Joe Lazer: Most research dies in the darkness

Joe Lazer: Most research dies in the darkness

Joe Lazer, best-selling author of The Storytelling Edge and Super Skill, on why storytelling gets more valuable as AI gets better, and what to do differently the next time you present research nobody acts on. Joe was an early leader at Contently, where the inbound engine his team built drove over 90% of revenue as they scaled to 50 million in annual sales. His newsletter on storytelling and AI reaches nearly 200,000 subscribers, and his workshops have helped Marriott, Chase, Caseware, and Dell put their own storytelling to work. The confession: As Contently scaled and he was getting pulled into strategy and client work, he couldn't let go of the small things. Copy editing the print magazine so there'd be no typos. Reviewing newsletter subject lines before they went out. Meanwhile he'd be in three hours of back-to-back meetings, holding his own team up. The cost: His team's trust, autonomy, and growth. He calls helping your team grow the highest responsibility a leader has, higher than the results you report to the board. He found out from direct feedback, including his longtime editor Jordan telling him plainly: you made me editor-in-chief, let me be editor-in-chief. The takeaway: Open hot. Dr. Paul Zak's research on the neuroscience of storytelling says people don't have short attention spans so much as short consideration spans, so get into a narrative that exemplifies your data within the first fifteen seconds instead of winding up to it. Then stop letting good research die in the darkness. Chop it into pieces that speak the grammar of the channel you're publishing on. Joe's Substack, The Storytelling Edge: https://storytellingedge.substack.com/ Joe is running a hands-on workshop at the Insights Association's Corporate Researchers Conference, September 15 through 17 in Chicago, on why storytelling is the superpower of the AI age. Grab your ticket: bit.ly/jamins-crc26 Connect with Joe: https://www.linkedin.com/in/joe-lazer/ Listen and follow: bit.ly/jamins-lazer Find me: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaminbrazil/

Rishad Tobaccowala: Companies don't transform, people do

Rishad Tobaccowala, best-selling author of Rethinking Work and Restoring the Soul of Business and former Global Chief Strategist and Growth Officer at Publicis Groupe, on why we've crossed from transformational times into tectonic ones, and why the leaders who thrive will be the most human, not the most technological. Over nearly four decades at Publicis, across two eras and a dozen companies, Rishad helped the world's biggest brands navigate change from the inside. In this episode he lays out the five tectonic shifts reshaping business, three reasons leaders get the technology question wrong, and why companies don't transform, people do. The confession: The biggest mistake he and his team made scaling Publicis was pouring their energy into the fast parts of change, strategy, M&A, and reorganization, and not leaving enough time for the people part. It's easy to do a reorg. It's hard to bring people along, and that's the part that actually determines whether anything changes. The cost: Get the people part wrong and you can lose market share, sometimes the whole company. You lose world-class talent before you fix it. And your credibility as a leader can get damaged past the point of being taken seriously anywhere else. The takeaway: Block one hour a day to learn, and steal it from your work hours, not your family or your sleep, because when the leader stops learning, the company stops transforming. Then, every so often, put your team on the opposite case: if you had to destroy your own company, how would you do it? It's the fastest way to see how to build it. Ask Rishad's writing directly, free, no ads, no signup: https://rishad.ai His newsletter, The Future Does Not Fit in the Containers of the Past: https://rishad.substack.com Rishad is speaking on "How to Thrive in Tectonic Times" at the Insights Association's Corporate Researchers Conference, September 15 through 17 in Chicago. Grab your ticket: bit.ly/jamins-crc26 Connect with Rishad: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rishadtobaccowala/ Listen and follow: bit.ly/jamins-rishad The 2:1 Test: Did you fund the decision and starve the landing? https://bit.ly/jamins-test21 Insights Assocication's CRC Event: https://www.insightsassociation.org/Events/CRC-September-15-17-Chicago

Kristin Luck: You make more than $25 an hour

Kristin Luck, founder and board chair of Women in Research and President of ESOMAR from 2021 to 2023, on the work founders keep doing that nobody is paying them to do. Kristin has spent two decades building and selling research companies, and now sits on the other side of the table advising the founders coming up behind her. In this episode she gets specific about what it costs to be the person who can't stop doing everything, and what to ask your team when you finally decide to stop. The confession: You make more than twenty-five dollars an hour. Why are you cleaning the bathroom? The cost: Sleep, stress, sanity. The bill comes due in the things you stop noticing. The takeaway: Ask every person on your team how they specifically contribute to the success of the business, or how they help it grow. The answers tell you who understands their job and who is just doing tasks. Kristin and I co-led a CEO coaching cohort together for three years, so this one is a conversation between people who already know each other's scar tissue. Connect with Kristin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristinluck/ Listen and follow: bit.ly/jamins-luck

Welcome to Jamin's Podcast

Twenty-minute conversations with founders and operators about what actually happened. Scaling, systems, career. Every episode is one guest, one confession, and one thing you can use Monday morning. No highlight reels, no frameworks invented after the fact. Just the part where it went sideways and what it cost. Hosted by Jamin Brazil, 3x founder with 4 exits, who's sat in the founder seat, the CEO seat, and the COO seat. First episodes drop August 18.