Resilience

Stronger leaders are made through multiple hot messes. Jerry Jones, former president of Cannon IV, shares his decisionmaking, sleepless nights, and strategy pivots during some tumultuous times. In this Hot Mess Hotline episode, he shares how 50% of their revenue evaporated in 90 days because of a supplier’s switch in sales strategy.

This episode is powerful for those leaders who feel fatigued by change or have teams who are complaining about too much change. “Why can’t things just go back to normal?” When change is forced upon your team because of external factors, there is no going back to normal. There’s a new reality which forces new ways of working and new needed results.

David Fischer, chief revenue officer at Gregory & Appel Insurance, has always sought out challenges. As a marine, he learned the ultimate humble leadership style: leaders eat last. Throughout his career and he has worked hard to earn trust and deliver results. Hard work is rewarded with increasingly complex challenges, however. He learned that through a hot mess he encountered 2 weeks in to a new gig that required him to ask for help in a completely new way.

Blair Milo, founding director at the Center for Talent and Opportunity, knows how to step up to a challenge. But she also knows that you can’t accomplish the impossible by yourself. In this episode, listen to Blair’s experience as a mayor and how she led a long-tenured team through transformative change. Innovation has a downside and she learned that here.