Podcast
CEO Daily Brief with Dr. Jessica Kriegel
In just five minutes a day, Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer of Workforce and Labor for Culture Partners, unpacks the latest research, trends and strategies shaping workplace culture, and driving business results.
CEO Daily Brief with Dr. Jessica Kriegel is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom.
- Episodes
- 626
- Releases
- Daily
- Typical length
- 7 min
- On air since
- 2024
- Latest episode
- 16 hours ago
Episodes
626 episodes, newest first
-
7 min
Could Hackers Be Inside Your Company Right Now?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
Attackers are now living undetected inside company systems for months before striking, and most leaders have no idea just how long that window of exposure is.
A major automaker’s hack froze operations for an entire month, and the ripple effect hit companies that had nothing to do with the breach.
There’s a human cause behind devastating attacks, and it reveals why cybersecurity is really a culture problem in disguise.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John discuss cybersecurity as an existential business threat, and why disengaged employees, not sophisticated hackers, often pose the biggest risk.
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5 min
What Would You Change If the World Might End Next Year?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A thought experiment about a non-zero chance the world ends next year leads to a surprisingly practical list of things worth changing right now.
There’s a stark difference in how two people imagine their final days, one building a worship table, the other dreaming about ice cream.
Cybersecurity is quietly becoming an existential problem for leaders, and most are nowhere near ready for the war room moment when it actually happens.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John have a lighter, more personal conversation sparked by cybersecurity anxieties, exploring how thinking about mortality might change the way they live right now.
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5 min
Would Your Company Survive a Major Tech Outage?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A barista’s innocent apology about a “Microsoft outage” reveals just how misunderstood one of the biggest tech failures in recent memory really was.
There’s a specific architectural mistake that caused the outage, and one CEO explains why his company deliberately avoids that same risky setup.
A blunt question keeps coming up in nearly every customer meeting, and the answer reveals the real difference between reacting to a crisis and preventing one.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Dan Streetman joins Jessica to unpack the lessons from the CrowdStrike outage, why relying on a single provider platform is dangerous, and what real-time visibility and change management can do to prevent the next major tech failure.
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5 min
Do Your Policies Serve the Company or the Boss?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A leadership habit occurs every time work becomes harder to see, and most leaders don’t even realize they do it.
Research from Stanford reveals a direct link between a CEO’s personality and the culture employees describe on sites like Glassdoor.
There’s one question every leader can ask about a new policy that reveals whether it’s actually helping the organization or just making them feel more in control.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica breaks down the “control reflex,” the tendency for leaders to lean on surveillance and rigid policies as work becomes more invisible, and makes the case for surrendering control in favor of shaping beliefs through experience.
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6 min
Why Hackers Target Your People First
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A planted USB drive labeled with a tempting personal file took less than ten minutes to get plugged into company laptops, revealing just how unsophisticated most successful cyberattacks actually are.
A simple search on someone’s name and email can surface a decade’s worth of old passwords sitting on the dark web.
A well-meaning pet photo contest for a company bonus reveals exactly the kind of emotional bait hackers count on.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Dr. Nikesh joins Jessica to discuss how most cyberattacks exploit simple human psychology rather than technical sophistication, and why building a “zero trust” culture matters as much as the technology itself.
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7 min
Why Do the People Who Know AI Best Trust It Least?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
New SHRM research reveals a counterintuitive pattern: the people who understand AI best actually rely on it the least.
A 5AM email from one executive turned into a surprisingly satisfying 15 minute inbox cleanup.
The dynamic between the person who knows AI best and everyone else.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John discuss new SHRM research on AI aptitude and reliance, and how they’re each using AI to tackle their own overflowing email inboxes.
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6 min
What Happens When the AI You Rely On Goes Down?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A teenage driver’s first response after a car accident points a finger at the technology itself.
Database strikes in Russia reveal just how fragile modern life becomes when banking, taxis, and even entire startups disappear overnight.
A massive global outage a few years ago offers a telling preview of how companies react when something breaks and there’s no one obvious to blame.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John explore who bears responsibility when AI and automated systems fail, from autopilot car accidents to widespread tech outages.
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7 min
Will Your Next Boss Be an AI Agent?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
Managerial ranks have shrunk while the spans of control employees report to have tripled, and the strategy for handling that shift is often missing.
An AI advisor built to give better management advice than even a trusted mentor raises uncomfortable questions.
There’s a popular new pitch promising to automate performance reviews, and Mike argues it removes one of the most human moments left at work.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Mike Dolen from Human Core joins Jessica to discuss whether AI will replace or augment managers, why shrinking managerial ranks are outpacing any clear plan for how the work gets done, and why some of the most human parts of work shouldn’t be automated away.
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7 min
Should Leaders Reward Loud Workers?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
The new workplace trend that reveals exactly how insecure employees have become.
A quote from an unexpected source perfectly explains why people feel the need to broadcast every accomplishment they make at work.
A blunt take on AI promises something that might not be true for most of the workforce, and the gap between what’s promised and what actually happens could be bigger than anyone admits.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John unpack “loud working,” why visibility at work has always mattered, and whether AI is really freeing employees up or replacing them.
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5 min
How to Get Buy-In for Change When Nobody Reports to You
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A CIO’s enterprise-wide change effort runs into an issue that has nothing to do with the technology.
There’s a reframe for implementation that flips the usual top-down pitch into something state agencies actually want to say yes to.
A quick jab about consultant fashion reveals a surprisingly relatable truth about why CIOs get labeled as blockers instead of enablers.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John conduct a live coaching session on crafting a keynote about leading enterprise-level change without direct authority, built around understanding what’s really in it for everyone being asked to change.
