Getting promoted at work is not always straightforward. In this 28-minute episode, Alisa Patel, a VP of HR, talks candidly about what you need to do in order to be promotable, to learn about opportunities inside your company, and to effectively communicate your interest in the right way to the right people.

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About Alisa:

Alisa Patel is a strategic, people-focused HR executive with more than 20 years of experience leading human resources initiatives that drive both business performance and employee engagement. She currently serves as Vice President of Human Resources at Aalberts Surface Technologies, where she partners closely with senior leadership to shape workforce strategy, strengthen organizational development, and align HR practices with broader business goals.

Alisa is a certified SHRM-CP and a graduate of the University of Michigan’s Ross School of Business Executive Program in Strategic HR Planning. She’s deeply committed to continuous learning and advancing excellence in the HR field.
Her experience spans employee relations, workforce planning, talent development, internal communications, and benefits strategy — all with a focus on building strong, inclusive, and high-performing workplace cultures.
At the core of her work, Alisa is passionate about empowering teams and creating people-first solutions that support long-term growth, productivity, and organizational success.

Aalberts is a global Dutch industrial technology company that designs and
manufactures specialized engineering systems and components used in
buildings, manufacturing, transportation, and semiconductor production.
Aalberts HQ is in Utrecht, Netherlands and the company was founded in 1975. Today the company employs over 13,000 people across multiple continents.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

>Connect with Alisa on LinkedIn
>Aalberts Surface Technologies

Thanks to Michael Gordon for editing this episode.

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

The Effective Workplace Feedback episode of Brain Chatter explores the role of effective feedback in building strong workplace cultures and improving leadership. Organizational psychologist Dr. Ken Chapman, founder of Ken Chapman & Associates, Inc. and author of The Leader’s Code discusses why traditional annual performance reviews often fail and what leaders should do instead. Drawing on decades of experience advising organizations around the world, Dr. Chapman explains why timely, specific, and goodwill-driven feedback is far more valuable than infrequent evaluations. The conversation begins by examining what meaningful feedback looks like in practice and why leaders should actively encourage feedback from employees, customers, and colleagues alike.

Throughout the episode, Dr. Chapman highlights the elements that make feedback constructive—clear specifics, appropriate timing, mutual respect, and a shared interest in improvement. He contrasts this with feedback that becomes destructive or unhelpful and explains why the absence of constructive feedback is one of the most common causes of employee dissatisfaction with leadership. The discussion also explores the importance of trust, listening, willingness to cooperate, and empathy when giving or receiving feedback, as well as strategies for normalizing regular feedback in workplace environments where it may initially feel uncomfortable.

The conversation concludes by addressing common challenges leaders and employees face around feedback, including defensiveness, resistance, or the misuse of feedback. Dr. Chapman shares practical strategies for soliciting useful feedback, responding to unfair or petty criticism disguised as feedback, and holding people accountable for growth and improvement. Ultimately, the episode emphasizes that feedback is a cultural practice—one that, when handled thoughtfully and consistently, strengthens relationships, improves performance, and helps organizations thrive.

This forty minute episode answers many other questions related to this topic, as well.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

>Bio of Ken Chapman, Ph.D.
>Follow Ken Chapman & Associates, Inc. on LINKEDIN
>Follow Ken Chapman & Associates, Inc. on FACEBOOK
>Books Authored or Co-Authored by Dr. Ken Chapman

Thanks to Michael Gordon for editing this episode.

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

Having challenges and lack of understanding or lack trust between different generations inside your company? This 22-minute episode explores why that may be and what can be done to close the potential gap of trust. Organizational development and HR expert Ryan McShane offers practical insights and strategies for accomplishing this, for the benefit of all concerned.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

>Connect with Ryan McShane on LinkedIn
>Ryan's bio

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

What advice do most people wish someone would have offered when they were first promoted to supervisor? What are common missteps and mistakes newly promoted supervisors often make that are avoidable? What are strategies for navigating a promotion when your peers, yesterday, are your direct reports, today? This episode offers the insights of Beth Lanier (Savannah, Georgia), from her 30-year career in human resources and management consulting, working with numerous first time supervisors in heavy industry, public accounting, and other sectors.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

>Connect with Beth Lanier on LinkedIn
>Beth's Bio

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

What impacts do effective onboarding and career pathing have on the health of a company culture? And what does such onboarding and career pathing look like? Patrick Frazier, Director of Organizational Development at ME Global (Tempe, Arizona) discusses the culture inside their foundries in Arizona and Minnesota. Working in metal foundries is hard, hot work. How do you continue to find, keep, and provide advancement opportunities for team members? How do you ensure you attract and retain team members who are the right fit for the organizational culture of an action-oriented, successful foundry company?

EPISODE RESOURCES:

>Connect with Patrick Frazier on LinkedIn
>ME Global
>American Foundry Society

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

KC&A's David Stanfield explores the life and career of one of the NBA all-time greats, Tim Duncan (San Antonio Spurs). The focus in this episode is on the 'walking the talk' examples Tim Duncan provided throughout his basketball career, by focusing on wins for the whole team and other teammates, cool-headed calmness, sharing credit, being coachable, accepting accountability and mentorship, and showing gratitude to teammates, fans, family, and coaches. All the while, consistently being humble.

EPISODE RESOURCES:

>Connect with David Stanfield on LinkedIn
>David Stanfield Bio
>Tim Duncan Stats on ESPN
>Biography of Tim Duncan on Wikipedia
>Tim Duncan's Retirement Letter (on Sports Illustrated)
>Air Alamo article referenced in episode

Basketball sound effects used by authorization of https://uppbeat.io

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

Whitney Tate and Delcia Petersen explore the practical side of Emotional Intelligence as it is most often encountered in the workplace. What is the cost of being 'A Bull in the China Shop' as it relates to EIQ? How do we each avoid being that bull in the china shop in our own workplace, dismissive of competence about it at our own immense personal cost? If Emotional Intelligence is arguably the greatest predictor of success in a leader and in success within any given career, then how do we use it as an asset rather than suffer from the lack of success with it as a liability.

RESOURCES:
Whitney Tate on LinkedIn
Delcia Petersen on LinkedIn
Book Recommendation: The Social Animal on Amazon

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.

Stephanie Stuckey recently released her book "UnStuck: Rebirth of An American Icon". In this interview she discusses reviving and rebuilding one of the most iconic American roadside brands, "Stuckeys." This 25 minute episode explores grit and how it can be contagious in organizational leadership. We look at the history of the brand, the various pivots that allowed it to survive and then thrive to its height of having 368 locations in 40 US States, why Stuckeys was able to weather so many storms along the way when competitors could not, and then the decline of the brand after her grandfather sold it months before his death. Stephanie has purchased the brand and trademark and is now on a quest to rebuild the brand and its old reputation, in a new era. She and her business partners are making lots of progress... you can now buy Stuckeys pecan candies in over 5000 retail locations, with more locations being added regularly.

EPISODE RESOURCES:
>Stuckeys.com
>UnStuck (Stephanie's new book):
--on Barnes & Noble
--on Audible
--on Books-A-Million
--on Amazon
>Stephanie on LinkedIn
>Handle for Stephanie on Instagram, Facebook, and X: @stuckystop
>Stuckeys and The Green Book
>Stuckeys History Timeline

Brain Chatter, a podcast where we listen past the daily noise and explore topics at the intersection of leadership, workplace culture, profit, and sustainability.