Two-and-half years ago we did this podcast with Danny Wain who, at the time, was in charge of learning and development at research firm RI.

Ever since then we’ve wanted to bottle his considerable experience on how to get the most out of talent and share it with you in bite size chunks, something we can finally do today. We’ve filmed seven episodes which we’ll put out weekly (with a hiatus during August).

Each episode is a mere 2-3 mins long, short enough for even the busiest managers or talent folks out there (that’s right, these are aimed at anyone with line management responsibility or whose job spec involves nurturing talent). Moreover, the series will cover all sectors, not just research.

The series begins with a look at ways to make a business case for learning and development. Next week we look at how you can take advantage of Google’s approach to innovation. And then we’ll tackle some other challenges including persuasion, trust and measurement. All good stuff

This initiative has involved a significant amount of our time which we’re bringing to you free. So if there’s any potential sponsors out there who’d like to support this effort plus get your name in front of a bunch of thought-leaders, drop us a line as we’d love to work with you.

By the way, Danny’s now set up his own talent and learning and development consultancy, do check it out.

As always, we hope you enjoy this. And do please share this with as many people as possible through twitter, Facebook, email etc.

Peanut Labs has an innovative take on a pretty unglamorous but fast-changing part of the research industry: online panels. Unlike other panel providers, they generate sample on-the-fly through social networks. As a result, not only can they source difficult-to-get Gen-Yrs, you can also think of them as Google Adsense for social networks, i.e. a powerful monetisation engine that social networks seem to love.

They’re doing pretty well - created only 14 months ago, they already have an annualised turnover of $10m. Not bad for a company started by a bunch of twenty-something college dropouts.

Based in Silicon Valley, we managed the above quick chat with founder Murti Hussain, and newly annointed part-time CEO Simon Chadwick (the adult supervision!) during a recent trip to London. We cover a number of key strategic decisions they’ve made including why Simon is joining now, their strategy for maintaining the fast growth, hiring tactics, barriers to entry, mistakes, exit strategies and who we think will end up buying them.

Below the fold you’ll find some more info on their background and ambitions (based on a profile we wrote for trade pub Research World)

BTW, props to the wonderful folks at Starbucks in Wardour Street for cutting the background music while we chatted - much appreciated.

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 True leaders tend to be successful at pretty much whatever’s given to them. (Philip Barnard)

In this edition of The Leadership Show, Simon Chadwick chats with four leaders who have spent the past five decades successfully building substantial entities. Folks such as Jay Wilson who built Roper Starch (sold to NOP World), Bill Pegram who co-founded and built Pegram Walters (sold to Synovate), Philip Barnard who built Research International from its founding days as a division of Unilever (sold to WPP), and Tim Bowles who built IRI Europe. This is one of the most fun podcasts to listen to thanks to Simon and his guests.

BTW, Simon wrote and presented an excellent paper at ESOMAR ‘07 for free download entitled “Leadership - The Men and Women Who Shape Our Industry”.

Listen to other podcasts in this series

 STARRING 

• Bill Pegram, Bill Pegram & Co, and gravitas
• Jay Wilson, Wilson Connexions and partner, Cambiar
• Philip Barnard, former chairman and CEO, Kantar Group
• Tim Bowles, former head, IRI Europe and former CEO, West Europe, Synovate
• Simon Chadwick, partner, Cambiar and gravitas (Host)

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Interview begins @ around 25:49

Series:AdTalk
Series:MarketingTalk

10mins | Produced @ ESOMAR Congress ‘07 | More podcasts in this series

 STARRING 

• Caroline Hayter (Whitehill), Co-founder and Strategist , Acacia Avenue (host)
• Geert van Kuyck, Senior Vice President of Global Marketing Management, Philips

Geert van Kuyck of Philips is a seasoned marketing executive, having previously worked at very senior levels in Starbucks and Procter & Gamble. Here he chats with Caroline about the overwhelming need for a more authentic understanding of consumers, among both the research and marketing communities. It may surprise you to learn that he believes there’s such a big gap here (between rhetoric and reality). Have a listen to his take, and on why he regards engagement and humility as key qualities for success.

