Explore every episode of the podcast People and Projects Podcast: Project Management Podcast

In this episode, Andy talks with John R. Miles, host of the Passion Struck podcast and author of The Mattering Effect: Creating a Life of Meaning and Worth. John is a Naval Academy graduate, former Navy officer, and longtime Fortune 50 executive who built what looked like a very successful life, until his young son asked him, "Dad, how come you never laugh anymore?"

John and Andy explore the difference between belonging and mattering, and how leaders can spot team members who quietly feel interchangeable. You'll hear what the Surfside building collapse teaches us about warning signs on teams that are still delivering, why recognition for accomplishments doesn't always land, and how to uncover the hidden rules that run our lives, like the belief that we have to earn rest. They also discuss how to build a sense of mattering sturdy enough to survive AI, and what John would tell a younger version of himself as a dad.

If you're looking for a deeply human conversation about meaning, worth, and the people side of leading, this episode is for you!

• "We see the resume, and oftentimes we don't see the person that ended up becoming the resume."
• "The most important thing she taught me was that I could either continue to be a victim or I could choose the opposite."
• "One of the tragedies of life is we often wait until someone is gone before we tell them how much they've shaped us."
• "The people who notice the drift the most, if you have them, are your kids."
• "When you hear those things, that's not a belonging problem, that's a mattering problem."
• "The leader's job isn't just to include people. It's to help people understand the unique difference that they make."
• "Buildings don't collapse overnight. Neither do teams. Neither do families. Neither do relationships."
• "They stop bringing the ideas. They stop challenging the decisions. They stop disagreeing, and all of a sudden you end up with groupthink."
• "Recognition often celebrates what you've accomplished. Mattering, on the other hand, recognizes who you are on that journey."
• "That's not how life works. The deck's never gonna clear."
• "I try to think about what deserves my attention today because it matters, not because it's urgent."
• "If your worth comes from being useful, then artificial intelligence is terrifying. But if your worth comes from being human, AI can't replace that."
• "People matter because they're people, not because they're productive."
• "Your children don't need a perfect mother or father. They need a present one."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:58 Start of Interview
• 02:10 The Speech Therapist Who Made John Feel Like He Mattered
• 05:22 Telling People How They Shaped Us Before It's Too Late
• 07:48 When Usefulness Is Undeniable and Humanity Is Optional
• 11:32 When Others See the Cost Before We Do
• 14:41 The Difference Between Belonging and Mattering
• 17:01 Resources, Quiet Meetings, and Feeling Interchangeable
• 19:09 Surfside and the Warning Signs We Normalize
• 22:24 When People Stop Raising Risks
• 23:45 When Recognition Doesn't Land
• 27:18 Rewarding Outcomes Instead of People
• 28:50 Hidden Rules and Who Installed Them
• 31:26 The People Pleaser Rule
• 32:15 Mattering When AI Can Do Your Job
• 34:39 Advice for a Younger Dad
• 36:52 End of Interview
• 37:30 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 41:33 Outtakes

You can learn more about John and his work at MatteringEffect.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 134 with Scott Mautz. It goes way back in the podcast archives, and many of the ideas from that conversation are still relevant today.
• Episode 31 with Adam Grant, his first-ever podcast interview, where we talk about what it means to lead with meaning.
• Episode 385 with Vanessa Patrick about her book The Power of Saying No, packed with ideas for when you need to draw the line.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Mattering, Belonging, Meaning, Recognition, Burnout, Team Culture, Speaking Up, Hidden Rules, Rest, Artificial Intelligence, Parenting

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Tranceverse by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with John Tarnoff, an executive career transition coach, TEDx speaker, and founder of the Mid-Career Lab. After 35 years in Hollywood as an agent, studio executive, and film producer, John found himself starting over at 50 when his tech startup collapsed. He likes to say he's been fired 39% of the time, and he built his second act around helping experienced professionals reinvent their careers.

John and Andy discuss why losing a job is an event rather than a failure, and how to talk about it with honesty and a sense of humor in your next interview. You'll hear the difference between a network and a community, how to make networking feel less transactional, and why every conversation, including the job interview, is a networking event. They also explore claiming a niche while staying adaptable, quieting the inner voice of self-directed ageism, and using AI in your job search without sounding like everyone else.

If you're looking for practical, hopeful insights on navigating a mid-career transition, this episode is for you!

• "It's always a kick in the gut."
• "Job loss is right up there with major losses like death and divorce."
• "Losing a job isn't a failure. It is an event, and it is potentially a lesson."
• "Your network is everyone in your Rolodex, virtual or real. They will be the ones who will stand by and watch you fail."
• "A community is a subset. They understand you, identify with you, they're rooting for you, they will chip in and help you succeed."
• "Your resume, which is your LinkedIn experience section, is your bio."
• "You want to use that About section as a call to conversation."
• "Every conversation, at the end of the day, is a networking event."
• "So people hire people, they don't hire skills."
• "Very often your superpower is something that you don't even understand that you do."
• "Polish in an interview can sometimes work against you."
• "There's always an opportunity to turn your life around."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:26 Start of Interview
• 02:33 Shifting Focus from Projects to People
• 06:15 The Story We Tell Ourselves After Losing a Job
• 10:50 Getting Fired Is an Event, Not a Failure
• 12:46 The Difference Between a Network and a Community
• 16:44 Making Networking Feel Less Transactional
• 21:03 Every Conversation Is a Networking Event
• 23:11 People Hire People, Not Skills
• 24:03 Claiming a Niche While Staying T-Shaped
• 27:03 How John Discovered His Superpower
• 30:44 Signs You Haven't Reconciled Your Past
• 34:14 Blaming, Justifying, and Taking Responsibility
• 37:40 Ageism and the Inner Voice That Says You're Slowing Down
• 41:22 Reinvention Is a Mindset, Not a Number
• 42:35 Using AI Without Flattening Your Voice
• 45:53 The Mid-Career Lab
• 48:03 Helping Kids Think About Identity, Setbacks, and Reinvention
• 49:50 Sampling Life Like a Buffet
• 50:30 End of Interview
• 51:11 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 55:02 Outtakes

You can learn more about John and his work at MidCareerLab.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn, and while you're there, check out how he uses his About section.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 261 with David Epstein. His book Range came up several times in this conversation about generalists, specialists, and the value of sampling.
• Episode 318 with John Stepper. It's a great follow-up to this episode, with practical ideas on building your network and personal brand.
• Episode 310 with Jeff Gothelf about how to make yourself forever employable by building the well before you're thirsty.
• Episode 374 with Catherine Kaputa, who shares lessons on personal branding and making a big change across industries.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Career Transition, Reinvention, Job Loss, Networking, Community, Personal Branding, LinkedIn, Interviewing, Ageism, Artificial Intelligence, Mid-Career, Leadership

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Awakening by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Jia Jiang, bestselling author of Rejection Proof and creator of the 100 Days of Rejection experiment, about his new book, Easy Discipline. Growing up in Beijing, Jia was taught the value of chi ku, or "eating bitterness," the idea that the more pain you can tolerate, the more you can achieve. The problem? He was terrible at it. Over time, he discovered that his best work came when he was having the most fun.

Andy and Jia explore what easy discipline does and doesn't mean, why action goals can work better than outcome goals, and how stepping into a character, like a consultant instead of a salesperson, can change your results. They also discuss how project leaders can build a momentum loop early, how a single one-action goal can help turn around a struggling project, why some efforts work best as time-boxed sprints, and how to tell normal resistance from work that simply doesn't fit who you are. Jia closes with stories of how he and his wife apply easy discipline as parents.

If you're looking for a more sustainable way to stay consistent without constantly fighting yourself, this episode is for you!

• "It literally translates into English as eating bitterness.... The idea is the more bitterness, the more pain you can tolerate, the higher achievement you can go to."
• "If work ethic is the only thing that matters, the best factory workers will be the richest people in the world, right?"
• "It's really the inner drive that takes us to go a long way."
• "I did programming to achieve a goal, to achieve some sort of success. He did programming for fun."
• "The things I didn't like to do? I failed miserably. For the things I like to do, I was doing them so well."
• "If you can tap into the 'play' part of yourself, the enjoyment part, that's where you are at your best, even at work."
• "Having a deadline, having a finish line is sometimes magical."
• "The key for me as a parent is this: How do I enjoy being with them more?"

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:58 Start of Interview
• 02:08 Seen as Lazy and Hopeless: Learning to "Eat Bitterness"
• 04:53 Grind Culture and the Myth of Hard Work Alone
• 06:21 Elon Musk and the Power of Inner Drive
• 08:00 What Easy Discipline Doesn't Mean
• 09:11 Chasing the Bill Gates Dream
• 11:42 Fired and Rehired by the Same Boss
• 13:26 Applying Easy Discipline to Losing Weight
• 16:05 Outcome Goals vs. Action Goals
• 17:48 What Jia Still Hasn't Made Enjoyable
• 20:28 Getting Into Character
• 22:36 Accessing a Real Part of Yourself at Work
• 23:43 Building a Momentum Loop Early in a Project
• 26:05 Delivering Early and Finding Stakeholder Support
• 27:14 One Action Goal for a Struggling Project
• 29:22 Why Jia Told a CEO to Stop After 100 Days
• 31:03 When Fast-Tracking Everything Backfires
• 32:33 Normal Resistance or the Wrong Work?
• 35:22 Living Someone Else's Dream
• 37:23 Easy Discipline as Parents
• 41:02 End of Interview
• 41:44 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 45:27 Outtakes

You can learn more about Jia and his work at JiaJiang.com. You can also watch his TED Talk, What I Learned from 100 Days of Rejection.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 522 with Ross Blankenship and Maggie Sass. Their book Friction shares related ideas about reducing the friction in what we do.
• Episode 377 with Cassie Holmes. She's a happiness researcher who shares evidence-based approaches to live and work with more meaning and joy.
• Episode 242 with James Clear about his bestselling book, Atomic Habits, which has a lot in common with turning hard things into habits.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Discipline, Motivation, Habits, Goal Setting, Momentum, Project Management, Leadership, Stakeholder Engagement, Career Development, Self-Awareness, Intrinsic Motivation, Parenting

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Laughing Children Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Dr. Kelly Heuer, Vice President of Learning at PMI, where she leads global learning strategy across professional standards, training, certification, and career-long development. Kelly takes us behind the scenes of the updated PMP® exam and explains what changed in project work that made this refresh necessary.

You'll hear why the business environment domain now makes up nearly a quarter of the exam, how new multi-question case scenarios assess judgment instead of memorization, and why broader recognition of associate and vocational degrees matters to her as a first-generation college graduate. Kelly and Andy also explore what a strategic project leader actually looks like, why judgment may be the new job security in the age of AI, and practical ways early-career professionals can build judgment as entry-level rungs disappear. Kelly shares how she learned to say the thing, the difference between perishable and enduring skills, and the two capabilities she most wants to grow in her kids.

If you're preparing for the PMP, already certified, or looking to sharpen your judgment as a project leader in a world shaped by AI, this episode is for you!

• "You needed a project manager. And instead you got me, and I have no idea what I'm doing."
• "But you know, I am a firm believer that, you know, the credential associated with your name, the name of your university, whether you went to university or not, is nowhere near an adequate representation of your actual potential or your actual skill."
• "You don't have three facts. You have an entire story, right?"
• "Having a consistent measurement system where you're looking at value accumulation, value realization throughout the course of a project through project close is a really important differentiator."
• "And it's about thinking three steps ahead and three rings out like in concentric circles of influence."
• "But one of the ways you can combat that is being specific about what you mean and what it looks like, right?"
• "But, you know, the way I think of it is AI is just, like, the latest test of professional judgment."
• "But I want to make one more point as well, which is that learning by osmosis was never a good professional development strategy anyway."
• "So in here, in this case, I actually think AI is part of the solution to the problem that AI caused, which is one of the great things about AI, even the freely available tools, is it's kind of like an inexhaustible interlocutor."
• "Find ways to lead and manage small projects, even if you're just organizing trash collection in your neighborhood."
• "I think there's also just a lot of observational learning that doesn't have to hurt at all."
• "But you can do a lot of saying the thing, challenging directly, asking the question if you pair it with a lot of signals of interpersonal warmth, which can be things like smiling and eye contact."
• "It's so much less relevant to actually wordsmith your prompt now. It's much more about context engineering."
• "So in my opinion, the most enduring human skill of all is a capability for continuous learning, staying curious, staying fresh, staying open and permeable to new information, and strategic about how you build those skills so you're not wasting time doing it."
• "The robots are overconfident."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:00 Start of Interview
• 02:12 From Philosophy to Project Management
• 04:55 What Changed in Project Work to Drive the PMP Exam Update
• 07:52 Business Acumen and the Shift Toward Agile and Hybrid
• 09:22 Recognizing Associate Degrees and Technical Education
• 11:22 Counting Project Experience After Career Gaps
• 13:29 Inside the New Multi-Question Case Scenarios
• 16:47 Exam Prep Advice That No Longer Helps
• 18:46 Closing the Gap Between the Real World and the Exam
• 20:49 What a Strategic Project Leader Does Differently
• 25:11 Avoiding Bias When Assessing Strategic Thinking
• 26:17 Judgment as the New Job Security in the Age of AI
• 29:15 How Early Career Professionals Can Build Judgment
• 34:51 Small Projects, Observational Learning, and Near Peer Learning
• 36:54 Learning to Say the Thing
• 40:17 Coming Across as an Ally, Not a Critic
• 41:21 Perishable, Durable, and Enduring Skills
• 45:14 Growing Curiosity and Humility in Our Kids
• 48:18 End of Interview
• 48:51 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 51:53 Outtakes

You can learn more about Kelly and her work on LinkedIn at LinkedIn.com/in/kelly-heuer.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 319 with Sierra Hampton Simmons. Sierra is the former head of certification at PMI, and many of the ideas we discussed still apply to the refreshed PMP exam.
• Episode 513 with Fred Marshall. It's not about certification, but it's all about thriving in an age of AI, a major theme in today's episode.
• Episode 509 with Steve Kahle. Steve shares practical ideas for improving your ability to recall what you've learned.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: PMP Certification, PMP Exam, Project Management, Business Acumen, Judgment, Strategic Thinking, Systems Thinking, Artificial Intelligence, Career Development, Early Career Professionals, Continuous Learning, Communication

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Dr. Maggie Sass and Dr. Ross Blankenship, consulting psychologists and authors of Friction: How Tension, Emotion and Change Reveal Better Leaders. Project managers are trained to remove blockers, and much of the time that's exactly right. But Maggie and Ross draw a distinction that's easy to miss: some friction is simply waste, and some friction is information.

You'll hear how the unwritten rules we learned about emotion early in life still shape how we lead, what starts happening in a room before an irritated leader says a word, and the four words Ross thinks can rescue a team meeting. We also dig into why burnout is often a system design problem instead of a self-care problem, what a project leader can actually do about structural friction when they can't redesign the whole system, and which human capabilities are worth protecting as AI makes more of our work faster and easier.

If you're looking for a more practical way to read the tension on your team and use what it's telling you, this episode is for you!

• "But I think the unwritten rule at home was that talking about emotions and living through them safely were two distinct things."
• "Humans need things, and sometimes they don't even know what they need until you are together in a space or in a call."
• "You don't ask questions. You don't bring up creative ideas because you have no idea how that's really gonna go given what you're watching a leader do."
• "But I think the older I've gotten, the more convinced I am that our job as adults inside organizations is not necessarily to be perfect, but it's to repair as fast as possible when you make a mistake, and that's the thing that doesn't happen when people are scared."
• "I've found that these four words can save your team (and marriage): 'I'm experiencing some friction'."
• "It helps me remember that between the stimulus and the response, I have space, and the more that I give myself, the better."
• "There is no real way to separate task and relationship because the humans are doing the tasks."
• "Being the hero may allow you to solve massive problems or create really compelling products in the short term, but it's not a sustainable way to run a business because businesses are run by people and people have limits."
• "It's a good example where AI makes you more productive, like, you got 'em done faster, and almost entirely strips the meaning out of it."
• "And we need to take seriously that our kids need to learn to fail so that they develop resilience."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:14 Start of Interview
• 02:23 The Unwritten Rules Maggie Learned About Emotion
• 04:06 Growing Up in Ross's House
• 05:41 Why Ross Was Skeptical of EQ
• 08:22 What Ross's Pushback Changed for Maggie
• 11:01 Do You Have EQ, or Do You Do EQ?
• 13:06 Can We Get Too Good at Smoothing the Path?
• 16:56 Where Ross Deliberately Leaves Friction in Place
• 18:46 What AI Missed When They Tried Using It on the Book
• 20:35 Leadership as Emotional Intelligence in Action
• 20:50 What Happens When an Irritated Leader Walks In
• 24:39 Four Words That Can Change the Room
• 27:00 When Your Body Writes the Story First
• 29:28 Maggie's Physical Cue and How She Creates Space
• 32:55 Burnout as a System Design Problem
• 35:28 Patterns, Hero Ball, and Structural Friction
• 37:00 A First Move When You Can't Redesign the System
• 38:39 Which Human Capabilities Should We Protect From AI?
• 42:11 What Maggie Refuses to Outsource
• 43:27 Parenting: When to Remove Friction, When to Allow It
• 46:22 The Tin Can Phone and a Kid Who Made Her Own Plans
• 48:44 End of Interview
• 49:18 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 53:13 Outtakes

You can learn more about Maggie, Ross, and their book at TalentSmartEQ.com/friction.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 397 with Dr. Julia DiGangi. It's a discussion about emotions that has stuck with Andy for years, and it's a great supplement to today's conversation.
• Episode 394 with Joshua Freedman. Joshua is a leading voice on emotional intelligence, making this a really good follow-up to Friction.
• Episode 446 with Adam Galinsky. Helpful insights on how to inspire those around us instead of sucking the life out of them.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Project Management, Emotional Intelligence, Friction, Conflict, Psychological Safety, Burnout, Team Culture, Artificial Intelligence, Parenting, Self-Awareness, Communication

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Ignotus by Agnese Valmaggia
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Dr. Jeremy Pollack, a social-organizational psychologist and founder of Pollack Peacebuilding Systems, author of Wired for Peace: Using 7 Neuroscience-Based Principles to Resolve Conflicts. Jeremy looks at conflict through the lens of the brain and nervous system, which helps explain why disagreements escalate so quickly and why the fixes we reach for often make things worse.

Andy and Jeremy talk about why de-escalation has to come before problem-solving, since solutions and stress do not mix. Jeremy walks us through his Sapien Model of six basic psychological needs, giving us a far more useful lens than labeling a stakeholder difficult, defensive, or resistant. You will hear how memory and prediction shape the way we read the person in front of us, what a team learns when its leader consistently avoids conflict, and why changing our experience of conflict requires new experiences, not just new beliefs. Jeremy also shares how this shows up at home, in marriage and parenting.

If you're looking for a practical, evidence-based way to handle the conflicts that come with leading, this episode is for you!

