Claim OwnershipThe Manager Lab
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Welcome to The Manager Lab, where we delve into the increasingly dynamic world of talent management. In each episode, we will unravel key insights, breakdown the most relevant books and articles, and provide actionable tips to optimize your approach in developing and retaining top talent. Stay tuned for a deep dive into the art, science, and strategy of unlocking your team’s full potential. Let’s enter…The Manager Lab.
122 Episodes
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In this episode of Manager Lab we unpack John C. Maxwell’s Law of Influence: leadership is influence, not a title. We contrast positional authority with earned influence and share the core building blocks—trust, character, competence, and connection—plus practical steps managers can take to grow their influence every day.
Listen for five actionable tips: lead yourself by example, invest in relationships, deliver consistent results, empower rather than control, and protect your team. Reflect on who would follow you if your title disappeared and start making daily deposits of trust.
In this episode of Manager Lab we explore why many big change efforts stall after an energetic launch and how leaders can prevent a false start. Drawing on Harvard Business Review insights, the host outlines practical steps to create lasting momentum by building alignment, clarifying the problem, involving key stakeholders, and preparing managers for the emotional curve of change.
Listen for six actionable takeaways—slow down before you speed up, define the problem clearly, build ownership, state what won’t change, equip managers, and track early adoption indicators—to move from announcement to sustained adoption.
In this episode of Manager Lab we unpack John C. Maxwell's Law of the Lid: leadership ability determines organizational effectiveness. Learn why your leadership sets the ceiling for your team's performance and how raising your leadership lifts results.
We highlight key takeaways and four practical steps—assess your lid, invest in daily growth, develop leaders, and model expectations—so you can start expanding your impact today.
In this episode of Manager Lab we unpack the concept of "experience intelligence" through Bob Iger and Disney’s playbook, showing how intentional design of employee and customer experiences becomes a strategic advantage. You’ll learn why experiences should be treated like measurable strategy, how employee experience drives customer loyalty, and practical steps managers can apply immediately.
Actionable tips include mapping journeys, leading with emotional awareness, elevating small moments, aligning systems with desired experiences, and focusing on long-term development — all to build sustainable culture and competitive advantage.
In this episode of The Manager Lab we challenge the habit of promoting top individual contributors into management by default. Management is a responsibility, not a reward, and requires a different mindset: coaching, delegation, and developing others.
We cover three executive takeaways—create parallel career tracks, prioritize motivation for people development, and redefine readiness—and offer practical tips for managers: shift identity to measure team success, hold regular development conversations, embrace difficult feedback, and prepare successors early.
This episode of Manager Lab explains how to make 360-degree feedback effective by treating it as a development process rather than an evaluation, and why discussing results matters for real growth.
Practical tips include separating feedback from performance reviews, providing context and reflection time, approaching results with curiosity, sharing your takeaways with the team, and focusing on one or two behavior changes to build trust and improve leadership.
In this episode of Manager Lab, we explore how the most effective teams treat change not as a disruptive event but as a routine skill. Learn why frequent, structured change reduces fear and builds confidence.
We outline three practical manager practices—make improvement part of the job, run small experiments instead of big announcements, and normalize reflection—so teams can adapt, learn, and grow resilient together.
In this episode of Manager Lab we explore why senior leaders often struggle to describe their true impact and how making that impact visible boosts influence, credibility, and legacy.
Based on the HBR article, you’ll learn three key questions to answer, simple tools—like writing a leadership impact statement and translating strategy into stories—and practical tips to help leaders and their teams communicate the value they create.
Welcome to the Manager Lab, where we explore how leaders can unlock talent. This episode explains why training is not just a cost but a strategic investment that improves performance and increases retention.
We cover the research-backed idea that training signals belief in employees and how managers are critical to turning training into applied behavior and lasting change.
Listen for five practical actions managers can use immediately: set context, debrief, model learning, create practice space, and recognize growth—so training delivers both performance and commitment.
Welcome to the Manager Lab, where we explore how managers, not policies, shape the day-to-day systems that retain top talent. This episode breaks down an HBR insight: policies state intent, but systems—meeting rhythms, workload allocation, promotion signals—determine whether high performers stay. You’ll learn four practical actions managers can take now: audit the signals you send, make growth visible, protect top talent from burnout, and design the team experience on purpose.
