You can be excellent at your job and still be overlooked if you cannot communicate your ideas when it matters.

Speaking skills affect far more than stages and TED Talks. They shape who gets heard in meetings, trusted with responsibility, remembered by decision-makers, and considered for the next opportunity.

In this episode, former Procter & Gamble communications trainer and filmmaker turned public speaking coach Nausheen Chen joins Cindi Baldi to explore what helps people communicate clearly and confidently under pressure.

Together, they break powerful communication into three separate skills: confidence, messaging, and delivery, and discuss why learning to communicate under pressure can change the trajectory of a career. Nausheen shares the speaking techniques she uses with overthinkers and perfectionists, how to pull a distracted audience back, and the Stanford research that explains why some people build confidence faster than others after the exact same experience.

Whether you are leading a meeting, presenting to executives, appearing on camera, or stepping onto a stage, this episode offers practical tools to help you sound as capable and credible as you already are.

Episode Highlights:

• Why confidence and speaking skill must be built separately
• How improv helps perfectionists stop overthinking
• What to do when you realize you have lost the audience
• What body language reveals and the first steps to mastering it
• The one question every speaker should ask themselves about the audience
• How to turn past speaking experiences into future confidence

About Nausheen Chen:

Nausheen I. Chen is a 3-time TEDx speaker, a Public Speaking instructor for the Executive MBA program at Central European University and Wesleyan and a content creator with 500,000+ followers across LinkedIn, Instagram and TikTok.

Nausheen coaches leaders at Google, Amazon, NASA and the UN as well as startup founders to speak fearlessly. Her clients have raised more than $115 million through winning investor pitches and successful exits.

Connect with Nausheen: Website | Linkedin

Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/gK7racEvoW0

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Want to Go Deeper? Check Out Our Recommended Reading:

• Monarth, Harrison. "The Irresistible Power of Storytelling as a Strategic Business Tool." Harvard Business Review, March 2014. https://hbr.org/2014/03/the-irresistible-power-of-storytelling-as-a-strategic-business-tool
• Stephens, Greg J., Lauren J. Silbert, and Uri Hasson. "Speaker-Listener Neural Coupling Underlies Successful Communication." Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, vol. 107, no. 32, 2010. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1008662107

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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

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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/

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Most leaders don't want to fire someone.

So when an employee can no longer succeed in their role, demotion can feel like the humane compromise: keep the person, lower their responsibilities, and give someone else the job.

But that “compromise” can create a much bigger problem.

Before you move someone down the ladder, Cindi Baldi and Geoff Tumlin argue that you need to understand what a demotion actually does to performance, motivation, fairness, and the rest of the organization. In this episode, they unpack why involuntary demotions so often backfire, what fairness research tells us about how people respond to losing pay or status, and why moving someone out of a role does not necessarily solve the underlying problem.

In this episode of Management Muse, we explain why we’ve almost never recommended a leader-driven demotion, when moving someone into a different role can work, and what leaders should consider before choosing the “middle ground.”

Episode Highlights:

• Why demoting an employee can create a bigger problem than firing them
• What fairness research reveals about how people respond to losing pay or status
• When moving a longtime employee into a different role can actually work
• The crucial difference between being demoted and choosing to step back
• How leaders can make difficult exits more respectful
• Why asking employees to permanently absorb eliminated jobs eventually drives them out

Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/1l8Jyqd4SPg

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:

• Banko, P. The Necessary Goodbye, Forbes Books, May 2026, https://link.amazon/B0h8KtWKl
• Greenberg, J. “Employee theft as a reaction to underpayment inequity: The hidden cost of pay cuts,” Journal of Applied Psychology, 75(5), 561-568, 1990, https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/0021-9010.75.5.561

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Work hard, follow the rules, hope to be promoted.

It sounds straightforward, but it’s rarely the reality.

Organizations have limited roles, competing priorities, and complicated promotion systems that don’t always reflect merit. If you want to grow, you may have to do more than perform well. You also have to understand where you can create value and sometimes build the opportunity you want instead of waiting for it to appear.

Maya Grossman learned this the hard way. From creating her own entry into marketing, to reshaping her role at Microsoft, to leaving to reach the VP level faster, and eventually walking away from the title she had spent nearly 20 years pursuing, Maya knows what it looks like to intentionally design your career.

In this episode, she joins Cindi Baldi to discuss how to create opportunities that don't officially exist, when to stay versus when you've stayed too long, and how identity can hold you back from career advancement, and how to think several moves ahead instead of simply chasing the next promotion.

Episode Highlights:

• Why hard work alone doesn’t guarantee career advancement
• How to create opportunities and roles that don’t officially exist
• What to consider to strategically plan your next career move
• How to tell strategic patience from staying too long
• What managers can do to unlock talent beyond the job description

Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/jhAbcLuq4Ms

About Maya Grossman:

Maya Grossman is an executive career coach, two-time VP of Marketing, LinkedIn Top Voice, and author of the best-selling book Invaluable. She built her career at global companies like Microsoft and Google—but it wasn’t a straight climb. After 17 rejections in a row, she cracked the code to breaking into senior leadership, landing two VP roles in her 30s. Now, she helps ambitious professionals in tech do the same - getting unstuck, stepping into bigger roles, and building the influence that gets them noticed and promoted.

*Get Maya’s free masterclass to becoming a VP.

Connect with Maya:

Linkedin | Website | Instagram

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:

• Waldinger, Robert, and Marc Schulz. The Good Life: Lessons from the World’s Longest Scientific Study of Happiness, Simon & Schuster, Jan. 2023, https://link.amazon/B0fTAwR00
• Ferriss, Timothy. The 4-Hour Workweek, Harmony, Dec. 2009, https://link.amazon/B0iRSnQ9G

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What is more important: people or profits?

