Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week, I have the wonderful pleasure of welcoming two guests. The first is Wes Adams. He is the founder and CEO of SV Consulting Group. He has led teams that were recognized as one of Fast Company's most innovative brands, won multiple Webby Awards, and received two James Beard Award nominations. Also joining him is Tamara Myles. She is a consultant and an international speaker with over two decades of experience helping leaders improve business performance. She is a professor at Boston College and an instructor at the University of Pennsylvania and author of The Secret to Peak Productivity. But the reason they're here today is because they have a new book coming out called Meaningful Work.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… leaders and managers looking for actionable ways to create more meaningful and fulfilling workplaces.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… research shows that finding meaning at work is the single most important factor in creating fulfilled, high-performing teams. In this conversation, Wes and Tamara explore how leaders can foster environments where employees feel a sense of purpose and impact. They share a simple yet transformative framework—community, contribution, and challenge—that helps align individual fulfillment with organizational success. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS…
- Meaning happens in moments. Paying attention to details can go a long way.
- Creating community at work starts with authentic connections and showing genuine care for colleagues.
- Recognizing the contribution of employees strengthens engagement and enhances performance.
- Meaningful work is not just beneficial for individuals but drives long-term organizational success.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… these three simple but powerful questions for leaders: Did I connect with someone today? How did my work have a positive impact? Did I learn something new today? These reflections inspire actionable steps toward more meaningful work environments. 

Running Time: 23:57
 
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Leading Teams Toward Meaningful Work with Wes Adams and Tamara Myles

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I have the honor and pleasure of welcoming Topaz Adizes to the show today. 

He is an Emmy Award-winning writer, director, and experience design architect. He is an Edmund Hillary fellow and Sundance/Skoll Stories of Change fellow. His works have been selected to Cannes, Sundance, IDFA, and SXSW; featured in New Yorker magazine, Vanity Fair, and so much else. He has garnered an Emmy for new approaches to documentary and two World Press Photo awards for immersive storytelling. But what I'm here today to talk to him about is his new book called 12 Questions for Love. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…anyone looking to build stronger relationships—at work or in life—through the power of better questions.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…we often focus on having the right answers, but real connection comes from asking the right questions. Topaz Adizes has spent over a decade studying human connection, guiding more than 1,200 pairs of people through transformative conversations. In this episode, he shares how the way we ask questions can strengthen workplace culture, improve team dynamics, and create more meaningful personal relationships. By shifting our approach—from looking for the “right” answer to fostering authentic dialogue—we unlock deeper understanding, trust, and collaboration.

KEY TAKEAWAYS…
The best conversations start with thoughtful, well-constructed questions.
Shifting from binary to open-ended questions leads to richer, more meaningful responses.
A strong workplace culture starts with intentional communication and connection.
Small shifts in how we structure meetings can make them more productive and engaging.
Great leaders aren’t just problem-solvers—they’re great guides who know how to ask the right questions.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Topaz’s insight on the power of well-constructed questions. His technique to ask open-ended, connective, and intentional questions creates space for deeper conversations, whether at work or in personal relationships.

Running Time: 31:43
  
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Building Deeper Connections Through Questions with Topaz Adizes

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I have the honor and pleasure of welcoming Christoph Senn to the show today. 

Christoph is an adjunct professor of marketing at INSEAD, one of the world's leading and largest graduate business schools. He's joining us today from Switzerland - it’s always great to have the international flavor to the show. He is Codirector of INSEAD Marketing & Sales Excellence Initiative, amongst many other things, and an advisor to some of the largest companies in the world. He has a book out that joined the great ones that I enjoyed reading at the end of 2024 called Triple Fit Strategy.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone looking to build stronger customer relationships and drive growth through a more strategic approach to sales.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… traditional sales approaches focus on pitching products, but real growth comes from understanding and aligning with your customer’s strategy. Christoph introduces the "Triple Fit Strategy," a framework that moves beyond transactional selling to create long-term, mutually beneficial relationships. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Building strong customer relationships requires aligning with their strategy, not just selling a product.
- Shifting from transactional selling to strategic collaboration drives long-term business growth.
- Understanding what truly matters to your customer creates more meaningful and effective engagements.
- A broader perspective on value can make negotiations less about price and more about partnership.
- Sales teams that focus on customer success are more likely to drive sustainable results.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Christoph’s perspective on treating customers as if you were part of the same company. When you align with their priorities and think beyond your own product, you open the door to real partnership and long-term success.

