent Better, interviews experts on employee engagement, psychological safety, engineering leadership, and actionable mental models. Learn how to foster high-performing teams, improve team productivity, and achieve sustainable success in business through a focus on human-centered systems.  #technologyleadership #productmanagement #engineeringleadership #leadershipdevelopment #careergrowth #podcast

    1h 17m
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Every week, we invite 1 expert on employee engagement and deep-dive into unlocking previously unheard of performance levels in teams and leaders. 40 Percent Better https://40pb.com

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