The Yasar Ahmad Podcast

Yasar Ahmad
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Work isn’t a meritocracy and playing nice won’t get you promoted. I’m Yasar Ahmad, one of the world’s leading HR voices with over 15 years in the boardroom and 550,000+ professionals following my work. Each week, I cut through workplace noise with blunt truths, proven strategies, and unfiltered advice to help you earn more, influence faster, and build a career that actually pays off. If you’re tired of being underpaid, overlooked, or underestimated — this is your playbook to win at work.

  1. 2d ago

    Why You're Ideas Are NOT Being Heard (And How to Fix It In One Meeting!)

    In executive and board meetings, the best idea almost never wins. The best delivered idea wins. This is the communication skill that decides who gets listened to, and almost nobody teaches it, because the people who have it like to pretend it's a personality.I'm Yasar Ahmad, a former global VP of HR. I've spent decades in board meetings and exec sessions at companies like Zalando, HelloFresh, and Wipro, and the person who got listened to was never the smartest in the room. It was the clearest. Clarity is a learnable communication technique, not a gift, and it sits at the heart of leadership communication, executive presence, and how to speak like a leader. So this is practical professional development for anyone who has ever walked out of a meeting thinking "that was the point I was trying to make."You'll get three moves to improve your communication and speak with authority. The point: lead with your conclusion, because junior people speak in context and senior people speak in conclusions. The pause: how to buy three seconds under pressure so silence reads as confidence instead of panic. And the landing: why your credibility is decided by your last sentence, not your best one, and how people talk themselves out of agreements they'd already won. Stick around for the reframe at the end that turns a "no" into a "yes" with senior stakeholders.If you're serious about leadership and career growth, not just surface-level communication tips, this is the one for you.📬 Get the stuff HR never puts in the handbook. My weekly newsletter is written for people navigating exactly this: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/🎯 Work on it properly with me inside the OVD Labs cohort: 12 weeks, live, on positioning and visibility. https://www.ovdlab.comSubscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works. And tell me in the comments: what's the worst ramble you've ever done in a meeting? I read every one.Chapters:0:00 Why the best-delivered idea wins1:04 The ramble that taught me the lesson1:48 The three moves: point, pause, landing2:06 Move 1: the point (conclusion first)2:46 The 15-word test3:13 Move 2: the pause under pressure3:53 Why silence reads as confidence4:11 What to say when you don't know4:31 Move 3: the landing (your last sentence)5:03 How people talk themselves out of a win5:40 Why you need all three together6:04 Your homework tonight6:38 Bonus: reframe risk, not gain━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Communication #ExecutivePresence #Leadership #CareerAdvice #WinAtWork