Running Time: 24:59
  
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The Triple Fit Sales Strategy with Christoph Senn

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 
  
This week I’m reflecting on a conversation I had with Daniel Marcos. Daniel is a Co-Founder and the CEO of Gazelles Growth Institute, an online executive education company for C-level executives at fast-growing firms. Daniel is also the Co-Founder of Inflection (Gazelles Mexico division), a keynote speaker, and CEO-Coach. Across all these efforts, his goal is to help 1 million entrepreneurs scale their companies faster and with “less drama.” Daniel is also an ambassador for Singularity University in Austin, TX and he co-authored the book Start-Up to Scale-Up.
 
THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… entrepreneurs interested in starting a company and small and mid-size businesses looking to grow and scale successfully.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… growth is not easy. It does not come without sacrifice. It’s important to make the decision to grow after careful consideration. More companies have died from excessive opportunities than the lack thereof, so it behooves leaders and organizations to set their objectives thoughtfully, be disciplined, and scale their mindset adequately. Daniel breaks down the 4 main stages of growth and the biggest challenges to be found in each. 

WHAT I LOVE MOST… speaking with anyone who is maniacally focused on growth and can get us thinking critically and intentionally about growth, scaling, and continued success.

Running time: 34:47
 
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RELOAD: Growth Is a Decision with Daniel Marcos

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I have the honor and pleasure of welcoming Caroline Adams Miller to the show today. 

For over three decades, Caroline has been a pioneer with her groundbreaking work in the science of goal setting, grit, happiness, and success. She is recognized as one of the world’s leading optimistic psychology experts. She is the author of nine books but we’re here to discuss her most recent book, Big Goals.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone who wants to set bigger, more meaningful goals and follow through with success.

TODAY'S MAIN MESSAGE… most people approach goal setting the wrong way—relying on outdated methods, setting goals that are too small, or giving up too soon. Caroline Adams Miller shares why the science of goal setting is crucial for success and proposes new strategies to push past mediocrity and create a more fulfilling life.

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
Meaningful goals should challenge you and push you outside your comfort zone.
The best goals align with what you won’t regret pursuing later in life.
Learning goals require patience and time, while performance goals demand high standards of excellence.
Who you surround yourself with can determine your success—seek out supporters, not frenemies.
Goal-setting isn’t about quick wins; it’s about creating long-term strategies for success.
WHAT I LOVE MOST…Caroline’s insight that true goal setting isn’t just about ambition—it’s about meaning. The goals that truly change our lives are the ones that challenge us, push us forward, and align with what we’ll be proud of in the long run.

Running Time: 25:53
  
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The Science of Big Goals with Caroline Adams Miller

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week I’m bringing back an episode with the wonderful Cindy Gallop. Cindy has over 30 years of experience in brand-building, marketing, and advertising. Cindy took a risk when she entered advertising, and she hasn’t stopped taking them since. In 1998 she moved from the UK to New York and began building one of the fastest-growing agencies in Europe’s US branch, the New York office of Bartle Bogle Hegarty (BBH). Four years later, BBH US was named Ad Week’s Eastern Agency of the Year, and in 2003 Cindy was named Advertising Woman of the Year.  In 2005 she resigned as Chairman of BBH to pursue other projects. She continues to work in advertising and marketing, but is also tending to other fascinating projects of her own as well. At TED 2009, she launched MakeLoveNotPorn, she is the founder and CEO of IfWeRanTheWorld, a co-action software that enables brands to implement the business model of the future: Shared Values + Shared Action = Shared Profit (financial and social). 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… marketers and anyone on a mission to bring more diversity to their organization and brand, and those interested in learning more about the final marketing frontier!

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Cindy Gallop takes us on a journey through the history of advertising and how we can be more mindful of inclusion and being more diverse moving forward. She also tackles the uncomfortable but necessary topics we simply aren’t addressing and the importance of the final marketing (in her mind) frontier: sex. Cindy is fearless and thoughtful on the topic and presents compelling evidence on the importance of being more willing to take risks when it comes to advertising and sex.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… Cindy opens up a dialogue that will make us uncomfortable and get us thinking about all of the opportunities yet to be explored in marketing, as well as thinking critically from a health and wellness perspective.

