The end of Season Two heralds a new journey: the road to the Leading Smart Academy. The Academy will be a deep resource for leaders just starting out, those facing specific challenges, and veterans looking for a refresher. Sign up to be first in line.

The most indelible cultural change is led from the top. Where the leader lives, promotes, recognizes, and corrects in furtherance of the effort. In this episode we explore a small example that can be a model for all organization culture change.

Bob Muglia has led teams from as many as 10,000 to a small startup, often taking over teams in distress and returning them to success. But his focus has always been as much on how teams work as much as what they do, in what he calls values-based leadership.

Changing an organizational culture is a heavy lift even if the issue is not especially thorny. The real question is who can make that change? In this episode we explore an example where a fairly small cultural change requires a clear sense of how to change.

Brian Pedersen’s team helps companies negotiate the maze of corporate taxes. On top of the unique experience that requires, he faces all the challenges met by any leader of knowledge workers. Yet Brian has done it all remotely, even before it was required.

When a solid team mixes with a clear vision and an outstanding culture, the resulting brew can be magical. Success that breeds more success, enough to break records. In this episode we explore the qualities necessary to create organizational harmonics.

David Sobeski has exercised his skill of a broad view with a detail focus at some of most customer-obsessed companies in the world including Disney and Nordstrom. All while remote working long before it was cool. This is my conversation with David Sobeski.

What makes up an organization’s culture? What effect does culture have on the output of the team? Does a culture bend to the market or does the market select winners based on their culture? The series on organizational culture begins with: Culture Club.

Liz Pearce was in marketing at Sony, Google, and Amazon, and then a marketing consultant. At one of her clients, she rose from contract marketing consultant to CEO. Now leading Seattle startup Fresh Chalk, she discusses her journey, leadership, and the CEO role.

The series on communication wraps up with a look at cursing in the workplace. We explore my tendency to use expletives inappropriately as well as how cursing is indicative of organizational culture and the power of leaders. This time, "I Swear".

Donn Denman was an engineer at Apple in the very early years and is now at Google. In our conversation he shares what it was like working with Steve Jobs, what it’s like today at Google, and how vision and passion can change the world.

The series on communication continues with the best way to understand how your team and project are doing. There’s a wrong way and a right way to find out the answer to the question that keeps every leader up at night: “How’s it Going?”