Alan Weiss' The Uncomfortable Truth

Informações:

Sinopsis

The Uncomfortable Truth is a twice-monthly broadcast from The Rock Star of Consulting, Alan Weiss, who holds forth with his best (and often most contrarian) ideas about society, culture, business, and personal growth. His 60+ books in 12 languages, and his travels to, and work in, 50 countries contribute to a fascinating and often belief-challenging 20 minutes that might just change your next 20 years.

Episodios

  • A Conversation with Suzanne Bates

    04/05/2023 Duración: 27min

    I’ve known Suzanne for about 20 years. She is the relatively rare example of the founder of a boutique firm who successfully built up its valuation, decided to sell, found the right time to sell, overcame the interruption of the pandemic, and closed with an international buyer. Her journey is a huge example of talent, success, and plain grit. Originating in the media business as a news anchor, she migrated to communications education and training, offering her coaching services and gradually built a company which obtained Fortune 500 clients. She describes, in this interview, the challenges encountered and overcome, often not so easily. (She started preparing to sell five years before the sale was actually consummated.) We talk about the impact today of remote learning, ChatGPT, and leadership in ambiguous times. While it may sound grandiose to say that AI will “change the world,” there are precedents, such as the Industrial Revolution, right down to the advent of the internet (which no one predicted). Shou

  • First Impressions

    27/04/2023 Duración: 10min

    Why is it that I trust the doctor when he simply says, “You look healthy, don’t worry, you’re not sick”? The first 90 seconds of your speech will determine how closely people pay attention to you. Not if they pay attention, but to what degree. It’s the difference between them taking notes and asking questions on the one hand, and checking their email under the table on the other. That applies to what you write, your conversations, and what you record, as well. We tend to immediately make conscious or unconscious notes about peoples’ attire, table manners, language, sense of humor, attitude, attention and focus, and emotions. Books are often judged by their covers. Haven’t you found that the plane’s cleanliness or lack thereof can affect your trip, or that the auto dealer’s service area gives you a lot more confidence when it’s spotless and uncluttered? What about the hotel lobby, and the doorman or desk agent? And certainly, when visiting a home, you take into account the grounds, the interior, the layou

  • A Conversation with Steven Gaffney

    20/04/2023 Duración: 27min

    Steven and I have known each other for over a decade. He’s an expert on a widely-studied field—teams—and a field not studied enough—honesty. In this conversation he explains about fear being the cause of a lack of honesty. He explains the novel notion that “It’s not what we say, but what we don't say.” Steven does believe that honesty is making a comeback, contrary to what many people may think. We talk about the government actually rewarding “whistleblowers” to come forward by offering seven- and even eight-figure payments, and the problems that creates when people make false accusations to try to get some of that money. We discuss the modern “guilty until proven innocent” reversal that seems to have taken hold of society and the media, as embodied by TSA: Prove to us that you’re not a terrorist. Steven doesn’t feel the pandemic dramatically changed teamwork but he does see a trend to get people back into the office because socialization is a huge part of effective teamwork, and you can’t do that remotely

  • Observations

    13/04/2023 Duración: 15min

    In dealing with a global community of thousands—and hundreds of thousands who have read my books—I’m able to keep my finger on the pulse of the profession and its clients. I’m sharing in this podcast some of the repetitive discussions and challenges that are extant internationally. For example, “remote” now rules. It’s often the default interaction, and often represents more value, not less. (A huge amount of time and money are saved.) However, leaders are not sure how to deal with combinations of remote, onsite, and hybrid employees. They are frustrated that they’re not getting their “40 hours” of productivity from them, when, in fact, even employees in the office physically are not providing 40 hours of productivity! This goes back to “Scientific Management” and Frederick Winslow Taylor in the early 20th Century, the first time-and-motion consultant. The problem is that he fudged his numbers and never factored in fatigue and boredom. Supply chains are changing, but they’re changing from global (do we rea

  • A Conversation with Connie Dieken

    06/04/2023 Duración: 30min

    Connie is a former anchor on two major networks. She has moved from broadcasting to coaching, consulting, and speaking with remarkable ease. She’s created her own psychometric testing instrument, and has clients on six continents. I’ve had the pleasure of working with her for many years, and her innovation about, and intelligence in, leadership and executive presence is creating state-of-the art interventions. We talk about the relationship of charisma, presence, and leadership. She tells us about how she became engaged in places such as Kuwait and Dubai, dealing with inclusion and equity.  Connie raises the issue of those who think they’re influential but really are not. (My term is “legends in their own zip code”). We focus on the differences among manipulation and actual, long-term, mutually supportive influence.  I ask her about the effectiveness of leaders in remote and hybrid environments and about the changes necessary intergenerationally. When I asked about a leader who exemplifies her beliefs abo

