A World of Difference

A World of Difference: Leadership, Culture & Travel Podcast Welcome to A World of Difference , a top 3% global podcast where authentic leadership meets cross-cultural wisdom. Host Lori Adams-Brown, a strategic transformation executive and multilingual global leader, brings you real conversations with bestselling authors, nonprofit changemakers, C-suite executives, and thought leaders who are redefining what it means to lead with purpose. This isn't surface-level leadership content. We dive deep into psychological safety in leadership , organizational culture transformation , differentiation strategies , global leadership development , and how cross-cultural communication shapes the future of work. Whether you're a CEO navigating organizational change, an HR leader building inclusive cultures, or a manager seeking authentic leadership skills, these conversations wi

A World of Difference is a business podcast hosted by Lori Adams-Brown, with 300 episodes on record and a Required Pod Score of 80.

Lori Adams-Brown hosts A World of Difference, a business show with 300 episodes published.

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  Episode #312

  Feel Less Overwhelmed at Work: Understanding Work Intensification with Melissa Swift

  Sep 30, 202656 minS12

  Have you ever felt that the moment you catch your breath, three new demands are already waiting? Organizational consultant Melissa Swift gives that feeling a name, work intensification, and explains what helps. In this conversation, Lori and Melissa explore: How three years working in London showed Melissa that a shared language does not mean a shared culture What work intensification is: too many tasks in too little time, too many people involved in every decision, and too much emotion at work How AI can quietly erode trust at work, and why peer learning and thoughtful change management matter How to stand out in an AI-saturated job market by naming what you are genuinely good at in simple terms What high-stakes professions teach us about clear communication, and why the people who care most are often the ones who burn out About Melissa: Melissa Swift is the founder and CEO of Anthrome Insight, an advisory firm helping organizations and individuals work more effectively in a fast-changing, technology-driven world. She has held consulting leadership roles at Capgemini, Mercer, Korn Ferry, and Deloitte, and is the author of Effective: How to Do Great Work in a Fast-Changing World (Wiley, 2026). Timestamps: 00:00 Welcome and introduction 01:27 What living in London taught Melissa about culture 03:50 Direct and indirect communication across cultures 06:42 More communication, less clarity 10:02 What work intensification is 12:49 Emotional regulation and leadership 17:45 AI and the erosion of trust 21:49 Learning AI with your peers 27:43 Change agility and staying power 32:09 Standing out in an AI resume era 38:17 Lessons from high-stakes work 43:37 Younger workers and the "unboiled frogs" 46:14 Burnout, boundaries, and agency 49:06 Where to find Melissa Find Melissa Swift at: LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/swiftmelissa Website: https://www.anthromeinsight.com Book: https://www.anthromeinsight.com/books Join us for an exclusive bonus with Melissa on Patreon. Want to see how your leadership shows up under pressure? Explore the VOICE diagnostic from Brava Global Advisory: https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com/voice Considering a move abroad for work like Melissa's years in London? Expatsi can help you plan the practical side. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  Episode #311

  What Actually Motivates People at Work: The Enneagram Guide to Understanding Your Team with Joey Schewee

  Sep 23, 202657 minS12

  Have you ever worked with someone who just didn't get you, not because they were difficult, but because you were wired completely differently? In this episode, Lori sits down with Enneagram expert Joey Schewee to unpack why understanding motivation, not just behavior, is what actually transforms how teams work together. Joey has spent decades helping thousands of employees and hundreds of teams understand each other through the Enneagram, and her new book, When Working Together Doesn't Work, distills that experience into a practical workplace guide. She and Lori dig into why so many people mistype themselves at work, why "culture fit" hiring can quietly push out your most brilliant thinkers, and how managers can stop putting people in boxes and start understanding what actually drives them. In this episode: Why the Enneagram explains the why behind behavior, not just the what, and why that matters more in stress and change The three "stances" at work (independent, dependent, withdrawing) and what each one needs to perform at its best: consistency, affirmation, or latitude Why fives and eights often get labeled "not a culture fit," and what that costs organizations How mistyping happens at work, and why so many people test as eights, ones, or threes simply because they're "doing" at the time Practical language for managers to use type-awareness without putting anyone in a box About Joey Schewee: Joey Stabile Schewee is a management consultant, executive coach, and author of When Working Together Doesn't Work: An Enneagram Guide to Productive Relationships with Coworkers. She's spent 17+ years consulting with corporate teams, drawing on a lifetime immersed in Enneagram wisdom. Timestamps: 00:00 – Introduction and why motivation matters more than behavior 04:00 – How the Enneagram functions in teams and organizations 09:00 – Mistyping at work and the "boxes" myth 17:00 – A real-world example: culture in family-owned companies 25:00 – Where leaders get alignment wrong 31:00 – Coaching managers to engage direct reports by type 37:00 – New concepts: stances, reference points, and what each needs to thrive 46:00 – Where to find Joey and her book Find Joey Schewee at: wesolutions.life | linkedin.com/in/joeyschewee | Instagram: @enneagramparents | Book: When Working Together Doesn't Work Join us for an exclusive where Joey gets personal about her own career journey and Enneagram discovery on Patreon. Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for you? Take the VOICE assessment: https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com/voice Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission. Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  Episode #310