• "The most fruitful relationships from what I've seen at work, at home, et cetera, are those that can weather storms without the real fear of abandonment."
• "That was pretty interesting to me to see how much of the science is telling us that, like, our brain is mostly a predictive machine."
• "Anytime we're in an escalated or emotionally charged state, there's something going on in our brains, usually subconsciously, that's tracking a threat or an impediment to our basic needs."
• "It's de-escalate first because solutions and stress just don't mix."
• "What I'm feeling right now is not a result of what the person's saying. It's a result of the way my body is responding."
• "I call it an experiential thumbprint. It's completely unique to you and no one else has your nervous system, and you don't have anyone else's."
• "If we have a negative experience with someone and we go into a place of fear or pain or anger or something like that, the way that we see them going forward can change very, very quickly, and it's a lot harder to get us to unsee that."
• "We access memories in edit mode. And so after we retrieve it, and when we write it back, it's not always quite the same thing, and that's always made me question not is that memory correct as much as is it completely correct."
• "All conflict is an opportunity for learning."
• "The threat of abandonment is the big thing to really watch for when we're having arguments."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:27 Start of Interview
• 02:35 The Family Cultures That Shaped How Jeremy Sees Conflict
• 05:51 In Awe of How Much We Still Do Not Know About the Brain
• 07:49 The Brain as a Prediction Machine
• 09:55 The Salad Lady and What Sits Underneath Defensive Behavior
• 12:45 An Introduction to the Sapien Model
• 16:19 Why a Framework Beats a Label
• 16:58 De-escalate First: Catching Yourself Before It Is Too Late
• 20:54 When Our De-escalation Attempts Backfire
• 22:43 Empathy Without Having to Agree
• 25:03 How Memory Distorts the Person in Front of Us
• 27:46 We Do Not Access Memory as Read-Only
• 30:45 Joe, the Conflict-Avoidant CEO, and What a Team Learns
• 33:03 Taking Inventory When Nobody Pushes Back
• 34:53 New Experiences of Conflict, Not Just New Beliefs
• 38:08 Tell Me More: Creating a Gap Between Stimulus and Response
• 40:31 Peace Starts in Small Ways
• 42:49 Interrupting the Pavlovian Pattern
• 44:19 Bringing It Home: Marriage, Parenting, and Attachment
• 47:17 End of Interview
• 47:57 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 51:57 Outtakes

You can learn more about Jeremy and his work at CoachJeremyPollack.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 371 with Amanda Ripley. Amanda is an amazing writer, and her book High Conflict is a great follow-up to today's discussion.
• Episode 148 with Dan Shapiro. The title of his book Negotiating the Nonnegotiable sounds like it's about negotiating, but it's really about navigating the conflicts that suck the life out of us.
• Episode 61 with Mike Roberto. That discussion was over 15 years ago, and there are ideas from it that Andy still uses to this day.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Project Management, Conflict Resolution, Neuroscience, De-escalation, Psychological Safety, Emotional Regulation, Memory, Stakeholder Management, Team Culture, Accountability, Parenting

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: On Point by Steven O'Brien
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Johan Roos, professor and executive advisor at Hult International Business School, Executive Director of the Peter Drucker Society Europe, and co-inventor of the LEGO® Serious Play® method. Johan is the author of Human Magic: Leading with Wisdom in an Age of Algorithms, and he has spent decades studying how people think, create, decide, and lead together.

Andy and Johan explore the two paths Johan calls erosion and amplification, starting with a question Andy has been wrestling with as he hands more of his manual driving over to Tesla's self-driving. You'll hear what an eroding project manager actually looks like day-to-day, why practical wisdom matters when the analytically optimal answer is not the wisest one, and how AI feeds one kind of curiosity, the laser, while starving another, the radar. Johan also explains the difference between becoming an AI concierge and practicing what he calls professional citizenship, and he shares what parents can do to help their kids hold onto the messy, hands-on curiosity that machines cannot supply.

If you're looking for a thoughtful, hopeful way to use AI without surrendering your judgment, this episode is for you!

• "Almost every good idea I've had was not in front of the screen."
• "I know what to do, but I've stopped understanding why.".... The eroding project management can no longer explain the why."
• "So in a sense, they argue that the better the system, the stronger pull down the erosion curve."
• "So the message is really when the machines are taking over more and more of some of these subtle, very valuable capabilities we have, we have to climb the value creation ladder."
• "So a complexity is exactly where our wisdom gets exposed."
• "So every metric said fantastic, but nobody asked why, and is this right?"
• "If AI can write a document that is important to you, the document was never where the value lived."
• "But we just have to be careful to not sort of delegate too much of our brain power and sort of erode our jelly bean."
• "When you lean back and you haven't struggled enough, you may be super smart and, and the best brilliant individual in the world, but, you know, friction is good."
• "Are you able to argue for your case without holding on to the AI-produced slide?"
• "Protect the wandering curiosity, unstructured exploration, questions with no immediate payoff, the freedom to follow something nowhere in particular."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:35 Start of Interview
• 02:44 Growing Up Inquisitive and the Power of "Because"
• 06:04 Self-Driving Cars, GPS, and the Erosion of Our Abilities
• 10:31 Becoming an Active Supervisor Instead of a Passive Passenger
• 13:55 What an Eroding Project Manager Looks Like Day to Day
• 18:52 When the Optimal Answer Is Not the Wisest One
• 22:03 Intuition, Gut Feel, and When Something Does Not Smell Right
• 25:54 The Laser and the Radar: Two Kinds of Curiosity
• 27:52 Creating Independently Before Consulting AI
• 30:44 What Happens in the AI-Free Time
• 35:18 Is It Intuition or Is It Ego?
• 37:48 Turning the Models Loose on His Own Book
• 40:00 Asking AI to Be Brutally Honest
• 41:02 AI Concierge Versus Professional Citizenship
• 45:51 Advice for Parents Raising Kids in the Age of AI
• 49:26 Staying Human: Theater, Walks, and Getting Your Hands Dirty
• 50:44 End of Interview
• 51:15 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 54:46 Outtakes

You can learn more about Johan and his work at humanmagic.one.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 500 with Steve Brown. Steve is a former Google DeepMind futurist, and he has a unique perspective on where we've been and where we're going with AI.
• Episode 479 with Matt Mong. Matt shares his take on the AI skills we need to stay relevant in the years to come.
• Episode 463 with Faisal Hoque. Faisal helps us go beyond the fear and the hype around AI to a helpful way to think about the human-AI relationship.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Leadership, Project Management, Artificial Intelligence, Practical Wisdom, Curiosity, Critical Thinking, Creativity, Decision Making, Judgment, Professional Development, Human Skills, Parenting

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Chillhouse by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Owen Fitzpatrick, a psychologist, speaker, and author of Inner Propaganda: Leading Hearts and Minds through Turbulent Times. Owen has spent close to 30 years studying how beliefs form and change, interviewing people everywhere from North Korea to Rwanda to Afghanistan. His thesis is unsettling: our brains do not simply take in facts and reach objective conclusions. They build a story we then experience as reality.

Owen and Andy work through what that means on real projects. You'll hear how a warning from a colleague can quietly harden into a conviction about a teammate, and how Bayesian reasoning gives you a way out. You'll learn Owen's five types of truth, how to tell courageous conviction from dangerous denial, and what leaders can actually make stable when they cannot promise a stable outcome. Owen also explains why pushing harder for buy-in is often the very reason people resist, and how an antifragile identity helps teams face uncertainty like AI without denial or panic.

If you're looking for a fresh way to think about belief, influence, and leading through turbulent times, this episode is for you!

• "We all live in that world where we think we're the one person that isn't the victim of propaganda, and my point or my thesis is we're all victims of our own inner propaganda."
• "We're not necessarily just convinced by others. We convince ourselves."
• "Because I think when we say, 'I'm no good at something,' we lock ourselves into it."
• "Well, if you're not great at communicating with people, get great."
• "Most of the time our beliefs just create a sort of a reality for us, and that reality can help us or harm us."
• "So our brains are prediction machines."
• "Whenever we talk about belief, believing in your ability to succeed in the future is critical if you want to succeed in the future, but that doesn't mean you deny the present."
• "It, it's not that we think negatively, it's we believe negatively, and we see the world through those lenses."
• "So I think we want to be able to challenge our beliefs and build a bit more and get more comfortable with uncertainty away from the table, but when we're at the table with our team, that's when we bring the certainty."
• "We like the idea that we are making this decision of our own free will."
• "And when you look at what a belief is, a belief is an idea we feel certain about, and that word feel is the most important word of that sentence."
• "It's okay to believe less in certain things. It's okay to believe more in certain things. It's okay to believe better."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:29 Start of Interview
• 02:40 The Belief About Himself Owen Took Too Long to Update
• 05:56 A Sweaty Debate Speech and What Came After
• 08:28 Not Good at Something Is a Skill Gap, Not an Identity
• 09:45 The Belief Growth Mindset
• 12:55 The Sandra Story: When a Warning Becomes a Conviction
• 14:07 Why the Brain Craves Cognitive Closure
• 17:15 Using Bayesian Reasoning to Loosen a Belief
• 21:00 Melanie Perkins and Alan Mulally: Conviction or Denial?
• 21:36 The Five Types of Truth
• 26:24 Just Because It Is Your Truth Does Not Make It True
• 28:41 Where Objective Truth Actually Belongs
• 31:47 What "Leadership Is Propaganda" Does Not Mean
• 34:45 Why Change Management and AI Adoption Stall
• 36:30 Why Owen Chose Propaganda Over Self-Talk
• 37:57 Do I Believe It Because It Makes Me Look Good?
• 38:49 Answering the AI Question Without Denial or Hype
• 40:15 Building an Antifragile Identity
• 44:27 Certainty Is Contagious, and When to Change Course
• 45:20 What Leaders Can Make Stable in a Volatile Period
• 47:45 Control What You Can, Influence What You Can, Accept the Rest
• 51:01 When Pushing for Buy-In Creates the Resistance
• 52:45 You're Asking the Wrong Question About Persuasion
• 54:30 Reading the Person Before You Make the Ask
• 57:30 Helping Kids Hold Strong Beliefs Without Contempt
• 1:01:46 End of Interview
• 1:02:15 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 1:05:09 Outtakes

You can learn more about Owen and his work at InnerPropaganda.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 370 with Chantel Prat. One of the smartest, clearest, and funniest books on the brain, and why all of it matters for how you lead.
• Episodes 59 and 60 with Cathy Davidson. She explains how the brain science of attention changes everything.
• Episode 32 with Brad Kolar. A look at the direct implications of neuroscience for leadership.
• Owen's TED Talk, available here on YouTube.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Belief, Persuasion, Influence, Uncertainty, Change Management, Growth Mindset, Psychological Reactance, Buy-In, Artificial Intelligence, Resilience, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: The Fantastical Ferret by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Funny by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes Cheryl Strauss Einhorn, founder and CEO of the decision sciences company Decisive and author of The Human Edge: Smarter Decisions in the Age of AI. Cheryl has spent decades helping people make better decisions, and her message here is a simple one: AI can gather, summarize, and compare, but it can't know what matters most unless we do the thinking first.

Andy and Cheryl talk about why "AI first" can quietly turn into AI only, and why a poor answer from AI is actually useful feedback about your own thinking. Cheryl explains why separating the what of a decision from the why can change the path forward, shares her vision of success question, and walks through how human bias and AI bias reinforce each other. You'll also hear a practical way to use AI personas to pressure test your thinking before a big stakeholder conversation, plus what parents can do to help kids strengthen their decision-making muscles instead of letting them atrophy.

If you're looking for practical ways to make smarter decisions in the age of AI, this episode is for you!

• "AI is about patterns, but we're about purpose."
• "We need to be the chief deciders in our own life."
• "We need to make sure that we actually have a way to push back and check the veracity of what it's giving us because it's a known liar."
• "And so the authenticity of human interaction is what actually builds trust, strengthens relationships, and really gives us a lot of the connections that are important to us in our home life and our work life."
• "You don't need to have a perfect prompt for AI."
• "AI is going to give you other people's answers."
• "'Knowledge is power' isn't as true now. It's what you are able to do with the knowledge, and it's why you want to collect the knowledge in the first place."
• "I almost never would accept AI's first answer."
• "We tend to have evolving hypotheses unless we really build an audit trail of our thinking."
• "So in the world of medicine, a fever tells you something is wrong, but it tells you nothing about what is wrong or where to look."
• "So first we know AI's a sycophant, right?"
• "If it's 99% accurate in its conclusion, but its underlying data is the wrong data set, you've got the wrong answer."
• "I would say the more that I've studied these cognitive biases, these mental shortcuts, the more I realize that we see the world through a dirty windshield."
• "Our brains are muscles, and just like we exercise to strengthen our muscles, if we don't exercise, they atrophy."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:00 Start of Interview
• 02:12 Growing Up Surrounded by Questions
• 04:30 What Leaders Should Watch Out for in "AI First"
• 07:07 When AI Confidently Makes Things Up
• 09:04 How AI First Turns into AI Only
• 09:20 Why Polished Doesn't Mean Authentic
• 11:59 A Prompting Problem or a Problem Definition Problem?
• 14:37 The Vision of Success Question
• 15:45 Why a Bad Answer Is Useful Feedback
• 19:06 Separating the What from the Why
• 20:32 Research: More Information Isn't Better Judgment
• 24:35 Progressive Prompting and Never Accepting the First Answer
• 25:18 Fabricated Quotes and the Trouble with Attribution
• 26:50 Documenting Assumptions and Building an Audit Trail
• 29:25 Committing to Your Own Thinking
• 32:29 How Human Bias and AI Bias Reinforce Each Other
• 34:55 Knowing About Biases Doesn't Make You Immune
• 36:51 Using AI Personas to Challenge Your Thinking
• 40:20 AI and Stakeholder Management
• 42:42 Helping Kids Become Better Decision-Makers
• 44:25 End of Interview
• 44:51 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 48:13 Outtakes

You can learn more about Cheryl and her work at AREAMethod.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 460 with Joe Sutherland. It's an interesting look at the intersection of AI, data, and decision-making, and a great follow-up to this discussion.
• Episode 381 with Jim Loehr. One of Andy's favorite conversations about decision-making, from a remarkable figure in the human performance world.
• Episode 99 with Mike Roberto. A conversation about his book Why Great Leaders Don't Take Yes for an Answer, recorded long before ChatGPT showed up, and still insightful today.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Decision Making, Artificial Intelligence, Leadership, Project Management, Critical Thinking, Cognitive Bias, Problem Solving, Stakeholder Management, Judgment, Curiosity

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Gustavo Razzetti, culture consultant and author of Forward Talk. Gustavo makes a case that surprises a lot of leaders: fear is only part of why people stay quiet at work. The bigger driver is what he calls the pointlessness paradox, the belief that speaking up will not change anything.

Andy and Gustavo talk about conversational debt and how it compounds over time, why silence is so often mistaken for alignment, and the subtle signs that a team is drifting into avoidance, blame, or groupthink. Gustavo unpacks the difference between backward talk and forward talk, offering practical ways to turn an objection into a question that opens possibilities. You'll also hear about conversational agency, why the second person who speaks up matters more than the first, and how the CPR approach of courage, perspective, and responsibility plays out under pressure. Along the way, Andy shares stories from Alfred Sloan at GM and Alan Mulally at Ford, and Gustavo shares a memorable one about his son and a crashed car.

If you're looking for a more confident way to raise the issues your team keeps avoiding, this episode is for you!

• "However, fear only explains part of why people don't speak up. At some point, people feel nothing will change."
• "I like to say that agreement happens in the room, alignment happens after the meeting."
• "When you become the team leader, the number of people giving you feedback reduces, and when you become a senior executive, no one gives you feedback.  Or if they do, it's not honest."
• "But what you want is people to challenge your perspective, to show you what you're missing, to see the things you're not seeing or maybe you stop seeing."
• "The problem is when we put being accepted, being respected over the outcome."
• "So forward talk is when can we frame that objection into a question."
• "So you're not being difficult. You're being realistic, but trying to find a solution, and you're giving the other person options."
• "Most people don't regret the difficult conversations they had. What we regret are the ones that we never had."
• "There's research that shows that the person who speaks up first is not the most important person. The second person who reciprocates is actually the one that creates the change. That moment when two people are talking about the same issue, it gives permission to the other people to jump in and also participate."
• "Staying silent also backfires, not only because it hurts the company, but if you're seeing the problem and you're staying silent, you become part of the problem."
• "It's not the absence of conflict that makes us a good team. It's that we can do it and we can work through it."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:05 Start of Interview
• 02:17 Growing Up in a Family of Nine in Argentina
• 05:18 Learning New Ways Beyond Your Family Culture
• 06:16 Why Fear Is Not the Whole Story
• 09:06 Why Waiting for Perfect Psychological Safety Backfires
• 10:37 Explaining the Pointlessness Paradox
• 11:37 Mistaking Silence for Alignment
• 13:35 Alfred Sloan and the Value of Disagreement
• 15:32 Subtle Signs You Are Drifting Into Groupthink
• 17:58 Backward Talk vs. Forward Talk
• 19:43 The Way to the Sun Is Through the Storm
• 21:05 How Organizations Quietly Reward Avoidance
• 23:08 When Speaking Up Gets You Labeled
• 25:09 Alan Mulaly, Ford, and the Power of the Second Voice
• 27:39 Alignment Debt, Belonging Debt, and Collaboration Debt
• 29:11 Why Conversational Debt Compounds
• 30:05 Surrendering Conversational Agency
• 32:40 Complaining, and the CPR Approach
• 36:31 You Get What You Tolerate
• 37:42 Applying These Ideas at Home
• 40:06 Conflict Is Fuel When You Channel It
• 41:07 End of Interview
• 41:37 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 45:10 Outtakes

You can learn more about Gustavo and his work at GustavoRazzetti.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 284 with Peter Boghossian. He wrote a book about how to have impossible conversations, and it's full of ideas Andy still uses almost every week.
• Episode 148 with Daniel Shapiro. Dan is the author of Negotiating the Nonnegotiable, an insightful guide to dealing with difficult conversations and influence situations.
• Episode 371 with Amanda Ripley. Her book High Conflict offers practical guidance on navigating even the most challenging of conflicts in an empowering way.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Difficult Conversations, Conversational Debt, Psychological Safety, Groupthink, Team Culture, Leadership, Project Management, Conflict, Alignment, Accountability, Communication, Speaking Up

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes back his friend Stuart Taylor, a PMO leader and PMI PMO Awards judge, author of Becoming the Project Manager. Most of us didn't grow up dreaming of leading projects. We drifted into the role, and then discovered it's far less about plans and methodologies than it is about people, pressure, and learning to lead while you yourself still feel unsure.

Stuart shares the story behind the book, including the university project where he publicly chastised a teammate and the response from his dad that changed how he understood leadership. He and Andy dig into the real value and limits of PM certifications, why AI can help you communicate but can't replace the human part, the stakeholder questions younger Stuart was afraid to ask, what his mentor Wayne taught him about proximity and follow-through, and why a new sponsor has to be sold on your project rather than assumed into it. You'll also hear the 30-minute CV rule and the trouble it once caused him.

If you're looking for an honest, human look at what it actually takes to become the project manager, this episode is for you!

• "Well, now that you've reprimanded that person, you do realize you've got to go and pick them back up again?"
• "So going out into the world with this as my toolkit, and I thought it was a toolkit, but actually it turned out to be more like a life raft because I ended up clinging onto it without reasoning at an early point in my career."
• "There's an awful lot that falls between the processes, and that's what the early part of the book is really exploring."
• "I don't believe there's great value in repeatedly recycling the same learning over and over and over again. I think there's much greater value in taking that energy and going to learn something about your industry, the, actual industry that you're working in."
• "And also, I should add, you will have greater value to them by being there too, because you're the interesting change person in the room then, rather than one of another 200 change people walking around all talking about the same methodologies."
• "So be the person who is not avoiding hearing about challenges, but actively seeking them out, and cataloging them, and managing them."
• "Something else I've learned: they don't like you tiptoeing around them."
• "But if anybody's having to go into the office more frequently now, go and spend some of that time sitting with the people whose world you are changing."
• "But if your own leader, the person who's supposed to be championing you in the organization just doesn't get it, then you've got an impossible task on your hands."
• "When your sponsor goes or leaves and somebody else comes in and replaces them, don't just assume that, that because they've now been told they're gonna have to be the sponsor of your project, that they understand it and they can see the value in it."
• "Every project that you work on, the benefits, they are your accomplishments."
• "There is no point in being loyal to organizations. Be loyal to people."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:56 Start of Interview
• 02:15 Growing Up in Walsall and Learning Leadership from Dad
• 07:15 Drifting Into Project Management
• 09:06 When the Methodology Becomes a Life Raft
• 10:14 Why the Playbook That Worked Elsewhere Fails Here
• 11:49 Will AI Create PMs Who Look Prepared but Aren't?
• 13:37 Using AI to Understand a Difficult Stakeholder
• 15:31 The Value and Limits of PM Certifications
• 17:44 The Talent Triangle and Learning Your Industry
• 19:34 Stakeholders Are People, Not Org Charts
• 20:46 Curiosity and Asking Better Questions
• 21:54 Stop Tiptoeing: Busy Stakeholders Want the Point
• 22:55 What Wayne the Mentor Taught Stuart to Notice
• 25:47 Go Sit With Operations
• 28:19 The Power of Proximity
• 29:33 Sponsorship and Why PMOs Collapse
• 34:18 Earning Support and Managing Up
• 35:07 When a New Sponsor Takes Over
• 37:08 Keep Your CV 30 Minutes From Ready
• 39:39 When the 30-Minute Rule Got Stuart in Trouble
• 41:28 Project Lessons That Carried Into Family Life
• 43:23 End of Interview
• 43:58 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 47:08 Outtakes

You can learn more about Stuart and his work at InfluentialPMO.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 474, which is an earlier and pretty candid conversation with Stuart about LinkedIn, careers, and AI.
• Episode 429 with Bill Dow. Bill and Andy talk about the signs that your PMO is going to fail, and you don't have to be in a Project Management Office to get value out of that discussion.
• Episode 441 with Michaela Flick. A discussion on the human side of project management that resonates with much of what you hear from Stuart.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, ;the podcast's AI person, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Project Management, Leadership, Stakeholder Management, Sponsorship, PMO, Mentoring, Career Development, Certifications, Artificial Intelligence, Communication, Influence, Professional Growth

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Tom Rath, one of the most respected researchers on wellbeing and human potential, author of What's the Point? Turning Your Purpose Into a Superpower. Tom argues that we can be incredibly busy while slowly drifting away from what matters most, optimizing our schedules while our lives quietly leak away.

