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by Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin
Management Muse provides organizational best practices through an exploration of new science, classic research, and interviews with smart, interesting people. Hosted by Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin, Management Muse inspires better work performance.
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The cardinal sin of liking your coworker? It clouds your judgement. The employee everyone loves gets another pass. The capable colleague with an annoying habit gets sent to coaching. And the candidate you click with feels like the right hire…before you’ve defined what success in the job requires. This week on Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin unpack three “sins of liking” that distort hiring decisions and performance evaluations. Through consulting stories and a narrowly avoided $11,000 photograph, they show how easily likability becomes evidence of competence, familiarity passes for fit, and “Can they do the job?” becomes “Do I like them?” They also examine why hiring someone “just like” your last star can backfire, and how sparing a favorite honest feedback can cost them the chance to improve. Before your next hire, promotion, or performance review, consider: Would the same evidence convince you if you liked the person less? What you’ll learn about likability bias, hiring decisions, and fair performance feedback: The halo effect and feedback paralysis: Why managers struggle to give honest feedback to people they like, often carrying underperformers at the cost of team morale. When it’s tricky, we default to question substitution: How our brains inadvertently swap difficult evaluations for easier questions. Hiring people you click with? Watch what your team starts missing. How similarity bias can concentrate familiar strengths while leaving other capabilities uncovered. The last person was great. Their replacement may need to be different. How changing conditions and supporting teams complicate the search for another star. Your team watches who gets a pass. How extra slack for favored employees can undermine trust and raise questions about everyone else’s standards. One great interview can be a great performance. Why Cindi and Geoff recommend looking beyond a single meeting before deciding someone is the right hire. Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/amF9CmOCHlE The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Rivera, Lauren A. “Hiring as Cultural Matching: The Case of Elite Professional Service Firms,” American Sociological Review, vol. 77, no. 6, Dec. 2012, pp. 999–1022, https://doi.org/10.1177/0003122412463213 Kahneman, Daniel. Thinking, Fast and Slow, Farrar, Straus and Giroux, Oct. 2011, https://link.amazon/B03UINqCm Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website
Being indispensable is bad for business. If every decision runs through you, the company eventually runs out of your time. Meanwhile, the decisions that could get it growing again compete for whatever attention you have left. Jim Schleckser of The CEO Project, author of Great CEOs Are Lazy, joins Cindi Baldi to explain why effective CEOs make room to do less. In Jim’s framework, the flat stretches between periods of growth signal a constraint: something in the business model, talent, or systems that needs attention. The challenge is identifying a problem you can actually address, rather than stopping at a limitation affecting everyone (like tariffs), and recognizing when your own involvement is part of it. You’ll learn Jim’s three-D model—defer, delegate, don’t do—for clearing lower-impact work; his 70% rule for handing over responsibility; and how experience, risk, and reversibility should shape the oversight you provide. Cindi and Jim also discuss why always being present can weaken an organization, and how the group mind can help leaders work through problems they don’t have to solve alone. *Jim has his own podcast! Tune in to the The CEO Project Podcast here. What you’ll learn about business growth, constraints, and CEO bandwidth: You’re working 70 hours. What happens when the business doubles? How the CEO’s bandwidth becomes the company’s growth limit. Busy fixing everything except what matters? How to find the main constraint holding your business back, and identify what you can actually change. Waiting until someone can do it as well as you? Jim’s 70% delegation rule and three Ds—defer, delegate, don’t do—help you decide what to take off your plate. Does the business need an Architect, Coach, or Engineer? How to recognize which leadership role the problem calls for. What if the best idea isn’t yours? Why CEO peer groups can reveal solutions you wouldn’t reach alone. Your presence may be weakening your team. How being involved in every decision keeps employees from developing their own judgment. Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/ZsJxq6XdV38 About Jim Schleckser: Jim Schleckser has spent more than 30 years as a CEO and operating executive, including serving as president of Spirent Communications and on boards across multiple industries. He founded the CEO Project to give mid-market CEOs a confidential peer group and coaching platform for better big-bet decisions. He is the author of the book Great CEOs are lazy, and host of the CEO Project podcast. Connect with Jim: The CEO Project Peer Groups | The CEO Project Podcast | Book: Great CEOs Are Lazy | Linkedin The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Surowiecki, James. The Wisdom of Crowds, Vintage, Aug. 2005, https://link.amazon/B0iVR7T2M Oncken, William and Donald Wass. “Management Time: Who’s Got The Monkey?”, Harvard Business Review, Nov. 1999, https://store.hbr.org/product/management-time-who-s-got-the-monkey/99609 Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website