  Escape the Access Tax: How Lolita Taub Built a Career From Scratch as a Latina Venture Capitalist

  Sep 16, 202650 minS12

  Most people enter venture capital as a founder, an angel, an LP, a GP, or an ecosystem builder, usually without a roadmap. Lolita Taub has been all five. She calls the hidden cost of building without inherited networks the "access tax," and she says it shows up everywhere: in every country, for founders and investors and leaders alike, and most people never even name it. In this conversation, Lolita and Lori dig into: The three elements of the access tax: time, equity, and the emotional cost of learning unwritten rules nobody wrote down Why code-switching becomes dangerous the moment you start believing it is you, and how to honor a culture without losing your identity What "community as capital" really means, and why every leadership role is an ecosystem-building role whether or not it says so on the org chart How to answer biased pitch and interview questions ("how will you avoid failing?") by redirecting to the numbers and the value you bring The case for investing in Latin America and Latino-founded companies, including the economic scale most investors overlook What growing up in South Central LA and building a venture fund taught her about resilience, and why she wrote the book she wished she'd had Lolita Taub is General Partner and Founder of Ganas Ventures, a pre-seed and seed fund backing community-driven startups across the US and Latin America. In nearly 20 years across tech and venture capital she has made more than 100 investments and built a community of over 100,000 underestimated founders, funders, and friends. Timestamps (placeholder — pending final edit) 00:00 – Cold open 01:00 – Welcome and introduction 02:00 – A non-linear career: from big tech to startups to venture 04:00 – What is the "access tax"? 08:00 – Code-switching and corporate America 13:00 – Community as capital, ecosystem building as leadership 21:00 – Data centers, AI, and the people behind the numbers 22:30 – The five seats of venture: founder, angel, LP, GP, ecosystem builder 27:00 – Answering biased pitch and interview questions 33:00 – The case for investing in Latin America 38:00 – What Venezuela and resilience taught Lori 40:00 – Where to find Lolita and her book Find Lolita Taub at: LinkedIn | X/Twitter | Instagram | Ganas Ventures | Book: lolitataub.co/book Join us on Patreon for the bonus, exclusive episode with Lolita, just for patrons. (You can start off with a free trial.) Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for your distributed team or your own leadership globally? Head to https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com to see how we work together and where to start. Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move https://www.expatsi.com/?ref=2kJ926HZ. As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  Episode #309

  Stop Managing Performance, Start Enabling It: Dr. Edie Goldberg on the New Talent Management Paradigm