Andy and Tom explore why "follow your passion" can be harmful advice, how status seeking becomes career quicksand, and why our smartphones may be one of the greatest threats to purposeful living. They also discuss how many of us inherit ambitions from our parents that we never consciously chose, and how an honest awareness of mortality can sharpen our clarity, intentionality, and sense of purpose. Rather than treating purpose as one grand calling, Tom reframes it as something we create in small moments throughout the day.

If you're looking for a practical, and honestly a little uncomfortable, guide to leading and living with more purpose, this episode is for you!

• "Here's what I know with absolute certainty: you're wasting most of your day. Not because you're lazy, but because you've never asked the right question. You're so busy being busy that you've forgotten to ask why. You're optimizing your schedule while your life leaks away, hour by hour in meetings that don't matter and tasks that won't be remembered next week, let alone next year."
• "If you fail to do those things in a day and take that initiative and have those meaningful and purposeful conversations, and you put those off until tomorrow, tomorrow never really comes because we get into that responsive mode."
• "Passion by definition starts with you, and it's a little self-oriented, whereas I would argue purpose by definition has an other orientation to it, which is a much better idea for anchoring your energy in a day."
• "If you're not connecting back with the impact that it made on one person that day, it fails to kind of count in the way we motivate ourselves and think about our work on a daily basis."
• "I would argue that 90% of the purpose in life is built in those moments, not in some epiphany on a sunny day."
• "I would estimate that at least 80% of people, maybe 90%, make it all the way to the very end of their career in their life without ever seeing what they could have been best at in life."
• "Even as managers and leaders, if we don't take care of our own health and wellbeing first, we just have no shot at even being our best for other people that we manage."
• "There's always someone making twice as much as you or 10 times as much as you, and there's always somebody with more followers or more listeners or more readers or whatever it might be."
• "The eulogy virtues are about what am I doing today so I'll be a better dad, a better husband, a better friend, to help readers, to help people with the products I'm working on."
• "I would argue that 80% of people I see out in public today, out in the wild, are essentially working for their smartphone."
• "Their smartphone's running their life, and they're the ones salivating like one of Pavlov's dogs every time the darn thing blinks or buzzes or vibrates, right?"
• "Having your phone out sends an implicit message to the other person that the little black box on the table matters more than the other person, and it degrades the quality of the conversation."
• "The one thing we've all got in common is we have today to try and do some things that serve a purpose and help another person, and if you miss that opportunity, it's gone."
• "None of them, none of the headstones say anything about those kind of resume virtues that we were talking about."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:00 Start of Interview
• 02:08 Busy, Yet Drifting from What Matters
• 05:50 Rethinking the "One True Calling"
• 07:38 Why "Follow Your Passion" Can Backfire
• 09:26 From "What Do I Do?" to "Who Do I Help?"
• 11:20 How Our Parents' Paths Shape Us
• 12:11 When Admirable Influence Becomes a Limiting Script
• 15:01 Unlearning the "Always the Hardest Worker" Mindset
• 16:55 Are We Nudging Our Kids Into Our Dreams?
• 19:23 Status Seeking as Career Quicksand
• 22:02 Choosing Your Own Scoreboard
• 23:38 Smartphones and the Threat to Purpose
• 26:28 Making Technology Work for You
• 28:05 How Mortality Sharpens Purpose
• 30:52 What the Headstones Don't Say
• 32:33 Helping Kids Build Lives That Matter
• 35:21 End of Interview
• 35:48 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 40:20 Outtakes

You can learn more about Tom and his new book at tomrath.org/whats-the-point.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 132 with Tom Rath. An earlier conversation with Tom, digging into his story and his research on wellbeing.
• Episode 140 with Tom Rath. Another previous discussion with Tom on wellness and living with strengths.
• Episode 31 with Adam Grant. Adam's first-ever podcast interview, where he shares insights on how to lead with meaning.
• Episode 261 with David Epstein. A conversation about his book Range, a helpful complement on career decisions for kids and for us.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Purpose, Leadership, Career Development, Passion, Wellbeing, Intentionality, Status, Comparison, Digital Distraction, Mortality, Parenting, Meaningful Work, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Awakening by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Attia Qureshi, a coach and negotiation expert who is co-author, with John Richardson, of Never Settle. There's no shortage of great negotiation advice out there, yet in real conversations with real stakes and real emotions, that advice often fails to turn into action. This book tackles that gap between insight and habit.

Attia shares why emotions are not a distraction from negotiation but central to it, why getting clear about what you actually want is harder than it sounds, and how we leave value on the table without realizing it. You'll hear practical stories, from resetting a difficult relationship with a glass of lemonade to expanding the pie in a salary negotiation, plus small daily exercises for building resilience to rejection and learning to say no in a way that strengthens relationships rather than damaging them.

If you're looking for practical, doable ways to become a more confident negotiator and influencer, this episode is for you!

• "You can get more by caring about what the other person needs and building a strong relational foundation."
• "People are not born amazing negotiators. They develop that skill over time, just like people are not born confident."
• "You have to practice that small step out in the real world where the stakes are low and build that skill day after day, month after month."
• "You and I have probably already negotiated half a dozen times today."
• "When someone gives us something, we want to return the favor."
• "New studies now show that 90 to 95% of decision-making comes from unconscious emotional processing."
• "So many of us quit before we even start."
• "But if we do have a goal and we do prepare for the conversation, our likelihood of success is double."
• "A good negotiation doesn't always mean getting 'yes' at the end of it."
• "I always tell my students, people can almost always help you. It depends on if they want to or not."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:06 Start of Interview
• 02:17 Growing Up: Early Lessons in Conflict
• 07:10 Negotiation and Confidence Are Skills, Not Personality
• 08:04 Life Is Full of Everyday Negotiations
• 10:30 Why Negotiation Training Often Fails
• 12:30 Resetting a Difficult Relationship
• 17:20 Influence vs. Manipulation
• 22:33 Emotions, Fear, and Building Resilience
• 28:00 Using the Emotion Wheel
• 29:36 Getting Clear on What You Really Want
• 33:39 Expanding the Pie: Creating Value
• 40:50 The Power of Saying No
• 47:27 Teaching Kids to Negotiate
• 51:23 End of Interview
• 51:55 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 55:22 Outtakes

You can learn more about Attia and her work at AttiaQureshi.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 157 with Dr. Robert Cialdini. Known as the godfather of influence, his name came up several times during today's discussion, making this a great follow-up.
• Episode 412 with Scott Walker. A former Scotland Yard hostage negotiator who shares a lot of practical lessons about influence.
• Episode 385 with Vanessa Patrick. She wrote one of the best books on how to say no, a fitting companion to today's conversation.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Negotiation, Influence, Leadership, Project Management, Reciprocity, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Saying No, Stakeholder Management, Relationship Building, Value Creation, Confidence

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Quantum Sparks (Full Version) by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Fred Marshall, entrepreneur, founder of Quantum Learning, and author of Thrive: The Antidote to Future Shock. Fred introduces his Super Eight, eight interconnected areas of life that shape our ability to adapt, lead, and grow in a world of accelerating change.

Together, they explore why doing all the seemingly right things, the endless life hacks, can still leave you feeling off. Fred makes the case that attention is the single variable that governs almost everything, and that you can ignore almost all of the change coming at you and still thrive. You'll hear about managing your neural net, guarding your time with two 90-minute focus blocks, clearing the open loops that clog your thinking, and choosing the relationships and ecosystems that lift you up. Fred also walks through PANDA, a simple five-step method inspired by a panda that helps you stop a mental spiral and regain focus.

If you're looking for a practical, hopeful way to lead through an age of AI and constant change, this episode is for you!

• "You can ignore almost all of it."
• "So everything, everything you look at, every book you read, every text you read, everything you do is shaping your neural net."
• "If you look at that rock, you're gonna hit that rock."
• "Two 90-minute blocks a day is my new normal."
• "If you want time to go fast, turn on your computer, open your iPad, or look at your phone."
• "An open loop is something that needs to get done, that's not done yet, that's still taking up space in your head."
• "The worst thing is to think of something when you can't act on it."
• "The people you surround yourself with have an enormous impact on your life and how you think and how everything unfolds, and it's probably the most important choice you make is who you hang out with."
• "If you develop relationships with people in a growing ecosystem, you're gonna have a great career, you're gonna have a great life."
• "I want to prepare people so that it's, it's more of surfing a big wave rather than getting overwhelmed by a tsunami."
• "And I think if you're in your head and you're spiraling, getting out of your head and into action is how you really close the loop."
• "But if you can just stop for a second and give that person your full attention, even if it's just for a minute, it's so powerful."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:47 Start of Interview
• 02:00 Getting to Know Fred
• 04:29 What Most People Get Wrong About Change
• 06:29 Designing Your Life
• 08:03 The Life Hack Paradox
• 08:34 Attention: The Single Variable
• 10:20 The Super Eight and the Neural Net
• 13:00 Guarding Your Time: Fred 3.0
• 15:38 Take Care of Your Cells
• 16:09 Rethinking Sleep and Open Loops
• 17:46 Minimum Viable Exercise
• 21:23 The PANDA Method
• 26:22 Designing Your Relationships
• 28:32 Riding Growing Ecosystems
• 31:00 Building Systems for the Future
• 34:12 Applying It at Home
• 36:48 End of Interview
• 37:19 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 40:32 Outtakes

You can learn more about Fred and his work at thrivefutureyou.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 437 with Nada Sanders. A conversation about future-prepping your career in the age of AI.
• Episode 382 with Hal Hershfield. Ideas from his book Your Future Self that remain completely relevant to our times today.
• Episode 313 with futurist Brian David Johnson. A discussion that changed how Andy thinks about trying to predict the future.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Change Management, Leadership, Attention, Focus, Productivity, Resilience, Relationships, Systems Thinking, Future of Work

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Cornelia Choe, leadership advisor and founder of global CEO peer groups, author of The Panoramic Leader: How Great Leaders See Differently, co-authored with Marshall Goldsmith. Cornelia's core idea is that the "mental maps" we form early in life quietly shape how we lead today, and that our decisions are only as good as the world we're actually able to see.

Andy and Cornelia explore why so many new executives fail within their first 18 months, what she calls a visibility problem rather than an execution problem. They dig into practical tools: microtranslations for sharing ideas others can absorb, optimistic fear that lets us move forward without ignoring real risk, and the balcony-and-dance-floor balance of perspective and proximity. Cornelia also shares how getting up close to stakeholders, and even to her own kids, opens up options we couldn't see before.

If you're looking for practical ways to see more clearly and make better decisions in an uncertain world, this episode is for you!

• "And the truth is, sometimes the problem is not that we lack data, it's that we're not seeing broadly enough."
• "And if you truly believe something, stick with it, keep it on your map, and have the courage to go through with it."
• "But the problem is it's no longer enough to be right in today's world, and having an incomplete picture is just as dangerous as getting it wrong."
• "Optimistic fear is the ability to keep the risks and the danger in mind, yet to still go forward and to use our fear to fuel our momentum going forward."
• "We don't need to have everything solved, but just getting up close can reward us with a lot of options."
• "I mean, in some ways you could argue that our brain's autopilot is not a bug, it's a feature."
• "You don't have to accept everything you hear or everything your stakeholders tell you, but we do need to think about it and, in a thoughtful way, choose to accept it or not."
• "And in a world that's constantly changing, this is going to be an even more crucial skill because your decisions are only as good as the world you see, and the most successful leaders learn to see more in today's world."
• "It's just a good reminder to me that a smart, well-intentioned person can see situations quite differently."
• "Our identity is created by the people around us, the people who share their perspectives with, and the perspectives that we allow to become part of our mental maps."
• "I heard someone once say that we're all driven by just a few lines of code that run in the background, and as a former software developer, I can relate to that."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:48 Start of Interview
• 02:00 How Early Life Experiences Shape Our Maps
• 07:50 Why New Executives Fail in the First 18 Months
• 12:20 Microtranslations
• 16:01 Optimistic Fear vs. Pessimistic Fear
• 21:53 Keeping Curiosity Alive and Getting Off Autopilot
• 25:59 How We React When Our Map Is Challenged
• 29:25 The Balcony and the Dance Floor
• 34:41 How Our Circles Shape and Narrow Our Maps
• 38:33 Panoramic Leadership at Home
• 41:20 End of Interview
• 41:57 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 45:00 Outtakes

You can learn more about Cornelia and her work at substack.com/@corneliachoe.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 489 with Marty Dubin. It's a book about blind spots and how they can easily derail us, an excellent complement to this discussion.
• Episode 318 with John Stepper. He's the author of Working Out Loud, and his approach to developing people has a lot of similarities to the leader circles that Cornelia runs.
• Episode 54 with Roger L. Martin. Roger is often in the top 10 of the Thinkers50, and we talk about how you can hold opposing ideas at the same time, very aligned with this book.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Decision-Making, Mental Models, Stakeholder Engagement, Perspective, Curiosity, Self-Awareness, Change, Psychological Safety, Executive Effectiveness, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes back Marcus Buckingham, bestselling author and researcher, to discuss his new book, Design Love In: How to Unleash the Most Powerful Force in Business. For 25 years, Marcus studied the most productive teams, loyal customers, and effective leaders in the world, and the word that kept appearing in his data was one he kept changing: love.

Andy and Marcus explore what love actually means in a business context, including how leaders are really experience makers whether they know it or not. You will hear the remarkable story of Josh D'Amaro, the CEO of Disney, and what his leadership reveals about designing love into a team's daily experience. Marcus unpacks the five feelings that lead people to say they love working for a leader, starting with something counterintuitive: control. The conversation also covers tough love, AI's limits as an experience maker, and how these principles can transform how we lead our families too.

If you're looking for a fresh, evidence-based look at what drives sustained high performance, this episode is for you!

• "I kept hearing that word (love) and shame on me, but I did keep changing it because I felt like it was a careless exaggeration of the word like or something."
• "Don't keep changing the word (love). The word's the word. The question really should be why and how do we replicate it?"
• "You're paid to change behavior. That's all you're paid to do. You're not paid to run a project. You're paid to change behavior as a leader."
• "When you send an email, it's not an email. It's an experience for the person on the other end. When you call that team meeting, it's not a team meeting. It's an experience."
• "You join a company and then you quit your boss."
• "Undesigned experiences lead to unpredictable outcomes."
• "It's cowardly, not loving. It's cowardly to leave them in that job."
• "I am for you. I am for you. That doesn't always mean that I am going to tell you what you wanna hear. It means I want you to flourish."
• "Loving's an ingredient, right? Loving isn't, 'Be nicer.' Loving's like, 'What are you trying to do for me?'"
• "The beginning of love is rules. The beginning of love is clarity."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:48 Start of Interview
• 01:57 Why Marcus Spent Decades Avoiding the Word "Love"
• 05:47 Misconceptions About Love in Business
• 11:29 Inside the "Josh Effect"
• 18:02 What Great Leaders Don't Do
• 22:13 Local Leadership and Variation in Team Experience
• 27:54 When Senior Leaders Couldn't Say the Word
• 31:04 Applying the "Is This Loving or Unloving?" Lens
• 37:43 Tough Love and Difficult Performance Conversations
• 46:20 Practical Takeaways: The Five Feelings of Love
• 50:25 AI and the Role of Love in Leadership
• 56:34 Designing Love Into Parenting and Family
• 1:01:26 End of Interview
• 1:01:57 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 1:05:03 Outtakes

You can learn more about Marcus and his work at BuckinghamInstitute.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 252, which is our earlier interview with Marcus Buckingham. That book still impacts how Andy leads years after having Marcus on the first time.
• Episode 332 with Kevin Eikenberry and Wayne Turmel. A discussion about keeping your teams engaged and connected, even if they're not co-located.
• Episode 324 with Jim Harter. Jim is the Chief Scientist at Gallup and they have an insightful discussion about building resilient and thriving teams.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Love in Business, Team Culture, Employee Engagement, Customer Experience, Project Management, AI, Artificial Intelligence, Parenting, Organizational Culture, Experience Design

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes back Steve Kahle, entrepreneur, executive, and fractional CIO, author of Leadership Recall: Harness Insights. Accelerate Innovation. LEAD WITH AUTHORITY. Steve first joined the podcast in episode 184 to discuss email overload. This time, the conversation turns to a challenge every leader faces: the forgetting curve. Research suggests we forget up to 83% of what we learn within a week, and Steve argues this is not just a learning problem, it's a leadership problem.

Steve shares his CCR framework (Capture, Catalog, and Recall), along with practical tools such as the Anki flashcard app and the Email Me voice-note app, to build what he calls a learning operating system. The discussion covers how to design a recall fitness practice in as little as three minutes a day and how removing friction at every step keeps the system sustainable.

If you're looking for a practical system to stop letting great insights slip away and start leading with more authority, this episode is for you!

• "I think God put in my heart to be a relentless optimizer. I like to see things work and work well."
• "When you really zoom out in life, those who are really successful have figured out what are the frameworks, what are the methodologies that work, and they simply apply those."
• "Our subconscious mind can handle about 11 million bits of data per second, but about 40 bits conscious mind."
• "I went all in. Christ totally transformed my heart, and I'm realizing that scripture memory is a superpower."
• "Time swiftly washes away the obvious."
• "Learning really is a privilege, and we need to be able to find time that works with our daily rhythms."
• "Three minutes a day is really all you need to be able to see tremendous traction on being able to recall things that matter"
• "Instead of 'I'm bad at remembering names,' you could, do a reframe like, 'Hey, I'm getting better at remembering people's names.'"

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:48 Start of Interview
• 02:06 Early Experiences and the Instinct to Remember
• 04:08 Is Memory a Natural Gift or a Trainable Skill?
• 05:19 Forgetting as a Feature, Not Just a Bug
• 07:10 The Leadership Cost of Forgetting
• 09:10 Shifting the Bottleneck from Input to Retention
• 12:02 The Five-Hour Rule and Three Learning Archetypes
• 14:19 The CCR Framework in Practice: Capture, Catalog, and Recall
• 19:50 Removing Friction from Your Learning System
• 23:23 Inside Anki: Cloze Deletions and Building Cards
• 26:10 Organizing Your Recall Decks
• 27:30 Real-World Results: When Readers Apply the System
• 28:56 Building Recall Habits in Your Kids
• 32:50 How to Get the Book
• 34:01 End of Interview
• 34:17 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 37:46 Outtakes

You can learn more about Steve and his work at leadershiprecall.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 184 with Steve Kahle. It's our previous conversation about keeping your head above water when drowning in email and commitments. Definitely recommend checking it out.
• Episode 411 with Laura Mae Martin. She's the head of productivity at Google and shares ideas that I still use to this day.
• Episode 376 with Nick Sonnenberg. It's a book about helping you and your team stop drowning in all the information and commitments at work.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Memory, Learning, Productivity, Knowledge Management, Recall, Spaced Repetition, Personal Development, Continuous Learning, Networking, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes Dr. John La Puma, a board-certified internal medicine physician, professionally trained chef, regenerative organic farmer, and two-time New York Times bestselling author of The Indoor Epidemic.

