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A World of Difference

A World of Difference

By: Lori Adams-Brown
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 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 will challenge how you think and lead. From travel as cultural education to ethics in business to emotional intelligence for executives, each episode offers actionable insights for leaders who believe our differences make us stronger. If you're tired of cookie-cutter business podcasts and want meaningful conversations that bridge culture, society, and leadership, you're home. Pull up a seat at the table with us.© 2023 Lori Adams-Brown Art Economics Literary History & Criticism Social Sciences Travel Writing & Commentary
Episodes
  • Stop Calling It Resistance: How Evidence-Based Listening Drives Real Organizational Change | Jeff Wetherhold

    Stop Calling It Resistance: How Evidence-Based Listening Drives Real Organizational Change | Jeff Wetherhold
    Apr 22 2026
    What if the resistance you're seeing in your organization isn't defiance, it's information? What if the way you're talking about change is the very thing blocking it? Episode Summary In this episode of A World of Difference, host Lori Adams-Brown sits down with Jeff Wetherhold, founder of the Sustainable Change System and MI for Health, to unpack why 88% of organizational changes produce no lasting results, and what evidence-based leaders can do differently. Drawing on more than 20 years of experience and the robust science of motivational interviewing (MI), Jeff offers a radically practical reframe: your team isn't resistant. They're ambivalent. And that ambivalence is something you can actually work with. What You'll Learn Why traditional change management frameworks often fail — and what survey data reveals people actually need How to hear the difference between 'change talk' and 'sustain talk,' and why reflecting the wrong one can derail an entire initiative The evidence behind motivational interviewing: 2,000+ randomized control trials, 200+ meta-analyses, and applications across fields from healthcare to organizational transformation Why resistance is a 'blanket term' that blinds leaders to actionable insight — and what to ask instead The critical difference between intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, and why leaders who rely on extrinsic shortcuts exhaust themselves What makes change stick: the role of practice, systems, and sustained organizational support — not just training Guest Bio Jeff Wetherhold is the founder of the Sustainable Change System and MI for Health, where he equips leaders and organizations with evidence-based communication skills for navigating change. He is a faculty member with the Institute for Healthcare Improvement, a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers (MINT), and a Prosci-Certified Change Practitioner, with clients including the State of Illinois, MIT, and the University of Nebraska Medical Center. Timestamps 00:00 Introduction — what if resistance is information? 02:30 Jeff's background: behavioral science, adult learning & change management 04:00 What the data says: 88% of organizational changes produce no lasting results 07:00 The 'why' problem — why leaders think they've communicated, but haven't 09:30 Cross-cultural dimensions of change communication (Erin Meyer, The Culture Map) 11:30 Intrinsic vs. extrinsic motivation — why shortcuts backfire 14:30 What Jeff does differently: skills + practice vs. frameworks alone 18:00 What is motivational interviewing? Origins, evidence, and applications 21:50 Reframing resistance: change talk, sustain talk, and the 19x rule 28:40 Champions for change — why volunteering someone into a title isn't enough 34:40 Real stories: one manager's shift, and a holiday table breakthrough 38:55 How to work with Jeff + Patreon preview Check out the Patreon exclusive with Jeff on how he would advise a leader on talent strategy here. Connect with Jeff Website: jeffwetherhold.com LinkedIn: Jeff Wetherhold Sustainable Change System + MI for Health: jeffwetherhold.com Connect with the Show Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode with five people who lead people through change. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Join our Patreon community of Difference Makers: patreon.com/aworldadifference Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    47 mins
  • Situational Awareness for the C-Suite: Recognizing Workplace Bullies Before They Hollow Out Your Organization with Lori Adams-Brown