The difference between a team that burns out and one that bounces back isn’t always workload. Sometimes, it’s the narrative you create. In this episode of Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoff Tumlin dig into the science behind “oscillating narratives” and how honest, full-spectrum storytelling builds resilience and helps develop employees. Leaders who acknowledge both setbacks and successes don’t just help their teams handle adversity better, they actually appear more credible. You’ll learn how overselling a job can set people up to leave, when sharing your own setbacks gives employees permission to seek help, and what breaks when work becomes someone’s whole identity. Together, these ideas offer a practical approach to building resilience at work: tell the whole story, prepare people for difficulty, and give them something beyond their job to draw strength from. For managers building stronger teams, leaders deciding how much of their own struggles to share, and anyone looking to become more resilient at work, this episode is for you. You’ll learn: How “oscillating narratives” build psychological resilience at work and at home Why overselling a role leads to rapid turnover What helps teams see setbacks as something to work through The identity trap: How loving your job can leave you less resilient How to fix reward systems that unintentionally punish resilience Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/5XKBpQk4sr8 The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Grant, Adam. “The Fine Line Between Helpful and Harmful Authenticity,” The New York Times, 10 Apr. 2020. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/10/smarter-living/the-fine-line-between-helpful-and-harmful-authenticity.html Fivush, Robyn, Duke, Marshall, and Bohanek, Jennifer. “The Power of Family History in Adolescent Identity and Well-Being.” Journal of Family Life, Emory Center for Myth and Ritual in American Life (MARIAL), 23 Feb. 2010, https://ncph.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/12/The-power-of-family-history-in-adolescent-identity.pdf Kinkead, Eugene. In Every War but One. W. W. Norton & Company, 1959. https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/4032542-in-every-war-but-one Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website Questions Answered In This Episode: How can I build resilience at work? In this episode of Management Muse, hosts Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin recommend creating realistic expectations about difficulty, learning how trusted mentors have navigated setbacks, and maintaining sources of identity outside your job. Cindi and Geoff explain how these practices can help a work problem remain one part of your life rather than become a judgment about your worth overall. Why does a setback at work feel like a personal failure? When work becomes your primary source of identity and self-worth, a professional setback can feel much bigger than the event itself. This episode explores how relationships, hobbies, and other communities can remind you that you have value and abilities beyond your work. How can managers help employees become more resilient? When hiring for a role, Cindi and Geoff recommend setting RJPs, or realistic job previews to avoid overselling a role. Make mentors and peer support available, and share relevant examples of working through difficulty. Employees who know that respected colleagues have struggled may be less likely to interpret their own challenges as proof that something is wrong wit
Reddit saw an opportunity to turn years of human conversation into valuable AI data. But the answers people once visited Reddit to find could now reach them without a visit, and now Reddit is trying to figure out how to undo the decision and bring people back to its platform. In this episode of Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin use Reddit’s AI dilemma as a case study to explore how leaders make business decisions under uncertainty. A decision can make sense at the time and still create problems as circumstances change. The challenge is knowing when to revise your strategy, and how to leave yourself room to do so without walking away from a worthwhile opportunity. From cybersecurity staffing and travel planning to a graduate program’s approach to AI, Cindi and Geoff examine the consequences of acting on assumptions, why human discretion is actually becoming more important, and the difference between planning for disruption and overreacting to it. For founders, executives, and managers weighing their next AI decision, this conversation offers a useful question: Are you responding to what is happening…or to what you fear might happen? You’ll learn: How profiting early off of AI has left Reddit with fewer visitors now Why a smart business decision can become a problem without having been a mistake When uncertainty is a reason to favor shorter commitments and preserve flexibility The jobs that are unexpectedly making a comeback with AI How preparing for AI disruption can turn into sacrificing opportunities too soon Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/qRQtiBCEkpE The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Palumbo, A. “As Google Embraces AI, One Stock Is Losing Out. Others Are at Risk,” Barron’s, May 2025, https://www.barrons.com/articles/google-ai-reddit-stock-pinterest-5226f4eb Baldi, Cindi and Geoffrey Tumlin. The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World, Egghead Press, Mar. 2025, https://a.co/d/0fsUl2zd Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website Frequently Asked Questions: 1. Can a good business decision become a problem later? Yes. In this Management Muse episode, Cindi Baldi argues that a decision can be reasonable when made and still create problems as circumstances change. She uses Reddit’s AI data opportunity to distinguish the logic of the original decision from its later consequences. Her point is that leaders need to revisit decisions as new information emerges, rather than assume a difficult outcome proves the original choice was a mistake. Discussed at 07:20. 