Partnering Leadership Mahan Tavakoli
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- Business
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Learn from the leadership journey of purpose-driven changemaker CEOs & leadership insights from top global thought leaders and best-selling leadership book authors. Your host Mahan Tavakoli, who Thinkers360 recently named as one of the top 10 global thought leaders on management, has over 25 years of executive leadership experience and serves as a consultant and coach to some of the highest-performing organizations and CEOs. In the conversations, you will learn from the leadership journeys of successful CEOs and the latest in leadership thinking from top global thought leaders. Purpose-driven CEOs, including David Rubenstein, Jean Case, Marty Rodgers, Rosie Allen-Herring, David Gardner, Charito Kruvant, Tien Wong, Diane Hoskins, Dan Simons, Bill Novelli, Hakeem Oluseyi, Irma Becerra, Richard Bynum, Nicole Lynn Lewis, Ernie Jarvis, Tony Pierce, Stephanie Linnartz, Chuck Robb, Alex Orfinger and Linda Rabbitt. Global thought leaders and best-selling leadership book authors, including Ken Blanchard, John Kotter, Charlene Li, Steven M.R. Covey, Ram Charan, David McRaney, Gary Bolles, Aaron Hurst, Natalie Nixon, Greg Satell, Garry Ridge, Azeem Azhar, Rich Diviney, Maz Jobrani, Warren Berger, Whitney Johnson, David Marquet, Ranjay Gulati, Vanessa Bohns, Patrick McGinnis, Jim Detert, Jonah Berger, Tim Clark, and Michele Wucker. Partnering Leadership podcast is available on all podcast platforms and at partneringleadership.com. Follow the Partnering Leadership podcast on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/company/partnering-leadership Twitter: @PartneringLead Unleash Your Team's Potential: mahantavakoli.com. Follow Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/mahan Twitter: @mahany Email: mahan@mahantavakoli.com.
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312 The Great Engagement: How Leaders Inspire Exceptional Organizational Cultures by Unlocking Team Potential with Brad Zimmerman | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader
In this episode of Partnering Leadership, Mahan Tavakoli sits down with Brad Zimmerman, a seasoned business consultant and coauthor of The Great Engagement: How CEOs Create Exceptional Cultures. With over thirty years of experience guiding businesses to success, Brad brings a wealth of knowledge and practical insights to the table.
Throughout the conversation, Brad and Mahan delve into the critical importance of employee engagement and how leaders can effectively align individual purpose with organizational goals. They explore the shifting attitudes towards work in our society and the implications for leaders seeking to foster cultures of engagement and fulfillment.
Brad Zimmerman shares powerful examples and anecdotes from his work with clients, illustrating the transformative impact of a purpose-driven culture on employee motivation, retention, and overall organizational performance. He emphasizes the need for leaders to be intentional, conscious, and self-aware in their approach to engaging and empowering their teams.
Listeners will gain valuable insights into the three essential tools of leadership - leading, managing, and coaching - and how mastering these skills can create a supportive and accountable environment where people thrive.
Actionable Takeaways:
- Discover the three critical elements leaders must focus on to create a culture of engagement and purpose
- Learn how to overcome the invisible barriers that prevent employees from offering honest feedback and challenging ideas
- Hear powerful examples of organizations that have successfully navigated turbulent times by fostering a deep sense of purpose and pride among their teams
- Gain practical strategies for implementing "supportive accountability" and driving results through regular, forward-looking conversations
- Understand the importance of creating a coaching culture and how to model openness to feedback as a leader
- Explore the shifting attitudes towards work-life balance and how leaders can adapt to engage their teams in this new landscape
- Learn the key differences between leading, managing, and coaching and why all three are essential for effective leadership
- Discover how to use mission moments to consistently connect your team's work to a greater purpose
Connect with Brad Zimmerman
Phoenix Performance Partners Webpage with Additional Resources Including Free Download of Engaged Life Inventory
The Great Engagement: How CEOs Create Exceptional Cultures
Brad Zimmerman on LinkedIn
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:
Mahan Tavakoli Website
Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn
Partnering Leadership Website -
311 Thursday Refresh with Ajay Agrawal on Prediction Machines, Power & Prediction and Leading Through The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader
In this Partnering Leadership conversation, Mahan Tavakoli speaks with Professor Ajay Agrawal, the Geoffrey Taber Chair in Entrepreneurship and Innovation and Professor of Strategic Management at the University of Toronto's Rotman School of Management. Ajay Agrawal is also the founder of the Creative Destruction Lab (CDL), a not-for-profit program for early-stage, science-based companies, and coauthor of two outstanding books on Artificial Intelligence: Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence and Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence. In the conversation, Professor Agrawal shared the origin of his passion for studying the intersection of technology and economics and the increasing importance of artificial intelligence for organizations as a decision-making tool that brings down the cost of prediction. Ajay Agrawal then explained why this shift would significantly impact individuals, organizations, and industries as machines enable better predictions while humans focus on the judgment required for decision-making. Finally, Ajay Agrawal shared examples of the transformative impact of the reduction in the cost of prediction and how leaders can help guide their organizations through the significant changes ahead.
