How does Amazon decide on what to build or do next? How do they ensure that technical dependencies don't get in the way of continuous growth? In this episode we cover Working Backwards written by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr, 2 senior employees who worked closely with Jeff Bezos during some of the most explosive growth Amazon has experienced to date. This episode covers strategies that can be used by companies of any size. For example, Jeff Bezos banned the use of PowerPoint presentations in meetings. Why? They are a waste of time. It is too easy to be swayed by a great presenter or to miss a great opportunity because of a poor presentation. So what do they do instead? Have a listen to find out why every Amazon meeting starts with 20 minutes of silence! 

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53. Working Backwards by Colin Bryar and Bill Carr

Each and every one of us is wired to seek comfort and avoid discomfort. But maybe too much comfort is a bad thing. The number 0.004% is a significant one in this episode. That is approximately how long we have been exposed to our modern way of life. Humans have been around for 2.5 million years in one way or another and our modern way of life is about 100 years old. Author Michael Easter proposes that the level of comfort we have at our disposal is in fact causing us harm in a myriad of ways. We need to learn to get comfortable with discomfort. 

52. The Comfort Crisis by Michael Easter

The idea of quieting the mind, of stillness, is not new. In fact, Seneca, Marcus Aurelius, Cicero etc. understood it's importance centuries ago. If you've had a particularly hard time the last while, you might find some solace in this episode. You will find some simple techniques to help quiet your mind. These techniques generally involve stopping doing things rather than picking up more stuff for your to do list. If in the whirlwind of your mind, you seek inner peace, stillness is the key...ain't that the truth. 

52. Stillness is the Key by Ryan Holiday

What is it that makes a company that is trundling along with OK results suddenly turn into a great company with hockey stick growth in all the right areas? In his book Good to Great, Jim Collins and his team dig into the companies that fit this typeof growth and look the variables that seemed to influence it. They discover some pretty basic rules that you must follow to achieve the status of 'Great'.

50. Good to Great by Jim Collins

The School of Facilitation is a space for corporate and freelance practitioners to connect, learn and share. They host regular online and face to face gatherings, classes that will give you the skills to be an awesome trainer or facilitator and 5-day retreats where you can slow down, regroup your thoughts and reflect. They work with corporates to create in-house training teams, build the relevant skills and share how to transfer learning effectively.  They support global companies create their global sales academies. They work with the client understanding their Sales strategy, what core sales capabilities and competencies they are aspiring to, design learning journeys and then the learning solutions.

49. Kirsty Lewis, Interview Series - Growing Professionals

Aaron is the UCD President's advisor on all commercial activities, tasked with helping them to grow new and existing income sources in line with their core mission as one of Europe's leading research-intensive universities. UCD is Ireland's largest university, with over €500m in revenues derived in the majority from non-state sources.   Aaron is the former Managing Director of The Digital Marketing Institute (DMI).  DMI has the most widely taught digital certification in the world. Aaron was with the business through a sustained period of exceptional growth and strategic development, including a successful transaction involving the highly regarded growth equity investor, Spectrum Equity.  Get on our mailing list here: https://usebecause.com/subscribe/

48. Aaron McKenna, Interview Series - Growing Professionals

How are some companies able to create 'tribes' or raving fans around not just their individual products but their entire company? According to Simon Sinek, author of Start with Why, they focus on the fact that people do not buy what you do, they buy why you do it. After listening to this episode, you will understand what it is that makes Apple, well Apple. We touch on a possible reason why HMV, Blockbuster and KODAK fell to the competition when they had what seemed like an insurmountable lead. It may have come down to losing their 'Why'. Get on our mailing list at www.UseBecause.com/subscribe

47. Start with Why by Simon Sinek

As an educator or trainer, are you feeling exhausted and unproductive at times to teach via e-learning platforms like Zoom? In this episode, we discussed how learning and development (L&D) changes under COVID-19 and introduced various innovative L&D technology usage. If you are interested in enhancing interactivity with and engagement of audience in e-learning.

46. Joe Houghton, Interview Series - Growing Professionals

In a career spanning the globe, Graham Owens is currently living in Qatar in the Middle East working in an L&D function within global operations in a Qatar gas – Pre-Covid they worked an 80/20 blended learning an approach which was working them, but most L&D always wanted a more online course. Since Covid happened, they broke down some barriers by working online and had to pivot very quickly with the teams' help internally to ask how they would like to learn now. Bringing in external people to help in the business they produced lots of different online styles and switched the focus entirely online. They have completed more courses than they had delivered on the previous year by 20%, which helped us deliver projects more efficiently. Graham learnt how open people were to engage in online learning was surprising when we asked the head of the business to do more online now that conversation changed as soon as we had to change. This now helped us within the L&D to be more creative in how we had to deliver the training and doing things are different and fully engaged. What's been learnt is that the time cost and effort to travel around the world to do 1 - 4 days of training, hotels entertainment is not necessary. We would like to see a 50/50 split going forward as the employees know the benefit of how powerful doing more of the workshops, learning. We should see the holy grail of the blended approach which is very powerful to the employees and will see a more engaging the workforce that will help the people learn and grow further.

