Full Episode - The politics of growth part 1 - Successful turnarounds et al. - Mike Harris

The first of at least 6 in a new mini-series which delves into the number 1 impediment to successful business growth - politics. Mike Harris is an accomplished former executive and consultant with deep personal skills in sales, marketing, operations and product. He tells important 3 stories from a long career which talks about how work politics can get in the way. How only how it hampers results, but how to deal with it and prevent it from derailing your ambition.
On the surface all three stories are about political conflict and resolution strategies. But they also touch on the importance of interdepartmental cooperation, incentive dynamics, cultural constraints, capability, alignment and executive management.
Even deeper again, they're about basic strategy: diagnosis, problem identification, objectives and action. A skill Mike says has been lost in the face of a few modern workplace trends he's noticed are getting in the way. Even though his first story is from the 90's, the learnings are perhaps even more relevant to teams today than they ever were.
The Phillips story runs for the first 30 mins. A turnaround story which includes everything from business analysis, product line management, engineering operations, design and cross functional collaboration. But the subtext throughout is about how to deal with people to get what you want done! So you'll also learn how to fire people. How to personally manage conflict - at both an individual and departmental level.
Two other stores follow afterwards for 10 mins apiece. A female-on-female high school bullying problem. And a business culture political malaise that doomed a very promising company during its early growth phase.
Find out why Mike says sales is one of the essential life skills you must master. And why humans will still be the number 1 constraint for business success in the future.
So no matter what sized business you work in or what position you're in, I'd be very surprised if you don't learn something very valuable to your career by listening to this wisdom-laden episode