2. How should leaders structure commitments when AI’s impact is uncertain? Cindi Baldi suggests that high uncertainty is a reason to be cautious about long contracts. In the discussion on Management Muse, she argues that shorter commitments can leave businesses more room to adapt when they do not yet know how a technology will be used. While she doesn’t claim to know the specific length of Reddit’s agreements, the takeaway is a general principle about strategic flexibility. Discussed at 07:42. 3. How can leaders prepare for AI disruption without overreacting? Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin distinguish planning for a possible threat from making decisions as though that threat has already arrived. Cindi recommends scenario planning: thinking through how your company would respond to different scenarios and setting “trigger points” for when to act. She emphasizes the importance of recognizing that a threat may be distant or may not materialize and not overreacting in anticipation. Geoff emphasizes taking time to understand what is happening and seeking second
Being the person everyone turns to can feel like the ultimate sign of success. But what happens when you’re no longer there? Cindi Baldi and Elizabeth Ledoux pose a tougher test of leadership: building a business that can thrive without you. Elizabeth, founder and CEO of The Transition Strategists, joins Cindi to explore what it takes to build a business that outlasts its founder. What makes a founder ready to let go…and a successor ready to lead? How do you start that conversation if one or both parties don’t feel ready? And could the best person to take over be someone very different from you? Drawing on more than 30 years of experience and her own business transition, Elizabeth explores the identity, trust, and uncertainty behind good succession planning. Whether you’re preparing to step back or hoping to step up, this conversation challenges how you think about leadership, legacy, and what comes next. *Elizabeth has her own podcast! Tune in to the Business Transition Roadmap here. Episode Highlights: Why being indispensable can become a barrier to succession The three-step progression that helps one leader let go and another step up How to ask about becoming a successor without creating pressure Why the next leader may need different strengths than the founder The mindset shift that helps you step away with peace How to identify a good successor and get them ready to lead Why succession planning should begin before you feel ready to leave Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/yJw_WFEx95E About Elizabeth Ledoux: Elizabeth started her career as a petroleum engineer before founding several businesses and moving into strategy consulting. She's a sought-after speaker on business succession and family business dynamics, host of the Business Transition Roadmap podcast, and co-author of three books, including the award-winning It's A Journey, The MUST-HAVE Roadmap to Successful Succession Planning. She's also part of Tiger 21, bringing her expertise to a network of high-net-worth entrepreneurs and investors. Currently, Elizabeth is living what she teaches—navigating her own family's ranch transition with her brother while also planning the long-term transition of her own consulting firm. She leads a team of trained Guides who help business owners build the strategic foundation for transition, making sure the people side is solid before bringing in lawyers and accountants. Connect with Elizabeth: The Business Transition Roadmap Podcast | Website | Book: It’s A Journey | Linkedin | Sister Podcast: Your Next Gen Friend The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Hellauer, S., et al. “Leading After the Founder,” Harvard Business Review Magazine, Jan-Feb. 2026, https://hbr.org/2026/01/leading-after-the-founder Chiesman, Laura and Elizabeth Ledoux. It’s A Journey, Sky to Sea Publishing, Feb. 2021, https://link.amazon/B036GLbje Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website
No bosses. Organizational utopia, or a recipe for chaos? This week on Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin weigh in on the topic using the case study of Morning Star, a California tomato processor that has never had traditional managers. It sounds like freedom. It also raises some questions: when the work needs coordinating, or someone isn’t pulling their weight, who steps in? Cindi and Geoff explore how Morning Star uses agreements between colleagues to keep work moving, and why that same system could be much harder to manage in an organization where people’s work is more tightly intertwined. Drawing on their decades of management consulting, Cindi and Geoff examine what peers can see that a boss might miss, the biases they bring, and the difficult decisions that come with shared accountability. If you’re considering more autonomy for a team, Cindi and Geoff discuss how to test the idea on a small scale and learn from the results. Episode Highlights: How Morning Star keeps work moving without traditional bosses Why the degree of interdependence matters What peers notice that a supervisor might miss When peer feedback becomes more complicated than helpful How to test a structural change before rolling it out Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/O-wHN587Jgw The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Bernstein, E. et al. ”Beyond the Holacracy Hype,” Harvard Business Review, 2016, https://hbr.org/2016/07/beyond-the-holacracy-hype Lazear, E. et al. “The Value of Bosses,” National Bureau of Economic Research, Aug. 2012, https://www.nber.org/papers/w18317 Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website