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7 min
Does Your Company Reward Sacrifice or Punish It?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
Companies running multiple transformation efforts at once often don’t realize they’re working against each other.
A bakery’s leadership team celebrated saving millions in warehouse costs, completely missing a far more expensive price being paid somewhere else.
There’s a specific reason employees sacrifice for the greater good but still get penalized at review time, unless leaders recognize it.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John discuss how competing transformation efforts can cannibalize each other inside an organization, and why leaders must reward sacrifice made in service of the bigger picture.
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8 min
Who Gets Fired When the AI Makes the Mistake?
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A viral story about Tony Robbins’ AI assistant buying him an actual robot raises a strange but serious question about AI accountability.
A financial company lost hundreds of millions of dollars on a bad AI trading decision, and the answer for who should be fired might surprise you.
The growing gap between how much access people are willing to give AI into their personal inbox versus their work email, and the reasoning behind it.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John debate who should be held accountable when an AI agent makes a costly mistake, and why the person deploying the agent ultimately owns the risk.
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6 min
When You Can’t See the Work, Manage the Results
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A fast-growing company reveals why going fully remote actually forced them to become more results driven, not less accountable.
There’s a core internal document that acts as the operating system for an entire culture.
A phrase borrowed from elsewhere, “Culture Over Control” explains why documentation became the real key to scaling a company’s values.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica revisits a conversation with Nick Greene, CEO and founder of Thrive Market, about managing for results in a remote environment and how the company codified its culture into a detailed operating system called Thrive OS.
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8 min
Three Questions Before Your Next Acquisition
Show notes
In today's episode:
A study of over 400 acquisitions reveals when past success actually makes a CEO's next big decision more dangerous.
There's a simple filter one CEO uses to separate a deal that solves a real problem from one that's just buying revenue.
One source of pushback could be exactly what stops a bold decision from becoming a costly mistake.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica shares the third edition of The Work Signal, breaking down three questions CEOs should ask before making a bold acquisition decision after a string of past successes.
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9 min
Geopolitical Risk
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A tariff expert predicted a major policy move two weeks before it happened, revealing a surprising strategy companies need when the rules keep changing.
A tech executive faced a life or death decision about pulling employees out of a conflict zone.
A CEO facing a costly data breach made a choice that reveals how real leadership shows up under pressure.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John discuss how leaders can build cultural agility for geopolitical uncertainty, and why crisis reveals who a leader really is.
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8 min
If You Cannot Explain Who Owns It, Do Not Automate It
Show notes
In today’s episode:
A general counsel went from a manageable workload to ten times the contracts overnight, and automation might be hurting more than helping.
There’s a specific type of workflow where nobody actually knows who’s responsible once AI speeds everything up.
A clever supply chain concept from a classic business book explains why the most painful tasks get automated first, while the real bottleneck just moves somewhere else.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica and John discuss why unclear ownership makes AI automation risky, and how speeding up one part of a workflow can create dangerous new bottlenecks elsewhere.
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9 min
Shackleton Created the Crisis. Why Do We Teach Him as the Hero?
Show notes
In today's episode:
A famous polar explorer studied in business schools everywhere turns out to have been a disaster of planning and poor decisions, while the one who actually succeeded is rarely talked about.
There's a name for the bias that makes dramatic, fire-fighting leaders look heroic, even when they're the ones who started the fire.
A reorganization at a major company got celebrated as visionary leadership, when it was really just one executive cleaning up a mess he created two years earlier.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica revisits a conversation with leadership professor Martin Gutmann about the "action fallacy," why history celebrates dramatic, crisis-prone leaders like Shackleton over less-dramatic, successful ones like Amundsen, and what that bias costs us today.
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7 min
The Easier Communication Gets, The Harder It Is to Be Heard
Show notes
In today's episode:
A paradox about modern communication reveals why being heard has never been harder.
The specific phrase coined for the kind of content that actually cuts through noise.
A comparison to a legendary comedian reveals why calling out the absurd, everyday rituals of corporate life lands harder than any survival story.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica & John discuss why AI-driven communication overload is making authentic, experience-based storytelling the only real way to get heard.
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6 min
Culture Ate Strategy for Breakfast
Show notes
In today's episode:
A CEO credits more than half of his company's dramatic earnings growth to one specific investment, and it's not the one most executives would expect.
Why calling HR to fix culture is like asking the finance department how to make more money.
A leader eyeing the future shares how he's trying to make sure the culture survives without him.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Dave Mowry, CEO of Breg, returns to explain how a culture built on ownership and engagement drove the company's EBITDA from $17 million to nearly $50 million, and why culture can never belong to HR alone.
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5 min
Strong Results Gave Frank Vella Permission Not to Follow the Crowd
Show notes
In today's episode:
A tense moment at a CEO roundtable reveals a sharp divide over who holds power.
There's a blunt argument about why forcing intelligent, results-driven employees back to the office could backfire on companies that assume the leverage has shifted.
A lesson borrowed from Bill Gates and Steve Ballmer decades ago about trusting employees with data still shapes one CEO's philosophy today.
CEO Daily Brief is a 5-minute daily podcast where business pragmatism meets inner wisdom. Hosted by Dr. Jessica Kriegel, Chief Strategy Officer at Culture Partners. She is frequently joined by John Frehse, Global Head of Labor Strategies at Ankura.
Jessica revisits a conversation with Frank Vella, CEO of Constant Contact, about a CEO roundtable debate over workplace leverage, and why strong results gave him the confidence to resist return to office pressure.
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