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Managing Smart People Who Are Bad Employees
In this lesson, investor Ben Horowitz discusses how to effectively manage brilliant but challenging employees—categorized as Heretics, Flakes, and Jerks—by leveraging their strengths while minimizing their disruptive behaviors to benefit the organization.
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Three Benefits of Taking Training Seriously
Even the most qualified hires require structured training to clarify expectations, enhance engagement, and boost productivity; without a training plan, new employees struggle to integrate and perform effectively, ultimately impacting team performance.
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Building a Culture That Actually Works
Venture capitalist Ben Horowitz emphasizes that a company’s culture is shaped by specific, consistently practiced behaviors rather than abstract values, advocating for clear actions—like acknowledging customer inquiries promptly—to reinforce desired cultural traits.
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Creating a Culture of Consent
In a workplace where physical contact is increasingly sensitive, executive coach Kim Scott emphasizes fostering a culture of consent that respects personal boundaries while allowing for connection, suggesting that individuals should be mindful of social cues and mutual comfort in interactions.
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Get Big Things Done with Remote Teams
Remote teams can be as effective as in-office ones when managed well, offering unique benefits that include improved communication, trust, and agility, but require intentional strategies to overcome physical, operational, and affinity distances.
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How to Lead with AI
As generative AI transforms society, leaders must model responsible use by fostering collaboration, setting realistic guidelines, encouraging exploration, creating a cooperative culture, ensuring data privacy, and demonstrating effective AI practices to guide their teams.
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Fire Fast — But Not Too Fast
Firing someone is challenging, but restaurateur Will Guidara emphasizes the importance of understanding an employee’s struggles before making a decision, urging leaders to assess whether the issue is a lack of effort or a mismatch in role, and to provide necessary support.
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Normalize Feedback
Restaurateur Will Guidara emphasizes the importance of balancing praise and constructive criticism to cultivate a culture of growth and excellence, sharing five essential rules for providing and receiving feedback effectively.
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Make Team-Led Training Sessions Mandatory
Teachers often gain a deeper understanding of their subjects through teaching, a principle leveraged by Will Guidara at Eleven Madison Park, where mandatory staff-led training sessions encourage knowledge sharing, personal growth, and responsibility among employees.
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Invest in the Power of Language
Will Guidara emphasizes the importance of articulating core values through collaborative language, as demonstrated by Eleven Madison Park’s staff, who identified four key values—hospitality, excellence, education, and passion—to shape a cohesive organizational culture.
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Develop an Action Plan
Kenji Yoshino’s research highlights the inadequacy of many diversity initiatives since the 1960s, proposing a three-step framework—diagnose, analyze, and act—to effectively address identity covering in workplaces and foster genuine inclusion.
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Create a Culture of 100% Accountability
Real accountability, as emphasized by CEO Brent Gleeson, involves individuals taking full responsibility for project outcomes, fostering a culture of trust and resilience, and requires leaders to model this behavior by owning mistakes and prioritizing ethical values in peer reviews.
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Build People Up Instead of Breaking Them Down
Research indicates that emphasizing rewards over punishments enhances performance, as highlighted by ServiceNow CEO Bill McDermott, who advocates for building cohesive teams by focusing on individual strengths and fostering a supportive environment to inspire effort and unity.
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Evaluate Risk
FutureThink CEO Lisa Bodell emphasizes that evaluating risks and clearly communicating criteria for smart versus stupid risks empowers decision-making, urging organizations to define essential information needed to pursue opportunities while establishing clear boundaries for acceptable risk.
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Help Your Team Come Together with Psychological Safety
Google’s research revealed that team success relies not on member qualities but on psychological safety, characterized by equality in conversational turn-taking and social sensitivity, which can be fostered by leaders through inclusive practices and attentiveness to team dynamics.
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Develop Self-Motivation in Your Direct Reports
Marines exemplify that self-starters, driven by an internal locus of control, can be cultivated through opportunities for decision-making, as anyone can learn self-motivation and accountability, enhancing team effectiveness.
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The Last Man Standing Mindset
Former CIA operative Andrew Bustamante shares how the “win or die trying” mindset can enhance leadership by fostering accountability, minimizing distractions, and promoting excellence in business through strategic decision-making and support for high performers.
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A 3-Step Model for Cultivating High Performers
In this video lesson, Andrew Bustamante emphasizes the importance of balancing education, practice, and real-world experience in talent development, illustrating how calm-water training alone fails to prepare individuals for unpredictable challenges.
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Design Remote-Capable Workflows
Cal Newport emphasizes the importance of setting clear boundaries for hybrid and remote teams, suggesting synchronized schedules, designated workspaces, and simulated commutes to enhance efficiency and well-being.
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A 21st-Century Framework for Preventing Sexual Harassment
Michael Kaufman suggests reinventing workplace discussions on sexual harassment by using the “red light, green light” framework, which emphasizes understanding behaviors’ impacts rather than intentions, and encourages addressing yellow light behaviors that may be ambiguous.
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A Guide for HR Professionals
In a video lesson, Michael Kaufman emphasizes that HR departments need support from all business leaders to effectively drive gender equality and change, highlighting the importance of leadership involvement, measuring workplace metrics, and fostering a supportive environment for parental leave.
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Visioning
Professor Michael Watkins emphasizes that to effectively achieve a strategic vision, organizations must dream big while starting small, engaging their teams early to create a compelling, shared vision that balances ambition with achievability.
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Make Sure You and Your Team Look Your Best in Virtual Meetings
To enhance professionalism in virtual meetings, executive coach Alisa Cohn emphasizes the importance of effective body language, including maintaining eye-level camera positioning, a pleasant expression, and addressing team members’ presentation issues constructively.
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Four Key Principles for Successful Delegation
As startups grow, leaders must learn to delegate effectively by assessing each employee’s capabilities and enthusiasm, adapting their management style accordingly, and clearly communicating expectations for project outcomes.
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Physical Well-Being
Positive psychologist Tal Ben-Shahar emphasizes that while stress can enhance performance, it’s crucial to balance it with recovery—through mini, mid, and macro-level strategies—to prevent burnout and promote overall well-being.
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Deliver Unbiased Feedback
In this video lesson, inclusion specialist Ruchika Malhotra emphasizes the importance of delivering clear, actionable feedback to women of color by using the Situation-Behavior-Impact (SBI) framework to focus on substance rather than vague comments about style.
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Design Inclusive Meetings in Practice
Inclusion specialist Ruchika Malhotra emphasizes the importance of fostering inclusivity in meetings by implementing strategies like a “no interruptions” rule and amplifying others’ ideas to ensure that all voices are heard and credited appropriately.
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Create Equal Opportunities
In this video lesson, inclusion strategist Ruchika Malhotra highlights the unfair distribution of “office housework,” which disproportionately burdens women and people of color, and offers strategies for ensuring a fairer division of tasks to support career advancement.
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Apply Systems Thinking
Harvard researcher Amy Edmondson emphasizes that while quick decisions during disruptions may seem necessary, adopting a systems thinking approach can transform these challenges into valuable learning opportunities, fostering synergy and proactive experimentation within organizations.