Did you know most of us spend about 93% of our lives indoors? Dr. John makes the case, backed by more than 2,200 studies, that where we spend our time may matter just as much as the soft skills and productivity systems we so often focus on. In this conversation, Andy and Dr. John dig into what he calls digital obesity and analog wellness, the science of morning sunlight and circadian rhythm, why looking at the horizon for just one minute per hour can improve focus and eye health, and what forest bathing actually does to your immune system. They also explore loneliness as a health crisis, the social dimension of outdoor time, and practical ways to build a 17-minute daily nature habit that doesn't require moving to Santa Barbara.

If you're looking for science-backed ways to boost your energy, focus, and long-term wellbeing, this episode is for you!

• "Digital obesity is when you consume more pixels than you can metabolize."
• "What people don't understand about this is that it's not a character flaw, that it's a biological mismatch."
• "People don't appreciate that nature is actually social, and that social part is good for you."
• "And loneliness is what? 15 cigarettes a day in mortality."
• "Nature works through your senses. You touch, you listen, you see, you smell, you taste."
• "You have a 56% higher function and number of natural killer cells because you are in the company of trees that are making these chemicals, alpha-pinene, D-limonene in citrus trees, many other trees, that improve your ability to kill tumor cells and kill virus infected cells."
• "But immersion in the forest means that you're immersing your senses in it, and the forest is, is the therapist, and the walk is the therapy."
• "Rest is actually self-preservation and capital investment."
• "Often you can upgrade the thinking in a room just by opening a window."
• "But you don't need a forest, and you don't need a park even. You just need a sky view."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:56 Start of Interview
• 02:06 Background: Origins of the Indoor Epidemic
• 07:03 Digital Obesity and Analog Wellness
• 10:33 Dr. John's Morning Outdoor Routine
• 13:21 The Benefits of Looking at the Horizon
• 17:22 Experiencing Vastness and Awe
• 22:47 Forest Bathing: More Than Just a Walk
• 24:32 Walking Habits and Nature Recalibration
• 26:52 Loneliness and Outdoor Social Connection
• 30:04 Practical Tips for Parents
• 32:03 End of Interview
• 32:39 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 35:15 Outtakes

You can learn more about Dr. John and his work at drjohnlapuma.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 461 with Dr. Patricia Grabarek. We talk about why our typical approaches to wellness are missing the mark.
• Episode 421 with Dr. Bijoy John. He's a practicing sleep doctor and I think you'll find some practical ideas from our discussion.
• Episode 200 with Jeffrey Pfeffer. He's the author of a book entitled Dying for a Paycheck and I think you'll find his insights challenging enough to look at work differently.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Nature, Digital Obesity, Analog Wellness, Productivity, Loneliness, Forest Bathing, Morning Sunlight, Wellbeing, Leadership, Sleep

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: On Point by Steven OBrien
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Stephen Shapiro, innovation expert and author of You're Not Playing With a Full Deck: Why the People Who Drive You Crazy Are Your Unfair Advantage. Stephen's journey starts with a costly failure: a $30 million innovation project at Accenture that fell apart, not from a lack of talent, but because everyone on the team thought the same way.

Out of that failure came a framework built around a familiar metaphor: a deck of cards. Stephen introduces four distinct personality styles tied to the four suits and explains why teams missing certain suits are setting themselves up to struggle, even when everyone is smart and capable. In this conversation, you'll hear why unanimous agreement is actually a warning sign, how strengths can quietly sabotage performance when overplayed, and why the people who drive you crazy may be exactly who your team needs. Andy and Stephen also explore what the rise of AI means for the uniquely human qualities that only certain suits can provide.

If you're looking for a fresh, practical framework to build stronger teams and unlock better results, this episode is for you!

• "We were smart people. We had smart people on the team, and we somehow failed miserably."
• "I realized I was the problem. And it wasn't just me, it was the way we constructed the team."
• "Anytime you have everybody agreeing, that's a warning sign."
• "I actually think the bigger enemy of innovation is, 'Wow, this is a great idea!' because then what ends up happening is we believe it's a great idea."
• "It's less of a personality test and more of an opportunity to just stimulate some conversation that typically doesn't happen inside of organizations."
• "Left to their own devices, diverse teams perform terribly."
• "So it's not just diversity, it's diversity plus appreciation."
• "I try to make it very clear to AI: don't agree with me!"
• "Part of this is who are we really versus who did we become?"
• "There's a difference between a strength and a strong suit. A strength means you're good at it. A strong suit means you're good at it and it energizes you because it's who you are at your core."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:25 Start of Interview
• 01:37 When Teaming Started Going Wrong
• 02:52 Recognizing the Real Root Cause
• 03:38 Choosing Your Team Members
• 04:45 Similarity vs. Genuine Trust
• 06:00 A Real-World Team Turnaround
• 07:51 Overcoming Resistance to Difference
• 09:04 The Origin of the Card-Based Framework
• 10:47 When Strengths Become Liabilities
• 13:10 Warning Signs of Strengths Gone Wild
• 16:03 Meeting Personalities and How to Balance Them
• 22:00 How AI Changes the Human Equation on Teams
• 23:45 Which Personality Suits Are Hardest for AI to Replace
• 24:53 How Stephen Uses AI in His Own Work
• 26:18 Applying the Framework Outside of Work
• 29:42 End of Interview
• 30:20 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 33:36 Outtakes

You can learn more about Stephen and his work at StephenShapiro.com/fulldeck.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 286 with Ruth Pearce. Ruth wrote a book about the power of character strengths, and she definitely comes at it through the lens of project managers. Check out episode 286 to learn more.
• Episode 283 with Tom Rath. Tom is the StrengthsFinder guy and it's an engaging discussion that goes beyond personality to what he thinks is the most important question you need to be asking.
• Episode 489 with Martin Dubin. It's an intriguing discussion about blind spots that, if you haven't already listened to, I highly recommend.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Team Building, Leadership, Cognitive Diversity, Collaboration, Innovation, Project Management, Meeting Effectiveness, Personality Frameworks, AI, Human Potential, Self-Awareness, Strengths, Organizational Culture

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Awakening by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes Rebecca Hinds, organizational behavior researcher and author of Your Best Meeting Ever. Rebecca brings a behavioral science lens to one of the most persistent pain points in modern work: meetings that multiply, linger, and drain rather than deliver.

Andy and Rebecca explore the concept of meeting debt, and why reducing meeting volume often matters far more than optimizing agendas. They discuss why meetings have become status symbols and performance art, how a simple social contract makes it nearly impossible to decline an invite, and what meeting minimalism actually means (hint: it's not about ruthless efficiency). Rebecca shares practical ideas, like calendar cleanses, Return on Time Invested (ROTI) ratings, and unexpected guardrails, including the fascinating case of the 27-minute meeting. They also wrestle with AI's potential to either genuinely improve meeting culture or simply make expensive, inefficient meetings feel more productive.

If you're looking for a research-backed, practical guide to finally taking back your calendar, this episode is for you!

• "Why do we cling to this practice that has largely remained unchanged for decades and decades, and yet we know, we're highly aware that it's highly inefficient and dysfunctional."
• "It's ironic and unfortunate that we now consider so many of these dysfunctional practices, so many of these tactics as business as usual."
• "We tend to associate visibility with value and presence with productivity. A packed calendar is a very clear indication that you are busy, you're important, and you have high status within the organization."
• "Meetings are the most important product in our entire organization, and yet also the least optimized."
• "Meeting debt is so bad that it's not worth it to tinker at the edges and try to optimize the meetings that already exist because fundamentally, many of them should not exist in the first place."
• "Return on Time Invested (ROTI) is a concept I learned from my colleague Elise Keith. It asks people to rate the effectiveness of a meeting on a scale of zero to five based on whether this meeting was well worth it in terms of the time invested."
• "I don't mean efficiency for efficiency's sake, right? The goal isn't to make our meetings ruthlessly efficient at all costs."
• "He was tasked with running these 30-minute meetings. He was seeing them drag on and on rather than make the meeting longer, he made them exactly 27 minutes, and that jolted people out of autopilot."
• "What we're seeing in meetings overwhelmingly is people using AI to cognitively offload the work that they should be doing as humans."
• "I continue to believe there's nothing that communicates your leadership more clearly than being able to run a good meeting, but also being able to steer a bad meeting back on track because people very quickly make the cognitive jump that if you can lead a meeting, if you can lead a meeting back on track, you can probably lead a team, you can probably lead a project, you can maybe lead a function."
• "And the reverse is also true. If you can't lead a good meeting, it doesn't instill a whole lot of confidence in your ability to lead anything bigger."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:27 Start of Interview
• 01:36 Rebecca's Background and Journey
• 02:51 The Meeting Sabotage Manual
• 04:38 Meetings as Status Symbols and Performance Art
• 07:30 Meeting Debt: Why Reducing Volume Comes First
• 10:12 Calendar Cleanses: Wiping the Slate Clean
• 11:28 Guardrails Against Meeting Bloat
• 14:30 Better Meeting Metrics: Return on Time Invested
• 17:34 Meeting Minimalism: What It Really Means
• 18:43 Minimalism in Practice
• 21:30 AI and Meeting Culture
• 27:50 Changing Meeting Culture Without Full Authority
• 32:06 End of Interview
• 32:39 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 35:34 Outtakes

You can learn more about Rebecca and her work at RebeccaHinds.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 503 with Evan Unger. Evan shares some helpful ideas on leading better decision-making meetings.
• Episode 246 with Steven Rogelberg. Steven is a leading meeting researcher whose work also appears in Rebecca's book.
• Episode 72 with Steven Rogelberg. An earlier conversation with this leading meeting researcher.
• Episode 245 with Elise Keith. Elise shares some practical insights on how to make meetings more effective.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Meeting Culture, Meeting Debt, Meeting Facilitation, Return on Time Invested, Organizational Behavior, Leadership, Project Management, Behavioral Science, Meeting Minimalism, AI and Meetings, Team Productivity

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Ashley Herd, HR and legal leader turned management coach, and author of The Manager Method. Ashley has led HR and legal teams at organizations like McKinsey and Yum Brands, and she brings a refreshingly real-talk approach to the challenges every manager faces, especially those quiet moments of self-doubt that come with growing responsibility.

In this conversation, you'll hear Ashley's take on why imposter feelings are so common among thoughtful leaders, and how her concept of the "career quilt" reframes even the most uncomfortable professional experiences. She introduces her simple but powerful Pause, Consider, Act framework, which is a practical tool for navigating tough management moments without reacting on instinct. You'll also hear how the language we use about people shapes the way we lead them, why delegation is harder than it looks, and how accountability can be reframed as a positive force on your team. Ashley even shares how Pause, Consider, Act has made her a better parent.

If you're looking for a grounded, practical guide to leading people well (without burning yourself out) this episode is for you!

• "We all have our career quilts. And sometimes those are different, like different jobs, actual different experiences like that."
• "I felt very much like the other at McKinsey."
• "When you open up and show that you are real, you tend to gain the trust and respect that you're so afraid you'll lose if you do that."
• "People don't care that you know the message. They want to hear the message for themselves."
• "What would I want to have happen to me if I were in the other person's shoes?"
• "A rolling stone gathers stress, not moss."
• "Just thinking about the people that are doing a lot of the work, how you treat them and talk with and about them? That can shape a lot of the outcomes."
• "Tasks can quietly become symbols of our value."
• "When you treat your people well, they are a better parent, friend, relative."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:17 Start of Interview
• 02:45 What's A Leadership Experience That Shaped You?
• 05:27 The Career Quilt Concept
• 07:47 Imposter Phenomenon in Leadership
• 11:45 Spotlight Effect and How We Worry About Being Watched
• 14:10 Introducing Pause, Consider, Act
• 15:05 What Pausing Actually Looks Like
• 21:30 Empathy Without Carrying Too Much
• 23:47 Rethinking Empathy
• 25:40 How Language Shapes How We Lead People
• 28:52 The Delegation Trap
• 30:33 What Ashley Still Struggles to Delegate
• 33:15 Reframing Accountability
• 38:10 Applying the Book Outside of Work
• 39:43 End of Interview
• 40:22 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 43:20 Outtakes

You can learn more about Ashley and her work at ManagerMethod.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 468 with James Turk. It's a discussion about what to do during the first 45 days when you take on new responsibility.
• Episode 467 with Sabina Nawaz. She was a coach to Microsoft leaders, such as Bill Gates, and she shares insights that, according to her, no one tells you about becoming a boss.
• Episode 142 with Amy Cuddy. Amy is most famous for her TED Talk on power posing. But episode 142 is more about presence and how you can more confidently rise to the most daunting challenges. It's a nice follow-up to what Ashley talked about with the imposter phenomenon.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Management, Imposter Phenomenon, Delegation, Accountability, Empathy, Team Culture, Communication, Self-Awareness, New Managers, Personal Growth, Psychological Safety

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Underground Shadows by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Amy Leneker, leadership coach, joy strategist, and author of Cheers to Monday. Amy's journey began with a burnout so severe that her doctor put her on medical leave. It took 10 words on a medical form to change everything: "What are your hobbies? What do you do for fun?" She couldn't answer it. That moment sent her on a mission to help leaders recognize stress earlier and respond to it far more intentionally.

In this conversation, Amy shares the stress stories many leaders carry without ever questioning them, and why those stories get quietly rewarded in so many organizations. You'll hear how the body whispers warnings long before burnout hits, why most common stress-relief advice actually makes things worse, and how Amy's three-step Un-Stressing Method gives leaders a clear, practical framework to move forward. She also shares a powerful real-world example of a team carrying 73 stressors that simply didn't need to be there—and what happened when they finally saw that.

If you're looking for a practical, empowering guide to break the cycle of stress and overwhelm in leadership, this episode is for you!

• "The story that I inherited, either intentionally or unintentionally, was you just work hard because that's the only choice you have."
• "I think one of the biggest mistakes that I made was not recognizing how much choice I had."
• "I couldn't remember the last time that I had real fun."
• "Those unhealthy stress stories are rewarded."
• "The majority of ways that we try to manage stress at work actually increase our stress."
• "When I ignored the whispers, it got to the point where ignoring it was no longer an option.... If you ignore them long enough, then the body's going to scream."
• "Talking about stress is stressful, but we've got to be able to see it if we're going to be able to do anything about it."
• "Unclear expectations are resentments waiting to happen."
• "People pleasing—it's not a healthy dynamic. It's not something that serves you or the people around you."
• "Stress is contagious. There is no question about it."
• "Yes, stress is wildly contagious, but so is joy."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:39 Start of Interview
• 01:52 Early Messages About Work and Stress
• 04:36 The 10 Words That Changed Everything
• 06:39 Postponing Joy
• 07:30 Stress Stories Leaders Believe
• 08:19 How the Body Signals Burnout Before the Brain Does
• 11:44 What's Broken About Typical Stress Advice
• 12:58 Walking Through the Un-Stressing Method
• 15:03 Why Sequence Matters: See, Sort, Solve
• 17:32 Solving Stress vs. Fixing It
• 18:44 The Un-Stressing Method in Action: A Team Story
• 21:58 The Danger of Unstated Priorities
• 22:42 People Pleasing as a Warning Sign
• 23:38 Breaking the Cycle of Stress as a Parent
• 24:41 End of Interview
• 25:11 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 28:16 Outtakes

You can learn more about Amy and her work at AmyLeneker.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 448 with Marie-Helene Pelletier. It's a book on how to develop resilience when demands are piling up. It's a great follow-up to today's discussion.
• Episode 398 with Dr. Neha Sangwan, which is a book about learning to recognize wake up calls to help us avoid burnout.
• Episode 164 with stress researcher Derek Roger. Derek brings a unique perspective to the discussion about stress.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Stress Management, Leadership, Burnout Prevention, Wellbeing, Resilience, Team Culture, People Pleasing, Priority Setting, Workplace Conflict, Joy, Self-Awareness, Communication

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy sits down with Evan Unger, a consultant and trainer who has spent more than 30 years helping leaders facilitate collaborative decision making across projects, programs, and organizations around the world. Evan's work focuses on helping groups move forward when opinions differ, tension is present, and time is limited. This conversation is packed with immediately actionable ideas.

Andy and Evan dig into why even experienced leaders struggle in high-stakes meetings, and how Evan's POPRA model (Purpose, Objectives, Process, Roles, Agreements) can transform the way you prepare and run them. They talk about how to manage the "HIPPO" (Highest Paid Person's Opinion) without suppressing the voices you most need to hear, a simple virtual technique called the simultaneous chat that can change the dynamic of any online meeting, and how to make sure your meetings actually land, with clear action items and time to close things out properly. Evan also shares his perspective on where AI fits in the future of facilitation, and some surprisingly personal advice about what he'd tell his younger self.

If you're looking for practical, immediately usable tools to run better meetings and lead more collaborative decisions, this episode is for you!

• "On a scale of zero to a hundred percent, how effective are the meetings you attend? On average, and I can't tell you most of the time I get a number below 60% and often much lower."
• "My confusion as a leader, as a project manager, is immediately the confusion of the group because the group goes to where I'm at. And if I'm confused, welcome to what's about to happen in your meeting: Confusion, Chaos, Dysfunction."
• "The other extreme, and this is truly the art of leadership, is even though I have strong opinions as the project manager, I remain completely neutral, but I'm an expert in process, an expert in how I get other experts to come together, collaborate, make decisions, get 'em to buy in."
• "If I'm the HIPPO and I run the meeting as the expert, I will suppress conversation. People will not tell me what I need to know to make the decision, and I'm going to sub-optimize decisions, and I'm not going get people to buy in."
• "So the art of leadership is knowing how to start and work from the right side of the continuum where I'm an expert in the process of getting others to collaborate and asking questions to elicit their thinking."
• "If I'm not hearing from people as the facilitator of the collaborative conversation, that is a first sign that something's gone awry and I need to know how to hold space."
• "The meeting's purpose and objectives, that's the first tether, the first anchor. If that's not clear, there is no tool or technique that is going to save me."
• "Time is fuel. And we have limited fuel in the plane flight. When time is running out, we don't go knock on the cockpit and say to the pilot, fly faster."
• "People say to me, 'Evan, I've got Copilot now. I got these AIs doing all the monitoring and tracking'. It's like, yeah, great, but you can't trust what it said. You still have to come back and say, 'Do we all agree what we decided and where we go from here?'"
• "The five points were: 1, learn Spanish and become fluent in Spanish. 2, become fluent in Mandarin. 3, make sure you get a hard sciences or engineering degree when you go to school. Do it. Take all the liberal arts courses you want, but have something that people actually want. 4, go do a 10-day silent meditation as soon as you get out of school. And 5, take a backpack when you get out of school. Travel the world for a year.... That list is now down to two points."
• "The plan is now to find something that can't be AI'd out of existence."
• "But really, the art of being a good coach, a good consultant, a good parent, a good manager is querying the people to help them figure out their own answer."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:44 Start of Interview
• 02:00 Evan's Background and Work
• 03:13 Why Meetings Fail — The Plane Metaphor
• 05:07 Preparing for High-Stakes Meetings: The POPRA Model
• 07:48 Distinguishing Purpose from Objectives
• 08:39 Facilitating Without Formal Authority
• 11:43 Spotting Meeting Drift
• 12:58 Balancing Dominant and Quiet Voices
• 16:12 Face-to-Face Facilitation Techniques
• 17:22 Handling Challenging Participants
• 21:17 Ensuring Meetings Land: Follow-Up Habits
• 23:59 AI and the Future of Facilitation
• 32:25 Advice to Younger Self
• 34:37 How These Skills Apply to Life
• 36:03 End of Interview
• 36:29 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 41:22 Outtakes

You can learn more about Evan and his work at terischwartzassociates.com. You can also connect with him on LinkedIn.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 413 with Rich Malman and Jim Stewart. They talk about what they call meeting goblins and how to deal with them. It's a very project management-specific take on running better project meetings.
• Episode 246 with Steven Rogelberg. Steven is a meeting researcher, but a really practical guy, and he shares great ideas about running more effective meetings.
• Episode 72 with Steven Rogelberg. An earlier conversation with Steven that is still packed with practical ideas on making meetings work.
• Episode 245 with Elise Keith. Elise is a meeting researcher who shares so many practical ideas on how to make meetings more effective—ideas Andy still calls back to years later.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Meeting Facilitation, Collaborative Leadership, Decision Making, HIPPO Effect, Virtual Meetings, Meeting Preparation, Time Management, AI, Project Management, Change Management, Communication, Facilitation Tools

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Ignotus by Agnese Valmaggia
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Brett Harned, founder of the Digital PM Community and the Digital PM Summit, and author of Project Management for Humans: Helping People Get Things Done. Brett has spent years coaching project leaders and helping organizations rethink what project management really is. His core conviction: the human side of the work is not a nice-to-have. It is the work.

