The Human Connection Podcast

Your Team Nodded. They Had No Idea What You Said. That's Not on Them. | Myke Wilder

"You have to pay attention to the fact that you're speaking to people for whom English is not their first language. We do that all the time — but we don't think about second language speakers as an audience we need to cater to." That's Myke Wilder — ESL coach, TED speaker, and someone who has spent three decades in corporate communications working in two languages — and he's describing a gap hiding in plain sight inside most scaling companies right now. Here's the number that should stop you: miscommunication costs U.S. businesses $1.2 trillion a year. Not misalignment. Not strategy failures. Communication — the stuff happening in your all-hands, your 1:1s, and your cross-functional meetings — breaking down because your ethnic English-speaking leaders have never been trained to speak to the 2.2 billion people in the world for whom English is a second language. Myke's work isn't remedial English training. It's a multilingual mindset shift that starts with the leader, runs through the culture, and shows up directly in retention, safety, and team performance. What executives take away from this conversation: * Why your multilingual team isn't underperforming — your communication is — over 80% of the world's 2.2 billion second-language English speakers can't understand conversational connected speech; your leadership team is likely speaking in a register that excludes a significant slice of your workforce * The $1.2 trillion miscommunication problem hiding in your org chart — workplace accidents, preventable errors, and avoidable turnover all trace back to language gaps that no one has put on the leadership agenda * How to verify comprehension without making people feel stupid — never ask "did you understand?"; ask "what are the first two things you're going to do when this conversation ends?" — it's a different question with a completely different answer #H2H #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #StartupLeadership #B2BRelationships #ClientRetention === You can connect with Myke Wilder here: https://www.mykewilder.com [https://www.mykewilder.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/mykewilder/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/mykewilder/] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRSSlZBPHnEIbO2l_yQe9ew [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCRSSlZBPHnEIbO2l_yQe9ew] TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@mykewilderlinguistics [https://www.tiktok.com/@mykewilderlinguistics] SUBSTACK Blog: https://mykewilder.substack.com/p/21st-century-english [https://mykewilder.substack.com/p/21st-century-english] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Charlene Li: Your AI Rollout Is a Leadership Problem, Not a Technology Problem

"AI is not just a technology problem that you have. It's going to be a human talent retention issue — if you don't get your act together on this." That's Charlene Li — NYT bestselling author, Harvard grad, and one of Fast Company's Most Creative People in Business — and she said it in the first minute of this conversation. If your leadership team is treating AI like a software rollout, this episode is going to be uncomfortable in the most useful way. Charlene's new book, Winning with AI: The 90-Day Blueprint for Success, isn't about the technology. It's about the human infrastructure that determines whether your company captures AI's upside or just spends a lot of money finding out it doesn't. Speed is the moat — but only if your culture, your trust architecture, and your leadership team's communication muscles are ready to carry it. What executives take away from this conversation: * Why your AI strategy is failing before it starts — and the one reframe (AI supports your business strategy, not the other way around) that separates companies getting ROI from companies chasing the hype * The talent retention trap hiding inside your AI rollout — your best people will leave for organizations that let them learn; withholding time and tools isn't caution, it's attrition * Why speed is the only moat — and why going too fast destroys it — the paradox of slowing down to upskill so you can actually accelerate competitively * The psychological safety problem no one on your leadership team is naming — only 39% of Americans believe AI will be more beneficial than harmful; your workforce is starting from fear, not excitement * How to become AI-fluent as a leader — Charlene's practical move: use AI to tell you how to use AI, and start asking your team how they used it to prepare for this meeting #H2H #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #StartupLeadership #B2BRelationships #AILeadership === You can connect with Charlene Li here: winningwithaibook.com [http://winningwithaibook.com] charleneli.com [http://charleneli.com] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Lincoln Bleveans on Change Management as the New Leadership Superpower

"The only reason I can do what I do is because 100 other people do what they do — up and down and across the org chart." — Lincoln Bleveans Your company just spent $400K on a new platform. Six months later, your team is working around it the same way they always did. Lincoln Bleveans has watched this movie hundreds of times across nearly 30 years in global energy leadership — and now at Stanford, where he runs mission-critical operations at one of the world's most complex research institutions. The software isn't the problem. It never was. The problem is that you treated change management as the cherry on top instead of the foundation underneath. Lincoln's argument is blunt: technology is complicated. Human beings are complex. Complicated problems have solutions. Complex ones require something different — applied empathy, psychological safety, and the discipline to meet people where they actually are, not where your rollout timeline expects them to be. This isn't a conversation about being nicer at work. It's about why your AI initiatives are stalling, why your last software implementation became an orphaned system nobody uses, and why the executives who figure out change management first are the ones who actually get the efficiency gains everyone else is just slide-decking about. In this episode, you'll get: * Why your brain is wired to treat organizational change like a predator on the Serengeti — and what that means for every rollout you've ever led * The orphaned software problem: why technically sound implementations fail when human behavior is treated as an afterthought * The one thing that has to come before any change initiative — and why skipping it discounts everything you build on top of it * Why change management isn't a workshop; it's habit infrastructure — and the specific reinforcement cadence that actually makes new behaviors stick * The skip-level strategy Lincoln uses to build psychological safety before he needs it — not after the initiative breaks down The executives who keep losing their people to change fatigue aren't bad leaders. They're leading the technology and managing around the humans. Lincoln shows you exactly what it looks like to reverse that. Watch now — and send this to your CTO before the next AI rollout meeting. #H2H #StartupLeadership #HumanConnectionPodcast #B2BRelationships #RelationshipDrivenGrowth === You can connect with Lincoln Bleveans here: www.lincolnbleveans.com [http://www.lincolnbleveans.com] www.climatepluspod.com [http://www.climatepluspod.com] www.youtube.com/@EdisonSquints You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Less Email. Shorter Copy. More Conversions. (Your Team Won't Believe It Either.) | Carolina McClanahan

