Episode 51: Know How to Say No, with Kate Sweetman

Kate is the co-author of the award-winning book “Reinvention: Accelerating Results in the Age of Disruption” and is also co-author of the best-seller “The Leadership Code: Five Rules to Lead By.” She was named by the London Times as one of the world’s Top Emerging Management Gurus for her career work in the leadership development space. She specializes in leadership, culture, high performing teams and the inner work of developing oneself as a leader.

Kate has advised, trained, coached, and consulted with leaders and organizations in 26 different countries over the past 20 years. She and her family also lived in Asia for 3 years. A former editor at Harvard Business Review, she worked closely with renowned thought leaders like Jim Collins and helped them articulate their groundbreaking theories and models into material that could lead to publication. Kate has written over fifty business cases for clients.

Kate is a visiting lecturer and coach at MIT’s Legatum Center for Entrepreneurship. She has authored and published more than 30 articles on leadership-management in respected journals, magazines, and newspapers worldwide, such as Forbes, Sloan Management, the Boston Globe, and the Asian Economic Times. She has blogged for Fast Company and Harvard Business Review.

What you’ll learn about in this episode:

• Kate’s background
• Why you need to be very careful about the culture that you create
• Why you need to pause frequently to ask yourself “what am I doing and how am I doing it?”
• What Kate has learned from her many mentors
• The advice Jim Collins gave Kate about how to lay out her week and why it’s so effective for her
• Why you need to be very selective of what you’re working on
• Staying focused on what you’re trying to accomplish and the key few things that will get you there
• How to become genuinely helpful to other people and not get distracted from what you need to be doing
• Why resiliency is the most important thing
• The dangerous blindfolds entrepreneurs can wear
• Why you need to be with people who compliment you, not give you compliments

Ways to contact Kate:

• Email: [e-mail]
• Text: [phone]
• Book: “Reinvention: Accelerating Results in the Age of Disruption”