The pressure on leaders to deliver rapid, transformative change has never been higher. But how do you move fast without leaving your people behind?

In this episode, host Keith Cowing sits down with Perry Steinberg, a seasoned Chief Product Officer with deep experience leading through high-stakes transitions at both public companies and fast-paced private equity-backed firms. Perry unpacks his core leadership philosophy for navigating this exact challenge, revealing how to maintain cohesion and drive results simultaneously.

In this conversation, you will learn:

• The Art of Cadence and Commitment: The methods Perry uses to build trust and alignment, even when making difficult decisions.
• Leading the 'Mindset Shift': Discover techniques to guide an organization through a fundamental change in thinking and strategy.
• From Chaos to Cohesion: Hear how Perry unified disparate teams and roadmaps post-acquisition to create a single, focused vision.
• Staying Relevant in the AI Era: Understand why past playbooks are obsolete and what skills are critical for leadership in a world of constant technological disruption.

This episode is for any leader tasked with steering their organization through uncertainty.

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What do you do when a leader tells you, "You have integrity. That's rare in this profession"? For my guest Natasha Jaffe, it was the signal she needed to leave.

In this episode of Executives Unplugged, I talk with Natasha, an experienced engineering leader and coach who has guided teams at both Fortune 100 companies and startups through multi-billion dollar acquisitions.

We have a raw and honest conversation about the critical mistake leaders make when they chase productivity gains but accidentally "squash the magic" that makes their teams special. Natasha shares a powerful playbook for leading through disruptive changes—like reorgs or the push for AI—by protecting your team's "flow state" and listening to your own moral compass.

This episode is a masterclass in leading with empathy and principle, offering practical advice on how to navigate immense change without losing your team, or yourself, in the process.

Guest:

• Natasha Jaffe: Experienced Engineering Leader and Coach.
• Find Natasha's writing at her blog: Nuts and Bolts on Substack

In this episode, we discuss:

• (1:13) What is "Flow State"? Natasha explains why long, uninterrupted blocks of time are the source of an engineer's most creative and deep work.
• (2:11) How Leaders Destroy Flow: Forcing teams to prioritize the "important" over the "interesting" for too long erodes curiosity and squashes the magic.
• (3:40) The Human Reaction to AI: Why engineering teams often react to top-down AI mandates with trepidation, seeing it as "dystopian" and a threat to their craft.
• (4:35) Fear Kills Innovation: When your team is afraid, they won't engage in the productive risk-taking required to innovate.
• (5:11) A Case Study in Leading a Reorg: How Natasha turned a messy, demoralizing situation into a success by bringing the team into the decision-making process, listening to their fears, and even choosing a team mascot.
• (8:33) The Real Path to Moving Faster: Stop telling your engineers to "run harder." Instead, reduce toil and remove friction to "widen the mouth of the funnel."
• (9:16) The Collapsing Talent Stack: Are we moving away from hyper-specialists and back toward multi-skilled teams who can move with lightning speed?
• (12:49) The Bell Curve of Team Size: The trade-off between having more minds on a problem and the rapid degradation of velocity and quality when "too many cooks are in the kitchen."
• (15:01) Your Moral Compass: Why you can't leave your values at home and how the biggest career regrets come from not listening to your gut.
• (16:35) "They Said the Quiet Part Out Loud": The powerful story of how a single comment about integrity was the signal Natasha needed to make a pivotal career change.
• (18:41) Key Questions to Ask Yourself: How to get clarity when your job is in conflict with your values, and how to know when it's time to explore a change.
• (22:08) On Burnout and Recovery: Natasha shares her personal journey of recovering from massive burnout and rediscovering creativity.

Ready to ditch the resume buzzwords and hire for true potential? Struggling with your own career pivot or leading teams through change? Join Keith Cowing on Executives Unplugged with Dr. Susan Lovelle, a former professional ballet dancer turned plastic surgeon, now founder & CEO of Balanced Performance, and her long-time colleague Tonya Sook, a Certified Family Nurse Practitioner.

Discover Dr. Lovelle's unconventional approach to hiring – prioritizing inner skills over years of experience – and how it built a thriving practice. Hear her incredible story of multiple reinventions, driven by passion and necessity, and learn how to navigate your own transformations. Tonya shares the ground-level view of building a culture of trust and excellence. Learn practical strategies for assessing talent beyond the resume, fostering team alignment, managing your energy to avoid burnout, and applying the "Listen, Let Go, Live" method for peak performance.

Guests

Dr. Susan Lovelle: Former professional ballet dancer (17 years), plastic surgeon, and now Founder/CEO of Balanced Performance, helping executives optimize their health and leadership. Learn more at Balanced Performance.

Tonya Sook APRN-C: Certified Family Nurse Practitioner specializing in medical aesthetics, hormone therapy, dermatology, and functional medicine, dedicated to holistic patient well-being.

View on your favorite platform

Youtube: https://youtu.be/Stgj-ZwL45w

Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/episode/6n4zRnSVJf1ZfRITtG1VK8?si=lO_8BZWoTXWL5WeT-ZhvQw

Apple Podcasts: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/from-ballet-to-scalpel-to-ceo-reinvention-resilience/id1769131263?i=1000705573303

[00:00:00] Intro / From Dance to Medicine

[00:00:19] Welcome & Guest Introductions

[00:01:24] Hiring Philosophy: Skills Over Experience

[00:02:47] The Group Interview & Testing for Inner Workings

[00:04:10] Why Experience Can Be Overrated

[00:04:41] Tonya Sook: Cultivating Culture & Trust

[00:05:08] Enabling Teams to Be Themselves

[00:06:09] Learning Leadership Through Delegation

[00:07:36] Reinvention 1: Ballet to Medical School

[00:09:39] Reinvention 2: Surgery to Lifestyle Coaching (The Wake-Up Call)

[00:11:25] Finding Your Energy & Root Causes

[00:12:55] The L3 Method: Listen, Let Go, Live

[00:14:14] Tonya Sook: The Art of Nurse Practitioner Leadership (Gentle Firmness)

[00:16:33] Learning You Can't Help Everyone

[00:17:35] Discipline: The Common Thread from Ballet to Business

[00:19:45] Performance: How You Show Up Matters

[00:21:57] What's Next? Scaling Impact Through Corporate Wellness

[00:22:49] Lessons Learned from Working Together

[00:24:07] Why Dr. Susan Isn't a "Typical" Surgeon

[00:26:20] Key Takeaways & Conclusion