In this conversation, you'll hear how Brett fell into project management and what early experiences shaped his perspective on people and projects. You'll learn the patterns he sees repeated across teams and industries, practical habits for when projects feel messy or start to drift, and why he believes project management is a leadership role that most organizations still undervalue. Brett also shares his candid take on AI, what it can and cannot do for project leaders, and what advice he would give his younger self.

If you lead projects or teams, whether or not you have a PM title, this episode is for you!

• "Often with PMs, it's finding or receiving or feeling the permission to lead like a human instead of like a machine or a robot."
• "Projects fail because conversations didn't happen or they happened way too late."
• "Project management is a leadership role and too often organizations don't see it as a leadership role the way that they should."
• "Project managers are quietly carrying emotional labor that no one really acknowledges."
• "You can't earn trust by being invisible."
• "The role has become less about task tracking and more about judgment, good communication and trust building."
• "If you call people on your team resources, they have every right to call you overhead."
• "Slowing conversations down before speeding up the work is like the biggest thing."
• "Drift isn't usually about effort. It's about misaligned understanding."
• "AI is not going to replace a really good leader."
• "AI is great at admin. It's terrible at the leadership stuff. It can't read the room, it can't navigate tension, it can't earn trust."
• "Say the thing now. Saying something early is almost always safer than saying it too late."
• "The job of a project manager isn't to absorb chaos. It's to make it a conversation."
• "Caring about people and building relationships is a skill, and it's a skill that's necessary for this career."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:52 Start of Interview
• 01:57 How Brett Describes What He Does
• 03:29 When the People Side Became Clear
• 06:52 Patterns Across Teams and Organizations
• 10:32 How Expectations of the PM Role Have Changed
• 12:28 The Impact of Remote and Hybrid Work
• 15:26 Practices for When Projects Feel Messy
• 18:20 How to Name What Is Happening Out Loud
• 21:30 A Question for When Projects Start to Drift
• 23:43 How AI Will and Won't Change the PM Role
• 25:50 Practical Ways Brett Uses AI
• 30:21 Advice to Younger Brett
• 33:40 How PM Skills Show Up Outside of Work
• 35:58 The PM Squad and Same Team Partners
• 38:01 End of Interview
• 38:22 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 41:30 Outtakes

You can learn more about Brett and his work at SameTeamPartners.com and BrettHarned.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 336 with Clint Padgett. During the interview with Brett, Andy mentioned the weakness of using only percent complete or status colors. That's something Clint and Andy talked about in episode 336.
• Episode 99 with Mike Roberto. The topic of conflict came up several times in this discussion. In episode 99, Mike and Andy talk about managing the tension between conflict and consensus. It's a discussion worth hearing, especially if you grew up thinking conflict is mostly a negative.
• Episode 500 with Steve Brown, former Google DeepMind futurist. Andy and Steve talk about AI and the future of work, and it's a discussion highly recommended for anyone leading projects today.

You can chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Project Management, Leadership, Team Dynamics, Communication, Emotional Labor, Human-Centered Leadership, Conflict Management, AI, Future of Work, Stakeholder Management, Psychological Safety, Remote Work, Project Recovery

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes Jen Fisher, author of Hope Is the Strategy: The Underrated Skill That Transforms Work, Leadership, and Wellbeing. In project management circles, we often hear the phrase "hope is not a strategy." Jen challenges that assumption, arguing that real hope is not wishful thinking at all. Instead, it's a practical cognitive process that can help leaders navigate uncertainty, pressure, and change.

In the discussion, Jen explains how hope requires three elements: clear goals, multiple pathways to reach them, and the agency to believe we can influence outcomes. You'll also hear her personal story of realizing she was languishing under constant performance pressure, and how a candid conversation with her boss sparked the beginning of a healthier and more hopeful way of working. Along the way, Jen shares practical tools such as possibility journaling, energy ledgers, and hope spotting. She also explains why vulnerability can be a leadership superpower and how simple language shifts can turn hope killers into hope builders.

If you're leading teams and projects under constant pressure and looking for practical ways to sustain both performance and wellbeing, this episode is for you!

• "How would I describe myself? I'm a hope dealer."
• "Hope is not flimsy. It's not whimsical."
• "Real hope actually requires action."
• "What drives hopelessness is feeling like there's nothing you can do."
• "Hope is the belief that tomorrow can be better than today."
• "67% of managers said that they've never been trained in how to manage other people. We put humans in charge of other humans, but we give them very little skill and training in how to lead."
• "You can perform when you're languishing, but the question is really why should we or why would we want to."
• "For the first time in my professional life, I actually felt seen and heard and valued."
• "Toxic positivity only makes people feel worse."
• "Possibility journaling is really thinking about what might be possible here."
• "Vulnerability is proof that you're human."
• "When people are feeling uncertain, they want to connect to somebody that feels human."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:45 Start of Interview
• 02:00 What Hope Is Not: Clearing Up the Misconceptions
• 03:45 What Real Hope Actually Requires
• 05:42 Agency and the Feeling of Hopelessness
• 06:24 Burnout vs. Hopelessness: Is There a Difference?
• 07:55 Wellbeing Intelligence: The Leadership Skill We're Missing
• 11:44 Languishing: That Gray Space Between Fine and Flourishing
• 14:15 The Hidden Cost of Time Pressure on Creativity
• 17:00 Breaking Through the High-Functioning Facade
• 20:15 Setting Boundaries as a Recovering People Pleaser
• 24:03 Practical Tools: Possibility Journal, Energy Ledger, and Hope Spotting
• 29:15 Vulnerability as a Leadership Superpower
• 33:46 Hope Killers and Hope Builders: The Language of Hope
• 38:00 The Hope Audit and the Hope Strategist Toolkit
• 39:33 Applying Hope at Home and as a Caregiver
• 41:30 Where to Learn More About Jen
• 41:26 End of Interview
• 41:54 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 45:18 Outtakes

You can learn more about Jen and her work at Jen-Fisher.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 462 with Margie Warrell. Part of Jen's message in the book is the importance of agency—of believing that you're not a victim and that you have options. Margie is a fierce advocate for how to take action when you're feeling hopeless. I highly recommend her work.
• Episode 448 with Marie-Hélène Pelletier. It's an engaging discussion about burnout and resilience, and a fantastic follow-up to this discussion with Jen.
• Episode 396 with Thomas Curran. It's an episode on perfectionism, and I think you'll find it an excellent follow-up to this discussion as well.

You can chat directly with PMeLa, the podcast's AI persona, to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Wellbeing, Burnout, Hope, Resilience, Vulnerability, Boundaries, Team Culture, Employee Engagement, Languishing, Psychological Safety, Workplace Performance

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Welcome to our 500th episode! To celebrate this milestone, Andy talks with Steve Brown, AI futurist, keynote speaker, and author of The AI Ultimatum: Preparing for a World of Intelligent Machines and Radical Transformation. Steve brings a rare perspective shaped by years at Intel and Google DeepMind, and today helps organizations navigate two vital questions: what future do you want to build with AI, and what future do you want to avoid?

They explore why waiting isn't actually the safe option it feels like, how to think about the different "flavors" of AI beyond just generative tools, and what it really means to orchestrate humans, AI agents, and robots together in the workplace. Steve introduces three types of AI agents—offload, elevate, and extend—and explains the crucial difference between automating tasks and truly transforming how work gets done. You'll also hear his candid take on the fear of being replaced and why doubling down on your humanity is the smartest career move you can make right now.

If you're looking for a practical, empowering guide to leading through the AI revolution—without the hype—this episode is for you!

• "The difference between an AI-enabled or AI-first company and an AI laggard is going to be so great that if you don't get on the train, you may get to the point where you can never catch up."
• "Your competitors who have embraced AI faster than you are going to be just kicking your butt all over town."
• "There's a serious cost to inaction in that you can become made irrelevant."
• "The danger with that is you may automate yourself. It may automate away all of the differentiation you have in your brand and your company."
• "AI is this sort of amplification technology, and the challenge is to balance cost-cutting and value creation."
• "Each flavor of AI is useful for solving a different type of business problem."
• "It feels like a digital employee, right? A digital worker that works for you."
• "It's taking the suck out of your job."
• "The real opportunity here, is to transform the way you do work rather than just try and automate away tasks or people."
• "The workplace of the future is going to be three groups. Humans will still be in the workforce. Great! Go us!"
• "You won't be replaced by an AI or a robot. You'll be replaced by someone who knows how to use AI better than you do."
• "Double down on your humanity."
• "Focus on building the skills that cannot be replaced, or at least won't be replaced by machines anytime soon."
• "At the end of all of this is going to be lives of abundance, where we have the things that we need."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:45 Start of Interview
• 01:54 Steve's Career Journey from Intel to DeepMind
• 05:00 Understanding the AI Ultimatum
• 08:23 Our First AI Moments
• 09:32 The Flavors of AI
• 13:54 Three Pathways to Creating Value with AI
• 15:11 Automation vs. Transformation
• 17:10 Orchestrating Humans, AI, and Robots
• 19:01 Real-World Examples of AI Agents
• 21:33 Physically Intelligent Robots in the Workplace
• 24:13 Addressing Fear and Resistance to AI
• 26:44 Preparing the Next Generation for the AI Age
• 29:56 Where to Learn More About Steve
• 31:01 End of Interview
• 31:38 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 36:23 Outtakes

You can learn more about Steve and his work at SteveBrown.ai.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 479 with Matt Mong. It's a discussion about the AI skills you need to stay relevant.
• Episode 454 with Christie Smith. She talks about how AI is changing leadership, and what we can do about that now.
• Episode 437 with Nada Sanders. It's a discussion about future-prepping your career in an age of AI.

You can also chat directly with PMeLa—the podcast's AI persona—to get episode recommendations and answers to your project management and leadership questions. Visit PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com/PMeLa to chat with her.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Leadership, Future of Work, AI Strategy, Digital Transformation, Agentic AI, Automation, Organizational Change, AI Ethics, Competitive Advantage, Human-AI Collaboration, Technology Adoption

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Lullaby of Light featuring Cory Friesenhan by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Wharton economist Judd Kessler, author of Lucky by Design: The Hidden Economics You Need to Get More of What You Want. If you have ever looked at someone else's career success and thought, "They just got lucky," this conversation will give you a new lens. Judd introduces the idea of "hidden markets," the informal rules and systems that shape who gets opportunities, access, and scarce resources, even when money is not changing hands.

They explore how leaders can evaluate allocation rules using Judd's three Es (equitable, efficient, and easy), why first come, first served "races" often reward availability more than merit, and how waiting lists can quietly shift costs onto the people least able to pay them. You will also hear Judd's "settle for silver" strategy, a practical way to make smarter choices in competitive markets, plus a thoughtful parenting angle on teaching kids to notice rules and incentives early.

If you're looking for a fresh, research-backed perspective on how hidden rules shape who gets opportunities at work and in life, this episode is for you!

• "The goal of the book is to get people to start to recognizing these markets all around us."
• "In most of these markets, they play by a simple rule that we all understand, which is if you're willing to pay for the thing, then you get it."
• "Is the way that we're deciding who gets what... is it equitable? Is it efficient? And is it easy for market participants?"
• "I open my calendar and I see all these recurring meetings on my calendar, recurring meetings that were set up years or months ago. That's first in time, first in right."
• "If you understand the rules and develop strategies to get what you want from the market, then you actually can be one of the handful that actually gets the thing, that desirable outcome, and then it will look like you got lucky."
• "It's always going to be the folks who are in the market winning who are always going to think that it's fair."
• "Once you start thinking like, how am I actually allocating these things? That's when you've put on that market designer hat."
• "They'll come to you kind of with half-baked ideas because they know if they wait later on until they can fully bake the idea that the resources or the fun parts of the project might already be gone."
• "Part of what the Settle for Silver / Go for Gold Strategy is forcing you to do, is to think seriously about what you want and why you want it."
• "You, as a parent, you are designing the markets that your kids play in all the time."
• "We're not breaking the rules, but we are figuring out what they are so that we can put ourselves in a good position, and that's going to serve you well."
• "Maybe by being in the office, you are signaling your dedication to the firm that you're available for all of these opportunities."
• "If it's something that anybody can do, like send a quick email, right? That's, it's not actually costly. Anybody could send that email even if they're not truly dedicated and eager for the opportunity."
• "You cannot get all three E's for sure in any allocation mechanism. There's always going to be tradeoffs."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:41 Start of Interview
• 01:49 Growing Up and Thinking About Luck
• 03:00 Introducing Hidden Markets
• 07:10 The Three E's: Equitable, Efficient, and Easy
• 08:08 Live Event Tickets as a Case Study
• 12:50 High Frequency Trading and Hidden Races
• 15:21 Common Misunderstandings of the Three E's
• 17:04 Races Inside Organizations and Project Teams
• 20:25 Proximity, Signaling, and Opportunity at Work
• 23:03 Are We Selecting for the Right Behavior?
• 25:41 Stepping Back to Evaluate Your Own Systems
• 25:52 Colorado River Water Rights and Recurring Meetings
• 29:09 The Settle for Silver Strategy
• 30:57 The French Laundry Reservation Story
• 32:51 Settle for Silver in College Admissions
• 37:22 Helping Kids Recognize Rules and Incentives
• 41:03 End of Interview
• 41:32 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 44:34 Outtakes

You can learn more about Judd and his work at JuddBKessler.com/book.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 265, a short video episode Andy put together about the topic of luck. Check it out!
• Episode 339 with Katy Milkman. Katy is the person who gave Andy the heads-up about Judd's book. In episode 339, they talk about her book How to Change: The Science of Getting from Where You Are to Where You Want to Be. It's a great discussion with another researcher who knows how to make the learning practical for all of us.
• Episode 372 with Annie Duke. Annie is a former world champion poker player who is a big fan of Judd's book. How does a poker player think about luck? Check out episode 372 to find out!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Luck, Hidden Markets, Behavioral Economics, Leadership, Decision Making, Resource Allocation, Organizational Design, Career Strategy, Signaling, Systems Thinking, Equity, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Joe Ferraro, host of the One Percent Better podcast and a coach who helps leaders have stronger conversations when the stakes are high. If you lead projects, you know how quickly a meeting, a status update, or a feedback moment can either build trust or quietly drain it.

Joe shares small, practical moves that make conversations more memorable and more useful. You will hear why being "good at talking" is not the same as being good at conversation, and how preparation can be a generous act toward the other person. They also discuss how to avoid default, predictable questions, how to turn a one-way presentation into something more interactive, and how to keep your composure when you feel defensive. Joe even offers a simple technique for pressure testing ideas without starting a fight, plus a listening cue you can use the next time you feel tempted to jump in.

If you're looking for insights on having better conversations that save projects and strengthen relationships, this episode is for you!

• "And you know what's a great barometer there is for people listening to ask themselves on a daily basis? How many questions do they ask?"
• "But the reality is a generous conversation is one where you're prepared."
• "And the easiest path, the simplest path is to ask more questions and then listen, like your life depends on it."
• "The human ear driving, or on the treadmill or in a board meeting doesn't want to hear the same length answer every time from Andy or Joe or Sheila."
• "If you feel like you're bursting at the seams and you need to share something, that's when you know to hold it in and to focus on them."
• "I teach people the technique of inserting devil's advocate, where you, you don't wanna necessarily become the villain, but you say, you know, Andy, you know, it's a great point."
• "But when I go back to, to Mitch Albom one time, he paused seven seconds before I asked him, before he answered the question."
• "If you have a recorded conversation, simply ask it to pull out every question that was asked."
• "My favorite question to ask is the one that I think will elicit the best response for what I'm interested in learning in this moment."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:44 Start of Interview
• 02:04 When Conversation Became More Than Talking
• 04:32 Curiosity as a Practical Advantage
• 05:47 Sending Questions Ahead of Time
• 06:49 Why Most Real Conversations Feel Like Improv
• 07:40 A Recent Conversation Joe Still Thinks About
• 09:44 What Makes a Conversation Actually Memorable
• 11:14 How Joe's Background Shaped His Approach
• 12:47 Breaking the Habit of Predictable Answers
• 13:54 The Risk of Chasing "Standard" Questions
• 15:16 Using Recording as a Growth Tool
• 16:29 How to Build Better Listening Discipline
• 18:38 Turning a One-Way Presentation Into Conversation
• 20:12 What to Do When You Need Real Buy-In
• 21:44 The Listening Cue to Use When You Want to Jump In
• 23:34 Helping Others Feel Heard Without Hijacking the Moment
• 24:30 Staying Composed When You Feel Defensive
• 27:27 Using "Devil's Advocate" Without Becoming the Villain
• 30:15 When the Best Move Is to Pause
• 32:25 How to Ask Questions That Create Better Stories
• 33:43 The Question That Fits the Moment
• 36:19 What Joe Thinks People Get Wrong About "Small Talk"
• 39:12 Interviewers Joe Thinks More People Should Study
• 45:13 Using AI to Improve Your Conversations
• 49:20 What Joe Sees Changing in Communication Skills
• 50:00 Helping Kids Build Conversational Stamina
• 53:26 Where to Learn More About Joe
• 54:42 End of Interview
• 55:08 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 57:56 Outtakes

You can learn more about Joe and his work here:

• OnePercentBetterProject.com
• Joe on X
• Joe on LinkedIn

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 380 with Monica Guzman. It's about navigating stressful conversations with people you don't agree with.
• Episode 284 with Peter Boghossian. It's another episode on conversations that seem impossible. Think of difficult bosses and other stakeholders.
• Episode 195 with Celeste Headlee. She's an NPR anchor who first introduced me to the idea of conversational narcissism.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Communication, Difficult Conversations, Active Listening, Stakeholder Management, Leadership Presence, Psychological Safety, Meeting Facilitation, Coaching, Feedback, Influence, Conflict Management, Relationship Building

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Richard Carson, author of The Book of Change. If you feel like you barely finish one change before the next one hits, this conversation is for you. Richard shares his deeply researched and battle-tested framework called People Sustained Organizational Change Management, or PSOCM. Unlike many change management books, this is not about certifications or slogans. It is about building a repeatable system to diagnose problems, distinguish adaptive from transformational change, and gain executive traction when support is not automatic.

You will hear why so many change efforts fail before they even begin, how to craft a clear problem statement, and what leaders often misunderstand about the type of change they are facing. Richard also explains why he chose the phrase "People Sustained" and how thinking structurally about change can even help at home.

If you're looking for practical, grounded insights on leading through continuous change, this episode is for you!