  2. 3d ago

    Ruthless Selfishness: The Secret to Getting Ahead in Your Career

    Most career advice tells you to be less selfish. This one does the opposite: I'll show you how to be ruthlessly selfish in a way that actually builds your career strategy, your reputation, and your standing with the people who decide your future. Recorded on a plane, so bear with me.I'm Yasar Ahmad. I've scaled companies to billions, managed teams of hundreds, and coached first ministers and CEOs, and now I run OVD Labs, a behavioural science lab. Here's the reframe: everyone protects something already, budgets, headcount, status, so the question was never whether you're selfish. It's what you're selfish for. Get that right and workplace politics stops being something that happens to you.This episode is really a masterclass in professional growth and navigating office politics through three principles. First, clarity, the one sentence I owe my career to and the fastest way to build executive presence in any meeting. Second, "what needs to be true," the question that ends the human habit of trying to prove each other wrong, plus the workplace psychology behind what people actually protect. Third, be selfish about the outcome but selfless about the credit, the giving strategy that quietly builds the most power of all. If you want the kind of leadership and career advice that goes deeper than office politics tips, this is for you.Along the way: why the "lucky" people in a famous study finished in 4 seconds while everyone else took 2 minutes, what Indra Nooyi's letters to executives' parents can teach you about loyalty, why Satya Nadella's first move as Microsoft CEO was to give away the crown jewels, and the story of the cat and the fire that explains why you cling to habits that no longer serve you.Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works. And if you're listening on Spotify or Apple, follow there too.Chapters:0:00 A podcast on a plane0:27 The real question isn't whether you're selfish1:15 Principle 1: clarity, the sentence I owe my career to1:31 The car park argument that changed everything3:10 The laser pen, the cat, and what people avoid4:14 The four things people protect at work5:18 How one sentence made clarity my superpower6:00 Principle 2: what needs to be true6:11 Hiring 1,000 people in a fragmented company7:08 The luck study: why peripheral vision wins8:39 Asking the right question instead of being right10:02 The value formula: time, effort, and sacrifice11:45 Building the system: the results it delivered12:25 Principle 3: selfish outcome, selfless credit12:36 Indra Nooyi and the letters to parents14:30 Why givers finish first (with boundaries)16:18 Satya Nadella surrenders to win18:21 The superstitions we build for ourselves20:12 The three steps of giving21:49 What could you give away to move faster?22:43 Given wins get retold in rooms you're not in━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#CareerStrategy #OfficePolitics #ExecutivePresence #Leadership #WinAtWork

  3. 4d ago

    Why Your Boss Won't Promote You (And It's Not Your Fault).

    When your manager calls you indispensable, they've usually already decided not to promote you. This is how promotions really work: I sat in the room where that decision gets made for almost two decades, and being overlooked at work while carrying double is quietly costing you about a pay band a year.I'm Yasar Ahmad. Here's the career advice nobody hands you on how to get promoted, and it starts with office politics you can't see. Promotions get decided in a calibration meeting: eight or nine people, a list of names, about 40 seconds each. Someone who half knows your work sums you up in one sentence to a room that doesn't know you at all. If your sentence is "he helps out everywhere," your promotion ends right there. So workplace visibility isn't a nice-to-have, it's the whole game, and this is the promotion strategy and career growth strategy for fixing it if you feel stuck in my career territory: how to stand out at work without saying no, where salary negotiation actually fits, and the managing up conversation that changes how your boss describes you.Consider this your quick course in dealing with corporate politics, the kind of thing Jennifer Brick's audience will recognise, aimed at the reliable person who keeps getting passed over.This video breaks down what your manager is really doing when they pay you in words instead of money, why "just set boundaries" gets you a reputation instead of a promotion, and the strongest case for staying indispensable (and why it still doesn't pay). Then the two moves that fix it: lead the work that builds your reputation and hand away the work that doesn't, and the one conversation almost nobody has, where you tell your manager the exact sentence you want said about you in that room.Start with the free career diagnostic. It takes 5 minutes and scores you on the six things that actually move your career: visibility, communication, influence, political navigation, positioning, and compensation. Most people come out under 60, and almost nobody's weakest score is the one they guessed. Head to https://www.ovdlab.com and click Assessment.Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works.Chapters:0:00 "Indispensable" is a decision, not a compliment0:24 Inside the 40-second calibration meeting0:52 The sentence that ends your promotion1:18 Why the word indispensable is a red flag1:41 Why your manager does it (and it's not malice)2:14 Why your workload doesn't touch your pay2:56 The best argument for staying indispensable3:31 Why being hard to replace keeps you stuck3:45 Why "just set boundaries" backfires4:13 Move 1: lead what counts, give away what doesn't4:52 Move 2: tell your manager your sentence5:23 Why indispensable feels safe but keeps you stuck━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Indispensable #GetPromoted #OfficePolitics #CareerAdvice #WinAtWork

  4. 5d ago

    Someone Stole Your Idea in a Meeting? Do This Immediately!