Running time: 34:43
 
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RELOAD: Doing Good, Embracing Discomfort, and the Final Marketing Frontier with Cindy Gallop

RELOAD: How Design Thinking Helped an Olympic Athlete Create Breakthrough Performance with John Coyle

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

This week, I’m looking back to a great conversion I had with Olympic silver medalist John Coyle. Known as “The Time Guy,” John is a thought leader in the field of chronoception—the study of how humans process time— and one of the world's leading experts in Design Thinking. A graduate of Stanford University’s Product Design Program and a Kellogg MBA, John is an NBC sports analyst, two-time TEDx presenter and sought-after keynote speaker. His presentations combine the data and analytics of a professor with the inspired storytelling of an Olympic athlete. He is also a best-selling author of two books, Design For Strengths: Applying Design Thinking to Individual and Team Strengths and The Art of Really Living Manifesto. As a speaker and an author, his talent is in weaving facts, examples, and intellectual principles into engaging stories that leave you with actionable ideas.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone interested in design thinking, optimizing for their strength and maximizing their time to make major breakthroughs. 

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… John shares his experiences as an Olympian, an innovator, and a world-class “design-thinker.” His personal experiences, metaphors, and practical guidelines serve as a roadmap for innovation and leaning into your strengths as opposed to trying to solve “weaknesses.” He also shares how design thinking can seep into and affect other parts of your life and career to achieve breakthrough performances and create more meaning.  

WHAT I LOVE  MOST… John’s great and illustrative anecdotes that help anyone focus on design thinking, solving the right problems, and learning how to lean into your strengths as opposed to solving for your non-strengths.  

Running Time: 35:55
 
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RELOAD: How Design Thinking Helped an Olympic Athlete Create Breakthrough with John Coyle

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 
 
This week I am thrilled to share a conversation I had with Doug Stephens a while back. Doug is the Founder of Retail Prophet. He is one of the world’s foremost retail industry futurists whose intellectual work has influenced well-known international retailers, agencies and brands like Walmart, Google, L'Oreal, Disney, BMW, Citibank, and LVMH. Doug is the author of two groundbreaking books, The Retail Revival: Re-Imagining Business for the New Age of Consumerism (2013) and Reengineering Retail: The Future of Selling in a Post-Digital World (2017). Doug is also the nationally syndicated retail columnist for CBC Radio and sits on multiple corporate and academic advisory boards, including the David Sobey Centre for Innovation in Retail & Services at St. Mary’s University. His unique perspectives on retailing, business and consumer behavior have been featured in many of the world’s leading publications and media outlets, including The New York Times, The BBC, Bloomberg Business News, TechCrunch, The Financial Times, The Wall Street Journal and Fast Company.
 
THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… anyone looking to understand the future of retail and what value brands can derive from maintaining storefronts, investing in multi-channel engagement and what disruptions might be right around the corner.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… Doug Stephens breaks down the past, present, and future of retail and talks about bringing metrics and experience into the future to keep stores open. Have we come full circle? Doug thinks so, and he is sharing just how. He also shares his insight on giants like Amazon, why he thinks they are ripe for disruption, the retail experience, how our current metrics are living in the past, and how brick-and-mortar stores can be your most powerful and measurable media channel.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…So often ,I get asked about the death of retail, so it was really great to get a chance to talk to an expert like Doug, who can shed more light on the realities.

Running time: 39:50
 
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RELOAD: The Future of Retail with Doug Stephens

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 
 
This week I’m looking back to an inspiring conversation with Tasha Eurich I reflect on often. Tasha is an organizational psychologist, researcher, and New York Times best-selling author. Over her 15+ year career, Tasha has built a reputation as a fresh, modern voice in the business world by pairing her scientific grounding in human behavior with a pragmatic approach to professional development. She’s helped thousands of leaders—from public company CEOs to early-stage entrepreneurs—improve their self-awareness and success. Her TEDxMileHigh talks have been viewed more than three million times and in 2019, Thinkers50 named her one of the top 30 emerging management thinkers in the world. She was also chosen from more than 16,000 candidates as one of Marshall Goldsmith’s “100 Coaches” to advance the practice of leadership. 
 
THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR… aspiring and current leaders, as well as anyone interacting with other humans in the 21st century who want to become more self-aware.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE… as the foundational skill for our success and happiness in both our professional and personal lives, it behooves us to become self-aware both internally and externally, and Tasha breaks it down.

