Episode #183: Cy Wakeman on Silencing Your Ego and Why Employee Accountability Should Come Before Engagement

Cy Wakeman is a dynamic international keynote speaker, business consultant, New York Times bestselling author, and global thought leader with over 25 years experience cultivating a revolutionary new approach to leadership.

Named one of the “Top 100 Leadership Experts to Follow” on twitter, Wakeman’s influence continues to build. Participants consistently rank her programs as the single most impactful training they have ever received.

An expert blogger on FastCompany.com, Forbes.com and The Huffington Post, Wakeman’s ideas have been featured on the TODAY Show, The Social, The Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, Business Insider, Huffington Post, The Daily Muse, Success.com, and SHRM.com.

She’s written three books, Reality-Based Leadership, The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace and the newly released: No Ego: How Leaders Can Cut the Cost of Workplace Drama, End Entitlement, and Drive Big Results.

In No Ego, she points out that Ego-driven behaviors are the #1 source of drama in workplaces today, and it’s costing organizations billions annually. She says the philosophy of “perfecting the environment” to create employee engagement just feeds the ego and generates huge amounts of drama and emotional waste.

This was an enjoyable free flowing conversation on a hectic book launch day for Cy and we covered a lot of ground and there are lots of takeaways from this conversation.

In particular, expect to learn:

1. Why the ego can keep us from achieving our professional and personal goals
2. How to silence our ego
3. Why elaborate employee engagements programs may be a source of entitlement and can actually be detrimental to company performance

All topics discussed:

• Cy’s new book, No Ego
• Why our organisations must be in a constant change of readiness
• How the ego keeps us from being our best
• How to silence our egos
• Why suffering is a choice
• The cost of emotional waste
• Why choosing to do one new thing each month makes us resilient
• How learning to say “yes” to more can be a source of growth
• The cost of drama in our organisations
• What the real cost of comparing ourselves to others is
• The power of depersonalisation
• What “BMW driving” is and how it applies to your company
• Don’t think change, think next
• Why employee engagement programs can be a bad thing
• Why we should stress accountability over engagement
• How to identify and attract emotionally inexpensive and effective employees
• Why a company’s or a person’s circumstances shouldn’t be used as an excuse

Show Notes:

1. Cy’s website: Realitybasedleadership.com
2. @cywakeman on Twitter and Instagram
3. Cy on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UChEOp127ZAQAz7MMarBmygA
4. Cy on Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CyWakeman/

Cy’s books on Amazon:

• No Ego: https://amzn.to/2x9xpPl
• Reality-Based Leadership: https://amzn.to/2NDSPhP
• The Reality-Based Rules of the Workplace: https://amzn.to/2QoFY1x

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