Some highlights:
- Three people that helped shape Ajay Agrawal's career path
- Why looking at AI from an economic perspective clarifies its potential to transform organizations and industries
- Ajay Agrawal on the role of predictions in artificial intelligence
- The importance of human judgment in decision making
- How AI decision-making will redefine roles in the workplace
- The disruptive economics of artificial intelligence
- How generative AI such as ChatGPT works and what causes mistakes and misstatements
- Ajay Agrawal on the importance of upskilling professionals
- How organizations can redesign their structures and processes to take into account the new predictive world
- The impact of AI on systems-level change
- How organizations can leverage AI for business success
- Why we're on the brink of a set of transformations that none of us have seen in our lifetimes
- How AI can help create a better future
Connect with Professor Ajay Agrawal:
Ajay Agrawal website
Ajay Agrawal at Rotman School of Management
Ajay Agrawal on LinkedIn
Prediction Machines: The Simple Economics of Artificial Intelligence on Amazon
Power and Prediction: The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence on Amazon
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:
Mahan Tavakoli Website
Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn
Partnering Leadership Website -
310 Unlearning Certainty: Leadership in an Age of Exponential Uncertainty, Mahan Tavakoli interviewed by Tim Windsor on the UNCOMMODiFiED Podcast
This episode of Partnering Leadership features Mahan Tavakoli in an interview on the Uncommodified podcast with host Tim Windsor. They explore AI's impact on leadership in an increasingly fast-changing world.
Mahan and Tim have an insightful dialogue around evolving leadership approaches for exponential times driven by technological advances like AI. They discuss the pitfalls of certainty and why leaders can no longer rely on having all the answers today to be successful.
Instead, they examine why perpetual curiosity, learning, and questioning are becoming competitive advantages to drive innovation. From analyzing biases ingrained by education systems to rediscovering childlike wonder, Tim and Mahan offer wisdom for leaders to "unlearn" outdated notions that will hamper future success.
They also explore why confidence must be balanced with humility. Modeling an appetite for life's uncertainties can inspire the same in teams.
Actionable Takeaways:
Hear why the world's accelerating pace demands leaders evolve approaches rooted in the pastLearn how to foster radical curiosity that invites insight over projecting certaintyDiscover leadership behaviors to model that ignite innovative thinking in teamsUnderstand the risks leaders face by sticking to hubris versus humilityGet tactics to encourage curiosity and unlearning within your cultureLearn why leaders adept at questioning will thrive through greater uncertainty Hear how childlike wonder and imagination can fuel breakthrough leadershipGet insights on how to apply insights from Brene Brown and Adam Grant for personal growth
Partnering Leadership Conversations Referenced
Leading Through The Disruptive Economics of Artificial Intelligence with Professor Ajay Agrawal
Connect with Tim Windsor
Tim Windsor Website
The Uncommodified Podcast
Tim Windsor on LinkedIn
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:
Mahan Tavakoli Website
Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn
Partnering Leadership Website -
309 Big Bet Leadership to Win in the Hyper Digital Era with John Rossman | Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader
As the pace of digital change accelerates, how should leaders guide their organizations to stay ahead of disruption? In this episode of Partnering Leadership, author John Rossman makes the case that betting big on transformation is essential, though risky.
Drawing on his experience spearheading Amazon's bold expansions, Rossman argues that the coming era of "hyper-digital" will necessitate even bolder moves than we've seen.
In the conversation, John Rossman lays out a playbook for leading change with the same fearless spirit of innovation embodied by pioneers like Bezos, Musk, and Jobs. His new book, Big Bet Leadership: Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the Hyper-Digital Era, offers tools and frameworks to drive clarity, speed, and calculated risk-taking in your team. Listen as Rossman shares insider tips on writing focused memos, rapidly testing central assumptions, and clearly communicating to carry stakeholders through uncertainty.
You'll learn tangible systems to define the problems worth attacking and to design minimal viable tests that reveal which bold solutions show the most significant promise. Rossman also prescribes remedies for the cultural obstacles that often sideline transformative thinking. Get actionable methods to investigate multiple futures, facilitate critical debate, and budget in stages rather than over-committing.
In an exponential era where leaders must think big while mitigating existential risk, Rossman delivers the wisdom needed today to build resilient, adaptive organizations ready to lead the future.