    Situational Awareness for the C-Suite: Recognizing Workplace Bullies Before They Hollow Out Your Organization with Lori Adams-Brown
    Apr 15 2026
    You were trained for almost everything. Nobody trained you for this. In this solo episode, Lori Adams-Brown draws on her extraordinary career of working in civil war zones, surviving riots targeting American citizens, leading evacuations, and navigating genuine life-or-death threats across multiple countries to name the one threat most leaders are completely unprepared for: the workplace bully. Research tells us these individuals spend approximately 80% of their time watching, planning, and strategizing how to take down the people they perceive as threats. Not because those people did anything wrong — but because they are competent, empathetic, and influential. They charm publicly and destroy privately. And they use the same psychological tactics as hostage-takers: isolation, gaslighting, intermittent reinforcement, and the careful, strategic destruction of a target's reality. In this episode, Lori draws on research and the insights of seven past podcast guests, including Elaine Lin Hering (Unlearning Silence), Dr. Chuck DeGroat, Minette Norman, Catherine Matisse, Dr. Shveta Miglani, Rachel Radway, and Gary Ridge, to make the case that leaders need new skills, new protocols, and a new willingness to believe the people who speak up. In this episode: Why workplace bullies use the same psychological tactics as hostage situations, and why organizations are structurally unprepared The predictable bully playbook: how they charm publicly, control the narrative, and isolate targets before anyone knows what happened Three red flags every leader needs to be able to spot, and why silence in your organization is not a green light What real protection looks like beyond HR departments and policy documents that collapse the moment someone actually reports abuse Lori's direct challenge to leaders, and a free framework to help you detect internal threats before you lose your best people About Lori Adams-Brown: Lori Adams-Brown is a Strategic Transformation Executive, founder of Brava Global Advisory, and host of A World of Difference podcast with 153,000+ downloads, 285+ episodes, and listeners across 100+ countries. She has worked across six continents in six languages and spent over two decades helping organizations build psychologically safe, high-performing, and globally minded cultures. Timestamps: [00:00] Cold Open — Real crisis training and what was missing from it [03:00] The threat from within: what nobody prepared us for [05:00] The bully playbook, charm publicly, destroy privately [07:00] Silicon Valley offices, nonprofits, and the mission statement contradiction [09:00] The painful irony: the strengths that made Lori effective also made her a target [11:00] Three red flags every leader must learn to recognize [13:30] What real organizational protection requires [15:30] Trauma-informed leadership: believing the target [17:00] Lori's challenge to leaders and a free resource Free Resource: Download the SAFE Framework at: loriadamsbrown.com/safe Subscribe, leave a review at aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new, and share this episode with five people who need to hear it. Visit aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    22 mins
  • Ancient Queens & AI: What Egypt's Golden Era Teaches Us About Change Leadership Today with Christine Mikhail

    Ancient Queens & AI: What Egypt's Golden Era Teaches Us About Change Leadership Today with Christine Mikhail
    Apr 8 2026
    What if the blueprint for thriving in the AI era has been buried for centuries, inside the civilization that built the pyramids? Organizational psychologist Christine Mikhail joins Lori Adams-Brown live from the Transform Conference in Las Vegas to unpack one of the most urgent (and under-discussed) challenges in the modern workplace: we're racing to implement AI, but we're forgetting the humans doing the work. In this episode, you'll discover: Why Christine coined "compounded change" and why your workforce is carrying more layers of transformation than anyone is acknowledging The ancient Egyptian precedent: when women held positions of finance, governance, and pharaonic leadership and what modern society lost when that changed The critical AI adoption gap: organizations are deploying new technology without addressing the psychological and emotional responses of their people How change resilience workshops create unexpected catharsis and build communities people didn't know they needed How to frame AI as a tool that elevates human capability, and why that framing is the difference between adoption success and workforce anxiety Christine Mikhail is a master's-level industrial-organizational psychologist and founder of Mikhail Consulting Group, a consultancy specializing in work design and change management. With roots tracing to ancient Egypt, she brings a uniquely global lens to how humans navigate transformation at work. TIMESTAMPS 00:00 – Welcome from the Transform Conference, Las Vegas 02:17 – Egypt, cultural identity, and a heartbreaking lesson in gender inequality 05:00 – Ancient Egypt's golden era: when women were pharaohs, financiers, and leaders 08:59 – What excites Christine about the future of work and the human-AI relationship 10:59 – The overlooked gap in AI adoption: where is the human change strategy? 13:24 – Upskilling in the AI era: we promise humans will be needed — but for what? 15:49 – "Compounded change" — why this moment feels like a tsunami, earthquake, and ripple at once 18:09 – How change resilience workshops are building community and catharsis 20:27 – AI adoption success: framing technology as "for" people, not a replacement 22:40 – Where to find Christine and Mikhail Consulting Group Find Christine Mikhail at: https://www.linkedin.com/in/christine-mikhail-odconsultant | Mikhail Consulting Group on LinkedIn Subscribe, leave a review at https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com/reviews/new/, and share this episode with five people who need to hear it. Visit https://www.aworldofdifferencepodcast.com for more resources on intercultural leadership and global impact. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices
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    26 mins
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