Bonni Stachowiak
TeachinginHigherEd.com

Question from Jignesh
I have been on a leadership course in 2012. Through the Myers Briggs Test, I have learned about my personality type and have received feedback/comparison on world's most famous leaders. I also recently read Simon Sinek's book - Start With Why. My assessment about myself has been that I am an introvert. I love working on my own. I realize that Leaders need to challenge their own comfort-zone and for me this would be to try communicating my ideas and practicing my leadership skill by interacting with others.

Knowing the fact that I am introvert. I am not sure how to strike a conversation and to get maximum out of my one-on-one meeting with my stranger LinkedIn industry colleagues. I will really appreciate receiving some advice or ideas on how to strike impactful conversations.

Teaching in Higher Ed episode 38: Steve Wheeler Talks Learning with ‘E’s
Carnegie Coach 23: How to Strike Up a Conversation - Part 1
Carnegie Coach 23: How to Strike Up a Conversation - Part 2
Carnegie Coach 39: Get To Know People Without Being Awkward
Carnegie Coach 40: Just the Facts, Ma’am
Carnegie Coach 41: Discovering Another Person’s Motives
Carnegie Coach 42: How to Know What People Value

Question from Willie
I value wisdom over rules, but wisdom doesn't scale well. Our director wants a more consistent experience for our customers. Rules are the traditional method to accomplish consistency, but we can't make a rule for every scenario because each scenario is different. We do have guidelines in place, which cover the vast majority of cases, but it seems like every time an exception occurs, the natural opinion across the organization is that we need to figure out a way to address the exception in the process. Is it okay for an exception to just be an exception?

Bonni mentioned Zendesk
Episode 92: Barry Schwartz on How to Tap Into Your Practical Wisdom
Barry Schwartz: Our loss of wisdom

Question from Simon
I am downunder in Australia, love your show and your podcast is a staple in my professional life as a manager of customer-facing people in the software industry. I'd like to ask if you could dedicate some time in your podcast schedule to explore "accountability". It is common these days to hear the words "empowerment" and "accountability" in the same sentence and I use them often. The empowerment side of the coin is straight forward (do what you need to do). I'm looking for ideas on the "accountability" piece. Is this a stick / carrot mentality and how have you seen people make accountability mean something that people don't just pay lip service to.

Dave’s three steps:

Communicate
Follow-up
Consequence

We also mentioned:

Episode 117: The Seven Steps You Follow To Delegate Work
Bonni mentioned Asana and Dave mentioned Basecamp
Bonni mentioned Slack
Here’s a recent article about Slack in the New York Times

Question from Valery
My current set-up is to act as a consultant working for a large training firm. It's a good set-up as consultants do not have to worry about the prospection aspect of the job on top of providing the training. On the other hand, it can be frustrating because they are not "my" customers.

My set-up is good and I can live decently from it but I am looking for creating a company based on my areas of expertise (sales consulting and coaching). I have this inner voice telling me "Valery, it's going to the right direction" but what are the steps now? There are a few companies out there providing the same expertise but the addressable market is big enough. Are there any prerequisites such as raising funds to invest into technology and/or people? How should I consider the transition between my current set up (consultant) and the entrepreneurial one? Are there new forms of associations I should think of? For example, approaching a consulting company and offering to develop an activity in sales development I w...