Flourishing Edge Podcast with Ashish Kothari

Ashish Kothari
  • 5.0 (60)
  • Management
  • Updated Weekly

Research backed leadership practices to build high performance cultures and improve workplace wellbeing and employee engagement. Every week, Ashish Kothari sits down with the researchers, executives and practitioners doing the most rigorous work on improving workplace wellbeing and turns what they have learned into something you can implement right away. Not wellness perks. Not engagement surveys nobody acts on. The specific behaviors, systems and daily habits that separate organizations where people burn out from those where they thrive. Conversations range across rewiring habits, building resilience, sustaining energy, cultivating purpose and leading with greater humanity, and how individuals, teams and organizations create the conditions for people and performance to thrive together. Recent guests include Barbara Jeffrey on workplace wellbeing, Zeynep Ton on the Good Jobs System, Zach Mercurio on why mattering drives retention, and Dr. Kristin Neff on self-compassion. Every episode gives you something you can use on Monday. How to build high performing teams. How to lead culture change that holds. Why managers shape employee motivation and employee experience more than any program ever will. Made for business leaders, HR and people teams who own organizational culture and get measured on what it produces. Ashish spent 17 years at McKinsey watching brilliant, exhausted leaders burn out and leaders prioritizing higher profits at the cost of their people. He wrote Hardwired for Happiness and founded Happiness Squad to fix it. He created the Organizational Human Potential Index, along with the REWIRE and PEARL models behind programs run at Google, PepsiCo, Danone and MUFG. This podcast is where that work happens out loud. 180+ episodes and counting. New episodes weekly. More at happinesssquad.com

  1. 2d ago

    How Compassionate Leaders Hold People Accountable

    Fear and shame get short-term results. They also burn people out, destroy trust, and make flourishing impossible, which is why those results rarely last. Host Ashish Kothari sits down with Laura Berland and Evan Harrel, founders of the Center for Compassionate Leadership (1,200+ leaders trained across 75 countries), to unpack why compassionate leadership matters most in the age of AI, and why it is the opposite of being nice. It means setting boundaries, delivering hard feedback, and holding people accountable while protecting their dignity. You'll hear how a single interview question quietly reshaped an entire hospital network, and why the ripple reached the receptionist at the front door. You'll get three moves any leader can make this week without waiting for permission, starting with the boundary you've been avoiding. If you lead a team and suspect command-and-control is costing you more than it delivers, this conversation is your way out. What You Will Learn: 1. Ask what AI can elevate, not what it can replace. Replacement thinking stagnates. Elevation thinking compounds. Before your next AI decision, ask what human capability this tool could amplify. 2. Compassion is not niceness. Nice avoids the hard conversation because it wants to be liked. Compassion speaks truth with dignity: "It's not okay for you to do this, and I believe you can do better, and I will help you do better." 3. Regulate before you deliver hard feedback. Feedback given from anger arrives with a closed heart and a verdict already reached. Ground yourself first, then lead with curiosity about what's missing. 4. One small move in a role, routine, or network. Culture follows. A hospital shifted its entire culture with a single interview question. Steal the meeting prompt: "Tell me one way you can be supported or challenged this week." 5. Go first. The ripple travels further than you think. Compassionate acts move at least three degrees of contact. Set one boundary this week with kindness, or reach out to one person for no reason other than connection. Episode Chapters: 00:00 Opening framing on AI, workplace humanity, and the risk of treating people as expendable.05:20 Why leaders need to recognize interdependence rather than rely on individualism and control.09:07 Compassion versus “being nice”: accountability, hard feedback, and dignity can coexist.18:19 A hospital leader’s small hiring change that helped shift a culture toward compassion.27:38 The story of a middle manager building grassroots support during organizational burnout and resistance.45:08 Three practical actions leaders can take immediately: invite support, set a kind boundary, and build a new human connection. Resources: Connect with the Guests LinkedIn: Laura Berland LinkedIn: Evan Harrel Website: Center For Compassionate Leadership Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  2. Aug 25