• "My advice to you is to anticipate change and manage change before it manages you."
• "Different change models have been introduced in the literature, but there has not been one coherent model for managing organizational change."
• "PSOCM is driven by defined actions with statistical metrics that produce measurable results."
• "You get a free book and the next thing you know you're getting the pitch to hire them at an exorbitant amount of money per hour."
• "Organizations consist of people, and it is the people who are primarily the problem."
• "Change management is proactive. Emergency management is reactive."
• "It is not productive to put the organization on the couch and ask, 'Well, what do you think?'"
• "You can change a process, but you cannot change a person's underlying psychology."
• "You now own it, or it now owns you."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:40 Start of Interview
• 01:54 Family Culture and Early Influences
• 03:58 Criticisms of Change Management Books and Certifications
• 06:15 Defining Organizational Change Management in Plain Talk
• 07:44 What Surprised Him in the History of Change
• 10:57 Adaptive vs. Transformational Change
• 14:23 Why He Named It People Sustained Organizational Change Management
• 20:03 Problem Identification and Writing Effective Problem Statements
• 24:31 Getting Executive Support When Change Is Not Top Down
• 26:49 When Benefits Do Not Move Leaders
• 28:21 One More Idea to Anticipate Change Before It Manages You
• 30:03 Applying Change Lessons at Home as a Parent
• 31:36 End of Interview
• 32:38 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 35:31 Outtakes

You can learn more about Richard and his work at RichardCarson.org. Make sure to get the free ebook download.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 343 with Gary Lloyd. He has a clever metaphor of thinking about change like a gardener, not a mechanic. It's a great discussion that I think you'll find quite practical.
• Episode 344 with Peter Bregman and Howie Jacobson. Their book is about change, but not at the organizational level. They think you can change other people, which sounds presumptuous at the least. But they back that up in the interview so check out episode 344 for more.
• Episode 53 with John Kotter. He's one of the most famous names when it comes to change management. Go way back to episode 53 to hear from John directly.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader—that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Change Management, Organizational Change, Leadership, Executive Sponsorship, Problem Identification, Adaptive Change, Transformational Change, Strategic Thinking, Organizational Culture, Project Leadership, Continuous Improvement, Stakeholder Engagement

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Lullaby of Light feat Cory Friesenhan by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

In this In the Trenches episode, Andy talks with Norman Patnode, Principal at ProChain Solutions, about what it really takes to deliver projects faster and more predictably. With a background in aerospace engineering, the Air Force, and decades of consulting, Norman brings a systems-level perspective to project delivery that goes far beyond managing task lists.

They explore the difference between task management and project management, why critical chain thinking shifts the conversation from dates to priorities, and how changing a few key rules can dramatically improve delivery performance. Norman shares why "prioritize, focus, and finish" is more than a slogan, how multitasking quietly robs teams of productivity, and what leaders can do to create clarity and alignment. You'll also hear insights about managing constraints, learning how to learn, and why curiosity is one of the most valuable leadership traits.

If you're looking for practical, systems-based ways to improve delivery and reduce chaos on your projects, this episode is for you!

• "Critical chain is a system to help you get projects done faster and more predictably."
• "Critical chain is really about how do we help people prioritize, focus, and finish."
• "I would never go back to what I was doing before. It has ruined me. I just wouldn't live in that world again."
• "Multitasking robs project teams of anywhere from 15 to 65% of their productivity."
• "If there are no priorities, then really none of them are important."
• "The focus is not on getting to a perfect schedule. It's on creating and strengthening alignment of the team's effort."
• "Reality is undefeated."
• "Any system has a very few number of constraints, usually one."
• "If you manage the constraint, you manage the system."
• "You don't have to learn everything. You just have to be curious and learn how to learn."
• "Big, impactful things in the world get done through projects."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:33 Start of Interview
• 01:41 Norman's Current Role and Responsibilities
• 02:20 Norman's Career Journey
• 07:00 Task Management vs. True Project Management
• 10:40 Introducing Critical Chain
• 15:41 Common Objections to Critical Chain
• 17:20 Changing the Rules to Improve Delivery
• 22:56 A Powerful Leadership Habit
• 25:54 Career Lessons and Critical Turning Points
• 31:32 How Norman Continues to Develop Himself
• 35:53 How to Connect with Norman
• 36:17 End of Interview
• 36:56 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 40:37 Outtakes

You can learn more about Norman and his work at ProChain.com. Connect with Norman on LinkedIn here: LinkedIn.com/in/npatnode/

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 472 with Mark Reich. It's a discussion about lean, which is certainly not precisely the same as critical chain or theory of constraints. But Mark is similarly geeky about how to improve how we go about projects. I think you'll find episode 472 a great follow-up to today's discussion.
• Episode 328 with Terry Schmidt. Terry's passion is LogFrame, and though it's different from what we talked about today, Terry's geekiness for LogFrame could inspire you to think differently about projects.
• Episode 320 with Greg Githins. Greg wrote a book about thinking strategically. All I'll say is that if you and I could sit with these three guests and talk over coffee, we'd have quite an insightful and interesting chat!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Ways of Working

Topics: Project Management, Critical Chain, Theory of Constraints, Prioritization, Focus, Multitasking, Systems Thinking, Leadership Development, Constraint Management, Risk Management, Strategic Execution, Continuous Improvement

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Steve Jaffe, author of The Layoff Journey: From Dismissal to Discovery. Steve has been laid off four times over the course of his career, and those experiences shaped a thoughtful, practical framework for navigating the emotional and professional aftermath of job loss.

Andy and Steve explore why layoffs feel so personal even when we are told they are not, how identity often gets tangled up with job titles, and why the emotional response to a layoff closely mirrors the stages of grief. Steve explains why those stages are not linear, what denial, pain, and negotiation really look like in practice, and why trying to rush straight to acceptance can backfire.

You will also hear practical advice for leaders who must conduct layoffs, as well as guidance for professionals who worry they might be laid off in the future. From preserving dignity in difficult conversations to preparing financially, emotionally, and professionally before uncertainty hits, this discussion offers insight for both sides of the table.

If you are navigating uncertainty, supporting others through change, or simply want to be better prepared for whatever comes next, this episode is for you!

• "I wanted to give people a roadmap to process their layoff and the grief of their layoff in months rather than years."
• "One of the things that makes losing a job difficult is we tie our identity up in what we do."
• "And then in that period, before you've landed your next job, you're in this messy middle of Who am I?"
• "Define yourself not by what you do, but by who you are and what you bring to the table."
• "I've seen people be named Employee of the Year in January, and by June they're getting laid off."
• "Layoffs don't measure your worth. They measure a company's priorities."
• "The stages of grief are not linear. You can feel all of them in one day."
• "Your job title is not who you are."
• "Acceptance can become a way to skip discomfort instead of dealing with loss."
• "If you don't process the grief, it shows up later as baggage."
• "Dignity matters in the first minutes of a layoff conversation."
• "You want to build your network before you need it."
• "The person you were before a layoff will not be the same person after."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:45 Start of Interview
• 02:00 From First Layoff to Fourth: Taking It Personally
• 02:50 How the Layoff Process Has Changed Over Time
• 06:52 The Messy Middle Between Job Loss and What's Next
• 10:40 Why the Stages of Grief Apply to Layoffs
• 14:07 What Denial Looked Like in Steve's Experience
• 17:19 Balancing Emotional Honesty and Professional Reputation
• 22:08 The Quote That Opens the Book
• 23:00 Can You Jump to Acceptance Too Quickly?
• 24:58 When Past Layoffs Create Baggage at the Next Job
• 26:42 Advice for Leaders Who Have to Do Layoffs
• 28:55 Handling Performance-Based Separations with Integrity
• 30:40 How to Prepare Now If You Worry About Being Laid Off
• 32:46 End of Interview
• 33:33 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 37:37 Outtakes

You can learn more about Steve and his work at TheSteveJaffe.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 163. A short three-minute video Andy put together about what to do before losing your job.
• Episode 310 with Jeff Gothelf, about how to let your next job find you.
• Episode 230 with Scott Belsky. Not specifically about layoffs, but full of insights on careers, growth, and the hiring process.

In the outtakes, Andy and Steve talk about how AI is changing the workplace. If you want to be better prepared for an AI-infused future, check out our AI Made Simple course.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader. That's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than five minutes a week. And it's all for free.

Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Leadership, Layoffs, Career Transitions, Organizational Change, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Identity at Work, Grief, Workforce Planning, Change Management, Professional Development

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Dr. Andrew Wittman, former Marine, police officer, federal agent, and leadership coach, about his new book Inner Armor: Perpetual Resilience. If you lead projects and teams, you already know pressure is coming. The real question is what you do when it arrives.

Andrew explains why the brain can work against you under stress, and how the questions you ask yourself shape the options you can see. You'll learn the Two Minute Rule and how it can help you shift from "we can't" thinking into problem-solving mode. Andy and Andrew also explore how filters and assumptions influence what leaders notice, why limitation can be more dangerous than fear, and what it looks like to build a First Responder Mindset so you can hold your poise when stakeholders push back.

They close with a powerful discussion on identity and a practical look at raising resilient kids. If you're looking for insights on leading with clarity and composure when the stakes are high, this episode is for you!

• "The first thing you have to understand about the brain is that it is the original search engine. Like it has to answer a question."
• "The brain knows that you're a genius. Even if you don't consciously recognize that you're a genius, your brain knows it. It'll never go against your genius self. So if you say things like, I don't know how we could do this, your brain says, 'Oh, we don't know.' So it stops searching completely for any answer."
• "Just for two minutes, pretend that you could do it. It's amazing that your brain will just go to work and find like 15 ways you actually could do it, whereas seconds ago, we thought we couldn't."
• "When bad news happens, get happy. Whenever you hear bad news, you should get happy because this is your biggest opportunity to have the greatest comeback ever."
• "My question is, no matter what the bad news is, I'm going to ask myself this: how can I use this to my greatest possible advantage?"
• "I want to know what the holes in this project are. I don't want to hear rainbows and sunshine, right? Positive thinking will get you killed quicker than negative thinking."
• "We take in 11 million bits of information per second. Every second we see, hear, feel, touch, 11 million bits. Only 126 bits go to our conscious mind for action, which means we're filtering out 99.9% of all that information."
• "When you walk into a room, and you think no one supports you, you're going to see every cue that you could find to back that up. And you'll discard anything that would go against that."
• "The world is always ready to define you if you don't define yourself."
• "My identity: I'm a man of excellence who always keeps his word. I aspire to always keep my word. And so everything that I do is pre-decided by that identity."
• "Excellence is if I give my best effort, I could sleep tonight."
• "Welcome to Planet Earth, everybody has to deal with the externals. It's the great equalizer. We all have to deal with it. You're not special. I hate to tell you, CEO, you're not special."
• "Those pressure situations, they don't create your habits. They actually reveal them."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:40 Start of Interview
• 02:07 Andrew's Backstory and Early Influences
• 04:23 Unhelpful Questions Under Pressure and the Two Minute Rule
• 07:27 Applying the Two Minute Rule When a Key Dependency Slips
• 12:12 Training Practices to Make Resilience Automatic
• 16:49 Recognizing When Your Filter Is the Real Problem
• 18:33 Exposing Assumptions and Filters in Project Plans
• 22:21 A Personal Example of Misreading a Situation
• 25:10 How Beliefs Shape What You Notice in a Room
• 27:35 Why Limitation Is More Dangerous Than Fear
• 32:02 Building a First Responder Mindset and Holding Poise
• 36:07 Identity and Defining Yourself
• 40:37 Parenting Practices That Build Resilience in Kids
• 43:17 End of Interview
• 43:42 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 47:47 Outtakes

You can learn more about Andrew and his work at GetWarriorTough.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 448 with Marie-Helene Pelletier. It's an insightful discussion on resilience and burnout, and I think it would be a great follow-up to this discussion with Andrew.
• Episode 477 with Jess Baker. She's a business psychologist and coach who offers a refreshing perspective on how to increase your resilience at work and in life.
• Episode 398 with Dr. Neha Sangwan. It's an episode that will give you another perspective on avoiding burnout for you and your teams.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming our ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Resilience, Stress Management, Decision Making, Mindset, Emotional Regulation, Stakeholder Management, Communication, Self-Leadership, Identity, Team Performance

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Olivia Montgomery, Associate Principal Analyst at Capterra and a PMP. They discuss how artificial intelligence is reshaping project management tools, skills, and expectations. Olivia brings a rare perspective, combining hands-on experience leading a PMO with years of research into how organizations evaluate, adopt, and struggle with project management software.

Olivia and Andy explore why buying AI-powered tools is often easy, but realizing real value from them is much harder. Olivia explains the shift from buying software based on seat count to buying based on capability, why security is both the top source of satisfaction and frustration, and how unclear success metrics can quietly derail adoption. They also dig into the hidden risks of delegating too much to AI, including data governance blind spots and misplaced trust in tools that feel intuitive but have real limitations.

You'll also hear why emotional intelligence is becoming more important as technology advances, how PMs can stress-test AI tools before committing, and which skills will separate the next generation of project leaders from the rest.

If you're trying to prepare for the future of AI, tools, and skills in project management, this episode is for you!

• "Buying tools is very easy. Realizing the value is extremely difficult."
• "Security is not IT's job. It's the whole company's job."
• "If your main metric is just 'use AI,' that's a red flag."
• "AI is very good at predicting what is most likely to happen next, and terrible at predicting black swan events."
• "Emotional intelligence is what helps you move forward when technology can't."
• "Use AI to generate a first draft. That's the safest place to start."
• "If you don't know the topic well yourself, you won't spot when AI gets it wrong."
• "Confidence in AI can grow faster than readiness, and that's where problems start."
• "AI can flag a risk, but it cannot tell you why people are stuck."
• "Data governance is going to set project managers apart in the future."
• "No matter what job you have in ten years, emotional intelligence will still matter."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:00 Start of Interview
• 02:10 Olivia's Role and Career Path
• 06:53 Shifts in How Organizations Choose PM Software
• 08:23 The Security Satisfaction and Frustration Paradox
• 11:25 Why AI Tools Are Easy to Buy but Hard to Use Well
• 20:18 Warning Signs of Overconfidence in AI
• 24:03 How to Stress-Test AI Tools Before Buying
• 27:50 Why Emotional Intelligence Matters More with AI
• 34:28 The Future of Project Management Software
• 40:08 Skills That Will Define the Next Generation of PMs
• 45:20 Where to Follow Olivia's Work
• 46:20 End of Interview
• 46:40 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 49:15 Outtakes

You can follow Olivia Montgomery and her research on LinkedIn at linkedin.com/in/olivia-montgomery.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 479 with Matt Mong, about the AI skills you need to stay relevant in the years ahead
• Episode 463 with Faisal Hoque, on how to transcend the fear and hype around AI
• Episode 384 with PMeLa, the first-ever interview with an AI on a leadership or project management podcast

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Artificial Intelligence, Project Management Software, Project Management, Business Acumen, Data Governance, Security, Emotional Intelligence, AI Adoption, Future Of Work, Leadership Skills, Technology Strategy

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Peter Cappelli and Ranya Nehmeh, co-authors of In Praise of the Office: The Limits to Hybrid and Remote Work. In a world still grappling with virtual work, Peter and Ranya challenge us to take a fresh look at the workplace. Not just where we do work, but how that space shapes learning, culture, visibility, and performance.

In this conversation, you'll hear what gets lost when teams are always virtual, why hybrid work often underdelivers, and how proximity plays a surprising role in mentoring, innovation, and even career progression. Peter and Ranya explore how organizational culture shifts when people are rarely together, and what leaders can do to intentionally design experiences that rebuild connection—even across distance.

You'll walk away with insights on how to lead hybrid teams more effectively, how to help team members think differently about in-person time, and why space is not just a backdrop to work—it's a contributor to how work gets done. If you're leading a team in today's hybrid landscape and wondering what really matters, this episode is for you!

• "Remote work disembodies employees and limits their capacity to build relationships, learn informally, and get noticed."
• "The most frequent way people got promoted was by being visible to their managers."
• "Slack and Teams are a poor substitute for face-to-face interactions and a terrible way to learn culture or figure out who knows what."
• "Informal communication is essential to how work gets done, and it doesn't happen easily when everyone is remote."
• "Hybrid sounds great in theory, but it rarely delivers the benefits of in-person work unless it's intentionally designed."
• "People don't always know what they need to know, and much of what's important is learned indirectly."
• "We're not saying remote doesn't work. But we are saying there are trade-offs, and many companies haven't fully reckoned with them."
• "One big problem with hybrid is that it often ends up being asynchronous. No one's in at the same time."
• "The office was never perfect, but it enabled certain human processes that are hard to replicate at a distance."
• "If you're going to make remote or hybrid work well, it requires real investment in new systems and norms, not just wishful thinking."
• "We have to be honest about what we're losing, not just what we're gaining."
• "Serendipitous learning is one of the most underappreciated losses of remote work."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:38 Start of Interview
• 01:45 What Is There to Praise About Remote Work?
• 04:34 Why Is the Push to Return Happening Now?
• 09:51 What Do We Lose with Remote Work?
• 13:18 What Problems Persist in Hybrid Models?
• 17:40 What Are Companies Doing to Make Hybrid Work?
• 20:20 Advice for Leading Hybrid Project Teams
• 25:42 Advice for Individual Contributors Navigating Hybrid Work
• 29:59 How Culture Shapes Remote and Office Decisions
• 33:14 Lessons from Co-Writing the Book
• 35:59 End of Interview
• 36:32 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 40:15 Outtakes

You can learn more about Peter at mgmt.wharton.upenn.edu/profile/cappelli and about Ranya at RanyaNehmeh.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 457 with Andrew Brodsky. It's an insightful take on how we can avoid the mistakes that happen when teams are not collocated, with an author who I think is a future Adam Grant.
• Episode 361 with Yasmina Khelifi, who joined us to talk about leading virtual teams, specifically across cultures. Yasmina is a hands-on project manager so you can hear her take from that perspective.
• Episode 22 with Keith Ferrazzi. It's a discussion about his book Who's Got Your Back? and it contains ideas that I still use, over a decade after talking with Keith.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader—that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Leadership, Hybrid Teams, Remote Work, Organizational Culture, Career Development, Team Collaboration, Psychological Safety, Communication, Mentorship, Project Management, Work Environment, Employee Engagement

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Ignotus by Agnese Valmaggia
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Lynn Smith, former NBC News, MSNBC, and CNN Headline News anchor, executive communication coach, and author of Just Keep Going. Lynn is best known for helping Fortune 500 leaders turn pressure into presence, but her newest book takes an unexpected form: a children's story about fear, resilience, and perseverance.

That surprising choice is exactly what makes this conversation so relevant for leaders. Andy and Lynn explore why the same fears that stop CEOs are often the ones that show up in kids, how our inner critic or "Brain Bully" shapes behavior under pressure, and why the goal is not to eliminate fear but to metabolize it. Lynn shares deeply personal stories about rejection, family influence, and the lessons she learned growing up that shaped her approach to leadership and communication.

You'll also hear practical techniques leaders can use to calm their nervous systems, give feedback that actually helps instead of harms, and model resilience for their teams and families. If you lead people or projects and want practical insights on emotional intelligence, confidence, and navigating fear, this episode is for you.

• "The one trait and the one skill that separates us from success is resilience. If you can acquire that skill, you will be successful. Hard stop."
• "Your greatest failure can be in service of somebody else."
• "We are biologically wired for fear. Trying to delete it is a fool's journey."
• "Bravery is doing something even if you are afraid."
• "How you show up within one tenth of a second is defining you for your audience."
• "Feedback leads to growth. Criticism feeds the brain bully."
• "When we calm our nervous system, we can make better decisions."
• "There's a mouse in all of us that needs the reminder to just keep going."
• "Ending what doesn't serve you is not quitting."
• "Fear often shows up as stress, pressure, or imposter syndrome, but it's the same circuitry."
• "Resilience is the greatest gift we can give our kids and our teams."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:45 Start of Interview
• 01:55 Family Influence and Early Experiences
• 06:45 Recognizing the Brain Bully
• 12:28 Learning Resilience Over Time
• 14:08 Giving Feedback That Helps Instead of Hurts
• 15:50 Metabolizing Fear Instead of Eliminating It
• 20:05 Rejection and the Origin of the Book
• 23:00 Strategies from the Book for Big Feelings
• 26:15 The Business Equivalent of Jumping Up and Down
• 28:50 When Just Keep Going Does Not Apply
• 31:50 How Lynn and Her Team Help Leaders
• 34:10 End of Interview
• 34:47 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 37:30 Outtakes

You can learn more about Lynn and her work at LynnSmith.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 462 with Margie Warrell, about going from playing it safe to speaking up.
• Episode 397 with Dr. Julia DiGangi, a discussion Andy continues to revisit for practical insights.
• Episode 394 with Joshua Freedman, one of the leading voices on emotional intelligence.

During the episode, Andy mentions the importance of preparing for an AI-infused future. Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free and a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy.

I know you want to be a more confident leader. That's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of leaders committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than five minutes a week, and it's all free.

Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com.