Retention happens locally. By changing patterns in how work gets done and who gets opportunities, managers can build a system people don’t want to leave. Tune in to turn policy into practice and keep your best people engaged and growing.
In this episode of Manager Lab we flip a common leadership myth: the best leaders are also exceptional followers. Great followership means actively contributing, challenging constructively, and supporting decisions for the good of the organization.
We define followership, explain why it improves trust and decision quality, outline core behaviors (situational leadership, loyal dissent, mission over ego), and offer five practical tips managers can use immediately to coach and model followership on their teams.
This episode explores what managers should do when a high-performing employee has nowhere to be promoted, drawing on the Harvard Business Review article by Rebecca Knight.
Listeners will learn clear actions: have honest career conversations, redefine growth beyond titles through enriched work and broader scope, give visible and fair recognition or rewards, co-create a future development roadmap, and support long-term goals even if that leads elsewhere.
In this episode of Manager Lab we explore whether leaders can be "too nice," why avoiding tough conversations undermines performance, and how unclear feedback erodes trust. The host unpacks the common causes—fear of being disliked, misunderstanding empathy, and conflict avoidance—and shows how niceness can unintentionally lower standards and breed resentment.
The episode offers practical guidance: combine care with candor, normalize discomfort, set explicit expectations, and intervene early. Listeners are left with a simple reflection: where might being too nice be getting in the way of effective management?
Welcome to the Manager Lab episode on mentorship, inspired by Andy Lopata's HBR article "Weave Mentorship into the Fabric of Your Organization." This episode argues mentorship should be a daily leadership behavior, not just a formal HR program.
Traditional mentorship programs often fall short because they are time-bound, top-down, and optional. When mentorship is embedded into everyday work—ongoing, peer-driven, informal, and everyone’s responsibility—it becomes how work gets done and how people develop.
Key takeaways: everyone can be a mentor (including reverse and peer mentoring); shift from giving advice to holding development conversations; make mentorship visible and valued in performance and recognition; and create conditions for mentorship by building psychological safety and protecting time to learn.
Challenge: this week, intentionally mentor one person by asking powerful questions to help them think, decide, and grow.
In this episode of the Manager Lab we explore Antonio Rodriguez’s Harvard Business Review idea of the Project-Driven Organization: why projects now create most organizational value and how traditional functional structures fall short.
We cover three key takeaways—translate strategy into disciplined projects, treat project skills as leadership skills, and manage capacity realistically—and five practical actions managers can take today to make projects visible, clarify success, protect capacity, build skills, and sponsor outcomes.
This episode of Manager Lab distills a Harvard Business Review article into four science-backed leadership practices: define your aspirational self, change systems rather than relying on willpower, prioritize a learning mindset over performance, and embrace discomfort to drive change. Practical takeaways help leaders increase impact, resilience, and fulfillment in the year ahead.
In this episode of the Manager Lab, the host shares a personal New Year ritual inspired by Stephen Covey’s Four Categories—physical, mental, social-emotional, and spiritual—to reflect on the past year and set clear, intentional goals for 2026.
Practical tips include reviewing last year’s goals, keeping 3–5 priorities per category, using tools like Evernote to track progress, performing quarterly check-ins, and discussing plans with a partner to build accountability and support.
In this Manager Lab episode you’ll learn how a simple, structured team wrap-up week helps teams reflect on the year, recognize contributions, capture lessons, and set intentions so they finish with closure and begin the next year aligned and energized.
Practical manager actions and a flexible five-day format are shared to turn reflection into learning, recognition into trust, and endings into momentum.
In this episode of Manager Lab we draw leadership lessons from a record-setting NFL kicker to show that pressure is predictable and trainable. Learn why top performers view pressure as a signal and how preparation beats nerves.
Practical takeaways for managers include building repeatable pre-performance routines, focusing on controllables, practicing under simulated pressure, and separating identity from outcomes to foster resilience and better team performance.
In this episode of Manager Lab we summarize The Octopus Organization and explain why talent development must be a continuous, strategic investment.
Learn practical tactics: embed learning into projects, use micro-learning, plan skills development, enable curiosity groups and skill swaps, and hold regular development conversations to turn managers into coaches and retain top talent.
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