Fireside Chats: Behind The Build
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Podcast Overview
<p>Explore what truly creates workplace happiness, builds a better culture, and drives greater engagement for the entire workforce — from the suits in the C-suite to team members on the frontlines. Get real-world insights and practical strategies to recognize, retain, elevate, and empower teams. From engaging interviews with thought leaders in our Voices web series to step-by-step how-tos, MustardHub helps you operationalize great culture and design the workplace of tomorrow... today. MustardHub Voices: Behind The Build addresses these hot topics and more with business leaders, entrepreneurs, HR professionals, consultants, coaches, researchers, and other brilliant minds committed to building, engaging, and elevating culture-driven, high-performing teams.</p>
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Publishing Since
6/17/2025
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Recent Episodes
July 23, 2026
DeDe Halfhill on Why Emotional Fluency Is Not a Soft Skill. It Is a Precision Tool.
In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with DeDe Halfhill, retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, Georgetown-certified executive coach, and leadership advisor whose story is featured in Brené Brown's Dare to Lead and on 60 Minutes, for a conversation about the part of leadership that most organizations have systematically removed from their playbook and are now paying for in ways they cannot quite name. DeDe spent 25 years in the Air Force leading thousands of airmen, serving two tours in Iraq, and advising the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. What she discovered along the way, through a 1948 Air Force leadership manual and a famous moment involving Cocoa Puffs and a garbage can in an Iraq dining facility, is that emotional fluency is not a soft skill. It is a precision tool. And the organizations that treat it as optional are not avoiding the emotional work. They are just paying for it later, in avoidance, attrition, and the kind of quiet disconnection that looks like exhaustion but is actually loneliness. The conversation covers why emotional language has dropped 60 percent across all published texts in the last century and what that has cost leaders, why anger gives you one move while precision emotion gives you options, and why the men who wrote the Air Force's very first leadership manual in 1948 understood something about the relationship between empathy and results that most modern organizations have unlearned. DeDe also makes the case that as AI takes over more of the technical work, the leaders who can navigate the human side will not just be more effective. They will be the ones with the real competitive advantage. About the Guest DeDe Halfhill is a retired U.S. Air Force Colonel, keynote speaker, and leadership advisor who helps leaders Master the Unseen™: the human side of leadership that most people avoid but everyone feels. Over a 25-year military career, she led thousands of airmen, served two tours in Iraq, advised the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and directed press operations for the Department of Defense. She was also Chief of Public Affairs for the U.S. Air Force Thunderbirds. Today she speaks and advises across industries, from construction and finance to Fortune 500 companies, helping leaders surface hidden tensions, build trust, and have the conversations teams tend to avoid. Her leadership story is featured in Brené Brown's bestseller Dare to Lead and on 60 Minutes. A Georgetown-certified executive coach and former National Security Fellow, DeDe brings a rare view of what it actually takes to lead people well.
July 16, 2026
Kevin Plunkett: Why Your Compensation Strategy Is Only as Good as the Data Underneath It
In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Kevin Plunkett, Vice President of Partnerships at Salary.com, for a conversation about the infrastructure underneath compensation that most organizations have never thought carefully enough about. Kevin came to this world from an unlikely direction, spending years as a talent agent in Hollywood before his brother founded Salary.com and pulled him into building out what became one of the most widely used compensation data platforms in the country. That origin story matters, because Kevin sees compensation data the way someone who has negotiated on behalf of talent sees it: as something with real stakes for real people, not just a number in a range. The conversation covers why COVID permanently moved compensation from the back room to the boardroom, what happens inside an organization when salary compression goes unaddressed, and why the promise of integrated talent management has consistently failed to deliver because nobody bothered to get the job architecture right in the first place. Kevin also makes the case that AI is not a threat to compensation data companies so much as a demand signal for better data, since a prediction engine is only as good as what you feed it. If you are building an HR platform, running a staffing firm, or trying to make workforce decisions with data you are not sure you can trust, this one is worth your time. About the Guest Kevin Plunkett is Vice President of Partnerships at Salary.com, where he has spent the better part of 26 years at the forefront of compensation data. Before finding his way into the world of comp, Kevin had a different kind of career entirely, working as a talent agent in Hollywood. Today, his focus is the wholesale side of the business, bringing Salary.com's compensation data to the staffing firms, HR vendors, and platforms that build it into their own products. He works at the intersection of data, technology, and the fast-changing economics of pay, helping partners understand not just what the numbers say, but how markets are trending and why it matters. With more than two decades watching compensation move from the back room to the boardroom, Kevin has a front-row seat to how data is reshaping the way companies attract, retain, and pay their people.
