CEO BrainFood – Details, episodes & analysis

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CEO BrainFood

Michael Langhout

Business

Frequency: 1 episode/15d. Total Eps: 26

CEOs successfully leading growth companies require continual learning, new thinking and a guided approach. CEO BrainFood was created to be a resource and guide for entrepreneur founders and CEOs seeking insights and useful tools to help them build enterprise value, generate higher profits, and develop the talent needed to consistently win at the Great Game of Business.

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Apple Podcasts

🇨🇦 Canada - careers
28/07/2026
#59
🇨🇦 Canada - careers
20/07/2026
#71
🇨🇦 Canada - careers
23/03/2026
#92

Spotify

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https://www.langhoutinternational.com/
25 shares
https://sub.langhoutinternational.com/thefunctionalteamscorecard
14 shares
https://www.jimcollins.com/
6 shares

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RSS feed quality

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Score global : 63%

Publication history

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025 Maintaining Resiliency in the Face of Stress and Adversity with Susan Drumm

Thursday, May 14, 2020 • Duration 41:17

01:44 – Michael introduces today’s guest, Susan Drumm who speaks to the origin story of her organization Meritage Leadership Development

09:20 – Michael and Susan reflect on the impact of the ongoing coronavirus pandemic

12:47 – Building resilience in the face of adversity, stress and anxiety

25:33 – The importance of effective delegation and the OURS system

29:30 – Susan speaks to the many assessment tools that she utilizes in her work with leaders

33:37 – Michael and Susan speak to their unique experiences as growth and leadership coaches

38:34 – Where listeners can follow Susan

40:00 – Michael thanks Susan for joining the show and where listeners can find his Functional Team Scorecard

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“I would say it’s more critical than ever that leaders spend time engaging with their team in this [remote] format because people feel isolated.” (10:11)

“What I was curious about is what makes some leaders able to handle stressful situations more gracefully while others just get their buttons pushed and become reactive or lash out. And, is it innate? Can it be learned and, if so, how?” (15:58)

“I recently heard a statistic that the average life expectancy for a police officer after they retire is ten years. Think about that. Because of the wear and tear from such high stress situations that they’ve had to deal with, the toll that’s taken on their bodies without the ability to build the resilience, can really make a difference.” (23:15)

“The way you think drives your actions.” (26:50)

RESOURCE LINKS

Michael’s LinkedIn

Michael’s Website

The Functional Team Scorecard

Susan’s LinkedIn

Meritage Website

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024 Ethics, Value, & Purpose with Albert Erisman

Monday, March 2, 2020 • Duration 41:49

00:55 – Michael introduces today’s guest, Albert Erisman

03:23 – Al talks about why he started Ethix Magazine & The Theology of Work Project

06:25 – Why purpose, meaning and focus outweigh the importance of profits

09:21 – Al talks about his book, The ServiceMaster Story, and the Four Objectives

20:09 – The concept of ‘Shingles on the Roof’

22:42 – The importance of leaders understanding the value of service workers

27:37 – Al explains that leaders aren’t perfect

29:11 – The importance of training

32:34 – Diversity of culture and religion

35:44 – Al speaks to how his company dealt with exponential growth through acquisitions while honoring the four objectives

38:08 – Michael thanks Al for joining the show and for the great work that he’s doing

40:15 – Where listeners can follow Al

41:04 – Where to find Michael’s Functional Team Scorecard

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“I think the whole idea of purpose, meaning and focus is the central idea and then profit is the means by which you do that.” (08:31)

“What happens to a company that has a focus on its employees, its purpose, and its meaning? And what happens when that shifts and becomes about profit?” (11:12)

“He wrote that, ‘ServiceMaster had cracked the code by the way the service industry is perceived because they alone were able to instill purpose, meaning and value into the work of a service worker. It changed the way they saw their work and, therefore, it changed the results for the customer.’” (25:07)

“If you build a system that will only works for perfect leaders, it will fail because there are no perfect leaders.” (28:15)

015 Do You Know Your Critical Number?

Monday, September 23, 2019 • Duration 20:30

01:02 – Introducing today’s topic: Do You Know Your Critical Number?