    How to Stay Grounded When Everything Falls Apart

    Most leaders treat fear as the thing blocking them. Amy Elizabeth Fox, CEO of Mobius Executive Leadership and Nicholas Janni, both co-authors of Leading in Chaos, argue the opposite: you block fear, and that blocking is quietly costing you presence, judgment, and your team's best thinking. Along with host Ashish Kothari, you'll discover why emotional intelligence in leadership starts in the body, the practices that ground you when everything is unpredictable, and why the times are urgent enough that we must slow down. For leaders and executives who are done white-knuckling through chaos and ready to lead from somewhere deeper. What You Will Learn: 1. Fear isn't the block. You are. "Fear doesn't block me. The problem is I block fear." Let the wave move through you before the hard conversation. What's on the other side is presence, not paralysis. 2. Get in your body before you decide. Soften the out-breath. Feel your feet, feel your chair. Thirty seconds changes your brainwave state, and you can do it mid-meeting. You can't steady a room you haven't steadied yourself in. 3. Stop performing certainty. The picture is too big for one mind. Sit with your team in "we don't know," listen until other views actually land, and watch the periphery for early signals instead of rushing to fix. 4. Slow down because the times are urgent. When you're moving fast in ten directions, you're busy but not effective. Block out time that's unplugged and unscheduled. One well-aimed move beats a dozen rushed ones. 5. Don't shrink, don't inflate. Humility isn't making yourself small. It's owning what you're actually good at while letting go of the need to control how things turn out. Try saying: "I don't know, but together we can figure it out." Episode Chapters: 02:58 Healing inherited trauma is part of leadership.07:27 - Sense-making must go beyond intellect.12:19 - Practical ways to become more grounded.18:08 - Opening the heart strengthens teams.21:23 - Emotions are meant to be felt, not suppressed.31:51 - Spaciousness is a leadership discipline.39:01 - Humility means occupying the right space.43:29 - Intuition and “field intelligence” emerge through presence.49:17 - Collective healing needs both justice and inner development. Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Amy Elizabeth Fox LinkedIn: Nicholas Janni Recommended Reading: Leading in Chaos Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  3. Aug 18

    How to Lead with Vulnerability Without Losing Authority

    700 CEOs have gone through McKinsey's Bower Forum, and the data points to one uncomfortable truth: the best leaders spend less time telling people what to do. Ramesh Srinivasan, McKinsey senior partner, dean of the Bower Forum, and co-author of The Journey of Leadership, joins Ashish Kothari to unpack how top CEOs practice vulnerability in leadership without losing authority and why one of them was told he should fire any leader who says "I have no clue" in a crisis. You'll discover the to-be list that reshapes how you show up in your biggest meetings, the 15-second reframe elite athletes use under pressure, and why feedback you ask for is 10 times more effective than feedback you're given. If you lead people through uncertainty and want psychological safety at work that actually produces results, this conversation is your playbook. What You Will Learn: How to write a daily "to-be list" that decides how you show up in your biggest meetings, not just what you accomplishWhy the best CEOs spend less time telling people what to do and what they do insteadHow to practice vulnerability with judgment: when "we don't know yet" builds trust, and when it should get a leader firedThe "five sources of meaning" that mobilize a whole workforce beyond shareholder valueHow to make feedback ~10x more effective by asking for it first and cascade that habit through your teamHow to metabolize stress with Ramesh's "fear in the backseat" model, so purpose drives and fear keeps only a voice Episode Chapters: 04:49 Why leadership begins from the inside out07:44 How leaders can reconnect with their values and purpose09:57 Shareholder value, stakeholders, and the business case for purpose13:16 Moving from constant doing to reflection and “to-be” leadership16:43 Creating the emotional conditions for difficult conversations18:55 What today’s uncertainty demands from leaders19:28 Humility, vulnerability, truth-telling, and fearless learning23:29 Building a culture where people can learn from failure27:18 What vulnerability really means for leaders32:38 Making stress an ally rather than a source of burnout37:44 What gives Ramesh hope about the future of leadership Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Ramesh Srinivasan Recommended Reading: The Journey of Leadership How CEOs Learn to Lead from the Inside Out Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  4. Aug 11

    Improv Is the Resilience Skill Leaders Are Missing

    What if the skill that makes a comedian great on an unscripted stage is the same skill that makes a leader great in an unpredictable economy? Layoffs and AI have left a lot of people feeling like a line item instead of a human being. Jordana Cole flips that on its head: you are not the resource, you are the source. Jordana is an applied improviser, Gallup Strengths Coach, and University of Pennsylvania positive psychology grad. In this episode she joins host Ashish Kothari to turn a decade on the improv stage into a practical playbook for leading through uncertainty. Together they dig into why AI has no source material without us, why uncertainty is the constant rather than the exception, why an 80/20 tilt toward strengths beats the grind of fixing what is broken, and why play is not a reward for hard work but the thing that makes hard work possible. Improvisation, not certainty, is the human edge in the age of AI. You will walk away with three things you can try this week and one brainstorming trick that changes how your team thinks. What You Will Learn: You are the source, not the resource. AI has nothing to learn from without us.Uncertainty is the constant, not the exception. Possibility, not threat.Play to the scene you're in. Accept reality first, then decide what's next.Lead with your strengths. Gallup: 3x higher quality of life, 6x more engagement.Co-create, including with AI. Treat AI as a partner, not a vending machine.Don't carry your mistakes. Park it and return to center. Episode Chapters: 00:00 Why human creativity and connection matter even more in an AI-driven world. 08:09 Jordana reframes uncertainty as a constant—and an opportunity. 10:17 Use AI to amplify your strengths rather than simply replace tasks. 17:17 How improv helps people adapt when plans change. 24:25 Focus on the reality you’re in and what you can control. 36:00 Co-creation: building better ideas by building on others’ input. 45:30 Why play is a catalyst for creativity, energy, and better work. 50:27 Three practical ways to navigate uncertainty with more confidence and play. Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Jordana Cole Website: Ignited by Jordana TEDx: What to do when you don't know what's next Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  5. Aug 4