  Sep 9, 202652 minS12

  What if everything you've been taught about managing performance was built for a workplace that no longer exists? Dr. Edie Goldberg returns to A World of Difference to unpack the research behind her new book, revealing why the system most companies use to drive performance is quietly working against them. Topics Covered Why “coercive control” — carrots, sticks, and fear-based motivation — is the hidden operating system behind most performance management, and why the research says it doesn't work The shift from measuring performance to enabling it: transparency, trust, autonomy, and connecting work to purpose Why only 4% of employees revisit their goals mid-year, and how to make goal-setting actually motivating What a real “performance feedback culture” looks like, and the four conditions that predict it How AI can genuinely support performance enablement (goal clarity, personalized development, reduced bias) — and where it can quietly go wrong The bias built into hiring and performance systems, and what a well-designed AI process can do differently Guest Bio Dr. Edie Goldberg is founder and president of E. L. Goldberg and Associates, a globally recognized expert in talent management and the future of work, and a Fellow of the Society for Industrial and Organizational Psychology. She is co-author of Performance Enablement: A Model for Driving Organizational Performance and The Inside Gig: How Sharing Talent Across Boundaries Unleashes Organizational Capacity. Timestamps 00:00 – Cold open 01:13 – Why Edie wrote this book now 05:34 – Coercive control as a management strategy 09:13 – The new paradigm: enabling control 14:27 – The elephant in the room: managers spend 90% of their time doing the work 21:44 – Why goal-setting fails (the 4% problem) 28:11 – AI's real impact on performance management 37:14 – Bias in AI hiring and performance systems 44:11 – Where to find Edie and her book 48:00 – Passport Stamp: New Zealand (a shout out to the Kiwis who listen from Aotearoa, the Maori word for New Zealand) Watch the exclusive, bonus episode on Patreon here. Find Dr. Edie Goldberg At elgoldberg.com  |  LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/edie-goldberg-phd  |  Book: Performance Enablement Subscribe, leave a review, and share this episode. Watch this episode on Youtube. Visit aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Thinking about a life abroad? I use and recommend Expatsi to help navigate the move . As an affiliate, I may earn a small commission. Brava Curious what Brava Global Advisory could do for your team or your own leadership? Head to https://www.bravaglobaladvisory.com/voice to see how we work together and where to start. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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  Episode #61

  Change Makers EPS 61: Allan Wind on the Andes, USAID and Peace Corps

  Sep 6, 202652 minS3

  Allan J. "Alonzo" Wind is a retired Senior Foreign Service Officer from the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), having worked off and on with the Agency primarily overseas on diplomatic assignments from 1990 to 2019 in the Peru, Nicaragua, Angola, Nigeria, Iraq, Afghanistan and South Africa and the Southern Africa Regional Missions. In these roles he provided oversight to U.S. government foreign aid development and humanitarian assistance and supported U.S. Ambassadors as their senior development officer on multiple U.S. Embassy Country Teams. In South Africa he helped establish the Southern Africa Regional Leadership Center as part of President Obama’s Young African Leadership Initiative, and contributed to other youth development efforts and business incubators. He previously worked as the Global Programme Coordinator for the International Save the Children Alliance Secretariat and as a Country Director and Health Sector Coordinator for different nonprofit private voluntary organizations including CARE and PLAN International in a range of countries including Ecuador, Bolivia, the Dominican Republic and the United Kingdom. Mr. Wind began his career as a Rural Public Health U.S. Peace Corps Volunteer in Ecuador from 1980-1982, where he was widely known as “Doctor Alonzo.” The Alonzo nickname stuck throughout life in many countries in Latin America, Africa and Asia. He graduated from the University of Chicago. He is originally a New Yorker, and as a high schooler he was a “subway rat” attending the famous Stuyvesant High School in Manhattan. There he studied creative writing for two years with his teacher, the famous Irish American writer Frank McCourt. He has always been an avid science fiction fan and sometime writer, and notes that writing science fiction and creative writing under Frank was invaluable for future U.S. government work. He and his wife currently reside in Fairfax County Virginia, while their adult daughter is in Africa on her own adventures. Mr. Wind serves on the Boards of Directors of different non-governmental organizations, including Hunger Relief International, supporting the efforts to help the neediest in Guatemala and Haiti, any way he can. His memoir is Andean Adventures Website: https://enableennoble.net ANDEAN ADVENTURES:  https://tinyurl.com/AndeanAdv AVENTURAS ANDINAS: https://tinyurl.com/AventurasAndinas The A World of Difference Podcast is brought to you in partnership with Missio Alliance. Stay In Touch: Connect on Facebook and Instagram with thoughts, questions, and feedback. Rate, review and share this podcast with anyone that would love to listen.  On Clubhouse . Find Us Online: on Instagram and on Facebook on Twitter at or Interested in one-on-one or group coaching on how to live a life that makes a difference? Check out: https://www.loriadamsbrown.com/coaching If you are facing some big decisions, here is advice . Mentioned in this episode: Do you want to go deeper? Join us in Difference Makers, a community where we watch and discuss exclusive content that truly makes a difference. Give us $5 a month (the price of a latte), and join in on the conversation with our host Lori and others who want to make a difference. We'd love to have you join us! Patreon Join Difference Makers Join us in our membership community for exclusive content for only $5/month at https://www.patreon.com/aworldofdifference. We go deeper with each guest, and it makes such a difference. Patreon Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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