    There's a particular kind of sting when someone steals your idea in a meeting. They say the thing you just said, the room lights up, and the credit lands on them. If you've felt it, here's how to make sure it never happens again.I'm Yasar Ahmad, a former global VP of HR. Over 20 years I've sat in the rooms where ideas get traded like currency, working with leaders from HelloFresh, Amazon, Google, and the NHS, and I've watched credit move around a table in real time. It isn't random. Credit is a system, and the people who steal your ideas understand that system better than you do. I learned it the expensive way: early in my career I made a point that died in the air, then watched a senior colleague make the same point ten minutes later and get a reputation off the back of it. I spent a year working out what he knew that I didn't.Stopping an idea thief isn't one move, it's three: the reclaim, the timestamp, and the source. The reclaim wins the moment, and it works because you extend your point instead of accusing anyone ("Yes, exactly the point I was making earlier..."), then keep talking. The timestamp wins the record: a two-line email before the meeting so your idea has your name on it before anyone can echo it. And the source is the one almost nobody does, the one that took me a year to understand, because it isn't about the thief at all. It's about becoming the person the room already credits before you open your mouth.If you're the one doing brilliant work and watching other people collect the credit, this is the video for you. Watch to the end for the source move, because it's the one that ends the problem for good.Chapters:0:00 The pain of having your ideas stolen1:44 Move 1: the immediate reclaim3:08 Move 2: create a paper trail3:52 Move 3: become the source4:51 Recap: why you need all three5:12 Your homework for tonightI send a weekly newsletter for people navigating exactly this, the stuff HR never puts in the handbook. And if you want to work on it properly with me, it's the core of what we do inside the OVD Labs cohort: 12 weeks, live, on positioning and visibility. Cohort 2 opens on 7 September 2026, and people from Google, HSBC, and the NHS were in cohort 1. Links below.An idea without an owner belongs to whoever says it last, so put your name on yours. If this was useful, tell me in the comments: has anyone ever repeated your idea in a meeting and taken the credit? What did you do?Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#IdeasStolen #OfficePolitics #MeetingTips #CareerAdvice #WinAtWork

  5. 6d ago

    How to Get Recognised, Promoted and Paid What You're Worth! (Webinar - Replay)

    You can be the best worker on your team and still be invisible to the people who decide promotions and pay. This is the full masterclass on how to get promoted, how promotions really work, and how to stand out at work, without playing office politics or burning yourself out.Book a strategy call here: https://ovdlab.com/book/team/strategy-discovery-call/15minFind out about September cohort here: https://ovdlab.com/for/I'm Yasar Ahmad. I spent 20 years in senior leadership at companies like HelloFresh, Zalando, and Wipro, and as a global VP of HR I sat in the rooms where promotion and pay decisions actually get made. If "I'm stuck in my career" is the thought you keep having, this one is for you.Here's the uncomfortable truth: past a certain level, your performance is only about 10% of why you get promoted. The rest is workplace visibility and who's talking about you when you're not in the room. So this session is the whole promotion strategy and career growth strategy in one place: the 10-30-60 rule, where salary negotiation really fits, the career coaching and leadership development I give private clients, and a cold outreach method for your job search that beats firing off applications all day.You'll also get the visibility map that puts you in front of the right decision makers, the 90-day campaign that makes your next move feel inevitable, why a sponsor beats a mentor, and the three types of promotion ranked by how often they actually work. In the Q&A I take the hard ones: a boss who keeps you as their hidden brain, colleagues who take your credit, surviving a toxic manager, and building real executive presence with the PREP technique.If you're good at your job and serious about career growth, not the kind of career advice that just tells you to work harder, this is for you.Start with the free career diagnostic. It takes 5 minutes and scores you on the six things that actually move your career: visibility, communication, influence, political navigation, positioning, and compensation. Most people, directors and VPs included, come out under 60, and almost nobody's weakest score is the one they guessed. Head to https://www.ovdlab.com and click Assessment.Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works.Chapters:0:00 Why your best work goes unseen4:59 Four things to understand first5:53 The hamster wheel effect7:12 My story: from £18k to global VP15:48 Why the traditional career path caps you18:01 The 10-30-60 rule21:23 A perception trick you can use this week24:16 Why being reliable is a cage25:25 Build an offer they can't refuse26:03 Sell the risk, not the gain28:36 Your real superpower: clarity30:29 The visibility map36:42 The 90-day campaign37:34 How to network when you hate networking44:04 The three types of promotion45:04 The four career blind spots49:00 The promotion master formula50:03 Why timing and the bell curve matter54:15 Recap: what changes now55:33 How to work with me1:06:46 Q&A: when your boss keeps you as the hidden brain1:10:17 Q&A: colleagues who take your credit1:13:07 Q&A: surviving a toxic boss1:17:03 The cold outreach method to land a job1:24:06 Executive presence and the PREP technique━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#GetPromoted #CareerMasterclass #WorkplaceVisibility #OfficePolitics #WinAtWork

