Best of MBS

If you’ve ever felt that someone has been rude or uncivil to you at work, I think you’ll really enjoy today’s conversation. My guest is Christine Porath, associate professor of management at McDonough School of Business at Georgetown University and author of the new book Mastering Civility: A Manifesto for the Workplace. It’s a fantastic read in which Christine gets to the heart of what’s behind on-the-job rudeness, what it costs u...

Bonnie St. John was the first African American to win medals in a winter Olympic competition, a Rhodes Scholar, and served in the White House as a Director of the National Economic Council. Today, Bonnie travels the globe as a keynote speaker, Fortune 500 leadership expert, and bestselling author. In our conversation we dive into the principles, strategies and tactics of micro-resilience; explore how someone from San Diego ends up ...

The Simplicity Survival Handbook, I got the opposite: a book that is practical, easy to read and focused at the heart of what matters. It’s worth picking up even if it’s just for the tip on how to delete 75% of your emails. In this interview Bill and I tackle why editing is a critical skill in today’s world, how to use a courage-a-meter, why 1440 is the most important number you need to know … and advice on who should mentor you. I...

Rita McGrath is a popular speaker, an author and a long time faculty member at Columbia Business School. She's been on the Thinkers 50 ranking for global management thinkers for more than a decade, and recently was ranked the number one thinker in strategy. In our conversation we look at the temptations and delusions of certainty; the power of Discovery Driven Planning; how to work back from the future; and why intelligent fail...

Jim Knight, president of the Instructional Coaching Group, has spent more than a decade studying instructional coaching. He’s changed the way teachers teach, and significantly improved the way students learn.

In this conversation, Jim and I discuss:

Marshall Goldsmith has been acclaimed by many organizations and institutions as one of the great thinkers and coaches in business and in HR. His 2007 book, What Got You Here Won’t Get You There was a New York Times bestseller and the Wall Street Journal’s number one business book in 2007, and Marshall’s recent book Succession looks like it will have the same level of success. I’m constantly struck by his generosity of spirit as wel...

If we’re going to get through this, we need to manage conflict as best we can. That’s why it’s so important to listen to Liane Davey. She is an organizational psychologist who advises leaders on both strategy and team effectiveness. In our conversation we talk about why we’re biologically wired to avoid conflict (see, it isn’t just me!); the price we pay for accumulating “conflict debt”; the delusion of “picking your battles”; when...

Rita was a twenty-five year old veteran at Southwest Airlines, a two-time recipient of The President’s Award for Outstanding Achievement, and in her final role at Southwest Airlines she served as director of The University for People. SWA is of course a beacon in the world of Great Work and Rita shares insights from her time there in this interview. Meantime, she continues to be heavily involved with the American Society of Trainin...

Few people have an established model of resilience, based on empirical evidence and tested in both the business and academic worlds. Dr Taryn Marie Stejskal is the unicorn. In this episode we get into what’s wrong with bouncing back; the five practices of resilient people; the distinction between choice and control; how Kevin Bacon may have shot himself in the foot; why the mindset “everything happens for a reason” drives us both c...