Qonversations: Powered by Quantuvos

We are facing an existential choice. Follow the path of allowing artificial intelligence to become more and more dominant in the workplace and our lives. Or bring the wisdom of people to the application of AI. On this episode, Social entrepreneur, author, and activist Shmuly Yanklowitz joins host Brian Gorman to discuss the path forward based on Brian’s upcoming book Leading into the Age of Wisdom: Reimagining the Future of Work. T...

Carl Gray III, founder of Raising Founders, shares how he’s building an “AAU for entrepreneurship” to empower young people, ages 12–20, to start businesses. He tells the story of Taylor, who turned a Raising Founders project into a thriving baking venture, trained at the American Culinary Institute, and is now interning in France. In this conversation with host Brian Gorman, Carl highlights the vital role of mentorship, the value o...

Nate Green isn’t shy about sharing his stories. His successes, his failures, his opportunities, and his challenges all serve to inform Nate’s path forward. The author of Suck Less, Do Better: The End of Excuses and the Rise of the Unstoppable You, Nate joins host Brian Gorman to share some of the key lessons he has learned on his journey including the importance of self-discovery and understanding one's true identity and purpose. H...

This episode begins with a few words from his website. “Mark loves leaders who love leaders.” Host Brian Gorman invitation to Mark L. Vincent, Executive Advisor at Teall Vincent Enterprises, to explain this statement leads into a deep exploration of transformational leadership and the importance of developing strong, ethical leadership benches while nurturing authentic relationships with leaders. The conversation concludes with an ...

135: The Wisdom of Ignorance: In this time of unprecedented change, we crave for Subject Matter Experts (SMEs), human or AI, that can give us the answers. Alan Gregerman posits that this is the wrong path to the solution, and that ignorance is the wiser path forward. Alan, author of The Wisdom of Ignorance: Why Not Knowing Can Be the Key to Innovation in an Uncertain World (October 2025), joins host Brian Gorman to discuss the impo...

Looking for differences somehow makes it easier. From this perspective, leading in white collar organizations must be different than leading blue collar workers. But it's not. In this episode of Qonversations, Traci Austin, Chief Talent Officer of Elevated Talent Consulting, joins host Brian Gorman to share the lessons that she has learned over decades of working with and supporting leaders in the trades. The bottom line: people ar...

Long ago, Albert Einstein said, “The thinking that got us to where we are is not the thinking that will get us to where we want to be.” Today, that is truer than ever. While his focus is on “scaling businesses and scaling leaders,” the lessons that Loic Potjes shares in this episode are true for any leader looking to take their organization to a different place in the future. Loic, the Managing Partner of Disruptive Leap, joins hos...

Leadership that wins is leadership that recognizes, builds relationships with, and values others. While You Win Again, Jack: The Story of a Man Who Stopped Needing to Win, and Finally Did is fiction, it is rich with lessons learned by author Scott DeLong. This is not a book to be read so much as a book to be reflected on. In this episode, Scott joins host Brian Gorman to discuss some of the many lessons he learned on his leadership...

On Qonversations, we always try to connect our listeners with our guests. After all, conversations don’t happen between a book and the host or a leader and the host; they happen between two people. That said, most of the time the focus of the conversation is not on the guest, but on the topic. On this episode, we turn our attention totally to our guest, Ziah Miller. Because their parents believed the world was going to end, Ziah an...

Max Klau, the guest for Qonversations Episode 35, returns to discuss his soon to be published book, Developing Servant Leaders at Scale: How To Do It and Why It Matters. Through his coaching, writing, and speaking, host Brian Gorman often makes the point that one of the responsibilities of leaders is to develop other leaders. Max has spent decades intentionally doing so. In this thought-provoking conversation, Max and Brian explore...

In their book Engaging Teams: How to Use Social Wellbeing to Boost Performance, Retention, and Culture, Nick Smallman and Dan Parry dive into the importance of social wellbeing in today’s organizations. Nick and host Brian Gorman explore the importance of leaders knowing the people they are leading, and not just the roles that those people play. The Industrial Age perception of people who are interchangeable and replaceable when th...

Whether you are a solopreneur or the leader of a global enterprise, every day, you are shaping your legacy. Alex Brueckmann, author of Strategy Legacy: How to Future-Proof a Business and Leave Your Mark, sets legacy as the framework for addressing what he identifies as the two primary responsibilities of a leader: strategy and culture. Citing the leader’s role in shaping organizational culture, Alex challenges leaders to not accept...

Today’s guest is Salvatore Manzi, a leadership communications coach with over 20 years of experience helping technical, analytical, and data-driven leaders amplify their impact. With emphasis on frameworks, principles, and techniques, Salvatore empowers leaders to connect authentically and navigate high-stakes engagements with confidence. He’s an introvert who learned how to harness the power of the spotlight and has a passion for ...

Dr. Cynthia Bentzen-Mercer is a human capital strategist, coach, speaker, and author. In her LinkedIn profile, she writes “I work at the intersection of strategy and soul.” In this episode of "Qonversations," host Brian Gorman and Cynthia discuss the critical importance of leaders embracing humanity, aligning individual purpose with organizational roles, the importance of authenticity and psychological safety in leadership, and how...

The world of work is changing at an ever-accelerating rate. In this episode, Ted Whetstone, executive coach, thought leader, and “fellow philosopher on the road of life,” joins host Brian Gorman to explore new ideas on how to successfully lead through the changes we are experiencing. Along the way, they explore organizational design, the work week, innovation, thinking differently about what we sell, the very nature of leadership, ...

It isn’t a possibility. It isn’t a probability. It isn’t some far-off science fiction fantasy thing. We are in it now. The challenge, from the C-suite to the front line, is “How do I ensure not just that I (and my organization) survive, but that we thrive?” In this episode, Nicole Doyle, entrepreneur, start-up advisor, and Founder of Aspir joins host Brian Gorman to begin to answer these questions. Along the way, they discuss the d...

If you are a leader, your success is dependent on your ability to effectively communicate with those who report to you. And your ability to successfully communicate with those who report to you is highly dependent on bringing a coach approach to your leadership. In this episode, communication coach Chris Marr joins host Brian Gorman to explore the changing role of leaders and the importance of coaching as a critical leadership tool...

Every day, Liz Weber, Advisor to Executives and Boards, encounters the challenges that leaders are facing as they seek to guide their organizations into the Digital age. In this episode, Liz joins host Brian Gorman to explore those behaviors that continue to serve leaders well as they move out of the Industrial Age model of leadership as well as the significant shifts in mindset and behavior that leaders at all levels – from the fr...

In his book Nobody Is Smarter Than Everybody: Why Self-Managing Teams Make Better Decisions and Deliver Extraordinary Results, Rod Collins builds on the premise that “the digital revolution is far more than a technology revolution. It is also a sociological revolution that has generated an unprecedented capacity for mass collaboration and created new possibilities in how humans work together.” Under his leadership as the Chief Oper...