Thanks to BrainJuicer for making the video possible.

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Like Russell, we’re big fans of Peter Day’s In Business and Global Business (BBC).

In the latest Global Business, Peter chats with Professor Gary Hamel, a leading management author and thinker, about some of the themes in his new book, The Future of Management.

His key message to leaders is to shift from a culture of control to one that embraces personal creativity, posturing that this is the only path to future innovation, growth and prosperity.

The chat contains some really stirring stuff and strikes a perfect resonance with the zeitgeist (unleashing personal creativity, wisdom of crowds, bottom-up innovation, global talent etc.). We liked it so much that we spent the time to pick out some choice quotes:

“You can buy obedience and diligence and even intellect almost anywhere in the world for next to nothing.”

“We’re going to have to get people to bring to work their initiative, their creativity, their passion, and those are human capabilities that cannot be commanded. Those are gifts that people either choose to bring to work or not.”

“The existing management model was built to drive alignment, enforcement and control. What management tried to do over the last 100 years was to regularise the irregular, to drive the variety out of processes…we happen to live in a world today where it’s irregular people with irregular ideas who create all the new economic value and the wealth.”

“Organisations are less human than the people who work there. [people are inherently creative and innovative] but somehow when we get to work that adaptability, that innovation literally gets bleached out of people between 9 and 5.”

“The ability to aggregate human capability via the web, that’s not going to go away.”

Management innovation at W. L. Gore & Associates: “Every employee is free to say yes or no to any request. Most managers would have a very hard time imagining how you can get things done in an organsation where you can’t use any of your positional power (because you have none); people have to be persuaded. People are annually evaluated by 20 peers on the value they create [rather than via a hierarchy based on following strict instructions].”

Management innovation at Google: “The folks who run that they don’t primarily see themselves as the authors of strategy, they see themselves as editors of strategy…ideas bubble up.”

Pop here for the episode (hopefully it will stay archived).

Series:AdTalk Series:MarketingTalk

 My senior management team, I made sure that they could do stages 1 (turnaround) and 2 (growth), with a real emphasis on delivering 2.

Sponsored by 
Meet Kimberly Till, head honcho at TNS North America. And by “meet” we mean this is the first chance to really get to know her and her passion.

Anyway, back in May 2006, Kimberly accepted the challenge of turning around the troubled North American operations of TNS, the world’s #2 MR firm. She took on this challenge despite lucrative offers from internet startups after a career at Microsoft and in media and entertainment. Listen on to find out how the turnaround is going, how she approaches leadership, and how she intends to inject a much-needed spirit of entrepreneurism into TNS NA

Listen to other podcasts in this series

 STARRING 

• Kimberly Till, CEO, TNS North America
• Simon Chadwick, partner, Cambiar and gravitas (Host, in spirit)

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 Probably the single most important [leadership] quality at the moment
is clarity.(Lorna Walters)

Sponsored by 
 THE LEADERSHIP SHOW  In the previous edition of The Leadership Show, host Simon Chadwick chatted with some of industry’s foremost entrepreneurs. Now it’s the turn of three corporate leaders in mega agencies to define their leadership style and imperatives. And while you’d expect a contrast, it’s not always where you’d expect

Listen to other podcasts in this series

 STARRING 

• Bob Skolnick, CEO, Synovate North America
• Lorna Walters, CEO, Research International USA
• Phyllis Macfarlane, Head, GfK NOP Custom
• Simon Chadwick, partner, Cambiar and gravitas (Host)

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If the industry doesn’t have an image of being dynamic, of being creative, of moving with the times, then it won’t be able to recruit the right people and it will find that it becomes devalued over time
(Mark Whiting)

 WIN ‘07  Recorded during a world leader meeting, Tony Cowling and Mark Whiting talk about the need to focus on the competition outside the traditional MR sector as a way to leverage growth, maintain relevance and inspire users

Listen to other podcasts featuring Mark

 STARRING 

• Tony Cowling, President, TNS
• Mark Whiting, Head of Marketing Intelligence, Moët Hennessy

Recorded at the ESOMAR WIN ‘07 event

ESOMAR was kind enough to reimburse travel and accommodation expenses

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