AMA Edgewise
In the coming weeks we will be bringing you the insights and voices of recognized thought leaders across a wide range of topics.Our aim is to provide those essential "nuggets" of perspective that will help you and your organization improve performance, adapt to changing business realities, and prosper in a complex and competitive world.
Cal Turner Jr. was the CEO of Dollar General for decades after inheriting the business from his father. He joins us to talk about how faith and family helped him turn a million dollar business into a billion dollar business, plus a few stories from his new book My Father’s Business: The Small-Town Values That Build Dollar General into a Billion Dollar-Company.
Cal Turner, Jr. grew up in a Scottsville, Kentucky, household where business and family were one. After graduating Vanderbilt University, he served for three years as an officer in the United States Navy before beginning his career at Dollar General. He served as CEO for 37 years, and during his tenure, the number of DG stores rose from 150, with sales of $40 million, to more than 6,000, with sales in excess of $6 billion. Turner has served on the boards of companies like Shoney’s and First American, and of educational, civic and charitable organizations including Vanderbilt and Fisk universities, and has been president of the board of governors of the Nashville Area Chamber of Commerce. His many awards include the Presidential Award for Private Sector Initiatives (presented by Ronald Reagan) and the Vanderbilt Distinguished Alumnus Award. A committed lifelong Methodist, Turner was inducted in 2001 into the Fellows of the Society of John Wesley by the Tennessee Conference of the UMC.
Chuck Martin on Our Third Digital Transformation
How to navigate our interconnected world.
September 7, 2018 / Podcast # 18-23
We are currently in the era of the Internet of Things. What does that mean and how does it affect us? Chuck Martin joins us to talk about his new book Digital Transformation 3.0 and what it means for us as workers and as employees.
Chuck Martin is a New York Times Business Bestselling author, futurist and has been a leader in emerging digital technologies for more than two decades. He is considered one of the foremost Internet of Things (IoT) experts in the world and his latest book focuses on the digital transformation coming from the Internet of Things. The book title is “Digital Transformation 3.0″. He hosts a worldwide podcast titled “The Voices of the Internet of Things with Chuck Martin,” where he converses with top executives from the companies driving the Internet of Things. He is author of Net Future, Mobile Influence (The New Power of the Consumer), The Third Screen and eight other business books. He is a frequent keynote speaker internationally. Chuck also is the Editor of the MediaPost AI & IoT Daily, the largest AI and IoT daily publication in the world, and writes the well-read daily column “Connected Thinking” for the AI & IoT Daily, sent to more than 100,000 subscribers. He has been named #1 in Internet of Things Top 10 Influencers by IT Chronicles.
Kevin Eikenberry on The Long-Distance Leader
How to manage when no one is in the same room.
August 31, 2018 / Podcast # 18-22
Whether you’re working with gig workers or people in multiple offices worldwide, these days we’re seeing more and more teams spread out across the globe. Technology makes remote teams easier but it can only help so much. Kevin Eikenberry, co-author of The Long-Distance Leader, joins us to talk about some of the challenges to working remotely, the expected ones and some that you might not have thought of.
Kevin Eikenberry is founder and chief potential officer of the Kevin Eikenberry Group. He’s been named one of Inc.com’s Top 100 Leadership and Management Experts in the World and is the author of several books, including Remarkable Leadership.
Dr Albert Siu on Difficult Conversations as a Manager
How to get through to under-performing employees.
August 24, 2018 / Podcast # 18-21
One of the most difficult conversations at work is when you’ve got an employee who is under-performing. Albert Siu joins us with some tips on how to get through that conversation so everyone is happy, plus other advice for managers both new and experienced.
Albert Siu has over 30 years of experience in managing global Learning and HR functions. Albert also oversees the PAREXEL Academy, a learning and development unit that provides thought leadership and training for organizations and clients that are outside of PAREXEL International. Before joining PAREXEL, he was Vice President for Learning and Development at Boston Scientific, a global life sciences R&D and manufacturing company. Dr. Siu was the Chief Learning Officer for AT&T from 1994 to 2002. Before joining AT&T in 1994, Dr. Siu spent sixteen years with Hewlett-Packard, serving in a variety of business unit and corporate human resources leadership roles; including eight years as an expatriate residing in China and Hong Kong managing the human resources function for Hewlett-Packard’s China operations.
Howard Yu on Leaping Across Knowledge Disciplines
How to stay relevant when everything is changing.
August 17, 2018 / Podcast # 18-20
Novartis is currently a multinational pharmaceutical company but when it started over two centuries ago they were manufacturing dyes for textiles. It was only when someone noticed the health benefits of their dyes that they made the switch. Howard Yu, author of Leap, joins us to talk about how this leap to a similar but different industries as the key to staying relevant in an constantly changing business market.