July 9, 2026
Jeff Mullins on Why the Companies That Can Move Fast Never Have the Capital and the Ones With Capital Can Barely Move
In this episode of MustardHub Voices: Behind the Build, Curtis Forbes sits down with Jeff Mullins, Chief Marketing Officer at PHENYX, to talk about what actually separates the companies that execute from the ones that chase silver bullets and wonder why nothing sticks. Jeff has spent more than two decades working across marketing, sales, and product development, and the last eight years running a full-service agency that serves clients from oil and gas to MedSpa to manufacturing. That breadth gives him a view most marketers never get: he sees the same patterns play out across entirely different industries, and he is not shy about naming them. The conversation covers why AI is the world's greatest combine harvester in the hands of someone who has never farmed, what death by committee is quietly costing large organizations, and why the companies that can move fast rarely have the capital to compete while the ones with the capital can barely move at all. Jeff also gets into the generational shift he is watching in real time inside his own team, where execution skills are eroding and the willingness to push through a hard problem before calling for help is becoming genuinely rare. Underneath all of it runs the philosophy captured in the phrase Jeff lives by: never trust a leader without a limp. It is a conviction that the most valuable thing a leader brings to the room is not a clean track record but the pattern recognition that only comes from having been in the foxhole, made the wrong call, and figured out how to come back from it. About the Guest Jeff Mullins is a marketing leader with more than two decades of experience across marketing, sales, and product development. As Chief Marketing Officer at PHENYX, a full-service agency, he has spent over eight years helping organizations sharpen their marketing strategy and turn it into real growth. His work centers on building initiatives that strengthen brand presence and drive engagement, often for companies navigating complex, multi-level go-to-market challenges. Across a 22-plus-year career spanning a range of industries, Jeff has managed marketing budgets and aligned strategy with business objectives. He is known for guiding companies through difficult problems and pushing past surface-level fixes toward solutions that actually get executed. Outside of work, Jeff is a devoted father, a committed fitness enthusiast, and a believer in comeback stories, captured by a phrase he keeps close: never trust a leader without a limp.
83 total episodes available
Recent guests on Fireside Chats: Behind The Build
Guests from recent episodes — sign up to see every guest that has ever appeared on this show.
Jerry Akers
Guest
Kurt Schmidt
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Kyle Lagunas
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Satish Kumar
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Mary Stieber Reinout
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Paul Ebert
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Ryan Dalton
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Gabe Bell
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Dr Dennis Hill
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Anish Satpute
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Devin Miller
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Perry Lunsford
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Frequently asked questions
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- What is Fireside Chats: Behind The Build?
<p>Explore what truly creates workplace happiness, builds a better culture, and drives greater engagement for the entire workforce — from the suits in the C-suite to team members on the frontlines. Get real-world insights and practical strategies to recognize, retain, elevate, and empower teams. From engaging interviews with thought leaders in our Voices web series to step-by-step how-tos, MustardHub helps you operationalize great culture and design the workplace of tomorrow... today. MustardHub Voices: Behind The Build addresses these hot topics and more with business leaders, entrepreneurs, HR professionals, consultants, coaches, researchers, and other brilliant minds committed to building, engaging, and elevating culture-driven, high-performing teams.</p> - How often does this podcast release new episodes?
This podcast updates daily.
- Where can I listen to this podcast?
This podcast is available on 4 platforms including Apple Podcasts, Spotify, and more. You can also use the RSS feed directly.
- Does this podcast accept guests?
Yes, this podcast regularly features guests.
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