Sharing stories connects us to our shared culture and to each other.
For as long as humankind has existed, culture has been passed down through storytelling. Stories help us understand the world, make sense of our experiences, and connect with one another. The workplace is no different.
When leade...
What Do People Want from Their Leaders?
As a leader, your team is looking to you.
But with so many competing demands, it can be hard to know where to focus. What truly matters when it comes to leading and engaging your team?
At the heart of it all, people are looking for Clarity, Connection, Capa...
It doesn’t matter how perfect your strategy is if your culture doesn’t work.
Cultures that work accelerate your strategy—and then take you further. But what happens when culture works against strategy? When the plans are solid, but the results aren’t there?
If your strategy is going nowhere, it mi...
I’ve always loved culture.
Growing up, my siblings and I were raised with wanderlust. My father’s work took him around the globe, and he’d return home with treasures from faraway places. Some were consumable (Swiss and Belgian chocolate, anyone?), others were gadgets and toys from Japan and Korea—n...
When I work with leaders and leadership teams, I encourage a three-step journey:
Explore. Experience. Extend.
It begins with exploration—being curious and open to new possibilities. From there, it’s about experiencing—trying things on, testing ideas, and engaging fully. And then, the stretch: pushin...
Yes, culture is complex and intangible, but it’s also simple and actionable.
While culture itself can feel hard to pin down, its impact on performance is clear and measurable. When you understand culture and the actions you can take to shape and shift it, you’ll see real results.
Culture: Both O...
More than ever, leaders are expected to:
- Be worth following.
- Lead cultures worth belonging to.
- Create work worth doing.
- Invest in technology while managing its distracting side effects.
- Navigate shifting societal and regulatory demands.
- Delight customers, keep teams safe, sustain growth, and...
When an unfamiliar crisis hits, many leaders instinctively leap into action. But here’s the thing: this is the exact moment when you need to take a breath. To pause before you pounce.
This pause is a counterintuitive response to stress, but it’s a skill that can be trained—a deliberate calm. In tod...
GRASS is my shorthand for what matters most when it comes to culture: Gatherings, Rituals, Actions, Symbols, and Stories.
It’s a practical, memorable way to focus on the everyday moments that shape culture. But GRASS is also a rich metaphor for culture itself.