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Emotional Intelligence, Resilience, Fear Management, Communication Skills, Executive Presence, Feedback, Confidence, Self Leadership, Team Culture, Project Leadership

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Awakening by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sasha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Barry Wolfe, author of It's All In Your Head: Why Psychology Doesn't Help Your Workforce Deliver Value - And What Can. Barry is a seasoned HR executive and business leader who has built a reputation as one of the rare "HR guys who actually has a head for business." In this frank and eye-opening conversation, Barry challenges many of the tools and ideas we've come to rely on in leadership and management.

Andy and Barry discuss why frameworks like Maslow's hierarchy may be doing more harm than good, how personality assessments can become limiting narratives, and why our obsession with "fit" often backfires. But this isn't just a critique. Barry offers an alternative in the form of Value-Centric Leadership, a model that reframes how we think about work, leadership, and results. You'll learn about tools like The Same Page and the 4C's of leadership that can help you lead with more clarity and purpose.

If you're ready to challenge what you think you know about managing people (and want practical tools to lead more effectively), this episode is for you!

• "Most of the hiring tools we use today are only marginally better than chance."
• "We act like we're selecting with science, but we're often just rationalizing our preferences."
• "Maslow never created a pyramid. That was a marketing add-on, not a scientific insight."
• "Psychology gave us language, but somewhere along the way, it became the product."
• "What do I want to pay people to do?" becomes "What results do I want to buy from them?"
• "We pay people to do activities, but it's because we want to buy results."
• "Nobody buys verbs. People buy nouns."
• "Maslow had no interest in actually validating his model. He just threw it out there."
• "If you get married and someone asks, what are you looking for in a spouse? Would you really say the upper left box?"
• "The guy who created the DISC assessment was also the creator of Wonder Woman."
• "Given the choice between thinking hard and spending money, most business leaders would rather spend money."
• "Part of the problem with these tools is you're learning about science through something called marketing."
• "We've got strategic plans, core values, mission statements. What's missing is being on the same page."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:45 Start of Interview
• 02:00 Barry's Early Career Influences and Business Perspective
• 06:42 Why Leaders Rely So Heavily on Assessments
• 09:25 The "Yes, Buts" of Psychological Tools
• 15:20 What We Get Wrong About Maslow's Hierarchy
• 19:00 From Paying for Activities to Buying Results
• 23:30 Connecting Project Work to Real Value
• 24:00 Introducing The Same Page
• 28:47 The Most Overlooked Element of Leadership
• 33:47z Looking Ahead at AI, Automation, and the Future of Work
• 41:22 End of Interview
• 42:03 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 45:19 Outtakes

You can learn more about Barry and his work at ArgosHR.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 473 with Jeffrey Hull & Margaret Moore. They have rigorously researched what it takes to lead, and I think you'll find their approach and findings to be a nice complement to today's episode.
• Episode 417 with Mary Crossan and Bill Furlong. They have deeply researched 11 dimensions of character, which has some nice alignment with the 4 C's that Barry talked about.
• Episode 47 with Henry Mintzberg. If you haven't been with us since the early days, it would be easy to have missed this episode with one of the foremost curmudgeons of management. I think you'll find his insights in episode 47 to be a helpful addition to what Barry talked about in this episode.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you, too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader—that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, People Management, Business Psychology, Strategic HR, Hiring, Performance Management, Personality Assessments, Organizational Culture, Project Value, Team Development, Employee Experience, Decision Making

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Martin Dubin, psychologist, former CEO, executive coach, and author of Blindspotting: How to See What's Holding You Back as a Leader. Marty brings a rare combination of clinical insight and real-world leadership experience to a topic that affects every project manager and frontline leader: the blindspots that quietly shape our behavior, decisions, and impact.

Together, the discussion explores how motives often drive our actions without us realizing it, why strengths can become liabilities when overused, and how emotion acts as one of the most powerful and least discussed forces in leadership. Marty explains his layered model of blindspots, including identity, motive, traits, emotion, and behavior, and shows how leaders can build awareness without trying to "fix" who they are.

You will also hear practical guidance on creating a simple change plan that actually sticks, using small behavioral tweaks, prompts, and accountability rather than dramatic personal transformation. The conversation closes with thoughtful examples of how blindspotting can improve not only leadership at work, but relationships at home as well.

If you want practical insight into leading with greater self-awareness, emotional range, and intentional growth, this episode is for you!

• "The hardest part of leadership is not managing others. It's managing ourselves."
• "Your strengths work for you most of the time, which is why it's so hard to see when they start working against you."
• "You know, whatever it is, it's usually invisible to us until someone or something forces it into view."
• "Now, if you put the modifier TOO in front of it, what happens when you're TOO confident? What happens when you're TOO organized? What happens when you're TOO creative?"
• "What do they tell you? You are too...."
• "Motives constrict under stress, and that's often when blindspots do the most damage."
• "Traits don't need to be changed. They need to be regulated."
• "Emotion is one of the most powerful tools leaders have, whether they use it intentionally or not."
• "Real change comes from small behavioral tweaks, not personality transformation."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:42 Start of Interview
• 02:00 Marty's Background and Family Influence
• 05:38 What Drives Marty Crazy About Leadership Books
• 08:20 Identity Blindspots and Leadership Roles
• 11:00 Why Motive Is So Hard to See
• 13:00 Using Emotion to Reveal Motives
• 14:00 When Strengths Become Weaknesses
• 17:50 Practical Ways to Spot Trait Blindspots
• 19:00 Emotional Awareness and Leadership Influence
• 21:10 Regulating Emotion Versus Repressing It
• 22:50 Building a Change Plan That Works
• 26:20 A Client Story That Shows Blindspotting in Action
• 28:20 Applying Blindspotting to Parenting (and Grandparenting)
• 30:14 End of Interview
• 30:45 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 35:42 Outtakes

You can learn more about Marty and his work at MartinDubin.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 473 with Jeffrey Hull and Margaret Moore, who share rigorously researched insights on what it takes to lead.
• Episode 450 with Mark Miller, an engaging and empowering discussion about why leaders fail and how they grow.
• Episode 32 with Brad Kolar and Madeleine Van Hecke, exploring how the way our brains are wired influences how we lead.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Self-Awareness, Emotional Intelligence, Motivation, Personality Traits, Behavior Change, Executive Coaching, Identity, Influence, Team Leadership, Blind Spots

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Imagefilm 034 by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Joel Hilchey, speaker, facilitator, and author of The 6½ Habits of Highly Defective Bosses. Joel brings humor, honesty, and a refreshing amount of grace to a topic many leaders quietly struggle with: becoming a boss without training, preparation, or a clear roadmap.

Andy and Joel explore what it really means to be an "accidental boss" and why most bad bosses are not bad people. They unpack the four quadrants every leader must balance: tasks vs. people and short-term vs. long-term, and why focusing only on tasks can quietly erode trust and engagement. You'll hear practical ideas for avoiding mediocrity mongering, removing everyday hassles that drain teams, and providing clarity instead of whiplash leadership.

The conversation also touches on why aiming to be "less terrible" is a surprisingly powerful leadership goal, how recognition can become a force multiplier, and why lessons from leadership often show up at home as well.

If you're leading projects or people and want practical, human-centered ways to become a better boss one step at a time, this episode is for you!

• "Most bad bosses are actually good people with bad ideas."
• "If you focus only on tasks, people will hate working for you."
• "People don't expect perfection from their boss, but they do expect effort."
• "Recognition is one of the highest leverage tools a leader has."
• "The essence of strategy is saying no."
• "Be a lighthouse for your team, not a disco ball."
• "If you notice yourself getting frustrated that people are doing stuff that's off task or that feels off task to you, like why is this person taking time to do that? That's on you as the leader to say, oh, I must not have made this strategy clear."
• "You can spend the money without asking, but you must tell me you spent it next time we meet."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:08 Start of Interview
• 02:20 Becoming an Accidental Boss
• 07:10 The Four Leadership Quadrants
• 12:10 Warning Signs You Are Neglecting People
• 15:15 When Task Focus Goes Too Far
• 21:24 Mediocrity Mongering and Good Enough Work
• 25:47 The Value of a Crappy First Draft
• 30:00 Removing Hassles from Team Work
• 35:30 Lighthouse vs. Disco Ball Leadership
• 39:40 Why Being 'Less Terrible' Matters
• 45:40 Applying Leadership Lessons at Home
• 48:31 End of Interview
• 49:15 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 52:38 Outtakes

You can learn more about Joel and his work at JoelHilchey.com. Make sure to try the complimentary assessment Joel refers to in the interview.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 468 with James Turk. It's a practical discussion about what to do when you are suddenly in charge.
• Episode 467 with Sabina Nawaz, former executive coach to Bill Gates, sharing insights on what no one usually tells you about becoming the boss.
• Episode 419 with Molly McGrath. Her book focuses on fixing your boss, but it almost always inspires listeners to become better leaders themselves.

During the episode, Andy mentioned our AI Made Simple class. Join listeners from around the world who are learning how to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free.

Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, People Management, Accidental Managers, Team Culture, Recognition, Project Leadership, Manager Development, Communication, Prioritization, Continuous Improvement

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with comedian and corporate emcee Adam Christing, author of The Laughter Factor: The 5 Humor Tactics to Link, Lift, and Lead. If you have ever hesitated to use humor at work because you were unsure it would land, or worried it might backfire, this conversation offers both encouragement and a practical path forward.

Adam shares how his early influences shaped his approach to humor and why he believes every human is also a "humor being." You will hear why humor is more than chasing chuckles, including how it can build trust, improve learning, and strengthen relationships on teams. Adam introduces the concept of "laugh languages" and walks through examples such as Surprise and Poke, along with guidance on how to tease without crossing the line. They also discuss tailoring humor across cultures and how leaders can bring the laughter factor home with their families.

If you are looking for practical insights on leading with humor, building trust, and bringing more humanity into your projects and teams, this episode is for you!

• "If you're a human being, you are also a humor being, and I would say not only do you have a sense of humor, but a sense of humor has you."
• "The audience is actually, whether it's three people or 300, they're actually rooting for you."
• "They don't want to be bored. They want to be entertained."
• "When we think back on the things that have made us laugh the most, it's often the flops that are the funniest."
• "They won't trust your humor until you do."
• "There's a saying in show business, 'funny is money'."
• "I really believe that humor is a bridge that helps you connect heart to heart with other people."
• "You're a leader. You need to be the one building trust."
• "Humor is a shortcut to trust."
• "Leaders help their people learn with laughter."
• "Increase your LPMs: laughs per meeting."
• "If in doubt, leave it out."
• "Every meeting really should be a party with a purpose."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:43 Start of Interview
• 03:38 Adam's Backstory and Early Influences
• 05:23 "I'm Not Funny" and the Confidence Barrier
• 10:36 Why Humor Is More Than Just Chuckles
• 16:00 The Laughter Factor Explained
• 18:10 Laugh Languages and the Power of Surprise
• 21:09 Poke: Teasing Without Crossing the Line
• 24:42 Using Humor Across Cultures
• 30:14 How You Know the Laughter Factor Is Working
• 32:17 Developing a Laughter Factor at Home
• 34:25 End of Interview
• 34:55 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 38:02 Outtakes

Get a copy of Adam's book The Laughter Factor: The 5 Humor Tactics to Link, Lift, and Lead.

You can learn more about Adam and his work at TheLaughterFactor.com. While you are there, check out the short questionnaire to discover your laugh language.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 316 with Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas. They are completely on this theme of humor being a strategic ability for leaders and teams.
• Episode 109 with Peter McGraw. Peter breaks down what makes something funny based on his book The Humor Code, an episode Andy still calls back to today.
• Episode 485 with John Krewson, a conversation about lessons from sketch comedy that nicely reinforce ideas from today's episode.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader, that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Humor At Work, Trust Building, Communication, Team Culture, Psychological Safety, Cross-Cultural Leadership, Meeting Facilitation, Emotional Intelligence, Influence, Learning And Development, People Management, Project Management

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: The Fantastical Ferret by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Synthiemania by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Dr. Katie Best, leadership coach and author of The Ten Toughest Leadership Problems and How to Solve Them. Drawing on years of coaching leaders across industries, Katie shares practical insights that help you tackle high-stakes leadership moments—especially when a coach isn't available.

They explore Katie's SOLVE framework for problem-solving under pressure, the danger of performative busyness, and how to make better decisions when trade-offs and uncertainty rule the day. You'll also hear how to unlock authentic influence without manipulation, foster healthy debate on overly "nice" teams, and support psychological safety in leadership and parenting. Andy and Katie also dig into how to empower women in leadership and how small actions can create big shifts in workplace culture.

If you've ever felt overwhelmed as a leader or wished for a coach in the moment, this conversation offers clarity, encouragement, and real tools you can start using today!

• "You only have power if someone believes that you do."
• "All interaction is manipulative, but that doesn't mean it's toxic."
• "Performative busyness is one of the biggest traps for high performers."
• "Draw the line, or others will draw it for you."
• "Influence is about being a decent human, not just using techniques."
• "If you've done the learning, don't let it go to waste."
• "The idea that people put on an act at work has always fascinated me."
• "We owe it to ourselves, and if we're leaders of other human beings, we owe it to them as well, to show that it's okay to switch off."
• "Performative busyness is that kind of, we're never allowed to stop, and if we continue to perform, we keep that idea going that everyone needs to be busy all the time."
• "We are so much better at learning from positivity than we are from negativity."
• "We have to recognize that lots of people don't like speaking up in meetings."
• "It's much easier to do a positive thing than to not do a negative thing."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:33 Start of Interview
• 01:45 Early Influences on Leadership
• 04:33 The Coaching Gap and Why She Wrote the Book
• 05:47 What Is Performative Busyness?
• 09:32 How Katie Protects Her Own Focus and Energy
• 12:00 Introducing the SOLVE Framework
• 18:00 Making Decisions with Uncertainty
• 20:40 Power and Influence: What's the Difference?
• 25:42 Why Influence Techniques Sometimes Backfire
• 26:43 Encouraging Debate in "Too Nice" Cultures
• 28:40 Building Psychological Safety on Your Team
• 31:00 Advice for Women Leaders (and the Men Who Support Them)
• 34:00 Leadership Lessons as a Parent
• 35:55 End of Interview
• 36:25 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 40:19 Outtakes

You can learn more about Katie and her work at KatieBest.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 442 with Dominic Ashley-Timms. Excellent ideas on how to coach the people around us—and ourselves.
• Episode 391 with Adam Bryant. Insightful and engaging stories about how people make the leap to being leaders.
• Episode 385 with Vanessa Patrick. She wrote a great book about How To Say No. Very empowering.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP!

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

I know you want to be a more confident leader—that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Coaching, Decision Making, Influence, Communication, Psychological Safety, Conflict, Engagement, Organizational Culture, Team Development, Strategic Thinking, Problem Solving

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: On Point by Steven O'Brien
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with John Krewson, co-author of Pitch, Sketch, Launch: A Sketch Comedy Approach to Product Development. John's journey spans software development, acting, and even a stint with Saturday Night Live. He now leads Sketch Development, where he helps teams build products people actually want, faster and with more joy.

In this conversation, John explains why project teams should behave more like creative troupes than traditional org charts. You'll hear how laughter can be a feedback loop, why messy first drafts matter, and how simple tools like sticky notes, Elmo cards, and Lean Coffee can radically improve your team's collaboration. We also explore how sketch comedy's "test before polish" approach can transform how we ship ideas, and what that looks like on real-world teams.

From unblocking meetings to unleashing creativity, this episode is packed with practical tools and paradigm shifts. If you're looking to bring more energy, experimentation, and feedback into your team's workflow, this episode is for you!

• "The best ideas often start as bad ones. The magic is in iteration."
• "You're not building a product. You're testing a hypothesis in the real world."
• "Sketch comedy taught me this: if the audience isn't laughing, it doesn't work. Product teams need that same feedback mindset."
• "You can't argue with the emotion of a dead silent audience when you think you've got gold."
• "We often equate busy with productive. But they're not the same thing."
• "A meeting isn't productive just because everyone showed up. Did it move ideas forward?"
• "Troupes thrive on trust and feedback. Traditional teams often operate on fear and approval."
• "I was a mediocre software developer, which made me well-suited for management."
• "You are sucking the fun out of this. We are building software here. We get to play on computers. Let's make this fun."
• "There's this ruthless search for feedback that we learn how not to take things personally."
• "Nowhere in that iron triangle does anybody talk about whether or not the customer said, 'I needed that thing in the first place.'"
• "We're not just cross-functional. We're cross-committed. That's what makes a team operate like a troupe."
• "If you're building something new, you need a mechanism to decide if it's valuable. And if it isn't, you toss it."
• "The law of averages will tell you: 80% of the ideas need to be tossed."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:46 Start of Interview
• 01:57 Career Backstory
• 07:30 Acting Skills in Daily Work
• 12:00 Busy vs Productive
• 14:07 Project vs Product
• 17:20 Teams as Troupes
• 22:13 Meeting Tools and Techniques
• 27:37 Laugh Testability
• 33:35 Creative Mindsets at Work
• 35:21 Co-Authoring and Collaboration
• 38:00 Applying Ideas at Home
• 40:33 End of Interview
• 41:05 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 44:13 Outtakes

You can learn more about John and the book at SketchDev.io/pitch-sketch-launch.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 316 with Jennifer Aaker and Naomi Bagdonas. It's a conversation on humor as a secret weapon in business and life.
• Episode 109 with Peter McGraw. It's also about humor, a fun follow-up, even though John's book isn't just about comedy.
• Episode 469 with Phil Wilson. It's packed with great ideas for unleashing your team, which ties in beautifully with John's approach.

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you, too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader. That's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Creativity, Feedback Loops, Team Collaboration, Agile Thinking, Innovation, Leadership, Project Management, Development, Meetings, Humor, Iteration, Trust, Team Culture, Psychological Safety, Growth Mindset

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Dr. Craig Mattson, professor of communication and author of Digital Overwhelm: A Mid-Career Guide to Coping at Work. Rather than encouraging digital detoxing or escaping technology, Craig offers a refreshing way to understand and navigate the pressures of modern work. He introduces the idea of digiwhelm, explains why so much of our stress comes from the communication modes we inhabit, and shows how leaders can respond with intention rather than overload.

You will hear Craig describe why email can be more than information transfer, how mode switching differs from context switching, and why one-way communication sometimes matters more than dialogue. Craig also shares why signals like silence, gestures, and tone often communicate more than words. Before closing, he draws connections to life at home, offering ideas for families that feel overwhelmed by devices and demands.

If you are looking for practical insights to reduce digital overwhelm, improve communication, and lead with greater clarity and calm, this episode is for you!

• "Instead of digital minimalism, I recommend something like digital flexibility."
• "Humans are essentially users and switchers of modes."
• "What is going to be the defining overwhelm of my life?"
• "You are always overwhelmed by something."
• "Flexibility is the wisdom that my book is urging."
• "Your words do things."
• "Think about the voice of the email."
• "A mode is an approach, it is a posture, it is a way of relating."
• "Is there a way in which this is actually good for me and actually good for other people?"

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:33 Start of Interview
• 01:42 Early Life and Influences
• 02:57 Growing Up with Technology
• 04:11 What is Digiwhelm?
• 06:26 How Does It Compare to Overload?
• 08:35 The Impact of a David Ford Quote
• 10:34 Understanding Mode Switching
• 16:20 A Day in Communication Modes
• 22:04 Email as Conversation
• 24:29 Writing Email Like You Talk
• 27:24 Dissemination in Practice
• 32:00 Signals Leaders Should Notice
• 39:00 Coping with Digiwhelm at Home
• 43:04 End of Interview
• 43:44 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 48:14 Outtakes

You can learn more about Craig and his work at DigitalOverwhelm.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 144 with Cal Newport. Craig references Cal's book Deep Work in Digital Overwhelm, making this a great companion conversation.
• Episode 269 with Nir Eyal, about his book Indistractable. Nir shares insights about shaping your day to be less distracted.
• Episode 377 with Cassie Holmes, about her book Happier Hour. It is not only about managing your time but focusing on what really matters.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we have a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. It is free and a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I would love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader. That is why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It is 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it is all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Digital Overwhelm, Leadership, Communication, Project Management, Email Effectiveness, Team Culture, Listening Skills, Collaboration, Productivity, Decision Making, Stakeholder Engagement, Psychological Safety

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Echo by Alexander Nakarada
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Amireh Amirmazaheri, CEO of PMO Solutions and a leading voice in the global PMO community. From growing up in Iran during a time of war to building a respected consultancy in Australia, Amireh shares how resilience and curiosity shaped her approach to leadership and enabling project success. You'll hear how PMOs have evolved from administrative hubs to strategic influencers, what it means to truly "speak the language of executives," and how to recognize when a PMO is at risk of drifting into irrelevance. We also explore how AI is transforming the work of PMOs and what leaders can do to stay ahead of the curve. Plus, Amireh offers practical advice on leading as a woman in project management and applying PMO principles at home as a parent.

