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PBTO: Asking the Right Questions and Questioning the right things with Dr. Alan Barnard

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Release Date: 02/06/2024

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

In this episode, I discuss how to become an inspirational leader. I believe that leaders should not start with the goal of becoming an inspirational leader, as that is a self-centered perspective. Instead, becoming inspirational is a result of certain actions and learnings. Key ways to become an inspirational leader: 1. Be inspired In order to be inspirational, you need to be inspired. One way to be inspired is by keeping the company of other inspired people. Inspiration, like energy, is contagious. Another way to be truly inspired is by having a clear purpose or intention behind all...

The Play Advantage - Why Fun is the New Frontier of High Performance Leadership

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Premise For decades, the standard leadership playbook has been built upon an ironclad, yet increasingly fragile, triad: vision, strategy, and execution. While these pillars are foundational, they are no longer sufficient to navigate the complexities of the modern knowledge economy. A significant, transformative chapter is missing from the manual—one that addresses the human engine of performance. We have been conditioned to believe that leadership is exclusively "serious work" and that joy is a frivolous activity, which is at best emerges as after work activities and at worst considered...

Here is Why You Are You Stuck in Middle Management According to India's Top Executive Coach

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Premise In this podcast episode, we host India's biggest and best Executive Coach Shital Kakkar Mehra. She has trained more than 1000 CxO's and more than 40000 leaders about how to develop their executive presence. We talk about how the we lead and what is expected from us shifts as we continue to grow in our careers and what makes us successful early in our career is no longer enough when we become managers (managing people) and it changes again, when we start leading managers and agains shifts when we start leading functions and organisations. Apart from all the technical skills and the...

The Hidden Leadership Skill: Leading for Evolution

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Premise: Almost all leaders today lead in an environment that is ripe with disruptions and ever changing competitive landscape. The challenges of leading in this constantly evolving landscape are very different from that of leading in a stable environment where the current management practices are rooted in. So, if we have to succeed in this new world, we need to change the lens through which we view leadership and management practices. That begs the questions - where can we draw inspiration for the new way of leading. Thankfully, we don't need to look far. We can learn from . Leading an...

The Bomber with No Guns: 3 Lessons in Strategy from a World War II Secret Weapon

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

In this episode, I want to share a brilliant story written by one of my favorite marketers, Dave Trott, titled "Strategy is Sacrifice". The story takes us back to World War II. At the time, standard military strategy assumed that for a bomber to survive, it needed more armor, more guns, and a larger crew. Planes like the British Lancaster and the American B-17 were massive, heavy, and slow because they were weighed down by defenses. But Geoffrey de Havilland had a different idea—a creative strategy. He asked a simple question: What if the enemy couldn't catch you?. Instead of adding more...

The Most Important Question You Can Ask Your Team: "Are You Okay?"

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Welcome back to another episode of Pushing Beyond the Obvious. I recently read a blog post from the MIT Sloan Management Review titled "Your people are not all right," which highlights the immense overwhelm and stress employees are currently facing. This inspired me to talk about a critical responsibility we have as leaders: having a clear understanding of what is happening in our team members' lives, not to spy on them, but to genuinely ensure their wellbeing. In this video, I break down the subtle but vital differences between an average leader, a good leader, and a leader worth following....

How to Be Remarkable And stand out from the crowd

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Standing out starts with choosing to see, think, and act differently from the default, and then designing your work, relationships, and systems around that choice. This means intentionally questioning “how things are done here” and repeatedly experimenting with better ways that reflect who you are and what you care about.youtube Why being different matters Most environments quietly push people to conform, to not make waves, and to follow existing templates for success. If you obey those pressures blindly, you become invisible, even when you are talented and hardworking.youtube ...

Here is how to build an engaged team

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Teams that are engaged perform better, collaborate more, and stay longer. I often talk about how employee engagement sits at the heart of every high-performing team. The real question is: how do leaders actually build it in day-to-day work? Hire for Attitude Before Skills Engagement starts much earlier than most people realise — right at the hiring stage. I believe that while skills can be developed over time, attitude is much harder to change. Hiring people who naturally align with the team’s values and energy creates a stronger foundation for engagement. At the same time, we need to...

3 Ways to come up with Breakthrough Ideas

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Premise: In today's fast-paced world, every organization and leader feels the relentless pressure to innovate. We're taught to hunt for that game-changing idea, that single "Eureka!" moment that will redefine our market. But waiting for a random stroke of genius is an ineffective and stressful strategy. The myth of the lone visionary struck by a sudden, brilliant insight is just that—a myth. True innovation isn't about luck; it's about process. Generating breakthrough ideas can be a systematic, repeatable activity. By moving beyond passive inspiration and adopting active methods, you...

The Confidence to be VISIBLE with Sheena Yap Chan

Pushing Beyond the Obvious - Helping Entrepreneurs Succeed

Introduction Confidence doesn’t always come naturally, especially when you grow up rarely seeing people like you represented in leadership, media, or success stories. In a world where visibility often determines opportunity, learning how to show up fully becomes essential. Sheena Yap Chan, a keynote speaker, leadership strategist, and author, shares powerful insights on confidence, identity, and visibility, particularly for Asian women navigating personal and professional spaces. Why Representation Matters More Than We Think? Growing up in Canada, Sheena often felt the absence of...

More Episodes

In this conversation with @DrAlanBarnard, we explore how the principles of the Theory of Constraints (originally created by Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt) can be used to not only drive significant business results but also to help us make high stake decisions as leaders.

In this freewheeling conversation, we explore Dr Barnard's story about how he met with Dr. Goldratt and his famous motto. We explore who is a true expert

He shares how he got into an argument with Dr. Goldratt and how he then formed a life long connection with Dr. Goldratt.

He shares his most important lessons from all his interaction with Dr. Goldratt

What is a Life Goal? The definition of a Life goal is a "Dream taken seriously
- Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt

I will not sacrifice my goal for anyone and I will not sacrifice anyone for my goal
Dr. Eliyahu Goldratt

He also introduces the concept of Theory of Constraint then, shares what is a constraint and the different kinds of constraints that we might face in any given system (Market/demand (external), Capacity (internal), Supply (external), Cash (Internal), Management Attention (internal) and probably the most crucial in any business.

He also shares two ways to improve a constraint and therefore significantly improve your impact. He shares the importance of "Flow" or "Throughput" in any given system and how "Flow" is two-dimensional. He also shared the importance of understanding and increasing flow (time and velocity). He also shares different Ways to improve any given system.

He also shares the story of how Tata Steel UK went from 1 Million Pound loss per day to 1 Million pound profit per day using Theory of constraints

We constantly see good people make bad decisions. He explains why this happens and how to avoid them. He talks about what he calls as the agency equation.

We then move into the realm of individuals and he shares how to identify what constrains our belief systems? Really? The power of questions - Really or unless.

He also shares insights about how our minds work? He talks about the importance of learning prompt engineering to engage not just chatGPT but ourselves as well.

He also shares insight on how to ask good questions as a leader and the 2 steps to make a breakthrough in any field. He also shares insight on how to measure people's performance and its impact on the business.

Dr. Goldratt had started a movement called "Viable Vision". He shares more information about this viable vision and how can one go about achieving the same in their business.

We then understand his own learning process and the key people he learns from - Herbert Simon and Nassim Nicholas Taleb.

What is so obvious to him that all of us miss?