02:17 – Michael speaks to his own experience working with his CFO on his critical number

03:48 – The Mariano Rivera example

05:30 – The value of historical data

07:30 – Identifying the critical number

10:02 – Engaging your team to achieve your critical number

11:17 – The Great Game of Business

13:05 – Other strategies for engaging your people

14:00 – The importance of educating your people on the business

17:50 – Michael leaves the audience with a quote from Jack Stack

18:42 – Michael poses a self-inquiry questions to the listeners

19:17 – Michael teases the topic of the next episode of CEO Brain Food

19:46 – Where to find Michael’s Functional Team Scorecard

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“We have numbers available to us at a moment’s notice, the tip of our fingers. Numbers are everywhere, and leaders use them in tracking progress and making important decisions.” (03:37)

“With so much information, we tend to lose focus and it just is all foggy and it runs together.” (06:44)

“I like to think of the critical number as the one number that represents the important variable we have to get right in order for our organization to succeed.” (07:40)

“A great way to engage your people is to connect the data that you’ve got to a benefit such as a bonus, or some type of reward, or even equity in the form of stock and stock options.” (13:05)

“At ‘Great Game,’ the critical number is defined as an operational or financial number that represents a weakness or vulnerability that, if not addressed and corrected, will negatively impact the overall performance and long term security of the business.” (17:19)

014 Create a Living Culture with Authentic Leadership

Tuesday, September 17, 2019 • Duration 28:44

01:56 – Introducing today’s topic: Creating a Living Culture with Authentic Leadership

02:10 – Defining what we mean by ‘culture’

05:35 – The Theranos Example

07:12 – Culture as a differentiator

08:12 – Understanding your core values

10:19 – The Zappos Example

12:22 – Why leadership is key to culture

14:19 – Authentic leadership defined

16:17 – The importance of building trust

18:08 – The Operations vs. Sales Example

19:24 – Taking a financial hit in order to retain the integrity of core values

20:30 – Characteristics of an authentic leader

21:34 – Finding your purpose

22:34 – The Disney Example

24:56 – Michael reiterates the importance of differentiating yourself through authentic leadership

27:29 – Michael teases the topic of the next episode of CEO Brain Food

27:58 – Where to find Michael’s Functional Team Scorecard

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“To me, culture is your combination of your core values, your purpose, and the direction your company is taking.” (02:23)

“When you have a great culture, it can be a differentiator in the market.” (04:23)

“Be thinking about culture as a way to be different, a way to differentiate yourself.” (07:12)

“Leadership creates culture. So, if you’re the CEO, your job is to articulate why your company exists, what it stands for, what it believes in, and what it values and especially where it’s headed.” (12:22)

“To build trust you need to be vulnerable. You need to be able to say, ‘Gee, I don’t know the answer to that question. Let’s do some research and figure this out.’” (16:17)

013 Finding the Right Customer, Part 2 with Blaine Millet

Monday, September 9, 2019 • Duration 40:56

01:10 – Welcoming back today’s guest, Blaine Millet
04:08 – Blaine poses an intriguing question about customers
05:24 – Results companies can expect by adopting a strategy of customer obsession
06:36 – Building long tail differentiation
08:02 – The Disneyland example
09:52 – The Ace Hardware example
11:05 – Michael dives deeper into the Disneyland example
11:53 – How a company can start the journey to customer obsession
13:30 – The ‘REMARK’able Triangle explained
16:22 – Component One: Trust
19:59 – Customer Anxiety explained
22:19 – Component Two: Customer Experience
24:04 – Component Three: Consistently helping your audience
26:23 – Blaine reiterates his belief that companies should stop marketing
28:17 – Finding your core customers
31:13 – Blaine’s favorite strategy for acquiring the right customers
36:10 – Blaine leaves the audience with one final piece of advice
38:57 – Where listeners can follow Blaine
39:54 – Michael teases the topic of the next episode of CEO Brain Food
40:13 – Where to find Michael’s Functional Team Scorecard

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“The one thing I like companies to think about is to ask yourself, ‘What are the pain points in your business that you wanna solve?’” (06:02)

“Well it’s [Disneyland] the happiest place on Earth because, when you go there, they treat you so incredibly well. They obsess over every guest that show up at Disneyland.” (09:30)

“There is no one, and I mean no one, on the planet that will ever advocate for you or be your marketing agent if they don’t trust you.” (16:32)