  6. Sep 11

    4 Hidden Signs of a WEAK Character at Work (Don't EVER fall for it again)

    There's a 2-second window that tells you everything about someone's character. It's the 2 seconds after they're told they got something wrong, before the professional face goes back on. Most of us miss it because we're busy reading charm.I've hired and promoted people for the better part of two decades, and the same thing holds up every time: pressure, power, and the small moments show you who someone really is long before their results do. A study by Simply Hired found more than 41% of workers lie at work at least once a week to dodge extra work. So a warm manner and a clean CV tell you almost nothing. The real signal shows up in the seconds people think you've stopped watching.Chapters:0:00 The 2-second window0:27 Moment 1: the 2 seconds after "you got it wrong"1:33 Moment 2: where their pressure goes2:05 Moment 3: give them a little power3:03 Moment 4: people who can't help them3:39 Stop reading job titles as character4:14 What to actually do about it4:53 The hard part: run it on yourselfThis video breaks down the four moments that reveal someone's true character. The 2 seconds after they're corrected. Where their pressure goes at 4pm on a bad Friday. What they do with a little bit of power. And how they treat the people who can't do a single thing for them, which is the one I trust most. Then the habit to drop (stop reading a job title as proof of character) and what to actually do once you've seen it, because it isn't confronting them. If you manage people, hire, or just want to know who you can lean on, this is for you. The uncomfortable part comes at the end: running the same four tests on yourself.Here's the line to sit with. You'll spend more of your waking life with these people than with your own family, so it's worth being good at reading them. And in hundreds of exit conversations, almost nobody is ever surprised when it finally goes wrong. They say the same thing: I knew within the first month.Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works. If you want more of this inside-the-room thinking, my weekly newsletter is where I go deeper.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#ReadingPeople #Leadership #Character #Hiring #WinAtWork

  7. Sep 9

    WHY do Stupid People Get Promoted Before YOU!

    Why do idiots keep getting promoted? Because they worked out what's actually being scored, and you didn't. I've sat in the calibration rooms where those decisions get made, and here's what really happens.Chapters:0:00 Why idiots keep getting promoted0:08 Inside the calibration room (90 seconds that decide you)0:34 Is corporate a meritocracy? The 10/30/60 maths1:02 Does hard work get you promoted? (why brilliance becomes your ceiling)1:28 Is HR on your side?1:58 Should you tell your manager you want a promotion?2:24 Is your boss's feedback honest?3:02 Is bias real or an excuse?3:50 Is loyalty worth anything?4:19 Mentors vs sponsors (who actually promotes you)4:51 Stuck in the same role for years? What to do5:09 Free career diagnostic + my WhatsAppEight people talk about you for about 90 seconds. Nobody reads out your performance rating. Someone says your name, and either a story comes up with it or it doesn't. "She's the one who fixed the retention problem." That person moves. The idiot had a story. You had results, and the story won. Corporate isn't a meritocracy, and there's maths behind it: past senior manager, 10% of your advancement is performance, 30% is how you're perceived, and 60% is exposure to the people who decide your future. That's Harvey Coleman's research, and it matches every promotion room I've been in. You're pouring everything into the 10% and wondering why the number won't move.This video answers the 10 blunt career questions most people are too polite to ask. Does hard work get you promoted (and why being brilliant becomes your ceiling). Is HR on your side. Should you tell your manager you want a promotion, or is that the worst room to start in. Is your boss's feedback actually about you. Is bias real or an excuse. Is loyalty worth anything. Are mentors a waste of time when what you need is a sponsor. And the big one: what to do when you've been stuck in the same seat for years. If you're good at your job and still overlooked, this is the one for you.Two things before you go. First, the free career diagnostic scores you on six things most people never measure: visibility, communication, influence, political navigation, positioning, and compensation. It takes 5 minutes, and almost nobody's weakest score is the one they guessed. Second, when your results come through you get my personal WhatsApp. Not a bot, not a sales team, me. Send me your score and I'll tell you what I'd do in your situation. Links below.And if one of those 10 answers annoyed you, put the number in the comments. I'll take them on in part two. Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works.━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#Promotion #CareerAdvice #OfficePolitics #Leadership #WinAtWork

