“You are who you surround yourself with. The mentors you have are the direction you are going to go.” – Mike Baer

Mike Baer, President of Trench-Ade, joins host Tim Leman to discuss the importance of relationships - with customers, employees, mentors, and personally. He talks about building an organization that has a strong sense of integrity. Mike also shares about his own leadership journey and his vision for the future, both personally and professionally.

“When we spend our time pouring in and lifting up, results will come.” – Andrea Butcher

Andrea Butcher, CEO of HRD*, discusses her passion for leadership development and helping others build their vision. She talks about equipping leaders & creating an environment for people to be successful. Andrea and host Tim Leman also explore how they have applied lessons and experiences from their leadership journeys to their families and personal relationships - as well as a few fun memories from their days together at Indiana State.

We’re Going Dancing. Those are the three words every NCAA Division I basketball player and coach dreams of yelling.

Why is it everyone's dream?

• Only sixty-eight of the 358 NCAA D1 teams punch their ticket to The Big Dance (NCAA Tournament) each year
• Only 19% of men and women college basketball student-athletes will make it to The Big Dance each year
• Only ~1.5% of all high school boys’ and girls’ basketball student-athletes make it to the NCAA DI level each year
• Only ~0.2% of all high school boys’ and girls’ basketball student athletes will ever experience The Big Dance as a player

The numbers are not in your favor, which is why shouting the words "We're Going Dancing" is a dream!

In 2017, our men's basketball team at The University of North Dakota accomplished that dream for the first time in school history and I had the opportunity to shout those three special words!

Here are a few themes from that special season which we held tightly to, and I believe any team can learn from – sports, business, or otherwise.

I’ve seen the same hairstylist for a few years and as a result, occasionally my haircuts turn into a free therapy session. (You know how it goes, you go in for a haircut and some how you’re confessing your biggest problems to a relative stranger while awkwardly looking at your reflection in the mirror...)

During a recent “therapy session” we were discussing my cut and style options. The conversation led to my usual comment of “Well, if only it was longer, I would do this …” My stylist looked at me and replied sincerely “Your hair is on a journey. Let’s stop trying to get here or there, and just appreciate where it is right now.”

She may have been talking about my hair, but we both knew she was alluding to something much bigger.

We’re back with a new season of The Edge Podcast!

Host Tim Leman dives into the real stories of incredible leaders who have found their edge and owned it.

Strong, vibrant corporate cultures create the foundation of every successful organization. At the core of those successful cultures is a business’s most valuable asset, its people. Culture sets organizations apart from their competition. It shapes environments where people thrive and do their best work. As a leader, you understand the importance of building and maintaining a positive corporate culture. CEOs and executive teams are the organizational visionaries who create the vision, mission, values and principles a company is built on. The biggest challenge these executives face? Ensuring that the vision cast by executive leaders is successfully implemented.

We believe that successful implementation of corporate vision and culture falls to mid-level managers. The secret to long-term organizational success is investing in those leaders and ensuring they evangelize your corporate culture through example. Let’s explore the tools and resources your mid-level managers need to succeed in implementing a great corporate culture.

It was August 2021 and I’d spent the last 6 months fully diving into my new role with Gibson. I was attending ALL the networking events, cocktail hours, community dinners, and golf outings I could.

Each time I would look around and note the amount of other women in the room. In case you were wondering, it was never as many as the men.

Throwback Thursday: Tom Peters' The Excellence Dividend provides a business case for leaders putting their people first. But what does it mean for employers to REALLY put their people first?

It’s said that most adults will spend one third of their life at work. That’s roughly 90,000 hours! Putting it in these terms provides a different context in which to view the employer-employee relationship.

Author Tom Peters says leaders need to accept responsibility for the role they play in employees’ lives. “Every leader has a moral obligation [today] to develop people so that when they leave, they are better prepared for tomorrow than when they arrived,” writes Peters.

That’s heavy. I care about our people a lot. I think about the 150+ families relying on our leaders to make good decisions with the best interest of our team at heart. Yet “moral obligation” is an even larger burden. And you know what? He’s right. We owe that to our team.

“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” - Maya Angelou

When asked to write this blog, I wondered what value I could add to the blogging world... “A blog on empathy in the workplace!” For me, this was a natural reaction, because it’s a natural feeling. It is not natural for everyone, and that’s okay. The world is a melting pot, as it should be, and that is what makes the world work. Maybe you are confused on what empathy really is? Maybe you’ve been misinformed that there is no room for empathy in the workplace – when in fact, we need to make a little more room.

Empathy is fellow feeling. It is a tool to connect to someone on an interpersonal level; it can offer hope and healing on a deeper level. Being able to get to this place allows you to suspend judgment, feelings, opinions, anger, and resentment. It is the ability to temporarily suspend your own opinions, to truly walk a mile in someone’s shoes.

1. How They Gather And Share Information

When faced with a new work project, there is a certain type of employee who will instinctively need to know anything and everything about the project. This team member will have questions…and lots of them. When you use this team member’s strengths efficiently, they will find facts like it’s their superpower.

Of course, if every employee acted this way all the time, you’d never get anything fully done, because there will always be more questions to ask, facts to find. So, it’s important to know which employees will naturally wade through all that information, get the “gist” (a few bullet points, maybe), then move on.