WHAT I LOVE MOST… I have always thought that the conversation around self-awareness, how we lead and how we think we lead, and how we communicate and think we communicate is fascinating and so beneficial. This podcast will open your eyes to the reality of your own self-awareness and how others might perceive you. 

Running time: 34:27
 
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RELOAD: Unearth Your Own Potential by Being More Self-Aware with Tasha Eurich

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova. 

I have the pleasure of welcoming Kristi Herold to the show today. Kristi is the founder and CEO of JAM, a multi-million-dollar global business that has connected millions of people through play since its inception in 1996 and has grown to be one of the world’s largest adult recreational sports leagues. JAM has also produced and delivered over 4,000 playful corporate team-building events in over 30 countries since the summer of 2020, and the JAM team consults organizations, helping them integrate fun and play into their “workPLAYce culture.” She’s also the best-selling author of It Pays to PLAY – How Play Improves Business Culture. She has been named to Canada’s Top 100 Most Powerful Women, was a top 3 finalist in the Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards, and was awarded the Governor General’s Queen’s Diamond Jubilee in recognition of her contribution and giving back to the community. Her vision is to get 1 million people playing annually.

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…leaders, people managers, and culture-builders who want to strengthen remote and hybrid teams without forcing another Zoom brainstorm or awkward icebreaker.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…you don’t have to choose between productivity and fun at work. Kristi Herold is on a mission to prove you can (and should) have both. In this episode, we discuss how Kristi helps companies around the world integrate play into their culture, virtually and in-person, to boost engagement, build stronger relationships, and drive real business results. From playful daily huddles to rethinking your team-building events, she shares tangible ways to make fun a part of your workplace DNA.

Key Takeaways:

- How virtual play can build culture even across time zones
- Why “laughter guarantees” work better than mandatory fun
- How to structure quick, daily team check-ins that actually feel good
- Ideas to bring play into remote meetings without making it weird

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Kristi’s approach is practical, energizing, and incredibly human. Her belief that “you don’t have to stop working to play” is a game-changer for leaders trying to build stronger cultures remotely.

Running Time: 25:35
  
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Kristi’s Offer for What’s Next! Listeners:
https://www.kristiherold.com/whatsnext25/

The ROI of Play with Kristi Herold

Welcome to the What's Next! Podcast with Tiffani Bova.
 
I’m thrilled to welcome Jenny Wood to the show this week. She had an 18-year career at Google, where she grew from entry-level to executive, and she most recently led a large operations team that helped drive tens of billions of dollars in revenue per year. In 2021, she started a passion project within Google called Own Your Career, which grew to one of the largest career development programs in Google’s history. Through the programs she founded, she has trained tens of thousands of people on acing a job search, building relationships, personal branding, effective email writing, increasing confidence, and so much more. She also has a new book out called Wild Courage, which has just hit the New York Times list. 

THIS EPISODE IS PERFECT FOR…anyone looking to grow their personal brand, boost confidence, and take bold steps in their career.

TODAY’S MAIN MESSAGE…many people feel stuck in their careers not because they lack talent, but because they hesitate to speak up, stand out, or take action. Jenny shares a roadmap for building confidence and personal brand by overcoming fear and embracing thoughtful risk. 

KEY TAKEAWAYS:
- Personal branding starts with solving a real problem and thinking out loud.
- “Playground time” helps you explore new skills without pressure.
- Confidence is built through action, not perfection.
- Sharing your ideas can boost both your career and your company.
- Rewrite limiting beliefs by separating truths from tales.

WHAT I LOVE MOST…Jenny’s reminder that the courage to try, even when you’re not ready, is what separates dreamers from doers.

Running Time: 25:00
  
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Wild Courage at Work with Jenny Wood

Welcome to the What’s Next! Podcast. I’ve met so many brilliant people as I traveled the globe and have had some fascinating conversations that I’ve wished had been recorded so I could share them with you - this podcast was a way for me to recreate those moments and let you in on some fantastic insights. My current conversations center around one objective: what's next for companies and individuals as they look to innovate and grow. I hope these conversations inspire you as much as they have inspired me. Whether I am preparing for a keynote speech or writing for publications such as Harvard Business Review and Huffington Post, these are my go-to people. My goal with the What’s Next! podcast is to keep you thinking and to challenge you to think about What’s Next!

Leading Teams Toward Meaningful Work with Wes Adams and Tamara Myles

What's Next! with Tiffani Bova

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