After interviewing hundreds of workplace experts, Pete Mockaitis—host of How to be Awesome at Your Job—has distilled what makes someone exceptional at work down to one word: care. That does not mean loving every part of your job or turning your profession into your life’s passion. It means connecting the work to a group or outcome that makes it feel important. And when talented employees lose that connection, disengagement is not always a sign of laziness or a bad attitude. Sometimes, it is a rational response to the workplace around them. This week on Management Muse, Pete and host Cindi Baldi explore how organizations unintentionally train good employees to stop trying, and how managers can reconnect effort to impact. Pete also takes the 80/20 rule further, explaining why your most important initiative may be the one no one is requesting and why a handful of activities can be 16 times more valuable than everything else competing for your attention. Plus, he shares the $1,500 mistake that taught him to ask two deceptively simple questions before making an important decision. Episode Highlights: The one trait Pete Mockaitis believes matters more than any productivity or communication technique How companies unintentionally train good employees to stop contributing ideas What separates healthy commitment from caring so much that you become exploitable How managers can help employees see the impact of their work Why your highest-value work could be 16 times more impactful than everything else Two questions that can expose a bad decision before it becomes an expensive mistake Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/OyC9G0jVolY About Pete Mockaitis: Pete Mockaitis [Muh KITE iss] is an award-winning trainer and coach who helps professionals perform their best at work. Pete has delivered 1-on-1 coaching to over 700 leaders hailing from world-class organizations (such as LinkedIn, Google, FedEx, Amazon, Apple, Anheuser-Busch, and the United Nations), 50 countries, and every Ivy League university. He began his career at Bain & Company and currently hosts the How to be Awesome at Your Job podcast. The show has been downloaded over 25,000,000 times and regularly ranks as a top business show in Apple Podcasts. Connect with Pete: Podcast | Linkedin The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World: → Get your copy here. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Duke, Annie. Thinking in Bets: Making Smarter Decisions When You Don’t Have All the Facts, Penguin Publishing Group, May 2019, https://link.amazon/B068pQOEU Koch, Richard. The 80/20 Principle: The Secret to Achieving More with Less, Crown Currency, Oct. 1999, https://link.amazon/B0he9ImyK How to be Awesome at Your Job Ep #867 with Richard Medcalf: How to Stop Being Busy and Start Being Strategic: https://awesomeatyourjob.com/867-how-to-stop-being-busy-and-start-being-strategic-with-richard-medcalf/ Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website
Looking at your competitors can feel like a smart strategy. But it can also make your organization think exactly like everyone else. This week on Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin use POM Wonderful as a case study in thinking beyond the obvious. They explore how the company turned an overlooked agricultural byproduct into a premium category, and reinforced that decision on every step along the way. They also look at Southwest Airlines and the other side of differentiation: what happens when competitors catch up and a once-distinctive company starts to look more like everyone else. Along the way, they unpack why managers tend to stop at the first plausible solution, how analogy can help leaders think beyond their own industry, and why competitive advantage has to be continually defended. Episode Highlights: Why looking at your competitors can actually narrow your strategic thinking How POM Wonderful turned an overlooked byproduct into an entirely new category Why analogy can help you find answers far outside your own industry How to avoid the ‘first plausible solution’ trap What Southwest teaches us about how competitive advantages eventually disappear Why analogy can help you find answers far outside your own industry What leaders can do to avoid becoming another commodity in the market Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/VirzVP2Ew5A Get your copy of The Uncertainty Playbook: 14 Strategies for Work Success in a Chaotic World here. → Use code PLAYBOOK20 for 20% off. Get Science-Backed Insights and Exclusive Perks Straight to Your Inbox: → Sign up for our newsletter and get a FREE chapter of The Uncertainty Playbook. Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading: Kim, W. Chan, and Renée Mauborgne. Blue Ocean Strategy, Harvard Business Review Press, Feb. 2015, https://link.amazon/B02GpG6RT Rumelt, Richard. Good Strategy Bad Strategy, Crown Currency, 19 Jul. 2011, https://link.amazon/B04cQz30w Join Our Community & Follow Us: - Youtube Channel - LinkedIn - Instagram -Facebook -TikTok - Website
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Management Muse provides organizational best practices through an exploration of new science, classic research, and interviews with smart, interesting people. Hosted by Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin, Management Muse inspires better work performance.
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