  8. Sep 7

    How to Turn a ENEMY into a FRIEND in ONE conversation

    Can you take a conversation from threat to trust in one sitting? When a discussion turns heated, most people wing it, and that's exactly when it falls apart. This is the system I use to turn it around.There are two parts. First you regulate yourself, because none of the clever tactics work while your face is hot and your stomach's in knots. I use the Stoic sequence: notice the feeling, name it, normalise it, then choose how you respond. You can pour petrol on the fire or pour water on it, and that choice only exists once you're back in control.Then comes the five-step conversion, the part that does the real work with a difficult stakeholder. Diagnose what they're actually protecting, whether it's a CFO guarding the budget or a risk lead guarding the process. Acknowledge their view before you pitch yours. Name their fear out loud so they feel heard. Remove and reduce the threat with a reversible, two-way-door option like a three-month trial. Then give them a face-saving narrative so they can say yes while it still looks like their call. Do those in order and someone who started out guarded ends up trusting you a lot more. If you deal with hard conversations, pushback, or office politics, this one's for you.Subscribe for the stuff nobody tells you about how work really works.Chapters:0:00 Can you turn threat into trust in one conversation?0:41 Part 1: The Stoic reset (Notice, Name, Normalize, Choose)2:30 Part 2: The 5-Step Conversion System2:45 Step 1: Diagnose what they're protecting (CFO vs Risk example)3:25 Step 2: Acknowledge before you pitch4:03 Step 3: Name their fear out loud5:06 Step 4: Remove & Reduce the threat (2-way door / 3-month trial)5:59 Step 5: The face-saving narrative (let them take credit)7:11 Recap - Diagnose, Acknowledge, Name, Remove, Save Face━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━Newsletter: https://newsletter.yasarahmad.com/Website: https://www.yasarahmad.comCoaching: https://www.ovdlab.com/forBlog: https://ovdlab.com/blogSocials: https://ovdlab.com/bioBooks: https://ovdlab.com/shop/bundleContact: Hello@yasarahmad.com━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━#DifficultConversations #Communication #Leadership #Stoicism #WinAtWork

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About

Work isn’t a meritocracy and playing nice won’t get you promoted. I’m Yasar Ahmad, one of the world’s leading HR voices with over 15 years in the boardroom and 550,000+ professionals following my work. Each week, I cut through workplace noise with blunt truths, proven strategies, and unfiltered advice to help you earn more, influence faster, and build a career that actually pays off. If you’re tired of being underpaid, overlooked, or underestimated — this is your playbook to win at work.

Information

  • Creator
    Yasar Ahmad
  • Years Active
    2025 - 2026
  • Episodes
    38
  • Rating
    Clean
  • Copyright
    © Yasar Ahmad
  • Show Website
    The Yasar Ahmad Podcast

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