“For all the ‘Attaboys’ you earn, you need about a hundred ‘Attaboys’ cause every one ‘Ah shit’ wiped out all hundred ‘Attaboys.’” (19:11)

“Not all money is good money.” (29:34)

RESOURCE LINKS

Michael’s LinkedIn

012 The Magic of Customer Obsession, Part 1 with Blaine Millet

Wednesday, September 4, 2019 • Duration 35:48

01:02 – Introducing today’s guest, Blaine Millet
02:45 – Focusing on customers
06:42 – The importance of differentiation
11:18 – The Holy Grail of customer obsession
14:29 – Why Blaine advocates for organizations to stop marketing
17:45 – Strategies to get customers to talk about your organization with others
19:48 – How customer obsession ties into the culture of a company
21:19 – The Zappos example
25:23 – Blaine provides some advice on building the right culture
29:15 – The Florida Ritz-Carlton Story
34:10 – Michael teases Part Two of his interview with Blaine Millet
35:10 – Where to find Michael’s Functional Team Scorecard

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“That’s the magic of customer obsession. If you’re so over the top obsessed with your customers, your customers are so over the top happy with you that they’re more than happy and actually will go out of their way to be an advocate for you.” (12:44)

“Stop marketing. Your customers are dying to do it for you.” (14:49)

“Customer obsession is synonymous with culture.” (20:56)

“Why don’t we go out and look at ‘How would this impact our customer positively, negatively or no change at all?’ And let’s bring that back and discuss it before we make a decision.” (28:42)

RESOURCE LINKS

Michael’s LinkedIn

Michael’s Website

The Functional Team Scorecard

Jim Collins' Website

Blaine’s LinkedIn

011 Building a Culture of Trust

Monday, August 26, 2019 • Duration 22:17

00:57 – Introducing today’s topic, building a culture of trust
04:36 – The importance of trust
05:28 – The three pillars of an organization
07:19 – The five key points of culture
07:32 – One: Find and Defend Your Cores
09:38 – Two: Build Authentic Relationships
13:27 – Three: Lead Transparently
16:14 – Four: Develop a System of Feedback
18:12 – The Rule of One Percent
19:37 – Five: Be Present
21:36 – Michael teases the topic of the next episode of CEO Brain Food

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“I like to think of an organization with three pillars. It’s like a three-legged stool. You have strategy, you have structure and you have culture.” (05:38)

“Culture is descending. It starts at the top and must be promoted and literally kept alive by the leader and the leadership team.” (06:53)

“How you define and defends your cores will often determine your ability to grow and scale your business.” (08:08)

“The deeper that your relationship is with those that you’re leading, the more effective you’ll be in leading them.” (10:55)

“Leadership and trust go hand in hand. They’re very interrelated and both are about relationship.” (13:31)

“There’s not a greater impact that you can have on an organization or a company than when you hire someone, or evaluate someone’s performance, or coach them.” (15:50)

“The Rule of One Percent recognizes that at least one percent of what the person is saying is probably true.” (18:19)

“We know that trust takes a lifetime to build and can be destroyed in a moment. That is so true. The culture of trust in a company needs to be proactively established by leadership and consistently applied day-to-day in personal behaviors and actions.” (20:25)

RESOURCE LINKS

Michael’s LinkedIn

010 Are you a Multiplier or a Diminisher?

Monday, August 19, 2019 • Duration 28:23

01:01 – Introducing today’s topic, Multiplier or Diminisher (Leadership Styles)
01:58 – Michael recalls his experiences working with both multiplier and diminisher kind of leaders
06:09 – A Diminisher Leader Mindset
07:09 – A Multiplier Leader Mindset
09:10 – Closing the gap between “where we are” and “where we want to go”
12:47 – Diminisher leaders create anxiety
15:01 – Multipliers are “debate makers” not “decision makers”
15:43 – Five distinguished characteristics of a Multiplier
16:05 – A Multiplier Leader is a talent magnet
17:02 – A Multiplier Leader is a liberator
18:34 – A Multiplier Leader is a challenger
19:57 – A Multiplier Leader is a debate maker
20:47 – A Multiplier Leader is an investor
25:04 – The impact of shifting to a Multiplier Leadership style
27:23 – Michael leaves the audience with a question to consider
27:48 – The topic of the next episode of CEO Brain Food

