The 9 Game-Changing Business Lessons You Can't Afford to Miss

In this special episode, host Rob Levin looks back on Season 1 of the Great Talent, Great Business Podcast. He shares the most powerful takeaways from conversations with nine incredible guests. From generational differences in the workplace to building intentional company culture, Rob highlights the insights that left a mark—and how he’s applying them in real time at Work Better Now. This episode is the perfect way to catch up on the season’s best ideas and get inspired for what’s next.

 

Key Takeaway:
Great leadership starts with clarity. Whether you're hiring, managing, or building culture, intentional communication and aligned expectations are the foundation of a high-performing team.

 

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Episode Transcript

(00:00):
Welcome to the Great Talent Great Business podcast, your go-to resource for building exceptional teams and thriving businesses. Each episode delivers actionable insights on harnessing offshore talent, integrating innovative technology, cultivating a vibrant company culture, and attracting and retaining top performers.

(00:01):
So, season one, episode one, featured Jon Sheppard and Jon talked about something that not a lot of people are talking about, which is what he calls the generationality of the workplace. And one of the big takeaways I got is you think about all of the attention that has been given to the younger generations in the workforce, Gen Z and Millennials.
And Jon really put a different perspective on this whole thing about having up to five different generations in the workforce right now. And I have a quote here from Jon, he said, "the thing that I found, when he was studying this, is that all generations are generationally judgemental about the other generations; they all disliked other generations for various reasons". And it got him thinking that you should be looking for the best in everybody, not necessarily the worst. And this has really made a big impact, not only on me, but I've mentioned this when speaking with other business owners and when I do my presentations at like the EOS Conference and it really gets people thinking a little bit; like, okay, there are different generations in the workforce, we should acknowledge their differences, not necessarily assume that there are bad differences.
Jumping over to episode two, we had Alyssa Gelbard and she talked about employee brand. I talk about employer brand, which is what people say about your company as a place to work when you're not in the room; employee brand's a little bit different and my big takeaway from this, was something that I had actually subtly thought about many times over the years, as I go and I look at a company's website, particularly if it's a company we're thinking of doing business with and I don't see much on the owners of the business or there's nothing there that really gives me insight, and when I'm doing business with a smaller, mid-size company, I wanna know a little bit about them; and having that information about the owners of a business up on a website and having them active, I would say in social media goes a really long way. It certainly worked very well for WorkBetterNow, between myself and my partner Andrew Cohen. We're out there doing social, I'm out there speaking at events, we want people to know who's really behind the company, and it was a very powerful message from Alyssa.
Episode four, we had Jade Green. Jade was absolutely fantastic, and she talked about how company culture is caught and it's not taught and it's so important, we're gonna talk about this in a few other episodes as well, and the fewer distractions, the less ambiguity in a business, the more clarity there is, the more productive your people will be; we're gonna come across this actually very soon, again, in another episode. There's a great quote here, this is something you can put up on your wall from Jade, she said "happiness is the greatest hack for performance and profitability." If that's not a drop the mic moment, I don't know what is.

Rob Levin (00:05):
Episode five with Bob Borcherdt. The key takeaway from Bob was every organization has unused human capacity, which has a negative impact on performance, productivity, profitability. And this is, like everything is, a leadership issue and somewhat similar to what Jade said, he (Bob) talks about creating cultures of clarity, and that's essentially the unlocking unused capability, and that's being more aware about yourself, being very clear about expectations and bidirectional feedback. I myself for many years, was a drive by delegator. And people nod their head, that doesn't mean that they understand, be clear, be very clear in all of your communication.
Next, episode six, Mark Taylor legendary, Vistage Chair. And Mark talked about among other things, how small and mid-size businesses don't have formal leadership development programs. So, you put people in a manager role, yet there's no training for them, they know how to do the thing they do, but managing is different; managing is not doing the thing, it's managing people, and he talked about how peer groups can go a long way, with that. And he reminded us that the number one reason why people leave companies is their manager. And time and time again, when you look, when you peel the onion back a little bit, it's because the managers just haven't had any manager training, so we gotta put a big effort into developing your managers and your leaders.

Episode seven*, we had one of the world's leading experts in employee retention, Chason Hecht. And I really am gonna go with Chason's quote here, there was so much he talked about along with all the episodes, please go back and check it out. Chason said (00:07):
"you got to know with clarity and confidence, the answers to these three questions, everything else is guessing; so number one, why do people join? Why do people stay? And when I say people, I mean employees, and why do employees quit? If you asked if somebody asked you those questions now, could you answer them?"
Michael gets into some of them, one of the things I'll share, from a lot of the talks, shorten the cycle time for candidates, think about your candidates, like their potential customers for your business; good employees are actually the harder to come by than customers are these days, and if you think about them shopping for your business, being an employee a candidate and they're shopping around for the right employer, where they wanna spend their 40, 50 hours a week, think about that whole process. How can you make it more appealing? How can you condense the cycle? A lot of good tips that a lot of other tips that Michael shared.
Episode nine, we had the legendary Jack Daly. And Jack has, as he is done many times before, talked about how important it is to build a strong company culture by intentional design, and he talks more specifically about recognition systems, communication systems, personal and professional development, we've heard that before. And empowering your people to create an environment where people wanna work; think about it this way, you want people saying like, not I have to go to work, but I get to work at this place. When people are saying that you have created, as Jack said, a competitive and sustainable advantage in your business.
Thanks for listening. The Great Talent Great Business Podcast is brought to you by Work Better Now. If you'd like to connect with us, you can find us on LinkedIn at Great Talent, great business, or visit great talent podcast.com.