Bosses Suck. It’s Time to be a Leader.
One of Ken’s clients gave him the title “Facilitator of Thinking Differently”, and he’s proudly hung onto it ever since. Ken helps companies achieve exceptional performance by leveraging their organizational culture. Thinking Differently began in Ken’s first career as one of Canada’s most successful playwrights, directors, and festival programmers. In the world of theatre, fostering a culture of teamwork is the key to success. You must take a diverse group of self-employed contractors (actors) align them to a single vision (the play) and meet a date-certain deadline (opening night) with limited resources (public arts funding). These lessons are the same, no matter the industry.
The unique combination of an artist, entrepreneur, and high-performance coach gives Ken a unique perspective on what makes groups great.
As the “Leadership Champ” Russell helps leaders EXCITE their teams about their work. He believes that every leader has the potential to improve individual and team performance in the workplace. However, during his work with leaders over 30 years across a range of businesses, Russell has found that there is one particular challenge that holds them back - being able to have difficult conversations with team members, co-workers, or even their boss.
Russell uses live actors in a stop/start forum theatre for a business approach and a combination of dynamic experiential learning techniques to allow people the opportunity to practice their skills in a safe environment that they can then implement back in the workplace.
He is an Internationally Certified Trainer, Leadership Coach, and Conference Speaker with a Master's Degree in Human Resource Management. Russell has a passion for developing Leaders including those transitioning into Management roles, by building their capability and confidence using a blend of simulations, dynamic experiential learning, and workplace coaching. He is a Master Facilitator for Bluegem Learning’s groundbreaking “Leadership Success” workshop series, co-author of the book 'I Need To F***ing Talk To You - The Art of Navigating Difficult Workplace Conversations', and co-host of the podcast 'I Need To F***ing Talk To You'.
He has a proven track record over the past 30 years of success internationally in HR and Operations Management, in a wide range of organizational cultures including small, medium, and large enterprises including construction, engineering, manufacturing, hospitality, law enforcement, local and national government, non-profits.
Here’s a glimpse of what you’ll learn:
Russell Stratton’s varied career history
Ken Cameron’s very different career history
How Ken’s former career as a playwright and administrator contributes to his current work
The need to be known as a great leader, not a terrible boss
Where a lack of good communication comes from
How to reframe feedback so it’s well received
What incremental feedback means in a workplace
Why Ken recommends “management by walking around”
Why culture is as important as leadership and how the two fit together
How Russell presents their training sessions so people embrace involvement
The benefits of learning to communicate well and practice that with your team
In this episode…
Ken Cameron and Russell Stratton come from very different life and work backgrounds, but when they met a strong bond of personal and business friendship was born. Russell’s background in UK customer service and leadership training for law enforcement and Inland Revenue is very different from Ken’s background as a prominent playwright and theatre administrator, yet both work together seamlessly to form a motivational team.
Ken and Russell are passionate about creating exceptional leaders and leaving behind bad bosses and toxic workplaces. They emphasize that learning how to communicate directly and frequently with everyone on staff is one of the keys to great culture and effective leadership. People are afraid to address issues directly. Ken and Russell tackle this fear in their training sessions and in their book called “I Need To F***ing Talk To You”.
In this episode of What CEOs Talk About, host Martin Hunter and guests Ken Cameron and Russell Stratton discuss the pitfalls of settling for ordinary leadership, how leadership can elevate the mundane to a cultural level, and how learning the art of effective feedback can change workplaces for the better. They describe the use of actors in their training sessions and illustrate how practice in such a safe environment prepares attendees to address such conversations in real life. Don’t miss Ken and Russell’s informed and invaluable insights on leadership and elevating communication in your organization.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
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