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Welcome to The Lift, the show about leadership, growth, and getting what we want. On The Lift, we pull up to see the bigger picture from accomplished leaders who know how to get things done in a rapidly changing world. Host Ben Brooks dives deep into a relevant leadership topic each episode and connects the dots to leave you with powerful distinctions that you can use as a leader.
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- Yesterday40 min
The power of building coalitions: Kathryn Wylde on bringing billionaires and union bosses together
What's the fastest way to kill any chance of actually moving the needle on a big, complex project? According to longtime NYC power broker Kathryn Wylde, it's defensiveness. Kathryn knows this because she spent 50 years dragging billionaires, union bosses, and city officials into the same room and getting them to agree on the best way forward. And she’s here to share how she did it.Topic Highlights:– The power of a specific ask and why most change efforts fail– How to reframe a problem so that the people who resist it become its biggest advocates– Why defensiveness, not disagreement, is the real roadblock, and the one move that eliminates it faster than any argument– The million dollar leadership advice she gave to Zohran Mamdani – The Amazon HQ2 cautionary taleGuest Bio:Kathryn Wylde is the former President and CEO of the Partnership for New York City, and the woman the city’s most powerful people call when they need to actually get something done in NYC.Episode Links:Partnership for New York CityKathryn Wylde, Connector of New York’s Powerful, Is RetiringConnect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 1 weeks ago36 min
Friendship at work: Tom Rath on the most underused tool in leadership
People with a best friend at work are *seven times* more likely to be engaged in their jobs. Yet most leaders spend zero budget, zero strategy, and zero intentional effort on workplace friendships. Tom Rath has done the research to understand the power of friendship at work, and how leaders can better foster it. Topic Highlights:– Why Gallup's employee engagement prompt "I have a best friend at work" is its most predictive– The exact number of close relationships we actually need, despite high-achievers chronically under-building this number– Why Tom thinks his book about work friendships is his worst seller– The psychological barrier that’s creating a friendship recession for men in midlife – The "one coffee pot in the office" approach to designing workplaces that create connectionGuest Bio:Tom Rath is a workplace researcher, author, and one of the most widely-read voices on human wellbeing of the last two decades, with over 10 million books sold worldwide.Episode Links:Books by Tom RathThe Start-Up of You by Reid Hoffman True North by Bill George & Peter SimsLittle Bets by Peter Sims Connect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 2 weeks ago29 min
Raising the temperature on leadership: The power of third spaces with Therme’s Adam Tanaka
Here’s a scorching hot take: modern workplaces make it nearly impossible for employees to forge real connections. But according to third space culture expert Adam Tanaka, it’s not the connections themselves that are impossible – it’s the space where they’re (not) happening in.So we took this episode into a wood-fired Finnish sauna pop-up on the Brooklyn waterfront to test his theory. Topic Highlights:– The power of physical space design to create real human connection – The case for wellness as infrastructure, not luxury– What the "dinner party rule of six" tells us about why most meetings and offsites fail– The analog advantage: why real human experience offers an exponential premium in an AI-saturated worldGuest Bio:Adam Tanaka is the COO of Therme Group US, a global wellness infrastructure company. Adam holds a PhD in urban planning.Episode Links:Therme GroupCulture of Bathing (Substack)Building a park in the sky (Robbie Hammond’s TED Talk)Full ArticleConnect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 3 weeks ago35 min
From the playroom to the boardroom: What leaders can learn from children's play with tonies’ CXO Ginny McCormick
No one loves a genuine truth bomb more than kids – unfiltered, no social contract, no concern for how it will land.Ginny McCormick has spent her career figuring out what that kind of radical honesty, and the play that produces it, can teach the rest of us.Turns out the principles that work in the playroom work just as well in the boardroom. We just forgot them somewhere along the way.Topic Highlights:– Why "clarity always wins over complexity"– The "first pancake" ritual: a team practice for normalizing failure that actually works– Why structured gamification at work is inauthentic and what real play actually looks like in an adult environment– What children's unfiltered feedback reveals about the feedback loops most organizations are missing– The one parenting skill that every leader should be stealing right nowGuest Bio:Ginny McCormick is the Chief Experience Officer (CXO) at tonies, a screen-free children's audio platform operating in over 100 markets globally. She is a veteran of Disney, Mattel, and Hasbro.Episode Links:toniesPlay by Stuart BrownFull ArticleConnect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- 4 weeks ago39 min
Conflict at work: Amy Gallo on how to have the hard conversation you’ve been avoiding
