Toughest Call with Chaz Thorne

Making others see the need for change when they either can't or won't is a significant obstacle for many executives. In this episode of Toughest Call, Luc Mongeau, President and CEO of eSolutions Furniture, talks about a tough call he made in a previous leadership role: tackling a massive strategic shift that few others saw the need for. 

Weeks into his position as President of Mars Canada, Luc recognized several early indicators that the company was slipping into decline. But others didn't see the situation the same way and were resistant to change. What Luc s...

How can organizational leaders prevent mission drift? In this episode of Toughest Call, Rob Angel, Creator of Pictionary, talks about how staying on mission resulted in him and his partners turning down a lucrative licensing deal.

Rob originally dreamed up what would become one of the best-selling board games of all time four decades ago. The demand on the small business they created to publish the game in 1985 grew rapidly. Rob was tired of eating ramen noodles and assembling games by hand in his tiny apartment in Seattle, so they started to explore licensing to a larger...

In this episode of Toughest Call, Izabella Roth, CEO of Infinity Healthcare Ltd., talks about how she boldly stepped into the creation of a new company at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. 

Izabella shares the many changes she embraced in her business-building journey that took her from the days of panicking about making payroll to presently expanding Infinity into new markets.

What does it take to bring about an organization's strategic realignment? In this episode of Toughest Call, Scott Skinner, CEO of Clean Foundation, talks about how he and his team strategically repositioned their organization to heighten its impact. Scott takes us through how he initially positioned this strategic pivot for success, and then kept it on course, during execution.

How do we assess whether a partner is a good fit beyond a typical, surface-level analysis? In this episode of Toughest Call, Dr. Dianne Tyers talks about her decision to end a business partnership that would have a significant impact on her company’s revenue for several years.

Though she was an entrepreneur at the time she made this tough call, Dianne is now Dean of the Faculty of Open Learning and Career Development at Dalhousie University. She shares what she learned about the importance of ensuring you share the values of an individual or organization before yo...

In this episode of Toughest Call, Mark Bowden, world-renowned body language expert and communications coach, walks us through the process he uses with leaders to guide them to present ideas effectively.

We're doing a role-play: Toughest Call host Chaz Thorne is playing the role of CEO of a fictional company called Terrific Toboggan Co. With a fresh new one page strategic plan in hand, Chaz has come to Mark seeking advice on communicating the new plan to his wider team.

The “North Star” approach to impactful leadership follows the same path that elite athletes take to perform at a world-class level. In this episode of the Toughest Call podcast, Alan Stein Jr., keynote speaker and performance coach with over a decade of working with the NBA’s highest-performing athletes, shares how he used the North Star approach to pivot out of personal and professional burnout. Additionally, he talks about how he used his North Star to match the skills he acquired as an elite basketball trainer to identify a problem he could solve for corporations as a keynote speaker.

A challenging decision organizational leaders can face is when to grow, and by how much. In this episode of the Toughest Call, Suzie Yorke, Founder of Love Good Fats, talks about her decision to “go big” in launching her products across the United States with a major retailer. Additionally, she talks about the expansion process that took place while making the leap from an emerging brand in the natural goods channel to a CPG brand working with big retailers.

In this episode of Toughest Call, Rishad Tobaccowala, futurist, and author of “Restoring the Soul of Business: Staying Human in the Age of Data” talks about how he prepared for an exit from an already successful career to something completely different.

In this episode, I’m talking with Lori Nikkel about her decision to hasten the pace of a national expansion to meet the growing demand for food during the pandemic. Lori is the CEO of Second Harvest, a charity that recovers fresh, unsold food to protect the environment and provide immediate hunger relief. How many times in your career have you been told something you wanted to attempt was “impossible”? Though this may turn out to be true, it’s also a position often taken by the overly risk-averse to stifle innovation and maintain the status quo. Lori talks about how she...

In this episode, I’m talking with Lori Nikkel about her decision to hasten the pace of a national expansion to meet the growing demand for food during the pandemic.

Lori is the CEO of Second Harvest, a charity that recovers fresh, unsold food to protect the environment and provide immediate hunger relief.

How many times in your career have you been told something you wanted to attempt was “impossible”? Though this may turn out to be true, it’s also a position often taken by the overly risk-averse to stifle innovation...

In this episode, we’re talking with Heather Byrne about a tough call she faced deciding to leave an organization she cared deeply for to relocate closer to her extended family. Heather is the Executive Director of Alice House, a provider of safe second-stage housing and support for women and children leaving situations of intimate partner violence. Many of us struggle with finding and maintaining a healthy balance between family and career. At times it can feel impossible to reconcile our personal and professional ambitions. Heather talks about how taking care of what made her feel whole allowed her to be...

In this episode, we’re talking with Heather Byrne about a tough call she faced deciding to leave an organization she cared deeply for to relocate closer to her extended family.

Heather is the Executive Director of Alice House, a provider of safe second-stage housing and support for women and children leaving situations of intimate partner violence.

Many of us struggle with finding and maintaining a healthy balance between family and career. At times it can feel impossible to reconcile our personal and professional ambitions.

...

In this episode, I’m talking with Jonathan Torrens about his decision to take control of his career and work by striking out on his own and leaving behind the suffocating notion of “that’s just the way things are done around here”. For 30 years, Jonathan has been a mainstay in Canadian TV with resume credits that include Street Cents, Jonovision, Trailer Park Boys, Mr. D, This Hour has 22 Minutes, DeGrassi, Royal Canadian Air Farce, and Letterkenny. A multiple Canadian Screen Award-winner, Jonathan has vast experience both in front of and behind the camera as a host, actor, writer, director, and prod...