    How to Trust Your Intuition When You’re Running on Empty

    Cortney McDermott had the titles, the accolades, and the corporate jet and she was, in her own words, "miserably successful." In this episode, the two-time author joins Ashish Kothari to unpack why you can't win the game of externally sourced success, and how to trust your intuition when you're running on empty. You'll walk away with three deceptively simple practices - rest, movement, and yes, yawning - that change your state in minutes and turn the volume back up on your intuition. What You Will Learn: 1. Source your success from the inside, not the outside. 2. Responsibility is your ability to respond, not your share of the blame. 3. When you're overwhelmed, don't add more. Lie down. 4. Change your state before you try to change your story. 5. Treat your intuition as a faculty to develop, not a fluke. Episode Chapters: 1:31 - From corporate success to inner transformation5:49 - When “having it all” still feels empty11:49 — Why real change begins within23:39 — Three practical ways to reconnect with yourself33:02 — Cultivating intuition in a distracted world Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Cortney McDermott Recommended Reading: Give Yourself Permission:Be Confident. Be Happy. Be You.Change Starts Within You:Unlock the Confidence to Lead with Intuition. Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  6. Jul 28

    AI Saves You 2.5 Hours a Week. Most People Waste It

    AI now hands the average worker 2.5 hours back every week. Most of us pour it straight into more busywork, then wonder why we are busier than ever. That reclaimed time is the most valuable thing AI has given us, and we are giving it away without deciding to. Bonnie Davis, co-author of Still Human with AI alongside Bijal Choksi, joins Ashish Kothari to talk about how to stop wasting it. Not with another productivity system, but by getting deliberate about what those freed-up hours are actually for: your wellbeing, your relationships, and the people you lead. Bonnie gives us a practical framework, and a step-by-step way to use it, for building a workplace where people flourish even as AI turns up everywhere. Her argument is that culture doesn't survive this shift by accident. Somebody has to shape it on purpose. What you'll learn: Decide what your reclaimed 2.5 hours are actually for, then put them on your calendar.Name the moments AI will never own, and ask your AI which ones.Write a human value proposition, not just an employee value propositionGive purpose a line of sight: carry the stories of who your work serves.Make learning a team sport. Courses are outdated, become a micro university: capture learning in the moment. Episode Chapters: 00:00 - The essence of flourishing: energy and resilience06:37 - AI’s potential to help us flourish—or weaken connection17:43 - The seven factors of flourishing20:49 - Purpose and values as organizational building blocks38:00 - Generative leadership for sustainable performance Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Bonnie Davis Recommended Reading: Still Human with AIHow to Build Organizations where Leaders and Teams Thrive with AI by Bonnie Davis andBijal Choksi. Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  7. Jul 21

    How to Show People They Matter in 3 Small Moves | Zach Mercurio

    Only 39% of employees strongly agree that someone at work cares about them as a person, and that number has fallen faster than any other engagement measure since 2020. Zach Mercurio, organizational psychologist and author of The Power of Mattering, joins Ashish Kothari to explain why billions spent on recognition platforms and perks can't fix what only an interaction can, and shares the three research-backed practices leaders use to show people they're noticed, affirmed, and needed. You'll discover why people need to feel valued before they can add value, the "noticing notebook" that transformed a factory team, and the five words that instantly show someone they're relied on. If you lead people and want performance without burning them out, this conversation is for you. What You Will Learn: Value people before they perform, not after.Zach's research shows feeling seen and valued is what fuels performance, not a reward for it. Start with who someone is, not what they produce.Mattering is built through interactions, not programs.Belonging and inclusion respond to initiatives. Mattering, the sense that the group wouldn't be complete without you, is built one conversation at a time. Spend less on programs and more on your managers' daily interactions.Upgrade your thank-you with four parts.Name when and where it happened, the specific behavior, the person's unique gift, and the impact it made. "Good job" is appreciation. This is affirmation: it shows people exactly how they made a difference.Say the five words: "if it wasn't for you."Needing is the practice leaders score lowest on. Tell someone what wouldn't have happened without them. Tell people what you missed when they were gone. Being relied on, and knowing it, is one of our deepest needs at work. Episode Chapters: – 4-5 key stamps (Key moments YouTube) (00:29) Janitor study: a moment of mattering, a 30-year career(08:04) What mattering is(10:40) Why feeling valued comes before adding value(15:38) The three practices: noticing, affirming, and needing(17:47) The biggest gap: showing people they're relied on(36:45) Affirming: proof of impact and the four-part thank you(44:56) $50b in recognition can't replace one caring interaction(51:23) Three anti-mattering forces: distraction, busyness, and AI Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Zach Mercurio Recommended Reading: The Power of MatteringHow Leaders Can Create a Culture of Significance Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