If you're looking for insights on elevating PMO impact, executive communication, and leading through change, this episode is for you!

• "Limitations aren't always bad. They push us into the creativity zone."
• "Executives don't want red or amber. They want to know where the ship is heading."
• "When PMOs chase BAU firefighting, they lose their strategic brain."
• "If PMOs stay educated and ahead of the game, they can influence the AI journey."
• "It's okay to cry. Then think, learn, and lead."
• "Um, should I tell you that my little one has a kanban board?"

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:31 Start of Interview
• 01:42 Early Life in Iran and Resilience
• 12:56 Lessons About Enablement
• 15:02 How PMOs Have Changed
• 18:55 Speaking the Language of Executives
• 21:22 Failure Clues and PMO Drift
• 25:11 Sponsorship as a Risk Factor
• 26:08 Using AI and Its Near-Term Impact on PMOs
• 32:25 Leading as a Woman
• 37:44 Applying PM and PMO Ideas at Home
• 40:22 PMO Global Alliance Overview
• 42:15 End of Interview
• 42:50 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 46:22 Outtakes

You can learn more about Amireh and her work at PMOSol.com, or connect with her on LinkedIn.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 436 with Laura Barnard, about the IMPACT Engine
• Episode 429 with Bill Dow, about PMO insights
• Episode 187 with Peter Taylor, Bill Dow, and others, about the State of PMOs

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you, too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP!

I know you want to be a more confident leader—that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Ways of Working

Topics: PMOs, Executive Communication, Leadership, AI in Projects, Change Management, Strategic Thinking, Women in Leadership, Organizational Influence, Resilience, Stakeholder Engagement, Career Growth, Continuous Improvement

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Kayla Quijas, founder of Kayla Q Career Coaching. Kayla's journey from cake decorator to Senior Project Manager at a global law firm is anything but conventional, and it's that transformation that fuels her work helping others break into and thrive in project management.

At the heart of the discussion is Kayla's signature framework, the PM Readiness Iron Triangle, which focuses on three key pillars: credentials, experience, and network. You'll hear how to assess your readiness for a PM role, even if you don't come from a traditional background, and what to do if one leg of your triangle feels weak.

In this conversation, Kayla shares practical ways to reframe your experience into project management language, advice for overcoming fear and imposter syndrome, and how to network without feeling sleazy or self-promotional. If you're looking for insights on how to grow your project management career—even if you're already PMP-certified—this episode is for you!

• "With this triangle, you need to be strong in at least two and then figure out where you're weak and shore that one up."
• "Before that, I was not getting any interviews. And then after that, I landed a project management job pretty quickly."
• "It is selfish not to share your thoughts because you're afraid people will judge you."
• "Networking doesn't have to be sleazy. Come at it from a give first perspective."
• "I got put on a PIP once for a project management job. That was one of the most sinking feelings that I had ever had."
• "Studying for the PMP, even if you don't take the test, can be a game-changer for your confidence and credibility."
• "Most of what you're doing in your current role is already project management. You just haven't labeled it that way yet."
• "You don't need a perfect resume to get hired. You need to tell a better story about your experience."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:32 Start of Interview
• 02:00 Kayla's Journey from Cake Decorator to Senior PM
• 03:20 Pivotal Career Decisions
• 04:20 What Kayla Did After Quitting Her Job
• 06:00 Introducing the PM Readiness Iron Triangle
• 07:40 How Kayla Came Up With the Triangle
• 09:00 A Real-Life Success Story Using the Triangle
• 11:00 Is the PMP Worth It?
• 13:00 Benefits Beyond the Certification
• 17:00 What If You Don't Have Enough Experience?
• 18:25 Examples of Overlooked Project Experience
• 20:00 How to Translate Experience into PM Language
• 24:10 Turning a Project Into a Resume Story
• 26:00 Reframing Networking So It Feels Authentic
• 30:20 Kayla's Mastermind Group Strategy
• 35:10 Giving Value Without Chasing Metrics
• 36:24 About the PM Readiness Assessment
• 37:14 End of Interview
• 37:50 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 42:55 Outtakes

You can learn more about Kayla and her work at KaylaQCareerCoaching.com.

Take the PM Readiness Assessment here: PM Readiness Assessment

Connect with Kayla on LinkedIn: Kayla's LinkedIn Profile

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 474 with Stuart Taylor. It's a candid discussion about LinkedIn, our careers, and the role of AI.
• Episode 465 with Kari Mirabal. You'll get practical strategies for building professional relationships.
• Episode 258, also with Kari Mirabal. She shares even more insights on networking and career growth.
• Episode 39 with Devora Zack about her book Networking for People Who Hate Networking.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you, too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Project Management, Career Growth, PMP Certification, Networking, Leadership, Resume Writing, Personal Branding, Professional Development, Coaching, Confidence Building, Interviewing, Career Transitions

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Quantum Sparks Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Matt Ley about his new book Manage Your Gaps: Reclaiming the Awesomeness of Management. Matt challenges the myths and misunderstandings around management, explaining why clarity between contributors, managers, and leaders is key to organizational performance. You'll hear why he says managers are "multipliers" of value, how to recognize when you're being overled or overmanaged, and why he believes managers are not "junior leaders."

Matt introduces his EP!C Management model: Environment, Performance, Identity, and Communication. It's a tactical framework designed to help managers activate and optimize their teams. He also shares practical ideas for improving one-on-ones, measuring success, and even applying these same principles at home through the Four Cs: Care, Clarity, Consistency, and Communication. If you're looking for actionable insights to sharpen your management skills and strengthen your team's performance, this episode is for you!

• "The thing is, managers are zero value add."
• "Contribution is all about working in the business. Management's all about working on the business and leadership's all about working on the future."
• "A manager is someone who's titled with making sure that they're multiplying the value of that organization."
• "A leader's job is to look up and out. So their job is to define the new, whereas a manager's accountability is to look down and in. So their job is to refine the now."
• "If you're not doing one-on-ones on a regular, consistent basis? That to me is the beating drum and the heartbeat of management."
• "It's really hard to feel successful in something if you don't have two things. One, you need a definition of what you're doing. And you need a measurement of how you're doing against it."
• "We reflect on the different roles that we play, that we call four hats: our professional hat, our personal hat, our partner hat, and our professional parent."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:38 Start of Interview
• 02:00 Family Influence on Leadership
• 04:00 Career Journey to EP!C Model
• 07:20 Rethinking Roles as Spokes
• 09:40 Managers vs. Leaders
• 12:40 Over-Led or Over-Managed
• 15:20 Zero Value Add Concept
• 17:20 Introducing the EP!C Model
• 20:20 Identity in Management
• 22:20 One Practical Management Tip
• 24:00 Applying EP!C at Home
• 26:14 End of Interview
• 26:37 Andy Comments After the Interview

You can learn more about Matt and his work at ManageYourGaps.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 363 with Roger Martin. Roger typically shows up in the Thinkers50 Top 10 and shares key management lessons that complement this discussion.
• Episode 47 with Henry Mintzberg. It's a candid, entertaining conversation with one of the most influential management thinkers of our time.
• Episode 11 with Susan Scott. Based on her book Fierce Leadership, this episode explores powerful communication and management lessons that still hold up today.

Join other listeners from around the world who are taking our AI Made Simple course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you, too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: Leadership, Management, Role Clarity, Team Performance, Organizational Design, Communication, One-On-Ones, Change Management, Coaching, Strategic Thinking, Team Culture, Manager Development

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: The Fantastical Ferrett by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy welcomes Coach Tony Weaver, author of Project Manage Your Life: Your Blueprint for Achieving Any Goal — One Step at a Time. After decades of leading complex IT, marketing, and transformation projects, Tony turned his project management skills inward and used them to lose over 100 pounds. That journey sparked a new mission: helping others apply the same proven methods to their own goals, whether it's health, finances, career, or just finally following through on something important.

In this conversation, you'll hear how to turn vague intentions into measurable, motivating goals. Tony shares how to break down big ambitions into doable milestones, track your progress without becoming a slave to the data, and stay consistent with joy instead of burnout. He unpacks what SMART goals actually look like in the real world and explains why the project mindset can transform not just what you achieve, but how you feel while doing it.

If you're looking for practical ideas to move forward on goals that matter to you, at work or at home, this episode is for you!

• "Project management absolutely changed my life."
• "Life is agile."
• "Every goal is a project. Project management is just applying structure to that goal."
• "Your brain doesn't care about your happiness. It cares about keeping you safe. That's why it resists change."
• "Once you build confidence in yourself, the goal you set becomes just a jumping-off point."
• "Setting a goal is an act of hope. It says that tomorrow can be better than today."
• "Track what you can control. Influence is important, but control drives change."
• "Focus on the things you control. Keep an eye on the results, but don't obsess about them."
• "The safest place to be is in your comfort zone, not trying."
• "Some numbers matter. Some are interesting. Some aren't even interesting."
• "Letting a goal die of loneliness? That's a recipe for regret."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 01:36 Start of Interview
• 02:00 How Project Management Led to a New Mission
• 06:14 Mentorship, Coaching, and Project Management in Life
• 07:40 What Project Management Looks Like in Everyday Terms
• 11:20 Why Good Intentions Don't Lead to Change
• 13:10 Why Most People Don't Set Goals
• 15:24 Setting a Goal as an Act of Hope
• 18:00 Common Goal-Setting Mistakes and How to Fix Them
• 21:30 Building a Plan that Actually Works for You
• 23:50 Why You Should Plan Celebration, Not Just Completion
• 24:38 How to Track Progress Without Obsessing Over Data
• 29:20 The Danger of Focusing Too Much on Lagging Indicators
• 30:45 Two Client Success Stories
• 34:34 Where to Learn More About Coach Tony
• 35:28 End of Interview
• 36:03 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 39:05 Outtakes

You can learn more about Tony and his work at OperationMelt.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 376 with Nick Sonnenberg. It's an episode about how to stop drowning in work, and though the focus is more about life on the job, there are so many ideas from Nick that can help you in your personal life.
• Episode 81 with Ben Snyder, where we talk about how everything is a project. We're always working on projects, and there are so many ways to apply our project knowledge to other areas of life.
• Episode 17 with John Wittry. It's perhaps more of a time management episode, but it's about taking back your life, and there's a theme for how project management ideas can apply.

During these interviews, I often mention our AI Made Simple course. Join other listeners from around the world who are taking this course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Ways of Working

Topics: Goal Setting, Project Management, Productivity, SMART Goals, Personal Growth, Behavior Change, Tracking Progress, Milestones, Motivation, Self-Leadership, Coaching, Resilience

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Brooklyn Nights by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Energetic Drive Indie Rock by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy interviews Matt Mong, a leader at PlanAutomate, a company focused on bringing intelligent automation to the world of project management. With AI dominating headlines, Matt joins the podcast to explore what's real, what's hype, and what project managers and frontline leaders should actually be doing to stay ahead.

They discuss common misconceptions about AI in projects, why structured data is critical, and how AI can evolve from productivity booster to strategic game-changer. Matt shares practical advice on balancing innovation with data privacy, how project roles may shift over time, and what leaders can do today to prepare ourselves (and even our kids) for the future of work.

If you're looking for insights on how to stay relevant in an AI-transformed workplace, this episode is for you!

• "The real question isn't just what AI can do faster. It's what it can do that we couldn't do before."
• "We tend to overestimate what AI will do in two years and underestimate what it will do in ten."
• "If you don't get your data in order, AI won't be useful. It's as simple as that."
• "This isn't about eliminating jobs. It's about empowering people to lead and collaborate better."
• "Don't future-proof your job. Prepare for the future by experimenting and adapting."
• "What if your projects could talk to you and give ongoing guidance? That's where we're heading."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:00 Start of Interview
• 02:06 What's Something About AI or Projects That Drives You Crazy?
• 05:00 How Are You Personally Using AI at Work or Home?
• 07:00 How Are Customers Using AI Today? And Where Is It Heading?
• 12:06 What About Concerns With Data Privacy and Security?
• 15:00 What Other Risks or Opportunities Should Leaders Be Thinking About?
• 17:22 Do You Agree That 'AI Won't Take Your Job. Someone Using AI Will'?
• 19:40 What Mindsets or Skills Should People Build Now?
• 23:52 How Can We Prepare Our Kids for the Future of Work?
• 27:47 Where Can People Learn More About You and PlanAutomate?
• 29:00 End of Interview
• 29:20 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 33:14 Outtakes

You can learn more about Matt and his work at PlanAutomate.com. You can take the survey that Matt mentions here: https://www.planautomate.com/survey-state-of-ai-in-project-management/

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 463 with Faisal Hoque. He has an empowering take on how to transcend the fear and hype around AI. It's a great discussion.
• Episode 415 with leaders from the software company Keto Software. It's a great follow-up to this discussion, with some guys who have been in this space for many years.
• Episode 384 with PMeLa, an AI persona that I've been curating for a couple of years. She was the first AI to be interviewed on a leadership or project management podcast ever. In fact, YOU can talk with PMeLa here.

During the interview, I mentioned our AI Made Simple course. Join other listeners from around the world who are taking this course to prepare for an AI-infused future.

Just go to ai.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com. Thanks!

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Business Acumen

Topics: AI, Automation, Project Management, Future of Work, Innovation, Data Privacy, Intelligent Systems, Team Leadership, Experimentation, Upskilling, Technology Strategy, Digital Transformation

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: The Fantastical Ferret by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tuesday by Sascha Ende
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Bree Groff, transformation consultant, speaker, and author of Today Was Fun: A Book About Work (Seriously). Bree challenges the idea that work must be draining to be valuable, offering a refreshing and practical vision for how leaders can help teams thrive, and even enjoy, their workdays.

They explore how her upbringing shaped her perspective on work, why so many teams normalize burnout and busyness, and how leaders can model a healthier, more joyful approach. Bree introduces rituals, such as user manuals and daily check-ins, that foster trust and psychological safety, and she explains what it means to build "cozy teams" that perform through connection. You'll also hear her take on performative professionalism and how to lead without losing your humanity.

If you're looking for ways to lead with more energy, authenticity, and yes, fun, this episode is for you!

• "Most work, most days, should be fun."
• "Being busy is not the same as being brilliant."
• "Cozy teams are teams that trust each other enough to tell the truth."
• "We've confused being professional with looking professional."
• "You can either be consumed by your calendar or create space to consume ideas."
• "Even shoveling tough work can be joyful if you like your co-shovelers."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:00 Start of Interview
• 02:03 Bree's Background and Family Influence
• 05:47 The Normalization of Burnout
• 10:54 Optimizing for Good Laughs with Good People
• 17:50 Performative Professionalism vs. Authenticity
• 26:26 Creating Fun and Cozy Work Environments
• 33:08 Building a Trusting and High-Performing Team
• 34:42 Practical Tools for Team Cohesion
• 35:15 The User Manual: A Quickstart Guide to Teamwork
• 37:01 Daily Check-ins: Enhancing Team Communication
• 38:28 The Fast Food Rule: Effective One-on-One Communication
• 40:38 Prioritizing Personal Well-being for Better Work
• 46:24 Milton Glaser: Finding Pleasure in Work
• 49:45 Applying Team Principles in Family Life
• 51:39 End of Interview
• 52:12 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 56:52 Outtakes

You can learn more about Bree and her work at BreeGroff.com.

For more learning on this topic, check out:

• Episode 458 with Elizabeth Lotardo, about finding joy in the job you have
• Episode 333 with Bob Nelson and Mario Tamayo, on how to make work more fun
• Episode 82 with Bill Catlette, about how contented teams deliver better results

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Work Culture, Team Rituals, Burnout, Psychological Safety, Joy at Work, Authenticity, People Management, Communication, Employee Engagement, Project Management, Emotional Intelligence

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: Summer Morning Full Version by MusicLFiles
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Fashion Corporate by Frank Schroeter
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

In this episode, Andy talks with Jess Baker, business psychologist and author of The Super-Helper Syndrome: A Survival Guide for Compassionate People. Jess helps leaders, project managers, and anyone who tends to take on too much work avoid burnout, preserve self-worth, and build healthier ways of helping.

The conversation digs into what "Super-Helper Syndrome" means, how over-helping can lead to exhaustion, resentment, exploitation, or harsh self-criticism, and what beliefs often drive us into that pattern. Jess shares actionable tools for setting boundaries, recognizing irrational helper beliefs, and changing our mindset, including asking "What kind of help is needed here?" to building systems that support sustainable helping.

If you're leading projects, teams, or supporting others, these insights will help you avoid overcommitment while still being compassionate. 

• "Helping others to the detriment of your own wellbeing is something many of us do without noticing."
• "When you struggle to say no to requests for help, your relationships are lopsided. You deny your own needs."
• "Exhaustion, resentment, exploitation and self-criticism are the four adverse impacts of super-helper syndrome."
• "Compassion is when you decide you have to do something to alleviate someone's suffering."
• "'What kind of help is needed here?' rather than just 'How can I help?'"
• "Your self-worth does not depend upon helping people."
• "Healthy helping is about recognizing who, how and when you help, and having boundaries that are not porous."

• 00:00 Introduction
• 02:01 Start of Interview
• 02:23 What Got You Started Exploring Empathy and Compassion?
• 05:15 Cognitive Empathy vs Emotional Empathy
• 08:02 How Do You, As a Clinician, Use Empathy Without Being Overwhelmed?
• 10:07 The Four Forms of Help
• 18:52 Stakeholder Scenario: Balancing Autonomy and Dependency in Helping
• 25:01 When Did Jess Help? What Were Her Motivations?
• 31:56 It Adds Energy to Help
• 33:28 How Can I Discern If I'm Becoming a Super-Helper?
• 38:07 A Roadmap for Setting Healthy Boundaries
• 46:03 Parenting and Helping Habits
• 51:21 End of Interview
• 51:58 Andy Comments After the Interview
• 56:33 Outtakes

You can learn more about Jess, her book, and her work at JessBaker.co.uk.

For deeper reading and related conversations, check out:

• Episode 448 with Marie-Helene Pelletier (on burnout and resilience)
• Episode 385 with Vanessa Patrick (about her book The Power of Saying No)
• Episode 26 with Dr. Ed Schein (MIT Fellow, Helping: How to Offer, Give, and Receive Help)

If you or someone you know is thinking about getting PMP certified, we've put together a helpful guide called The 5 Best Resources to Help You Pass the PMP Exam on Your First Try. We've helped thousands of people earn their certification, and we'd love to help you too. It's totally free, and it's a great way to get a head start.

Just go to 5BestResources.PeopleAndProjectsPodcast.com to grab your copy. I'd love to help you get your PMP this year!

I know you want to be a more confident leader–that's why you listen to this podcast. LEAD52 is a global community of people like you who are committed to transforming their ability to lead and deliver. It's 52 weeks of leadership learning, delivered right to your inbox, taking less than 5 minutes a week. And it's all for free. Learn more and sign up at GetLEAD52.com. Thanks!

Thank you for joining me for this episode of The People and Projects Podcast!

Talent Triangle: Power Skills

Topics: Leadership, Project Management, Empathy, Boundaries, Wellbeing, Helping Others, Self-Compassion, Impact of Beliefs, Burnout Prevention, Communication

The following music was used for this episode:

Music: The Fantastical Ferret by Tim Kulig
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license

Music: Tropical Vibe by WinnieTheMoog
License (CC BY 4.0): https://filmmusic.io/standard-license