Get Unstuck & On Target

Good people keep walking out the door, and most leaders can't say why. In this episode of Get Unstuck & On Target, host Mike O'Neill sits down with Cathy Holt, a women's influence strategist and author of Unstoppable Women who has spent 40 years in political campaigns, boardrooms, and the United Nations. Cathy explains why capable women stall out and leave, tracing it to a recognition gap in how organizations see them. She puts the cost of replacing a leader at about two times that leader's salary. Mike digs into the system issues behind it, and Cathy shares what happened to a senior manager who turned a negative department into one producing four times its previous output, then was told to hit $7 million before anyone would consider her for VP. From there, Cathy walks through her Zone of Greatest Influence framework and what good sponsorship looks like in practice. Mike adds what he has seen in his own work: leaders who champion others see their influence grow because people want to join their teams. Three key topics to look out for: - Why capable women stall out when organizations measure them on the wrong things, and what it costs to lose them - How to move from flashlight to laser beam with the Zone of Greatest Influence so the right people know your strengths - What good sponsorship looks like in practice: talking about your people when you're in other rooms, and why leaders who champion others see their own influence grow Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unstuck.show/248

Every leader wants someone else to own AI: a vendor, a new hire, or the IT department. But the leaders who actually get ahead treat this as the one thing they can't hand off. In this episode of Get Unstuck & On Target, host Mike O'Neill sits down with Kim Resch, author of AI Due Diligence and So You Want to Learn AI, who has spent 25 years helping Fortune 500 and high-growth companies adopt and govern new technology. Kim walks through why AI is different from past shifts like the cloud or mobile, why leaders need to sit down with their own teams before calling in a vendor, and how her three-word framework, clarity, control, and confidence, gives leaders a starting point even when they don't have all the answers yet. Three key topics to look out for: - Why AI is a company-wide decision that leaders can't push down to IT - How to build an AI positioning statement and set boundaries before bringing in outside vendors - Why mid-market, regulated companies (5 million to 500 million) are often best positioned to get this right, and why experienced employees are essential to keeping a human element in the process Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unstuck.show/247

Do you already think you're networked just because you sit in the same meetings with the same people every week? In this episode of Get Unstuck & On Target, host Mike O'Neill sits down with Frank Agin, president of AmSpirit Business Connections and host of the Networking Rx podcast, who has spent nearly three decades helping entrepreneurs and professionals turn relationships into referrals. Frank points that same expertise somewhere he rarely talks about: inside the four walls of a company. He and Mike dig into why relationships alone don't produce referrals, what it actually takes to help the people around you look good without losing yourself in the process, and why anthropologist Margaret Mead's discovery of a healed femur explains the human wiring behind trust and loyalty. Frank also shares how a simple habit, what he calls his Giving Journal, keeps him in the practice of noticing chances to help colleagues without keeping score. Three key topics to look out for: Why "it's not who you know, it's what you do with those relationships" is the real lesson behind networking inside your own company The healed femur story Margaret Mead used to explain the first sign of human civilization and what it reveals about who earns trust and who gets left behind How to start small, give without expecting anything in return, and let reciprocity work on its own timeline instead of chasing an instant payback Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unstuck.show/246

Is your business actually growing, or is it just getting busier? There's a difference. In this episode of Get Unstuck & On Target, host Mike O'Neill sits down with Dave Crysler, principal operations consultant at the Crysler Club and host of the Everyday Business Problems podcast. For more than 25 years, Dave has helped small- to mid-market manufacturers fix the systems quietly eroding their margin, slowing their throughput, and stalling their growth. His clients typically see 5 to 10% margin improvement without adding headcount or buying new tools. Dave and Mike get into what happens when growth comes through acquisition and two companies' systems have to coexist or collapse into one, why business owners keep buying new technology to solve problems that were never about technology, and what it actually looks like when a business is stuck: the same problem resurfacing no matter what you throw at it. Dave walks through two client stories, a custom manufacturer that cut its lead time from 4 to 6 weeks down to 4 to 6 days, and a product quality issue that had quietly been going on for almost a decade, and explains the free cost of chaos calculator he built so leaders can put a real dollar figure on what's not working. Three key topics to look out for: - Why most operational problems are system problems, not people problems, and what a system actually includes: planning, people, process, and technology - The real story behind a business owner who thought a new ERP would fix his team's follow-up problem, and what was actually broken - How to quantify the cost of chaos in your own business before you try to fix it Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unstuck.show/245

Ever feel like the same drive that got you to the top has quietly become the thing boxing you in? In this episode of Get Unstuck & On Target, host Mike O'Neill sits down with Celinne Da Costa, founder of Story Atlas and author of The Burning Ground, to talk about what happens when the story that built a leader's success stops fitting. Celinne has spent the last decade helping high-achieving leaders figure out whether the identity that got them here is still serving them or quietly holding them back. Celinne walks through the four phases leaders move through when they outgrow an old story: waking up to what no longer fits, finding the certainty to let it go, crossing what she calls "the burning ground," and stepping into a new way of leading and living. She and Mike dig into why so many high performers get stuck at the hardest phase, what fear is really driving the resistance, and what it actually feels like in the body when a new direction is right. Three key topics to look out for: - Why "autopilot" leadership habits stop working even when they used to drive real success - The four-phase framework for consciously rewriting the story that shapes your decisions - How to tell the difference between fear of loss and a genuine signal that something needs to change Find all the show notes and links here: https://www.unstuck.show/244