  8. Jul 14

    3 Moves to Succeed as a Generalist at Work

    Over half of us identify as generalists and most workplaces still aren't built for us. Siobhán O'Riordan, founder of Big Sea Strategies and author of Reframe, joins Ashish Kothari to make the case that in a world changing faster than any playbook, the "ubiquitous and yet unseen" generalist is exactly the talent leaders need. She shares the story behind her own pattern of "crushing it or crashing out," why fit beats effort every time, and three concrete moves any generalist can use to name their value and thrive in a system wired for specialists: know your value from the outside in, manage up to make it visible, and protect your range by saying no on purpose. A conversation for anyone who has ever felt like they didn't fit the org chart and for the leaders who keep losing their most adaptive people. What You Will Learn: Flourishing is a fit problem, not an effort problem.The same person, bringing the same energy, can thrive in one role and be shown the door in another. Before you push harder, examine the context: do you have the freedom, authority, and cover to do what you actually do well?Generalists are defined externally so define yourself first.Specialists come with built-in expectations; generalists don't. Ask five to ten colleagues what value you brought them, then learn to name how you think out loud: "I'm someone who sees patterns and gaps."Control your talents, or they will boss you around.A room full of ideas is a liability if you dump all 100. Know your strengths, bring the best three, and pair with people (and AI) who turn ideas into finished work. Generalists cannot work alone.In a fast-changing world, generalists lead adaptation.As "expert practitioners," they test, connect dots, and absorb the risk specialists can't. Think of the hospitalist who knows enough about every specialty to prioritize care for one whole patient.To thrive in a specialist world, get strategic.Know your value, stay connected to other generalists, and get smart about what you say no to. Don't fight gravity, build specialization where you must, and augment your gaps with technology and partnership. Episode Chapters: 00:00 Why fit matters more than effort 01:08 Flourishing starts with self-knowledge 03:40 What actually defines a generalist 11:18 Expert practitioners and the hospitalist metaphor 16:19 Crushing it or crashing out: Siobhán's story 23:56 Context, freedom, and the right roles for generalists 29:46 Turning curiosity into disciplined value 34:36 How AI powers the one-person unicorn 35:02 From seeing the pattern to naming it 41:50 Thriving as a generalist in a specialist world 44:44 Three moves you can make today Resources: Connect with the Guest LinkedIn: Siobhán O'Riordan Recommended Reading: ReframeHow Generalists Thrive in a Changing World Connect with the Host LinkedIn: Ashish Kothari Website: Happiness Squad Book: Hardwired For Happiness TEDx: How to make flourishing your competitive edge YouTube: Happiness Squad Channel If this conversation sparked something for you, please subscribe and leave a review, it takes 30 seconds and helps more people discover the show.

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Research backed leadership practices to build high performance cultures and improve workplace wellbeing and employee engagement. Every week, Ashish Kothari sits down with the researchers, executives and practitioners doing the most rigorous work on improving workplace wellbeing and turns what they have learned into something you can implement right away. Not wellness perks. Not engagement surveys nobody acts on. The specific behaviors, systems and daily habits that separate organizations where people burn out from those where they thrive. Conversations range across rewiring habits, building resilience, sustaining energy, cultivating purpose and leading with greater humanity, and how individuals, teams and organizations create the conditions for people and performance to thrive together. Recent guests include Barbara Jeffrey on workplace wellbeing, Zeynep Ton on the Good Jobs System, Zach Mercurio on why mattering drives retention, and Dr. Kristin Neff on self-compassion. Every episode gives you something you can use on Monday. How to build high performing teams. How to lead culture change that holds. Why managers shape employee motivation and employee experience more than any program ever will. Made for business leaders, HR and people teams who own organizational culture and get measured on what it produces. Ashish spent 17 years at McKinsey watching brilliant, exhausted leaders burn out and leaders prioritizing higher profits at the cost of their people. He wrote Hardwired for Happiness and founded Happiness Squad to fix it. He created the Organizational Human Potential Index, along with the REWIRE and PEARL models behind programs run at Google, PepsiCo, Danone and MUFG. This podcast is where that work happens out loud. 180+ episodes and counting. New episodes weekly. More at happinesssquad.com

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