"We have a direct line of communication with our customers. Why not use it effectively instead of spamming them?" — Carolina McClanahan Your marketing team sends 40,000 emails. Two hundred people buy something. Everyone calls it a win. Carolina McClanahan has spent her career asking the question that most marketing leaders skip: who is this person, where are they right now, and what are they actually going to do when this message hits their phone? Not the demographic profile. The human context. The waiting room. The school pickup line. The moment between two other things when your email either earns a second or gets deleted without being opened. She immigrated to the United States as an adult, navigating a new language and culture in an industry built entirely on communication — and that forced outsider lens turned into her competitive edge. When you can't autopilot through the cultural shortcuts everyone else takes for granted, you learn to read people differently. You pick up signals your native-speaker colleagues miss. You build an empathy muscle out of necessity, and then you take it into every team meeting, every client conversation, every campaign brief. That's the skill set your senior leaders are quietly underdeveloped in — and it's the one that's sitting between your current conversion rates and the next tier. In this episode, you'll get: * Why the most effective communicators often aren't the most fluent — and what that means for how you build creative teams * The email campaign test that proved less volume, shorter copy, and higher personalization outperformed every feature-heavy blast * How to push back on stakeholders without triggering defensiveness — the negotiation frame that gets buy-in without burning the relationship * The data-first approach to winning internal battles: why you let the campaign run, collect the proof, and change the strategy on the next one * The one question your team isn't asking about your customers — and why answering it changes every touchpoint You've optimized the funnel. You've A/B tested the subject line. Carolina's point is that none of it works until you actually understand who's on the other end of it. Watch now — and share this with the creative leader on your team who's been trying to make this case to product for the last six months. #H2H #B2BRelationships #HumanConnectionPodcast #ClientRetention #StartupLeadership === You can connect with Carolina McClanahan here: https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolina-m-37168165 [https://www.linkedin.com/in/carolina-m-37168165] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!

Work-Life Balance Is Bullshit. Here's What Actually Works. | Kevin Rice

"When you disconnect from yourself, you disconnect from the people around you. If you don't have a relationship with yourself, how are you going to have a relationship with others?" — Kevin Rice You sold the company. The money hit the bank. And it felt like another Monday. Kevin Rice built Hathway from a garage to 250 people and a successful acquisition — and the day the wire cleared, he felt almost nothing. That moment cracked something open. Not a breakdown. A reckoning. The ambition that had been his operating system for 14 years had also been quietly running him away from the people and the presence that actually make success feel like something. What followed was an honest audit of what high performance costs — and a framework for how to get the ROI back. Kevin brings a rare vantage point: founder, investor, single father navigating hypergrowth and divorce simultaneously. He didn't read about disconnection. He lived it. And he knows exactly where the cracks show up in leaders who are hitting their numbers but losing the plot on everything else. If you're running at full capacity and still feel like something's missing, this episode is the conversation you didn't know you needed. In this episode, you'll get: * Why "work-life balance" is a lie — and the reframe that actually holds up under hypergrowth pressure * The productivity trap that kills intuition and shuts down your decision-making without you realizing it * How emotional disconnection shows up in leadership before it shows up in your metrics * Why your external validation engine (career, promotions, wins) is working against your ability to lead with presence * The shift from default-mode parenting and default-mode leadership to intentional design — and how one informs the other This is what presence as a competitive advantage actually looks like in practice. Not a wellness concept. An operating system for leaders who want to still recognize themselves when they get to the other side of the exit. Listen now — and if this one lands, send it to the founder in your life who's running on fumes and calling it fine. #H2H #StartupLeadership #RelationshipDrivenGrowth #HumanConnectionPodcast #B2BRelationships === You can connect with Kevin Rice here: www.theoremone.capital [http://www.theoremone.capital] www.ceosandabcs.com [http://www.ceosandabcs.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmrice/ [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kmrice/] You can connect with Karl Pontau here: www.vouchedconnections.com [http://www.vouchedconnections.com] www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com [http://www.thehumanconnectionpodcast.com] https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau [https://www.linkedin.com/in/kpontau] https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1 [https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCUbf_bDWwB9KVrFn5Sj3u2w?sub_confirmation=1] Please like, subscribe, and share this episode with somebody you care about!