This week’s guest thinks that question is part of the problem.

In this episode of Management Muse, Cindi Baldi sits down with longtime HR executive and author Clark Ingram to unpack the HR myths he's spent decades dismantling. From the false binary of "people vs. profits" to the idea that zero turnover is impossible (spoiler alert: it isn't), Clark makes the case that HR has been asking the wrong questions, chasing the wrong metrics, and settling for the wrong goals.

Drawing from his experience in manufacturing, healthcare, and hard-to-fill roles, Clark explains why employee turnover, compensation, recruiting, and workplace culture are all connected. He shares stories about fixing the real reasons people leave, designing pay systems employees can understand, and building an employer brand that reflects why people actually want to work there.

This conversation is a practical look at what happens when HR focuses less on activity and more on results.

Episode Highlights:

• Why "people first vs. profits first" is a false choice, and the third option that changes everything
• The organizational-specific root cause approach to cutting turnover
• Why engagement surveys are only as good as what you do after them
• The Walmart driver story: how understanding what workers really want beats every hiring bonus you'll ever offer
• Why compensation tied to time served is lazy, and what to measure instead
• The case for zero: why employee turnover should be held to the same standard as customer experience
• How to identify what actually makes your organization worth working for

About Clark Ingram:

Clark A. Ingram, is the Founder and President of People Profits, LLC - a financially focused Human Capital management consulting firm. We focus on Employee Turnover, Chronically Open Positions and Skills Gap. Over the next 30+ years he was the Chief Human Resources Officer for four companies, in four different industries from publicly to privately held.

Connect with Clark:

Churn: Proven Strategies to Achieve Zero Turnover | Linkedin

Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/75EtkifhfyY

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:

• Sull, Donald, Charles Sull, and Ben Zweig. "Toxic Culture Is Driving the Great Resignation." MIT Sloan Management Review, January 2022. https://sloanreview.mit.edu/article/toxic-culture-is-driving-the-great-resignation/
• Mitchell, Terence R., Brooks C. Holtom, and Thomas W. Lee. "How to Keep Your Best Employees: Developing an Effective Retention Policy." Academy of Management Perspectives, vol. 15, no. 4, 2001. https://doi.org/10.5465/ame.2001.5897929

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We have a controversial opinion: we don’t believe in volunteering.

At least, not the kind that allows organizations to avoid paying people for work they genuinely depend on.

In this episode of Management Muse, Cindi Baldi and Geoffrey Tumlin challenge the assumption that volunteer labor is always a win-win. We discuss how underpaying mission-driven employees can create long-term staffing problems, why critical work is difficult to build around people who aren’t formally accountable for it, and how organizations can unintentionally take advantage of the very people most committed to the mission.

If your organization depends on people giving more than they’re formally paid or accountable for, don’t miss this episode. It’s a useful challenge to the idea that goodwill can substitute for compensation, structure, and accountability.

Episode Highlights:

• When volunteering crosses the line into unpaid labor
• The hidden organizational cost of relying on volunteers
• What inflation exposes about organizations built on below-market wages
• What to watch out for with mission-driven employees
• Why “free” changes the expectations and accountability on both sides
• The rare case where a volunteer becomes indispensable

Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/pPCD3iggEgI

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:

• Pallotta, Dan. Uncharitable, Brandeis University Press, Oct. 2022, https://link.amazon/B0fDDCLYl
• Ton, Zeynep. The Good Jobs Strategy, New Harvest, Jan. 2014, https://link.amazon/B04lHQSj1

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Most leadership problems are framed too narrowly.

A culture problem gets handed to HR. AI becomes a technology initiative. Operations get optimized in a vacuum of spreadsheets. But organizations don’t experience strategy, culture, technology, or people separately…and that may be exactly why so many well-intended transformations fail.

This week, Cindi Baldi talks with Dr. Timothy Tiryaki, systems leadership expert and author of Leading with Strategy, about what changes when leaders stop treating organizational challenges as isolated problems and start leading the tensions between them.

They explore why the hardest leadership challenges are often dilemmas rather than problems, why organizations need stability management alongside change management, and why AI adoption becomes dangerous when it is treated as a headcount exercise.

If you’re trying to lead through disruption without destabilizing your team, culture, or strategy in the process, this episode is for you.

Episode Highlights:

• Why the hardest leadership problems often exist between sectors
• How to recognize when you are facing a dilemma instead of a problem
• Why change management fails when leaders ignore the equally important work of stability management
• Why purpose statements are losing meaning with employees and what to focus on instead
• How authenticity, inclusion, and empathy can become liabilities when leaders use them without judgment

Watch This Episode on YouTube: https://youtu.be/B7v8oKoX_kk

About Timothy Tiryaki:

Dr. Timothy Tiryaki is a venture-building entrepreneur, author, and executive advisor helping leaders think strategically about AI, culture, and transformation. As founder of Maslow Research Center and co-founder of Strategy.Inc, he developed research-backed frameworks including the Big 5 of Strategy assessment to elevate strategic clarity across organizations.

He is the author of Leading with Strategy and Leading with Culture, bridging rigorous research with practical leadership tools. Drawing on experience across Fortune 500 companies, government institutions, and entrepreneurial ventures, Dr. Tim equips executive teams to align strategy, culture, and technology, moving from complexity to clarity in the AI era.

Connect with Dr. Tim:

Linkedin | Website

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:

• Covey, Stephen R. The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People, Free Press, 2004, https://link.amazon/B0dp9uKNd

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