45. Graham Owens, Interview series - Growing Professionals

Orlaith is a Leadership, Talent and Development Director, Executive Coach (EMCC Senior Practitioner) and High-Performance Trainer with global experience. She runs her business with her partner/Husband Gavin Duffy and works with senior executives and organisations on personal and business growth. Orlaith started her career as a journalist and worked with RTE until she had kids' and then pivoted her learning to do a masters in communication and then as an executive coach as she had already clocked up over 1,000 hours coaching clients adding education to her toolset. Over the last few years, we have seen the trend in introducing online to part of the agenda with our clients, but we prefer the in-person approach which gives us more rapport with our clients that we engage with due to the pandemic like most companies like us we have had to go fully online and be creative how we have had to adapt how we now interact. eLearning can be great as an addition to the blended approach, but we still miss the traditional method of being with people in person. Our whole communication style within organisations is now flattened. We need to use discussions, problem-solving and be there on purpose. The learning comes from within and finding a respectful way to help and adopt the way people want or need to learn. How we create a buzz in the real world, or online the very first thing you can do is gain learners trust. Open up with a story or question and grab their attention so they can decide that this person is worth listening to and make sure they feel that they are being heard.  Setting up the scene that this will be easy to follow but before we do this, we have to make sure that people are at ease so little things like having something social-first to get to know each other. Our concentration is a lot less online, so you have to get movement back so taking regular breaks to get the energy back in so they are ready to learn more as we know it can be tough with lots of distractions around us like our phones etc.

44. Orlaith Carmody, Interview series - Growing Professionals

A psychopath is not necessarily a serial killer, your friendly neighbourhood neurosurgeon could possibly be a psychopath and believe it or not that is probably the best person for the job. There is so much to be learned from the characteristics of a psychopath that we can apply to our own lives and careers. In this podcast we delve into what those characteristics are and how to apply them. This episode covers two books that are essentially two sides of the same coin. Get new content on our mailing list here (www.usebecause.com/subscribe)

43. The Wisdom of Psychopaths by Kevin Dutton and Andy McNab

There is a wealth of information on what leadership looks like. But I really believe this book hits upon an aspect of leadership that you might not have considered. Author Sam Walker devised stringent criteria for choosing 16 top performing sports teams and asked himself a very definite question - 'What, if anything, do these teams have in common?'. His discoveries are insightful because they are unexpected but when you hear what he figured out about what real leaders are you cannot help but think 'Of course that's what a leader is!'. Get on our mailing list at www.usebecause.com/subscribe

42. The Captain Class by Sam Walker

What kind of leader are you? According to the author there are 3 types of leader (or SuperBoss) - Iconoclast, Glorious Bastard, Nurturer. A SuperBoss is not going to necessarily going to care about your personal welfare and you might in fact hate your SuperBoss. However, the chances are you will look back on your time with them misty eyed and talking about it being the best part of your career. SuperBosses will do a lot for your career and innovation is part of this process. Innovation in how you run your team and also in what you encourage your direct reports to attempt. You must create opportunities for this innovation to occur. Listen to this and then get on our mailing list (usebecause.com/subscribe) to be first in line for new content.

41. SuperBosses by Sydney Finkelstein

If you are anti-participation medals or you are overwhelmed with trying to please everyone…. If you are tired of trying to ‘crush it’ everyday, then this is the episode for you. Mark Manson has a no holds barred book based on the realities of life. Chapters with names such as ‘You are not Special’ and ‘You are always wrong’ will wake you up to the things you are spending your time on that perhaps you should not be spending your time on. The message is pretty clear - we all have a limited number f fu*cks to give in this short life of ours, so decide what really matters to you and get on with it. A profound book with a quirky title, have a listen and if you want to get more and go deeper, sign up to our mailing list at UseBecause.com/subscribe

40. The Subtle Art Of Not Giving a Fu*k by Mark Manson

One of the most difficult things about leadership is finding the balance between opposing forces. When to mentor or when to let someone go. When to provide instruction and when to leave your team to figure out their own solutions. You can understand all of the 'rules' of leadership but what sets this book apart is the explanation of how  these rules can come into conflict with each other. You will not find a solution for these dichotomies through reading books or listening to podcasts. You must take each situation  where you find these dichotomies on it's own merits and figure out a way to success in real time. This episode explains what each of these leadership conflicts are and provides a map for finding a way through each of them.

39. The Dichotomy of Leadership by Jocko Willink and Leif Babin

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