When was the last time someone on your team told you something you didn't want to hear? If you have to think about it, you have your answer (too long ago).Too many leaders have spent their entire careers avoiding conflict, and now they're running teams where nobody tells them anything useful, nothing real gets decided, and everyone is very, very pleasant about it.According to Amy Gallo, this isn't harmony – it's dysfunction with better manners.Topic Highlights:– Why the cost of staying silent is almost always higher than the cost of speaking up– The "eight-lane highway to harmony" metaphor about conflict avoidance– How AI is quietly making us worse at disagreeing with real humans– The important difference between being liked and being respected– The practice of "conversational receptivity"Guest Bio:Amy Gallo is an expert on workplace conflict and feedback, a contributing editor at Harvard Business Review, and the author of Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People).Episode Links:Getting Along: How to Work with Anyone (Even Difficult People)Radical CandorThe Five Dysfunctions of a TeamFull Article Connect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- May 12, 202639 min
Your best meeting ever: Why meetings are broken and how to fix them with Dr. Rebecca Hinds
During World War II, the Office of Strategic Services published a manual teaching ordinary citizens how to sabotage the enemy from within. One of the tactics: hold unproductive meetings. Nearly a century later, Dr. Rebecca Hinds is dedicating her career to studying why meetings fail – and what it actually costs when they do.Topic Highlights:– The WWII sabotage manual that became standard business practice and makes meeting culture work against you– The 4D CEO test: a two-part filter for deciding whether any given meeting should exist at all– Why AI is making meetings worse, not better, and the one rule that changes that– The "meeting doomsday" intervention: what it is and why it works– The Babble Hypothesis: who's actually perceived as a leader in meetingsGuest Bio:Dr. Rebecca Hinds is an organizational psychologist, author of Your Best Meeting Ever, founder of the Work Innovation Lab at Asana, and founder of the Work AI Institute at Glean. Episode Links:Your Best Meeting EverThe Surprising Science of MeetingsThe Simple Sabotage Field ManualAsana Anatomy of Work IndexConnect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- May 5, 202641 min
Religion at work: Moving from passive tolerance to active inclusion with Rev. Mark Fowler
Roughly 75% of the global workforce has a faith identity that shapes how they work, when they need time off, and whether they feel like they can truly show up.Reverend Mark Fowler isn't asking leaders to get a theology degree. He's simply asking them to be a better host.Topic Highlights:– How religion is already happening at work – usually in quiet corners and over lunch – and what leaders are missing by pretending otherwise– The legal reality: religious accommodations aren't special treatment, they're a protected right– The "hospitality framework" for religious inclusion that can be more useful than DEI training– Why "manage your behavior, not other people's beliefs" might be the most useful leadership principle you’ve heard yetGuest Bio:Reverend Mark Fowler is the CEO of the Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious Understanding, an ordained interfaith minister, and a conflict resolution specialist who has been helping organizations navigate diversity at work for 20 years.Episode Links:Tanenbaum Center for Interreligious UnderstandingHow to Be a Perfect Stranger (multi-faith etiquette guide)Connect with Us:theliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
- Apr 28, 202634 min
The Trust Equation: Accenture's Marco Ziegler on the four variables that turn clients into partners
Many business relationships can’t seem to get out of transactional mode. That’s why Marco Ziegler flew almost 100,00 miles in one year – not to close deals, but to show up for his clients. There's a difference, and that’s the whole point.Marco has a formula for this philosophy. And it’ll make you reconsider how you think about client relationships. Topic Highlights:– The Trust Equation: four variables that determine whether clients see you as a vendor or a partner – The specific moment Marco stopped confusing vulnerability with weakness – What nearly 100,000 miles of travel taught him about meeting people on their terms, not yours – The mid-pitch moment that revealed a major blind spot about self-orientation – How running the Office of the CEO reset everything he thought he knew about credibilityGuest BioMarco Ziegler is a global client leader at Accenture and former head of the Office of the CEO for Julie Sweet, one of the most powerful executives in global business.Episode LinksAccentureThe Trust Equation frameworkAthens Classic MarathonConnect with Ustheliftpod.comLet’s stay in touchSubscribe to The LiftFind Ben online: LinkedIn | InstagramSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
About The Lift
Welcome to The Lift, the show about leadership, growth, and getting what we want. On The Lift, we pull up to see the bigger picture from accomplished leaders who know how to get things done in a rapidly changing world. Host Ben Brooks dives deep into a relevant leadership topic each episode and connects the dots to leave you with powerful distinctions that you can use as a leader.
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