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“A Diminisher is a leader or manager whose view of intelligence is based on elitism and scarcity.” (06:12)

“A Multiplier assumes that there are smart people everywhere who will figure out problems and become even smarter in the process.”(07:09)

“Multipliers are the talent magnet, the liberator, the challenger, the debate maker and the investor.” (15:53)

“A liberator creates space for people to step up and also feels safe to fail.” (17:54)

“How smart you are is defined by how clearly you can see the intellect of others.” - John Brandon, Director of Int’l Sales at Apple Inc. (18:22)

“The challengers are going to be pushing their teams beyond their own knowledge and beyond the knowledge of the organization.” (19:25)

“Multipliers give other people the investment and ownership they need to produce results independent of the leader. It’s not servant leadership but it’s open leadership.” (24:14)

009 The 3HAG Way

Monday, August 12, 2019 • Duration 23:59

00:51 – Introducing today’s topic, “The 3HAG Way” planning system
01:13 – Background of Shannon Susko
03:01 – How 3HAG System bridges the gap between 1-year goal and BHAG (Big Hairy Audacious Goal) System
05:38 – An anecdote from General Dwight Eisenhower
08:18 – The significance of aligning your team to the core values of the organization to effectively build enterprise value
10:51 – Mapping out your internal and external environments
14:14 – How Market Attribution Framework is used to generate the core of your 3-Year Strategy
16:43 – Articulating exceptional strategies to fill in the gap
17:21 – Plotting concrete milestone steps to achieve the differentiators
19:20 – Assessing your current human resources versus the requirements you need to meet to accomplish the 3-Year Goal Strategy
21:29 – The Cash Conversion Cycle
22:53 – Michael leaves the audience with a quote

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“You get out what you put in.” (02:09)

“In preparing for battle, I’ve always found that plans are useless but planning is indispensable.” – General Dwight D. Eisenhower (05:30)

“Preparation is everything but when the plan is put to the test we must be prepared for variances that are out of our control.” (07:41)

“If we’re clear about our foundations, then we can be more effectively able to withstand events and adjust the variables that threaten our efforts to build enterprise value.” (08:52)

“Strategy is about being different” (16:21)

“When there is no vision the people will perish”. Proverbs 29:18 (22:59)

RESOURCE LINKS

Shannon Susko

Michael’s LinkedIn

Michael’s Website

008 Everyone Needs a Coach

Monday, August 5, 2019 • Duration 27:24

01:01 – Introducing today’s topic, coaching
01:41 – The preconceived notions about coaching
02:46 – The importance Michael places on reading
06:13 – Why everyone needs a coach
07:12 – Attributes of a great coach
09:15 – The golf example
09:51 – A compelling argument for having a coach
10:58 – How Michael views potential client needs
12:17 – Bill Campbell: The Trillion Dollar Coach
15:57 – The importance of having courage as a leader
18:47 – The communication rhythm within an organization
20:31 – Roles and responsibilities of a great coach
21:08 – Michael leaves the audience with a simple question to consider about coaching
21:21 – Michael recalls a recent client call he participated in
22:39 – The three-year swim lane plan
24:36 – Why everyone needs a coach
25:09 – The three areas of leadership: power, influence, and authority
25:43 – Considerations to make before hiring a coach
26:07 – Michael teases the topic of the next episode of CEO Brain Food
26:33 – Harry encourages the audience to share this podcast with others

TWEETABLE QUOTES

“Warren Buffet reads three hours a day. Bill Gates reads a book every two weeks. Mark Zuckerberg the same thing.” (03:35)

“As leaders, we cannot operate in a vacuum. What I’ve really come to discover is that we can’t do this ourselves. Everyone needs a coach.” (06:05)

“I had an old boss one time that was very fond of saying, ‘Hey, we need to step on the shoes without messing up the shine.’” (06:39)

“For any important endeavor, learning from the people who have found the recipe for success can take you to a higher performance level faster than any other known effort.” (09:05)

“This was probably Bill Campbell’s primary differentiator: getting people to work together, breaking down silos. He always advised his coaches that they need great people in the world of product creation.” (15:00)

“Consensus dumbs down the ideas and does not get you to the best option when you’re considering a series of options. What you want is deep debate, healthy debate, constructive criticism and healthy arguing.” (15:25)