Howard Yu is the LEGO professor of management and innovation at the prestigious IMD business school in Switzerland as well as the director of its signature program, the three-week Advanced Management Program (AMP), an executive education course. In 2015, Yu was selected by Poets&Quants as one of “The World’s Top 40 Business Professors Under 40,” and in 2018 he appeared on the Thinkers50 Radar list of thirty management thinkers “most likely to shape the future of how organizations are managed and led.” He has delivered customized training programs for leading organizations including Mars, Maersk, Daimler, and Electrolux. His articles have appeared in Forbes, Fortune, Harvard Business Review, The Financial Times, and The New York Times. Yu received his doctoral degree from Harvard Business School. Prior to his doctorate, he worked in the banking industry in Hong Kong.
Jeanne Bliss on Treating Customers Like They’re Your Mom
The new golden rule.
August 10, 2018 / Podcast # 18-19
When we think of customer service we tend to focus on the front line employees who are taking the customer phone calls. While they are often the face of the organization, there are thousands of decisions made throughout the company than wind up making customers feel less-than great. Jeanne Bliss, author of the new book Would You Do That to Your Mother, says that treating customers with respect is something that needs to permeate the entire organization, from customer facing roles all the way to the CEO.
Jeanne Bliss is one of the foremost experts on customer-centric leadership and the role of the chief customer officer. For over 20 years, she led customer experience executive at Lands’ End, Coldwell Banker, Allstate, Mazda, and Microsoft. Since 2002 she has guided customer experience transformations for major global organizations through her firm, CustomerBliss, and has inspired audiences through her keynote speeches. She is the co-founder of the Customer Experience Professional’s Association and has been called the “godmother of customer experience.”
Leonard Mlodinow on Training Our Brains to Be More Elastic
How to stop following orders and start making our own.
August 3, 2018 / Podcast # 18-18
At the two ends of the neurological spectrum are logical thinking and elastic thinking. Generally the purvue of artists and great thinkers, elastic thinking is called upon more and more in our everyday lives. Luckily, we are not born one way or another. Leonard Mlodinow, author of the book Elastic, joins us to talk about ways we can train our thinking to be less logical and make up our own rules.
Leonard Mlodinow was born in Chicago, Illinois, received his PhD in theoretical physics from the University of California at Berkeley, and is the author of five best-sellers. His book The Drunkard’s Walk: How Randomness Rules our Lives was a New York Times Bestseller, Editor’s Choice, and Notable Book of the Year, and was short-listed for the Royal Society book award. His book Subliminal won the PEN/Wilson award for literary science writing. His other books include two co-authored with physicist Stephen Hawking — A Briefer History of Time, and The Grand Design. In addition to his books and research articles, he has taught at Caltech, written for the Wall Street Journal, the New York Times, and Forbes magazine, among other publications, and for television series such as McGyver and Star Trek: the Next Generation.
Fred Kofman on The Meaning Revolution
Putting in the work to become a great leader.
July 27, 2018 / Podcast # 18-17
Can everyone run a marathon? Yes and no. A lot of people can but not tomorrow, not without training. The ones that want to will put in the work. To Fred Kofman, the same metric applies to leadership. It takes effort but the ones who put in the time will be able to learn how. He joins us to talk about some more of his leadership insights from his new book The Meaning Revolution.
Fred Kofman is Advisor of Leadership Development at Google, and formerly the Vice President of Executive Development at LinkedIn, where he worked with the top CEO’s and executives around the world. Born in Argentina, Kofman came to the United States as a graduate student, where he earned his PhD in advanced economic theory at U.C. Berkeley. He taught management accounting and finance at MIT for six years before forming his own consulting company, Axialent, and teaching leadership workshops for corporations such as General Motors, Chrysler, Shell, Microsoft, and Citibank. At its height, his company had 150 people and created and taught programs to more than 15,000 executives. Sheryl Sandberg writes about him in her book Lean In, claiming Kofman “will transform the way you live and work.”
Sometimes the more we know, the more we fall into a trap. How many times have we shot down ideas because we know they haven’t worked in the past. It’s time to break out of that monotonous thinking. Jonah Sachs, author of Unsafe Thinking, joins us to talk about ways we can learn to think more creatively and stay ahead of the competition.
Jonah Sachs is the founder and a partner of Free Range Studios, a brand and innovation company that transforms companies through unsafe thinking. For his work he has been awarded “best of” honors three times at the South by Southwest interactive festival, earned a Webby award, and been featured at the Sundance Film Festival.
Dr Patti Fletcher on Women Disrupting the Workplace
Leaning in for the rest of us
July 13, 2018 / Podcast # 18-15
Disrupters, the new book by Dr. Patti Fletcher is called the “anti-Lean In.” Not because women should stay put, far from it. Dr. Fletcher is seeking a new way forward, one that doesn’t rely on women simply emulating the way that men have traditionally behaved. She joins us to talk about how women and men can change their behavior to make the workforce more accommodating for all.
Dr. Patti Fletcher is author of ‘Disrupters: Success Strategies from Women Who Break the Mold,’ gender equity advocate, and authority on how to create a culture of inclusion to drive real business results. She writes for Entrepreneur, Inc., Huffington Post, The Guardian, and has contributed to and been featured in Time Magazine, Al-Jazeera, Forbes, Newsweek, Xconomy, The Muse and many more. Patti advises corporate executives and board members from lean start-ups to Fortune 100s, from small community organizations to large global non-profits.