It’s been almost a year and a half, since I last dedicated a post to recommending podcasts .
I don’t know about you, but with our busy lives & frequent travel, I find podcasts a very useful media for leaders to learn. There are, of course, also plenty of great comedy podcasts. But, in this update on resources to help today’s customer insight leaders, I want to focus on your CPD.
Last time, I recommended three podcasts , covering leadership, stats & coaching.
This time, I will focus on four more and consider a wider range of the knowledge & skills you may want to develop. So, as you plan for 2018, I hope you are also planning your personal development . Here are four podcasts to consider as part of your learning plan .
Recommending podcasts: The Psychology Podcast
Over Q4 2017, more of our content has focussed on data & analytics . So, I’ll start this list of podcasts with one more aimed at research leaders .
That said, Dr. Scott Kaufman’s podcast is also very relevant to analytics leaders , wanting to hone their interpretation of human behaviour & experimental design. As well as covering a wide range of developments within psychology & featuring leading authors, he also covers many aspects of everyday life. From that perspective, this is a podcast for all leaders, wanting to reflect on their lives & develop their self-awareness.
A recent episode on using positive psychology to develop a long-lasting marriage is well worth a listen. It’s entertaining and also features a couple who have been at the forefront of the Positive Psychology movement for the last 20 years.
Recommending podcasts: The Brief Lab – Just Saying
Next, we turn to a key challenge for all types of insight leaders (data, analytics or research). That is, how to communicate effectively. Specifically, how to be succinct.
The host of this podcast, Joe McCormack , has written an excellent book called “ Brief: How to make a bigger impact by saying less “. He also founded The Brief Lab as an agency to focus on helping leaders & organisations improve the brevity & effectiveness of their comms.
This podcast is, at one level, a regular demonstration of Joe living those principles. Each show is only 14-16 minutes long & Joe role models short, simple, sentences to get his point across. But, as well as that, the topics are relevant to many of the communication challenges today’s leaders face.
A recent episode, sharing the results of Brief Lab’s annual survey makes concerning listening. Too much digital connectivity is killing our connections with other people. Information overload is hurting our focus (as we saw with Deep Work book review ). Technology is now interrupting us more than other people & resulting in quantity over quality of communication effectiveness. We are less able to judge what is truly important. Worth listening.
Related: Technology Trends to Consider in Your Insight Planning for 2018
Recommending podcasts: The PolicyViz Podcast
I’ve previously recommended Jon Schwabish’s data visualisation books & tweets . I’m pleased to share that he also publishes a regular podcast dedicated to the world of better data visualisation.
As well as those other resources, Jon has been doing a great job on this podcast, in giving you opportunity to hear from leading lights. Almost every episode is an interview with either a leading practitioner or an academic/expert in the field. Any different techniques & challenges end up getting discussed, in conversations that are always pragmatic.
Amongst the episodes that I find most interesting are those featuring data journalists. Recently these have included Jane Pong from the Financial Times & Ben Welsh from LA Times. Their stories of different projects, tools chosen and cultural challenges for teams, prompt all kinds of lessons or ideas for insight leaders.
Recommending podcasts: Bregman Leadership Podcast
Finally, let’s focus explicitly on your leadership skills . How can you keep up to date on the latest leadership thinking and ideas that could work for your role? I was tempted to recommend the HBR IdeaCast podcast, that I do find helpful for keeping up to date with latest ideas/fashions in leadership. However, I can find that just too eclectic and in danger of distracting you into too many different directions.
So, in search of leadership thinking that is more filtered and comes from an author I respect, in recent years I have turned to Pete Bregman’s podcast. A couple of years ago, I recommended Pete’s book on time management. If you haven’t read 18 Minutes, then I recommend you take a look at that review now .
In this podcast, each episode Pete interviews a selected leadership writer or expert, to talk about their findings and how listeners can put those ideas into practice. He does a good job as an interview and in a 30 minute episode, manages to help you grasp the concept & see practical implications.
One recent favourite of mine is the interview with Erica Drawn. She shares about Connectional Intelligence & how it helps you think differently about the quality of your network. Her focus on questions, engagement & helping others seems a usefully better to see through the hype of your apparent ‘social network’. A better mindset & a way of modelling servant leadership in this media.
Recommending podcasts, which did I miss?
I hope those recommendations help you. But, I’m very conscious that there are so many out there. So, please do share which ones work for you.
Are there any podcasts that have really helped you, to grasp a subject or tackle key business challenges?
Finally, as a manifestation of how podcasts have become a mature media for us to consider, I was delighted to see this new show. The Podcast Radio Show recently launched on Radio 4 Extra in the UK, it will be interesting to see what gems this helps uncover.