In this episode, I’m talking with Jonathan Torrens about his decision to take control of his career and work by striking out on his own and leaving behind the suffocating notion of “that’s just the way things are done around here”.

For 30 years, Jonathan has been a mainstay in Canadian TV with resume credits that include Street Cents, Jonovision, Trailer Park Boys, Mr. D, This Hour has 22 Minutes, DeGrassi, Royal Canadian Air Farce, and Letterkenny.

A multiple Canadian Screen Award-winner, Jonathan has vast experience both in front of and behind the...

In this episode, we’re talking with Jewell Mitchell about a challenge she faced when she felt the process for a large capital campaign was becoming disconnected from the organization’s vision and values. Jewell is a non-profit leader with a particular belief in and focus on supporting the potential of women and children. Individuals can have very different approaches to decision-making. And when you put these different approaches into a group process, conflict can erupt. Jewell talks what she learned from this difficult experience about the leader’s role in setting up these group processes for success and how to kee...

In this episode, we’re talking with Jewell Mitchell about a challenge she faced when she felt the process for a large capital campaign was becoming disconnected from the organization’s vision and values.

Jewell is a non-profit leader with a particular belief in and focus on supporting the potential of women and children.

Individuals can have very different approaches to decision-making. And when you put these different approaches into a group process, conflict can erupt. 

Jewell talks what she learned from this difficult experience about the leader’s...

In this episode, I’m talking with Zach Selch about a tough call that he made and regretted around the firing of a non-performing employee. Zach has been an international sales executive for over 30 years and is the author of Global Sales, the Practical Playbook on how to drive Profitable Growth. Having to let go of people is often one of the hardest things to do as a leader. Yet ensuring we have the right people in the right jobs is a defining part of a leader’s role. Zach’s story is instructive in that he allowed himself to be swa...

In this episode, I’m talking with Zach Selch about a tough call that he made and regretted around the firing of a non-performing employee.

Zach has been an international sales executive for over 30 years and is the author of Global Sales, the Practical Playbook on how to drive Profitable Growth.

Having to let go of people is often one of the hardest things to do as a leader. Yet ensuring we have the right people in the right jobs is a defining part of a leader’s role. 

Za...

In this episode, I’m talking with John Watson about a tough call he faced in the making of his movie, Robin Hood, starring Kevin Costner. John is a Hollywood producer and writer with credits including Backdraft, Blown Away, Moll Flanders, The Outer Limits, Harriet, and The Last Full Measure. John talks about a particularly tough call with a tight timeline he and his partners had to make in the early days of their movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This decision had significant ripple effects both good and bad that would be felt for decades to come. If you’d li...

In this episode, I’m talking with John Watson about a tough call he faced in the making of his movie, Robin Hood, starring Kevin Costner.

John is a Hollywood producer and writer with credits including Backdraft, Blown Away, Moll Flanders, The Outer Limits, Harriet, and The Last Full Measure.

John talks about a particularly tough call with a tight timeline he and his partners had to make in the early days of their movie Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves. This decision had significant ripple effects both good and ba...

In this episode I’m talking with Dave Reeve about a tough call he made transitioning his 28-year-old business from a service model to software. Dave is the CEO of InvestorCOM, a leading compliance technology provider to the wealth management industry. Like many other leaders I’ve talked to recently, Covid helped hasten a change that was in the works for some time. Interestingly, it wasn’t making the call that was tough but the implementation of it. What was particularly challenging was managing the difficult conversations with staff that inevitably happen when you transition out of a longstanding pillar of you...

In this episode I’m talking with Dave Reeve about a tough call he made transitioning his 28-year-old business from a service model to software.

Dave is the CEO of InvestorCOM, a leading compliance technology provider to the wealth management industry. 

Like many other leaders I’ve talked to recently, Covid helped hasten a change that was in the works for some time. Interestingly, it wasn’t making the call that was tough but the implementation of it. What was particularly challenging was managing the difficult conversations with staff that in...

In this episode, I’m talking with John Bourke about a tough call he faced when climbing a literal mountain and what he learned from it as a leader. John is the President of the Business Excellence Institute, a worldwide membership body for business excellence professionals. John talks about a difficult choice he had to make while standing on a narrow ledge above a deadly 2-kilometer drop. Though it was not a call he had to make for his business, the repercussions of that defining moment continue to inform how he approaches his professional decision-making. If you’d like to lear...

In this episode, I’m talking with John Bourke about a tough call he faced when climbing a literal mountain and what he learned from it as a leader.

John is the President of the Business Excellence Institute, a worldwide membership body for business excellence professionals.

John talks about a difficult choice he had to make while standing on a narrow ledge above a deadly 2-kilometer drop. Though it was not a call he had to make for his business, the repercussions of that defining moment continue to inform ho...

In this episode, I’m talking with Dr. Robert Strang about the decision-making that resulted in Nova Scotia entering its first lockdown at the beginning of the Covid pandemic. Rob is the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Nova Scotia. The tough calls that our leading health officials have had to make in the face of this pandemic have been staggering. Especially, in the early days of the outbreak, these decisions needed to be made quickly and with incomplete information. Even more challenging, they needed to be implemented within structures that are classically very slow to act. An...

In this episode, I’m talking with Dr. Robert Strang about the decision-making that resulted in Nova Scotia entering its first lockdown at the beginning of the Covid pandemic.

Rob is the Chief Medical Officer of Health for the province of Nova Scotia. 

The tough calls that our leading health officials have had to make in the face of this pandemic have been staggering. Especially, in the early days of the outbreak, these decisions needed to be made quickly and with incomplete information. Even more challenging, they needed to be...

Coming soon!