In the episode, you will learn:
- How to frame your boldest ideas as "Big Bets" to spark smarter experiments
- Ways to accelerate and test transformational initiatives before overcommitting
- How Jeff Bezos's "Day 1" outlook drives fearless innovation
- How writing memos instead of slide decks uncovers flaws and misalignments
- Why Simon Sinek says leaders repeating messages drives progress
- How to balance dream-big thinking with de-risking core assumptions
- How to run small tests that reveal which big bets deserve doubling down
Connect with John Rossman
Big Bet Leadership: Your Transformation Playbook for Winning in the Hyper-Digital Era
John Rossman Website
John Rossman LinkedIn
John Rossman Partnering Leadership episode on The Amazon Way
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:
Mahan Tavakoli Website
Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn
Partnering Leadership Website -
308 Leading with Arete: Inspiring Heroic Action in Yourself, Your Team and Your Organization with Brian Johnson |Partnering Leadership Global Thought Leader
In this episode of Partnering Leadership, host Mahan Tavakoli interviews philosopher, CEO, and bestselling author Brian Johnson on activating your organization's heroic potential. Having spent over half his career as a founder and business leader, Brian shares powerful insights on perseverance and excellence drawn from ancient wisdom and modern science.
In the conversation, Brian offers key lessons from his newest book, "Arete: Activate Your Heroic Potential," for overcoming adversity and leading teams through hardship. You'll discover Brian's fascinating concept of "anti-fragile confidence" and the rituals enabling leaders to cultivate it.
Hear how Brian trains his mind and body with world-class dedication - and why peak physical condition enables peak psychological performance when tackling stress. Finally, Brian defines the one "ultimate game" leaders must keep sight of in business and life.
In this conversation, you will learn:
Why leaders should see adversity as a creative "wrestling partner" sent to build skills, like an ancient Greek heroThe moment-by-moment visualizing tactic for closing gaps between your potential and reality How an elite military leader defined the key to emotional resilience (and how to develop more of this quality)Why protocols and checklists matter as much personally for CEOs as they do for pilots and surgeonsThe four timeframes for properly assessing progress while avoiding imposter syndrome How one trusted advisor coaches building "anti-fragile confidence" to thrive when problems intensifyThe critical question to ask when overwhelmed: "What's your protocol?" (and how to architect one)Why leaders should ask "What now?" rather than "Why me?" when adversity strikes
Connect with Brian Johnson
Heroic
Brian Johnson
Arete: Activate Your Heroic Potential
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:
Mahan Tavakoli Website
Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn
Partnering Leadership Website -
307 Challenging Your Own BS to Foster Inclusion: Getting Real About Internal Bias and Promoting Authenticity in the Workplace with Risha Grant |Partnering Leadership Global Thought
Diversity, equity, and inclusion are more vital than ever for organizations today. But how can leaders move beyond good intentions to drive real impact? In this engaging episode, inclusion strategist Risha Grant, author of Be Better than Your BS: How Radical Acceptance Empowers Authenticity and Creates a Workplace Culture of Inclusion, offers paradigm-shifting insights for leaders seeking to foster authentic belonging in their teams.
Drawing on over two decades of experience guiding executives, Risha dives into the key traps that derail well-meaning leaders. You'll hear surprising takeaways like why your company's implementation matters more than your intent. Risha also shares how a "BS check" can reveal blindspots and how transparency drives trust when handled right.
Actionable Takeaways:
Learn why "validate and act" is vital after employees report issues. Hear the common leadership pitfall that invalidates people's experiences.Find out how a simple "BS check" can help leaders connect with frontline realities they miss from the top floor.Discover why listening without assuming you already know the answers is key for inclusion efforts to work.Get examples of how to challenge your own potentially outdated mental models and see situations through others' eyes.Hear Risha's perspective on balancing inclusion with constructive debate so neither is compromised.Learn small ways we can all extend "radical acceptance" through everyday interactions on the elevator, in the office, and beyond titles.
Recommended Resources
Be Better than Your BS: How Radical Acceptance Empowers Authenticity and Creates a Workplace Culture of Inclusion
Partnering Leadership Conversation with Howard Ross on Belonging, Bias and Building Inclusive Cultures
Connect with Risha Grant
Risha Grant Website
Risha Grant LinkedIn
Connect with Mahan Tavakoli:
Mahan Tavakoli Website
Mahan Tavakoli on LinkedIn
Partnering Leadership Website
Customer Reviews
So much gold
Mahan's wealth of executive leadership experience, combined with his insightful interviews, provides a unique and valuable perspective on leadership. If you're eager to glean wisdom from successful CEOs and stay abreast of the latest leadership thinking, this podcast is a must-listen! Thanks for putting out such a superb show, Mahan - keep up the great work.
Thought provoking and nuanced perspectives
I love this podcast and the variety of guests for the different perspectives and topics but also the nuance that comes with each one. I find myself thinking differently or considering my role as a DEI facilitator and consultant in new ways.
Love this podcast!
Partnering Leadership brings together timeless leadership lessons and real-world stories. Chats with leadership gurus like Ken Blanchard and John Kotter, alongside episodes featuring AI experts like Paul Daugherty and Ajay Agrawal, create a perfect blend. Mahan's brilliant interviewing skills make each episode feel like a high-quality leadership workshop.