At Catalyze Value we believe in continual learning as a tool for personal development as well as managing change and disruption. Follow us on X @catalyzevalue as we engage, post news or articles related to driving business value, trends, or knowledge that you can apply immediately.

Share these below musings with your team, focusing on EQ and skills and enabling stronger execution on your next project. Click here to write a note or tweet us to let us know if there is something you have come across that we should add to the list. Don't worry we will give you all the credit!

Podcasts:

Some of our favourite Podcasts available through iTunes (iOS) or Spotify 

• GZero World

 Geopolitics affect business but understanding the implications of what's happening in our regions of the world and relating it to what's happening at home can be challenging to keep up with let alone understand. From the Paris Olympics to global conflicts, Ian Bremmer has made a business of distilling complex issues and shares his views through his podcast and interviews which are incredibly informative. His quick takes on current events on LinkedIn are equally enlightening.  Link

• Hard Fork

  Hard Fork is an amazing podcast for a world where AI is too often mentioned and once that is vastly changing with technology. The hosts explore and make sense of the latest tech developments, such as A.I., Mag-7, and impact on the economy. With a mix of expert insights and entertaining discussions, "Hard Fork" offers valuable perspectives on the implications of these changes in today's world. Link

• All In with Jason, David F, Chamath, David S aka The Besties

Combine technology, business, and current events with area subject experts bantering as best friends. The hosts' unique perspectives, expertise, and humor create an entertaining and informative experience, fostering curiosity and critical thinking among listeners about what is affecting the world today. At times controversial but always informative, has a bit of a cult following. Link

• BBC Global News Podcast

In a world where the world is more interconnected than ever and news across politics, international relations, economics, technology, innovation has far instantaneous impacts there are few better sources to stay up to date. Delivered twice daily on weekdays and once on weekends this podcast lends depth to have a meaningful conversation of relevant issues yet is brief enough to be digested daily. If you are in North America you can benefit from the time difference from BBC's homeland.

• Building a StoryBrand with Donald Miller

Inspiring guests and great advice on how to clarify your message and brand. An entertaining and lively listen on your next long drive accompanied by experienced guest interviews for your next long drive or stuck in traffic. This is relatively old, but still extremely relevant to anyone trying to build and market their business. The metaphors Donald uses for explaining how a business operates are simple and effective.

• Planet Money, NPR

Interesting and often unconventional stories you might not otherwise know related to the economy. They often also take on complex concepts in the news and break them down so anyone can relate and understand, something we can relate to ;).

• Startup, Gimlet Media

An oldie but a goody from the early days of podcasting becoming a mainstream way to learn. Many of you might be able to relate to the trials and tribulations of starting a business. Startup gives you the inside track on the rise (and in some cases fall) of businesses. Given that each episode is at least 30-40 minutes you are able derive tangible insight that you can apply. As this is a series pick a season and listen in order. The new 2017 season just launched and instead of examining one business over many episodes this year multiple businesses are examined and what makes them tick.

• How I Built This, NPR

A staple. Get to know the stories behind innovators and entrepreneurs behind well known brands and their journeys in about an hour long first hand interview. From Kate Spade, Instacart, or Lyft the spectrum is quite broad and you always learn something. We were particularly inspired by the story of Tom's founder Blake Mycoskie who started 4 businesses by the age of 30. The host Guy Raz has an amazing knack for speaking with founders and helping listeners 'in' on how the company's growth from inception to current day.

• Under The Influence, CBC / Terry O'Reilly

 Did you know pink was generally known as a boys colour until after WWII because Time Magazine declared it so? This extremely well written podcast   explores interesting stories of your most loved companies and brands as well as the shift that is happening in marketing and advertising now. It's easy to discern the incredible amount of research that goes into each episode.

Posts + Articles Of Note:

• The Great AI Challenge - AI is now prevalent and growing in its acceptance in every day life and work. Many TSX/S&P companies have an internal GPTs that are secure and 'air-gapped') for employees to use in daily work. Many of these are leverage OpenAI, or Google's Gemini - but have you tried the same prompt in different chatbots? They yield different answers from our experience and often format the response differently. This Wall Street Journal article does a comparison of some of the more popular GPTs on the 'market'.