  • ChatGPT (or not)

    30/03/2023 Duración: 11min

    Well, is this a further step in the dehumanization of civilization, or a Jonestown Kool Aid romp, or another Y2K flop? When you put a variety of documents or fictional passages through the system, I find they are seldom improved and often seriously injured. In some cases, such as in instructions or directions, I think there is huge potential. But I examine in this podcast the downsides of people jumping on this latest “bandwagon” amid the pet rocks and hula hoops. Are we eager to “homogenize” writing? Or eager to duplicate with grammar what we’ve done with math, which only a few people seem to be able to do in their heads anymore. (I fall down laughing at people who can’t figure out a tip in a restaurant, so that the restaurants overcome this by suggesting percentages to tip and the amounts represented therein.) What does this mean for dissertations or term papers? What does it mean for book proposals or reviews? Are we going to live in a world of automated writing, automated math, autonomous cars, and sy

  • A Conversation with Rebecca Hubbard

    23/03/2023 Duración: 25min

    I’ve been staying at the Lotte Palace Hotel in New York City since it was solely “The Palace” and run by the legendary Leona Helmsley. It’s ideally situated on Madison Avenue between 50th and 51st, right across from St. Patrick’s Cathedral, and in easy walking distance to all Broadway plays and only about 300 good restaurants. Becky Hubbard has been the general manager for a dozen years amidst her 20 in the hospitality industry. We speak here about staffing and sustaining a highly supportive and polite work force; of the rebound since Covid; of international tourism rebounding; and of a day that had her walking home around eight at night, while her daughter tracks her location on her cell phone. She presides over a 900+ room, elite hotel which she calls her “inn” and has just overseen a $140 million renovation. We talk here about her preference for dealing directly with guests and the importance of the “first see, last see” front door staff. We discuss the dramatic rise in hotel charges to guests (in Fl

  • Homelessness

    16/03/2023 Duración: 09min

    I recall walking out of a church in the twilight in San Diego and thinking it was horrible that store owners and residents had left their garbage on the sidewalks. As I came closer I realized these were homeless people who were being stepped over by pedestrians. There are almost 600,000 homeless people in the US according to 2022 statistics, and about 20 percent of them in California alone. They form communities for protection, but also suffer from crime, disease, addiction, and brutality. We have no cogent plan to deal with homelessness despite who is in political office. People buying homes in Los Angeles are often faced with the difficulty of finding one for a decent price with the reality that a few hundred yards away, beneath on overpass, are scores of homeless people, often violent and often ill. There are the mentally ill, who are protected from institutionalization by laws that actually place them in greater danger. There are the truly dispossessed, who have suffered from job loss, inflation, hous

  • A Conversation with Jonah Berger

    09/03/2023 Duración: 19min

    A Conversation with Jonah Berger by Alan Weiss

  • Are You Coachable?

    02/03/2023 Duración: 09min

    Are You Coachable? by Alan Weiss

  • A Conversation with Lou Heckler

    23/02/2023 Duración: 28min

    A Conversation with Lou Heckler by Alan Weiss

  • Sustainability

    16/02/2023 Duración: 09min

    Sustainability by Alan Weiss

  • A Conversation with Gene Valicenti

    09/02/2023 Duración: 29min

    A Conversation with Gene Valicenti by Alan Weiss

  • Southwest Air

    02/02/2023 Duración: 10min

    Southwest Air by Alan Weiss

  • In Conversation with Willie Jolley

    26/01/2023 Duración: 29min

    In Conversation with Willie Jolley by Alan Weiss

  • The Unwoke

    19/01/2023 Duración: 08min

    The Unwoke by Alan Weiss

  • In Conversation with Noah Kagan

    12/01/2023 Duración: 28min

    In Conversation with Noah Kagan by Alan Weiss

  • Fixing The Schools

    05/01/2023 Duración: 09min

    Fixing The Schools by Alan Weiss

  • In Conversation with Clark Hoyt

    29/12/2022 Duración: 28min

    In Conversation with Clark Hoyt by Alan Weiss

  • The Ignorance of Bliss

    22/12/2022 Duración: 07min

    The Ignorance of Bliss by Alan Weiss

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