• Agile Project Management: A Comprehensive Guide - The title says it all. A primer written by Moira Alexander that outlines one way in which project management has been modernized and rapidly utilized. In typical PM time and cost are a function of methods, whereas Scrum (a flavor of Agile if you will) fixes time and cost and pushes towards and end goal based on these constraints. If you are new or just confused about terms like Agile, Scrum, or Spring this is a well written article to start the learning process, which is a great way to speed up development and innovation. The original "Agile Manifesto" which focused on software development can be found here.

• How Living Abroad Helps You Develop a Clearer Sense of Self - An extremely interesting qualitative and quantitative study by a consortium of researchers published in the Harvard Business Review demonstrating how living abroad helps one to develop a clearer sense of self. Self clarity is defined by the authors as the extent to which someone understands himself or herself. The article provides a questionnaire as to how this score was calculated. The study looks both at a cross section of the population including MBA's and speaks to contrasting norms across cultures, something one is surely to experience when abroad. As the article points out, the world is becoming exponentially globalized thus a pluralistic perspective is evermore important not only for oneself but also when working alongside others.

• Case Study: Mary Meeker's Internet Trends Report for 2023 - A must read with the amount of disruptive change driven by innovation happening seemingly daily. If you're looking to understand the macro as well as trends from e-commerce to mobile then this report is especially for you and much anticipated by industry watchers.

• Case Study: When You Have to Choose Between Core & New Customers - A fantastic case study written by Prof. Nader Nader Tavassoli and Prof. Marco Bertini in the October 2017 issue of @HarvardBiz outlining a problem small businesses face when striving for growth. Even with the most charismatic leadership, growth decisions force dilemmas that inevitably disenfranchise existing often near and dear customers for new ones. What is the right decision? Is there a middle ground? Click on the link to read the case study. We completely agree with Tavassoli and Bertini's assertion increasing that brand equity does not equate to profit, and can offer you the opportunity to understand and better segment your customer base. This is a great facilitated exercise with your senior management team or sales and marketing group.

• The Dirty Little Secret of Project Management - In a recent meeting there was a debate as to how to effectively manage multiple projects. We pushed for having clear documentation including a form of charter, regular communication, and set timelines while another party advocated for what seemed to be a hybrid model of what is best termed fly-by-wheel management and having check-ins along the way towards completion. In our opinion, there is no doubt that structure is strategy. Thus we were reminded of this quick and easy refresher that argues for a project to succeed you need 1) Tracking of milestones and variables 2) Regular communication 3) Stakeholder updates. A poorly run project is usually missing one if not more of these components. Do you have any stories of projects gone wrong?.

• The Threat of Job Automation - This Article from 2014 is worth digging up in 2017 as the idea of automation becomes very nascent. It is an interesting contrast that many of the jobs to be in threat, according to this infograph from Bloomberg/Oxford, are customer facing and often have a strong empathy and emotional intelligence (EI) component. this article suggests roles requiring a high degree of creativity, dexterity, or social perception as less likely to be computerized - the latter requiring higher levels of EI. While only one opinion, we find this article to be an interesting dichotomy worthy of being a pinned post that welcomes your opinion or tweets.

• The Visual Capitalist is a fantastic site for infographics across a variety of subjects. In particular this post depicts the importance of customer loyalty no matter if you are an investor, entrepreneur, or professional and we could not agree more. *Remember it's easier and cost effective to retain a customer than to aquire a new one.  For both goods and services businesses, we advocate for a customer first mindset as this then becomes the yardstick for each of your strategic activities. As the article shows lowering churn can have a upwards of a 25% increase in profitability. For those you work with that need a refresher this acts as a great reminder.

• Why You Need Emotional Intelligence To Succeed - Travis Bradberry: Forbes.com January 2015: In making a distinct contract between IQ and EQ, Bradberry discusses the exponential value that Emotional Intelligence (EQ) can offer. The article affirms that EQ is a skill that can be sharpened to help navigate the complexities and nuances of the problems we are charged to solve. In addition Bradberry offers a valuable tool that can be used to assess social and personal competence across four unique perspectives.

• Don't Waste Your Time on Networking Events: - Derek Coburn: Harvard Business Review Sept 2016: This is a great article on how to successfully build your network and get your message out. The article says, rightly so, that too many people at networking events are biased towards their own personal agenda which doesn't often end up adding value to either party. Mr Coburn suggests strategies to successfully network and develop meaningful relationships.

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